Influence of salt and rinsing protocol on the structure of PAH/PSS polyelectrolyte multilayers

A quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) and dual polarization interferometry (DPI) have been utilized to study how the structure of poly(allylamine hydrochloride) (PAH)/poly(styrene sulfonate) (PSS) multilayers is affected by the rinsing method (i.e., the termination of polyelectrolyte adsorption). The effect of the type of counterions used in the deposition solution was also investigated, and the polyelectrolyte multilayers were formed in a 0.5 M electrolyte solution (NaCl and KBr). From the measurements, it was observed that thicker layers were obtained when using KBr in the deposition solution than when using NaCl. Three different rinsing protocols have been studied: (i) the same electrolyte solution as used during multilayer formation, (ii) pure water, and (iii) first a salt solution (0.5 M) and then pure water. When the multilayer with PAH as the outermost layer was exposed to pure water, an interesting phenomenon was discovered: a large change in the energy dissipation was measured with the QCM. This could be attributed to the swelling of the layer, and from both QCM and DPI it is obvious that only the outermost PAH layer swells (to a thickness of 25-30 nm) because of a decrease in ionic strength and hence an increase in intra- and interchain repulsion, whereas the underlying layers retain a very rigid and compact structure with a low water content. Interestingly, the outermost PAH layer seems to obtain very similar thicknesses in water independent of the electrolyte used for the multilayer buildup. Another interesting aspect was that the measured thickness with the DPI evaluated by a single-layer model did not correlate with the estimated thickness from the model calculations performed on the QCM-D data. Thus, we applied a two-layer model to evaluate the DPI data and the results were in excellent agreement with the QCM-D results. To our knowledge, this evaluation of DPI data has not been done previously.     

Structural and thermal study of asymmetric α-dioxime complexes of Co(III) with Cl and methyl-pyridines

Two new cobalt(III)-chelates, trans-bis(methyl-ethyl-dioximato)-chloro-β-picoline-cobalt (III) (1), and trans-bis(methyl-ethyl-dioximato)-chloro-3,4-lutidine-cobalt (III) (2) were obtained by oxidizing a mixture of CoCl₂, methyl-ethyl-dioxime and amines: β-picoline (3-methyl-pyridine) for (1) and 3,4-lutidine (3,4-dimethyl-pyridine) for (2). The crystal structure of (1) was determined by single crystal XRD (monoclinic, space group P2₁/c (No. 14) with a = 8.391(3) Å, b = 14.421(5) Å, c = 18.383(8) Å, β = 114.57(2)°, R = 0.0499), while both (1) and (2) were studied by middle and far FTIR spectroscopy, electrospray ionization (ESI) MS, powder XRD and thermal analysis (TG/DTA-MS). Melting of the related complexes 1 and 2 at 219 and 184 °C, respectively, results in an immediate chemical degradation of their whole structure and tarring of ligands.     

Comparative study of new shell-type,sub-2 μm fully porous and monolith stationary phases,focusing on mass-transfer resistance

Today sub-2 μm packed columns are very popular to conduct fast chromatographic separations. The mass-transfer resistance depends on the particle size but some practical limits exist not to reach the theoretically expected plate height and mass-transfer resistance. Another approach applies particles with shortened diffusion path to enhance the efficiency of separations. In this study a systematical evaluation of the possibilities of the separations obtained with 5 cm long narrow bore columns packed with new 2.6 μm shell particles (1.9 μm nonporous core surrounded by a 0.35 μm porous shell, Kinetex™, Core-Shell), packed with other shell-type particles (Ascentis Express™, Fused-Core), totally porous sub-2 μm particles and a 5 cm long narrow bore monolith column is presented. The different commercially available columns were compared by using van Deemter, Knox and kinetic plots. Theoretical Poppe plots were constructed for each column to compare their kinetic performance. Data are presented on polar neutral real-life analytes. Comparison of a low molecular weight compounds (MW = 270–430) and a high molecular weight one (MW ∼ 900) was conducted. This study proves that the Kinetex column packed with 2.6 μm shell particles is worthy of rivaling to sub-2 μm columns and other commercially available shell-type packings (Ascentis Express or Halo), both for small and large molecule separation. The Kinetex column offers a very flat C term. Utilizing this feature, high flow rates can be applied to accomplish very fast separations without significant loss in efficiency.     

Extracting BB′IW Inhabitants of Simple Types From Proofs in the Sequent Calculus {LT_\to^{t}} for Implicational Ticket Entailment

The decidability of the logic of pure ticket entailment means that the problem of inhabitation of simple types by combinators over the base { B, B′, I, W } is decidable too. Type-assignment systems are often formulated as natural deduction systems. However, our decision procedure for this logic, which we presented in earlier papers, relies on two sequent calculi and it does not yield directly a combinator for a theorem of ${T_\to}$ . Here we describe an algorithm to extract an inhabitant from a sequent calculus proof—without translating the proof into another proof system.     

On families of quadratic surfaces having fixed intersections with two hyperplanes

We investigate families of quadrics all of which have the same intersection with two given hyperplanes. The cases when the two hyperplanes are parallel and when they are nonparallel are discussed. We show that these families can be described with only one parameter and describe how the quadrics are transformed as the parameter changes. This research was motivated by an application in mixed integer conic optimization. In that application, we aimed to characterize the convex hull of the union of the intersections of an ellipsoid with two half-spaces arising from the imposition of a linear disjunction.     

Synthesis of vinca alkaloids and related compounds part 94. Epimerization of compounds with aspidospermane and D‐secoaspidospermane skeleton

The individual epimerization steps of vincadifformine ( 1 ), deethylvincadifformine isomers ( 2,3 ), their synthetic intermediates ( 4–13 ) as well as that of simpler compounds with D‐secoaspidospermane skeleton ( 15–17 ) were studied a ) in protic medium (boiling deuteroacetic acidic) and b ) under reductive (with sodium borodeuteride in boiling acetic acid, or with sodium borohydride in boiling deuteroacetic acid) conditions.     

LC-UV Assay of Tolperisone HCl from Sustained Release Matrix Tablets

Tolperisone HCl is a central muscle relaxant, which was incorporated in a matrix system formulated with poly(ethylene oxide)–PEO, in order to achieve adequate gastric residence time. This tablet presents considerable analytical difficulties in the quantitative determination of the drug, because the PEO matrix causes significant increase of viscosity in the samples. Our purpose was to develop a reproducible sample preparation method, which is adapted from parameters of the in vitro dissolution test and validate an LC-UV analytical method, which allows good recovery of the drug (99.97%). The developed analytical method was suitable for quantitative analysis of tolperisone HCl in matrix tablets.     

All regular Landsberg metrics are Berwald

This article negatively answers the long standing problem concerning the existence of non-Berwald Landsberg metrics.