The holographic bubble chamber experiment and the determination of the effective charmed quark mass and theK-factor for hadronic charm production

In the first holographic bubble chamber experiment — the HOBC experiment — we have accumulated a total of 40000 holograms with particle interactions. We have determined the total charm pair cross section inpN collisions to be 23.3 _?7.7 ⁺¹⁰ μb and 3.6 _?1.7 ^+2.3 μb for 360 and 200 GeV/c incident protons respectively. We have assumed a linear dependence of the cross section on the atomic number of the target. This experiment has demonstrated the feasibility of holographic recording in small bubble chambers. Assuming that the charm cross section can be described by the standard QCD factorized expression with gluon fusion and quark-antiquark annihilation, we have used our measured charm cross sections with other measurements to determine the effective charmed quark mass to be 1.8 _?0.35 ^+0.25 GeV/c². TheK factor, which describes the importance of the higher order corrections, is calculated to be 9.8 _?6.9 ^+12.5 (See noted added in proof.)     

Synthesis and characterization of palladium(II) and platinum(II) complexes with ferrocenylimidazole

The synthesis and characterization of ferrocenylimidazole complexes of platinum(II) and palladium(II) are described. Reaction of ferrocenylimidazoles with K₂MCl₄ (M = Pd, Pt) using a biphasic system of dichloromethane and ethanol/water provided the corresponding complexes 2a–2j in good yields. New synthetic routes for the synthesis of ferrocenylbenzylethers 2k–2o, bis(4-ferrocenylbenzyl)carbonate [2p] and 4-ferrocenylbenzylacetate [2q] are also described. These products were obtained by the reaction of 4-ferrocenylbenzyl-1H-imidazole-carboxylate and K₂PtCl₄ under various conditions. Compounds 2k–2o were also obtained by alternative routes which do not involve the use of a platinum salt. The crystal structures of 2b, 2q and plausible mechanisms for the formation of 2k, 2p and 2q are reported.     

Ferrocenyl-nitrogen donor ligands. Synthesis and characterization of rhodium(I) complexes of ferrocenylpyridine and related ligands

The preparation of a series of complexes of the types [RhCl(CO)₂(L)], [RhCl(cod)(L)] and [Rh(cod)(L)₂]ClO₄, where L is a ligand incorporating a ferrocenyl group and a pyridine ring is described. Complexes were characterized using NMR, IR and electronic spectroscopy. The electrochemical behaviour of the complexes was examined using cyclic voltammetry. The X-ray structures of three of the complexes, [RhCl(CO)₂{NC₅H₄CNC₆H₄(η⁵-C₅H₄)Fe(η⁵-C₅H₅)}], [RhCl(cod)(3-Fcpy)] and [RhCl(cod){3-Fc(C₆H₄)py}], were determined.     

Validation of an Analytical Method for the Determination of Indolyl-3-Acryloylglycine in Human Urine Using LC-MS-MS

A rapid, simple and sensitive LC-MS-MS method for the determination of indolyl-3-acryloylglycine in human urine was developed and validated to internationally recognised standards. The chromatographic system used a phenyl-hexyl column with isocratic elution using acetonitrile and 0.1% formic acid. For this method, employing a stable-isotopically-labelled internal standard and non-matrix calibration standards, all coefficients of determination (r²) of the calibration lines obtained during the validation were equal to, or better than, 0.9968. Inter-batch precision ranged between 2.8% and 14.1%. Inter-batch accuracy ranged between 89.9% and 101.4%. Accordingly, the method will be suitable for use in testing the premise that elevated levels of indolyl-3-acryloylglycine in human urine are diagnostic for certain learning and behavioural disorders.     

Supramolecular side chain liquid crystal polymers II. Interaction of mesogenic acids and amorphous polymers

The thermal behaviour of blends of a low molar mass mesogenic acid, 6-(4-n-butyloxy-4'-oxybiphenyl)hexanoic acid (BOBPOHA) with polystyrene, poly(2-vinylpyridine) and poly(4-vinylpyridine) has been characterized. BOBPOHA exhibits a monotropic smectic A phase and is essentially immiscible with polystyrene. Thus, the transition temperatures of the acid are independent of blend composition. In contrast, the thermal properties of the acid are strongly modified on blending with poly(2-vinylpyridine) and poly(4-vinylpyridine). Molecular mixing occurs in these blends below approximately 0.2 mol fraction of acid. This miscibility is driven by the formation of hydrogen bonds between the pyridyl and acid moieties. At higher concentrations of acid, phase separation occurs. Liquid crystallinity is not observed in the miscible blends while in the immiscible blends mesomorphic behaviour is attributed to regions of phase separated acid.     

Multiple Polar and Non-polar Nematic Phases

Liquid-crystal materials exhibiting up to three nematic phases are reported. Dielectric response measurements show that while the lower temperature nematic phase has ferroelectric order and the highest temperature nematic phase is apolar, the intermediate phase has local antiferroelectric order. The modification of the molecular structure by increasing the number of lateral fluorine substituents leads to one of the materials showing a direct isotropic-ferronematic phase transition.     

Deep generative design with 3D pharmacophoric constraints

Generative models have increasingly been proposed as a solution to the molecular design problem. However, it has proved challenging to control the design process or incorporate prior knowledge, limiting their practical use in drug discovery. In particular, generative methods have made limited use of three-dimensional (3D) structural information even though this is critical to binding. This work describes a method to incorporate such information and demonstrates the benefit of doing so. We combine an existing graph-based deep generative model, DeLinker, with a convolutional neural network to utilise physically-meaningful 3D representations of molecules and target pharmacophores. We apply our model, DEVELOP, to both linker and R-group design, demonstrating its suitability for both hit-to-lead and lead optimisation. The 3D pharmacophoric information results in improved generation and allows greater control of the design process. In multiple large-scale evaluations, we show that including 3D pharmacophoric constraints results in substantial improvements in the quality of generated molecules. On a challenging test set derived from PDBbind, our model improves the proportion of generated molecules with high 3D similarity to the original molecule by over 300%. In addition, DEVELOP recovers 10× more of the original molecules compared to the baseline DeLinker method. Our approach is general-purpose, readily modifiable to alternate 3D representations, and can be incorporated into other generative frameworks. Code is available at https://github.com/oxpig/DEVELOP.

A novel deep generative model combines convolution and graph neural networks to allow 3D-aware molecular design. We show how 3D pharmacophoric information can be incorporated into generative models and apply our model to both linker and R-group design.