Synthesis of carbohydrate-conjugated nanoparticles and quantum dots

Nanoparticle-based probes are emerging as alternatives to molecular probes due to their various advantages, such as bright and tunable optical property, enhanced chemical and photochemical stability, and ease of introduction of multifunctionality. This work presents a simple and general approach for functionalizing various nanoparticle systems for use as glycobiological probes. Silica-coated nanoparticles of Ag, Fe3O4, and ZnS-CdSe were synthesized and functionalized with dextran. The resulting 10-40-nm-sized particles were robust, water-soluble, colloidally stable, and biochemically active.     

Electronic and infrared spectroscopy of jet-cooled (+/-)-cis-1-amino-indan-2-ol hydrates

The role of conformational isomerism in molecular interaction has been studied using the example of jet-cooled complexes of (+/-)-cis-1-amino-indan-2-ol with water. The two formerly evidenced conformers of (+/-)-cis-1-amino-indan-2-ol easily form hydrates and dihydrates, which have been studied by means of laser-induced fluorescence and IR/UV double resonance spectroscopy, as well as ab initio calculations. All the 1 : 1 and 1 : 2 complexes with water evidenced in this work involve "ring" structures, in which the water monomer or dimer acts as an acceptor from the NH(2) and a donor to the OH groups of (+/-)-cis-1-amino-indan-2-ol. However, the water lies externally to the indan frame in the hydrates of conformer I of (+/-)-cis-1-amino-indan-2-ol, which possesses axial NH(2) and equatorial OH groups, and above it for the hydrates with the less stable conformer II, with equatorial NH(2) and axial OH groups. Consequently, the different steric constraints which exist in the two conformers result in different hydrogen bond topologies, with an additional OH[dot dot dot]pi interaction for the hydrates of conformer II.     

Wetting and electrowetting properties of carbon nanotube templated parylene films

In this study, we compared the wetting and electrowetting properties of a planar parylene (poly(p-xylylene)) film to those of a nanostructured parylene film. To generate the nanostructured film, we used an aligned array of multiwalled carbon nanotubes as a template; a thin coating of parylene was deposited on the nanotube template to generate a parylene film with a nanoscale roughness structure. Static contact angle measurements indicated a very significant increase in the water contact angle from approximately 73 degrees for planar parylene to approximately 110 degrees for the nanotemplated parylene. In addition, we performed electrowetting experiments to dynamically tune the contact angle by application of electric potential. Interestingly, the flat parylene film showed contact angle saturation at an applied voltage of approximately 40 V, while the nanotemplated parylene film did not experience saturation in the contact angle response even for voltages up to 80 V. These results show that engineering a nanoscale roughness structure to a polymer film results in significant changes to the wetting and electrowetting properties of the polymer.     

Synthetic applications of Baylis-Hillman chemistry: an efficient and solely stereoselective synthesis of (E)-alpha-methylcinnamic acids and potent hypolipidemic agent LK-903 from unmodified Baylis-Hillman adducts

An efficient and solely stereoselective synthesis of (E)-alpha-methylcinnamic acids has been accomplished in single pot by reduction of the unmodified Baylis-Hillman adducts, methyl-3-hydroxy-3-aryl-2-methylenepropanoates with I(2)/NaBH(4) reagent system at room temperature followed by hydrolysis. The efficacy of this method has been proved in the total synthesis of 1-[p-(myristyloxy)-alpha-methylcinnamoyl]glycerol, LK-903, a highly active hypolipidemic agent.     

On competitiveness in uniform utility allocation markets

We call a market competitive if increasing the endowment of one buyer does not increase the equilibrium utility of another. We show that every competitive uniform utility allocation market is a submodular utility allocation market, answering a question of Jain and Vazirani [K. Jain, V.V. Vazirani, Eisenberg-Gale markets: Algorithms and structural properties, in: STOC, 2007]. Our proof proceeds via characterizing non-submodular fractionally sub-additive functions.     

Sulfonation of metallocene‐based polyolefinic elastomers and its influence on physicomechanical properties: Effect of reaction parameters,styrene grafting,and pendant chain length

Direct sulfonation and styrene‐mediated sulfonation were carried out onto metallocene‐based poly(ethylene‐co‐octene) (POE) and poly(ethylene‐co‐butene) (PBE) elastomers to impart polarity on the completely nonpolar rubbery matrices and to prepare a new class of elastomer. The influence of styrene‐grafting and pendant chain length on the degree of sulfonation was also studied. The effects of sulfonation, styrene grafting and styrene‐mediated sulfonation at their optimized levels on various physicomechanical properties were thoroughly investigated, and the resultant properties were correlated with structures of the modified elastomers. Higher extent of sulfonic acid groups were introduced through direct sulfonation in comparison with the styrene‐mediated sulfonation, whereas better thermal and mechanical properties were obtained through styrene‐mediated sulfonation in comparison with the direct sulfonation process. PBE had shown higher degree of sulfonation and percentage grafting than POE. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 46: 8023–8040, 2008     

The effects of monophenol chain terminators on the structure–property relationships of controlled epoxy networks

Five families of new controlled epoxy thermosets (CENs) using three monophenol chain terminators were prepared to study systematic changes in the structure and amount of the monophenol and the initial molecular weight between crosslinks (M_c,i) on the properties of epoxy thermosets. Glass transition temperature (T_g) decreases with monophenol mole fraction (χ) in proportion to both the concentration and flexibility of the chain terminator. Distinct serial relations for T_g depression were observed for the three M_c,i families. Dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) shows significant perturbations of the relaxation behavior with added terminator as evidenced by decrease in peak tan δ and in post T_g damping. The rubbery coefficients of thermal expansion (CTE) increases with monophenol concentration only at χ > 0.05 and shows distinct curvature versus temperature, but is largely invariant with monophenol flexibility. The thermal stability of terminated CENs decreases only slightly with χ and little difference was found with monophenol structure. Most surprisingly, fracture toughness decreases markedly and discontinuously with χ depending on M_c,i. The values of the critical monophenol concentration at which fracture toughness markedly decreases (χ_c) are inversely proportional to M_c,i but are independent of monophenol flexibility. No correlation of χ_c with any of the calculated network structure parameters was apparent. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 46: 1632–1640, 2008     

New geometry-inspired relaxations and algorithms for the metric Steiner tree problem

Determining the integrality gap of the bidirected cut relaxation for the metric Steiner tree problem, and exploiting it algorithmically, is a long-standing open problem. We use geometry to define an LP whose dual is equivalent to this relaxation. This opens up the possibility of using the primal-dual schema in a geometric setting for designing an algorithm for this problem. Using this approach, we obtain a 4/3 factor algorithm and integrality gap bound for the case of quasi-bipartite graphs; the previous best integrality gap upper bound being 3/2 (Rajagopalan and Vazirani in On the bidirected cut relaxation for the metric Steiner tree problem, 1999). We also obtain a factor \({\sqrt{2}}\) strongly polynomial algorithm for this class of graphs. A key difficulty experienced by researchers in working with the bidirected cut relaxation was that any reasonable dual growth procedure produces extremely unwieldy dual solutions. A new algorithmic idea helps finesse this difficulty—that of reducing the cost of certain edges and constructing the dual in this altered instance—and this idea can be extracted into a new technique for running the primal-dual schema in the setting of approximation algorithms.     

Design,synthesis, molecular docking,and biological studies of novel phytoestrogen-tanaproget hybrids

A diverse range of novel and highly functionalized flavonoid-based tanaproget hybrids were synthesized and evaluated in vitro for their antimicrobial and antiproliferative activities. Novel products were synthesized in good yields (81–95%) under Pd-catalyzed reaction from bromo flavones and tanaproget boronic acids within 18–20 min at 60 °C. Bioassay results exhibited excellent activities against both hormone-dependent and hormone-independent human breast cancer cells (MCF-7, MDA-MB-231, DU-145, PC-3, and HeLa). Among them, compounds 4e, 9a, 9c, 9e, 9 g, 9 h, 9 m, and 9n displayed excellent activity. Compounds 4d, 4o, and 9o were found equally potent against C. albicans compared to fluconazole. Compound 5c showed better antibacterial activity against S. aureus. Compounds 5a, 9i, 9o, and 10c have shown admirable antibacterial activity against E. coli.