Detecting Mechanochemical Degradation of Nitrocellulose by Combining Dynamic Mechanical Analysis with Mass Spectrometry

Summary: Dynamic mechanical analysis is combined with mass spectrometry to study nitrocellulose under oscillating strain. At a constant temperature (150–160 °C) and frequency (400–600 Hz) nitrocellulose fractures demonstrating a modulus drop and release of products with m/z: 30 and 44. At linear heating (2 °C · min⁻¹) and a frequency of 10–50 Hz similar products are released in two steps, the second of which demonstrates a modulus drop and a temperature increase indicating ignition.

Data for an isothermal dynamic mechanical analysis–mass spectrometry experiment performed at 160 °C.     

Generation and reactivity of N,N-dimethylaminobenzotriazolylcarbene a new nucleophilic carbene

N,N-Dimethylaminobenzotriazolylcarbene ( 5 ) reacted with phenyl isocyanate in a [1+2+2] cycloaddition and then with nucleophiles to generate various hydantoins 10 in a one-pot procedure. It was also found that this novel carbene reacted with trans-dibenzoylethylene ( 11 ) in a [1+4] cycloaddition, generating 2-dimethylamino-3-benzoyl-5-phenylfuran ( 13 ) and 2-phenyl-3-[benzotriazol-1-yl]-4-benzoylfuran ( 14 ) whose structures were confirmed by ¹H-¹³C long range correlations as well as the structure of furan 14 being confirmed by X-ray crystallography.     

Synthesis,characterization and energetic properties of novel 1-methyl-1,2,4-triazolium N-aryl/N-pyridinyl ylids

Synthesis, characterization and energetic properties of novel, nitrogen-rich 1-methyl-1,2,4-triazolium N-aryl/N-pyridinyl ylids 3a–m are reported.     

In Vitro Cytotoxic Protective Effect of Alginate-Encapsulated Capsaicin Might Improve Skin Side Effects Associated with the Topical Application of Capsaicin

Chronic neuropathic pain, particularly peripheral pain, is a cause of great concern for diabetic patients. Current treatments include numerous agents such as capsaicinoids, a known deterrent of neuropathic pain despite the inconvenience associated with local side effects. In this context, the current work aims to elucidate the potential mechanisms involved in cytotoxicity by capsaicin and proposes an efficient formulation of capsaicin in alginate microcapsules, which significantly reduces side effects from capsaicin topical administration. For this, human dermal fibroblast cells were treated with alginate-microencapsulated capsaicin extracts and screened for potential cytotoxic effects produced by the treatment. Cell viability and morphology were examined, as well as oxidative stress status and anti-inflammatory potential. Our results show that the alginate encapsulated formulation of capsaicin exerted lower cytotoxic effects on human dermal fibroblasts as measured by cell viability and reactive oxygen species (ROS) production. Furthermore, the expression profiles of inflammatory cytokines were significantly altered by the treatment as compared with the control culture.     

Random repeated quantum interactions and random invariant states

We consider a generalized model of repeated quantum interactions, where a system ${\mathcal{H}}$ is interacting in a random way with a sequence of independent quantum systems ${\mathcal{K}_n, n \geq 1}$ . Two types of randomness are studied in detail. One is provided by considering Haar-distributed unitaries to describe each interaction between ${\mathcal{H}}$ and ${\mathcal{K}_n}$ . The other involves random quantum states describing each copy ${\mathcal{K}_n}$ . In the limit of a large number of interactions, we present convergence results for the asymptotic state of ${\mathcal{H}}$ . This is achieved by studying spectral properties of (random) quantum channels which guarantee the existence of unique invariant states. Finally this allows to introduce a new physically motivated ensemble of random density matrices called the asymptotic induced ensemble.     

Cramér large deviation expansions for martingales under Bernstein’s condition

An expansion of large deviation probabilities for martingales is given, which extends the classical result due to Cramér to the case of martingale differences satisfying the conditional Bernstein condition. The upper bound of the range of validity and the remainder of our expansion is the same as in the Cramér result and therefore are optimal. Our result implies a moderate deviation principle for martingales.     

A random coordinate descent algorithm for optimization problems with composite objective function and linear coupled constraints

In this paper we propose a variant of the random coordinate descent method for solving linearly constrained convex optimization problems with composite objective functions. If the smooth part of the objective function has Lipschitz continuous gradient, then we prove that our method obtains an ?-optimal solution in $\mathcal{O}(n^{2}/\epsilon)$ iterations, where n is the number of blocks. For the class of problems with cheap coordinate derivatives we show that the new method is faster than methods based on full-gradient information. Analysis for the rate of convergence in probability is also provided. For strongly convex functions our method converges linearly. Extensive numerical tests confirm that on very large problems, our method is much more numerically efficient than methods based on full gradient information.     

The survival probability of critical and subcritical branching processes in finite state space Markovian environment

Let ${\left(Z_n\right)}_{n\ge 0}$ be a branching process in a random environment defined by a Markov chain ${\left(X_n\right)}_{n\ge 0}$ with values in a finite state space $\mathbb{X}$. Let ${\mathbb{P}}_i$ be the probability law generated by the trajectories of ${\left(X_n\right)}_{n\ge 0}$ starting at $X_0=i\in \mathbb{X}.$ We study the asymptotic behaviour of the joint survival probability ${\mathbb{P}}_i\left(Z_n>0,X_n=j\right)$, $j\in \mathbb{X}$ as $n\to +\infty$ in the critical and strongly, intermediate and weakly subcritical cases.     

Enumerative Properties of NC (B) (p,q)

We determine the rank generating function, the zeta polynomial and the M?bius function for the poset NC ^(B) (p, q) of annular non-crossing partitions of type B, where p and q are two positive integers. We give an alternative treatment of some of these results in the case q = 1, for which this poset is a lattice. We also consider the general case of multiannular noncrossing partitions of type B, and prove that this reduces to the cases of non-crossing partitions of type B in the annulus and the disc.     

Tensor product surfaces of euclidean plane curves

Recently B.Y. CHEN initiated the study of the tensor product immersion of two immersions of a given Riemannian manifold [3]. In [6] the particular case of tensor product of two Euclidean plane curves was studied. The minimal one were classified, and necessary and sufficient conditions for such a tensor product to be totally real or complex or slant were established. In the present paper we study for tensor product of Euclidean plane curves the problem of B.Y. CHEN: to what extent do the properties of the tensor product immersion f ? h of two immersions f, h determines the immersions f, h ? [3]