Syntheses of (<Emphasis Type="Italic">E</Emphasis>)- and (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Z</Emphasis>)-3-styrylchromones

Several (E)- and (Z)-3-styrylchromones were prepared by two different methodologies, the Wittig reaction of chromone-3-carboxaldehyde with benzylic ylides and the Knoevenagel condensation of chromone-3-carboxaldehyde with phenylacetic acids in the presence of potassium tert-butoxide under microwave irradiation. The Knoevenagel reaction followed by a decarboxylation offered an efficient and diastereoselective method for preparing (E)-3-styrylchromones in a shorter reaction time. It was also demonstrated that phenylacetic acid can also be substituted with success by phenylmalonic acid. The stereochemistry of all products was assigned by NMR experiments. Correspondence: Artur M. S. Silva, Chemistry Department, University of Aveiro, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal.     

α-Haloalkyl Haloformates and Related Compounds. II. Synthesis of Dichloromethyl Carbonates and Their Transformation to Carbamates

Dichloromethyl carbonates, easily available upon treatment alcohols with dichloromethyl chloroformate, react with various amines to give carbamates in high yield under mild conditions. Extension of the reaction for the synthesis of oxazolones from 2-aminoalcohols is also demostrated.     

A Novel Reaction between the P=O Group of Cyclic 2,4,6-Trialkylphenylphosphine Oxides and Dimethyl Acetylenedicarboxylate (DMAD)

The reaction of cyclic P-aryl phosphine oxides with DMAD affords ylides/phosphoranes via oxaphosphetes.     

Non-homogeneous radiation and outflow boundary conditions simulating incoming acoustic and vorticity waves for exterior computational aeroacoustics problems

A set of non-homogeneous radiation and outflow boundary conditions which automatically generate prescribed incoming acoustic or vorticity waves and, at the same time, are almost transparent to outgoing sound waves produced internally in a finite computation domain is proposed. This type of boundary condition is needed for the numerical solution of many exterior aeroacoustics problems. In computational aeroacoustics, the computation scheme must be as non-dispersive and non-dissipative as possible. It must also support waves with wave speeds which are nearly the same as those of the original linearized Euler equations. To meet these requirements, a high-order/large-stencil scheme is often necessary. The proposed non-homogeneous radiation and outflow boundary conditions are designed primarily for use in conjunction with such high-order/large-stencil finite difference schemes. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Transparency enhancement for an active knee orthosis by a constraint-free mechanical design and a gait phase detection based predictive control

This paper proposes a novel mechanical design of a lower limb exoskeleton device which prevents the residual stresses due to arthro-kinematics movements of synovial joints and by the way allows effective compensation for dynamic disturbances in osteo-kinematic movements of the wearer. Here, the exoskeleton is only actuated at the knee joints to provide assistive torques, which are required to assist the anatomical joint motion and to increase the transparency of the device. Dynamic simulations of a virtual human equipped with this exoskeleton are used to quantify the disturbances induced by the device during locomotion and to show the benefit of passive mechanisms introduced in the mechanical attaches as well. The authors also demonstrated how the device’s transparency can be improved by providing the motor torques in order to compensate the inertial and gravitational effects. This can be done rely on the knowledge of the locomotion movement phases. A robust gait phase detection method was implemented on the experimental device in order to identify specific gait phases in real time. This method exploits the K-nearest neighbors algorithm to identify the k-closest trained vectors, coupling with a discrete time Markov chain to determine the phases shift probability during the gait cycle. This gait detection algorithm was tested with a percentage of success of more than 95% when the subjects walked with constant and variable stride lengths.