Volumetric and viscometric studies of glucose in binary aqueous solutions of urea at different temperatures

Densities and viscosities of glucose in (1.0, 2.5, and 5.0) mass% aqueous urea solutions have been measured at T = (298.15, 303.15, 308.15, and 313.15) K, respectively. Apparent molar volumes, limiting partial molar volume, and relative viscosity have been obtained from the density and viscosity results. Limiting partial molar expansibilities have also been calculated from the temperature dependence of limiting partial molar volumes. The viscosity data have been analyzed by using the modified Jones–Dole equation. The results are used to establish the nature of solute–solute and solute–solvent interactions. Transition state treatment of the relative viscosity was also used for the calculation of activation parameters of viscous flow. Pour findings show that the solute acts as a water structure former and provides strong solute–solvent interaction.     

Contrasting Response of Two Dipolar Fluorescence Probes in a Leucine‐Based Organogel and Its Implications

The microenvironments of a leucine‐based organogel are probed by monitoring the fluorescence behavior of coumarin 153 (C153) and 4‐aminophthalimide (AP). The steady‐state data reveals distinctly different locations of the two molecules in the gel. Whereas AP resides close to the hydroxyl moieties of the gelator and engages in hydrogen‐bonding interactions, C153 is found in bulk‐toluene‐like regions. In contrast to C153, AP exhibits excitation‐wavelength‐dependent emission, indicating that the environments of the hydrogen‐bonded AP molecules are not all identical. A two‐component fluorescence decay of AP in gel, unlike C153, supports this model. A time‐resolved fluorescence anisotropy study of the rotational motion of the molecules also reveals the strong association of only AP with the gelator. That AP influences the critical gelation concentration implies its direct involvement in the gel‐formation process. The results highlight the importance of guest–gelator interactions in gels containing guest molecules.     

Unitary group adapted state specific multireference perturbation theory: Formulation and pilot applications

We present here a comprehensive account of the formulation and pilot applications of the second‐order perturbative analogue of the recently proposed unitary group adapted state‐specific multireference coupled cluster theory (UGA‐SSMRCC), which we call as the UGA‐SSMRPT2. We also discuss the essential similarities and differences between the UGA‐SSMRPT2 and the allied SA‐SSMRPT2. Our theory, like its parent UGA‐SSMRCC formalism, is size‐extensive. However, because of the noninvariance of the theory with respect to the transformation among the active orbitals, it requires the use of localized orbitals to ensure size‐consistency. We have demonstrated the performance of the formalism with a set of pilot applications, exploring (a) the accuracy of the potential energy surface (PES) of a set of small prototypical difficult molecules in their various low‐lying states, using natural, pseudocanonical and localized orbitals and compared the respective nonparallelity errors (NPE) and the mean average deviations (MAD) vis‐a‐vis the full CI results with the same basis; (b) the efficacy of localized active orbitals to ensure and demonstrate manifest size‐consistency with respect to fragmentation. We found that natural orbitals lead to the best overall PES, as evidenced by the NPE and MAD values. The MRMP2 results for individual states and of the MCQDPT2 for multiple states displaying avoided curve crossings are uniformly poorer as compared with the UGA‐SSMRPT2 results. The striking aspect of the size‐consistency check is the complete insensitivity of the sum of fragment energies with given fragment spin‐multiplicities, which are obtained as the asymptotic limit of super‐molecules with different coupled spins. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Selective Halogenation Using an Aniline Catalyst

Electrophilic halogenation is used to produce a wide variety of halogenated compounds. Previously reported methods have been developed mainly using a reagent‐based approach. Unfortunately, a suitable “catalytic” process for halogen transfer reactions has yet to be achieved. In this study, arylamines have been found to generate an N‐halo arylamine intermediate, which acts as a highly reactive but selective catalytic electrophilic halogen source. A wide variety of heteroaromatic and aromatic compounds are halogenated using commercially available N‐halosuccinimides, for example, NCS, NBS, and NIS, with good to excellent yields and with very high selectivity. In the case of unactivated double bonds, allylic chlorides are obtained under chlorination conditions, whereas bromocyclization occurs for polyolefin. The reactivity of the catalyst can be tuned by varying the electronic properties of the arene moiety of catalyst.     

Co-operative intra-protein structural response due to protein–protein complexation revealed through thermodynamic quantification: study of MDM2-p53 binding

The p53 protein activation protects the organism from propagation of cells with damaged DNA having oncogenic mutations. In normal cells, activity of p53 is controlled by interaction with MDM2. The well understood p53-MDM2 interaction facilitates design of ligands that could potentially disrupt or prevent the complexation owing to its emergence as an important objective for cancer therapy. However, thermodynamic quantification of the p53-peptide induced structural changes of the MDM2-protein remains an area to be explored. This study attempts to understand the conformational free energy and entropy costs due to this complex formation from the histograms of dihedral angles generated from molecular dynamics simulations. Residue-specific quantification illustrates that, hydrophobic residues of the protein contribute maximum to the conformational thermodynamic changes. Thermodynamic quantification of structural changes of the protein unfold the fact that, p53 binding provides a source of inter-element cooperativity among the protein secondary structural elements, where the highest affected structural elements (α2 and α4) found at the binding site of the protein affects faraway structural elements (β1 and Loop1) of the protein. The communication perhaps involves water mediated hydrogen bonded network formation. Further, we infer that in inhibitory F19A mutation of P53, though Phe19 is important in the recognition process, it has less prominent contribution in the stability of the complex. Collectively, this study provides vivid microscopic understanding of the interaction within the protein complex along with exploring mutation sites, which will contribute further to engineer the protein function and binding affinity.     

Effects of awareness program and delay in the epidemic outbreak

In the present paper, an epidemic model has been proposed and analyzed to investigate the impact of awareness program and reporting delay in the epidemic outbreak. Awareness programs induce behavioral changes within the population, and divide the susceptible class into two subclasses, aware susceptible and unaware susceptible. The existence and the stability criteria of the equilibrium points are obtained in terms of the basic reproduction number. Considering time delay as the bifurcating parameter, the Hopf bifurcation analysis has been performed around the endemic equilibrium. The direction of the Hopf bifurcation and the stability of the bifurcating periodic solutions are investigated by using the normal form theory and central manifold theorem. To verify the analytical results, comprehensive numerical simulations are carried out. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Unprecedented formation of benzo[d][1,2,3,6]oxatriazocine derivatives via diazo-oxygen bond formation and synthesis of enantiomerically pure 1-alkyl benzotriazole derivatives

A series of amino acid-derived enantiomerically pure substituted benzo[d][1,2,3,6]oxatriazocine derivatives and 1-alkyl substituted benzotriazoles has been prepared by the diazotization of amino acid-derived benzo-fused alicycles. The first unprecedented diazo-oxygen bond formation in acidic medium led to an entirely new kind of substituted benzo[d][1,2,3,6]oxatriazocine heterocycles.     

Immobilization of bio-macromolecules on self-assembled monolayers: methods and sensor applications

Attachment of biomolecules on gold, silicon or glass surfaces has direct implications for the development of novel biosensors in the context of nanoscale detection of pathogens and other metabolites related to issues of human health. In this critical review, we have highlighted the current developments in various techniques of immobilization of biomolecules, specifically biological macromolecules on surfaces through the modification of a functional self-assembled monolayer. The utility of such immobilized biomolecules in the area of biosensing in nanoscale has been surveyed. Merits and demerits of some of the methods with reference to sensitivity of detection and practical use have been discussed (221 references).     

Coordination-driven self-assembly of 2D-metallamacrocycles using a shape-selective Pt(II)2-organometallic 90° acceptor: design, synthesis and sensing study

Synthesis of a series of two-dimensional metallamacrocycles via coordination-driven self-assembly of a shape-selective Pt(II)(2)-molecular building unit incorporating carbazole-ethynyl functionality is described. An equimolar (1?:?1) combination of a Pt(II)(2)-organometallic 90° acceptor, 1, with rigid linear ditopic donors (L(a) and L(b)) afforded [4 + 4] self-assembled octanuclear molecular squares, 2 and 3, in quantitative yields, respectively [L(a) = 4,4'-bipyridine; L(b) = trans-1,2-bis(4-pyridyl)ethylene]. Conversely, a similar treatment of 1 with an amide-based unsymmetrical flexible ditopic donor, L(c), resulted in the formation of a [2 + 2] self-sorted molecular rhomboid (4a) as a single product [L(c) = N-(4-pyridyl)isonicotinamide]. Despite the possibility of several linkage isomeric macrocycles (rhomboid, triangle and square) due to the different connectivity of L(c), the formation of a single and symmetrical molecular rhomboid (4a) as the only product is an interesting observation. All the self-assembled macrocycles (2, 3 and 4a) were fully characterized by multinuclear NMR ((1)H and (31)P) and ESI-MS analysis. Further structural insights about the size and shape of the macrocycles were obtained through energy minimization using density functional theory (DFT) calculations. Decoration of the starting carbazole building unit with Pt-ethynyl functionality enriches the assemblies to be more π-electron rich and luminescent in nature. Macrocycles 2 and 3 could sense the presence of electron deficient nitroaromatics in solution by quenching of the initial intensity upon gradual addition of picric acid (PA). They exhibited the largest quenching response with high selectivity for nitroaromatics compared to several other electron deficient aromatics tested.     

MRDCI study of the low-lying electronic states of PbSi

Electronic states of the PbSi molecule up to 4 eV have been studied by carrying out ab initio based MRDCI calculations which include relativistic effective core potentials (RECPs) of both the atoms. The use of semicore RECPs of Pb produces better dissociation limits than the full-core one. However, the (3)P(0)-(3)P(1) splitting due to Pb is underestimated by about 4000 cm(-1). At least 25 bound electronic states of the Λ-S symmetry are predicted for PbSi. The computed zero-field-splitting in the ground state is about 544 cm(-1). A strong spin-orbit mixing changes the nature of the potential energy curves of many Ω states. The overall splitting among the spin components of A(3)Π is computed to be 4067 cm(-1). However, the largest spin-orbit splitting is reported for the (3)Δ state. A number of spin-allowed and spin-forbidden transitions are predicted. The partial radiative lifetime for the A(3)Π-X(3)Σ(-) transition is of the order of milliseconds. The computed bond energy in the ground state is 1.68 eV, considering the spin-orbit coupling. The vertical ionization energy for the ionization to the X(4)Σ(-) ground state of PbSi(+) is about 6.93 eV computed at the same level of calculations.