Cyclocondensation of 2-iodobenzaldehyde with benzamidines catalyzed by copper(I) iodide: a route to 2-arylquinazolines

The reaction of benzamidines with 2-bromo- and 2-iodobenzaldehydes catalyzed by the CuI/L-proline system has been studied. Reaction with 2-iodobenzaldehyde leads to the formation of quinazolines in good yield. 2-Bromobenzaldehyde forms 2-arylquinazolines in low yield due to the competing reaction involving two molecules of amidine leading to a dihydrotriazine.     

Development and validation of a reversed‐phase HPLC method for the determination of γ‐tocotrienol in rat and human plasma

γ‐Tocotrienol (γ‐T3) is a member of the vitamin E family. Recently, γ‐T3 has attracted the attention of the scientific community due to its potent anticancer activity and other therapeutic benefits. The objective of this study was to develop and validate a simple and practical reversed‐phase HPLC method with satisfactory sensitivity for the routine quantification of γ‐T3 in rat and human plasma. The separation of γ‐T3 from the plasma components was achieved with a C₁₈ reversed‐phase column with an isocratic elution using a mixture of methanol, ethanol and acetonitrile (85:7.5:7.5, v/v/v) with a UV detection at 295 nm. γ‐T3 was extracted from rat and human plasma by liquid–liquid extraction with an average recovery of 60%. The method proved linear in the range 100–5000 ng/mL. The inter‐day precision ranged from 5.8 to 12.8% and the accuracy ranged from 92.4 to 108.5%, while the intra‐day precision ranged from 0.7 to 7.9% in both rat and human plasma. This data confirm that the developed method has a satisfactory sensitivity, accuracy and precision for the quantification of γ‐T3 in plasma. To assess its applicability the method was successfully applied to the quantitative analysis for pharmacokinetic studies of γ‐T3 in rats administered a 10 mg/kg single oral dose. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Hydroxypropylcellulose-aceclofenac conjugates: high covalent loading design, structure characterization, nano-assemblies and thermal kinetics

This article presents synthesis of novel macromolecular prodrugs of aceclofenac (an anti-inflammatory drug) onto hydroxypropylcellulose (HPC). The HPC-aceclofenac conjugates were prepared using an acylating agent 1,1′-carbonyldiimidazole (CDI) under homogenous reaction conditions. Aceclofenac was first activated by using CDI to form its N-acylimidazole. The N-acylimidazole of aceclofenac was then reacted with HPC polymer at 80 °C for 24 h. Highly pure prodrugs of aceclofenac were synthesized with a wide range of moderate to high degree of substitution (DS 0.41–2.12) as calculated by ¹H NMR spectroscopy. The UV spectroscopic analysis has also revealed that the active drug aceclofenac was found in different conjugates from 28 to 67 mg/100 mg of HPC-aceclofenac conjugates which are in good agreement with DS calculated by ¹H NMR spectroscopy. The gel permeation chromatography showed unimodal absorption that indicates no significant degradation in polymer chains during the reaction. The macromolecular prodrugs of aceclofenac were characterized using different spectroscopic and chromatographic techniques. The thermal analysis has revealed that HPC-aceclofenac conjugates (prodrugs) are 92 and 96 °C more stable than pure aceclofenac regarding their initial (Tdi) and maximum degradation temperatures (Tdm), respectively. The activation energy (Ea) and frequency factor (Z) of the degradation reactions were evaluated using Friedman, Broido and Chang methods. Degradation followed first order (n) kinetics. Transmission electron microscopy has revealed the formation of sponge like nano aggregates with population size distribution of around 80–150 nm.     

Ni diffusion in near-equiatomic Ni-Ti and Ni-Ti(-Cu) alloys

Tracer volume diffusion of 63 Ni in Ni-50.07 at.% Ti binary and Ni-48.83 at.% Ti-9.29 at.% Cu ternary alloys have been measured between 783 and 1288 K. The temperature dependence of the diffusion coefficients can be well described by a straight Arrhenius function This illustrates that a diffusional anomaly (typical in some bcc metallic alloys and related to the well-known phonon softening), if there is any in this system, is negligible. On the other hand, the small activation energy (about half the value expected from simulations for the commonly accepted mechanism with thermally activated vacancies) shows that the mechanism of diffusion is probably mediated by structural vacancies.     

Effects of substituents and charge on the RCHO⋯X–Y {X = Cl,Br, I; Y = –CF3, –CF2H, –CFH2, –CN, –CCH, –CCCN; R = –OH, –OCH3, –NH2, –O−} halogen-bonded complexes

Structural Chemistry - Noncovalent interactions involving halogen bonding interactions, one of the emerging interactions due to its directionality, have been a subject of interest for various...     

Sufficient oscillation conditions for the Sturm–Liouville equation

We use the variational method to establish criteria for the existence of conjugate points and for the oscillation property of the linear differential Sturm–Liouville equation.     

Grain boundary diffusion induced reaction layer formation in Fe/Pt thin films

The solid-state reaction in Pt(15 nm)/Fe(15 nm) and Pt(15 nm)/Ag(10 nm)/Fe(15 nm) thin films after post-annealing at 593 K and 613 K for different annealing times has been studied. The structural properties of these samples were investigated by various methods including depth profiling with secondary neutral mass spectrometry, transmission electron microscopy, and X-ray diffraction. It is shown that after annealing at the above temperatures where the bulk diffusion processes are still frozen, homogeneous reaction layers of FePt and FePt with about 10 at.% Ag, respectively, have been formed. Corresponding depth profiles of the element concentrations revealed strong evidence that the formation mechanism is based on a grain boundary diffusion induced solid-state reaction in which the reaction interfaces sweep perpendicularly to the original grain boundary. Interestingly, X-ray diffraction indicated that in both thin-film systems after the solid-state reaction the ordered L1₀ FePt phase, which is the requested phase for future magnetic data storage applications, is also present.     

Optimal control of wave-packets: a semiclassical approach

We studied the optimal quantum control of a molecular rotor in tilted laser fields using the time-sliced Herman–Kluk propagator for the evaluation of the optimal pulse and the light–dipole interaction as the control mechanism. The proposed methodology was used to study the effects of an optimal pulse on the evolution of a wave-packet in a double-well potential and in the effective potential of a molecular rotor in a collinear tilted fields setup. The amplitude and frequency of the control pulse were obtained in such a way that the transition probability between two rotational wave-packets was maximised.