Two novel organic–inorganic hybrid materials from tetrachloridometallate(II) salts and 4‐[(E)‐2‐(pyridin‐1‐ium‐2‐yl)ethenyl]pyridinium

Two organic–inorganic hybrid compounds have been prepared by the combination of the 4‐[(E)‐2‐(pyridin‐1‐ium‐2‐yl)ethenyl]pyridinium cation with perhalometallate anions to give 4‐[(E)‐2‐(pyridin‐1‐ium‐2‐yl)ethenyl]pyridinium tetrachloridocobaltate(II), (C₁₂H₁₂N₂)[CoCl₄], (I), and 4‐[(E)‐2‐(pyridin‐1‐ium‐2‐yl)ethenyl]pyridinium tetrachloridozincate(II), (C₁₂H₁₂N₂)[ZnCl₄], (II). The compounds have been structurally characterized by single‐crystal X‐ray diffraction analysis, showing the formation of a three‐dimensional network through X—H...Cl_nM⁻ (X = C, N⁺; n = 1, 2; M = Co^II, Zn^II) hydrogen‐bonding interactions and π–π stacking interactions. The title compounds were also characterized by FT–IR spectroscopy and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA).     

Influence of substrate temperature and N2/Ar flow ratio on the stoichiometry,structure and hardness of TaNx coatings deposited by DC reactive sputtering

The effect of substrate temperature and N2/Ar flow ratio on the stoichiometry, structure and hardness of TaN_x coatings prepared on (111) Si substrates by DC reactive sputtering was investigated. For the structural, chemical and morphological analysis, X‐ray diffraction (XRD), Auger electron scanning and atomic force microscopy were respectively used. Hardness values of thin films were determined using the work of indentation model from nanoindentation measurements. TaN stoichiometric coatings were obtained for samples deposited at room temperature. The stoichiometric TaN phase was not obtained by increasing the temperature up to 773 K, even when increasing the N₂/Ar flow ratio. Even when a saturation in nitrogen content was achieved, nitrogen vacancies are still present in those samples. For coatings prepared at 773 K and low N₂/Ar flow ratio, a phase mixture between TaN_x and cubic α‐Ta was observed, while a cubic structure δ‐TaN was formed by increasing the N₂/Ar flow ratio. A maximum in hardness and (38 GPa) was obtained for the sample deposited at 773 K and a N₂/Ar flow ratio of 0.2, which presented a δ‐TaN cubic crystalline structure and a roughness value of 1.6 nm. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A spectral algorithm for large-scale systems of nonlinear monotone equations

A derivative-free iterative scheme that uses the residual vector as search direction for solving large-scale systems of nonlinear monotone equations is presented. It is closely related to two recently proposed spectral residual methods for nonlinear systems which use a nonmonotone line-search globalization strategy and a step-size based on the Barzilai-Borwein choice. The global convergence analysis is presented. In order to study the numerical behavior of the algorithm, it is included an extensive series of numerical experiments. Our computational experiments show that the new algorithm is computationally efficient.     

Reflection and transmission of seismic waves at the boundaries of porous media

The mode conversions which occur during the reflection and transmission of seismic waves at the boundaries of porous media are analysed. It is shown how the energy partitioned to the various modes depends on the incident angle and on the physical properties of the fluid and solid components on each side of the boundary. The boundary conditions used here predict the occurrence of bright and dark spots as are currently observed in seismic studies of heavy oil reservoirs. They also give rise to a class of pseudo interface waves which propagate in a direction almost parallel to the surface and which become true interface waves in the limiting case where the porous media degenerate to elastic solids. When thermomechanical coupling is an important attenaution mechanism in one of the media it is also observed to have a substantial effect on the mode conversions which occur at the boundary.     

Cellulose-based liquid crystalline photoresponsive films with tunable surface wettability

We report on a new type of liquid crystalline cellulosic films with light controllable reversible wettability. The films are prepared from a thermotropic cellulose derivative functionalized with azo-containing groups. These groups exhibit dynamic changes in interfacial properties in response to UV irradiation. The UV irradiation induces trans-to-cis isomerization in the azobenzene moiety, which causes a conformational change in the upper molecular layers of the thin films. These changes originate a hydrophobic to comparatively hydrophilic transformation of the surface. The reversible wettability of the surface results from the cis/trans photo and thermal isomerization. The UV-vis absorption spectra, as well as contact angle measurements with UV irradiation, clearly support the understanding of the phenomenon. This type of surface design enables the amplification of molecular level conformational transitions to macroscopic changes in interface properties using the means of isomerism. This opens new opportunities in surface engineering using eco-friendly cellulose manipulation.     

A near-infrared spectroscopy method to determine aminoglycosides in pharmaceutical formulations

The analytical determination of aminoglycosides in pharmaceutical formulations is very difficult due to the lack of chromophores or fluorophores. Several analytical methods have been developed along the years mainly based on derivatization reactions. The European Pharmacopeia (EP) and the United States Pharmacopeia (USP) describe a microbiological assay to the quantification of aminoglycosides. Near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) can be used alternatively to analyse aminoglycosides without the need of derivatization reactions or other type of sample processing. A new NIRS based method was developed for the analysis of the aminoglycoside antibiotic neomycin. The method was developed with samples based on a commercial formulation containing neomycin sulphate and three excipients: lactose, talc and magnesium stearate. Synthetic and doped samples were manufactured for this purpose. Three lots of a commercial solid formulation were also used to assess the validity of the method to quantify neomycin sulphate in the industrial pharmaceutical product. The method proposes measurements in reflectance mode using a Fourier-transform near infrared (FT-NIR) spectrometer. Partial least squares regression was the multivariate method adopted to calibrate the NIR spectra with the neomycin sulphate mass fraction. The concentration of neomycin sulphate present in the commercial samples was confirmed by HPLC with pre-column derivatization with phenylisocyanate. Results show that neomycin sulphate was determined successfully in the commercial samples using the method calibrated with the doped samples (mass fraction error of 6.6%). Moreover, the synthetic samples were found to be unqualified to develop the method, producing a biased calibration.     

Dicyano and pyridine derivatives of β-carotene: synthesis and vibronic, electronic, and photophysical properties

Density functional theory and time-dependent density functional theory calculations provide pictures of the molecular orbitals involved in the ground and excited states of two cyano derivatives of 8'-apo-β-caroten-8'-al synthesized via an acid-base-catalyzed Knoevenagel condensation reaction. Population analysis shows that the symmetry-allowed transition, S(0) ((1)A(g)) → S(2) ((1)B(u)) based on the C(2h) symmetry is a HOMO (highest occupied molecular orbital) to LUMO (lowest unoccupied molecular orbital) π → π* transition with electron densities located mostly on the polyene chain. Calculated and actual steady-state absorption spectra show similar features with low-energy peak maxima between 550 and 600 nm.     

Screening nucleotide binding to amino acid-coated supports by surface plasmon resonance and nuclear magnetic resonance

Here, we describe a rapid and efficient screening method using surface plasmon resonance (SPR) and saturation transfer difference–nuclear magnetic resonance (STD-NMR) spectroscopy to yield information regarding the residues involved in nucleotide binding to amino acid-coated supports. The aim of this work was to explore the use of these spectroscopic techniques to study amino acid–nucleotide interactions in order to improve the binding specificity of the amino acid ligands used to purify plasmid DNA. For SPR, we present a strategy that immobilizes arginine and lysine on a surface as model supports, and we analyze binding responses when synthetic homo-deoxyoligonucleotides are injected over the amino acid surface. The binding responses are detectable and reproducible despite the small size of the immobilized amino acids. Using STD-NMR, we performed epitope mapping of homo-deoxyoligonucleotides bound to l-arginine–bisoxyran–Sepharose and l-lysine–Sepharose supports. Polynucleotide binding preferences differed; for example, polyC interacted preferentially through its backbone with the two supports, whereas polyT bound the supports through its thymine moiety. STD-NMR combined with SPR measurements was successfully used to screen amino acid–nucleotide interactions and determine the binding affinities of the complexes.     

A class of primal affine scaling algorithms

We obtain a class of primal affine scaling algorithms which generalize some known algorithms. This class, depending on a r-parameter, is constructed through a family of metrics generated by −r power, r ? 1, of the diagonal iterate vector matrix. We prove the so-called weak convergence of the primal class for nondegenerate linearly constrained convex programming. We observe the computational performance of the class of primal affine scaling algorithms, accomplishing tests with linear programs from the NETLIB library and with some quadratic programming problems described in the Maros and Mészáros repository.