Palladium-catalyzed C-N bond formation: synthesis of 1-aryl-1H-pyrazoles from β-bromovinyl aldehydes and arylhydrazines

Cyclic and acyclic β-bromovinyl aldehydes are cyclized with an array of arylhydrazines in toluene at 125 °C in the presence of a palladium catalyst and a phosphorus chelating ligand together with NaO^tBu to give 1-aryl-1H-pyrazoles in moderate to good yields.     

Local chemical distribution and electronic structure of Ge1−xTx DMS single crystals (T=Cr,Mn, Fe)

The spatial concentration distribution and local electronic structure of ferromagnetic Ge_1−xT_x (T=Cr, Mn, Fe) DMS single crystals have been investigated by using scanning photoelectron microscopy (SPEM), X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS), and photoemission spectroscopy (PES). It is found that doped T ions in Ge_1−xT_x crystals are chemically phase-separated, suggesting that the observed ferromagnetism arises from the phase-separated T-rich phases in Ge_1−xT_x.     

Thermal properties of poly(styrene) containing brominated aryl phosphate additives

General purpose poly(styrene) is a large volume commodity polymer widely used in a range of applications. For many of these the presence of an additive to impart some flammability resistance is required. Most commonly, brominated aromatics are used for this purpose. As the polymer undergoes combustion these compounds decompose to generate bromine atoms and/or hydrogen bromide which escape to the gas phase and trap flame propagating radicals. While these species are effective in inhibiting flame propagation they present the opportunity for loss of halogen to the atmosphere. For this reason, the use of these compounds is being limited in some parts of the world. Phosphorus compounds, on the other had, impart a flame retarding influence by promoting char formation at the surface of the burning polymer. This prevents heat feedback to the polymer and consequent pyrolysis to generate fuel fragments. The combination of both bromine and phosphorus present in a single compound might generate a superior flame-retarding additive in that both modes of retardancy might be promoted simultaneously. Should this be the case smaller amounts of additive might be necessary to achieve a satisfactory level of flame retardancy. A series of such additives, brominated aryl phosphates, has been synthesized and fully characterized spectroscopically. Blends of these additives, at various levels, with poly(styrene) have been examined by DSC, TG and in the UL-94 flame test. The flammability of the polymer is dramatically diminished by the presence of the additive.     

Structural and electrical characterization of PZT on gold for micromachined piezoelectric membranes

Piezoelectric membranes have been fabricated that incorporate a gold bottom electrode with an adhesion layer of titanium–tungsten (10:90 wt. %). For solution-deposited acetic acid based lead zirconate titanate (HoAc-PZT) with a Zr:Ti ratio of 40:60, the film’s average piezoelectric coefficient, e₃₁, is -5.31 C/m², with a dielectric constant of 814 at 200 Hz, which is similar to values for platinum bottom electrodes. The PZT structure remains columnar on both types of bottom electrodes. Initial fabrication attempts resulted in cracking that initiated in the PZT layer of the structure. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy was utilized to establish how processing affects diffusion throughout the composite membrane structure. Crack-free membranes were fabricated and tested. This paper discusses the performance properties and piezoelectric fatigue results for these membranes. PACS 77.84.-s; 77.84.Lf     

Coloring mixed hypertrees

A mixed hypergraph is a triple (V,C,D) where V is its vertex set and C and D are families of subsets of V, called C-edges and D-edges, respectively. For a proper coloring, we require that each C-edge contains two vertices with the same color and each D-edge contains two vertices with different colors. The feasible set of a mixed hypergraph is the set of all k's for which there exists a proper coloring using exactly k colors. A hypergraph is a hypertree if there exists a tree such that the edges of the hypergraph induce connected subgraphs of the tree.We prove that feasible sets of mixed hypertrees are gap-free, i.e., intervals of integers, and we show that this is not true for precolored mixed hypertrees. The problem to decide whether a mixed hypertree can be colored by k colors is NP-complete in general; we investigate complexity of various restrictions of this problem and we characterize their complexity in most of the cases.     

Multiple ergodic theorems

Given measure preserving transformationsT ₁,T ₂,...,T _s of a probability space (X,B, μ) we are interested in the asymptotic behaviour of ergodic averages of the form $$\frac{1}{N}\sum\limits_{n = 0}^{N - 1} {T_1^n f_1 \cdot T_2^n f_2 } \cdot \cdots \cdot T_s^n f_s $$ wheref ₁,f ₂,...,f _s ?L ^∞(X,B,μ). In the general case we study, mainly for commuting transformations, conditions under which the limit of (1) inL ²-norm is ∫ _x f ₁ dμ·∫ _x f ₂ dμ...∫ _x f _s dμ for anyf ₁,f ₂...,f _s ?L ^∞(X,B,μ). If the transformations are commuting epimorphisms of a compact abelian group, then this limit exists almost everywhere. A few results are also obtained for some classes of non-commuting epimorphisms of compact abelian groups, and for commuting epimorphisms of arbitrary compact groups.     

Correlation length bounds for disordered Ising ferromagnets

Thed-dimensional, nearest-neighbor disordered Ising ferromagnet: $$H = - \sum {J_{ij} \sigma _i \sigma _j }$$ is studied as a function of both temperature,T, and a disorder parameter,λ, which measures the size of fluctuations of couplingsJ _ij ≧0. A finite-size scaling correlation length,ζ _f (T, λ), is defined in terms of the magnetic response of finite samples. This correlation length is shown to be equivalent, in the scaling sense, to the quenched average correlation lengthζ(T, λ), defined as the asymptotic decay rate of the quenched average two-point function. Furthermore, the magnetic response criterion which definesζ _f is shown to have a scale-invariant property at the critical point. The above results enable us to prove that the quenched correlation length satisfies: $$C\left| {\log \xi (T)} \right|\xi (T) \geqq \left| {T - T_c } \right|^{ - {2 \mathord{\left/ {\vphantom {2 d}} \right. \kern-\nulldelimiterspace} d}}$$ which implies the boundv≧2/d for the quenched correlation length exponent.