Toward reactant encapsulation for substrate-selectivity

A synthetic tris-(bis-(aminomethyl)pyridine) receptor was prepared in excellent yields via reversible imine condensation strategy. Catalytic activity in Henry reactions of the corresponding copper(II) complex was studied. Capitalizing on previous works by Anslyn with related receptors, the dramatic increase in basicity induced by this type of complex on diketo-derivatives was used to perform a nucleophilic addition of a deprotonated substrate onto an electrophile within the cavity. Hence, a Lewis acid stabilized nitronate was reacted with various aldehydes. A notable preference for small reactants easily accommodated in the cavity over encumbered ones was observed, thus representing an example of substrate-selectivity.     

Physics of sinking and selection of plankton cell size

Gravitational sinking in the water column is known to affect size composition of planktonic communities. One important driver toward the reduction of plankton size is the fact that larger cells tend to sink faster below the euphotic layer. In this work, we discuss the role of gravitational sinking in driving cell size selection, showing that the outcome of phytoplankton competition is determined by the dependence of sinking velocity on cell size, shape, and on the temporal variability associated with turbulence. This opens a question on whether regional modulations of the turbulence intensity could affect size distribution of planktonic communities.     

Asymmetric Catalytic Aziridination of Cyclic Enones

The first catalytic method for the asymmetric aziridination of cyclic enones is described. The presented organocatalytic strategy is based on the use of an easily available organocatalyst that is able to convert a wide range of cyclic enones into the desired aziridines with very high enantiomeric purity and good chemical yield. Such a method may very well open up new opportunities to stereoselectively prepare complex chiral molecules that possess an indane moiety, a framework that is found in a large number of bioactive and pharmaceutically important molecules     

The Regularity of Optimal Irrigation Patterns

A branched structure is observable in draining and irrigation systems, in electric power supply systems, and in natural objects like blood vessels, the river basins or the trees. Recent approaches of these networks derive their branched structure from an energy functional whose essential feature is to favor wide routes. Given a flow s in a river, a road, a tube or a wire, the transportation cost per unit length is supposed in these models to be proportional to s ^α with 0 < α < 1. The aim of this paper is to prove the regularity of paths (rivers, branches,...) when the irrigated measure is the Lebesgue density on a smooth open set and the irrigating measure is a single source. In that case we prove that all branches of optimal irrigation trees satisfy an elliptic equation and that their curvature is a bounded measure. In consequence all branching points in the network have a tangent cone made of a finite number of segments, and all other points have a tangent. An explicit counterexample disproves these regularity properties for non-Lebesgue irrigated measures.     

Computation of weak steady shock reflections by means of an unstructured shock-fitting solver

Weak steady Mach reflections are numerically simulated using unstructured grids by means of either “shock-fitting” or “shock-capturing” techniques. It is shown that shock-fitting allows using coarser meshes than those required by shock-capturing, since the latter needs mesh refinement in the direction normal to the discontinuities, which is not needed using the former approach. The shock-fitted solution is also free from the numerical disturbances that arise along the captured discontinuities and pollute the captured solution in the smooth flowfield region. Finally, the shock-fitting solutions show the presence of a small region next to the Mach stem and the reflected shock downstream of the triple point, characterized by very high gradients.     

A relativistic quark-diquark model for the nucleon

We developed a constituent quark-diquark model for the nucleon and its resonances using a harmonic oscillator potential for the interaction. The effects due to relativistic kinetic energy correction are studied. Finally, charge form factor of the model is calculated and compared with experimental data.      

Sensitivity of LHC experiments to exotic highly ionising particles

The experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) are able to discover or set limits on the production of exotic particles with TeV-scale masses possessing values of electric and/or magnetic charge such that they behave as highly ionising particles (HIPs). In this paper the sensitivity of the LHC experiments to HIP production is discussed in detail. It is shown that a number of different detection methods are required to investigate as fully as possible the charge-mass range. These include direct detection as the HIPs pass through either passive or active detectors and, in the case of magnetically charged objects, the so-called induction method with which magnetic monopoles which stop in accelerator and detector material could be observed. The benefit of using complementary approaches to HIP detection is discussed.