Synthesis of Functionalized Polynorbornanes Employing 2,5‐Bis(trifluoromethyl)‐1,3,4‐oxadiazole

Cycloaddition reaction of 2,5‐bis(trifluoromethyl)‐1,3,4‐oxadiazole with strained olefinic bonds of norbornenes was used to synthetize functionalized polynorbornanes. This simple, one step procedure was more effective when reaction was carried out by classical heating, in comparison to microwave‐assisted reactions. Various functional groups were stable in the reaction conditions (ester, imide, phthalimide, piperidyl, and carboxylic acid), whereas anhydride, N‐Boc, or TMS functionalities do not withstand reaction conditions.     

Nanocomposites with Biodegradable Polycaprolactone Matrix

Summary: Biodegradable polymer/clay nanocomposites and/or composites based on poly(ε-polycaprolactone) (PCL) were prepared by conventional melt mixing. Three kinds of clays, organomodified Cloisite 15A and Cloisite 10A with different ammonium cations located in the silicate gallery and unmodified Cloisite with Na cations were used for composites preparation. The degree of dispersion of silicate layers in the matrix was determined by X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy. Oscillatory rheological measurements were used for characterization of the physical network formed by the filler. The presence of intercalated and exfoliated structures were observed for the composites PCL/Cloisite 15A and PCL/Cloisite 10A, indicating that nanocomposite structure was formed. Changes of viscoelastic properties to more solid-like behavior, especially in the low frequency range were explained by formation of silicate network structure, which can be detected by modified Cole-Cole plots.     

Structural characterisation of thiol-modified hyaluronans

Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy and non-isothermal methods—chemiluminometry, differential scanning calorimetry, and differential thermogravimetry—were used to characterize potential structural changes of thiol-modified hyaluronans. Degradative conditions tested via rotational viscometry were first initiated applying oxidative Weissberger’s system in a reaction system under aerobic conditions. Several low-molecular-weight thiol compounds—cysteamine, l-cysteine, and N-acetyl-l-cysteine—were subsequently tested for their potential antioxidative effects against hyaluronan degradation. It was shown that different final values of dynamic viscosity of hyaluronan solutions were dependent on the thiol structure and its initial concentration. An idea has been put forward that together with the reduction of the hyaluronan molecular weight, which is a consequence of fragmentation, the degradation products might contain associated or even cross-linked structures. In the case of N-acetyl-l-cysteine application, the carbonaceous residue evidenced by differential thermogravimetry was increased when compared to that of intact hyaluronan.     

Blind decomposition of low‐dimensional multi‐spectral image by sparse component analysis

A multilayer hierarchical alternating least square nonnegative matrix factorization approach has been applied to blind decomposition of low‐dimensional multi‐spectral image. The method performs blind decomposition exploiting spectral diversity and spatial sparsity between materials present in the image and, unlike many blind source separation methods, is invariant with respect to statistical (in)dependence among spatial distributions of the materials. As opposed to many existing blind source separation algorithms, the method is capable of estimating the unknown number of materials present in the image. This number can be less than, equal to, or greater than the number of spectral bands. The method is validated on underdetermined blind source separation problems associated with blind decomposition of experimental red‐green‐blue images composed of four materials. Achieved performance has been superior when compared against methods based on minimization of the ℓ₁‐norm: linear programming and interior‐point methods. In addition to tumor demarcation, as demonstrated in the paper, other areas that can also benefit from the proposed method include cell, chemical, and tissue imaging. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Controlled degradation of polyhydroxybutyrate via alcoholysis with ethylene glycol or glycerol

It was shown that controlled degradation of poly-[(R)-3-hydroxybutyrate] (PHB) can be achieved by alcoholysis with two types of alcohol in the presence of a catalyst. PHB oligomers terminated with free hydroxyl groups were prepared in this way. Molecular weight of the prepared samples was studied with three methods: SEC analysis with polystyrene calibration, SEC analysis using universal calibration, and viscometry. The data lead to the conclusion that SEC analysis using polystyrene calibration is a suitable method for monitoring degradation. The degradation proceeds by random chain scission and the molecular weight was decreased by almost two orders of magnitude depending on the alcoholysis conditions. The crystallinity and melting temperature, T_m, of PHB after alcoholysis, investigated by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) show the independence of crystallinity on molecular weight and a decrease in T_m with decreased molecular weight. Time dependence of mechanical properties of selected samples (mechanical ageing) reveals that mechanical properties change with time for degraded samples in a similar way as for the parent polymer.     

Use of enantioselective liquid chromatography for preparation of pure atenolol enantiomers

The study reported here shows a practicable preparation of pure atenolol enantiomers using enantioselective liquid chromatography. The successful separation of enantiomers of the final atenolol and the intermediate ester and the good peak shapes could not have been obtained without diethylamine as a component of the mobile phase. That makes difficult the recycling of the three-component mobile phase, an unavoidable step in simulated moving bed chromatography separation technology. The only suitable methodology for preparation of atenolol enantiomers proved to be synthesis from its N-benzyl-N-isopropyl precursor and the chiral stationary phase Chiralpak AD was found to be very convenient for preparative separation of these enantiomers. The enantiomeric purities and recovery of separated enantiomers of this N-benzyl-N-isopropyl precursor were very high, allowing high enantiomeric purities of the final products, ee's 99.3% for S- and 99.0% for R-atenolol. The chromatographic separation parameters, as well as solubility of racemate in the mobile phase, are good bases for the further examination of possible scale-up resolution of compound 6.     

Two thiosemicarbazones derived from salicylaldehyde: very specific hydrogen‐bonding interactions of the N—H...S=C type

The molecular structures of two salicylaldehyde thiosemicarbazone derivatives, namely salicylaldehyde 4‐phenylthiosemicarbazone, C₁₄H₁₃N₃OS, (I), and 4‐methoxysalicylaldehyde 4‐phenylthiosemicarbazone, C₁₅H₁₅N₃O₂S, (II), both of potential pharmacological interest, are found in the keto (thione) tautomeric form. The first compound represents a second triclinic polymorph of composition β‐C₁₄H₁₃N₃OS. Although both polymorphs crystallize in the same space group (P), the α‐polymorph [Seena, Kurup & Suresh (2008). J. Chem. Crystallogr. 38 , 93–96] differs from the β form in its unit‐cell volume at 293 K. The molecules in the crystal structures of (I) and (II) are linked into centrosymmetric R²₂(8) dimers by hydrogen bonds of the N—H...S=C type. These dimers are connected through π–π stacking and T‐shaped C—H...π interactions into three‐dimensional networks.     

A note on the reservoir routing problem

The reservoir routing problem has been recognized and managed for quite some time, but this paper presents a consistent mathematical approach by applying only the mass conservation principle (instead of various ‘ad hoc’ approaches). Application of the mass conservation principle facilitates the presentation of integral and differential formulations based on either the water volume or the water level of an arbitrarily-shaped reservoir. For the solution, new functions with a clear physical meaning are introduced. An error analysis is performed using a new approach based on spectral operators (traditionally, Richardson extrapolation has been used). It becomes evident that the integral formulations are more advantageous in terms of stability; however, they take more time to program and to calculate. The calculations in the examples are based on actual data from an artificial water reservoir (lake) Botonega in Croatia using the authors’ computer program that was created in the Mathcad environment.     

Single-frame multichannel blind deconvolution by nonnegative matrix factorization with sparseness constraints

Single-frame multichannel blind deconvolution is formulated by applying a bank of Gabor filters to a blurred image. The key observation is that spatially oriented Gabor filters produce sparse images and that a multichannel version of the observed image can be represented as a product of an unknown nonnegative sparse mixing vector and an unknown nonnegative source image. Therefore a blind-deconvolution problem is formulated as a nonnegative matrix factorization problem with a sparseness constraint. No a priori knowledge about the blurring kernel or the original image is required. The good experimental results demonstrate the viability of the proposed concept.