A computational study into the reactivity of epichlorohydrin and epibromohydrin under basic conditions in the gas phase and solution

Ab initio molecular orbital calculations were carried out on epibromohydrin (EBH) and epichlorohydrin (ECH) in an attempt to elucidate their reactivity with respect to a hard nucleophile, hydroxide. These systems were modeled in both the gas phase and a polar solvent under basic conditions. In the gas phase, it was determined that a direct displacement mechanism (nucleophilic attack at the C1 position) was operative for EBH, while an indirect pathway (nucleophilic attack at the C3 position and subsequent intramolecular displacement) was followed for ECH. In an acetone solution, only the indirect displacement mechanism was found to occur. An electrostatic argument is advanced to account for this behavior in polar solution. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Magnetic calorimeter for registration of small energy release

A scheme of magnetic calorimeter for registration of rare events characterized by small energy release (cosmic rays, WIMPs, solitary X-ray quanta) is proposed. The calorimeter is brought to operation by adiabatic demagnetization, and its magnetic response is measured by a quantum interferometer (SQUID, A. Barone and G. Paterno, Physics and applications of Josephson Effect). Special consideration is given to the specific features of calorimeter operation in the ferromagnetic transition region. The trigger registration of ultrasmall energy release by a ferromagnetic system in the metastable state is described.     

Electrochemical Properties of Poly-3-methylthiophene Films: A Cyclic Voltammetry and Chronoamperometry Study

The charge transfer in poly-3-methylthiophene films in 0.05–0.5 M LiClO₄ solutions in acetonitrile is studied by cyclic voltammetry and chronoamperometry. An analysis of data on the current relaxation following a film perturbation by a low-voltage pulse reveals two constituents of the current relaxation, both exponentially dependent on time. Dependence of parameters of the empirical equation derived for the current relaxation on experimental variables is studied.     

Vapour and plasma ignition thresholds for visible pulsed-laser ablation of metallic targets

The coupling of visible nanosecond laser pulses to metallic targets irradiated in vacuum is studied. The expressions of the vapour and plasma ignition times are obtained. Two cases for vapour breakdown in the plasma ignition process are considered. The first case is that 40 generations of new electrons are born in vapour generation time before plasma formation as assumed in the literature. The second case is that 10 generations of new electrons are born in vapour generation time. Molybdenum (Mo), niobium (Nb) and aluminium (Al) targets are considered for illustrations of our results. The expression of the plasma ignition time for the Al target is substantially different from that reported in the literature. The vapour and plasma ignition threshold laser intensities are calculated and compared with those reported in the literature. Reasons for disagreement are discussed. The plasma ignition threshold estimated in the second case is noted to be in good agreement with the reported experimental result.     

Structural conversions of rhodamines in solution

A study has been made of the acidic ionization, structural conversions, and prototropic tautomerism of rhodamine chromogens in methanol and dimethyl sulfoxide, using IR, ¹³ C NMR, and electronic spectroscopy. The lactone structure has been established for the colorless form of rhodamines in DMSO. For rhodamine B in mixtures of water with DMSO, the lactone/zwitterion ratio has been estimated.V. I. Vernadskii Institute of Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow 117975. Khar'kov State University, Khar'kov 310077. Translated from Izvestiya Akademii Nauk, Seriya Khimicheskaya, No. 3, pp. 512–521, March, 1992.     

The exponential characteristic of the Volterra integral operator with kernel depending on 2<Emphasis Type="Italic">N</Emphasis> variables

Exponential growth is estimated for integral operators with continuous periodic kernels of exponential type. The result is applied to the boundary-value problem for a general hyperbolic differential equation having periodic coefficients with Goursat boundary conditions. It is proved that the exponential characteristic for such a boundary-value problem has canonical form. __________ Translated from Sovremennaya Matematika i Ee Prilozheniya (Contemporary Mathematics and Its Applications), Vol. 38, Suzdal Conference-2004, Part 3, 2006.     

g-Natural Contact Metrics on Unit Tangent Sphere Bundles

We construct a three-parameter family of contact metric structures on the unit tangent sphere bundle T ₁ M of a Riemannian manifold M and we study some of their special properties related to the Levi-Civita connection. More precisely, we give the necessary and sufficient conditions for a constructed contact metric structure to be K-contact, Sasakian, to satisfy some variational conditions or to define a strongly pseudo-convex CR-structure. The obtained results generalize classical theorems on the standard contact metric structure of T ₁ M.     

An invariance of geometric mean with respect to Lagrangian means

The invariance of the geometric mean G with respect to the Lagrangian mean-type mapping (Lf,Lg), i.e. the equation G○(Lf,Lg)=G, is considered. We show that the functions f and g must be of high class regularity. This fact allows to reduce the problem to a differential equation and determine the second derivatives of the generators f and g.