Partial Crossed Products and Goldie Rings

In this paper we consider the transfer of the property of being a left Goldie ring between a ring A and its partial crossed product A*_α G by a twisted partial action α of a group G on A.     

Hydrorepellent finishing of cotton fabrics by chemically modified TEOS based nanosol

Hydrorepellency was conferred to cotton fabrics by an hybrid organic–inorganic finishing via sol–gel. The nanosol was prepared by co-hydrolysis and condensation of tetraethoxysilane (TEOS) and 1H,1H,2H,2H–fluorooctyltriethoxysilane (FOS), or hexadecyltrimethoxysilane (C₁₆), as precursors in weakly acid medium. The application on cotton was carried out by padding with various impregnation times, followed by drying and thermal treatment, varying the FOS add-on from 5 till 30 % on fabric weight or C₁₆ add-on from 5 to 10 %. Treated samples were tested in terms of contact angles, drop absorption times, washing fastness and characterized by SEM, XPS and FTIR-ATR analyses. In the case of FOS modified nanosol applied with an impregnation time of 24 h or C₁₆ modified nanosol, water contact angles values very close or even higher than 150° were measured, typical of a superhydrophobic surface. The application of the proposed sol–gel process yielded also a satisfactory treatment fastness to domestic washing, in particular for FOS modified nanosol.     

Aqueous Dispersions of Graphene from Electrochemically Exfoliated Graphite

A facile and environmentally friendly synthetic strategy for the production of stable and easily processable dispersions of graphene in water is presented. This strategy represents an alternative to classical chemical exfoliation methods (for example the Hummers method) that are more complex, harmful, and dangerous. The process is based on the electrochemical exfoliation of graphite and includes three simple steps: 1) the anodic exfoliation of graphite in (NH₄)₂SO₄, 2) sonication to separate the oxidized graphene sheets, and 3) reduction of oxidized graphene to graphene. The procedure makes it possible to convert around 30 wt % of the initial graphite into graphene with short processing times and high yields. The graphene sheets are well dispersed in water, have a carbon/oxygen atomic ratio of 11.7, a lateral size of about 0.5–1 μm, and contain only a few graphene layers, most of which are bilayer sheets. The processability of this type of aqueous dispersion has been demonstrated in the fabrication of macroscopic graphene structures, such as graphene aerogels and graphene films, which have been successfully employed as absorbents or as electrodes in supercapacitors, respectively.     

Locating counterions in guanosine quadruplexes: a contrast-variation neutron diffraction experiment in condensed hexagonal phase

Guanosine, one of the primary components of nucleic acids, self-associates in water to form G-quadruplexes, four-stranded helicoidal aggregates, made by stacked planar tetramers, consisting of four planar guanine molecules. Essential for the stability of these supramolecular aggregates is the presence of monovalent cations. As G-quadruplexes show a lyotropic polymorphism, neutron diffraction, in combination with the H2O/D2O contrast variation technique, has been applied to study the cation structural features of quadruplexes in hexagonal phase at different hydrations and counterion concentrations. The guanosine 5'-monophosphate, dipotassium salt, was considered and G-quadruplexes in hexagonal phase were prepared in the different experimental conditions (contrast, hydration and KCl solution concentration) by using the osmotic stress technique. The calculated scattering length density distribution maps show that counterions fill the helix inner cavity and that atmospheric cations are bound to a second site, close to the external phosphate groups. The site occupancy turned out to be very high: we found on the inner site 0.87 K ions per tetramer in G-quadruplexes prepared in pure water and 0.97 K ions per tetramer in G-quadruplexes prepared in KCl 0.5 M, while in all cases 6 ions per unit cell were detected to occupy the outer sites, partially neutralizing the two formal negative charges per phosphate group. The very large K ions concentration difference between the binding sites and the bulk solution demonstrates that counterions are structurally involved in the formation and in the stabilization of the helices.     

Entropie topologique microcanonique

Summary Our purpose is to extend the previous work of O. Lanford on microcanonical variational principle [3] to a ^v action on a compact set satisfying expansivness and specification.     

Regioselective enzymatic acylation of methyl shikimate. Influence of acyl chain length and solvent polarity on enzyme specificity

Candida antarctica lipase A (CAL-A) selectively catalyzes the acylation at the secondary C-4 hydroxyl group of methyl shikimate (2), which possesses three secondary hydroxyl groups, the C-3 allylic one being chemically more reactive. The effect both of the acyl group of the acylating agents and of the solvent polarity has been studied. The selectivity of CAL-A is almost complete with acyl donors that possess short chains. However, when acyl donors have longer chains, better results are obtained by C. antarctica lipase B (CAL-B).     

Ab initio vibrational spectra and dielectric properties of carbonates: magnesite, calcite and dolomite

The equilibrium geometry, the Raman and IR vibrational spectra at the Γ point, TO–LO splitting, IR intensities, Born and dielectric tensors of magnesite MgCO₃, dolomite MgCa(CO₃)₂ and calcite CaCO₃ have been calculated with the periodic ab initio program CRYSTAL, by using an all-electron gaussian type basis set and the B3LYP hamiltonian. LO (longitudinal-optical) modes are computed by correcting the dynamical matrix through Born charges and high frequency dielectric tensors obtained from well localized Wannier functions and a saw-tooth computational scheme. The mean absolute difference between calculated and experimental frequencies (IR TO and LO and RAMAN) is as small as 6.9 cm⁻¹ for magnesite, 7.7 cm⁻¹ for dolomite and 8.5 cm⁻¹ for calcite. Calculated IR intensities are in semiquantitative agreement with experiment. The modes of the three compounds are compared through graphical animation available on the CRYSTAL web-site.