An Education in Robustness

A case study is presented of the application of robustness analysis to the choice of examination subjects to be made by a 14-year-old girl. The analysis is conducted in terms of the desirable future career options which may be preserved by different combinations of subjects, and also of the balance with topics selected for their intrinsic interest. The approach, which employs very limited technical apparatus, is justified on a number of grounds-in particular, the crucial importance of uncertainty, and the need for understanding and acceptance by a "client" very unlike the corporate manager. Some tentative conclusions are reached on the extension of such methods to other cases of decision-makers with little, if any, resources to control except their own lives.     

Intermolecular potential energy surface and spectra of He-HCl with generalization to other rare gas-hydrogen halide complexes

A two-dimensional (rigid monomer) intermolecular potential energy surface (PES) of the He-HCl complex has been obtained from ab initio calculations utilizing the symmetry-adapted perturbation theory (SAPT) and an spdfg basis set including midbond functions. The bond length in HCl was chosen to be equal to the expectation value in the ground vibrational state of isolated HCl. The rigid-monomer potential should be a very good approximation to the complete (three-dimensional) potential for H-Cl distances corresponding to the lowest vibrational levels of the monomer since the He-HCl interaction energy was found to be only weakly dependent on the HCl bond length in this region, at least as compared to systems such as Ar-HF. The calculated points were fitted using an analytic function with ab initio computed asymptotic coefficients. As expected, the complex is loosely bound, with the dispersion energy providing the majority of the attraction. Our SAPT PES agrees with the semiempirical PES of Willey et al. [J. Chem. Phys. 96, 898 (1992)], in finding that, atypically for rare gas-hydrogen halide complexes including the lighter halide atoms, the global minimum is on the Cl side (with intermonomer separation 3.35 A and depth of 32.8 cm(-1)), rather than on the H side, where there is only a local minimum (3.85 A, 30.8 cm(-1)). The ordering of the minima was confirmed by single-point calculations in larger basis sets and complete basis set extrapolations, and also using higher levels of theory. We show that the opposite findings in the recent calculations of Zhang and Shi [J. Mol. Struct: THEOCHEM 589, 89 (2002)] are due to the lack of midbond functions in their basis set. Despite the closeness in depth of the two linear minima, the existence of a relatively high barrier between them invalidates the assumption of isotropy, a feature of some literature potentials. The trends concerning the locations of minima within the family of rare gas-hydrogen halide complexes are rationalized in terms of the physical components of the intermolecular forces and related to monomer properties. The accuracy of the SAPT PES was tested by performing calculations of rovibrational levels. The transition frequencies obtained were found to be in excellent agreement (to within 0.02 cm(-1)) with the measurements of Lovejoy and Nesbitt [J. Chem. Phys. 93, 5387 (1990)]. The SAPT PES predicts a dissociation energy for the complex of 7.74 cm(-1) which is probably more accurate than the experimental value of 10.1+/-1.2 cm(-1). Our analysis of the ground-state rovibrational wave function shows that the He-HCl configuration is favored over the He-ClH configuration despite the ordering of minima. This is due to the greater volume of the well in the former case. We have also determined positions and widths of three low-lying resonance states through scattering calculations. These predictions are expected to be more accurate than values derived from experiment.     

Teaching Operational Research Technique

Good technique, i.e. competence in carrying out operational research, is as vital for the practitioner to acquire as competence in the traditional ‘techniques’. It is suggested that universities should teach students how to conduct simple projects prior to alerting them to more sophisticated methodological issues.As an aid to this task, the traditional five or six parts of an operational research project are broken down and extended into 39 steps, and regrouped into three phases. Also, five skills are identified as being conceptually essential to "good" operational research, which students can develop through tackling suitable case studies.     

Porous nanocomposites of zirconium dioxide and silicate

Highly porous nanocomposites of zirconium dioxide and silicate are synthesised in an aqueous system from an inorganic salt of zirconium; the nanacomposites, with tailorable pore structures, exhibit superior performance as catalyst supports.     

Synthesis and characterization of chitosan-graft-polycaprolactone copolymers

The graft copolymers of chitosan with polycaprolactone (PCL) were prepared through a protection-graft-deprotection route using phthaloylchitosan as intermediate. PCL macromonomers terminated with isocyanate groups reacted with hydroxyl groups of phthaloyl-protected chitosan regioselectively, and then phthaloyl groups were deprotected to give the free amino groups. The graft reaction was carried out in homogeneous system and yielded copolymers with high grafting content due to solubilization. FTIR, NMR and XRD were detected to characterize the resultant chitosan-graft-PCL copolymers.     

Palladium salicylaldimine complexes containing boronate esters

Reactions of salicylaldehydes with boronate ester derivatives of aniline have been examined. Addition of these Schiff base ligands to palladium acetate or Na₂PdCl₄ afforded novel boron-containing trans-bis(N-arylsalicylaldiminato) palladium complexes.Condensation of salicylaldehyde (2-HOC₆H₄C(O)H) with H₂NC₆H₄Bpin (pin=1,2-O₂C₂Me₄) afforded the boron-containing Schiff bases, 2-HOC₆H₄C(H)=NC₆H₄Bpin (1–3a). Similar reactivity with 2-hydroxy-5-nitrobenzaldehyde and 2-hydroxy-1-naphthaldehyde gave the corresponding Schiff bases (1-3b) and (1-3c), respectively. Reaction of Schiff bases (2) and (3) with palladium acetate or Na₂PdCl₄ afforded complexes of the type PdL₂ (4,5), where L=deprotonated Schiff base. The molecular structure of the nitro-salicylaldehyde 4-Bpin palladium complex (5b) was characterized by an X-ray diffraction study. All new palladium compounds have been characterized fully and tested for their antifungal activity against Aspergillus niger and Aspergillus flavus.     

Co-C bond dissociation energy and reaction volume change of 2',5'-dideoxyadenosylcobalamin studied by laser-induced time-resolved photoacoustic calorimetry

Time resolved photoacoustic calorimetry (PAC) was applied to a study of the photolysis of a coenzyme B(12) analog 2',5'-dideoxyadenosylcobalamin, which lacks an -OH group at the 2' position of ribofuranose ring. In aqueous solution, we report for the first time the quantum yield Phi(d) (0.25+/-0.02), Co-C bond dissociation energy (BDE; 31.8+/-2.5 kcal mol(-1)) and reaction volume change deltaV(R) (6.5+/-0.5 ml mol(-1)) due to conformation changes of the corrin ring and its side chains accompanying the cleavage of the Co-C bond. These values for the analog are very similar to those for the natural cofactor. Based our results and previous studies, a possible explanation for the similarity in their structure and properties versus the large difference in their enzymatic activity is discussed.     

Rapid separation of phenylthiohydantoin amino acids: ambient pressure ion-mobility mass spectrometry (IMMS)

An electrospray ionization (ESI) ambient pressure ion-mobility spectrometer (APIMS) interfaced to an orthogonal reflector time-of-flight mass spectrometer (TOFMS) was evaluated for the first time as a detector for the identification of phenylthiohydantoin (PTH)-derivatized amino acids, the final products in the Edman sequencing process of peptides and proteins. The drift and flight times of the twenty common PTH amino acids were characterized by a well-defined 2-D mobility/mass spectral pattern. The combination of mobility/mass modes of analysis gave rise to a unique trend-line formation for the series of PTH amino acids. In addition, each PTH amino acid had a unique reduced mobility constant K(o), thus enabling the differentiation of all the amino acid derivatives including the PTH-leucine and PTH-isoleucine isomers. More importantly it was shown that it was possible to resolve a complete reference mixture of PTH amino acids in a single experimental run in less than 1 min. Detection limits for the PTH amino acids were found to range from 1.04 to 3.52 ng; indicating that the limits of detection were less than 17.0 pmol for all of the PTH amino acids.     

DNA-templated self-assembly of protein and nanoparticle linear arrays

Self-assembling DNA tiling lattices represent a versatile system for nanoscale construction. Self-assembled DNA arrays provide an excellent template for spatially positioning other molecules with increased relative precision and programmability. Here we report an experiment using a linear array of DNA triple crossover tiles to controllably template the self-assembly of single-layer or double-layer linear arrays of streptavidin molecules and streptavidin-conjugated nanogold particles through biotin-streptavidin interaction. The organization of streptavidin and its conjugated gold nanoparticles into periodic arrays was visualized by atomic force microscopy and scanning electron microscopy.     

Synthesis,crystal structure and luminescent property of a novel H<Subscript>2</Subscript>O-bridged cobalt(II) polymer with one-dimensional chain structure

The coordination compound [Co(C₁₀H₇COO)₂(H₂O)₃]_2n · 4nH₂O was prepared by the reaction of 1-naphthoic acid and cobalt(II) acetate tetrahydrate in basic solution, and was fully characterized by X-ray diffraction, element analysis, FTIR, TG-DTA and luminescent spectra. In the crystal the six-coordinated Co(II) centers are linked into one-dimensional zigzag chains by water molecules, which are further assembled into a two-dimensional network through weak inter-chain C–H···π interactions. The solid complex exhibits favorable fluorescent properties similar to those of free ligand at room temperature, which can be assigned to the intraligand electronic transfer.