Ammonium chloride promoted Ugi four-component, five-center reaction of alpha-substituted alpha-isocyano acetic acid: a strong solvent effect

[reaction: see text] Conditions have been developed for the multicomponent synthesis of di- and tetrapeptide (7) based on the unique reactivity of alpha-isocyano acetic acid (4 and its alpha-substituted derivatives) by an Ugi four-component, five-center reaction. Simply mixing 4, a carbonyl compound (aldehyde or ketone, 8), and a secondary amine (9) (ratio: 1:1:2) in toluene in the presence of 1.5 equiv of ammonium chloride afforded the desired product in good to excellent yield as a mixture of two diastereomers.     

Hydrogen production on iron–magnesium oxide in the high-temperature water-gas shift reaction

The effect of the structure of the achiral primary amine additive on the enantioselective heterogeneous catalytic hydrogenation of (E)-2-methyl-2-butenoic acid over cinchonidine modified Pd/Al₂O₃ was studied. It was found that a variety of amines increase the enantioselectivity, which was always accompanied by decrease in the initial rate of the hydrogenations. Based on these results, the participation of the amine additive in the formation of the intermediate complex responsible for enantioselection was suggested. A decrease in the reaction temperature resulted in further increase in the optical purity of the product up to 67%, the highest value reported in the hydrogenation of unsaturated aliphatic acids in this heterogeneous catalytic system so far.     

Effect on alloying at the Fe/Ni(001) interfaces on the interlayer exchange coupling

We investigate the stability of various ordered FeNi alloys at the interfaces of Fe/Ni superlattices by using ab initio density functional calculation. We consider an Fe_0.5Ni_0.5 ordered alloy of one or two monolayers thick at different positions beyond the interface and the possibility of an interdiffusion of a complete monolayer of Ni(Fe) in Fe(Ni) slab. An interfacial atomic layer of Fe_0.5Ni_0.5 exchanged with its adjacent Ni monolayers, leading to a buffer zone of Ni₃Fe composition is found to be the most stable structural configuration. For this atomic arrangement we investigate the magnetic profile and the resulting interlayer exchange coupling between the Ni slabs for Fe spacer thickness of 0 to 4 monolayers.     

New Bacteriocin from Bacillus clausii StrainGM17: Purification, Characterization, and Biological Activity

A bacteriocin-producing strain (9,000 AU/ml) was isolated from the rhizosphere of Algerian healthy plants Ononis angustissima Lam. and identified as Bacillus clausii strain GM17. The bacteriocin, called Bac-GM17, was purified from the culture supernatant after heat treatment, ammonium sulfate precipitation, Sephadex G-50 chromatography and Mono Q fast-performance liquid chromatography (FPLC). Based on matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization-time of flight mass spectrometry analysis, the purified Bac-GM17 is a monomer protein with a molecular mass of 5,158.11 Da. The N-terminal sequencing allowed for the straightforward identification of its first 20 residues, which were of pure bacteriocin. It also revealed that this bacteriocin contained a unique sequence, namely DWTCSKWSCLVCDDCSVELT, which suggests the identification of a novel compound. Bac-GM17 was extremely heat stable (20 min at 120 °C) and was stable within the pH range (3–9). It was found to be resistant to the proteolytic action of trypsin, pepsin, papain, pronase E, and proteinase K. It was also noted to display a bactericidal mode of action against Agrobacterium tumefaciens C58 and a fungistatic mode of action against Candida tropicalis R2 CIP203.     

Ab-initio study of the coadsorption of Li and H on Pt(001), Pt(110) and Pt(111) surfaces

The coadsorption of Li and H atoms on Pt(001), Pt(110) and Pt(111) surfaces is studied using density functional theory with generalised gradient approximation. In all calculations Li, H and the two topmost layers of the metal were allowed to relax. At coverage of 0.25 mono-layer in a p(2×2) unit cell, lithium adsorption at the hollow site for the three surfaces is favoured over top and bridge sites. The most favoured adsorption sites for H atom on the Pt(001) and Pt(110) surfaces are the top and bridge sites, while on Pt(111) surface the fcc site appears to be slightly favoured over the hcp site. The coadsorption of Li and atomic hydrogen shows that the interaction between the two adsorbates is stabilising when they are far from each other. The analysis of Li, H and Pt local density of states shows that Li strongly interacts with the Pt surfaces.     

Effects of blowing through a porous strip in a turbulent channel flow

An experimental investigation is performed on a fully developed turbulent channel flow with local injection through a porous strip. The Reynolds number based on the channel half-width was set to 5000. In addition to the no blowing case, measurements are made for three different blowing rates σ = 0.22, 0.36 and 0.58 (where σ is the ratio of momentum flux gain due to the blowing and momentum flux of the incoming channel flow). Measurements carried out with hot-wire anemometry reveal that injection strongly affects both the velocity profiles and the turbulence characteristics. The injection decreases the skin friction coefficient and increases all the Reynolds stresses downstream the blowing strip. The turbulence structure and the bursting phenomena were examined using space-time correlations measurements and conditional analysis. It is found that the injection increases the frequency of occurrence of the bursts.     

Magnetic reconstructions at the surface of the B2 FeV alloy

We present an ab initio study of the magnetic surface reconstructions of the B2 FeV alloy using a self-consistent tight-binding linearized muffin tin orbital method developed in the atomic spheres approximation. For (001) and (111), the surface reconstruction stabilizes configurations unstable in the bulk alloy. When Fe is at the (001) surface, a c(2×2) in-plane antiferromagnetic order is found to be the ground state with magnetic moments of -2.32 and 2.27. A p(1×1) ↓ ferromagnetic order is displayed in case of V toplayer with a magnetic moment of -1.83. At the (111) surface, we obtain for Fe toplayer two solutions p(1×1)↑ and p(2×1). The configuration p(1×1)↑ is found to be the ground state with a magnetic moment per atom of 2.34. For V toplayer, only the p(1×1) ↓ solution is obtained with a moment of -0.84. In all cases, the Fe-V coupling is always antiparallel like in the bulk. Our results are discussed and compared to experiments. Received 11 August 2000 and Received in final form 8 June 2001     

Implication of the Electron Exchange-Correlation on Fully Nonlinear Quantum Dust Ion-Acoustic Solitons

We examine the effect of the electron exchange-correlation on weak and arbitrary amplitude quantum dust ion-acoustic(QDIA) solitons.The reduced quantum hydrodynamic(QHD) model is used.Carrying out a fully nonlinear analysis,it is found that the effect of the exchange-correlation on the main quantities for solitary-wave propagation can be quite important.In particular,it may be noted that the arbitrary amplitude QDIA soliton experiences a spreading as the phenomenon of exchange-correlation becomes effective.Furthermore,our results show that the exchange-correlation effects inhibit the formation of the flat-bottomed solitons and do not favor their emergence.It turns out that exchangecorrelation and quantum diffraction may act concurrently to set up the conditions for the existence of the QDIA solitary waves.Our results complement and provide new insight into our previously published work on this problem.     

Fuzzy logic control of electrodynamic levitation devices coupled to dynamic finite volume method analysis

Electrodynamic levitation devices, which utilizing eddy currents induced in the levitated item to produce the repulsive force, are being involved in many engineering applications due to its fast response. This kind of repulsion is particularly used in electromagnetic launcher, electromagnetic brake and other applications. To analyze and improve the dynamic behavior and performances of such devices, the conventional way is using the finite element method (FEM), due to its ability of using adaptive mesh to handle complex geometries. Nevertheless, it has a serious limitation in efficiency for large number of variables which is reflected by the high cost in terms of computational properties. During the past few years, the finite volume method FVM formulations have gained attention inside the electromagnetic community. The method has been proved its effectiveness in the solution of different kinds of problems, such as in magnetostatic field computation and eddy current nondestructive testing. The FVM method is particularly attractive thanks to its small required storage memory and reduced CPU time. In this paper an FVM model is developed to analyze the dynamic characteristic of the motion of the electrodynamic levitation device TEAM Workshop Problem 28. The dynamic characteristic of the motion is obtained by solving the electromagnetic equation coupled to the mechanical one. The repulsive force applied to the levitated plate of TEAM Workshop Problem 28, is computed by the interaction between eddy current induced in the plate and the magnetic flux density. A comparison between experimental and numerical results is carried out to show the efficiency of the developed model. What’s more, based on the developed FVM model, a fuzzy logic controller FLC is designed and implemented to control the position of the levitated item.