Reagents for Selective Fluoromethylation: A Challenge in Organofluorine Chemistry

The introduction of a monofluoromethyl moiety has undoubtedly become a very important area of research in recent years. Owing to the beneficial properties of organofluorine compounds, such as their metabolic stability, the incorporation of the CH₂F group as a bioisosteric substitute for various functional groups is an attractive strategy for the discovery of new pharmaceuticals. Furthermore, the monofluoromethyl unit is also widely used in agrochemistry, in pharmaceutical chemistry, and in fine chemicals. The problems associated with climate change and the growing need for environmentally friendly industrial processes mean that alternatives to the frequently used CFC and HFBC fluoromethylating agents (CH₂FCl and CH₂FBr) are urgently needed and also required by the Montreal Protocol. This has recently prompted many researchers to develop alternative fluoromethylation agents. This Minireview summarizes both the classical and new generation of fluoromethylating agents. Reagents that act via electrophilic, nucleophilic, and radical pathways are discussed, in addition to their precursors.     

Comparison of a Rapid Light-Induced and Forced Test to Study the Oxidative Stability of White Wines

The oxidation processes of white wines can occur during storage and commercialization due to several factors, and these can negatively affect the color, aroma, and quality of the wine. Wineries should have faster and simpler methods that provide valuable information on oxidation stability of wines and allow fast decision-making procedures, able to trigger suitable technological interventions. Using a portable prototype instrument for light irradiations at different wavelengths and times was considered and evaluated on sensorial, spectrophotometric, and colorimetric parameters of white wines. The sensorial analysis revealed that white and light blue were the most significant, after only 1 h of irradiation. The experimental results showed that hydrogen peroxide could enhance the effect of light treatment, allowing a contemporary evaluation of the oxidation stability of wine against light and chemical stresses. As expected, a good correlation (R² > 0.89) between optical density at 420 nm and b* parameter was highlighted. The synergic effect of light and H₂O₂ was also studied on the hydrolyzable and condensed tannins’ additions to white wine. The proposed methodology could be used to evaluate the oxidative stability of white wines, but also to evaluate the effect of some oenological adjuvants on wine stability.     

Individual strings of conducting carbon cones and discs in a polymer matrix: Electric field‐induced alignment and their use as a strain sensor

We demonstrate micromechanical strain sensors with integrated readout based on carbon nanocones and discs (CNCs) which are aligned into a string‐like formation using an alternating electric field and studied by AC impedance spectroscopy and electromechanical methods. The CNC particles are first dispersed into a polymer matrix with a particle fraction of 0.1 vol %. This value is well below the percolation threshold (～ 2 vol %), which suppresses particle aggregation and facilitates transparency allowing the use of an UV‐curable polymer. Alignment was carried out with a 1 kHz, 4 kV/cm electric field and is a consequence of dielectrophoretic effect. It develops in minutes and makes the initially insulating, nonaligned material conductive. This is followed by UV curing of the polymer matrix, which renders a solid state device. The stretching of the aligned strings in the cured polymer leads to a reversible piezoresistive effect, and a gauge factor of about 50 is observed. This is in a sharp contrast to CNC films with particle fraction above percolation threshold (13 vol %), which are conductive but not sensitive to stretching. The strings are Ohmic in nature and moreover show higher DC conductivity (22–500 S/m) compared to identically prepared carbon black strings (1–22 S/m). © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys, 2011     

Metric entropy of convex hulls in type spaces--The critical case

Given a precompact subset of a type Banach space , where , we prove that for every and all

holds, where is the absolutely convex hull of and denotes the dyadic entropy number. With this inequality we show in particular that for given and with for all the inequality holds true for all . We also prove that this estimate is asymptotically optimal whenever has no better type than . For this answers a question raised by Carl, Kyrezi, and Pajor which has been solved up to now only for the Hilbert space case by F. Gao.

     

A pair of stream functions for three-dimensional vortex flows

Introducing a vector potential, that is based on a pair of stream functions, and a velocity potential, antisymmetric equations for the stream functions are derived with the help of a variational principle. It is found that the equations are in a suitable form to investigate flows with helical symmetry, and, for example, to connect upstream axisymmetric flows with downstream helical flows. The special case of a transition from an upstream solid-body vortex to a downstream helical flow is investigated in detail. Furthermore, the stream-function equations are particularly useful to investigate general small-amplitude inertia waves on vortex flows. Time-dependent helical flows that are time-independent in a suitably rotating frame of reference can also be discussed with the proposed method.     

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Constraints on the asymptotic behaviour of total cross sections

We derive constraints on the asymptotic behaviour of total cross sections which follow from dispersion relations and measured real parts of the forward scattering amplitudes. For πN and pp scattering, these constraints are calculated using recent results from FNAL and Serpukhov. The relation to other methods is discussed.     

On the algebra of test functions for field operators

It is shown that every continuous linear functional on the field algebra can be defined by a vector in the Hilbert space of some representation of the algebra. The functionals which can be written as a difference of positive ones are characterized. By an example it is shown that a positive functional on a subalgebra does not always have an extension to a positive functional on the whole algebra.