Formation of spiro ketolactones versus alkoxy radical fragmentation-promoted three-atom ring enlarged lactones from cyclic ketones

A dual pathway from readily available 2-allyl-2-carboethoxycycloalkanones 1 provides a new facile stereoselective synthesis either of functionalized spiro ketolactones 4 or of ring enlarged lactones 7 in one-step. Thus, iodination of 5-8-membered 2-allyl-2-carboethoxycycloalkanones 1a-d led, in excellent yields, to spiro ketolactones 4a-d, respectively, as single stereoisomers. On the other hand, iodination of 1a-d under alkoxy radical fragmentation conditions via incipient hemiketals produced the 8-, 9-, 10-, or 11-membered, three-atom ring enlarged, poly-functionalized lactones 7a-c as two stereoisomers and 8 as a single isomer.     

Reactions of 2‐amino‐4h‐1‐benzopyran‐4‐one with 4‐oxo‐4h‐1‐benzopyran‐3‐carbaldehydes

The title aldehyde 1 reacts smoothly with the enamine moiety of 2 ‐aminochromone 2 to produce hitherto unreported 3‐(2‐hydroxybenzoyl)‐5H‐1‐benzopyrano[2,3‐b]pyridin‐5‐one (azaxanthone) 5 . This reaction has been extended for the synthesis of bisazaxanthone 9.     

Viscosity and Diffusion Effects at the Boundary Surface of Viscous Fluid and Thermoelastic Diffusive Solid Medium

This paper concentrates on the wave motion at the interface of viscous compressible fluid half-space and homogeneous isotropic, generalized thermoelastic diffusive half-space. The wave solutions in both the fluid and thermoelastic diffusive half-spaces have been investigated; and the complex dispersion equation of leaky Rayleigh wave motion have been derived. The phase velocity and attenuation coefficient of leaky Rayleigh waves have been computed from the complex dispersion equation by using the Muller's method. The amplitudes of displacements, temperature change and concentration have been obtained. The effects of viscosity and diffusion on phase velocity and attenuation coefficient of leaky Rayleigh waves motion for different theories of thermoelastic diffusion have been depicted graphically. The magnitude of heat and mass diffusion flux vectors for different theories of thermoelastic diffusion have also been computed and represented graphically.     

A DFT+U study of the catalytic activity of lanthanum nickelate

A density functional theory + Hubbard U (DFT+U) method is implemented to investigate the catalytic activity of lanthanum nickelate (LaNiO₃) for oxygen reduction reaction. Comparison of the surface energies of different LaNiO₃ surfaces shows that {001} surface has the lowest surface energy and hence maximum stability. Two possible terminations of the {001} surface namely LaO and NiO₂ are considered to carry out all our DFT calculations. Calculation of bond lengths of the atoms near the surface and adsorption energies for the reaction intermediates revealed that LaO terminated {001} surface is unstable for the process of OOH adsorption and hence not preferred for the oxygen reduction reaction. However, NiO₂ terminated {001} surface shows excellent catalytic activity for adsorption of all the reaction intermediates and hence is a favourable surface for reactions to occur. Superiority of the NiO₂ terminated {001} surface as catalyst over the LaO terminated one, is also confirmed from the total and partial density of states of the surfaces in presence of the adsorbates, which also shows that the desorption rate of the reaction intermediates is low in case of LaO terminated {001} surface compared to the NiO₂ terminated one.     

On properties of <Emphasis Type="Italic">G</Emphasis>-expansive homeomorphisms

We show that LUB of the set of G-expansive constants for a G-expansive homeomorphism h on a compact metric G-space, G compact, is not a G-expansive constant for h. We obtain a result regarding projecting and lifting of G-expansive homeomorphisms having interesting applications. We also prove that the G-expansiveness is a dynamical property for homeomorphisms on compact metric G-spaces and study G-periodic points.     

Optomechanical coupling between two optical cavities: Cooling of a micro-mirror and parametric normal mode splitting

We propose a technique aimed at cooling a harmonically oscillating mirror mechanically coupled to another vibrating mirror to its quantum mechanical ground state. Our method involves optomechanical coupling between two optical cavities. We show that the cooling can be controlled by the mechanical coupling strength between the two movable mirrors, the phase difference between the mechanical modes of the two oscillating mirrors and the photon number in each cavity. We also show that both mechanical and optical cooling can be achieved by transferring energy from one cavity to the other. We also analyze the occurrence of normal-mode splitting (NMS). We find that a hybridization of the two oscillating mirrors with the fluctuations of the two driving optical fields occurs and leads to a splitting of the mechanical and optical fluctuation spectra.     

High-performance computing techniques for vortex method calculations

A fast vortex method has been developed by using a special-purpose computer, MDGRAPE-3. MDGRAPE-3, successor of MDGRAPE-2, has been applied to the same calculations (Sheel et al. in Comput. Fluids 36:1319–1326, 2007) and the improvement in speed was 1000 times faster when compared with the ordinary PC Xeon 5160 (3.0 GHz) for N = 10⁶. The simultaneous use of the fast multipole method, Pseudo-particle multipole method with the special-purpose computers gives further acceleration of vortex method calculations. In addition, performances and efficiency have been investigated carefully. Further possibility has been investigated carefully and compared the present result with the previous one.     

Biomedical and Antioxidant Potentialities in Chilli: Perspectives and Way Forward

Worldwide, since ages and nowadays, traditional medicine is well known, owing to its biodiversity, which immensely contributed to the advancement and development of complementary and alternative medicines. There is a wide range of spices, herbs, and trees known for their medicinal uses. Chilli peppers, a vegetable cum spice crop, are bestowed with natural bioactive compounds, flavonoids, capsaicinoids, phytochemicals, phytonutrients, and pharmacologically active compounds with potential health benefits. Such compounds manifest their functionality over solo-treatment by operating in synergy and consortium. Co-action of these compounds and nutrients make them potentially effective against coagulation, obesity, diabetes, inflammation, dreadful diseases, such as cancer, and microbial diseases, alongside having good anti-oxidants with scavenging ability to free radicals and oxygen. In recent times, capsaicinoids especially capsaicin can ameliorate important viral diseases, such as SARS-CoV-2. In addition, capsaicin provides an ability to chilli peppers to ramify as topical agents in pain-relief and also benefitting man as a potential effective anesthetic agent. Such phytochemicals involved not only make them useful and a much economical substitute to wonder/artificial drugs but can be exploited as obscene drugs for the production of novel stuffs. The responsibility of the TRPV1 receptor in association with capsaicin in mitigating chronic diseases has also been justified in this study. Nonetheless, medicinal studies pertaining to consumption of chilli peppers are limited and demand confirmation of the findings from animal studies. In this artifact, an effort has been made to address in an accessible format the nutritional and biomedical perspectives of chilli pepper, which could precisely upgrade and enrich our pharmaceutical industries towards human well-being.     

Working group report: Astroparticle and neutrino physics

The working group on astroparticle and neutrino physics at WHEPP-9 covered a wide range of topics. The main topics were neutrino physics at INO, neutrino astronomy and recent constraints on dark energy coming from cosmological observations of large scale structure and CMB anisotropy.