New ferroelectric and antiferroelectric liquid crystalline materials containing differing numbers of lactate units

A new series of chiral liquid crystalline materials having the same rigid core containing a keto group, and various numbers of ( S )-lactate groups in the chiral segment, has been synthesized and studied. All the compounds contain a branched terminal alkyl chain derived from ( S )-2-methylbutanol. The influence of the number of lactate units on mesogenic behaviour has been studied. All the compounds show the paraelectric SmA phase and the ferroelectric SmC * phase over rather wide temperature ranges. The antiferroelectric SmC * A phase was observed for the compound possessing two lactate groups.     

Acoustooptic cells with nonuniform length of light-sound interaction

Diffraction of light by acoustic waves that are generated in the acoustooptic cells of piezoelectric transducers with complex geometry is studied. The diffraction by acoustic beams with triangular, quadrangular (rhombic), hexagonal, etc., cross sections, when the lengths of light-sound interaction in the cross-sectional area of the light beam are different, is considered in the plane wave approximation. The difference in the length of interaction affects the instrument function of acoustooptic devices and provides the suppression of the side lobes in their transmission function. The advantages of using cells with complex-geometry transducers in tunable acoustooptic filters that are incorporated into fiber-optic communication lines with wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) are discussed.     

Evidence of shear-dependent boundary slip in newtonian liquids

The European Physical Journal E - The flow of Newtonian fluids was studied by directly measuring the hydrodynamic drainage force acting on a sphere approaching a flat surface. Our force...     

Determination of Ascorbic Acid by Electrocatalytic Response of an Electrode Coated with Polyvinylpyridine Film and Palladium-Plated

A procedure was developed for analysis of ascorbic acid with a carbon glass electrode coated with a palladium-modified poly(2-vinylpyridine) film.     

Nonlinear Diffusion Processes

We study elliptic systems of strongly nonlinear first-order differential equations in complex form on the plane. For such systems we develop the theory of Hilbert boundary value problems which is very much similar to the well-known theory for a holomorphic vector. Systems of nonlinear elliptic equations describe problems of interaction of several nonlinear stationary processes in the diffusive and convective mass and heat transport by hydrodynamic fluid flows.     

Eigenvalues of the antiplane-shear crack problem for a power-law material

This paper discusses the problem of finding the eigenvalue spectrum in determining the stress and strain fields at the tip of an antiplane-shear crack in a power-law material. It is shown that the perturbation method provides an analytical dependence of the eigenvalue on the material nonlinearity parameter and the eigenvalue of the linear problem. Thus, it is possible to find the entire spectrum of eigenvalues and not only the eigenvalue of the Hutchinson-Rice-Rosengren problem. __________ Translated from Prikladnaya Mekhanika i Tekhnicheskaya Fizika, Vol. 49, No. 1, pp. 173–180, January–February, 2008.     

Spectroscopic studies of biologically active organotin(IV) derivatives of 2-[N-(2,4,6-tribromophenylamido]propanoic acid

Herein we describe the synthesis and characterization of compounds having the formulae R₂SnL₂ and R₃SnL, where R = Me, n-Bu, Ph and n-Oct and L = 2-[N-(2,4,6-tribromophenylamido]propanoic acid. All the complexes have been characterized by various spectroscopic methods (IR and ¹H, ¹³C, ¹¹⁹Sn NMR), elemental analysis, mass spectrometry and physical data. These compounds were also screened for their biological activity and found some encouraging results.     

Theoretical study of hydrolysis mechanism of khellin

This paper describes khellin hydrolysis mechanism using semiemperical PM3 implemented in Gaussian 03 package. The calculations show that in the presence of an acidic media, an enolate molecular ion leads directly to ω-acetokhellinone while in the basic media it leads to khellinone.     

Circular dichroism spectra of langasite family crystals in the range of electronic transitions of structure defects

The absorption and circular dichroism spectra of langasite family crystals are studied. Wide bands in the range of 285–500 nm that are related to the structure lattice defects are found. For all the crystals, these bands are in approximately the same spectral region, have identical structures, and can be attributed to one type of defects formed by cation vacancies and excess oxygen atoms in the optically active positions.