Vinyl‐type polymerization of norbornene by nickel(II) bisbenzimidazole catalysts

Novel nickel(II) bisbenzimidazole complexes were prepared via a three‐step synthetic procedure consisting of aniline/diacid condensation, ligand N‐alkylation, and metal complexation. The complexes were characterized by X‐ray crystallography and found to possess a pseudotetrahedral geometry. Upon activation with methylaluminoxane, these nickel bisbenzimidazoles did not polymerize simple olefins (e.g., ethylene, propylene, and 1‐butene) but were found to carry out the rapid and efficient polymerization of norbornene. The polynorbornene products were characterized by gel permeation chromatography/light scattering, ¹³C NMR, and IR, and their Mark–Houwink and dn/dc parameters were determined. The molecular weights of the polynorbornenes were very high (weight‐average molecular weight = 587,000–797,000 g/mol). ¹³C NMR suggested that the polymerization occurred via vinyl addition (i.e., a 2,3‐linked polymer); no ring‐opened product was observed. Thermogravimetric analysis indicated that the polynorbornenes were stable up to 400 °C under nitrogen. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 41: 2095–2106, 2003     

Gas Concentration in Industrial Emissions Retrieved from a Laser-Beam Aureole

The feasibility of reconstructing components of industrial emissions by a remote method is studied under conditions of strong laser radiation scattering. It is demonstrated that an aureole around the laser beam bears information on optical parameters of the medium. Formulas for calculating the extinction coefficient of the medium and the concentration of the desired gas component in the emission from the measured radial profile of aureole brightness are derived.     

Uncertainty of the two-loop RG upper bound on the Higgs mass

A modified criterion of the SM perturbative consistency is proposed. It is based on the analytic properties of the two-loop SM running couplings. Under the criterion adopted, the Higgs mass up to 380 GeV might not give rise to strong coupling prior to the Planck scale. This means that the light Higgs boson is possibly preferred for reasons other than the SM perturbative consistency, i.e., for reasons beyond the SM.     

Absorption of cnoidal electromagnetic waves by superlattice electrons in the process of impurity ionization

Absorption of cnoidal electromagnetic waves, which are the most general periodic solution to the sine-Gordon equation, by electrons of a one-dimensional quantum semiconductor superlattice in the process of impurity ionization is studied in terms of the semiclassical approximation. The dependence of the absorption coefficient on the electric field of an electromagnetic wave is found to be nonmonotone with a pronounced peak.     

Classification of the energy levels of the cyclopentane molecule

The energy levels of the cyclopentane molecule are classified taking into account pseudorotation and inversion motion caused by the nonplanarity of the equilibrium configuration of the five-membered cycle of the carbon nuclei of the molecule. For this purpose, the relatively recently developed symmetry-group chain methods, which are the most powerful methods at present, are used.     

Levinson-Type Benchmarks for Slide-Clamped and Elastically Supported Plates

It is shown that, for a transversely isotropic, linearly elastic body in the form of a right cylinder of arbitrary cross section, explicit and exact equilibrium solutions of the form first proposed by Levinson [3] can be found not only when the body is simply supported but also (i) when it is clamped, with vertical sliding allowed, and (ii) when it is elastically supported. Such new solutions may serve as further benchmarks for two-dimensional plate theories.     

Sound scattering by a body in a planar layered waveguide

In the framework of the theory of integral equations, the problem of sound diffraction by pressure-release and acoustically stiff inhomogeneities of an oceanic waveguide is considered. The iteration method is used to obtain recurrent relations for the surface currents. The relations describe the diffraction process as a sequence of interactions between the body and the waveguide boundaries (multiple reflections). The validity condition for the zero-order approximation, which ignores multiple reflections, is formulated and physically justified.     

Potential barrier in the problem of the evolution of a dinuclear system

A method for calculating the potential energy of a dinuclear system evolving along the charge-asymmetry coordinate is analyzed. It is shown that the shape of the potential is determined primarily by the dependence of the proton separation energy on the mass and the charge number of nuclei that form the dinuclear system and by the concerted effect of the Coulomb fields of these nuclei on the single-particle motion of constituent nucleons.