Isolation of 2-Chloro-5-methylpyridine from its Isomer 2-Chloro-3-methylpyridine by Formation of its Copper(II) Complex

2-Chloro-5-methylpyridine is an important intermediate for the preparation of biological active compounds, especially insecticides1, e.g. imidacloprid2, and is usually manufac- tured from 3-methylpyridine N-oxide. However, the manufacturing process also forms the by-products: 3-methylpyridine and its isomer 2-chloro-3-methylpyridine3. The pro- perties of the isomers are similar, it is difficult to separate by ordinary methods, such as distillation. Scheme 1 79.4%13.6%5.2%NClCH3NCH3ClNC…     

Thinking and Turing's test

The questions raised by A. M. Turing in his paper on thought and machines are discussed. Human thought is considered in turn as a concept of normal language usage, as a basic concept of psychology, and as the basis of intellectual activity. It is concluded that neither of these notions of thought identifies something specific that a human being can or cannot do. The imitation game proposed by Turing for deciding whether a machine can think is found to result from an arbitrary empoverishment of the channel of communication between the interrogator and the item under investigation. Turing's notions of thinking are shown to lead to logical difficulties. An alternative view of consciousness, that would place it beyond the reach of any finite test, is finally discussed.     

Comparison of Thermodynamic Characteristics of a Potential Well under Quantum and Classical Approaches

The conjecture according to which the mean energy of an equilibrium system in quantum theory exceeds the mean energy of the corresponding classical system is considered. It is rigorously proved that the conjecture holds for the potential well. The estimates for the mean energy of the potential well at high and low temperatures are of special interest.     

物质纯重力场部分的能量-动量张量研究

认为物质的质量(能量)存在形式可分为两部分，一部分是以纯物质形式存在的，另一部分是以纯重力场形式存在的.物质质量(能量)这两种形式各自对应着相应的能量 动量张量，物质总的能量-动量张量可表示为Tμν=T(Ⅰ)μν+T(Ⅱ)μν,这里，T(Ⅰ)μν，T（Ⅱ）μν分别代表物质纯物质部分和纯重力场部分的能量-动量张量.通过类比电磁理论，定义：ωμ≡-c2gμ0/g00,并引入一个反对称张量Dμν=ωμ/xν-ων/xμ，则物质纯重力场部分的能量-动量张量为T(Ⅱ)μν=(DμρDρν-gμνDαβDαβ/4 关键词： 能量-动量张量 纯重力场 重力场方程 标量重力势 矢量重力势     

Influence of organic modifiers on morphology and crystallization of poly(ϵ‐caprolactone)/synthetic clay intercalated nanocomposites

ε‐caprolactone was polymerized in the presence of neat montmorillonite or organomontmorillonites to obtain a variety of poly(ε‐caprolactone) (PCL)‐based systems loaded with 10 wt % of the silicates. The materials were thoroughly investigated by different X‐ray scattering techniques to determine factors affecting structure of the systems. For one of the nanocomposites it was found that varying the temperature in the range corresponding to crystallization of PCL causes reversible changes in the interlayer distance of the organoclay. Extensive experimental and literature studies on this phenomenon provided clues indicating that this effect might be a result of two‐dimensional ordering of PCL chains inside the galleries of the silicate. Small angle X‐ray scattering and wide angle X‐ray scattering investigation of filaments oriented above melting point of PCL revealed that polymer lamellae were oriented perpendicularly to particles of unmodified silicate, while in PCL/organoclay systems they were found parallel to clay tactoids. Calorimetric and microscopic studies shown that clay particles are effective nucleating agents. In the nanocomposites, PCL crystallized 20‐fold faster than in the neat polymer. The crystallization rate in nanocomposites was also significantly higher than in microcomposite. Further research provided an insight how the presence of the filler affects crystalline fraction and spherulitic structure of the polymer matrix in the investigated systems. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 45: 2350–2367, 2007     

A virtual instrumentation based protocol for the automated implementation of the inner field compensation method

One influential parameter which mediates interactions between many types of molecules and biological membranes stems from the lumped contributions of the transmembrane potential, dipole potential and the difference in the surface potentials on both sides of a membrane. With relevance to cell physiology, such electrical features of a biomembrane are prone to undergoing changes as a result of interactions with the aqueous surrounding. Among the most useful tools devoted to exploring changes of electrical parameters of a lipid membrane induced by certain extracellular ions, lipid composition, and embedded membrane peptides and proteins, are spectroscopic imaging and the inner field compensation (IFC) method. In this work we layout the principles of a fully computerized version of the IFC method, which makes it more readily available to users. As a direct application, we deployed this improved version of the IFC method to time-resolve changes induced by alamethicin monomers upon membrane dipole potential, following their aggregation within an artificial lipid membrane. Intriguingly, even prior crossing the membrane core, the membrane-bound alamethicin monomers are shown to significantly increase the dipole potential of the monolayer they reside in. Such data further emphasize the yet less-explored interplay between membrane-based protein and peptides, and the membrane dipole potential.     

Inverse Scattering for a Schroedinger Operator with a Repulsive Potential

We consider a pair of Hamiltonians （H, H0） on L2（R^n）, where H0=p^2 -x^2 is a SchrSdinger operator with a repulsive potential, and H = H0＋V（x）. We show that, under suitable assumptions on the decay of the electric potential, V is uniquely determined by the high energy limit of the scattering operator.     

Classical, phenomenological analysis of the kinetics of reactions at the gas-exposed surface of mixed ionic electronic conductors

The kinetics of reactions occurring at the gas-exposed surfaces of charged mixed ionic electronic conductors (MIECs) are examined from theoretical first principles. Analysis based on the classical electrochemical potential-transition state theory model reveals that the nature of the reactions is electrochemical in general. However, the influence of the surface potential on the reaction rate is opposite for adsorption and incorporation reactions. Two-dimensional finite volume models of an MIEC as working electrode in a half-cell configuration are presented. The results for a simple, two-step reduction process show that the effect of the surface potential on the rate of reactions is minimal for incorporation-limited reactions but more influential for adsorption-limited reactions. An erratum to this article is available at .     

Effect of external Gaussian random field on phonon spectrum of linear atomic chains

We present the theoretical study of the effect of external random field characterized by a Gaussian probability distribution function on the continuous phonon spectrum of one-dimensional (1D) chain, based on the Jacobian matrix method. The cumulative effect of the random field and simple isotopic defect is studied analytically and numerically. The Gaussian random field removes a square-root divergence appearing in the phonon spectrum of ideal 1D chain. The impurity phonon DOS shows strong dependence on the variance and the mean of the random field and exhibits very different behavior from the non-random case: the continuous spectrum is expanded and the δ-peak, describing discrete impurity vibrations in the non-random chain with the impurity, falls into a continuous zone.     

Computations of critical groups and applications to asymptotically linear wave equation and beam equation

In this paper, by using the Morse index theory for strongly indefinite functionals developed in [Nonlinear Anal. TMA, in press], we compute precisely the critical groups at the origin and at infinity, respectively. The abstract theorems are used to study the existence (multiplicity) of nontrivial periodical solutions for asymptotically wave equation and beam equation with resonance both at infinity and at zero.