First lipase catalysed resolution of epoxy enol esters

We report the first enzyme-catalysed kinetic resolution of epoxy enol esters. The lipase-promoted hydrolysis of these compounds provided α-hydroxyketones or α-hydroxyaldehydes (arising from the spontaneous rearrangement of the epoxy enols) and the residual esters with moderate to good enantioselectivity (E up to 100).     

Products of hydrolysis of C,N-chelated triorganotin(IV) chlorides and use of products as catalysts in transesterification reactions

Triorganotin(IV) chlorides containing one L^CN chelating ligand were hydrolyzed with an excess of sodium hydroxide. The composition of the products is strongly dependent on the nature of the organic groups bound to the tin atom. Di(n-butyl)tin, dimethyltin as well as the diphenyl derivative exhibits an equilibrium between hydroxide and stannoxane forms (oxide), whereas alkyltin species react spontaneously and reversibly with carbon dioxide present in the air to form carbonate species. On the other hand, diphenyl derivatives display virtually no reaction with CO₂ towards carbonates, while the di-t-butyl-substituted tin derivative is stable under the same experimental condition and remains as a tin hydroxide. In the case of the dimethyltin derivative, a methyl group migration was observed with displacement of one L^CN chelating ligand during the reaction on the air. The coordination geometry of the tin central atom(s) of all studied compounds can be described as trigonal bipyramidal with a dative bonded dimethylamino group occupying one coordination site. The catalytic activity of these compounds in transesterification reactions is generally lower compared to the systems reported in the literature, with the exception of the transesterification of ethyl acetate by cyclohexanol which displays a remarkable activity.     

Ge—132与稀土离子的配合物及其对单核苷酸磷酯键的催化水解作用

Ｇｅ－１３２的羧酸阴离子与稀土离子螯合配位，生成３：１型配合物，在配合物中，Ｇｅ－１３２的ＧｅＯ３／２基团水解为Ｇｅ（ＯＨ）３，并且不参与稀土配位，系列稀土离子配合物的结构性质基本相同，在５０℃，ｐＨ值为６的水溶液中，该配合物选择性地催化５’－ＡＭＰ或５‘－ｄＡＭＰ的磷酯键水解断裂、生成相应的核苷和磷酸，而不影响碱基与戌糖之间的苷键。     

Hydrolysis of cephanone in the micelles with different charges

The hydrolysis of cephanone in water and micelles with different charges was studied by UV-vis absorption spectroscopy. The change of pH with the hydrolysis of cephanone was determined. The mechanism of the hydrolysis and the effect of the acidity of the media on the hydrolysis were studied. The results show that the hydrolysis rate of cephanone increases with the acidity. Compared with water, SDS micelles accelerate this hydrolysis, whereas CTAB and Triton X-100 micelles suppress it. The effects of the micelles with different charges on the hydrolysis are explained by the proton concentration of the micro-environment where cephanone exists and by the charge density of the polar group of the cephanone molecules.     

Mechanism and control of molecular energy flow: a modeling perspective

 Vibrational energy flow in organic molecules occurs by a multiple-time-scale mechanism that can be modeled by a single exponential only in its initial stages. The mechanism is a consequence of the hierarchical structure of the vibrational Hamiltonian, which leads to diffusion of vibrational wavepackets on a manifold with far fewer than the 3N−6 dimensions of the full vibrational state space. The dynamics are controlled by a local density of states, which does not keep increasing with molecular size. In addition, the number of vibrational coordinates severely perturbed during chemical reaction is small, leading to preservation of the hierarchical structure at chemically interesting energies. This regularity opens up the possibility of controlling chemical reactions by controlling the vibrational energy flow. Computationally, laser control of intramolecular vibrational energy redistribution can be modeled by quantum-classical, or by purely quantum-mechanical models of the molecule and control field. Received: 26 July 2002 / Accepted: 30 September 2002 / Published online: 2 December 2002 Electronic Supplementary Material to this paper can be obtained by using the Springer Link server located at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00214-002-0394-2. Acknowledgements. This work was supported by NSF grant CHE 9986670. Correspondence to: M. Gruebele e-mail: gruebele@scs.uiuc.edu     

Gas–liquid partition coefficients and Henry's law constants of methyl mercaptan in aqueous solutions of Fe(II)–CDTA chelate complex

Utilization of ferric chelate complex of trans-1,2-cyclohexanediaminetetraacetic acid (CDTA) for the oxidative scrubbing of H₂S and CH₃SH in Kraft mill streams can be beneficial from the standpoints of iron protection against precipitation and oxygen-mediated regenerative oxidation of the ferrous chelate CDTA. The physical solubility of methyl mercaptan in CDTA–Fe(III) complex cannot be measured directly because of oxidation of the sulfur-bearing gaseous species with the ferric chelate. Therefore, this investigation was carried out to determine the gas–liquid partition coefficients and Henry's law constants of methyl mercaptan in aqueous iron-free CDTA solutions and non-reacting ferrous chelate solutions (CDTA–Fe(II) complex), using the static headspace method with an estimated accuracy of about 2%. Experiments with aqueous solutions of chelate concentrations varying between 38 and 300 mol m⁻³ were carried out at temperatures between 298 and 333 K and atmospheric pressure. It was shown that the methyl mercaptan solubility decreases with increasing temperature for all systems but was not much influenced, in the studied conditions, by the chelate concentration especially at larger temperatures.     

Physico-chemical and thermochemical studies of the hydrolytic conversion of amorphous tricalcium phosphate into apatite

The conversion of amorphous tricalcium phosphate with different hydration ratio into apatite in water at 25 °C has been studied by microcalorimetry and several physical-chemical methods. The hydrolytic transformation was dominated by two strong exothermic events. A fast, relatively weak, wetting process and a very slow but strong heat release assigned to a slow internal rehydration and the crystallization of the amorphous phase into an apatite. The exothermic phenomenon related to the rehydration exceeded the crystalline transformation enthalpy. Rehydration occurred before the conversion of the amorphous phase into apatite and determined the advancement of the hydrolytic reaction. The apatitic phases formed evolved slightly with time after their formation. The crystallinity increased whereas the amount of HPO₄²⁻ ion decreased. These data allow a better understanding of the behavior of biomaterials involving amorphous phases such as hydroxyapatite plasma-sprayed coatings.     

Analysis of RNA sequence structure maps by exhaustive enumeration I. Neutral networks

Summary Global relations between RNA sequences and secondary structures are understood as mappings from sequence space into shape space. These mappings are investigated by exhaustive folding of allGC andAU sequences with chain lengths up to 30. The computed structural data are evaluated through exhaustive enumeration and used as an exact reference for testing analytical results derived from mathematical models and sampling based on statistical methods. Several new concepts of RNA sequence to secondary structure mappings are investigated, among them that ofneutral networks (being sets of sequences folding into the same structure). Exhaustive enumeration allows to test several previously suggested relations: the number of (minimum free energy) secondary structures as a function of the chain length as well as the frequency distribution of structures at constant chain length (commonly resulting in generalized forms ofZipf's law).

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Analyse der Beziehungen zwischen RNA-Sequenzen und Sekundärstrukturen durch vollständige Faltung, 1. Mitt. Faltung, Neutrale Netzwerke

Zusammenfassung Die globalen Benziehungen zwischen RNA-Sequenzen und Sekundärstrukturen werden als Abbildungen aus einem Raum aller Sequenzen in einen Raum aller Strukturen aufgefaßt. Diese Abbildungen werden durch Falten aller binären Sequenzen desGC-undAU-Alphabets mit Kettenlängen bis zun=30 untersucht. Die berechneten Strukturdaten werden durch vollständiges Abzählen ausgewertet und als eine exakte Referenz zum Überprüfen analytischer Resultate aus mathematischen Modellen sowie zum Testen statistisch erhobener Proben verwendet. Einige neuartige Konzepte zur Beschreibung der Beziehungen zwischen Sequenzen und Strukturen werden eingehend untersucht, unter ihnen der Begriff derneutralen Netzwerke. Ein neutrales Netzwerk besteht aus allen Sequenzen, die eine bestimmte Struktur ausbilden. Vollständiges Abzählen ermöglicht beispielsweise die Bestimmung aller Strukturen minimaler freier Energie in Abhängigkeit von der Kettenlänge ebenso wie die Bestimmung der Häufigkeitsverteilungen der Strukturen bei konstanten Kettenlängen. Die letzteren folgen einer verallgemeinerten FormZipfschen Gesetzes.

     

Range-Renewal Processes: SLLNs and Power Laws*

Given n samples(viewed as an n-tuple) of a γ-regular discrete distribution π,in this article the authors concern with the weighted and unweighted graphs induced by the n samples. They first prove a series of SLLN results(of Dvoretzky-Erd¨os’ type). Then they show that the vertex weights of the graphs under investigation obey asymptotically power law distributions with exponent 1 + γ. They also give a conjecture that the degrees of unweighted graphs would exhibit asymptotically power law distribu...     

Study of the influence of physical aging on macroradical decay in poly(methyl methacrylate)

The macroradical decay in poly(methyl methacrylate) samples with different thermal histories was investigated in the temperature interval 20–100 °C using ESR spectroscopy and the second order kinetic model. The rate constants exhibit two different regimes with the transitions atT _tr=68±1°C which are independent of thermal treatment. ForT<T _tr andT>T _tr the rate constants as well as the corresponding activation parameters are sensitive to history because of different physical microstructures. The compensation law, i.e., the linear relation between lnk _{o, eff} andE _eff, was analyzed in terms of the so-called compensation quantitiesk _c andT _c and a proximity betweenT _c=T _tr andT _o=53±3 °C — Vogel temperature for -segmental dynamics was found. A comparison of kinetic and dynamic data suggests that the decay of terminal macroradicals in the low-temperature region is controlled by secondary relaxations and that the -mobility contributes to a more rapid decay at higher temperatures belowT _g.