Profile monitoring of reflow process using approximations of mixture second‐order polynomials

Lately, profile monitoring has received considerable attention in the statistical process control research field. This paper proposes a novel monitoring framework for the reflow process data, which uses two goodness‐of‐fit criteria to select the change points in the mixture polynomial model. Among change points, the mixture second‐order polynomials are utilized to piecewisely approximate the nonlinear profile data of the reflow process. The well‐known Hotelling T² and proposed EWMA₄ control charts are then employed to monitor the parameter estimates. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed monitoring framework presents better performances in detecting outlying profiles than the conventional methods in phase I. In phase II, the performance of the proposed framework is assessed in terms of the out‐of‐control average run length. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Quo vadis,chemometrics?

Assessing current trends in chemometric publications reveals that most projects utilize known methodologies and fall into the category “application.” There seems to be worrying little of true innovation unless one counts “fashions” assimilated from other fields. The field may have reached a crossroad: One path leads to chemometrics becoming a fully mature but stagnant tool for analytical chemists; the other path, that is, maintaining chemometrics as an active and widely recognized research field, requires opening new research areas for chemometricians. It is argued that hard modeling as opposed to the ubiquitous soft modeling may become such a new direction. Hard modeling would focus on investigating chemical mechanisms that give raise to measured data as opposed to empirically analyzing data.Furthermore, chemometricians in academia are responsible for preparing the next generation of chemometricians. Despite the need for chemometricians in the workforce, the number of young chemometricians is low and will remain low unless changes in chemistry curricula happen. This remains a challenge because there are fundamental issues that need to be overcome. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Use of a tree‐structured hierarchical model for estimation of location and uncertainty in multivariate spatial data

Analysis and modeling of spatial data are of considerable interest in many applications. However, the prediction of geographical features from a set of chemical measurements on a set of geographically distinct samples has never been explored. We report a new, tree‐structured hierarchical model for the estimation of geographical location of spatially distributed samples from their chemical measurements. The tree‐structured hierarchical modeling used in this study involves a set of geographic regions stored in a hierarchical tree structure, with each nonterminal node representing a classifier and each terminal node representing a regression model. Once the tree‐structured model is constructed, given a sample with only chemical measurements available, the predicted regional location of the sample is gradually restricted as it is passed through a series of classification steps. The geographic location of the sample can be predicted using a regression model within the terminal subregion. We show that the tree‐structured modeling approach provides reasonable estimates of geographical region and geographic location for surface water samples taken across the entire USA. Further, the location uncertainty, an estimate of a probability that a test sample could be located within a pre‐estimated, joint prediction interval that is much smaller than the terminal subregion, can also be assessed. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Derivatives of molecular surface area and volume: simple and exact analytical formulas

The computational effort of biomolecular simulations can be significantly reduced by means of implicit solvent models in which the energy generally contains a correction depending on the surface area and/or the volume of the molecule. In this article, we present simple derivation of exact, easy-to-use analytical formulas for these quantities and their derivatives with respect to atomic coordinates. In addition, we provide an efficient, linear-scaling algorithm for the construction of the power diagram required for practical implementation of these formulas. Our approach is implemented in a C++ header-only template library.     

Conformation of the tridimensional structure of 1,2,3,4,6-pentagalloyl-β-D-glucopyranose (PGG) by (1)H NMR, NOESY and theoretical study and membrane interaction in a simulated phospholipid bilayer: a first insight

1,2,3,4,6-Penta-O-galloyl-β-D-glucopyranose (PGG) is a polyphenolic compound found in substantial amounts in a number of medicinal herbs. We report (i) its conformational analysis by solution NMR and molecular dynamics calculation and (ii) theoretical study of its interaction with a model membrane bilayer. The galloyl groups B and E appear to play important roles in the interaction with the phospholipid bilayer.     

Role of balanced charge carrier transport in low band gap polymer:Fullerene bulk heterojunction solar cells

Lowering of the optical band gap of conjugated polymers in bulk heterojunction solar cells not only leads to an increased absorption but also to an increase of the optimal active layer thickness due to interference effects at longer wavelengths. The increased carrier densities due to the enhanced absorption and thicker active layers make low band gap solar cells more sensitive to formation of space charges and recombination. By systematically red shifting the optical parameters of poly[2‐methoxy‐5‐(3′,7′‐dimethyloctyloxy)‐p‐phenylenevinylene] and 6,6‐phenyl C₆₁‐butyric acid methyl ester, we simulate the effect of a reduced band gap on the solar cell efficiencies. We show that especially the fill factor of low band gap cells is very sensitive to the balance of the charge transport. For a low band gap cell with an active layer thickness of 250 nm, the fill factor of 50% for balanced transport is reduced to less than 40% by an imbalance of only one order of magnitude. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys, 2011     

Intermolecular hydrogen bonding in the binary mixture [(C2H5)2CO + CH3OH] probed by polarized Raman measurements and DFT calculations

The Raman spectra of neat (C₂H₅)₂CO (pentanone) and its binary mixtures with hydrogen donor solvent (CH₃OH), [(C₂H₅)₂CO + CH₃OH] having different mole fractions of the reference system, (C₂H₅)₂CO in the range 0.1-0.9 at a regular interval of 0.1 were recorded in the CO stretching region. In neat liquid, the Raman peak appears asymmetric. The asymmetric nature of the peak has been attributed to the CO stretching mode of the two conformers of (C₂H₅)₂CO having C₂ and C_2v point groups and the corresponding bands at ∼1711 and ∼1718 cm⁻¹, respectively. A careful analysis of the I_iso (isotropic component of the Raman scattered intensity) at different concentrations reveals that upon dilution with methanol, at mole fraction C = 0.6, an additional peak in the CO stretching region is observed at ∼1703 cm⁻¹ which is attributed to the hydrogen bonding with methanol. A peculiar feature in this study is that upon dilution, the peak at ∼1718 cm⁻¹ shows a minimum at C = 0.6, but on further dilution it shows a blue shift. However, the other peak at ∼1711 cm⁻¹ shows a continuous red shift with dilution as well as a maximum at C = 0.7 in the linewidth vs. concentration plot, which is essentially due to competition between motional narrowing and diffusion phenomena. A significant amount of narrowing in the Raman band at ∼1718 cm⁻¹ can be understood in terms of caging effect of the reference molecule by the solvent molecules at high dilution. A density functional theoretic (DFT) calculation on optimized geometries and vibrational frequencies of two conformers of neat (C₂H₅)₂CO in C₂ ad C_2v forms and the complexes with one and two CH₃OH molecules with both the conformers was performed. The experimental results and theoretical calculations together indicate a co-existence of two conformers as well as hydrogen bonded complex with methanol in the binary mixture, [(C₂H₅)₂CO + CH₃OH] at intermediate concentrations.     

Evaluation of the separation mechanism of electrokinetic chromatography with a microemulsion and cyclodextrins using NMR and molecular modeling

Electrokinetic chromatography (EKC) allows the separation of closely related substances by the detection of fine effects in analyte-separation system interactions. With the goal of understanding the fine effects involved in separation using a dual cyclodextrin-microemulsion EKC system, an integrated study of NMR and molecular modeling was carried out. The above dual cyclodextrin-microemulsion system was previously used in the separation of clemastine and its related substances and was prepared by the addition of methyl-β-cyclodextrin (MβCD) and heptakis(2,6-di-O-methyl)-β-cyclodextrin (DMβCD) to an oil-in-water microemulsion. The use of DMβCD was shown to be essential in the separation of clemastine from one of its related substance (I(B) ). A molecular modeling study allowed the different affinities of clemastine and I(B) for the two cyclodextrins to be explained. Furthermore, rotating-frame Overhauser effect spectroscopy NMR experiments clearly indicated that besides the primary pseudostationary phase, namely the ionic microemulsion, cyclodextrins acted as a secondary pseudostationary phase. In addition, it was shown that inclusion complexation of sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) monomers into the cyclodextrins cavity occurs; differently, the oil (n-heptane) used in the preparation of microemulsion system resulted to be not included into the macrocycle cavity. These experimental results were supported by molecular modeling, which highlighted the preferential inclusion of SDS into DMβCD. On the basis of these results, it was confirmed that, besides its primary role as the ionic carrier in EKC, SDS is involved in inclusion equilibria toward CDs, which can be effective in increasing the system selectivity.     

Ruthenium carbene complexes containing bidentate and tridentate PO ligands

Treatment of [Ru(CHR)Cl₂(PCy₃)₂] (Cy = cyclohexyl) with Tl[N(Pr₂ⁱPO)₂] and AgL_OEt (L_OEt⁻ = [CpCo{P(O)(OEt)₂}₃]⁻) afforded the Ru carbene complexes [Ru(CHPh)(PCy₃)Cl{N(Pr₂ⁱPO)₂}] (1) and [L_OEtRu(CHR)(PCy₃)Cl] (2), respectively. Chloride abstraction of complex 2 with TlPF₆ in MeCN afforded [L_OEtRu(CHPh)(PCy₃)(MeCN)][PF₆] (3). Complexes 1 and 2 are capable of catalyzing ring-closing metathesis of diethyl 1,2-diallylmalonate. The crystal structure of complex 2 has been determined.     

Thermal Decomposition Kinetics of Ethane Halides and Derivatives（C_2H_（6-n）X_n（n = 1～3）;X = F,Cl,Br）：DFT Study and NBO Analysis

A theoretical study of the thermal decomposition kinetics of ethane halides(C2H6-nXn(n = 1～3);X = F,Cl,Br) has been carried out at the B3LYP/6-31++G** and B3PW91/631++G** levels of theory.Among these methods and comparison of activation parameters with available experimental values,the B3PW91/6-31++G** method is in good agreement with the experimental data.The analysis of bond order and natural bond orbital(NBO) charges,bond indexes,and synchronicity parameters suggest the elimination of HX in reactions 1～9(HF:compounds 1～3,HCl:compounds 4～6,and HBr:compounds 7～9) occur through a concerted and slightly asynchronous four-membered cyclic transition state type of mechanism.