Selectivity optimization for the capillary gas chromatographic analysis of bacterial cellular fatty acids

Summary The importance of selectivity in the capillary gas chromatographic analysis of the cellular fatty acids of micro-organisms is underestimated. The analysis on apolar silicone phases can lead to erratic elucidation of the fatty acid structure. Qualitative errors have been detected in commercially available standards on which computer matching identification techniques are based. Using highly polar capillary columns of the cyanopropyl silicone type, the errors could be elucidated. The exact identification of the hydrolysis products of bacteria is a must for chemotaxonomic studies applying chromatographic techniques. The fatty acid methyl ester profiles can also contain other chemical components which are very important taxonomic markers. Fatty aldehydes, for example, are main components in someClostridium species. Fractionation techniques are described for selective enrichment of fatty aldehydes and hydroxy fatty acids.Dedicated to Prof. Dr. A Liberti on the occasion of his 70th birthday     

Intrinsic infrared absorption for carbon–fluorine bonding in fluorinated nanodiamond

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Substituent effects on heats of formation, group interactions, and detonation properties of polyazidocubanes

We have calculated the heats of formation (HOFs) for a series of polyazidocubanes by using the density functional theory (DFT), Hartree-Fock, and MP2 methods with 6-31G* basis set as well as semiempirical methods. The cubane skeleton was chosen for a reference compound, that is, the cubane skeleton was not broken in the process of designing isodesmic reactions. There exists group additivity for the HOF with respect to the azido group. The semiempirical AM1 method also produced reliable results for the HOFs of the title compounds, but the semiempirical MINDO3 did not. The relationship between HOFs and molecular structures was discussed. It was found that the HOF increases 330-360 kJ/mol for each additional number of the azido group being added to the cubane skeleton. The distance between azido groups slightly influences the values of HOFs. The interacting energies of neighbor azido groups in polyazidocubanes are in the range of 2.3 approximately 6.6 kJ/mol, which are so small and less related to the substituent numbers. The average interaction energy between nearest neighbor --N3 groups in the most stable conformer of octaazidocubane is 2.29 kJ/mol at the B3LYP/6-31G* level. The relative stability related to the number of azido groups of the title compounds was assessed based on the calculated HOFs, the energy gaps between the frontier orbitals, and the bond orders of the C--N3 and C--C bonds. The predicted detonation velocity of hepta- and octa-derivatives is over 9 km/s, and the detonation pressure of them is ca. 40 GPa or over.     

Multicolor particle systems with large threshold and range

In this paper we consider the Greenberg-Hastings and cyclic color models. These models exhibit (at least) three different types of behavior. Depending on the number of colors and the size of two parameters called the threshold and range, the Greenberg-Hastings model either dies out, or has equilibria that consist of debris or fire fronts. The phase diagram for the cyclic color models is more complicated. The main result of this paper, Theorem 1, proves that the debris phase exists for both systems.     

Phenomenology of nonlocal cellular automata

Dynamical systems with nonlocal connections have potential applications to economic and biological systems. This paper studies the dynamics of nonlocal cellular automata. In particular, all two-state, three-input nonlocal cellular automata are classified according to the dynamical behavior starting from random initial configurations and random wirings, although it is observed that sometimes a rule can have different dynamical behaviors with different wirings. The nonlocal cellular automata rule space is studied using a mean-field parametrization which is ideal for the situation of random wiring. Nonlocal cellular automata can be considered as computers carrying out computation at the level of each component. Their computational abilities are studied from the point of view of whether they contain many basic logical gates. In particular, I ask the question of whether a three-input cellular automaton rule contains the three fundamental logical gates: two-input rules AND and OR, and one-input rule NOT. A particularly interesting edge-of-chaos nonlocal cellular automaton, the rule 184, is studied in detail. It is a system of coupled selectors or multiplexers. It is also part of the Fredkin's gate—a proposed fundamental gate for conservative computations. This rule exhibits irregular fluctuations of density, large coherent structures, and long transient times.     

Variation of physicochemical properties in the aggregates of structual isomers

The regions of variation of density, enthalpy of formation, and detonation velocity of all of the formally possible structual isomers were determined for several molecular formulas of C,H,N,O-containing explosives. The histograms of the distribution of the structual isomers over these parameters were constructed.Translated fromIzvestiya Akademii Nauk. Seriya Khimicheskaya, No. 5, pp. 859–862, May, 1995.The authors are grateful to Mrs. I. D. Solodukhina for the design of the graphical material.The work was carried out with the financial support of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (Project No. 94-03-09323).     

Gadolinium‐Decorated Silica Microspheres as Redox‐Responsive MRI Probes for Applications in Cell Therapy Follow‐Up

The redox microenvironment within a cell graft can be considered as an indicator to assess whether the graft is metabolically active or hypoxic. We present a redox‐responsive MRI probe based on porous silica microparticles whose surface has been decorated with a Gd‐chelate through a disulphide bridge. Such microparticles are designed to be interspersed with therapeutic cells within a biocompatible hydrogel. The onset of reducing conditions within the hydrogel is paralleled by an increased clearance of Gd, that can be detected by MRI.     

Irradiation of detonation nanodiamonds with γ-rays does not produce long living spin radicals

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Transition Metal-Promoted Reactions in Aqueous Media and Biological Settings

During the last decade, there has been a tremendous interest for developing non-natural biocompatible transformations in biologically relevant media. Among the different encountered strategies, the use of transition metal complexes offers unique possibilities due to their high transformative power. However, translating the potential of metal catalysts to biological settings, including living cells or small-animal models such as mice or zebrafish, poses numerous challenges associated to their biocompatibility, and their stability and reactivity in crowded aqueous environments. Herein, we describe the most relevant advances in this direction, with a particular emphasis on the systems’ structure, their mode of action and the mechanistic bases of each transformation. Thus, the key challenges from an organometallic perspective might be more easily identified.     

Growth characteristics of spherical titanium oxide nanoparticles during the rapid gaseous detonation reaction

The nanosize grain growth characteristics of spherical single-crystal titanium oxide (TiO₂) during the rapid gaseous detonation reaction are discussed. Based on the experimental conditions and the Chapman–Jouguet theory, the Kruis model was introduced to simulate the growth characteristics of spherical TiO₂ nanoparticles obtained under high pressure, high temperature and by rapid reaction. The results show that the numerical analysis can satisfactorily predict the growth characteristics of spherical TiO₂ nanoparticles with diameters of 15–300 nm at different affecting factors, such as concentration of particles, reaction temperature and time, which are in agreement with the obtained experimental results. We found that the increase of the gas-phase reaction temperature, time, and particle concentration affects the growth tendency of spherical nanocrystal TiO₂, which provides effective theoretical support for the controllable synthesis of multi-scale nanoparticles.