Islanding and critical phenomena in multi-component adsorption layer with lateral interactions

The conditions for the occurrence of critical phenomena in multi-component adsorption layers are discussed for the case of lateral interactions and clustering of adsorbed molecules. It is demonstrated, that the critical temperature.i.e. the temperature below which surface phase transformation can occur, is independent of the size of clusters.     

Thermodynamics of alcohols and monosaccharides in aqueous solutions of biuret at 25°C

The excess enthalpies of ternary aqueous solutions of biuret with four aliphatic alcohols or four isomeric pentoses have been determined by flow microcalorimetry at 25°C. The coefficients of the virial expansion of the excess enthalpies have been evaluated and compared with those already reported for urea and thiourea with the same alcohols and pentoses used here. For biuret-alcohol systems, the cross coefficients are positive and depend on the length and branching of the alkyl chain of the alcohols. On the contrary, they are negative for biuret-pentose systems. Hence, biuret, as urea and thioura, is able to differentiate the behavior of families of solutes characterized by the same functional groups. The results are interpreted in terms of the relative stabilities of the hydration cospheres of predominantly hydrophobic or predominantly hydrophilic cosolutes. However, hypotheses about the hydration cospheres of the saccharides, which are more complex than those used previously, seem to be necessary to rationalize their complete behavior in water.     

The critical behavior of Kac-type models for semi-infinite systems

The critical behavior of the layer magnetizations and local susceptibilities of theD-vector lattice models with Kac-type ferromagnetic interactions for a semi-infinite system is studied. These local quantities behave less singularly than the bulk ones, showing that this is not peculiar to the two-dimensional Ising model. Moreover, the limiting form (at the critical point) of the magnetization profile can be obtained, which, when properly scaled, satisfies the minimum condition in the Landau theory for a semi-infinite continuous system. Landau-type critical behavior is thus recovered.     

Analysis of noncovalent complexes between human telomeric DNA and polyamides containing N-methylpyrrole and N-methylimidazole by using electrospray ionization mass spectrometry

Electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS) was used to investigate noncovalent complexes formed between four novel polyamides containing N-methylpyrrole (Py) and N-methylimidazole (Im), and human telomeric DNA. Of the four polyamides investigated, PyPyPygammaImImImbetaDp (3) had the highest binding affinity towards the duplex d(TTAGGGTTAGGG/CCCTAACCCTAA) (D1). Results of competition analysis showed that the polyamides had binding affinities with D1 in the order PyPyPygammaImImImbetaDp (3)>PyPyPyPygammaPyImImPybetaDp (4)>PyPyPybetaImImImbetaDp (2)>ImImImbetaDp (1). MS/MS spectra confirmed that binding between D1 and the hairpin polyamides is more stable than that with the three-ring polyamides. By contrast, in the case of single-stranded d(TTAGGGTTAGGG)(D2), the binding order changes to ImImImbetaDp (1)>PyPyPygammaImImImbetaDp (3)>PyPyPybetaImImImbetaDp (2).