Amine‐cured epoxy/clay nanocomposites. II. The effect of the nanoclay aspect ratio

The thermophysical and mechanical properties of a nanocomposite material composed of amine‐cured diglycidyl ether of bisphenol A (DGEBA) reinforced with organomontmorillonite clay are reported. The storage modulus at 100 °C, which was above the glass‐transition temperature (T_g), increased approximately 350% with the addition of 10 wt % (6.0 vol %) of clay. Below the T_g, the storage modulus at 30 °C increased 50% relative to the value of unfilled epoxy. It was determined that the T_g linearly increased as a function of clay volume percent. The tensile modulus of epoxy at room temperature increased approximately 50% with the addition of 10 wt % of clay. The reinforcing effect of the organoclay nanoplatelets is discussed with respect to the Tandon–Weng and Halpin–Tsai models. A pseudoinclusion model is proposed to describe the behavior of randomly oriented, uniformly dispersed platelets in nanocomposite materials. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 42: 4391–4400, 2004     

Cerasome as an Organic-Inorganic Vesicular Nanohybrid: Characterization of Cerasome-Forming Lipids having a Single or a Dual Trialkoxysilyl Head

Morphological characterization of the organic-inorganic vesicular nanohybrids, Cerasomes, was performed in aqueous media from two aspects. Firstly, a novel Cerasome-forming lipid having two triethoxysilyl groups in the head moiety was synthesized and the physical property of the Cerasome was investigated. While the morphological stability of the Cerasomes, as evaluated from the vesicular collapse behavior against a micelle-forming nonionic surfactant, Triton-X 100, was extremely higher than that of the conventional phospholipid liposome, the stabilities were comparable to each other for the Cerasomes derived from the dual- and single-head lipids. On the other hand, the surface property of the Cerasome formed with the dual-head lipid more closely resembled the colloidal silica particles rather than that derived from the single-head lipid, as suggested by zeta-potential measurements. Secondly, the effect of the media pH on the morphological stability of the Cerasome formed with the single-head lipid was evaluated and appeared as a time difference in obtaining the morphological stability of the Cerasome. These morphological characteristics of the Cerasomes could be mainly owing to the development of the siloxane network on the vesicular surface.     

Application of the 19F NMR technique to observe binding of the general anesthetic halothane to human serum albumin.

19F NMR techniques were employed to characterize the binding property of the widely used general anesthetic halothane with human serum albumin (HSA). It was found that 19F(1H) NOE and 2D 1H-19F HOESY experiments detected intermolecular NOEs between halothane 19F and HSA protons. Measurements of the diffusion coefficients for halothane were also carried out by 1H and 19F NMR, indicating the interaction of halothane with HSA. The present results indicate that these techniques are very suitable to identify a fluorine-containing ligand binding with a protein receptor in the drug-discovery process.     

An LMI approach to decentralized guaranteed cost control for a class of uncertain nonlinear large-scale delay systems

The guaranteed cost control problem via the decentralized robust control for nonlinear uncertain large-scale systems that have delay in both state and control input is considered. Sufficient conditions for the existence of guaranteed cost controllers are given in terms of linear matrix inequality (LMI). It is shown that the decentralized local state feedback controllers can be obtained by solving the LMI.     

Multiderivations of Coxeter arrangements

Let V be an ℓ-dimensional Euclidean space. Let G⊂O(V) be a finite irreducible orthogonal reflection group. Let ? be the corresponding Coxeter arrangement. Let S be the algebra of polynomial functions on V. For H∈? choose α _H ∈V ^* such that H=ker(α _H ). For each nonnegative integer m, define the derivation module D ^(m) (?)={θ∈Der _S |θ(α _H )∈Sα ^m _H }. The module is known to be a free S-module of rank ℓ by K. Saito (1975) for m=1 and L. Solomon-H. Terao (1998) for m=2. The main result of this paper is that this is the case for all m. Moreover we explicitly construct a basis for D ^(m) (?). Their degrees are all equal to mh/2 (when m is even) or are equal to ((m−1)h/2)+m _i (1≤i≤ℓ) (when m is odd). Here m ₁≤···≤m _ℓ are the exponents of G and h=m _ℓ+1 is the Coxeter number. The construction heavily uses the primitive derivation D which plays a central role in the theory of flat generators by K. Saito (or equivalently the Frobenius manifold structure for the orbit space of G). Some new results concerning the primitive derivation D are obtained in the course of proof of the main result. Oblatum 27-XI-2001 & 4-XII-2001?Published online: 18 February 2002     

Pyrene-azacrown ether hybrid: cation-π interaction

A pyrene-modified lariat ether was synthesized in order to observe the cation-π interaction in solution.     

Stereoselective synthesis of (25R)-25,26-dihydroxy-23-oxovitamin D3 and its enzymatic conversion to (25R)-1α,25,26-trihydroxy-23-oxovitamin D3, a putative metabolite of vitamin D3

(25$\text{R}$)-25,26-Dihydroxy-23-oxovitamin D₃ was synthesized efficiently and stereoselectively, and it was converted enzymatically to (25$\text{R}$)-1α,25,26-trihydroxy-23-oxovitamin D₃, a putative metabolite of 1α,25-dihydroxyvitamin D₃. The spectral and chemical properties of (25$\text{R}$)-25,26-dihydroxy-23-oxovitamin D₃ and its 1α,hydroxylated derivative disagree with those reported for the isolated metabolite.