Functionalized Silver-Ion-Mediated α-dC/β-dC Hybrid Base Pairs with Exceptional Stability: α-d-5-Iodo-2′-Deoxycytidine and Its Octadiynyl Derivative in Metal DNA

Silver-mediated α-dC–Ag⁺–β-dC hybrid base pairs decorated with 5-iodo- or 5-octadiynyl residues are well accommodated in duplex DNA. A strong T_m increase and favorable thermodynamic data for duplex DNA were observed after addition of silver ions. The phenomenon is particularly obvious when both nucleobases of the base pairs are functionalized. Neither the position of the base pair, nor the type of 5-substituent had a negative influence. On the contrary, functionalization of conventional silver-mediated β-dC–Ag⁺–β-dC homo base pairs showed a negative impact induced by the bulky substituents. To this end, cytosine modified 12-mer oligodeoxynucleotides were prepared by solid-phase synthesis employing new α-anomeric 2′-deoxycytidine phosphoramidites. A multigram scale synthesis was developed for 5-iodo-α-d -2′-deoxycytidine ( 1 ) employing the direct glycosylation of cytosine with Hoffer's α-d -halogenose followed by separation of anomeric DMT nucleosides. Regarding base-pair stability and functionalization silver-mediated α/β-dC hybrid base pairs were found to be superior to β/β-dC homo pairs. According to their extraordinary properties, they might find applications in DNA diagnostics, material science, or nanotechnology.     

Thermally induced solid-state transformation of cimetidine. A multi-spectroscopic/chemometrics determination of the kinetics of the process and structural elucidation of one of the products as a stable N3-enamino tautomer

Exposure of cimetidine (CIM) to dry heat (160–180 °C) afforded, upon cooling, a glassy solid containing new and hitherto unknown products. The kinetics of this process was studied by a second order chemometrics-assisted multi-spectroscopic approach. Proton and carbon-13 nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), as well as ultraviolet and infrared spectroscopic data were jointly used, whereas multivariate curve resolution with alternating least squares (MCR-ALS) was employed as the chemometrics method to extract process information. It was established that drug degradation follows a first order kinetics.     

Teachers' beliefs on teacher training contents and related characteristics of implementation—the example of introducing the topic study method in mathematics classrooms

So-called “bottom-up” strategies for implementation based on mathematics teachers' own developmental activities are considered to be a powerful approach when encouraging teachers to introduce alternative instructional practices. For evaluational research of in-service teacher training programs using “bottom-up” implementation strategies, the way how teachers implement contents of the teacher training is at the centre of interest. As the teachers' active role in the implementation process is necessary, their individual beliefs on the contents of the teacher training and their expectancies might influence the teachers' implementational activities. These beliefs can be considered as components of professional knowledge and pedagogical contents knowledge (Shulman, 1986) in particular. For this reason, the study focuses on the development of beliefs on contents of a teacher training program throughout the training on the one hand and relationships with characteristics of implementation on the other hand. We consider the example of introducing a student-centred learning environment, the so-called topic study method, in the teachers' classrooms. The results indicate that there are interdependencies between beliefs on the teacher training contents and characteristics of implementation.     

Rehabilitation of the Gauss-Jordan algorithm

Summary In this paper a Gauss-Jordan algorithm with column interchanges is presented and analysed. We show that, in contrast with Gaussian elimination, the Gauss-Jordan algorithm has essentially differing properties when using column interchanges instead of row interchanges for improving the numerical stability. For solutions obtained by Gauss-Jordan with column interchanges, a more satisfactory bound for the residual norm can be given. The analysis gives theoretical evidence that the algorithm yields numerical solutions as good as those obtained by Gaussian elimination and that, in most practical situations, the residuals are equally small. This is confirmed by numerical experiments. Moreover, timing experiments on a Cyber 205 vector computer show that the algorithm presented has good vectorisation properties.     

Investigation of organic impurities adsorbed on and incorporated into electroplated copper layers

At room temperature electroplated copper layers exhibit changes in resistivity, residual stress, and microstructure. This process, known as self-annealing, is intimately linked to the release of organic impurities, which stem from the incorporation of organic additives into the Cu layer in the course of the electroplating process. The behavior of these impurities during self-annealing, represented by the carbon content, could be detected by analytical radio frequency glow discharge optical emission spectrometry (GD-OES) and carrier gas hot extraction (CGHE). The precondition of a quantitative determination is a surface cleaning procedure to remove adsorbed organics from the copper surface. It was observed that at first almost all impurities have to leave the Cu metallization before an accelerated abnormal grain growth can start. The small amount of remaining organic species after self-annealing could be quantified by both examination techniques, GD-OES and CGHE.