Cationic polyelectrolytes. III. Nitrile-group reaction of macromolecular compounds with N,N-dialkylaminoalkylamines

The chemical reaction in aqueous medium of polyacrylonitrile and acrylonitrile–vinyl acetate co-polymer using asymmetrical diamines of H₂N? (CH₂)_m? NR₂ (m = 2,3) structure was studied. It was found that the nitrile group is modified to an dialkylaminoalkylacrylamide group; also determined were the reaction conditions required to obtain the highest degree of chemical transformation of the nitrile groups. All modified compounds were characterized by analytical spectroscopy (IR and ¹H NMR) and by rheological methods. It was also established that glutaronitrile can be used as a low-molecular-weight model to study the chemical transformation of nitrile groups in polyacrylonitrile and related polymers.     

Characterization of Sol-gel bioencapsulates for ester hydrolysis and synthesis

Candida rugosa lipase was entrapped in silica sol-gel particles prepared by hydrolysis of methyltrimethoxysilane and assayed by p-nitrophenyl palmitate hydrolysis, as a function of pH and temperature, giving pH optima of 7.8 (free enzyme) and 5.0–8.0 (immobilized enzyme). The optimum temperature for the immobilized enzyme (50–55°C) was 19°C higher than for the free enzyme. Thermal, operational, and storage stability were determined with n-butanol and bytyric acid, giving at 45°C a half-life 2.7 times greater for the immobilized enzyme; storage time was 21 d at room temperature. For ester synthesis, the optimum temperature was 47°C, and high esterification conversions were obtained under repeated batch cycles (half-life of 138 h).     

Etude sur le comportement thermique de quelques polymeres ignifugeants contenant du phosphore et des halogenes

The thermal behaviour a series of polyphosphonates was studied by thermogravimetry (TG) and differential thermal analysis (DTA). The obtained data permitted the calculation of activation energies and reaction orders on decomposition zones by the Coats — Redfern method.     

Influence of substrate and product concentrations on the production of cyclodextrins by CGTase of Bacillus firmus,strain no. 37

The influence of substrate or product level on the initial velocity of cyclodextrin (CD) production by cyclodextringlycosyltransferase from a Brazilian isolate of Bacillus firmus was studied. Our results indicate that the product γ-CD is a stronger inhibitor to the reaction than β-CD. Small saccharides could also inhibit CD production, although to a lesser extent than the products, and maltose was the strongest inhibitor among small saccharides. Increasing substrate concentration resulted in greater reduction on enzyme activity for the formation of β-CD than for γ-CD. We modeled the kinetics of CD production with a set of four reversible reactions including the cyclization/coupling reaction that forms/opens CDs, and three disproportionation reactions. Our model on the initial velocity data explained well the substrate inhibition phenomenon. Kinetic parameters were determined by fitting the initial velocity data into our model.     

PageRank model of opinion formation on social networks

We propose the PageRank model of opinion formation and investigate its rich properties on real directed networks of the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford, LiveJournal, and Twitter. In this model, the opinion formation of linked electors is weighted with their PageRank probability. Such a probability is used by the Google search engine for ranking of web pages. We find that the society elite, corresponding to the top PageRank nodes, can impose its opinion on a significant fraction of the society. However, for a homogeneous distribution of two opinions, there exists a bistability range of opinions which depends on a conformist parameter characterizing the opinion formation. We find that the LiveJournal and Twitter networks have a stronger tendency to a totalitarian opinion formation than the university networks. We also analyze the Sznajd model generalized for scale-free networks with the weighted PageRank vote of electors.     

Time evolution of Wikipedia network ranking

X-ray circular magnetic dichroism, polarized neutron diffraction, ac susceptibility, and Seebeck effect have been measured for several members of the RCo₂ series (R = Ho, Tm, Er) as a function of temperature and applied magnetic field. The experimental results show robust parimagnetism (a general behaviour along the RCo₂ series with R being a heavy rare earth ion) and two reversal temperatures in some systems, which is an unexpected result. Polarised neutron diffraction show differences between results obtained on single crystals or polycrystalline ingots. We propose an interpretation of parimagnetic RCo₂ as a Griffiths phase of the high temperature, magnetically ordered, amorphous RCo₂ phase.