Towards novel difluorinated sugar mimetics; syntheses and conformational analyses of highly-functionalised difluorinated cyclooctenones

Highly-functionalised difluorinated cyclooctenones were synthesised from trifluoroethanol using either metallated difluoroenol acetal or carbamate chemistry, followed by a [2,3]-Wittig rearrangement or aldol reaction. Efficient RCM reactions afforded the title compounds which showed rather restricted fluxional behaviour by VT (19)F NMR. Topological characterisation by molecular modelling and NOESY/ROESY experiments offered a number of challenges, but allowed the identification of two favoured boat-chair conformers which interconverted by pseudorotation with relatively large activation barriers.     

XeAuF

XeAuF has been detected and characterized using microwave rotational spectroscopy. It was prepared by laser ablation of Au in the presence of Xe and SF(6), and stabilized in a supersonic jet of Ar. The spectrum was measured with a cavity pulsed jet Fourier transform microwave spectrometer, in the frequency range 6-26 GHz. Rotational constants, centrifugal distortion constants, and (131)Xe and (197)Au nuclear quadrupole coupling constants have been evaluated. The molecule is linear, with a short XeAu bond (2.54 A), and is rigid. The (131)Xe nuclear quadrupole coupling constant (NQCC) is large (-135 MHz). The (197)Au NQCC differs radically from that of uncomplexed AuF. The results are supported by those of ab initio calculations which have given an XeAu dissociation energy approximately 100 kJ mol(-1), plus Mulliken and natural bond orbital populations, MOLDEN plots of valence orbitals, and an energy density distribution. All evidence is consistent with XeAu covalent bonding in XeAuF.     

The microwave spectrum of bromine isocyanate,Brnco: Determination of rotational constants from quadrupole hyperfine structure

A novel method has been developed to evaluate accurate rotational constants from the microwave spectrum of the unstable molecule bromine isocyanate, using perturbations in nuclear quadrupole hyperfine structure. It has been applied to this prolate near-symmetric rotor to determine A_v and x_ab accurately, entirely from a-type R branches. The method has been made possible by the development of a special computer program for global léast-squares fitting to rotational and centrifugal distortion constants, along with all components of the Br nuclear quadrupole coupling tensor.     

The effect of a coriolis force on Taylor-Couette flow

Taylor-Couette flow subject to a Coriolis force is studied experimentally and numerically. In the experiment, the Couette apparatus is mounted on a turntable with the axis of the cylinders orthogonal to the rotation vector of the turntable. The Coriolis force stabilizes the fluid against the onset of Taylor vortices and alters the velocity fields, both above and below the transition from the initial flow. At small dimensionless turntable frequencies, the transition yields time-independent Taylor vortices which are tilted with respect to the cylinder axis. At larger there is a direct transition to turbulence. We determine the first-order correction to the classical Couette initial flow, to account for the effects of the Coriolis force, by expanding in powers of. We present numerical results for the axial velocity (the only nonvanishing correction term to order) in the infinite-cylinder approximation.     

Oscillatory properties of first order linear functional differential equations

Oscillatory properties of retarded and advanced functional differential equations are investigated.In the first part, the study concerns equations with piecewise constant arguments, which found applications in certain biomedical problems. Then, results of some authors are generalized for general equations with many argument deviations. Finally, applications are given to equations with linear transformations of the argument.     

Proposal for generating Fock states in traveling wave fields

We describe a proposal for the generation of a single-mode photonic number state, |N〉$|N〉$, in a traveling wave optical field. The state is obtained by state reduction from an input coherent state using Kerr media. Our method is based on a previous scheme used for hole burning in the Fock space by minimizing the Mandel Q parameter. The same method was used by Maia et al., but ours is different, it requires only one single photon injected in the entire setup and one photon detection at the end.     

Structural rearrangement and stiffening of hydrophobically modified supramolecular hydrogels during thermal annealing

Dynamic crosslinks formed by thermoreversible associations provide an energy dissipation mechanism to toughen hydrogels. However, the details of the organization of these crosslinks impact the hydrogel properties through constraints on the network chain conformation. The physical crosslinks generated by hydrophobic association of the 2‐(N‐ethylperfluorooctane‐sulfonamido)ethyl methacrylate (FOSM) groups in a random copolymer of N,N‐dimethylacrylamide (DMA) and FOSM provide a simple system to investigate how the hydrogel structure (as determined from small angle neutron scattering impacts the mechanical properties of the hydrogel. The initial hydration of the copolymer at 25 °C leads to a kinetically trapped structure with large‐scale heterogeneities. Heating the hydrogel at 60 °C, which is above the glass transition temperature for the FOSM domains, allows the hydrogel structure to rearrange to reduce the density of network defects and the structural heterogeneities. That effectively increases the crosslink density of the network, which stiffens the hydrogel and decreases the swelling at equilibrium at 25 °C. The processing history determines how the hydrophobes aggregate to form the physically crosslinked network, whose structure defines the mechanical properties of these hydrogels. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part B: Polym. Phys. 2017 , 55, 1036–1044     

Microwave spectra, geometries, and hyperfine constants of OCAgX (X = F, Cl, Br)

A pulsed jet cavity Fourier transform microwave spectrometer has been used to measure the rotational spectra of OCAgX (X = F, Cl, Br) in the frequency range 5-22 GHz. Metal atoms were generated via laser ablation and were allowed to react with CO and a halide precursor, prior to stabilization of the products within a supersonic jet of argon. These are the first experimental observations of OCAgF and OCAgBr, and the first high resolution spectroscopic study of OCAgCl. All three molecules are linear. Accurately determined rotational constants have been used to evaluate the various internuclear distances, which are found to be consistent with trends established for OCAuX and OCCuX species. The C-O distances are short, and the M-C distances are significantly longer than those in other molecules containing a metal-carbonyl bond. Precise values of centrifugal distortion constants and halogen nuclear quadrupole coupling constants have also been determined. The coupling constants are compared with the results of previous studies of OCCuX and OCAuX and are used to infer trends in the electron distributions of the molecules. Ab initio calculations have been performed and employed to predict the geometries, vibrational frequencies, and Mulliken valence orbital populations of the various species.