Room temperature Ni-catalyzed reduction of aryl tosylates by borane hydrides

Mild Ni-catalyzed homogeneous reductions of aryl tosylates are described for the first time. The catalytic system Ni(PPh₃)₂Cl₂ and PCy₃ is shown to be general for hydrogenolysis of a wide range of tosylates, including hindered, deactivated, heterocyclic, and bifunctional examples.     

Chlorination of aromatic substrates catalyzed by the phthalocyanine complexes

The chlorination of benzene, toluene, and o-xylene with molecular chlorine in the presence of the phthalocyanine complexes of different structures was studied. The transformations of the catalysts during the reaction were investigated. Published in Russian in Izvestiya Akademii Nauk. Seriya Khimicheskaya, No. 8, pp. 1644–1647, August, 2008.     

Risk and quality control in a supply chain: competitive and collaborative approaches

This paper provides a quantitative and comparative economic and risk approach to strategic quality control in a supply chain, consisting of one supplier and one producer, using a random payoff game. Such a game is first solved in a risk-neutral framework by assuming that both parties are competing with each other. We show in this case that there may be an interior solution to the inspection game. A similar analysis under a collaborative framework is shown to be trivial and not practical, with a solution to the inspection game being an ‘all or nothing’ solution to one or both the parties involved. For these reasons, the sampling random payoff game is transformed into a Neyman–Pearson risk constraints game, where the parties minimize the expected costs subject to a set of Neyman–Pearson risk (type I and type II) constraints. In this case, the number of potential equilibria can be large. A number of such solutions are developed and a practical (convex) approach is suggested by providing an interior (partial sampling) solution for the collaborative case. Numerical examples are developed to demonstrate the procedure used. Thus, unlike theoretical approaches to the solution of strategic quality control random payoff games, the approach we construct is both practical and consistent with the statistical risk Neyman–Pearson approach.     

Ghost-matter mixing and feigenbaum universality in string theory

Branelike vertex operators, defining backgrounds with ghost-matter mixing in Neveu-Schwarz-Ramond superstring theory, play an important role in a world-sheet formulation of D branes and M theory, being creation operators for extended objects in the second quantized formalism. We show that the dilaton beta function in ghost-matter mixing backgrounds becomes stochastic. The renormalization group (RG) equations in ghost-matter mixing backgrounds lead to non-Markovian Fokker-Planck equations whose solutions describe superstrings in curved spacetimes with branelike metrics. We show that the Feigenbaum universality constant δ=4.669 ..., describing transitions from order to chaos in a huge variety of dynamical systems, appears analytically in these RG equations. We find that the appearance of this constant is related to the scaling of relative spacetime curvatures at fixed points of the RG flow. In this picture, the fixed points correspond to the period doubling of Feigenbaum iterational schemes.

     

Optical characteristics of a transverse volume discharge in a helium-hydrogen chloride mixture

The emission characteristics of a transverse volume discharge in a He: HCl = 10: 1 mixture at a total pressure of 1–8 kPa were investigated. The plasma volume was 18 × 2.2 × 1 cm³, the interelectrode distance was d=2.2 cm, and the charging voltage of the main storage capacitor was 5–10 kV. The emission characteristics of the discharge were studied in the spectral range of 500–1000 nm. This type of discharge can be used in pulsed dry-etching plasmochemical reactors. The density of atomic chlorine radicals in the plasma was optimized in terms of the pressure of the initial working He-HCl mixture by measuring the relative radiation intensity of the Cl 837(5)-nm spectral line. The density of molecular radicals can be monitored indirectly by recording radiation from the excited chlorine-free decomposition products of HCl molecules (the H_α 656-nm line).     

Structure of minimizers in linear-quadratic Bolza problems of optimal control

In this paper, we study intersections of extremals in a linear-quadratic Bolza problem of optimal control. The structure of the inter-sections is described. We show that this structure implies the semipositive definiteness of the quadratic cost functional. In addition, we derive necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of minimizers.     

Broadband emission spectrum of a continuous plasma jet in a mixture of noble gases with SF6 molecules

A broad band in the visible emission spectrum of a continuous Ar/Kr/SF₆ plasma jet is detected at a distance l>75 mm from the plasmatron nozzle. Experimental dependences of the maximum emission intensity on the parameters of the plasma source are presented.     

Optical characteristics of laser-produced antimony plasma

The processes occurring in expanding laser-produced antimony plasma are investigated by the emission spectroscopy method. The plasma expansion velocity, the recombination time of SbII, and the electron temperature and density are determined from the dynamics of SbI line emission. Based on the results obtained, the processes occurring during the formation and expansion of laser-produced antimony plasma are qualitatively analyzed.