Interpretation of analytical chemical information by pattern recognition methods-a survey

Since the late sixties, pattern recognition techniques have been used by analytical chemists to facilitate the interpretation of multivariate analytical information. Most research within the field has focused on adapting pattern recognition methods to chemical data. This has been necessary since chemical data are often complicated by the fact that distributions are unknown. Through the first decade of chemical pattern recognition, promising results have been obtained even though the data sets studied have frequently been rather small for statistical analysis. The past few years have shown that an increasing number of analytical chemists are interested in the sheer utility of pattern recognition. This can be taken as a valid sign of a useful approach. The present communication surveys this development. Those methods which have proved most useful for analytical chemical data are described in some detail, and applications within the various fields of analytical chemistry are reviewed.     

Synthetic protocols and building blocks for molecular electronics

Simple and readily accessible aryl bromides are useful building blocks for thiol end-capped molecular wires. Thus, 4-bromophenyl tert-butyl sulfide and 1-bromo-4-(methoxymethyl)benzene serve as precursors for a variety of oligo(phenylenevinylene) and oligo(phenyleneethynylene) wires via efficient synthetic transformations as presented in this paper.     

Fulleropyrrolidine end-capped molecular wires for molecular electronics--synthesis, spectroscopic, electrochemical, and theoretical characterization

In continuation of previous studies showing promising metal-molecule contact properties a variety of C(60) end-capped "molecular wires" for molecular electronics were prepared by variants of the Prato 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition reaction. Either benzene or fluorene was chosen as the central wire, and synthetic protocols for derivatives terminated with one or two fullero[c]pyrrolidine "electrode anchoring" groups were developed. An aryl-substituted aziridine could in some cases be employed directly as the azomethine ylide precursor for the Prato reaction without the need of having an electron-withdrawing ester group present. The effect of extending the π-system of the central wire from 1,4-phenylenediamine to 2,7-fluorenediamine was investigated by absorption, fluorescence, and electrochemical methods. The central wire and the C(60) end-groups were found not to electronically communicate in the ground state. However, the fluorescence of C(60) was quenched by charge transfer from the wire to C(60). Quantum chemical calculations predict and explain the collapse of coherent electronic transmission through one of the fulleropyrrolidine-terminated molecular wires.     

DYNGA: a general purpose QM-MM-MD program. I. Application to water

We present a general purpose QM-MM-MD engine (DYNGA) designed to test alternative hybrid Hamiltonians geared towards the treatment of problems of interest in structural biology including the use of experimental data constraints. In this first presentation we use DYNGA to explore the behaviour of a traditional QM-MM approach in the treatment of the water—water interaction. We find the potential energy hypersurface for the water dimer computed with the HF 4–31G*/TIP3P hybrid Hamiltonian tends to be too flat. We also explore the effect of using traditional QM-MM techniques on proton wires and conclude there is a need for improvement, possibly addressed by using polarizable force fields.     

Computerized electroanalysis : Multiple scanning anodic stripping and its application to sea water

the determination of copper, lead, zinc, cadmium and bismuth in standard sea water samples by multiple scanning anodic stripping has been investigated. The influence of plating potential and sample pH has been studied.     

PAST AND FUTURE MANAGEMENT OF A COLLAPSED FISHERY: THE BAY OF BISCAY ANCHOVY

Abstract We analyze the efficiency of the international management of the Bay of Biscay anchovy. While a sharing agreement between France and Spain has been in place since 1992, the fish stock collapsed in 2005 and the fishery closed from 2005 to spring 2010. We consider differences in production technologies between both countries and calibrate our model using data from 1987 to 2009. Our results suggest two sources of rent dissipation under the existing sharing agreement: inefficient quota allocation and production inefficiencies due to inflexible national regulations. We discuss several alternatives to improve management.     

ConFlo III - an interface for high precision delta(13)C and delta(15)N analysis with an extended dynamic range

A newly developed interface coupling a CHN combustion device (elemental analyser 'EA') to an isotope ratio mass spectrometer is described and evaluated. The purpose of the device is to extend the dynamic range of delta(13)C and delta(15)N analysis from less than 2 orders of magnitude to more than 3 orders of magnitude. Carbon isotope ratio measurements of atropine as a model compound have been performed analysing between 1 μg to 5 mg C with acceptable to excellent precision (0.6 to 0.06 per thousand, delta-notation). The correction due to the blank signal is critical for sample amounts smaller than 4 μg C. The maximum sample weight is determined by the combustion capacity of the EA. Larger sample amounts are measured using dilution of a small part of the EA effluent with helium. The dilution mechanism works virtually free of isotope fractionation. Copyright 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.