Triphilic pentablock copolymers with perfluoroalkyl segment in central position

Adding perfluoroalkyl (PF) segments to amphiphilic copolymers yields triphilic copolymers with new application profiles. Usually, PF segments are attached as terminal blocks via Cu(I) catalyzed azide-alkyne cycloaddition (CuAAC). The purpose of the current study is to design new triphilic architectures with a PF segment in central position. The PF segment bearing bifunctional atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) initiator is employed for the fabrication of triphilic poly(propylene oxide)-b-poly(glycerol monomethacrylate)-b-PF-b-poly(glycerol monomethacrylate)-b-poly(propylene oxide) PPO-b-PGMA-b-PF-b-PGMA-b-PPO pentablock copolymers by a combined ATRP and CuAAC reaction approach. Differential scanning calorimetry indicates the PF-initiator to undergo a solid–solid phase transition at 63°C before the final crystal melting at 95°C. This is further corroborated by polarized optical microscopy and X-ray diffraction studies. The PF-initiator could successfully polymerize solketal methacrylate (SMA) under typical ATRP conditions producing well-defined Br-PSMA-b-PF-b-PSMA-Br triblock copolymers that are then converted into PPO-b-PSMA-b-PF-b-PSMA-b-PPO pentablock copolymer via CuAAC reaction. Subsequently, acid hydrolysis of the PSMA blocks afforded water soluble well-defined triphilic pentablock copolymers PPO-b-PGMA-b-PF-b-PGMA-b-PPO with fluorophilic central segment, hydrophilic middle blocks, and lipophilic outer blocks. The triphilic block copolymers could self-assemble, depending upon the preparatory protocol, into spherical and filament-like phase-separated nanostructures as revealed by transmission electron microscopy.     

Induced smectic C* phases

Induced ferroelectric S*_C phases are formed by non-chiral S_C host phases doped with chiral dipolar guest molecules. In those mixtures the spontaneous polarization P_s and the tilt angle Θ has been investigated as a function of the mole fraction x_G of the chiral dopant. In most cases the reduced polarization P₀ = P_S/ sin Θ has been found to depend linearly on x_G. The polarization power which is defined by δ_P=(∂P₀/∂x_G)ΔT is discussed in terms of the molecular structure of the chiral dopants. There are systems in which P₀(x_G) deviates positively from linearity. This behaviour can be understood by considering a local field correction to P₀. By assuming a local field of Lorentz type a theoretical relation for P₀(x_G) has been derived which explains the experimental results. The effect of a local field is considerable if the transverse dipole moment and the polarizability of the chiral dopant are large.     

Deconvolving compactly supported densities

This paper addresses the statistical problem of density deconvolution under the condition that the density to be estimated has compact support. We introduce a new estimation procedure, which establishes faster rates of convergence for smooth densities as compared to the optimal rates for smooth densities with unbounded support. This framework also allows us to relax the usual condition of known error density with non-vanishing Fourier transform, so that a nonparametric class of densities is valid; therefore, even the shape of the noise density need not be assumed. These results can also be generalized for fast decaying densities with unbounded support. We prove optimality of the rates in the underlying experiment and study the practical performance of our estimator by numerical simulations.      

A global existence theorem for the general coagulation–fragmentation equation with unbounded kernels

In this article an existence theorem is proved for the coagulation–fragmentation equation with unbounded kernel rates. Solutions are shown to be in the space X⁺ = {c∈L¹: ∫ (1 + x)∣c(x)∣dx < ∞} whenever the kernels satisfy certain growth properties and the non-negative initial data belong to X⁺. The proof is based on weak L¹ compactness methods applied to suitably chosen approximating equations.     

Optimal controllability in viscoelasticity of rate type

Recently, the control engineers interest turns upon material with structural damping, such as hysteretic effects in elastoplastic systems [27] and flexible space structures [30] and in particular with damping due to the viscoelastic nature of the material, in the sense of Kelvin, [7], [12]. The reason for this renewed interest is the possibility of constructing finite rank compensators with small spillover in the observation [1], [5], [11], [25]. However, a control theory for the infinite system does not seem to exist in the literature. It is shown that the trajectories, initially in a certain subspace, can be steered to rest in any time T > 0 using distributed load controls

1 The reesults are partially contained in [19].

. Furthermore, and perhaps more interesting, the L₂ (0, T, H)-norm of the control decreases as T increases. This gives rise to the problem of time-optimal-controllability and the correlation to the problem of minimum norm controllability. It is shown that the time-optimal control is characterized by a weak “bang-bang” principle.     

Koordinative Verankerung von Nickelkomplexen an Hectorit-Schichtsilicaten mit Hilfe langkettiger Diphenylphosphinogruppen

Coordinative Anchoring of Nickel Complexes on Hectorite-Layer Silicates through long-chain Diphenylphosphine Groups The treatment of sodium and calcium hectorites with 2-diphenylphosphinoethyltriethoxysilane leads, by condensation of free hydroxyl groups, to functionalized layer silicates with long-chain diphenylphosphine groups onto which nickel chloride can be coordinated. In these modified hectorites the fourth coordination site of the tetrahedrally coordinated nickel is occupied by a labile solvent molecule. On the other hand, the complex bis(2-diphenylphosphinoethyltriethoxysilane)nickel(II) chloride prepared beforehand also reacts with sodium hectorite under condensation; but the square-planar coordination of the four stable ligands (two chloride and two phosphor atoms) is maintained. This finds its expression in a significant activity decrease in catalytic reactions as compared to the aforementioned products.     

Simultaneously quantifying parent drugs and screening for metabolites in plasma pharmacokinetic samples using selected reaction monitoring information-dependent acquisition on a QTrap instrument

Bioanalytical support of plasma pharmacokinetic (PK) studies for drug discovery programs primarily involves the quantitative analysis of dosed compounds using liquid chromatography/atmospheric pressure ionization tandem mass spectrometry (LC/MS/MS) operated in selected reaction monitoring (SRM) mode. However, there is a growing need for information on the metabolism of new chemical entities (NCEs), in addition to the time-concentration profiles from these studies. In this paper, we present a novel approach to not only quantify parent drugs with SRM, but also simultaneously screen for metabolites using a hybrid triple quadrupole/linear ion trap (QqQ(LIT)) instrument. This was achieved by incorporating both the conventional SRM-only acquisition of parent compounds and the SRM-triggered information-dependent acquisition (IDA) of potential metabolites within the same scan cycle during the same LC/MS/MS run. Two test compounds were used to demonstrate the applicability of this approach. Plasma samples from PK studies were processed by simple protein precipitation and the supernatant was diluted with water before injection. The fast scanning capability of the linear ion trap allowed for the information-dependent acquisition of metabolite MS/MS spectra (<1 s/scan), in addition to the collection of adequate data points for SRM-only channels. The MS/MS spectra obtained from potential metabolites in post-dose samples correlated well with the spectra of the parent compounds studied, therefore providing additional confirmatory structure information without the need for repetitive analyses. Relative quantitative time-concentration profiles of identified metabolites were also obtained. Furthermore, this articulated SRM+SRM-IDA approach generated equivalent quantitative results for parent compounds to those obtained by conventional SRM-only analysis. This approach has been successfully used to support discovery PK screening programs.