Single Crystal to Single Crystal (SC‐to‐SC) Transformation from a Nonporous to Porous Metal–Organic Framework and Its Application Potential in Gas Adsorption and Suzuki Coupling Reaction through Postmodification

A new amino‐functionalized strontium–carboxylate‐based metal–organic framework (MOF) has been synthesized that undergoes single crystal to single crystal (SC‐to‐SC) transformation upon desolvation. Both structures have been characterized by single‐crystal X‐ray analysis. The desolvated structure shows an interesting 3D porous structure with pendent ?NH₂ groups inside the pore wall, whereas the solvated compound possesses a nonporous structure with DMF molecules on the metal centers. The amino group was postmodified through Schiff base condensation by pyridine‐2‐carboxaldehyde and palladium was anchored on that site. The modified framework has been utilized for the Suzuki cross‐coupling reaction. The compound shows high activity towards the C?C cross‐coupling reaction with good yields and turnover frequencies. Gas adsorption studies showed that the desolvated compound had permanent porosity and was microporous in nature with a BET surface area of 2052 m² g^?1. The material also possesses good CO₂ (8 wt %) and H₂ (1.87 wt %) adsorption capabilities.     

Energy dependence of the fast fragment of the target nucleus in high energy hadron-nucleus interaction

This paper presents an extensive study on the dependence of the mean number of the fast fragment of the target nucleus n _g on the incident beam energy in proton-nucleus interaction in emulsion in the range 6·2E ₀400 GeV/c. It has been observed that n _g decreases in the range 6·2E ₀200 GeV/c, then increases and attains an approximately steady value up to 400 GeV/c. It is very difficult to explain this behaviour with the help of the existing nuclear production models.The author would like to thank Prof A. J. Herz (CERN), Prof. K. D. Tolostov (Dubna, U.S.S.R.), Prof. P. L. Jain (State University of New York, U.S.A.), Prof. G. Giacomelly (Italy) for kindly supplying the exposed emulsion plates.     

Optimizing system performance in the event of feedback failure

The problem of maintaining acceptable performance of a perturbed control system during a disruption of the feedback signal is addressed. The objective is to maximize the time during which performance remains within desirable bounds without feedback, given that the parameters of the controlled system are within a specified neighborhood of their nominal values. The existence of an optimal open-loop controller that achieves this objective is proved. It is also shown that a bang-bang input can approximate the performance of the optimal controller. (© 2008 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Coevolution of protein and RNA structures within a highly conserved ribosomal domain

The X-ray crystal structure of a ribosomal L11-rRNA complex with chloroplast-like mutations in both protein and rRNA is presented. The global structure is almost identical to that of the wild-type (bacterial) complex, with only a small movement of the protein alpha helix away from the surface of the RNA required to accommodate the altered protein residue. In contrast, the specific hydrogen bonding pattern of the mutated residues is substantially different, and now includes a direct interaction between the protein side chain and an RNA base edge and a water-mediated contact. Comparison of the two structures allows the observations of sequence variation and relative affinities of wild-type and mutant complexes to be clearly rationalized, but reinforces the concept that there is no single simple code for protein-RNA recognition.     

A novel Raman spectroscopic approach to identify polymorphism in leflunomide: a combined experimental and theoretical study

Polymorphism is an important characteristic which affects the activity, solubility and other physical properties of a compound and can be induced by varying temperature, pressure and solvent. The presence and conversion of α to β polymorphic forms of an anti‐rheumatic drug leflunomide have been studied by temperature‐dependent and in situ Raman observations. Both α and β polymorphs were found to co‐exist in the temperature interval 367–372 K. The α form alone exists below 367 K and the β form alone above 373 K. The CO stretching band clearly demonstrates the α → β conversion because of breaking of N–H···O bond and formation of N–H···N bond. On cooling the Raman spectra suggest the irreversibility of this conversion. Thermodynamic stability, crystal parameters and surface morphology of both forms in the leflunomide powder used for the present study have been verified by differential scanning calorimetry, X‐ray powder diffraction and scanning electron microscopy. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Using recurrence plot analysis to distinguish between endogenous and exogenous stock market crashes

Recurrence Plots are graphical tools based on Phase Space Reconstruction. Recurrence Quantification Analysis (RQA) is a statistical quantification of RPs. RP and RQA are good at working with non-stationarity and noisy data, in detecting changes in data behavior, in particular in detecting breaks, like a phase transition and in informing about other dynamic properties of a time series. Endogenous Stock Market Crashes have been modeled as phase changes in recent times. Motivated by this, we have used RP and RQA techniques for detecting critical regimes preceding an endogenous crash seen as a phase transition and hence give an estimation of the initial bubble time. We have used a new method for computing RQA measures with confidence intervals. We have also used the techniques on a known exogenous crash to see if the RP reveals a different story or not. The analysis is made on Nifty, Hong Kong AOI and Dow Jones Industrial Average, taken over a time span of about 3 years for the endogenous crashes. Then the RPs of all time series have been observed, compared and discussed. All the time series have been first transformed into the classical momentum divided by the maximum Xmax of the time series over the time window which is considered in the specific analysis. RPs have been plotted for each time series, and RQA variables have been computed on different epochs. Our studies reveal that, in the case of an endogenous crash, we have been able to identify the bubble, while in the case of exogenous crashes the plots do not show any such pattern, thus helping us in identifying such crashes.     

Sets of Approximation and Interpolation in ℂ for Manifold-Valued Maps

We give examples of non-smooth sets in the complex plane with the property that every holomorphic map continuous to the boundary from these sets into any complex manifold may be uniformly approximated by maps holomorphic in some neighborhood of the set (Mergelyan-type approximation for manifold-valued maps.) Similar results are proved for sections of complex-valued holomorphic submersions from complex manifolds.      

Anhydrous state proton conduction in sulfonated bisphenol a polyetherimide with 1H‐1,2,4 triazole as proton solvent

In this study, bisphenol A polyetherimide was sulfonated to various degrees (22, 48, and 62%) by trimethylsilylchlorosulfonate (TMSCS). Novel anhydrous proton conducting polyelectrolytes were prepared by the incorporation of 1H‐1,2,4‐triazole (Taz) as proton solvent in sulfonated polyetherimide (SPEI) matrix. The conductivity reached about 2 × 10^–3 S/cm at 80 °C and 10^–2 S/cm at 140 °C. The temperature dependence proton conductivity of the polyelectrolytes followed Arrhenius equation. The conductivity improved considerably at a temperature close to the triazole melting temperature in SPEI(X)H matrix. It was proposed that the high mobility of the triazolium ions (vehicle diffusion), in addition to structure diffusion, contribute to the high conductivity of these proton conducting electrolytes above the melting temperature of triazole. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 47: 2178–2187, 2009