Path to achieving molecular dispersion in a dense reactive mixture

A uniform dispersion of reactants is necessary to achieve a complete reaction involving multicomponents. In this study, we have examined the role of plasticizer in the reaction of two seemingly unlikely reactants: a highly crystalline hexamethylenetetramine (HMTA) and a strongly hydrogen bonded phenol formaldehyde resin. By combining information from NMR, infrared spectroscopy and differential scanning calorimetry, we were able to determine the role of specific intermolecular interactions necessary for the plasticizer to dissolve the highly crystalline HMTA and to plasticize the phenol formaldehyde resin in this crosslinking reaction. The presence of the plasticizer increased the segmental mobility, disrupted the hydrogen bonded matrix, and freed the hydroxyl units, which further increased the solubility of the HMTA. Both the endothermic and exothermic transitions are accounted for in the calorimetric data obtained. For the first time, it is possible to obtain the effective molar ratio of each component needed to complete the crosslinking reaction efficiently. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part B: Polym. Phys. 2015 , 53, 1519–1526     

Study of the Capabilities of the ALICE inner tracking system stand-alone for HBT analysis

Results are shown from a Monte Carlo simulation study of the capabilities of the Inner Tracking System of the ALICE experiment, used in standalone mode, for HBT analysis of Pb?Pb collisions at LHC energies (5.5 ATeV). Different values of the coherence factor and the Gaussian source radius have been studied. For this purpose, a specific ITS stand-alone tracking algorithm, based on the Denby-Peterson neural algorithm, has been developed.     

On the invariant measures for the two-dimensional euler flow

It is proven that the canonical Gibbs measure associated with a gas of vortices of intensity ± converges, in the limitN, 0,Nconst, to a Gaussian measure, which is invariant for the two-dimensional Euler equation.On leave from Dipartimento di Matematica Università di Roma Tor Vergata Roma, Italy.On leave from Dipartimento di Matematica Università di Roma La Sapienza, Roma, Italy.     

Convergence of Chorin-Marsden product formula in the half-plane

Consider a viscous incompressible fluid in the half-plane and letu _t be a solution of the Navier-Stokes equation. In this paper we prove that the product formula (E _t/n G _t/n u) ⁿ u ₀, whereE _t is the Euler flow,G _t is the heat flow and is a suitable operator describing the vorticity production due to the boundary, converges uniformly tou _t in the limitn .Research supported by Ministero della Pubblica Istruzione, CNR contract No. 84.00016.02 and GNFM     

Sulla rilassazione di alcuni funzionali integrali in dimensione infinita

Summary In this work we consider the problem ()of the minimum for integral functionals I _f of the Calculus of Variations, where we don't suppose any hypothesis of convexity on the integrand and in which the state takes values in a Suslin metric space, while the last variable of the integrand is in a separable reflexive Banach space. We study two different types of relaxed problems, associated to (),and we prove that the infima of the three functionals considered are the same, that (),one of the relaxed problems, has solution and that the accumulation points of the minimizing sequences for ()are the only solutions of ().

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Lavoro eseguito nell'ambito dell'Istituto per la Matematica Applicata del C.N.R., Genova.     

Synthetic erythropoietic proteins: tuning biological performance by site-specific polymer attachment

Chemical synthesis in combination with precision polymer modification allows the systematic exploration of the effect of protein properties, such as charge and hydrodynamic radius, on potency using defined, homogeneous conjugates. A series of polymer-modified synthetic erythropoiesis proteins were constructed that had a polypeptide chain similar to the amino acid sequence of human erythropoietin but differed significantly in the number and type of attached polymers. The analogs differed in charge from +5 to -26 at neutral pH and varied in molecular weight from 30 to 54 kDa. All were active in an in vitro cell proliferation assay. However, in vivo potency was found to be strongly dependent on overall charge and size. The trends observed in this study may serve as starting points for the construction of more potent synthetic EPO analogs in the future.     

Study of two diastereomeric pairs of regiosomeric 2-isoxazolines by tandem mass spectrometry with electron impact ionization

On electron impact (EI) ionization, two cis/trans pairs of 4-methyl-5-phenyl and 4-phenyl-5-methyl regioisomeric 3-carbethoxy-2-isoxazolines showed normal mass spectra and mass-analysed ion kinetic energy (MIKE) spectra of metastable (MI) and collision-activated (CA) molecule ions, allowing unequivocal differentiation of the regioisomers. The cis/trans stereoisomers of each regioisomer showed very similar normal mass spectra. Very interestingly, the cis- and trans-4-phenyl-5-methyl stereoisomers appeared reasonably differentiated by the molecule ion MIKE spectra, whereas the 4-methyl-5-phenyl regioisomeric pair of stereoisomers did not. The influence of the phenyl substituent to the fragmentation processes was notable. Some fragments of interest were studied by comparison of their MIKE spectra with those of model ions, generated by EI from suitable substrates, including (i) the isomeric α,β-unsaturated oxime, namely ethyl (Z)-2-(hydroxymino)-3-methyl-4-phenylbut-3-enoate, a by-product of importance for the mechanism(s) of the addition/cycloaddition reactions of nitrile oxides to alkenes and (ii) trans-β-methylstyrene, a dipolarophilic reactant in the same reactions. The favoured heterocyclic C(5)–O(1) bond cleavage occurred only for the ionized 4-methyl-5-phenyl 2-isoxazoline pair, leading to a distonic ion of relevance, as it can represent either a reasonable precursor for both the isomerization to the ionized α,β-unsaturated oxime and the EI-induced cycloreversion yielding ionized β-methylstyrene, or the ionized form of a zwitterionic intermediate, which had been proposed previously for the addition/cycloaddition mechanism(s) in the solution phase, currently under study.     

Nonlinear stability of circular vortex patches

This paper proves that circular vortex patches in the plane are stable for the nonlinear dynamical system generated by the Euler equations of incompressible fluids. This is achieved by establishing a relative variational principle in terms of either energy or angular momentum. Thus, we exploit and extend Arnold's idea in (1965, 1969) to a nonsmooth setting as well.Research partially supported by DOE contract DE-AT03-82ER12097 to the University of California, Berkeley     

Polyetylene Glycols as host solvents: applications to organic synthesis

Polyethylene glycols (PEG) are fair solvents for inorganic salts and organic substrates; their use in some organic reactions is described.     

Superstability estimates for anharmonic systems

We consider an anharmonic crystal described by variablesS _x ,x ^d ,S _x , with one-body interaction ¦S _x ¦ and nearest neighbor (n.n.) two body interaction ¦S _x –S _y ¦. We prove that, for ^d bounded, , where is the correlation function for the free boundary condition Gibbs state in ,>0 and are suitable constants independent of and . This generalizes previous results obtained in the case.Research partially supported by Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche.