Novel method of preparing Ag–Hg alloy on polyacrylamide films and their structure

A novel method is proposed of preparing thin Ag–Hg alloy on PAAm film surface at room temperature: The film of interest is formed by holding PAAm aqueous solution with AgNO₃ in Hg-saturated atmosphere. Two kinds of films, one of which is a conductor and the other an insulator, can be selectively formed with pH-controlled PAAm solution by ammonia. The conducting surface is assigned to the α phase of Ag–Hg alloy by means of X-ray analysis. Potentiometric titration and IR spectral studies suggest the existence of PAAm–Ag⁺ complexes. On the basis of their structure and the oxidation and reduction potential of Ag⁺ and Hg²⁺, the mechanism of film formation is also discussed.     

A facile chemical synthesis of cholest-4-en-3-one. Carbon-13 nuclear magnetic resonance spectral properties of cholest-4-en-3-one and cholest-5-en-3-one

This paper presents a simplified method for the chemical synthesis of cholest-4-en-3-one, which is a naturally occurring steroid and a salient intermediate in steroid chemistry. Pyridinium chlorochromate (PCC) in refluxing benzene has been found to be an effective and convenient reagent for the oxidation and concomitant isomerization of cholest-5-en-3β-ol (cholesterol) to cholest-4-en-3-one in high yield. Also described are the carbon-13 nuclear magnetic resonance spectral properties of cholest-4-en-3-one and of the isolated reaction intermediate cholest-5-en-3-one. Based on a paper presented at the Symposium on Plant and Fungal Sterols: Biosynthesis Metabolism and function held at the AOCS Annual Meeting, Baltimore, MD, April 1990.     

Aggregation arrestant pheromone of the German cockroach,Blattella germanica (L.) (Dictyoptera: Blattellidae): Isolation and structure elucidation of blattellastanoside-A and -B

The aggregation pheromone of the German cockroach,Blattella germanica, consists of attractant and arrestant, which can be detected by olfactometer and choice-chamber assay, respectively. Both were extracted from the frass-contaminated filter paper being used as a shelter. They were separated by solvent partition withn-butanol and water. The arrestant from then-butanol phase was purified by open column chromatography and then successive HPLC isolated two major arrestant components. Spectral evidence from SI-MS, HR-EI-MS, and NMR experiments with pulse techniques provided possible structures as 1-(6-chloro-4,5-epoxy-5-stigmast-3-yl)--d-glucopyranoside and 1-(6-chloro-5-hydroxy-5-stigmast-3-yl)--d-glu-copyranoside, denoted as blattellastanoside-A and blattellastanoside-B, respectively. They represented arrestant activity as median effective doses (ED₅₀) at 0.044 (A) and 3.2 (B) nmol on 1.0 cm² of Whatman No. 1 filter paper.     

One-step formation of ethyl methyl ketone from 1-butene and water on ultrastable Y-type zeolite catalyst

Proton exchanged ultrastable Y-type zeolite with silica/alumina = 40 showed a pronounced catalytic activity for the formation of ethyl methyl ketone directly from 1-butene and water. The formation rate of ethyl methyl ketone was much higher than those on MoO₃-based catalysts in the oxidation of 1-butene by oxygen. It was suggested that the basic site necessary for the formation of ethyl ketone directly from 1-butene and water would be the pentacoordinated Al.     

Depolymerization of poly(fluoroalkyl methacrylate-co-methyl methacrylate) as studied with thermogravimetry

Thermal behaviors of a few kinds of poly(fluoroalkyl methacrylate-co-methyl methacrylate) prepared by γ-ray copolymerization were investigated by using thermogravimetric measurements together with the intermittent analysis of the gaseous products. The thermal degradation of copolymers composed of one of fluoroalkyl methacrylates of the following structures: CH₂?C(CH₃)COOCH₂(CF₂CF₂)_nH, where n = 1,2, and 3, and methyl methacrylate proceeded according to the depolymerization mechanism reproducing the pristine component comonomers exclusively, but their thermograms in inert atmosphere showed the feature of a two-step reaction. In air, however, thermograms of copolymers did not show such a stepwise decrease in weight with the elevating temperature, and temperatures at which depolymerization was introduced shifted to a much higher region. The overall aspects of depolymerization of copolymers seemed to be much similar to that of fluoroalkyl methacrylate homopolymer previously reported, and the retardation of depolymerization by air was considered to be due mainly to the stabilization of once-formed polymer radicals by oxygen.     

Hydrophobic effects on protein/nucleic acid interaction: enhancement of substrate binding by mutating tyrosine 45 to tryptophan in ribonuclease Tl

Hydrophobic effects on binding of ribonuclease Tl to guaninebases of several ribonucleotides have been proved by mutatinga hydrophobic residue at the recognition site and by measuringthe effect on binding. Mutation of a hydrophobic surface residueto a more hydrophobic residue (Tyr45 – Trp) enhances thebinding to ribonucleotides, including mononucleotide inhibitorand product, and a synthetic substrate-analog trinudeotide aswell as the binding to dinucleotide substrates and RNA. Enhancementson binding to non-substrate ribonucleotides by the mutationhave been observed with free energy changes ranging from –2.2 to – 3 .9 kJ/mol. These changes are in good agreementwith that of substrate binding, –2.3 kJ/mol, which iscalculated from Michaelis constants obtained from kinetic studies.It is shown, by comparing the observed and calculated changesin binding free energy with differences in the observed transferfree energy changes of the amino acid side chains from organicsolvents to water, that the enhancement observed on guaninebinding comes from the difference in the hydrophobic effectsof the side chains of tyrosine and tryptophan. Furthermore,a linear relationship between nucleolytic activities and hydrophobicityof the residues (Ala, Phe, Tyr, Trp) at position 45 is observed.The mutation could not change substantially the base specificityof RNase Tl, which exhibits a prime requirement for guaninebases of substrates.     

Studies on the biaxial stretching of polypropylene film. XI. Type II orientation during [2-2FI]-type stretching and its change by subsequent thermal contraction

In order to study the deformation mechanism of type II stretching, the change in orientation during the restretching and subsequent thermal contraction was investigated by x-ray diffraction method. When a uniaxially oriented film is restretched, the lamellae which are stacked in the stretching direction by the stretching rotate as a whole toward the restretching axis. They rotate backward nearly reversibly during the thermal contraction, unless the restretching exceeds a balancing state, where the orientation in the film plane are equal in all directions. However, when the restretching degree is so high and the film orientation exceeds the balancing state, the lamellar rotation is accompanied by a complex phenomenon. It is considered from the wide-angle and small-angle x-ray diffraction patterns that the lamellar surface becomes indented because of slippage between microfibrils composing the lamellae, and the microfibrils themselves bend at the boundary between the amorphous and crystalline regions within which the tilting of c-axis also occurs. Upon contracting of the film; these changes recover, but even in the last stage of contraction the orientation approaches the symmetrical biaxial orientation but not the uniaxial orientation from which the biaxial orientation is started. These orientation and disorientation behaviors are not affected basically by a slight change in the restretching temperature and the degree of stretching.     

Construction of living cellular automata using the Physarum plasmodium

The plasmodium of Physarum polycephalum is a unicellular and multinuclear giant amoeba that has an amorphous cell body. To clearly observe how the plasmodium makes decisions in its motile and exploratory behaviours, we developed a new experimental system to pseudo-discretize the motility of the organism. In our experimental space that has agar surfaces arranged in a two-dimensional lattice, the continuous and omnidirectional movement of the plasmodium was limited to the stepwise one, and the direction of the locomotion was also limited to four neighbours. In such an experimental system, a cellular automata-like system was constructed using the living cell. We further analysed the exploratory behaviours of the plasmodium by duplicating the experimental results in the simulation models of cellular automata. As a result, it was revealed that the behaviours of the plasmodium are not reproduced by only local state transition rules; and for the reproduction, a kind of historical rule setting is needed.     

Laser range scanner based on self-calibration techniques using coplanarities and metric constraints

In this paper, we propose a novel method to achieve both dense 3D reconstruction of the scene and estimation of the camera intrinsic parameters by using coplanarities and other constraints (e.g., orthogonalities or parallelisms) derived from relations between planes in the scene and reflected curves of line lasers captured by a single camera. In our study, we categorize coplanarities in the scene into two types: implicit coplanarities, which can be observed as reflected curves of line lasers, and explicit coplanarities, which are, for example, observed as walls of a building. By using both types of coplanarities, we can construct simultaneous equations and can solve them up to four degrees of freedom. To upgrade the solution to the Euclidean space and estimate the camera intrinsic parameters, we can use metric constraints such as orthogonalities of the planes. Such metric constraints are given by, for example, observing the corners of rectangular boxes in the scene, or using special laser projecting device composed of two line lasers whose laser planes are configured to be perpendicular.