A New Robust and Efficient Ion‐Tagged Proline Catalyst Carrying an Amide Spacer for the Asymmetric Aldol Reaction

The synthesis of a new, highly efficient cis‐ion‐tagged catalyst ( 8a ), possessing an amide linkage between the imidazolium tag and the proline ring, is described. This new bench‐stable catalyst has been tested in the classic asymmetric aldol condensation between ketones and aldehydes “in the presence” of water, and is proposed as a valuable alternative to the analogous but more sensitive ester cis‐ 2d . Catalyst 8a displayed an excellent efficiency in terms of catalyst loading and stereochemical control.     

Modelling the evolution of oxidative browning during storage of white wines: effects of packaging and closures

Shelf life of products is a key parameter for any company at local and international level that wish to improve their competitiveness; thus, there is a need to search for methods that allow one to predict the shelf life of bottled wines. In this view, the progress of chemical oxidative reactions of six Italian white wines during storage (10 months after bottling), in different packaging, was monitored by means of selected oenological parameters. The optical density at 420 nm, an index of browning, showed a progressive increase that fitted the zero‐order kinetic rate. The onset of wine browning was further tested by means of accelerated ageing in controlled temperature conditions which results, modelled using the rate constants approach, showed an Arrhenius‐like dependence from temperature, allowing to estimate apparent activation energies of oxidative chemical browning (range: 46.8–88.3 kJ mol^?1). Kinetic and thermodynamic approach provided a useful tool to predict quality changes of white wines during storage with respect to packaging conditions.     

A project scheduling approach to production and material requirement planning in Manufacturing-to-Order environments

Long- and medium-term production planning are tools to match production orders with resource capacity and that can also be used as a baseline for material procurement. The lack of a detailed schedule for the manufacturing operations, however, may cause difficulties in providing a proper material requirements planning and may affect the feasibility of the production plan itself. This paper proposes an approach, based on production process knowledge, to extract scheduling information from an aggregate production plan in order to support material procurement. The proposed approach is applied to an industrial case involving machining center production.