130,392 research outputs found

    A general strategy for the synthesis of conjugated polymers based upon the palladium-catalysed cross-coupling of Grignard reagents with unsaturated halides

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    Palladium-catalysed cross-coupling between aromatic bisorganomagnesium reagents and aromatic dihalides has been experimentally evaluated as a general methodology for the synthesis of soluble conjugated polymers such as poly(p-phenylene)s 6 and 7, poly(p-terphenylenevinylene) 8, poly(phenylenethiophene) 9 and poly(phenylenepyridine) 10. Appropriate experimental conditions were first found in model reactions and then applied to the synthesis of polymers. Molecular mass values were determined both by GPC and by MALDI-TOF spectrometry. The latter technique also permitted accurate determination of the terminal groups of the polymeric chains. (C) Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH, 69451 Weinheim, Germany, 2002

    A non destructive testing method for masonry by using UPV and cross validation procedure

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    The paper presents a new procedure to assess the compressive strength of regular masonry starting from results of non-destructive ultrasonic pulse velocity tests (UPV) on the constituent materials. The procedure has been calibrated on a soft calcarenitic stone used in the heritage masonry of Southern Italy, and starts from the knowledge of the regression between UPV and the compressive strength (UCS) of the material, determined by means of a wide experimental campaign on different varieties of quarry samples. Through an improved cross validation technique, the proposed method allows to estimate the compressive strength of new samples by making only non-destructive measurements without the need to conduct compression tests. The quality of the procedure was assessed both at the block scale and at the wall scale by comparing the estimated results with those obtained experimentally. In particular, the experiments were performed using new quarry stone blocks and blocks taken from existing walls of two ancient buildings during restoration works. The proposed method has proven to be reliable for the investigated material and it is easy to apply also for other materials as soon as it is possible to carry out a preliminary calibration in the laboratory, which allows knowing the UPV–UCS relationship over a wide range of strengths

    Synthesis of poly(aryleneethynylene)s bearing glucose units as substituents

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    A series of poly(aryleneethynylene)s functionalized with acetylated glucopyranosyl units were synthesized by the Pd-catalyzed reaction of trimethylsilylethynyl derivatives with aromatic halides in the presence of silver oxide

    Synthesis and Chiroptical Characterization of an Amino Acid Functionalized Dialkoxypoly(p-phenyleneethynylene)

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    2,5-Dialkoxypoly(p-phenyleneethynylene) (3) functionalized with N-t-BOC-L-phenylalanine molecules was synthesized by Pd-catalyzed reaction of dioctyloxybis[(trimethylsilyl) ethynyl] benzene (1) with aromatic diiodide 2 linked to two amino acid units by six carbon atoms alkoxy chains. Optical properties were investigated both in solution and in the solid state (as thin films) by absorption, fluorescence and chiroptical spectroscopies (CD and CPL). Polymer 3, that represents one of few fully characterized dialkoxy-substituted PAEs, is also the first example of a poly(aryleneethynylene) (PAE) with amino acidic chiral pendants

    MeSH term explosion and author rank improve expert recommendations

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    Information overload is an often-cited phenomenon that reduces the productivity, efficiency and efficacy of scientists. One challenge for scientists is to find appropriate collaborators in their research. The literature describes various solutions to the problem of expertise location, but most current approaches do not appear to be very suitable for expert recommendations in biomedical research. In this study, we present the development and initial evaluation of a vector space model-based algorithm to calculate researcher similarity using four inputs: 1) MeSH terms of publications; 2) MeSH terms and author rank; 3) exploded MeSH terms; and 4) exploded MeSH terms and author rank. We developed and evaluated the algorithm using a data set of 17,525 authors and their 22,542 papers. On average, our algorithms correctly predicted 2.5 of the top 5/10 coauthors of individual scientists. Exploded MeSH and author rank outperformed all other algorithms in accuracy, followed closely by MeSH and author rank. Our results show that the accuracy of MeSH term-based matching can be enhanced with other metadata such as author rank

    Evidence of different metabolic phenotypes in humans

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    The study of metabolic responses to drugs, environmental changes, and diseases is a new promising area of metabonomic research. Metabolic fingerprints can be obtained by analytical techniques such as nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). In principle, alterations of these fingerprints due to appearance/disappearance or concentration changes of metabolites can provide early evidences of, for example, onset of diseases. A major drawback in this approach is the strong day-to-day variability of the individual metabolic fingerprint, which should be rather called a metabolic "snapshot." We show here that a thorough statistical analysis performed on NMR spectra of human urine samples reveals an invariant part characteristic of each person, which can be extracted from the analysis of multiple samples of each single subject. This finding (i) provides evidence that individual metabolic phenotypes may exist and (ii) opens new perspectives to metabonomic studies, based on the possibility of eliminating the daily "noise" by multiple sample collection

    Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis

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    The present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed

    "Closing the R&D Gap, Evaluating the Sources of R&D Spending"

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    Both spending and tax policies have been implemented in the United States with the goal of stimulating private sector research and development (R&D). Karier questions whether current R&D policy, especially the research and experimentation tax credit, can contribute to closing the gap between nondefense expenditures on R&D in the United States and such expenditures in other countries, such as Japan and Germany. He also explores possible changes to our current R&D policy to make it more effective.

    A. D. Fricke, author

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    Black and white photograph of author, A. D. Fricke

    Spectroscopic ellipsometry for characterization of organic semiconductor polymeric thin films

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    The correlation between the optical properties and microstructural parameters of organic semiconductor polymeric thin films is investigated by spectroscopic ellipsometry. Different poly(arylenephenylene)-based films have been deposited by spincoating. The effect of deposition conditions on the microstructure and, hence, optical constants of the polymeric thin films and the dependence of the optical properties and pi-pi* transition on the structure of the chain backbone are studied. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved
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