Chemical dynamics

CHEMICAL EDUCATION is changing rapidly, not only because of the explosive growth of knowledge but also because the new knowledge has stimulated reformulation of working principles in the science. Undergraduate curricula and individual courses are in constant flux. Nowhere is the change and challenge greater than in freshman chemistry. Teachers of freshmen must meet the intellectual needs of students who have had more sophisticated and stimulating high school courses than those given a decade ago. At the same time, the freshman teacher must be aware of the constant modification of the more advanced courses in chemistry and other fields that his students will study later. Continuous reformulation of courses sometimes results in the inclusion of valuable new material at the expense of other equally valuable material. We believe that this has happened in some of the sophisticated courses in freshman chemistry. Structural chemistry often receives far greater emphasis than chemical dynamics. In 1965, the Westheimer Report (Chemistry: Opportunities and Needs, National Academy of Sciences, 1965) identified the three major fields of chemistry as structure, dynamics, and synthesis. We firmly believe that a balanced course in general chemistry should reflect the outlook of this report. The study of modern chemical synthesis is too demanding to be covered in depth in an introductory course. However, chemical dynamics -- the systematic study of reactions and reactivity -- can and should be studied at the freshman level. The study of changing chemical systems is the most fascinating part of the field for many students, and its early introduction forms a solid foundation for later study. This small volume is our attempt to answer the need. The book is intended for students who have had introductory stoichiometry, energetics, and structure at the level of a modern freshman textbook (for example, Basic Principles of Chemistry, by H. B. Gray and G. P. Haight, Jr., W. A. Benjamin, Inc., New York, 1961). Chemical Dynamics is designed to accompany approximately 20-25 lectures to be given as the concluding section of a freshman chemistry course. We have chosen topics for their fundamental importance in dynamics and then tried to develop a presentation suitable for freshman classes. Discussion of each topic is limited, because chemistry majors will inevitably return to all the subject matter in more advanced courses. We hope that the following ideas have been introduced with a firm conceptual basis and in enough detail for the student to apply them to chemical reality. 1. Thermodynamics and kinetics are two useful measures of reactivity. 2. Characteristic patterns of reactivity are systematically related to molecular geometry and electronic structure. 3. Reaction mechanisms are fascinating in their own right and indispensable for identification of significant problems in reaction rate theory. 4. The concepts underlying experiments with elementary reaction processes (molecular beams) are simple, even though the engineering of the experiments is complicated. 5. Application of theories of elementary reaction rates to most reactions (slow reactions, condensed media, etc.) provides enough challenge to satisfy the most ambitious young scientist. The book includes exercises at the end of each chapter except the last. Their purpose is didactic, inasmuch as most have been written with the aim of strengthening a particular point emphasized in the chapter, or of introducing an important topic which was not developed in the text for reasons of space and which would normally be taken up in greater detail in later courses. The material in this volume has been adapted primarily from a portion of the lectures given by H.B.G. and G.S.H. to the Chemistry 2 students at the California Institute of Technology during the academic years 1966-1967 and 1967-1968. These lectures were taped, written up by J.B.D., and distributed to the students in the form of class notes. The final manuscript was written after class-testing of the notes. Our decision to revise the Chemistry 2 notes in the form of an introductory text was made after H.B.G. and G.S.H. participated in the San Clemente Chemical Dynamics Conference, held in December 1966 under the sponsorship of the Advisory Council of College Chemistry. At San Clemente we found we were not the only group concerned over the exclusion of significant reference to chemical reactions and reactivity relationships in freshman courses. In addition to their general encouragement, which provided the necessary additional impetus, these colleagues prepared a series of papers for publication in an issue of the Journal of Chemical Education. It is a pleasure to acknowledge here the direct contribution these papers made in shaping the final form of our volume; specifically, in preparing Chapter 6, we have drawn examples from the San Clemente papers of Professors R. Marcus, A. Kuppermann and E. F. Greene, and J. Halpern. The concluding chapter of this book was developed from the lectures given by Professors E. F. Greene (dynamics in simple systems), Richard Wolfgang (atomic carbon), John D. Roberts (nuclear magnetic resonance), and F. C. Anson (electrochemical dynamics) to the students of Chemistry 2 in May 1967. These colleagues have kindly given us permission to use their material. We are grateful to Professors Ralph G. Pearson and Paul Haake, who read the entire manuscript and offered valuable criticism. It is a special pleasure to acknowledge the enormous contribution our students in Chemistry 2 made to the project. Their enthusiastic, critical attitude helped us make many improvements in the manuscript. Thanks are also due to four very special members of the staff of W. A. Benjamin, Inc., for seeing this project through with infectious vigor. Finally, and not the least, we acknowledge the role Susan Brittenham and Eileen McKoy played in preparing the final manuscript. JOSEPH B. DENCE HARRY B. GRAY GEORGE S. HAMMOND Pasadena, California January 196

Vapor phase growth technique of III-V compounds utilizing a preheating step

In the vapor phase epitaxy fabrication of semiconductor devices and in particular semiconductor lasers, the deposition body on which a particular layer of the laser is to be grown is preheated to a temperature about 40.degree. to 60.degree. C. lower than the temperature at which deposition occurs. It has been discovered that by preheating at this lower temperature there is reduced thermal decomposition at the deposition surface, especially for semiconductor materials such as indium gallium phosphide and gallium arsenide phosphide. A reduction in thermal decomposition reduces imperfections in the deposition body in the vicinity of the deposition surface, thereby providing a device with higher efficiency and longer lifetime

The cult and representation of the Archangel Raphael in sixteenth-century Venice

This article considers how popular devotion to one specific angel developed into a more general belief in angelic intervention, through an examination of the iconography associated with the Archangel Raphael in sixteenth-century Venice

Vasari and portraiture: function, aesthetics and propaganda

This article examines how portraiture is presented in Giorgio Vasari’s Lives (1550 and 1568). The Lives claims portraits are to remember the dead and instruct the living; to do this, they must be accurate copies of the sitter. Praising portraits as copies effectively endorses the often-promotional messages of the portraits themselves. However, the book praises some portraits as beautiful and miraculous works in neoplatonic terms. The idealism of neoplatonism is at odds with the requirement to have an accurate copy of the sitter and this apparent contradiction can be understood as a consequence of the unstated purpose of the Lives; to propagandise on behalf of Cosimo I de’ Medici’s Florence. The portraits of the Medici and their associates are praised as both lifelike and exceptional, and thus readers are encouraged to believe that the sitters are actually exceptional

Behavioral Recovery and Early Decision Making in Patients with Prolonged Disturbance in Consciousness after Traumatic Brain Injury

The extent of behavioral recovery that occurs in patients with traumatic disorders of consciousness (DoC) following discharge from the acute care setting has been under-studied and increases the risk of overly pessimistic outcome prediction. The aim of this observational cohort study was to systematically track behavioral and functional recovery in patients with prolonged traumatic DoC following discharge from the acute care setting. Standardized behavioral data were acquired from 95 patients in a minimally conscious (MCS) or vegetative state (VS) recruited from 11 clinic sites and randomly assigned to the placebo arm of a previously completed prospective clinical trial. Patients were followed for 6 weeks by blinded observers to determine frequency of recovery of six target behaviors associated with functional status. The Coma Recovery Scale-Revised and Disability Rating Scale were used to track reemergence of target behaviors and assess degree of functional disability, respectively. Twenty percent (95% confidence interval [CI]: 13-30%) of participants (mean age 37.2; median 47 days post-injury; 69 men) recovered all six target behaviors within the 6 week observation period. The odds of recovering a specific target behavior were 3.2 (95% CI: 1.2-8.1) to 7.8 (95% CI: 2.7-23.0) times higher for patients in MCS than for those in VS. Patients with preserved language function ("MCS+") recovered the most behaviors (p ≤ 0.002) and had the least disability (p ≤ 0.002) at follow-up. These findings suggest that recovery of high-level behaviors underpinning functional independence is common in patients with prolonged traumatic DoC. Clinicians involved in early prognostic counseling should recognize that failure to emerge from traumatic DoC before 28 days does not necessarily portend unfavorable outcome

Formula SAE Impact Attenuator Testing

The purpose of this paper is to validate the impact attenuator designed by SDSU Formula SAE team according to 2010 Formula SAE rules. The impact attenuator is made of Plascore PCGA-XR1-5.2-1/4-P-3003 aluminum honeycomb that is pre-crushed to 245 psi. The test was dynamically performed using a 661 lb mass dropped 8.3 ft onto the material sample at 23 ft/sec, and data was measured with an Olympus i-SPEED 3 high speed camera. The impact attenuator must have an average deceleration equal to or less than 20 G’s and a peak deceleration equal to or less than 40 G’s. Two specimens were tested. The physical dimensions of the first specimen are 10 inches long by 8 inches wide by 5 inches tall. Data of the first sample showed a peak deceleration of 46.88 G’s and an average deceleration of 17.86 G’s. The velocity at impact was above 24ft/sec. The second specimen is 10 inches long by 10 inches wide by 4 inches tall. The second sample had a peak deceleration of 36.2 G’s and an average deceleration of 14 G’s. The velocity at impact was slightly above 23ft/sec. The first sample was unacceptable and the second specimen was acceptable under the guidelines set forth by Formula SAE Rule B.3.21.1

The Phosphate/Amide I ratio is Reduced by in vitro Glycation and may Correlate with Fracture Toughness

poster abstractIntroduction: Advanced glycation end products (AGEs) form when reducing sugars react with proteins. In bone AGEs can form in type I collagen which results in non-enzymatically derived crosslinks. While enzymatic crosslinks play an important role in strengthening the collagen matrix, non-enzymatic crosslinks are believed to reduce toughness. AGEs accumulate in bone over time and play an important role in reducing bone quality particularly in aging and diabetic patients who accumulate AGEs more rapidly due to increases in circulating glucose. Non-enzymatic glycation of bone can be modeled experimentally by soaking samples in a sugar solution which allows decades worth of AGE accumulation to occur in a short time. AGEs are primarily measured using fluorescence measurements or high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Spectroscopic techniques have been developed to determine enzymatic crosslinking maturity by detecting perturbations in collagen structure in the Amide I region and it may be possible to detect similar changes caused by AGEs. We hypothesized that the formation of AGEs in collagen would perturb the Amide I band of Raman spectra causing changes to the mineral to matrix ratio (MMR) which would correlate with AGE-induced mechanical changes in an in vitro ribose soaking experiment. If changes due to non-enzymatic glycation can be detected in the Amide I band, Raman spectroscopic techniques could be developed to assess the presence of AGEs in a non-destructive and widely available manner. Methods: Five femurs were harvested from male hounds from a previous IACUC approved study. From the mid-diaphysis, six beams ~1.4 x 4 x 24 mm were sectioned from each bone. Two beams from each sample were randomly assigned to one of three groups. One of those beams was sanded to 1.4 x 2 x 20 mm for fracture toughness testing while the other was used for Raman spectroscopy and Reference Point Indentation (RPI). All beams were soaked for 14 consecutive days at 37°C in solutions containing 1% Pen-Strep, 1.3mM CaCl2 and either no ribose (Control), 0.2M ribose (Low), or 0.6M ribose (High) in Hank’s Balanced Salt Solution with solutions changed every other day. After soaking, a notch was started in the sanded beam with a diamond wire sectioning saw and then sharpened by hand with a razor using a 1μm diamond suspension. Notched beams were submerged in fluid and loaded in displacement control to 0.03mm, unloaded to 0.015mm, held for 10s, then cycled until failure with a 0.05mm load, a 0.02 unload, and a 10s hold. J-R curves were calculated using ASTM E1820-5a to obtain initiation stress intensity factor (KIc) and maximum stress intensity factor (Kmax). Raman spectra were acquired at five points along the length of the second beam using a LabRAM HR 800 with a 660nm laser focused to a spot size of ~10μm. After baseline correction, OriginPro 8.6 was used to calculate MMR as the area of the PO43- ν1 peak over the area of the Amide I band. Following Raman spectroscopy, co-localized RPI was performed at each Raman location using 10 cycles of a 5N force at 2Hz. One-way ANOVA tested mean differences between samples. Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients were calculated between MMR and parameters from RPI and fracture toughness. All values are presented as mean ± standard deviation and all statistics were carried out using SAS 9.4. Results: Raman spectroscopy and RPI were not performed on one sample from the Low group. Data were not available for one Control sample and Kmax was excluded for one High sample. Neither KIc nor Kmax were significantly different between groups (Control: 6.59 ± 0.42, 13.55 ± 1.38 MPa√m; Low: 6.19 ± 1.98, 14.80 ± 2.00 MPa√m; High: 6.84 ± 1.18, 15.25 ± 2.35 MPa√m). MMR was significantly different between groups (p=0.039). Tukey HSD post-hoc tests revealed that Control (2.45 ± 0.37) was significantly greater than High (1.85 ± 0.20) while Low was intermediate (2.18 ± 0.37) but not significantly different. No significant differences were observed with RPI. A weak positive correlation was observed between average creep indentation increase (CID) and MMR (R2=0.079, p=0.0185) but no other RPI measurements were correlated with MMR. Two influential points, determined by a Cook’s distance > 4/n, were excluded from the regression KIc to MMR. A mild trend was observed between KIc and MMR but the fit did not reach significance (R2=0.334, p=0.0628). Discussion: Because samples were all from the same 5 animals and randomized into groups, any differences between groups arose from the soaking in solutions of different concentrations of ribose. AGEs were not measured to confirm the expected dose-dependent increase, but noticeable browning occurred in the High group which was less pronounced in the Low group and not present in Control. The soaking protocol and ribose concentrations were chosen based on previous literature showing increases in AGEs. Therefore, we are confident changes noted here are due to the presence of AGEs and the resulting non-enzymatic crosslinks. Because soaking was performed in appropriately buffered solutions, decreased MMR in the High group relative to Control are expected to occur due to glycation of collagen rather than changes in mineral content. We suspect that perturbations in collagen structure due to the presence of non-enzymatic crosslinks are causing the differences in the area of the Amide I band between groups. Given the changes in MMR with glycation, future studies investigating models where AGEs are likely present should be cautious in their interpretation of MMR if it is not supported by other measures of mineralization. The lack of significant differences between groups for RPI and fracture toughness parameters may be due to the small sample size (n=4-5 per group) and biological variations associated with mechanical techniques. However, the sample size was adequate to assess correlations between Raman and RPI due to the co-localized measurements in each sample (n=70). The positive correlation between CID and MMR was expected given AGEs have been shown to reduce creep behavior and since MMR is decreased by AGEs. However, the correlation is weak which is likely due to the overall small non-significant effect in CID compared to its variation. The correlation between MMR and initiation toughness similarly suggests that as AGEs reduce MMR, KIc decreases which is known to occur with glycation. While the correlation did not reach significance (p=0.063), the trend is compelling given the small sample size (n=11) and the use of Raman data from an adjacent beam from the same sample rather than the beam used to measure KIc. In conclusion, MMR changes in response to in vitro glycation and these changes are correlated to CID and possibly to KIc. Deconvolution of the Amide I region into sub-peaks to determine which peak(s) are altered in the presence of AGEs is an important next step to developing a spectroscopic technique that can assess the presence of AGEs and is recommended in future work. Significance: Correlations were performed between Raman spectroscopy, Reference Point Indentation, and fracture toughness measurements to evaluate the ability of perturbations in the Amide I band to explain glycation-induced changes in tissue mechanics. Non-enzymatic glycation is an important determinant of bone quality especially in aging and diabetic patients and understanding the specific roles composition and microscale mechanics play in determining how non-enzymatic glycation affects fracture toughness may lead to new therapeutic targets

Estratégias para atrair e reter educadores: O que a evidência diz?

A highly competent teacher workforce is a necessary foundation for improving children’s educational outcomes, especially for those who rely most on schools for their success. Yet in the United States, shortages in the teaching force have been growing across the country, reaching crisis proportions in some teaching fields— such as mathematics, science, and special education—and in locations where wages and working conditions are least attractive. We analyzed recent research and representative survey data to identify the drivers of teacher recruitment and retention. We also reviewed the policy literature to identify district, state, and federal policy strategies that have been effective at addressing the factors influencing teachers’ professional decisions. These policies include increasing their compensation and improving their preparation, professional support, and working conditions, as well as improving district and school management practices that otherwise create obstacles to recruitment and retention. La fuerza laboral docente que es muy competente es una base necesaria para mejorar los resultados educativos de los niños, especialmente para aquellos que dependen más de las escuelas para su éxito. Sin embargo, en los Estados Unidos, la escasez en la fuerza docente ha aumentado en todo el país, alcanzando proporciones de crisis en algunos campos de la enseñanza, como matemáticas, ciencias y educación especial, y en lugares donde los salarios y las condiciones de trabajo son menos atractivos. Analizamos investigaciones recientes y datos de encuestas representativas para identificar los impulsores del reclutamiento y la retención de docentes. También revisamos la literatura sobre políticas para identificar estrategias de políticas del distrito, estatales y federales que han sido efectivas para abordar los factores que influyen en las decisiones profesionales de los maestros. Estas políticas incluyen aumentar su compensación y mejorar su preparación, apoyo profesional y condiciones de trabajo, así como mejorar las prácticas de gestión escolar y del distrito que de otra manera crean obstáculos para el reclutamiento y la retención. La fuerza laboral docente que es muy competente es una base necesaria para mejorar los resultados educativos de los niños, especialmente para aquellos que dependen más de las escuelas para su éxito. Sin embargo, en los Estados Unidos, la escasez en la fuerza docente ha aumentado en todo el país, alcanzando proporciones de crisis en algunos campos de la enseñanza, como matemáticas, ciencias y educación especial, y en lugares donde los salarios y las condiciones de trabajo son menos atractivos. Analizamos investigaciones recientes y datos de encuestas representativas para identificar los impulsores del reclutamiento y la retención de docentes. También revisamos la literatura sobre políticas para identificar estrategias de políticas del distrito, estatales y federales que han sido efectivas para abordar los factores que influyen en las decisiones profesionales de los maestros. Estas políticas incluyen aumentar su compensación y mejorar su preparación, apoyo profesional y condiciones de trabajo, así como mejorar las prácticas de gestión escolar y del distrito que de otra manera crean obstáculos para el reclutamiento y la retención.