Molecular connectivity indices statistical property

Molecular Connectivity Indexes and Graph Theory. Perhaps the chief obstacle to developing a general theory for quantification of physical properties is not so much in the understanding of the underlying physical laws, but rather the inabiUty to solve the requisite equations. The plethora of assumptions and simplifications in the statistical mechanics and group contribution sections of this article provide examples of this. Computational procedures are simplified when the number of parameters used to describe the saUent features of a problem is reduced. Because many properties of molecules correlate well with stmctures, parameters have been developed which grossly quantify molecular stmctural characteristics. These parameters, or coimectivity indexes, are usually based on the numbers and orientations of atoms and bonds in the molecule. 

TTie structural features are represented by molecular descriptors, which are numeric quantities related directly to the molecular structure rather than physicochemical properties. Examples of such descriptors include molecular weight, molecular connectivity indexes, molecular complexity (degree of substitution), atom counts and valencies, charge, molecular polarizability, moments of inertia, and surface area and volume. Once a set of descriptors has been developed and tested to remove interdependent/collinear variables, a linear regression equation is developed to correlate these variables with the retention parameter of interest, e.g., retention index, retention volume, or partition coefficient The final equation includes only those descriptors that ate statistically significant and provide the best fit to the data. For more details on QSRR and the development and use of molecular descriptors, the reader is referred to the literature [188,195,198,200-202 and references therein]. 

The aforementioned macroscopic physical constants of solvents have usually been determined experimentally. However, various attempts have been made to calculate bulk properties of Hquids from pure theory. By means of quantum chemical methods, it is possible to calculate some thermodynamic properties e.g. molar heat capacities and viscosities) of simple molecular Hquids without specific solvent/solvent interactions [207]. A quantitative structure-property relationship treatment of normal boiling points, using the so-called CODESS A technique i.e. comprehensive descriptors for structural and statistical analysis), leads to a four-parameter equation with physically significant molecular descriptors, allowing rather accurate predictions of the normal boiling points of structurally diverse organic liquids [208]. Based solely on the molecular structure of solvent molecules, a non-empirical solvent polarity index, called the first-order valence molecular connectivity index, has been proposed [137]. These purely calculated solvent polarity parameters correlate fairly well with some corresponding physical properties of the solvents [137]. 

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