The preparation procedure was essentially the same for all the monomers. In a typical synthesis, equimolar amounts of tert-butyl cyanoacetate and an appropriate benzaldehyde were mixed in equimolar ratio in a 20 mL vial. A few drops of piperidine were added with stirring. The product of the reaction was isolated by filtration and purified by crystallization from 2-propanol. The condensation reaction proceeded smoothly, yielding products, which were purified by conventional techniques. The compounds were characterized by IR, 1 H and 13 C NMR spectroscopies. No stereochemical analysis of the novel alkyl ring-substituted APCA was performed since no stereoisomers (E or/and Z) of known configuration were available.