Graphene and Carbon Nanotube-based Electrochemical Sensing Platforms for Dopamine

Dopamine (DA) is an important neurotransmitter, which is created and released from the central nervous system. It plays a crucial role in human activities, like cognition, emotions, and response to anything. Maladjustment of DA in human blood serum results in different neural diseases, like Parkinson's and Schizophrenia. Consequently, researchers have started working on DA detection in blood serum, which is undoubtedly a hot research area. Electrochemical sensing techniques are more promising to detect DA in real samples. However, utilizing conventional electrodes for selective determination of DA encounters numerous problems due to the coexistence of other materials, such as uric acid and ascorbic acid, which have an oxidation potential close to DA. To overcome such problems, researchers have put their focus on the modification of bare electrodes. The aim of this review is to present recent advances in modifications of most used bare electrodes with carbonaceous materials, especially graphene, its derivatives, and carbon nanotubes, for electrochemical detection of DA. A brief discussion about the mechanistic phenomena at the electrode interface has also been included in this review.     

Enhanced electronic and nonlinear optical responses of C24N24 cavernous nitride fullerene by decoration with first row transition metals; A computational investigation

The electronic (energy gap and work function) as well as electrical properties (dipole moment, polarizability, and first hyperpolarizabilities) of the first-row transition metals decorated C₂₄N₂₄ cavernous nitride fullerene were explored using DFT calculations. The transition metals are decorated at N4 cavity of C₂₄N₂₄ fullerene. According to our spin polarized computations, the most stable spin state monotonically increases to sextet for Mn@C₂₄N₂₄ and thereafter dropped off gradually to singlet state for Zn@C₂₄N₂₄ system. The findings demonstrate that transition metals can remarkably decrease the HOMO-LUMO energy gap and work function values up to 63% and 21% of bare C₂₄N₂₄, respectively. As can be seen, when the Sc and Ti metals are located above the N4 cavity of fullerene, systems of enhanced static hyperpolarizabilities (β₀) are delivered. These findings might provide an effective strategy to design high performance eletcro-optical materials based on carbon- nitride fullerene.     

Phyto-synthesis of silver nanoparticles using aerial extract of Salvia leriifolia Benth and evaluation of their antibacterial and photo-catalytic properties

Research on Chemical Intermediates - We have synthesized silver nanoparticles (Ag-NPs) via a simple and eco-friendly method through the utilization of aqueous aerial parts of Salvia leriifolia...     

A bound on the Wasserstein-2 distance between linear combinations of independent random variables

We provide a bound on a distance between finitely supported elements and general elements of the unit sphere of ${?}^2\left({\mathbb{N}}^1\right)$. We use this bound to estimate the Wasserstein-2 distance between random variables represented by linear combinations of independent random variables. Our results are expressed in terms of a discrepancy measure related to Nourdin–Peccati’s Malliavin–Stein method. The main application is towards the computation of quantitative rates of convergence to elements of the second Wiener chaos. In particular, we explicit these rates for non-central asymptotic of sequences of quadratic forms and the behavior of the generalized Rosenblatt process at extreme critical exponent.     

Alenush Terian: The Iranian Solar Mother

We present a biographical sketch of Alenush Terian, the first Iranian woman physicist, who was known as the Iranian Solar Mother, since she founded the first solar telescopic observatory in Iran. She taught and carried out astronomical research for three decades with inadequate resources but with unflinching devotion, motivated by a strong desire to propagate scientific education and research in her country.     

A computational investigation of carbon-doped beryllium monoxide nanotubes

To investigate the influence of C-doping on the electrostatic structure properties in the frame work of density functional theory (DFT), we considered beryllium monoxide nanotubes (BeONTs), consisting of 60 Be and 60 O atoms. Full geometry optimizations are performed for all structures, i.e., all atoms are allowed to relax. Afterwards, the chemical shielding (CS) tensors are calculated for Be-9, O-17 and C-13 nuclei in the C-doped forms and also pristine models of the (10, 0) zigzag and (5, 5) armchair BeONTs. Formation energies indicate that C-doping of Be atom (CBe form) could be more favorable than C-doping of O atom (CO form) in both zigzag and armchair BeONTs. Gap energies and dipole moments detected the effects of dopant in the (5, 5) armchair models; however, those parameters did not indicate any significant changes in the C-doped (10, 0) zigzag BeONT models. The results show that the CS values for the Be and O atoms-contributed to the Be-C bonds or those atoms close to the C-doped region-in the CO form of BeONTs (zigzag and armchair) are changed. The same values only for the O atoms-contributed to the O-C bonds- in the CBe form of BeONTs (zigzag and armchair) are changed.     

An accurate pressure–velocity decoupling technique for semi‐implicit rotational projection methods

In this paper, an accurate semi‐implicit rotational projection method is introduced to solve the Navier–Stokes equations for incompressible flow simulations. The accuracy of the fractional step procedure is investigated for the standard finite‐difference method, and the discrete forms are presented with arbitrary orders or accuracy. In contrast to the previous semi‐implicit projection methods, herein, an alternative way is proposed to decouple pressure from the momentum equation by employing the principle form of the pressure Poisson equation. This equation is based on the divergence of the convective terms and incorporates the actual pressure in the simulations. As a result, the accuracy of the method is not affected by the common choice of the pseudo‐pressure in the previous methods. Also, the velocity correction step is redefined, and boundary conditions are introduced accordingly. Several numerical tests are conducted to assess the robustness of the method for second and fourth orders of accuracy. The results are compared with the solutions obtained from a typical high‐resolution fully explicit method and available benchmark reports. Herein, the numerical tests are consisting of simulations for the Taylor–Green vortex, lid‐driven square cavity, and vortex–wall interaction. It is shown that the present method can preserve the order of accuracy for both velocity and pressure fields in second‐order and high‐order simulations. Furthermore, a very good agreement is observed between the results of the present method and benchmark simulations. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.