Synthesis and X-ray structural studies of pyrimidin-2,4-dione and 2-thioxo-1H-pyrimidin-4-one bearing chloroethyl moiety

The present work is aimed to investigate non-covalent bonding capabilities of uracil derivative bearing hydrophobic side chain in solid crystalline state. The synthesis and crystal structure of 5-(2-chloro-ethyl)-6-methyl-uracil 3 and 5-(2-chloro-ethyl)-6-methyl-2-thiouracil 4 are described, which revealed sulfur-π interaction including resonance-induced intermolecular H-bonding in 4 whereas compound 3 showed only strong H-bonding and formed a dimer. Thus the analysis of such moieties in solid state provides useful structural information on the binding characteristics of functional groups and has implications for the de novo design of drugs and enzyme's inhibitors.     

One-pot synthesis of α,β-epoxy ketones by palladium-catalyzed epoxidation-oxidation of terminal allylic alcohols

Described herein is a one-pot synthesis of α,β-epoxy ketones using a palladium-catalyzed epoxidation-oxidation sequence. Functionalized terminal allylic alcohols are treated with m-CPBA under mild reaction conditions to obtain the α,β-epoxy ketones. The main benefit of this approach is that the epoxidation of the terminal double bond and the oxidation of the secondary alcohol occured in the same reaction under mild reactions and both electron-donating and electron-withdrawing functionalities are tolerated in the reaction sequence.     

Viscosity Results for a Class of Evolution Inclusions with Maximal Monotone Operators

In the finite dimensional setting, we investigate the existence of viscosity subsolutions of Hamilton–Jacobi–Bellman equations related to control problems subject to evolution inclusions governed by time-dependent maximal monotone operators with Young measures.     

Modeling of a MED-TVC desalination system by considering the effects of nanoparticles: energetic and exergetic analysis

In this study, the energetic and exergetic analysis of a multi-effect desalination system with a thermal vapor compression desalination system has been numerically evaluated. For this purpose, the mass, energy, and exergy balance equations for the thermo-compressor, first effect as well as middle effects, and condenser have been developed. The effects of motive steam pressure and number of effects on yield, gained output ratio (GOR), performance ratio (PR) and irreversibility have been examined. Nanoparticles were used to improve the heat transfer properties at different stages. The highest rate of exergy destruction with 61.67% is concerned with thermo-compressor, owing to the large difference between the motive steam pressure and the entrained steam. The lowest exergy losses rate among the various components was 4.89% for the condenser, due to the fact that much of the final distillate steam entrained the thermo-compressor. As the number of effects increased from 1 to 7, the yield, GOR as well as PR, improved by approximately 590% and the irreversibility reduced by 1.88%. As the motive steam pressure increased from 400 to 1290 kPa, the yield decreased by 25.45% while the GOR and PR improved by 12.62 and 14.8%, respectively. From the second law viewpoint, irreversibility intensified by 16.11% which in turn diminished the second efficiency by 3.17%.

     

Donor-acceptor (D-A) terpolymers based on alkyl-DPP and t-BocDPP moieties for polymer solar cells

A series of low band gap terpolymers based on 4,8-bis(5-(2-ethylhexyl)thiophen-2-yl)benzo[1,2-b:4,5-b¢] dithiophene (BDTT) and diketopyrrolopyrrole (DPP) with varied solubilizing groups (i.e., tert-butoxycarbonyl, t-Boc and 2-octyldodecyl) are developed as electron donors for bulk heterojunction (BHJ) polymer solar cells (PSCs). The results reveal that the one with 50% t-Boc concentration (P3) performs better than the other terpolymers used in this study in conventional PSC devices with a power conversion efficiency of 2.92%.     

Discrete adaptive fuzzy control for asymptotic tracking of robotic manipulators

This paper presents a novel discrete adaptive fuzzy controller for electrically driven robot manipulators. It addresses how to overcome the nonlinearity, uncertainties, discretizing error and approximation error of the fuzzy system for asymptotic tracking control of robotic manipulators. The proposed controller is model-free in the form of discrete Mamdani fuzzy controller. The parameters of fuzzy controller are adaptively tuned using an adaptive mechanism derived by stability analysis. A robust control term is used to compensate the approximation error of the fuzzy system for asymptotic tracking of a desired trajectory. The controller is robust against all uncertainties associated with the robot manipulator and actuators. It is easy to implement since it requires only the joint position feedback. Compared with fuzzy controllers which employ all states to guarantee stability, the proposed controller is very simpler. Stability analysis and simulation results show its efficiency in the tracking control.     

Selenium-catalyzed regioselective cyclization of unsaturated carboxylic acids using hypervalent iodine oxidants

A new and convenient selenium-catalyzed regioselective cyclization of γ,δ-unsaturated carboxylic acids to the corresponding 3,6-dihydro-2H-pyran-2-ones is described. The cyclization products have been obtained in good to excellent yields using diphenyl diselenide as a catalyst and [bis(trifluoroacetoxy)iodo]benzene as a stoichiometric oxidant.     

Nonlinear control of electrical flexible-joint robots

This paper is devoted to the nonlinear tracking control of electrically driven flexible-joint manipulators using the voltage control strategy. Despite the torque control laws that are involved in the complexity of manipulator dynamics, the proposed control law is free from manipulator dynamics. This novelty is for adopting the voltage control strategy to derive a simple robust adaptive control under both structured and unstructured uncertainty. The proposed control approach has a fast response with a good tracking performance under the well-behaved control efforts in the form of decentralized control. The control method is justified by the stability analysis and simulated on a flexible-joint electrically driven robot manipulator.     

Decentralized direct adaptive fuzzy control of robots using voltage control strategy

Decentralized control is the most favorite control of robot manipulators due to computational simplicity and ease of implementation. Beside that, adaptive fuzzy control efficiently controls uncertain nonlinear systems. These motivate us to design a decentralized fuzzy controller. However, there are some challenging problems to guarantee stability. The state-space model of the robotic system including the robot manipulator and motors is in a noncompanion form, multivariable, highly nonlinear, and heavily coupled with a variable input gain matrix. For this purpose, adaptive fuzzy control may use all variable states. As a result, it suffers from computational burden. To overcome the problems, we present a novel decentralized Direct Adaptive Fuzzy Control (DAFC) of electrically driven robot manipulators using the voltage control strategy. The proposed DAFC is simple, in a decentralized structure with high-accuracy response, robust tracking performance, and guaranteed stability. Instead of all state variables, only the tracking error of every joint and its derivative are given as the inputs of the controller. The proposed DAFC is simulated on a SCARA robot driven by permanent magnet dc motors. Simulation results verify superiority of the decentralized DAFC to a decentralized PD-fuzzy controller.