Development of nanomaterial chemosensors for toxic metal ions sensing

Heavy metal ions are harmful to aquatic life and humans owing to their high toxicity and non‐biodegradability, so their removal from wastewater is an important task. Therefore, this work focuses on designing suitable, simple and economical nanosensors to detect and remove these metal ions with high selectivity and sensitivity. Based on this idea, different types of mesoporous materials such as hexagonal SBA‐15, cubic SBA‐16 and spherical MCM‐41, their chloro‐functionalized derivatives, as well as 4‐(4‐nitro‐phenylazo)‐naphthalen‐1‐ol (NPAN) azo dye have been synthesized, with the aim of designing some optical nanosensors for metal ions sensing applications. The mentioned azo dye has been anchored into the chloro‐functionalized mesoporous materials. The designed nanosensors were characterized using scanning and transmission electron microscopy as well as Fourier transform infrared and UV–visible spectral analysis, nitrogen adsorption–desorption isotherms, low‐angle X‐ray diffraction and thermogravimetric analyses. Their optical sensing to various toxic metal ions such as Cd (II), Hg (II), Mn (II), Fe (II), Zn (II) and Pb (II) at different values of pH (1.1, 4.9, 7 and 12) was investigated. The optimization of experimental conditions, including the effect of pH and metal ion concentration, was examined. The experimental results showed that the solution pH had a major impact on metal ion detection. The optical nanosensors respond well to the tested metal ions, as reflected by the enhancement in both absorption and emission spectra upon adding different concentrations of the metal salts and were fully reversible on adding ethylene diamine tetra acetic acid or citric acid to the formed complexes. High values of the binding constants for the designed nanosensors were observed at pHs 7 and 12, confirming the strong chelation of different metals to the nanosensor at these pHs. Also, high binding constants and sensitivity were observed for NPAN‐MCM‐41 as a nanosensor to detect the different metal ions. From the obtained results, we succeeded in transforming the harmful azo dye into an environmentally friendly form via designing of the optical nanosensors used to detect toxic metal ions in wastewater with high sensitivity.     

An Introduction to Influence Theory: Kinematics and Dynamics

Influence theory is a foundational theory of physics that is not based on traditional empirically defined concepts, such as positions in space and time, mass, energy, or momentum. Instead, the aim is to derive these concepts, and their empirically determined relationships, from a more primitive model. It is postulated that there exist things, which are call particles, that influence one another in a discrete and directed fashion resulting in a partially ordered set of influence events. The problem of consistent quantification of the influence events is considered. Observers are modeled as particle chains (observer chains) as if an observer were able to track a particle and quantify the influence events that the particle experiences. From these quantified influence events, consistent quantification of the universe of events based on the observer chains is studied. Herein, the kinematics and dynamics of particles from the perspective of influence theory are both reviewed and further developed.     

Structural and Thermodynamic Peculiarities of Core-Shell Particles at Fluid Interfaces from Triangular Lattice Models

A triangular lattice model for pattern formation by core-shell particles at fluid interfaces is introduced and studied for the particle to core diameter ratio equal to 3. Repulsion for overlapping shells and attraction at larger distances due to capillary forces are assumed. Ground states and thermodynamic properties are determined analytically and by Monte Carlo simulations for soft outer- and stiffer inner shells, with different decay rates of the interparticle repulsion. We find that thermodynamic properties are qualitatively the same for slow and for fast decay of the repulsive potential, but the ordered phases are stable for temperature ranges, depending strongly on the shape of the repulsive potential. More importantly, there are two types of patterns formed for fixed chemical potential—one for a slow and another one for a fast decay of the repulsion at small distances. In the first case, two different patterns—for example clusters or stripes—occur with the same probability for some range of the chemical potential. For a fixed concentration, an interface is formed between two ordered phases with the closest concentration, and the surface tension takes the same value for all stable interfaces. In the case of degeneracy, a stable interface cannot be formed for one out of four combinations of the coexisting phases, because of a larger surface tension. Our results show that by tuning the architecture of a thick polymeric shell, many different patterns can be obtained for a sufficiently low temperature.     

Analyzing the coexistence of DSRC and Wi-Fi networks using the Poisson line Cox process

Vehicular networks can aid in traffic monitoring, autonomous driving, and car accidents prevention. Yet, the deployment of these networks has been delayed due to the limited spectrum, especially for the case of unlicensed operations. To handle this issue, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) proposed to permit Wi-Fi devices to operate in the 5.9 GHz band allocated to the intelligent transportation system (ITS). In a recent work, we analyzed the impact of the coexistence of dedicated short range communications (DSRC) and Wi-Fi on future DSRC network deployments by developing a stochastic geometry analytical model that considers a dynamic medium access probability (MAP) of DSRC nodes which uses carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA). This previous work was based on the standard 2D homogeneous Poisson Point Process (PPP) model. In this work, we model the roads using the more applicable but more complex Poisson line process (PLP) Cox point process. We generate performance metrics represented through coverage probability and area system throughput, and we compare these results to our earlier work. The importance of this work is two-fold. First, it allows a further understanding of the impact of DSRC-Wi-Fi coexistence on future DSRC network deployments, and second, it highlights the effectiveness of the PLP in modeling the distribution of vehicles in an area by producing more accurate performance results.     

Application of the transmission line matrix method for outdoor sound propagation modelling – Part 1: Model presentation and evaluation

The present paper deals with an original time-domain approach applied to outdoor sound propagation under meteorological effects. The transmission line matrix method, based on the Huygens’ principle, had already been validated over impedant grounds and complex topography. The presented formulation proposes to take into account meteorological effects (wind speed and temperature) through the relative sound speed. The necessary wavefront direction is determined through the calculation of the averaged intensity vector direction. A good agreement is found between simulations of both the transmission line matrix and parabolic equation methods. A relevant use of the method is shown in the framework of environmental acoustics and initial applications are proposed in Part 2.     

Nonmonotone Inexact Newton Method for the Extended Linear Complementarity Problem

This paper presents a nonmonotone inexact Newton-type method for the extended linear complementarity problem (ELCP). We first reformulate the optimization system of the ELCP problem into a system of smoothed equations. Then we solve this system by a nonmonotone inexact Newton-type algorithm. The global convergence is obtained and numerical tests for some classes of ELCP include linear complementarity, horizontal linear complementarity, and generalized linear complementarity problems are also given to show the e?ciency of the proposed algorithm.     

Composite generalized Laguerre spectral method for nonlinear Fokker–Planck equations on the whole line

In this paper, we propose a composite Laguerre spectral method for the nonlinear Fokker–Planck equations modelling the relaxation of fermion and boson gases. A composite Laguerre spectral scheme is constructed. Its convergence is proved. Numerical results show the efficiency of this approach and coincide well with theoretical analysis. Some results on the Laguerre approximation and techniques used in this paper are also applicable to other nonlinear problems on the whole line. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Unified Continuous Flow Assembly-Line Synthesis of Highly Substituted Pyrazoles and Pyrazolines

A rapid and modular continuous flow synthesis of highly functionalized fluorinated pyrazoles and pyrazolines has been developed. Flowing fluorinated amines through sequential reactor coils mediates diazoalkane formation and [3+2] cycloaddition to generate more than 30 azoles in a telescoped fashion. Pyrazole cores are then sequentially modified through additional reactor modules performing N-alkylation and arylation, deprotection, and amidation to install broad molecular diversity in short order. Continuous flow synthesis enables the safe handling of diazoalkanes at elevated temperatures, and the use of aryl alkyne dipolarphiles under catalyst-free conditions. This assembly-line synthesis provides a flexible approach for the synthesis of agrochemicals and pharmaceuticals, as demonstrated by a four-step, telescoped synthesis of measles therapeutic, AS-136A, in a total residence time of 31.7 min (1.76 g h⁻¹).     

Expression for the Number of Spanning Trees of Line Graphs of Arbitrary Connected Graphs

For any graph G, let be the number of spanning trees of G, be the line graph of G, and for any nonnegative integer r, be the graph obtained from G by replacing each edge e by a path of length connecting the two ends of e. In this article, we obtain an expression for in terms of spanning trees of G by a combinatorial approach. This result generalizes some known results on the relation between and and gives an explicit expression if G is of order and size in which s vertices are of degree 1 and the others are of degree k. Thus we prove a conjecture on for such a graph G.