Effect of Li2CO3 on formation temperature of hBN by modified O'Connor model

This study is interested in the effect of lithium carbonate on the formation of hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) by means of the available experimental methods including TGA, XRD, FTIR, SEM and HR‐TEM. hBN samples were synthesized at the 1450 °C with different molar ratios of lithium carbonate by modified O'Connor routine. The crystalline hBN formation tended to improve with the increment of the Li₂CO₃ concentration level (especially after more 20 %). The dopant quantity decreased the residual stresses due to the presence of possible relaxation mechanisms along with the nanocrystal structure, even favored by XRD experimental findings regarding the enhancement of crystal plane alignments, crystallite sizes and lattice parameters. As for the FTIR surveys, the Li₂CO₃ foreign impurities strengthened more and more the covalent bonds between boron and nitrogen atoms. At the same time, the samples with 40 % lithium carbonate were annealed at the varied temperatures of 1000, 1150, 1300 and 1450 °C to determine the optimum annealing temperature. The XRD+FTIR investigations indicated that the degree of hexagonality improved with the increased annealing temperature. Similarly, the surface morphology confirmed not only the formation of regularity and flaky hexagonal BN structures, but also the strengthening of covalent bonds between the atoms.     

The Bethe lattice treatment of sound attenuation for a spin- 3/2 Ising model

The sound attenuation phenomena is investigated for a spin- 3/2 Ising model on the Bethe lattice in terms of the recursion relations by using the Onsager theory of irreversible thermodynamics. The dependencies of sound attenuation on the temperature (T$T$), frequency (w$w$), Onsager coefficient (γ$\gamma$) and external magnetic field (H$H$) near the second-order (_Tc)$\left(T_c\right)$ and first-order (_Tt)$\left(T_t\right)$ phase transition temperatures are examined for given coordination numbers q$q$ on the Bethe lattice. It is assumed that the sound wave couples to the order-parameter fluctuations which decay mainly via the order-parameter relaxation process, thus two relaxation times are obtained and which are used to obtain an expression for the sound attenuation coefficient (α)$\left(\alpha \right)$. Our investigations revealed that only one peak is obtained near _Tt$T_t$ and three peaks are found near _Tc$T_c$ when the Onsager coefficient is varied at a given constant frequency for q=3$q=3$. Fixing the Onsager coefficient and varying the frequency always leads to two peaks for q=3,4$q=3,4$ and 6 near _Tc$T_c$. The sound attenuation peaks are observed near _Tt$T_t$ at lower values of external magnetic field, but as it increases the sound attenuation peaks decrease and eventually disappear.     

Critical properties of mixed spin-1 and spin-5/2 with equal and unequal crystal fields

The effects of assuming equal or unequal crystal fields (CF) on the phase diagrams of a mixed spin-1 and spin-5/2 system are investigated in terms of the recursion relations on the Bethe lattice (BL). The equal CF case was considered for the coordination numbers q=3, 4, and 6, while for q=3 the unequal CF case was also studied. It was found that for the equal CF case, the model exhibits second-order phase transitions and two compensation temperatures for all q, the reentrant behavior for q=4 and first-order phase transitions and tricritical point (TCP) for q=6. In the unequal CF case for q=3, the system yields first- and second-order phase transitions, TCP's, and three compensation temperatures. In addition, the TCP's in a very short range are classified as the stable and unstable ones depending on their free energies.     

Homo‐ and heteropolynuclear copper(II) complexes containing a new diimine–dioxime ligand and 1,10‐phenanthroline: synthesis,characterization, solvent‐extraction studies,catalase‐like functions and DNA cleavage abilities

A series of homo‐, heterodinuclear and homotrinuclear copper(II) complexes containing a new Schiff base ligand and 1,10‐phenanthroline were synthesized. Based on results of elemental analyses, FTIR, ¹H‐ and ¹³C‐NMR spectra, conductivity measurements and magnetic susceptibility measurements, the complexes had general compositions {[Cu(L)(H₂O)M(phen)₂](ClO₄)₂ [M = Cu(II), Mn(II), Co(II)]} and {[Cu₃(L)₂(H₂O)₂](ClO₄)₂}. The metal:L:phen ratio is 2:1:2 for the dinuclear copper(II) complexes and the metal:L ratio was 3:2 for the trinuclear copper(II) complex. The liquid–liquid extraction of various transition metal cations [Mn(II), Co(II), Ni(II), Cu(II), Zn(II), Pb(II), Cd(II), Hg(II)] from the aqueous phase to the organic phase was carried out using the diimine–dioxime ligand. It was concluded that the ligand can effectively be used in solvent extraction of copper(II) from the aqueous phase to the organic phase. Furthermore, catalytic activitiy of the complexes for the disproportionation of hydrogen peroxide was also investigated in the presence of imidazole. Dinuclear copper(II)–manganese(II) complex has some similarity to manganese catalase in structure and activity. The interaction between these complexes and DNA has also been investigated by agarose gel electrophoresis; we found that the homo‐ and heterodinuclear copper complexes can cleave supercoiled pBR322 DNA to nicked and linear forms in the presence of H₂O₂. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A multicriteria facility location model for municipal solid waste management in North Greece

Up to 2002, Hellenic Solid Waste Management (SWM) policy specified that each of the country’s 54 prefectural governments plan its own SWM system. After 2002, this authority was shifted to the country’s 13 regions entirely. In this paper, we compare and contrast regional and prefectural SWM planning in Central Macedonia. To design the prefectural plan, we assume that each prefecture must be self-sufficient, and we locate waste facilities in each prefecture. In contrast, in the regional plan, we assume cooperation between prefectures and locate waste facilities to serve the entire region. We present a new multicriteria mixed-integer linear programming model to solve the location–allocation problem for municipal SWM at the regional level. We apply the lexicographic minimax approach to obtain a “fair” nondominated solution, a solution with all normalized objectives as equal to one another as possible. A solution to the model consists of locations and technologies for transfer stations, material recovery facilities, incinerators and sanitary landfills, as well as the waste flow between these locations.     

Two N‐substituted 3,5‐diphenyl‐2‐pyrazoline‐1‐thiocarboxamides

The structures of N‐ethyl‐3‐(4‐fluoro­phen­yl)‐5‐(4‐methoxy­phen­yl)‐2‐pyrazoline‐1‐thio­carboxamide, C₁₉H₂₀FN₃OS, (I), and 3‐(4‐fluoro­phen­yl)‐N‐methyl‐5‐(4‐methyl­phen­yl)‐2‐pyrazoline‐1‐thio­carboxamide, C₁₈H₁₈FN₃S, (II), have similar geometric parameters. The meth­oxy/methyl‐substituted phenyl groups are almost perpendicular to the pyrazoline (pyraz) ring [inter­planar angles of 89.29 (8) and 80.39 (10)° for (I) and (II), respectively], which is coplanar with the fluoro­phenyl ring [inter­planar angles of 5.72 (9) and 10.48 (10)°]. The pyrazoline ring approximates an envelope conformation in both structures, with the two‐coordinate N atom involved in an intra­molecular N—H⋯N_pyraz inter­action. In (I), N—H⋯O and C—H⋯S inter­molecular hydrogen bonds are the primary inter­actions, whereas in (II), there are no intermolecular hydrogen bonds.     

A stochastic approximation for fully nonlinear free boundary parabolic problems

We present a stochastic numerical method for solving fully nonlinear free boundary problems of parabolic type and provide a rate of convergence under reasonable conditions on the nonlinearity. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 30: 902–929, 2014     

Spin-1 Blume–Capel model with random crystal field effects

The random-crystal field spin-1 Blume–Capel model is investigated by the lowest approximation of the cluster-variation method which is identical to the mean-field approximation. The crystal field is either turned on randomly with probability p$p$ or turned off with q=1−p$q=1-p$ in a bimodal distribution. Then the phase diagrams are constructed on the crystal field (Δ$\Delta$)–temperature (kT/J)$(kT/J)$ planes for given values of p$p$ and on the (kT/J,p$kT/J,p$) planes for given Δ$\Delta$ by studying the thermal variations of the order parameters. In the latter, we only present the second-order phase transition lines, because of the existence of irregular wiggly phase transitions which are not good enough to construct lines. In addition to these phase transitions, the model also yields tricritical points for all values of p$p$ and the reentrant behavior at lower p$p$ values.     

Effects of gamma irradiation on the shoot length of Cicer seeds

The effects of radiation on the shoot and root lengths of germinated seedling of irradiated seeds of Cicer species, i.e. three kabuli types and four desi types of cultivated chickpea (Cicer arietinum Ladiz.) and 2 annual wild types (C. reticulatum Ladiz. and C. bijugum K.H. Rech.) were investigated. The seeds were irradiated with a ⁶⁰Co gamma source using 0, 200, 300 and 400 Gy doses at 1.66 kGy h⁻¹. At 200 Gy minor effects could be observed, but at 400 Gy an obvious depression of shoot length was observed. The kabuli types were more affected than the desi ones. The critical dose that prevented the shoot and root elongation varied among species and also ranged from genotypes to genotype within species.     

A Parametric 1-Maximin Location Problem

We introduce a version of the weighted 1-maximin problem in a convex polygon, where the weights are functions of a parameter. The 1-maximin problem is applicable in the location of undesirable facilities. Its objective is to find an optimal location such that the minimum weighted distance to a given set of points is maximized. We show that the parametric 1-maximin problem is equivalent to a 1-minimax problem, where the costs are non-linearly decreasing functions of distance. Using different values of the parameter in the 1-maximin problem, one can model different disutility functions for the users of the facility. Furthermore, the parameterization provides for a systematic way of reducing the effects of the weights, resulting in the unweighted 1-maximin problem in the limit. For two example problems we construct the optimal trajectory as a function of the parameter, and demonstrate that the trajectory may be discontinuous.