Photocatalytic splitting of CS2 to S8 and a carbon-sulfur polymer catalyzed by a bimetallic ruthenium(II) compound with a tertiary amine binding site: toward photocatalytic splitting of CO2?

The catalytic photocleavage of CS(2) to S(8) and a (C(x)S(y))(n) polymer with visible light using a dinuclear ruthenium(II) compound with a bipyridine units for photoactivity and a vicinal tertiary amine binding site for CS(2) activation was studied. The catalyst was characterized by X-ray diffraction, (1)H NMR, and (13)C NMR, ESI-MS and elemental analysis. CS(2) photocleavage was significant (240 turnovers, 20 h) to yield isolable S(8) and a (C(x)S(y))(n) polymer. A mononuclear catalyst or one without an amine binding site showed significantly less activity. XPS of the (C(x)S(y))(n) polymer showed a carbon/sulfur ratio ～1.5-1.6 indicating that in part both C-S bonds of CS(2) had been cleaved. Catalyst was also included within the polymer. The absence of peaks in the (1)H NMR verified the (C(x)S(y))(n) nature of the polymer, while (13)C NMR and IR indicated that the polymer had multiple types of C-S and C-C bonds.     

Application of a chiral metal-organic framework in enantioselective separation

A modular approach for the synthesis of highly ordered porous and chiral auxiliary (Evans auxiliary) decorated metal-organic frameworks is developed. Our synthesis strategy, which uses known porous structures as model materials for incorporation of chirality via linker modification, can provide access to a wide range of porous materials suitable for enantioselective separation and catalysis. Chiral analogues of UMCM-1 have been synthesized and investigated for the enantioseparation of chiral compounds in the liquid phase and first promising results are reported.     

A highly porous flexible Metal-Organic Framework with corundum topology

A flexible Metal-Organic Framework Zn(4)O(BenzTB)(3/2) (DUT-13) was obtained by combination of a tetratopic linker and Zn(4)O(6+) as connector. The material has a corundum topology and shows the highest pore volume among flexible MOFs.     

Local coordination of Fe3+ in Li[Co(0.98)Fe(0.02)]O2 as cathode material for lithium ion batteries-multi-frequency EPR and Monte-Carlo Newman-superposition model analysis

The local coordination of the Fe(3+)-centers in Li[Co(0.98)Fe(0.02)]O(2) cathode materials for lithium-ion batteries has been investigated by means of XRD and multi-frequency EPR spectroscopy. EPR clearly showed the Fe(3+) being in a high-spin state with S = 5/2. The set of spin-Hamiltonian parameters obtained from multi-frequency EPR experiments with Larmor frequencies ranging between 9.8 and 406 GHz was transformed into structural information by means of an expansion to standard Newton-superposition modeling, termed as Monte-Carlo Newman superposition modeling. Based on this analysis, an isovalent incorporation of the Fe(3+)-ions on the Co(3+)-sites, i.e. Fe(x)(Co), has been shown. With that respect, the positive sign of the axial second-order fine-structure interaction parameter B(0)(2) is indicative of an elongated oxygen octahedron, whereas B(0)(2) < 0 points to a compressed octahedron coordinated about the Fe(3+)-center. Furthermore, the results obtained here suggest that the oxygen octahedron about the Fe(3+)-ion is slightly distorted as compared to the CoO(6) octahedron, which in turn may impose mechanical strain to the cathode material.     

Fenchel Duality Theory and a Primal-Dual Algorithm on Riemannian Manifolds

Foundations of Computational Mathematics - This paper introduces a new notion of a Fenchel conjugate, which generalizes the classical Fenchel conjugation to functions defined on Riemannian...     

Characterization of silicon nanowires grown on silicon, stainless steel and indium tin oxide substrates

Silicon nanowires (SiNWs) have been grown on crystalline silicon (Si), indium tin oxide (ITO) and stainless steel (SS) substrates using a gold catalyst coating with a thickness of 200 nm via pulsed plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PPECVD). Their morphological, mineralogical and surface characteristics have been investigated using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and Raman analysis. SiNWs growth is accompanied by oxidation, thus yielding partially (SiO _x ) and fully oxidized (SiO₂) Si sheaths. The mean diameters of these SiNWs range from 140 to 185 nm. Si with (111) and (220) planes exists in SiNWs grown on all three substrates while Si with a (311) plane is detected only for Si and ITO substrates. Computational simulation using density functional theory (DFT) has also been conducted to supplement the experimental Raman analyses for crystalline Si and SiO₂. XPS results reveal that ca. 30 % of the SiNWs have been oxidized for all substrates. The results presented in this paper can be used to aid selection of appropriate substrates for SiNW growth, depending on specific applications.     

Partial Molar Volumes and Refractions of Cobalt(III) Complexes, Part 1: Homologous Series of Hexaaminecobalt(III) Complexes

Both the partial molar volumes (V∘_solute) and refractions (R∘_solute) of the solute at infinite dilution have been determined for a series of four octahedral N₆-coordinated cobalt(III) species with increasing ligand size (ammonia, ethylenediamine, sepulchrate, and 1,2-diaminocyclohexane). The experimental values for V∘ _solute are consistent with the relative sizes of the ligands but show larger values than those generated by computer modeling as the size of the cation increases. This suggests that the void space of the cation increases with the size of the cation. It is proposed that increasing hydrophobicity of the alkane ligand frameworks contributes to larger volumes.     

Data compression and prediction in neural networks

We study the relationship between data compression and prediction in single-layer neural networks of limited complexity. Quantifying the intuitive notion of Occam's razor using Rissanen's minimum complexity framework, we investigate the model-selection criterion advocated by this principle. While we find that the criterion works well for large sample sizes (as it must for consistency), the behavior for finite sample sizes is rather complex, depending intricately on the relationship between the complexity of the hypothesis space and the target space. We also show that the limited networks studied perform efficient data compression, even in the error full regime.     

The geometric Weil representation

We construct a geometric analogue of the Weil representation over a finite field. Our construction is principally invariant, not choosing any specific realization. This eliminates most of the unpleasant formulas that appear in the traditional (non-invariant) approaches, and puts in the forefront some delicate geometric phenomena which underlie this representation.