Enhancement of the emission yield of silicon nanocrystals in silica due to surface passivation

The ability of surface passivation to enhance the photoluminescence (PL) emission of Si nanocrystals in SiO₂ has been investigated. Silicon precipitation in implanted samples takes place in a time scale of few minutes at 1100°C. For longer annealing at the same temperature, the PL intensity of the Si nanocrystals increases and eventually reaches saturation, while it correlates inversely with the amount of Si dangling bonds at the Si–SiO₂ interface (P_b centers), as measured by electron spin resonance. This combined behavior is independent on the silica matrix properties, implantation profiles and annealing atmosphere and duration. The observation that the light emission enhancement is directly related to the annealing of P_b centers is confirmed by treatment in forming gas. This mild hydrogenation at much lower temperature (450°C) leads to a complete passivation of the P_b defects, increasing at the same time the PL yield and the lifetime.     

Rapid high-performance liquid chromatographic determination of urinary N-(1-methylethyl)-N'-phenyl-1,4-benzenediamine in workers exposed to aromatic amines.

A procedure has been developed for determining N-(1-methylethyl)-N'-phenyl-1,4-benzenediamine in urine by using high-performance liquid chromatography. The method uses chloroform extraction for partial clean-up of the urine sample. The separation is carried out on a reversed-phase column using 65 mmol/l aqueous ammonium acetate in acetonitrile (30:70, v/v) as the mobile phase. The column effluent is monitored at 290 nm with an ultraviolet detector. The analyte is separated from other normal urine constituents in less than 4 min. Peak height and concentration are linearly related. Coefficients of variation assessed for within-day reproducibility were 5.9 and 3.7% at concentrations of 22.3 and 92.1 micrograms/l, respectively. The mean analytical recovery from urine samples spiked with known amounts of amine was 89.7 +/- 6.8%. The request of only a small volume of urine and the simple pre-treatment procedure makes it suitable for the routine monitoring of the exposure of rubber vulcanization workers to aromatic amines.     

Realizing the Promise—The Development of Research on Carbon Nanotubes

The present reflection on the development of research on carbon nanotubes (CNTs) stems from the publication of the report “Realizing the Promise of Carbon Nanotubes” by the US National Nanotechnology Initiative in 2015. The report is a critical assessment of the state‐of‐art of CNT research and highlights some unresolved issues related with this field. Starting from the results of this assessment, we carried out an analysis of the publications’ pool in CNTs and related domains, by exploiting bibliometric tools. We focused on the item of competition/collaboration between disciplines and nations, with the purpose of evaluating the position of chemistry (as a discipline) as well as the position of the main European countries and the European Union (EU) as a whole in the context of CNT research. The results of such analysis outline very clearly the interdisciplinary landscape wherein CNT research is situated and show the highly competitive place occupied by EU in the field.     

Noise Reduction in Spur Gear Systems

This article lists some tips for reducing gear case noise. With this aim, a static analysis was carried out in order to describe how stresses resulting from meshing gears affect the acoustic emissions. Different parameters were taken into account, such as the friction, material, and lubrication, in order to validate ideas from the literature and to make several comparisons. Furthermore, a coupled Eulerian–Lagrangian (CEL) analysis was performed, which was an innovative way of evaluating the sound pressure level of the aforementioned gears. Different parameters were considered again, such as the friction, lubrication, material, and rotational speed, in order to make different research comparisons. The analytical results agreed with those in the literature, both for the static analysis and CEL analysis—for example, it was shown that changing the material from steel to ductile iron improved the gear noise, while increasing the rotational speed or the friction increased the acoustic emissions. Regarding the CEL analysis, air was considered a perfect gas, but its viscosity or another state equation could have also been taken into account. Therefore, the above allowed us to state that research into these scientific fields will bring about reliable results.     

Metabolism of JWH-015, JWH-098, JWH-251, and JWH-307 in silico and in vitro: a pilot study for the detection of unknown synthetic cannabinoids metabolites

This pilot study was performed to study the main metabolic reactions of four synthetic cannabinoids: JWH-015, JWH-098, JWH-251, and JWH-307 in order to setup a screening method for the detection of main metabolites in biological fluids. In silico prediction of main metabolic reactions was performed using MetaSite^? software. To evaluate the agreement between software prediction and experimental reactions, we performed in vitro experiments on the same JWHs using rat liver slices. The obtained samples were analyzed by liquid chromatography-quadrupole time-of-flight and the identification of metabolites was executed using Mass-MetaSite^? software that automatically assigned the metabolite structures to the peaks detected based on their accurate masses and fragmentation. A comparison between the experimental findings and the in silico metabolism prediction using MetaSite^? software showed a good accordance between experimental and in silico data. Thus, the use of in silico metabolism prediction might represent a useful tool for the forensic and clinical toxicologist to identify possible main biomarkers for synthetic cannabinoids in biological fluids, especially urine, following their administration.

Archi completi di ordine (q+3)/2 nei piani di galois,S 2,q,conq≡3 (mod. 4)

In a Galois planeS _2,q (q≡3 (mod 4),q>11) complete arcs of order (q+3)/2 are constructed.     

Summability and estimates for polynomials and multilinear mappings

In this paper we extend and generalize several known estimates for homogeneous polynomials and multilinear mappings on Banach spaces. Applying the theory of absolutely summing nonlinear mappings, we prove that estimates which are known for mappings on ?_p spaces in fact hold true for mappings on arbitrary Banach spaces.