Developing Flexible Quinacridone-Derivatives-Based Photothermal Evaporaters for Solar Steam and Thermoelectric Power Generation

Solar-driven interfacial vaporization by localizing solar-thermal energy conversion to the air−water interface has attracted tremendous attention. In the process of converting solar energy into heat energy, photothermal materials play an essential role. Herein, a flexible solar-thermal material di-cyan substituted 5,12-dibutylquinacridone (DCN−4CQA)@Paper was developed by coating photothermal quinacridone derivatives on the cellulose paper. The DCN−4CQA@Paper combines desired chemical and physical properties, broadband light-absorbing, and shape-conforming abilities that render efficient photothermic vaporization. Notably, synergetic coupling of solar-steam and solar-electricity technologies by integrating DCN−4CQA@Paper and the thermoelectric devices is realized without trade-offs, highlighting the practical consideration toward more impactful solar heat exploitation. Such solar distillation and low-grade heat-to-electricity generation functions can provide potential opportunities for fresh water and electricity supply in off-grid or remote areas.     

Versatile Near-Infrared Super-Resolution Imaging of Amyloid Fibrils with the Fluorogenic Probe CRANAD-2

CRANAD-2 is a fluorogenic curcumin derivative used for near-infrared detection and imaging in vivo of amyloid aggregates, which are involved in neurodegenerative diseases. We explore the performance of CRANAD-2 in two super-resolution imaging techniques, namely stimulated emission depletion (STED) and single-molecule localization microscopy (SMLM), with markedly different fluorophore requirements. By conveniently adapting the concentration of CRANAD-2, which transiently binds to amyloid fibrils, we show that it performs well in both techniques, achieving a resolution in the range of 45–55 nm. Correlation of SMLM with atomic force microscopy (AFM) validates the resolution of fine features in the reconstructed super-resolved image. The good performance and versatility of CRANAD-2 provides a powerful tool for near-infrared nanoscopic imaging of amyloids in vitro and in vivo.     

Generalized Jacobi spectral Galerkin method for fractional pantograph differential equation

This work is concerned with the extension of the Jacobi spectral Galerkin method to a class of nonlinear fractional pantograph differential equations. First, the fractional differential equation is converted to a nonlinear Volterra integral equation with weakly singular kernel. Second, we analyze the existence and uniqueness of solutions for the obtained integral equation. Then, the Galerkin method is used for solving the equivalent integral equation. The error estimates for the proposed method are also investigated. Finally, illustrative examples are presented to confirm our theoretical analysis.     

Local discontinuous Galerkin method for a nonlocal viscous conservation laws

The purpose of this article is to investigate high‐order numerical approximations of scalar conservation laws with nonlocal viscous term. The viscous term is given in the form of convolution in space variable. With the help of the characteristic of viscous term, we design a semidiscrete local discontinuous Galerkin (LDG) method to solve the nonlocal model. We prove stability and convergence of semidiscrete LDG method in L² norm. The theoretical analysis reveals that the present numerical scheme is stable with optimal convergence order for the linear case, and it is stable with sub‐optimal convergence order for nonlinear case. To demonstrate the validity and accuracy of our scheme, we test the Burgers equation with two typical nonlocal fractional viscous terms. The numerical results show the convergence order accuracy in space for both linear and nonlinear cases. Some numerical simulations are provided to show the robustness and effectiveness of the present numerical scheme.     

Design and Synthesis of Imidazole and Triazole Pyrazoles as Mycobacterium Tuberculosis CYP121A1 Inhibitors

The emergence of untreatable drug-resistant strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis is a major public health problem worldwide, and the identification of new efficient treatments is urgently needed. Mycobacterium tuberculosis cytochrome P450 CYP121A1 is a promising drug target for the treatment of tuberculosis owing to its essential role in mycobacterial growth. Using a rational approach, which includes molecular modelling studies, three series of azole pyrazole derivatives were designed through two synthetic pathways. The synthesized compounds were biologically evaluated for their inhibitory activity towards M. tuberculosis and their protein binding affinity (K_D). Series 3 biarylpyrazole imidazole derivatives were the most effective with the isobutyl ( 10 f ) and tert-butyl ( 10 g ) compounds displaying optimal activity (MIC 1.562 μg/mL, K_D 0.22 μM ( 10 f ) and 4.81 μM ( 10 g )). The spectroscopic data showed that all the synthesised compounds produced a type II red shift of the heme Soret band indicating either direct binding to heme iron or (where less extensive Soret shifts are observed) putative indirect binding via an interstitial water molecule. Evaluation of biological and physicochemical properties identified the following as requirements for activity: LogP >4, H-bond acceptors/H-bond donors 4/0, number of rotatable bonds 5–6, molecular volume >340 ų, topological polar surface area <40 Ų.     

Fast Evaluation of Linear Combinations of Caputo Fractional Derivatives and Its Applications to Multi-Term Time-Fractional Sub-Diffusion Equations

In the present work, linear combinations of Caputo fractional derivatives are fast evaluated based on the efficient sum-of-exponentials (SOE) approximation for kernels in Caputo fractional derivatives with an absolute error $\epsilon,$ which is a further work of the existing results in [13] (Commun. Comput. Phys., 21 (2017), pp. 650-678) and [16] (Commun. Comput. Phys., 22 (2017), pp. 1028-1048). Both the storage needs and computational amount are significantly reduced compared with the direct algorithm. Applications of the proposed fast algorithm are illustrated by solving a second-order multi-term time-fractional sub-diffusion problem. The unconditional stability and convergence of the fast difference scheme are proved. The CPU time is largely reduced while the accuracy is kept, especially for the cases of large temporal level, which is displayed by numerical experiments.     

A fractional order HIV-TB coinfection model with nonsingular Mittag-Leffler Law

The biological models for the study of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and its advanced stage acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) have been widely studied in last two decades. HIV virus can be transmitted by different means including blood, semen, preseminal fluid, rectal fluid, breast milk, and many more. Therefore, initiating HIV treatment with the TB treatment development has some advantages including less HIV-related losses and an inferior risk of HIV spread also having difficulties including incidence of immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome (IRIS) because of a large pill encumbrance. It has been analyzed that patients with HIV have more weaker immune system and are susceptible to infections, for example, tuberculosis (TB). Keeping the importance of the HIV models, we are interested to consider an analysis of HIV-TB coinfected model in the Atangana-Baleanu fractional differential form. The model is studied for the existence, uniqueness of solution, Hyers-Ulam (HU) stability and numerical simulations with assumption of specific parameters.     

Synthesis of lupeol derivatives and their antileishmanial and antitrypanosomal activities

The natural product lupeol 1 was isolated from aerial parts of Vernonia scorpioides with satisfactory yield, which made it viable to be used as starting material in semisynthetic approach. Ten lupeol derivatives 2–11 were prepared by classical procedures. Including, five new esters derivatives 7–11, which were obtained by structural modifications in the isopropylidene fragment. All semisynthetic compounds and lupeol 1–11 were confirmed by ¹H NMR, ¹³C NMR and HRMS. Their antiprotozoal activity was evaluated in vitro against L. amazonensis and T. cruzi. Derivative 6 showed the best antitrypanosomal activity (IC₅₀ = 12.48 μg/mL) and the lowest cytotoxic derivative (CC₅₀ = 161.50 μg/mL). The mechanism of action of the most active derivatives (4, 6 and 11) is not dependent from the enzyme trypanothione reductase.     

流变岩体中让压支护作用下隧道力学行为研究

高地应力深埋软岩隧道大变形问题已成为隧道工程建设领域的突出难题. 根据高地应力深埋软岩隧道的变形特征, 基于"围岩能量吸收、变形释放"的让压支护是解决软岩隧道大变形问题的有效方法. 针对流变岩体中深埋圆形隧道在让压支护作用下的力学响应问题, 通过引入分数阶微积分理论, 采用Abel黏壶元件建立了改进的分数阶Burgers蠕变模型来表征围岩的时效变形. 此外, 通过在让压支护不同变形阶段引入刚度修正系数, 克服了传统支护未能考虑围岩变形释放的问题. 据此, 本文推导了在考虑支护延迟安装影响下, 不同变形阶段围岩与让压支护相互作用的解析解. 为了验证理论研究的正确性, 对一算例进行了不同解答及工程结果的比对, 吻合较好. 最后, 参数研究结果表明: 围岩与让压支护间的相互作用受蠕变本构模型分数阶阶数影响较大. 隧道的位移或支护压力与让压位移、支护刚度修正系数间存在线性比例关系, 但由于刚度修正系数仅保持在较小的变化范围内, 隧道的位移或支护压力变化并不显著.      

Computational Study on the Charge Transport and Optical Spectra of Anthracene Derivatives in Aggregates

A recent experiment [Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2017 , 56, 722–727] found that a (1 : 9) blend film of two anthracene derivatives, 2-fluorenyl-2-anthracene ( FlAnt ) and 2-anthryl-2-anthracence ( 2 A ), exhibit both efficient white light emission and high hole mobility, thus promising for organic light-emitting transistors (OLETs). Employing quantum chemistry at the polarizable continuum model (PCM) and the quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics (QM/MM) levels, we investigated the excited-state structures, optical spectra, band structure and the carrier mobility for FlAnt and 2 A from solution to aggregate phases. We suggest using the ratio of intermolecular excitonic coupling J and intramolecular excited state relaxation energy E to judge the bathochromic shift in optical emission in aggregates. For FlAnt , ρ=J/E is calculated to be less than 0.17, a critical value we identified earlier, and the spectra in solution and aggregate phases present quite similar features (blue emission). However, ρ is ∼0.5 for 2 A systems, and the calculated emission in the aggregate phase exhibits a remarkable bathochromic shift. In addition, the 0–0 emission is strongly suppressed in the herringbone stacking. These observations justify the experimental findings that (i) 2 A is blue emissive in solution but yellow-green in the aggregate phase, whereas FlAnt is always blue, and (ii) the blend of them show white emission. By using the “quantum nuclear tunneling” model we proposed earlier, we found the hole mobility for FlAnt and 2 A are 0.5 and 4.2 cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹, respectively, indicating both are good hole transport materials.