On the Modeling of CO2 EUA and CER Prices of EU‐ETS for the 2008–2012 Period

Increased consumption of fossil fuels in industrial production has led to a significant elevation in the emission of greenhouse gases and to global warming. The most effective international action against global warming is the Kyoto Protocol, which aims to reduce carbon emissions to desired levels in a certain time span. Carbon trading is one of the mechanisms used to achieve the desired reductions. One of the most important implications of carbon trading for industrial systems is the risk of uncertainty about the prices of carbon allowance permits traded in the carbon markets. In this paper, we consider stochastic and time series modeling of carbon market prices and provide estimates of the model parameters involved, based on the European Union emissions trading scheme carbon allowances data obtained for 2008–2012 period. In particular, we consider fractional Brownian motion and autoregressive moving average–generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedastic modeling of the European Union emissions trading scheme data and provide comparisons with benchmark models. Our analysis reveals evidence for structural changes in the underlying models in the span of the years 2008–2012. Data‐driven methods for identifying possible change‐points in the underlying models are employed, and a detailed analysis is provided. Our analysis indicated change‐points in the European Union Allowance (EUA) prices in the first half of 2009 and in the second half of 2011, whereas in the Certified Emissions Reduction (CER) prices three change‐points have appeared, in the first half of 2009, the middle of 2011, and in the second half of 2012. These change‐points seem to parallel the global economic indicators as well. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Silk Fibroin and Peptide Amphiphile‐Based Co‐Culture Model for Osteochondral Tissue Engineering

New biomaterials with the properties of both bone and cartilage extracellular matrices (ECM) should be designed and used with co‐culture systems to address clinically applicable osteochondral constructs. Herein, a co‐culture model is described based on a trilayered silk fibroin‐peptide amphiphile (PA) scaffold cultured with human articular chondrocytes (hACs) and human bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (hBMSCs) in an osteochondral cocktail medium for the cartilage and bone sides, respectively. The presence of hACs in the co‐cultures significantly increases the osteogenic differentiation potential of hBMSCs based on ALP activity, RT‐PCR for osteogenic markers, calcium analyses, and histological stainings, whereas hACs produces a significant amount of glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) for the cartilage region, even in the absence of growth factor TGF‐β family in the co‐culture medium. This trilayered scaffold with trophic effects offers a promising strategy for the study of osteochondral defects.

     

Approximation by Kantorovich-Szász Type Operators Based on Brenke Type Polynomials

In this article, we give a generalization of the Kantorovich-Szász type operators defined by means of the Brenke type polynomials introduced in the literature and obtain convergence properties of these operators by using Korovkin’s theorem. Some graphical examples using the Maple program for this approximation are given. We also establish the order of convergence by using modulus of smoothness and Peetre’s K-functional and give a Voronoskaja type theorem. In addition, we deal with the convergence of these operators in a weighted space.     

Solvent Effect upon Ion-pair Extraction of Different Sodium Dyes Using Some Crown Ethers

Liquid-liquid extractive-spectrophotometric studies of sodium ion complexes of 18-crown-6(18C6), dibenzo-18-crown-6(DB18C6), 15-crown-5(15C5), and 12-crown-4(12C4) and anionic dyes [4-(2-pyridylazo)-resorcinol monosodium salt monohydrate (PAR), Eriochrom Black T (EBT), and methyl orange (MOR)] and sodium picrate (PICRAT) as the counter ion are described. The overall extraction equilibrium constants for the 1 : 1 complexes of the above crown ethers with sodium dyes between different organic solvents and water have been determined at 25deg;C. They were conducted in various solvent-water systems maintaining an identical initial cation concentration in water, [M0+]w, and macrocyclic ligand concentration in the organic phase, [L0]org}, so that in all extractions [M0+]w : [L0]org ratios were 1 : 1, 1 : 10, 1 : 20, 1 : 50, and 1 : 62.5. An ion association complex formed between the sodium-crown ether complex ion and a dye anion was extracted into the organic solvent, and then the dye concentration of the separated aqueous phase was measured with an ultraviolet-visible spectrophotometer. PAR was the best associated dye with all crown ethers sodium-dyes and the extracted dye occurs as the ion-pair complex. Methylene chloride was found to be better than other extractive solvents used in this study.     

Determination of Na, Mg, Al, Si, K, Cl, Ca and Fe in cigarette tobacco by fast neutron activation analysis

FNAA has been, for many years, a technique for the non-destructive analysis of a wide variety of sample materials-liquids, solids and powders. The important advantages of fast neutron activation analysis are good analytical sensitivity without sample preparation, accuracy and total analysis in a short time. In our work, the concentrations of the elements Na, Mg, Al, Si, K, Cl, Ca and Fe, were determined in cigarette tobacco of two brands commercially available in, Turkey using 14.6 MeV neutron activation analysis.     

Pd‐PEPPSI‐IPent: An Active,Sterically Demanding Cross‐Coupling Catalyst and Its Application in the Synthesis of Tetra‐Ortho‐Substituted Biaryls

Incredible Bulk : A series of N‐heterocyclic carbene catalysts (see picture) were prepared and evaluated in the Suzuki–Miyaura reaction. A variety of sterically encumbered tetra‐ortho‐substituted biaryl products were formed from unreactive aryl chlorides using the isopentyl‐substituted catalyst at temperatures ranging from 65 °C to room temperature. The cyclopentyl‐substituted catalyst was virtually inactive, demonstrating that “flexible bulk” is essential to promote these transformations.