A damage constitutive model for sliding friction coupled to wear

Several new constitutive models are formulated for the planar interface of a soft body sliding on a rigid soil, describing stick-slip phenomena due to friction, and wear due to abrasion. Attention is focused on damage at the interface, by neglecting any interaction with damage of body and any propagation of damage inside the body. Models are formulated in the general framework of the Thermodynamics of the irreversible processes and account for suitable defined internal variables of phenomenological type, namely gap, isotropic friction hardening and wear. The main feature of the new presented models is that the formulation of the wear process at the interface is obtained in the contest of Damage Mechanics, and it is based on the formal analogy between abrasion of a soft body and ductile damage of an elastic-plastic material. By following this approach, a scalar wear field, an effective stress and appropriate state and dissipation potentials are defined, able to describe a tangential isotropic wear process due to stick-slip and to hardening mechanism. Both cases of linear and nonlinear friction hardening are formulated; moreover, wearable and no-wearable bodies are considered. Numerical results relevant to one-dimensional problems are illustrated for monotonic, forward-backward and cyclic displacement time-histories, showing evolution for stress, gap and wear. Results furnished by different models are compared and discussed.     

Unconventional stereoselective one-pot synthesis of Knoevenagel-type indoles via in situ condensation of iminium salts with active methylene reagents

A simple one-pot procedure for the stereoselective synthesis of Knoevenagel-type indoles is described. The method is based on the in situ reaction of indole iminium salts (four of them are fully characterized) with acyclic symmetrical and unsymmetrical active methylene reagents in the presence of triethylamine. In general, the overall yields are moderate to good. Some of relevant reaction parameters and steric effects affecting stereoselectivity are discussed.     

Are Collapse Models Testable via Flavor Oscillations?

Collapse models predict the spontaneous collapse of the wave function, in order to avoid the emergence of macroscopic superpositions. In their mass-dependent formulation, they claim that the collapse of any system’s wave function depends on its mass. Neutral K, D, B mesons are oscillating systems that are given by Nature as superposition of two distinct mass eigenstates. Thus they are unique laboratory for testing collapse models that are sensitive to the mass. In this paper we derive—for the single mesons and bipartite entangled mesons—the effect of the mass-proportional CSL (Continuous Spontaneous Localization) collapse model on the dynamics on neutral mesons. We compare the theoretical prediction with experimental data from different accelerator facilities.     

Recent Progress on Manganese-Based Nanostructures as Responsive MRI Contrast Agents

Manganese-based nanostructured contrast agents (CAs) entered the field of medical diagnosis through magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) some years ago. Although some of these Mn-based CAs behave as classic T₁ contrast enhancers in the same way as clinical Gd-based molecules do, a new type of Mn nanomaterials have been developed to improve MRI sensitivity and potentially gather new functional information from tissues by using traditional T₁ contrast enhanced MRI. These nanomaterials have been designed to respond to biological environments, mainly to pH and redox potential variations. In many cases, the differences in signal generation in these responsive Mn-based nanostructures come from intrinsic changes in the magnetic properties of Mn cations depending on their oxidation state. In other cases, no changes in the nature of Mn take place, but rather the nanomaterial as a whole responds to the change in the environment through different mechanisms, including changes in integrity and hydration state. This review focusses on the chemistry and MR performance of these responsive Mn-based nanomaterials.     

Design,Synthesis, and Biochemical Evaluation of Alpha-Amanitin Derivatives Containing Analogs of the trans-Hydroxyproline Residue for Potential Use in Antibody-Drug Conjugates

Alpha-amanitin, an extremely toxic bicyclic octapeptide extracted from the death-cap mushroom, Amanita phalloides, is a highly selective allosteric inhibitor of RNA polymerase II. Following on growing interest in using this toxin as a payload in antibody-drug conjugates, herein we report the synthesis and biochemical evaluation of several new derivatives of this toxin to probe the role of the trans-hydroxyproline (Hyp), which is known to be critical for toxicity. This structure activity relationship (SAR) study represents the first of its kind to use various Hyp-analogs to alter the conformational and H-bonding properties of Hyp in amanitin.     

Certification of nitrate in spinach powder reference material SPIN-1 by high-precision isotope dilution GC–MS

A high-precision exact-matching quadruple isotope dilution method (ID⁴MS) was employed for the quantitation of nitrate in an air-dried spinach powder Certified Reference Material (CRM). The analyte was extracted in hot water following addition of ¹⁵NO\({}_{3}^{-}\) internal standard. The blend was then treated with sulfamic acid to remove nitrite and with triethyloxonium tetrafluoroborate to promote aqueous conversion of nitrate into volatile EtONO₂. The derivative was analyzed by headspace GC–MS with 3-min elution time. The method performance was validated with a series of tests which demonstrated adequate selectivity and ruggedness. This method supported the development of novel SPIN-1 CRM giving a modest contribution to its uncertainty (u_char = 0.85%). With respect to previous attempts, the SPIN-1 was proven stable, homogeneous (u_hom = 0.44%), and suitable for spinach monitoring under EU regulations. On dried basis, the nitrate content of SPIN-1 was found to be 22.53 ± 0.43 mg/g (U_c = 1.9%, k = 2). The material was also used in an inter-laboratory study where four laboratories employed a total of ten measurement methods.

SPIN-1 Certified Reference Material for nitrate in spinach powder

     

On circular–linear one-factorizations of the complete graph

In Korchmáros et al. (2018)one-factorizations of the complete graph $K_n$ are constructed for $n=q+1$ with any odd prime power $q$ such that either $q\equiv 1(mod4)$ or $q=2^h?1$. The arithmetic restriction $n=q+1$ is due to the fact that the vertices of $K_n$ in the construction are the points of a conic $\Omega$ in the finite plane of order $q$. Here we work on the Euclidean plane and describe an analogous construction where the role of $\Omega$ is taken by a regular $n$-gon. This allows us to remove the above constraints and construct one-factorizations of $K_n$ for every even $n\ge 6$.