Synthesis and chemical modification of magnetic nanoparticles covalently bound to polystyrene-SiCl2-poly(2-vinylpyridine)

The present article offers a new approach to create a multifunctional material based on magnetic nanoparticles, which can be dispersed in aqueous and organic media. The preparation of this material was performed by binding covalently polymer chains based on a reactive diblock-copolymer of the polystyrene-SiCl₂-poly(2-vinylpyridine) type, with average molecular weight per number (M_n) equal to 14,700 g/mol and a polydispersity index (PDI) less than 1.1, onto the surface of γ-Fe₂O₃ magnetic nanoparticles. The dichlorosilane moiety of the diblock-copolymer reacted with the  OH groups of the magnetic nanoparticles immobilizing the polymer chain onto its surface. This reaction was monitored by FTIR and the polymer grafting density was determined by TGA and BET. Dynamic light scattering revealed that the hydrodynamic diameter of the nanoparticles increased after immobilizing the polymer. Contact angle measurements demonstrated the ability of the hybrid material to interact with organic and aqueous media allowing its dispersion in solvents with different polarities. This property was used to prepare a magnetically active emulsion. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 48: 1668–1675, 2010     

Matchings in simplicial complexes, circuits and toric varieties

Using a generalized notion of matching in a simplicial complex and circuits of vector configurations, we compute lower bounds for the minimum number of generators, the binomial arithmetical rank and the A-homogeneous arithmetical rank of a lattice ideal. Prime lattice ideals are toric ideals, i.e. the defining ideals of toric varieties.     

Development of Advanced Software Tools for Computer‐Aided Design,Simulation, and Optimization of Polymerization Processes

A new software has been developed for the simulation, design, parameter and state estimation, optimization, and control of specific polymerization processes aiming at increasing plant efficiency, improving product quality, and reducing the impact to environment. It provides a user‐friendly interface, including a design environment that can be accessed from the engineer's desktop computer, allowing graphical interaction and expert system guidance on how to use the program or make engineering decisions. The software design allows the collection of models from different sources leading to an easy and comprehensive synthesis of process models. Recent advances regarding the development of software applications for three specific polymerization systems are presented.

     

Teaching decimal – binary conversion through an interactive exhibit

This note is a presentation of a didactic proposition about how to comprehend the conversion from the decimal into the binary system and vice versa with the aid of an interactive exhibit.     

Rigid objects, triangulated subfactors and abelian localizations

We show that the abelian category $\mathsf{mod}\text{-}\mathcal{X }$ of coherent functors over a contravariantly finite rigid subcategory $\mathcal{X }$ in a triangulated category $\mathcal{T }$ is equivalent to the Gabriel–Zisman localization at the class of regular maps of a certain factor category of $\mathcal{T }$ , and moreover it can be calculated by left and right fractions. Thus we generalize recent results of Buan and Marsh. We also extend recent results of Iyama–Yoshino concerning subfactor triangulated categories arising from mutation pairs in $\mathcal{T }$ . In fact we give a classification of thick triangulated subcategories of a natural pretriangulated factor category of $\mathcal{T }$ and a classification of functorially finite rigid subcategories of $\mathcal{T }$ if the latter has Serre duality. In addition we characterize $2$ -cluster tilting subcategories along these lines. Finally we extend basic results of Keller–Reiten concerning the Gorenstein and the Calabi–Yau property for categories arising from certain rigid, not necessarily cluster tilting, subcategories, as well as several results of the literature concerning the connections between $2$ -cluster tilting subcategories of triangulated categories and tilting subcategories of the associated abelian category of coherent functors.     

Ultrasound assisted catalytic wet peroxide oxidation of phenol: kinetics and intraparticle diffusion effects

The combination of ultrasound irradiation and catalytic wet peroxide oxidation was used as a means to degrade phenol. Direct and indirect irradiation were employed, while experiments in the absence of ultrasound were used as reference. A mixed (Al-Fe) pillared clay named FAZA, was used as a catalyst in the form of powder, extrudates and crushed extrudates. Ultrasound was found to clearly enhance the extrudates performance, increasing the conversion at 4h by more than 6 times under direct and almost 11 times under indirect irradiation. This observation is attributed to the reduction of diffusion resistance within the catalyst pores. The overall sonication-catalytic wet peroxide oxidation process appears very promising for environmental purposes.     

Brane Cosmology From Heterotic String Theory

We consider brane cosmologies within the context of five-dimensional effective actions with higher curvature corrections. The actions are compatible with bulk string amplitude calculations from heterotic string theory. We find wrapped solutions that satisfy the field equations in an approximate but acceptable manner given their complexity, where the internal, four-dimensional, scale factor is naturally inflating, having an exponential De-Sitter form. The temporal dependence of the metric components is nontrivial so that this metric cannot be factored as in a conformally flat case. The effective Planck mass is finite and the brane solutions can localize four-dimensional gravity while the four-dimensional gravitational constant varies with time. The Hubble constant can be freely specified through the initial value of the scalar field, to conform with recent data.     

Numerical experiments on the efficiency of local grid refinement based on truncation error estimates

Local grid refinement aims to optimise the relationship between accuracy of the results and number of grid nodes. In the context of the finite volume method no single local refinement criterion has been globally established as optimum for the selection of the control volumes to subdivide, since it is not easy to associate the discretisation error with an easily computable quantity in each control volume. Often the grid refinement criterion is based on an estimate of the truncation error in each control volume, because the truncation error is a natural measure of the discrepancy between the algebraic finite-volume equations and the original differential equations. However, it is not a straightforward task to associate the truncation error with the optimum grid density because of the complexity of the relationship between truncation and discretisation errors. In the present work several criteria based on a truncation error estimate are tested and compared on a regularised lid-driven cavity case at various Reynolds numbers. It is shown that criteria where the truncation error is weighted by the volume of the grid cells perform better than using just the truncation error as the criterion. Also it is observed that the efficiency of local refinement increases with the Reynolds number. The truncation error is estimated by restricting the solution to a coarser grid and applying the coarse grid discrete operator. The complication that high truncation error develops at grid level interfaces is also investigated and several treatments are tested.