Nucleation and Growth Synthesis of Siloxane Gels to Form Functional,Monodisperse, and Acoustically Programmable Particles

Nucleation and growth methods offer scalable means of synthesizing colloidal particles with precisely specified size for applications in chemical research, industry, and medicine. These methods have been used to prepare a class of silicone gel particles that display a range of programmable properties and narrow size distributions. The acoustic contrast factor of these particles in water is estimated and can be tuned such that the particles undergo acoustophoresis to either the pressure nodes or antinodes of acoustic standing waves. These particles can be synthesized to display surface functional groups that can be covalently modified for a range of bioanalytical and acoustophoretic sorting applications.     

Antioxidant, xanthine oxidase and lipoxygenase inhibitory activities and phenolics of Bauhinia rufescens Lam. (Caesalpiniaceae)

An aqueous acetone extract of the stem with the leaves of Bauhinia rufescens and its fractions were analysed for their antioxidant and enzyme-inhibitory activities, as well as their phytochemical composition. For measurement of the antioxidant activities, the 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl, 2,2'-azinobis(3-ethylbenzoline-6-sulphonate) and the ferric-reducing methods were used. The results indicated that the aqueous acetone, its ethyl acetate and n-butanol fractions possessed considerable antioxidant activity. Further, the xanthine oxidase and lipoxygenase inhibitory assays showed that the n-butanol fraction possessed compounds that can inhibit both these enzymes. In the phytochemical analysis, the ethyl acetate and the n-butanol fractions of the aqueous acetone extract were screened by HPLC-MS for their phenolic content. The results indicated the presence of hyperoside, isoquercitrin, rutin quercetin, quercitrin, p-coumaric and ferulic acids in the non-hydrolysed fractions. In the hydrolysed fractions, kaempferol, p-coumaric and ferulic acids were identified.     

Toward sustainable energy: photocatalysis of Cr-doped TiO<Subscript>2</Subscript>: 2. effect of defect disorder

The present chain of five papers considers the concept of solar-to-chemical energy conversion using TiO₂-based semiconductors. The series reports the effect of chromium on the key performance-related properties of polycrystalline TiO₂ (rutile), including electronic structure, photocatalytic activity, intrinsic defect disorder, electrochemical coupling and surface versus bulk properties. In this work, we show that the effect of chromium on photocatalytic performance of TiO₂ depends on its elemental content and the related defect disorder that is determined by oxygen activity in the oxide lattice. At high oxygen activity, chromium leads to enhanced photocatalytic performance only for dilute solid solutions (up to 0.04–0.043 at.% Cr). Higher chromium content results in a decrease of photocatalytic activity below that for pure TiO₂, despite the observed substantial decrease of the band gap. The photocatalytic performance of Cr-doped TiO₂ annealed in reducing conditions is low within the entire studied range of compositions. The obtained results led to derivation of a theoretical model representing the mechanism of the light-induced reactivity of TiO₂ with water and the related charge transfer. The photocatalytic performance is considered in terms of a competitive effect of several key performance-related properties. The performance is predominantly influenced by the concentration of titanium vacancies acting as reactive surface sites related to anodic charge transfer.

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Orthotropic strain rate potential for the description of anisotropy in tension and compression of metals

In this paper, a macroscopic anisotropic strain rate potential, which can describe both the anisotropy and tension-compression asymmetry of the plastic response of textured metals is derived. This strain rate potential is the exact work-conjugate of the anisotropic stress potential CPB06 of Cazacu et al. (2006). Application of the developed strain rate potential to HCP high-purity alpha-titanium is presented.     

Study of the levels in 167Tm by the 165Ho(α, 2nγ)167Tm reaction

Gamma-ray spectra following the ¹⁶⁵Ho(α, 2n)¹⁶⁷Tm reaction have been studied using different semiconductor detector systems including a Compton suppression spectrometer. Approxi- mately 400 transitions have been observed in the energy range 60 to 1250 keV and 4 × 10⁷ γγ coincidence events have been recorded. The angular distributions of the more intense γ-rays have been determined. The level scheme of ¹⁶⁷Tm has been extended in several respects: The four previously known rotational bands based on the Nilsson orbitais $\text{1}\text{2}{}^{\mathrm{+}}\text{[411]}$, $\text{7}\text{2}{}^{\mathrm{+}}\text{[404]}$, $\text{7}\text{2}{}^{\mathrm{?}}\text{[523]}$ an $\text{1}\text{2}{}^{\mathrm{?}}\text{[541]}$ have been extended up to spin values $\text{31}\text{2}$, $\text{31}\text{2}$, $\text{31}\text{2}$, $\text{33}\text{2}$ respective based on the $\text{3}\text{2}{}^{\mathrm{+}}\text{[411]}$ and $\text{5}\text{2}{}^{\mathrm{+}}\text{[402]}$ orbitals have been established for which only few levels were known previously. Finally two hitherto unknown rotational bands have been found for which we propose the assignments $\text{{}\text{7}\text{2}{}^{\mathrm{+}}\text{[404]; K + 2}}$ and $\text{3}\text{2}{}^{\mathrm{?}}\text{[532] + {}\text{1}\text{2}{}^{\mathrm{?}}\text{[541]; K?2}}$. Coriolis coup calculations are presented. The value of $\text{(1?δ}{}_{\mathrm{<mtext>K,\; </mtext><mtext>1</mtext><mtext>2</mtext>}}\text{b}{}_0\text{) (g}{}_{\mathrm{K}}\text{?g}{}_{\mathrm{R}}\text{)/Q}{}_0$ was determined for three bands from branching ratios and from angular distributions.     

Polystyrene–polyisoprene block copolymers in dilute solutions: Characterization of the conformation by small-angle neutron scattering

The variable-contrast method in small-angle neutron scattering has been applied to a study of the conformation of polystyrene–polyisoprene block copolymers in dilute solution. The experimental results reveal no intramolecular segregation effect in dilute solutions in toluene and cyclohexane.     

Some algebraic invariants related to mixed product ideals

We compute some algebraic invariants (e.g. depth, Castelnuovo-Mumford regularity) for a special class of monomial ideals, namely the ideals of mixed products. As a consequence, we characterize the Cohen-Macaulay ideals of mixed products. Received: 25 October 2007