Reduced-symmetry two-dimensional solitons in photonic lattices

We demonstrate theoretically and experimentally a novel type of localized beam supported by the combined effects of total internal and Bragg reflection in nonlinear two-dimensional square periodic structures. Such localized states exhibit strong anisotropy in their mobility properties, being highly mobile in one direction and trapped in the other, making them promising candidates for optical routing in nonlinear lattices.     

Combustion chemistry of enols: possible ethenol precursors in flames

Before the recent discovery that enols are intermediates in many flames, they appeared in no combustion models. Furthermore, little is known about enols' flame chemistry. Enol formation in low-pressure flames takes place in the preheat zone, and its precursors are most likely fuel species or the early products of fuel decomposition. The OH + ethene reaction has been shown to dominate ethenol production in ethene flames although this reaction has appeared insufficient to describe ethenol formation in all hydrocarbon oxidation systems. In this work, the mole fraction profiles of ethenol in several representative low-pressure flames are correlated with those of possible precursor species as a means for judging likely formation pathways in flames. These correlations and modeling suggest that the reaction of OH with ethene is in fact the dominant source of ethenol in many hydrocarbon flames, and that addition-elimination reactions of OH with other alkenes are also likely to be responsible for enol formation in flames. On this basis, enols are predicted to be minor intermediates in most flames and should be most prevalent in olefinic flames where reactions of the fuel with OH can produce enols directly.     

Solid phase synthesis of 3,4,7-trisubstituted 4,5,8,9-tetrahydro-3H-imidazo[1,2-a][1,3,5]triazepin-2(7H)-thiones and N-alkyl-4,5,7,8-tetrahydro-3H-imidazo[1,2-a][1,3,5]triazepin-2-amines

The solid-phase parallel synthesis of 3,4,7-trisubstituted 4,5,8,9-tetrahydro-3H-imidazo[1,2-a][1,3,5]triazepin-2(7H)-thiones and N-alkyl-4,5,7,8-tetrahydro-3H-imidazo[1,2-a][1,3,5]triazepin-2-amines starting from resin-bound dipeptides is described. The key synthetic steps involve the cylization of an amino and a guanidino functionality using thiocarbonyldiimidazole and the subsequent transformation of the resulting thiourea moiety to a substituted guanidine group using HgCl(2) and various amines. Following cleavage from the resin, the desired products were obtained in good yields and good to moderate purities, depending on the building blocks employed.     

Photophysics of aminoxanthone derivatives and their application as binding probes for DNA

Xanthones with amino substituents were synthesized to diminish the photoreactivity of the xanthone chromophore with DNA, with the objective of using these molecules to study their binding dynamics with DNA. The aminoxanthones showed a strong solvatochromic effect on their singlet and triplet excited-state photophysics, where polar solvents led to a decrease of the energies for the excited states. Quenching of the triplet excited states by nitrite anions was used to determine the binding dynamics, and a residence time in the microsecond time domain was estimated for the bound 2-aminoxanthone with DNA. The quenching experiments performed showed that this methodology will not be applicable to study the binding dynamics of a wide variety of guests with DNA.     

Modelling and simulation of injecting acrylic bone cement into osteoporotic vertebral bones within percutaneous vertebroplasty

Percutaneous vertebroplasty is a common clinical procedure to treat vertebral compression fractures and osteoporotic vertebral bodies. However, this operation technique is accompanied by different complications due to lack of knowledge about the complicated behaviour of bone cement within the human body. To contribute to a better understanding of the processes that take place inside the body during a vertebroplasty, a detailed model of the thermomechanical behaviour of acrylic bone cement has been developed. All important effects are covered, that influence the behaviour of acrylic bone cement during the injection in a human vertebral body. Implemented in the opensource CFD-code OpenFOAM^®, first results show that this comprehensive simulation of the minimal invasive injection is capable to accurately predict the cement distribution and temperature field of acrylic bone cement inside the vertebral body. (© 2012 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Enhancement of thermal neutron self-shielding in materials surrounded by reflectors

Materials containing from 41 to 1124?mg chlorine and surrounded by polyethylene containers of various thicknesses, from 0.01 to 5.6?mm, were irradiated in a research reactor neutron spectrum and the ³⁸Cl activity produced was measured as a function of polyethylene reflector thickness. For the material containing the higher amount of chlorine, the ³⁸Cl specific activity decreased with increasing reflector thickness, indicating increased neutron self-shielding. It was found that the amount of neutron self-shielding increased by as much as 52% with increasing reflector thickness. This is explained by neutrons which have exited the material subsequently reflecting back into it and thus increasing the total mean path length in the material. All physical and empirical models currently used to predict neutron self-shielding have ignored this effect and need to be modified. A method is given for measuring the adjustable parameter of a self-shielding model for a particular sample size and combination of neutron reflectors.     

End-to-end assembly of gold nanorods via oligopeptide linking and surfactant control

We report two novel approaches for fabricating self-assembled chains of end-to-end linked Au nanorods separated by a nanogap. In one approach, bi-functional cysteine end-capped oligopeptides of different lengths are used as the linking agent. The widths of the produced nanogaps scale with the length and tertiary structure of the peptide linker. Functionalized oligopeptides containing an acetylene group are also employed as a linker, and the functional group is uniquely identified using surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy. The development of an oligopeptide-linking platform is motivated by the ease of synthesis and high modularity of peptides; these features enable the possibility to integrate diverse functionality into molecular nanogap junctions - synthesized in water. The stepwise nanochain formation is followed via the evolution of the longitudinal plasmon absorption band in combination with transmission electron microscopy. The reaction rate and extent is tuned by controlling the concentration of the stabilizing CTAB surfactant in the solution. At very low surfactant concentrations, spontaneous end-to-end linking of the Au nanorods is observed even in the absence of linking peptide. The assembled AuNRs may act as next-generation electrodes in a platform for molecular electronics and synthetic biology.     

Towards a Bioactive Food Packaging: Poly(Lactic Acid) Surface Functionalized by Chitosan Coating Embedding Clove and Argan Oils

Here we introduce a new method aiming the immobilization of bioactive principles onto polymeric substrates, combining a surface activation and emulsion entrapment approach. Natural products with antimicrobial/antioxidant properties (essential oil from Syzygium aromaticum—clove and vegetal oil from Argania spinosa L—argan) were stabilized in emulsions with chitosan, a natural biodegradable polymer that has antimicrobial activity. The emulsions were laid on poly(lactic acid) (PLA), a synthetic biodegradable plastic from renewable resources, which was previously activated by plasma treatment. Bioactive materials were obtained, with low permeability for oxygen, high radical scavenging activity and strong inhibition of growth for Listeria monocytogenes, Salmonella Typhimurium and Escherichia coli bacteria. Clove oil was better dispersed in a more stable emulsion (no separation after six months) compared with argan oil. This leads to a compact and finely structured coating, with better overall properties. While both clove and argan oils are highly hydrophobic, the coatings showed increased hydrophilicity, especially for argan, due to preferential interactions with different functional groups in chitosan. The PLA films coated with oil-loaded chitosan showed promising results in retarding the food spoilage of meat, and especially cheese. Argan, and in particular, clove oil offered good UV protection, suitable for sterilization purposes. Therefore, using the emulsion stabilization of bioactive principles and immobilization onto plasma activated polymeric surfaces we obtained a bioactive material that combines the physical properties and the biodegradability of PLA with the antibacterial activity of chitosan and the antioxidant function of vegetal oils. This prevents microbial growth and food oxidation and could open new perspectives in the field of food packaging materials.     

An abstract setting for hamiltonian actions

In this paper we develop an abstract setup for hamiltonian group actions as follows: Starting with a continuous 2-cochain ω on a Lie algebra ${\mathfrak h}$ with values in an ${\mathfrak h}$ -module V, we associate subalgebras ${\mathfrak {sp}(\mathfrak h,\omega) \supseteq \mathfrak {ham}(\mathfrak h,\omega)}$ of symplectic, resp., hamiltonian elements. Then ${\mathfrak {ham}(\mathfrak h,\omega)}$ has a natural central extension which in turn is contained in a larger abelian extension of ${\mathfrak {sp}(\mathfrak h,\omega)}$ . In this setting, we study linear actions of a Lie group G on V which are compatible with a homomorphism ${\mathfrak g \to \mathfrak {ham}(\mathfrak h,\omega)}$ , i.e., abstract hamiltonian actions, corresponding central and abelian extensions of G and momentum maps ${J : \mathfrak g \to V}$ .     

Morrey Spaces on Domains: Different Approaches and Growth Envelopes

We deal with Morrey spaces on bounded domains \(\Omega \) obtained by different approaches. In particular, we consider three settings \(\mathcal {M}_{u,p}(\Omega )\), \(\mathbb {M}_{u,p}(\Omega )\) and \(\mathfrak {M}_{u,p}(\Omega )\), where \(0<p\le u<\infty \), commonly used in the literature, and study their connections and diversities. Moreover, we determine the growth envelopes \(\mathfrak {E}_{\mathsf {G}}(\mathcal {M}_{u,p}(\Omega ))\) as well as \(\mathfrak {E}_{\mathsf {G}}(\mathfrak {M}_{u,p}(\Omega ))\), and obtain some applications in terms of optimal embeddings. Surprisingly, it turns out that the interplay between p and u in the sense of whether \(\frac{n}{u}\ge \frac{1}{p}\) or \(\frac{n}{u} < \frac{1}{p}\) plays a decisive role when it comes to the behaviour of these spaces.