Effect of the polyoxoanion of phosphotungstic acid on the photoconversion efficiency of dye-sensitized solar cells based on titanium dioxide

A method for fabricating form composite photoanodes based on titanium dioxide and phosphotungstic acid has been developed. The introduction of the polyoxometalate into a porous titanium dioxide layer increases the photoconversion efficiency of dye-sensitized solar cells and affects characteristics such as open-circuit voltage and short-circuit current.     

Synthesis of well‐defined star‐shaped poly(ε‐caprolactone)/poly(ethylbene glycol) amphiphilic conetworks by combination of ring opening polymerization and “click” chemistry

Well‐defined star‐shaped hydrophobic poly(ε‐caprolactone) (PCL) and hydrophilic poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) amphiphilic conetworks (APCNs) have been synthesized via the combination of ring opening polymerization (ROP) and click chemistry. Alkyne‐terminated six arm star‐shaped PCL (6‐s‐PCLx‐C?CH) and azido‐terminated PEG (N₃‐PEG‐N₃) are characterized by ¹H NMR and FT‐IR. The swelling degree of the APCNs is determined both in water and organic solvent. This unique property of the conetworks is dependent on the nanophase separation of hydrophilic and hydrophobic phases. The morphology and thermal behaviors of the APCNs are investigated by SEM and DSC respectively. The biocompatibility is determined by water soluble tetrazolium salt reagents (WST‐1) assay, which shows the new polymer networks had good biocompatibility. Through in vitro release of paclitaxel (PTX) and doxorubicin (DOX), the APCNs is confirmed to be promising drug depot materials for sustained hydrophobic and hydrophilic drugs. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part A: Polym. Chem. 2016 , 54, 407–417     

Exploring the Reactivity of α‐Lithiated Aryl Benzyl Ethers: Inhibition of the [1,2]‐Wittig Rearrangement and the Mechanistic Proposal Revisited

By carefully controlling the reaction temperature, treatment of aryl benzyl ethers with tBuLi selectively leads to α‐lithiation, generating stable organolithiums that can be directly trapped with a variety of selected electrophiles, before they can undergo the expected [1,2]‐Wittig rearrangement. This rearrangement has been deeply studied, both experimentally and computationally, with aryl α‐lithiated benzyl ethers bearing different substituents at the aryl ring. The obtained results support the competence of a concerted anionic intramolecular addition/elimination sequence and a radical dissociation/recombination sequence for explaining the tendency of migration for aryl groups. The more favored rearrangements are found for substrates with electron‐poor aryl groups that favor the anionic pathway.     

Nonuniform dichotomic behavior: Lipschitz invariant manifolds for ODEs

We obtain global and local theorems on the existence of invariant manifolds for perturbations of nonautonomous linear differential equations assuming a very general form of dichotomic behavior for the linear equation. Besides some new situations that are far from the hyperbolic setting, our results include, and sometimes improve, some known stable manifold theorems.     

Laws of Large Numbers for Cesàro alpha-integrable Random Variables under Dependence Condition AANA or AQSI

Both residual Cesàro alpha-integrability (RCI( α)) and strongly residual Cesàro alpha-integrability (SRCI(α)) are two special kinds of extensions to uniform integrability, and both asymp-totically almost negative association (AANA) and asymptotically quadrant sub-independence (AQSI) are two special kinds of dependence structures. By relating the RCI(α) property as well as the SRCI(α) property with dependence condition AANA or AQSI, we formulate some tail-integrability conditions under which for appropriate α the RCI(α) property yields L1-convergence results and the SRCI(α) property yields strong laws of large numbers, which is the continuation of the corresponding literature.     

On vaccination controls for the SEIR epidemic model

This paper presents a simple continuous-time linear vaccination-based control strategy for a SEIR (susceptible plus infected plus infectious plus removed populations) disease propagation model. The model takes into account the total population amounts as a refrain for the illness transmission since its increase makes more difficult contacts among susceptible and infected. The control objective is the asymptotically tracking of the removed-by-immunity population to the total population while achieving simultaneously the remaining population (i.e. susceptible plus infected plus infectious) to asymptotically tend to zero.     

Reciprocity in quantum,electromagnetic and other wave scattering

The reciprocity principle is that, when an emitted wave gets scattered on an object, the scattering transition amplitude does not change if we interchange the source and the detector—in other words, if incoming waves are interchanged with appropriate outgoing ones. Reciprocity is sometimes confused with time reversal invariance, or with invariance under the rotation that interchanges the location of the source and the location of the detector. Actually, reciprocity covers the former as a special case, and is fundamentally different from–but can be usefully combined with–the latter. Reciprocity can be proved as a theorem in many situations and is found violated in other cases. The paper presents a general treatment of reciprocity, discusses important examples, shows applications in the field of photon (Mössbauer) scattering, and establishes a fruitful connection with a recently developing area of mathematics.