Morphological and chemical characterization of weathering products on buried Sasanian glass from central Iraq

This paper discusses the morphological and chemical features of the weathering products on Sasanian glass finds excavated at the ancient Sasanian town of Veh Arda?īr, some 30 km south of Baghdad (Iraq), and dated from the third to the sixth century. All the considered fragments represent soda-lime glass, with MgO contents between 3% and 8%, resulting from the use of soda-rich plant ash as a flux; within this general frame, two productions can be distinguished due to their MgO to K₂O ratio. Four main alteration typologies were observed by visual examination of the excavated samples; these were studied by scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive X-ray analysis, inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry, X-ray diffraction and thermal analysis. Different alteration features were generally observed for samples belonging to the two compositional groups. In particular, samples with higher MgO to K₂O ratios show definitely thinner crusts, associated with alteration plugs going down into the glass. Moreover, gray or black crusts are related to the presence of manganese at significant levels in the original glass.     

Langmuir–Blodgett films of pyridinium-dicyanomethanide dyes mixtures with photobleachable absorption bands

We report on Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) films characterization of 4-[5-dicyanomethanido)thien-2-y1]-N-(n-hexadecyl)pyridinium (C₁₆H₃₃-PDCNT), and 1-(N-(n-hexadecy]-4-pyridinio)-2-[5-(dicyanomethanido)thien-2-yl]ethene (C₁₆H₃₃-PDCNTE); LB films of the pure compounds and of the mixtures of the two compounds were prepared at 291 K: UV-vis investigation revealed the presence of photobleachable absorption bands, the ones at about 530 nm and 640 nm were due to charge transfer transitions of the monomer of C16H33-PDCNT and C₁₆H₃₃-PDCNTE, respectively; the sharp, photobleachable ones shifted to shorter wavelengths were due to H-aggregates of the two compounds. By changing the molar ratios of the two compounds in the mixtures and in other cases by annealing the LB films, the absorption maxima of the sharp, photobleachable bands due to H-aggregates could be tuned in the range 415–467 nm. These LB films are thus very promising in view of optical data storage applications.     

SETAR model selection-A bootstrap approach

Summary  The aim of this paper is to propose new selection criteria for the orders of selfexciting threshold autoregressive (SETAR) models. These criteria use bootstrap methodology; they are based on a weighted mean of the apparent error rate in the sample and the average error rate obtained from bootstrap samples not containing the point being predicted. These new criteria are compared with the traditional ones based on the Akaike information criterion (AIC). A simulation study and an example on a real data set end the paper.     

Chemo- and regioselectivity in the reactions of polyfunctional pyrroles

The chemo- and regioselectivity of the reduction, oxidation and Wittig reaction of polyfunctional pyrroles, containing a variety of reactive centres was investigated. The reaction of 3,5-dichloropyrrole-2,4-dicarboxaldehydes with potassium permanganate leads to regioselective oxidation of the 2-formyl group, while the Wittig reaction with 1 equiv of a triphenylphosphorane produced the 2-alkenyl substituted pyrroles.     

Stereoselective Control by Face‐to‐Face Versus Edge‐to‐Face Aromatic Interactions: The Case of C3‐TiIV Amino Trialkolate Sulfoxidation Catalysts

The stereoselective oxidation of differently functionalised benzyl phenyl sulfides has been examined by using enantiopure Ti^IV trialkanolamine complexes. These complexes efficiently catalyse the sulfoxidation with good stereoselectivities. The data highlight the contribution to the stereoselectivity of steric effects and non‐covalent π–π interactions between the aromatic rings of the Ti^IV complex and those pertaining to the substrates. Enantiomeric excesses have been correlated with the electrostatic potential surfaces (EPS) of the reacting sulfides. The overall study leads to a mechanistic interpretation that explains the stereoselectivity of the system and dissects the role of aromatic and steric interactions in the stereoselective process.     

Weak bimonoids in duoidal categories

Weak bimonoids in duoidal categories are introduced. They provide a common generalization of bimonoids in duoidal categories and of weak bimonoids in braided monoidal categories. Under the assumption that idempotent morphisms in the base category split, they are shown to induce weak bimonads (in four symmetric ways). As a consequence, they have four separable Frobenius base (co)monoids, two in each of the underlying monoidal categories. Hopf modules over weak bimonoids are defined by weakly lifting the induced comonad to the Eilenberg–Moore category of the induced monad. Making appropriate assumptions on the duoidal category in question, the fundamental theorem of Hopf modules is proven which says that the category of modules over one of the base monoids is equivalent to the category of Hopf modules if and only if a Galois-type comonad morphism is an isomorphism.     

Uniqueness of selfdual periodic Chern–Simons vortices of topological-type

In analogy with the abelian Maxwell–Higgs model (cf. Jaffe and Taubes in Vortices and monopoles, 1980) we prove that periodic topological-type selfdual vortex-solutions for the Chern–Simons model of Jackiw–Weinberg [Phys Rev Lett 64:2334–2337, 1990] and Hong et al. Phys Rev Lett 64:2230–2233, 1990 are uniquely determined by the location of their vortex points, when the Chern–Simons coupling parameter is sufficiently small. This result follows by a uniqueness and uniform invertibility property established for a related elliptic problem (see Theorem 3.6 and 3.7). Research supported by M.I.U.R. project: Variational Methods and Nonlinear Differential Equations.