Steam reforming of ethylene glycol over Ni-based catalysts: the effect of K

The effect of K on the activities of Ni/Al₂O₃ catalysts in steam reforming of ethylene glycol was investigated. Ni/Al₂O₃ catalysts were prepared by incipient wetness impregnation and co-precipitation methods. The addition of K was achieved using an incipient wetness impregnation method. The prepared catalysts were characterized by N₂ physisorption, inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, temperature-programmed reduction, and scanning electron microscopy. Irrespective of the preparation method, the promotional effect of K was observed and the optimum K content (~5 wt%) was verified for K-promoted Ni/Al₂O₃ catalysts. The addition of K to the Ni–Al₂O₃ catalyst prepared by co-precipitation led to higher catalytic activity than addition of K to the Ni/Al₂O₃ catalyst prepared by incipient wetness impregnation.     

Reducible Polyethylenimine Nanoparticles for Efficient siRNA Delivery in Corneal Neovascularization Therapy

The aim of this study is to establish the safe and effective ocular delivery system of therapeutic small interfering RNA (siRNA) in corneal neovascularization therapy. The major hurdle present in siRNA‐based corneal neovascularization (CNV) therapy is severe cytotoxicity caused by repetitive drug treatment. A reducible branched polyethylenimine (rBPEI)‐based nanoparticle (NP) system is utilized as a new siRNA carrier as a hope for CNV therapy. The thiolated BPEI is readily self‐crosslinked in mild conditions to make high molecular weight rBPEI thus allowing the creation of stable siRNA/rBPEI nanoparticles (siRNA‐rBPEI‐NPs). In the therapeutic region, the rBPEI polymeric matrix is effectively degraded into nontoxic LMW BPEI inside the reductive cytosol causing the rapid release of the encapsulated siRNA into the cytosol to carry out its function. The fluorescent‐labeled siRNA‐rBPEI‐NPs can release siRNA into the entire corneal region after subconjuctival injection into the eye of Sprague Dawley rats thus confirming the proof of concept of this system.

     

Subsurface Space‐Charge Dopant Segregation to Compensate Surface Excess Charge in a Perovskite Oxide

Since the first prediction by Frenkel, many follow‐up studies have been carried out to show the presence of subsurface space‐charge layers having the opposite sign to that of the excess charge at the surface, producing overall neutrality in ionic crystals. However, no precise experimental evidence demonstrating how the aliovalent solutes segregate in the space‐charge region beneath the surface has been provided over the past several decades. By utilizing atomic‐scale imaging and chemical probing in a perovskite oxide, the origin of the surface excess charge at the topmost surface and the position of segregated dopants in the space‐charge region is precisely determined. The impact of the space‐charge contribution to the dopant distribution near the surface in oxide crystals is explored.     

Risk management and coordination in service supply chains: information,logistics and outsourcing

A service supply chain, which is a system formed by a network of suppliers, service designers, service providers and other service partners, aims to transfer available scarce resources into services and deliver them to satisfy customer needs. It is a known fact that service supply chain management is playing a more and more important role in modern economies. However, the unique features of service supply chains also create new challenges that call for proper management of the respective operations. In particular, how to coordinate a service supply chain with risk considerations is a critical issue. In this paper, we concisely examine coordination and risk management challenges in service supply chain systems. We also introduce the technical papers featured in the special issue.     

Comparison of a branch-and-bound heuristic,a newsvendor-based heuristic and periodic Bailey rules for outpatients appointment scheduling systems

Appointment-based service systems admit limited number of customers at a specific time interval to make service providers more accessible by reducing customers’ waiting time and make the costly resources more productive. A traditional approach suggests the Bailey rule, which assigns one or more customers at the initial block and only one customer at remaining blocks. We prescribe two heuristic approaches and variations of the traditional Bailey rule to appointment scheduling systems with the objective of minimizing total expected costs of delay and idle times between blocks. The first heuristic adopts a branch-and-bound approach using forward dynamic programming and tries to fully enumerate with some restrictions. The second heuristic uses a sequential-inverse newsvendor approach using a starting solution. We conduct numerical tests, which show that both heuristics get near-optimal solutions in a quicker time than a commercial solver, CPLEX and that the second approach gives near-optimal solutions far faster than the first approach. In addition, we suggest the use of a periodic Bailey rule, which can be implemented easily in practice, and provides a close solution to the best result of both heuristics, depending upon cost parameters and service-time variances.     

Understanding cooperative behavior in structurally disordered populations

The effects of an inhomogeneous competing environment on the extent of cooperation are studied within the context of a site-diluted evolutionary snowdrift game on a square lattice, with the occupied sites representing the players, both numerically and analytically. The frequency of cooperation ?_C generally shows a non-monotonic dependence on the fraction of occupied sites ρ, for different values of the payoff parameter r. Slightly diluting a lattice leads to a lower cooperation for small and high values of r. For a range of r, however, dilution leads to an enhanced cooperation. An analytic treatment is developed for?_C^I + ?_C^II, with?_C^I emphasizing the importance of the small clusters of players especially for?_C^II from the other players is shown to be inadequate. A local configuration approximation (LCA) that treats the local competing configurations as the variables and amounts to include spatial correlation up to the neighborhood of a player’s neighbors is developed. Results of ?_C (ρ) and the number of different local configurations from LCA are in good agreement with simulation results. A transparent physical picture of the dynamics stemming from LCA is also presented. The theoretical approach provides a framework that can be readily applied to competing agent-based models in structurally ordered and disordered populations.     

Optimal TBHP allylic oxidation of Delta5-steroids catalyzed by dirhodium caprolactamate

Dirhodium caprolactamate is the most efficient catalyst for the oxidation of Delta5-steroids to 7-keto-Delta5-steroids by 70% tert-butyl hydroperoxide in water (T-HYDRO). Isolated product yields range from 38 to 87%.     

Ratiometric determination of Hg2+ ions based on simple molecular motifs of pyrene and dioxaoctanediamide

A new podand-type dioxaoctanediamide-based chemosensor having two pyrene moieties was prepared, and its fluoroionophoric behaviors toward transition-metal ions were investigated. Pyrene-appended dioxaoctanediamide 1 showed a selective fluorescence quenching toward Hg2+ ions over other transition-metal ions in an aqueous methanol solution. Unique responses in pyrene monomer and excimer emissions allowed selective ratiometric determination of Hg2+ ions in aqueous environments, and the detection limit was found to be 1.6 x 10(-6) M. [structure: see text]     

Prediction of molecular solvation free energy based on the optimization of atomic solvation parameters with genetic algorithm

We propose an improved solvent contact model to estimate the solvation free energy of an organic molecule from individual atomic contributions. The modification of the solvation model involves the optimization of three kinds of parameters in the solvation free energy function: atomic fragmental volume, maximum atomic occupancy, and atomic solvation parameters. All of these atomic parameters for 24 atom types are developed by the operation of a standard genetic algorithm in such a way as to minimize the difference between experimental and calculated solvation free energies. The data set for experimental solvation free energies is divided into a training set of 131 compounds and a test set of 24 compounds. Linear regressions with the optimized atomic parameters yield fits with the squared correlation coefficients (r2) of 0.89 and 0.86 for the training set and for the test set, respectively. Overall, the results indicate that the improved solvent contact model with the newly developed atomic parameters would be a useful tool for rapid calculation of molecular solvation free energies in aqueous solution.