Influence of vehicle color on loudness judgments

This experiment investigates the effect of images of differently colored sports cars on the loudness of a simultaneously perceived car sound. Still images of a sports car, colored in red, light green, blue, and dark green, were displayed to subjects during a magnitude estimation task. The sound of an accelerating sports car was used as a stimulus. Statistical analysis suggests that the color of the visual stimulus may have a small influence on loudness judgments. The observed loudness differences are generally equivalent to a change in sound level of about 1 dB, with maximum individual differences of up to 3 dB.     

Charge-Transfer versus Charge-Separated Triplet Excited States of [ReI(dmp)(CO)3(His124)(Trp122)]+ in Water and in Modified Pseudomonas aeruginosa Azurin Protein

A computational investigation of the triplet excited states of a rhenium complex electronically coupled with a tryptophan side chain and bound to an azurin protein is presented. In particular, by using high-level molecular modeling, evidence is provided for how the electronic properties of the excited-state manifolds strongly depend on coupling with the environment. Indeed, only upon explicitly taking into account the protein environment can two stable triplet states of metal-to-ligand charge transfer or charge-separated nature be recovered. In addition, it is also demonstrated how the rhenium complex plus tryptophan system in an aqueous environment experiences too much flexibility, which prevents the two chromophores from being electronically coupled. This occurrence disables the formation of a charge-separated state. The successful strategy requires a multiscale approach of combining molecular dynamics and quantum chemistry. In this context, the strategy used to parameterize the force fields for the electronic triplet states of the metal complex is also presented.     

New multifunctional heterobinuclear palladium (II) complexes based on organometallic dithiocarbazate ligands

In the research of new compounds with multifunctional applications, heterobinuclear palladium (II) complexes based on organometallic dithiocarbazates (DTCZs) have been isolated. The organometallic DTCZ ligands of the general formula [{(η⁵-C₅H₄)-CH=NNHC(S)SCH₃}]MLn [MLn = Re (CO)₃ ( 2a ); Mn (CO)₃ ( 2b ); FeCp ( 2c )] were prepared by the reaction between formyl organometallic precursors ( 1a−c ) with S-methyldithiocarbazate. Subsequently, a two-step reaction of 2a−c with: (i) K₂[PdCl₄] and (ii) PPh₃ yielded heterobinuclear complexes [Pd{MLn(η⁵-C₅H₄)-CH=NNHC(S)SCH₃}–(Cl)(PPh₃)] [MLn = Re (CO)₃ ( 3a ); Mn (CO)₃ ( 3b ); FeCp ( 3c )]. All compounds were characterized by conventional spectroscopic techniques (infrared spectroscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, mass spectrometry and elemental analysis). In addition, the molecular structures of 2a , 2c and 3c were determined by single-crystal X-ray diffraction. The new palladium (II) complexes ( 3a−c ) were evaluated as antiproliferative agents against non-small cell lung cancer cells (H1299 cells). Complexes 3a and 3b containing cyrhetrenyl- and cymantrenyl-DTCZ ligands, respectively, were more active than their ferrocenyl analogue 3c . The activity was associated with the electron-withdrawing properties of the (η⁵-C₅H₄)M (CO)₃ moieties and their better lipophilicity than that of the ferrocenyl analogue. In addition, we studied the capacity of metalloligands ( 2a−c ) and palladium (II) complexes ( 3a−c ) to remove methylene blue in water under UV–visible light irradiation. The results established that the complexes showed moderate efficiency and were less active than their corresponding free ligands.     

Epoxy-silica/clay nanocomposite for silver-based antibacterial thin coatings: structure and ionic mobility

Journal of Solid State Electrochemistry - A novel material was developed using sol-gel chemistry and an environmental-friendly grafting process of clay nanoparticles. In a previous work of our...     

Day-ahead market bidding for a Nordic hydropower producer: taking the Elbas market into account

In many power markets around the world the energy generation decisions result from two-sided auctions in which producing and consuming agents submit their price-quantity bids. The determination of optimal bids in power markets is a complicated task that has to be undertaken every day. In the present work, we propose an optimization model for a price-taker hydropower producer in Nord Pool that takes into account the uncertainty in market prices and both production and physical trading aspects. The day-ahead bidding takes place a day before the actual operation and energy delivery. After this round of bidding, but before actual operation, some adjustments in the dispatched power (accepted bids) have to be done, due to uncertainty in prices, inflow and load. Such adjustments can be done in the Elbas market, which allows for trading physical electricity up to one hour before the operation hour. This paper uses stochastic programming to determine the optimal bidding strategy and the impact of the possibility to participate in the Elbas. ARMAX and GARCH techniques are used to generate realistic market price scenarios taking into account both day-ahead price and Elbas price uncertainty. The results show that considering Elbas when bidding in the day-ahead market does not significantly impact neither the profit nor the recommended bids of a typical hydro producer.     

Fredholmness and invertibility of Toeplitz operators with matrix almost periodic symbols

We consider Toeplitz operators with symbols that are almost periodic matrix functions of several variables. It is shown that under certain conditions on the group generated by the Fourier support of the symbol, a Toeplitz operator is Fredholm if and only if it is invertible.

     

Nonmonotone travelling waves in a single species reaction-diffusion equation with delay

We prove the existence of a continuous family of positive and generally nonmonotone travelling fronts for delayed reaction-diffusion equations , when g∈C²(R₊,R₊) has exactly two fixed points: x₁=0 and x₂=K>0. Recently, nonmonotonic waves were observed in numerical simulations by various authors. Here, for a wide range of parameters, we explain why such waves appear naturally as the delay h increases. For the case of g with negative Schwarzian, our conditions are rather optimal; we observe that the well known Mackey-Glass-type equations with diffusion fall within this subclass of (∗). As an example, we consider the diffusive Nicholson's blowflies equation.     

Infinitesimal 2-braidings and differential crossed modules

We categorify the notion of an infinitesimal braiding in a linear strict symmetric monoidal category, leading to the notion of a (strict) infinitesimal 2-braiding in a linear symmetric strict monoidal 2-category. We describe the associated categorification of the 4-term relations, leading to six categorified relations. We prove that any infinitesimal 2-braiding gives rise to a flat and fake flat 2-connection in the configuration space of n particles in the complex plane, hence to a categorification of the Knizhnik–Zamolodchikov connection. We discuss infinitesimal 2-braidings in a certain monoidal 2-category naturally assigned to every differential crossed module, leading to the notion of a symmetric quasi-invariant tensor in a differential crossed module. Finally, we prove that symmetric quasi-invariant tensors exist in the differential crossed module associated to Wagemann's version of the String Lie-2-algebra. As a corollary, we obtain a more conceptual proof of the flatness of a previously constructed categorified Knizhnik–Zamolodchikov connection with values in the String Lie-2-algebra.     

Copper(II) complexes with pyridoxal dithiocarbazate and thiosemicarbazone ligands: crystal structure,spectroscopic analysis and cytotoxic activity

Transition Metal Chemistry - The present study reports the synthesis and crystal structures of Cu(II) complexes with pyridoxal S-allyldithiocarbazate (H2L1) and pyridoxal thiosemicarbazones...