Designing hierarchical NiCo2S4 nanospheres with enhanced electrochemical performance for supercapacitors

Journal of Solid State Electrochemistry - Hierarchical nanostructure materials have attracted significant attention due to their fascinating structural features for the application of...     

Galactose-Grafted 2D Nanosheets from the Self-Assembly of Amphiphilic Janus Dendrimers for the Capture and Agglutination of Escherichia coli

High aspect ratio, sugar-decorated 2D nanosheets are ideal candidates for the capture and agglutination of bacteria. Herein, the design and synthesis of two carbohydrate-based Janus amphiphiles that spontaneously self-assemble into high aspect ratio 2D sheets are reported. The unique structural features of the sheets include the extremely high aspect ratio and dense display of galactose on the surface. These structural characteristics allow the sheet to act as a supramolecular 2D platform for the capture and agglutination of E. coli through specific multivalent noncovalent interactions, which significantly reduces the mobility of the bacteria and leads to the inhibition of their proliferation. Our results suggest that the design strategy demonstrated here can be applied as a general approach for the crafting of biomolecule-decorated 2D nanosheets, which can perform as 2D platforms for their interaction with specific targets.     

Visible‐Light‐Driven Halogen Bond Donor Based Molecular Switches: From Reversible Unwinding to Handedness Inversion in Self‐Organized Soft Helical Superstructures

Visible‐light‐driven molecular switches endowing reversible modulation of the functionalities of self‐organized soft materials are currently highly sought after for fundamental scientific studies and technological applications. Reported herein are the design and synthesis of two novel halogen bond donor based chiral molecular switches that exhibit reversible photoisomerization upon exposure to visible light of different wavelengths. These chiral molecular switches induce photoresponsive helical superstructures, that is, cholesteric liquid crystals, when doped into the commercially available room‐temperature achiral liquid crystal host 5CB, which also acts as a halogen‐bond acceptor. The induced helical superstructure containing the molecular switch with terminal iodo atoms exhibits visible‐light‐driven reversible unwinding, that is, a cholesteric–nematic phase transition. Interestingly, the molecular switch with terminal bromo atoms confers reversible handedness inversion to the helical superstructure upon irradiation with visible light of different wavelengths. This visible‐light‐driven, reversible handedness inversion, enabled by a halogen bond donor molecular switch, is unprecedented.     

Synthesis,Molecular Docking,Analgesic, and Anti-Inflammatory Activities of New 1,2,4-Oxadiazolo-Sulfonamides

Russian Journal of General Chemistry - In the present study novel 1,2,4-oxadiazolo sulfonamides 3a–3o are synthesized by an efficient method based on the reaction of 1,2,4-oxadiazole amines...     

Spherically symmetric static inhomogeneous cosmological models

Spherically symmetric static cosmological models filled with black-body radiation are considered. The models are isotropic about a central observer but inhomogeneous. It is suggested that the energy density of the free gravitational field, which is coupled to the isotropic radiation energy density, might play an important role in generating sufficient field (vacuum) energy (when converted into thermal energy) and initiate processes like inflation. On the central world line the energy density of the free gravitational field vanishes whereas the proper pressure and density of the isotropic black-body radiation are constants. Further, it is shown that the cosmological constant is no more arbitrary but given in terms of the central pressure and density. Also, at its maximum value the energy density of the free gravitational field is proved to be equal to one third of the combined value of radiation pressure and density.     

Asymptotic properties of Rao's test for testing hypotheses in discrete parameter stochastic processes

Summary In this note some asymptotically optimum tests for testing hypotheses concerning parameters when the observations are dependent are obtained. Test statistics based on the score functions, similar to the one proposed by Rao in the case when the observations are i.i.d. are proposed. Asymptotically UMP tests for one sided hypotheses against one sided alternatives and asymptotically UMP unbiased test for a simple hypothesis against two sided alternatives are derived. In the multiparameter case tests for simple hypotheses that have asymptotically best constant power on some family of surfaces in the parameter space are derived.     

Structural reconfiguration and informal coordination in administrative organizations

This paper considers the problem of determining the optimal design of public organizations in terms of maximizing their reliability against institutional failures. To capture both the individual and the system-level aspects of organizational decisionmaking, first we present an analytical model that characterizes the optimal decision behavior of a single decision maker (unit, agent, in general: DM) in the context of a binary decision task. In this sense, reliability of a DM against the two possible error types: implementation of the wrong policy (error of comission, Type I error) and failure to act when it is necessary (error of omission, Type II error) are interpreted as the result of a particular decision strategy. Individual expertise is represented in the form of a Relative Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve that, in turn, depicts the necessary trade-off between the two errors when selecting an appropriate decision strategy. Component decisions are then combined along the lines of organizational structure which is described using a graph formalism. We show that the task of finding the best organizational design involves a joint optimization over structure and strategy, and implement the normative model in the context of a detailed example. Our numerical results suggest that when DMs coordinate their decision rules, there is little difference in the performance of various organizational structures.This work was supported by the Office of Naval Research under ONR contract #N0014-93-I-0793.     

High responsivity, LWIR dots-in-a-well quantum dot infrared photodetectors

In this paper we report studies on normal incidence, InAs/In_0.15Ga_0.85As quantum dot infrared photodetectors (QDIPs) in the dots-in-a-well (DWELL) configuration. Three QDIP structures with similar dot and well dimensions were grown and devices were fabricated from each wafer. Of the three devices studied, the first served as the control, the second was grown with an additional 400 Å AlGaAs blocking layer, and the third was grown on a GaAs n+ substrate with the intention of testing a single pass geometry. Spectral measurements on all three devices show one main peak in the long-wave IR (≈8 μm). The absorption was attributed to the bound-to-bound transition between the ground state of the InAs quantum dot and the ground state of the In_0.15Ga_0.85As well. Calibrated peak responsivity and peak detectivity measurements were performed on each device at 40, 60, and 80 K. For the same temperatures, frequency response measurements from 20 Hz to 4 kHz at a bias of V_b=−1 V were also performed. The addition of the blocking layer was shown to slightly enhance responsivity, which peaked at 2.4 A/W at 77 K, V_b=−1 V and responsivity was observed to be significantly reduced in the single pass (n+ substrate) sample. The rolloff of the frequency response was observed to be heavily dependent on temperature, bias, and irradiance. The results from the characterization of each sample are reported and discussed.     

Absolutely continuous spectrum for sparse potentials

In this paper we show that bounded perturbation of the discrete laplacian with a potential that is sparsely supported (a notion made precise in the paper) produces absolutely continuous spectrum in the interval [?2ν, 2ν] for large dimension ν. We note that the potential need not give rise to a compact operator, let alone have decay at infinity.     

An M/G/1 Retrial Queueing System with Two-Phase Service and Preemptive Resume

An M/G/1 retrial queueing system with additional phase of service and possible preemptive resume service discipline is considered. For an arbitrarily distributed retrial time distribution, the necessary and sufficient condition for the system stability is obtained, assuming that only the customer at the head of the orbit has priority access to the server. The steady-state distributions of the server state and the number of customers in the orbit are obtained along with other performance measures. The effects of various parameters on the system performance are analysed numerically. A general decomposition law for this retrial queueing system is established.