Chiral Triptycenes: Concepts,Progress and Prospects

Triptycenes have been established as unique scaffolds because of their backbone π-structure with a propeller-like shape and saddle-like cavities. They are some of the key organic molecules that have been extensively studied in polymer chemistry, in supramolecular chemistry and in material science. Triptycenes become chiral molecules when substituents are unsymmetrically attached in at least two of their different aromatic rings. This Minireview highlights the chirality of triptycenes from basics to an advanced stage for the development of functional molecules.     

Task specific ionic liquid for direct electrochemistry of metal oxides

We present the first report on task specific ionic liquid (TSIL) for direct electrochemical detection of heavy metal oxides including cadmium oxide, copper oxide and lead oxide at room temperature. This TSIL based electrochemical sensor demonstrated a high sensitivity and selectivity towards the online monitoring of these trace metal oxide particulates, along with short detection time, low cost and high accuracy. This novel sensor platform opens new pathways for in-situ monitoring of metal oxide particulates for environmental sensing and decontamination applications.     

Initial stresses in elastic solids: Constitutive laws and acoustoelasticity

On the basis of the nonlinear theory of elasticity, the general constitutive equation for an isotropic hyperelastic solid in the presence of initial stress is derived. This derivation involves invariants that couple the deformation with the initial stress and in general, for a compressible material, it requires 10 invariants, reducing to 9 for an incompressible material. Expressions for the Cauchy and nominal stress tensors in a finitely deformed configuration are given along with the elasticity tensor and its specialization to the initially stressed undeformed configuration. The equations governing infinitesimal motions superimposed on a finite deformation are then used to study the combined effects of initial stress and finite deformation on the propagation of homogeneous plane waves in a homogeneously deformed and initially stressed solid of infinite extent. This general framework allows for various different specializations, which make contact with earlier works. In particular, connections with results derived within Biot's classical theory are highlighted. The general results are also specialized to the case of a small initial stress and a small pre-deformation, i.e. to the evaluation of the acoustoelastic effect. Here the formulas derived for the wave speeds cover the case of a second-order elastic solid without initial stress and subject to a uniaxial tension [Hughes and Kelly, Phys. Rev. 92 (1953) 1145] and are consistent with results for an undeformed solid subject to a residual stress [Man and Lu, J. Elasticity 17 (1987) 159]. These formulas provide a basis for acoustic evaluation of the second- and third-order elasticity constants and of the residual stresses. The results are further illustrated in respect of a prototype model of nonlinear elasticity with initial stress, allowing for both finite deformation and nonlinear dependence on the initial stress.     

Chromium(III) Potentiometric Sensor Based on Para‐Tertiary‐Butyl Calix[4]arene

A new chromium(III) PVC membrane sensor incorporating p‐tertiary‐butyl calix[4]arene as ionophore, potassium tetrakis as additive and dibutyl phthalate (DBP) as plasticizer was constructed. The electrode exhibited an excellent potentiometric response over a wide concentration range of 1.0×10^?7–1.0×10^?1 M with a Nernstian slope of 20±0.5 mV per decade. The detection limit was 5.0×10^?8 M. The electrode showed a better performance over a pH range of 3.0–8.0, and had a short response time of about <15 s.The electrode was successfully applied to potentiometric titration of Cr (III) with EDTA and for direct determination of chromium(III) in waste water.     

A novel differential evolution algorithm for binary optimization

Differential evolution (DE) is one of the most powerful stochastic search methods which was introduced originally for continuous optimization. In this sense, it is of low efficiency in dealing with discrete problems. In this paper we try to cover this deficiency through introducing a new version of DE algorithm, particularly designed for binary optimization. It is well-known that in its original form, DE maintains a differential mutation, a crossover and a selection operator for optimizing non-linear continuous functions. Therefore, developing the new binary version of DE algorithm, calls for introducing operators having the major characteristics of the original ones and being respondent to the structure of binary optimization problems. Using a measure of dissimilarity between binary vectors, we propose a differential mutation operator that works in continuous space while its consequence is used in the construction of the complete solution in binary space. This approach essentially enables us to utilize the structural knowledge of the problem through heuristic procedures, during the construction of the new solution. To verify effectiveness of our approach, we choose the uncapacitated facility location problem (UFLP)—one of the most frequently encountered binary optimization problems—and solve benchmark suites collected from OR-Library. Extensive computational experiments are carried out to find out the behavior of our algorithm under various setting of the control parameters and also to measure how well it competes with other state of the art binary optimization algorithms. Beside UFLP, we also investigate the suitably of our approach for optimizing numerical functions. We select a number of well-known functions on which we compare the performance of our approach with different binary optimization algorithms. Results testify that our approach is very efficient and can be regarded as a promising method for solving wide class of binary optimization problems.     

Numerical and theoretical discussions for solving nonlinear generalized Benjamin–Bona–Mahony–Burgers equation based on the Legendre spectral element method

This article is devoted to solving numerically the nonlinear generalized Benjamin–Bona–Mahony–Burgers (GBBMB) equation that has several applications in physics and applied sciences. First, the time derivative is approximated by using a finite difference formula. Afterward, the stability and convergence analyses of the obtained time semi‐discrete are proven by applying the energy method. Also, it has been demonstrated that the convergence order in the temporal direction is O(dt) . Second, a fully discrete formula is acquired by approximating the spatial derivatives via Legendre spectral element method. This method uses Lagrange polynomial based on Gauss–Legendre–Lobatto points. An error estimation is also given in detail for full discretization scheme. Ultimately, the GBBMB equation in the one‐ and two‐dimension is solved by using the proposed method. Also, the calculated solutions are compared with theoretical solutions and results obtained from other techniques in the literature. The accuracy and efficiency of the mentioned procedure are revealed by numerical samples.     

Numerical investigation of premixed combustion in a porous burner with integrated heat exchanger

In this paper, we perform a numerical analysis of a two-dimensional axisymmetric problem arising in premixed combustion in a porous burner with integrated heat exchanger. The physical domain consists of two zones, porous and heat exchanger zones. Two dimensional Navier–Stokes equations, gas and solid energy equations, and chemical species transport equations are solved and heat release is described by a multistep kinetics mechanism. The solid matrix is modeled as a gray medium, and the finite volume method is used to solve the radiative transfer equation to calculate the local radiation source/sink in the solid phase energy equation. Special attention is given to model heat transfer between the hot gas and the heat exchanger tube. Thus, the corresponding terms are added to the energy equations of the flow and the solid matrix. Gas and solid temperature profiles and species mole fractions on the burner centerline, predicted 2D temperature fields, species concentrations and streamlines are presented. Calculated results for temperature profiles are compared to experimental data. It is shown that there is good agreement between the numerical solutions and the experimental data and it is concluded that the developed numerical program is an excellent tool to investigate combustion in porous burner.     

Quantum confinement effect in ZnO nanoparticles synthesized by co-precipitate method

Quantum mechanical effects such as an increased bandgap of semiconductors with reduction of size are viewed as having strong potential for future applications. In the present work, zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles (NPs) were synthesized via the co-precipitate method. Very narrow particle size distribution of the ZnO nanoparticles was achieved through careful control of the synthesis conditions. The structural, morphological, and optical characterization was carried out using X-ray diffraction, atomic force microscopy, and UV–vis reflectance techniques, respectively. The results indicated that increasing the temperature from 60 to 65 °C caused a subsequent increase in particle size from 4 to 12 nm. An associated increase in bandgap with decrease in particle size was also noticed which is a strong indication of the quantum confinement effect.     

Multisubject activation detection in fMRI by testing correlation of data with a signal subspace

In this article, a generalized likelihood ratio test is proposed to assess the correlation between multisubject functional MRI (fMRI) time series and bases of a signal subspace for detecting the existence of group activation in each voxel of the brain. The signal subspace is generated by a design matrix using the time series of the desired effects. The proposed method leads to testing the product of eigenvalues of a specific matrix. The eigenvector corresponding to the largest eigenvalue is the weighting vector for the linear combination of time series of various subjects that has the maximum correlation with the signal subspace. In another method, namely, canonical correlation analysis, the largest eigenvalue of the above matrix is tested for activation detection. Surrogate data on resting state (no activation) are generated by randomization and used to estimate the statistical distribution of these parameters under the null hypothesis condition. A postprocessing step is applied to prevent false detection of voxels that are not sufficiently active (among subjects) by defining a minimum ratio for the active population. The proposed methods are applied on simulated and experimental fMRI data, and the results are compared with those of the general linear model (GLM; using the SPM and FMRISTAT toolboxes). The proposed methods showed higher detection sensitivity as compared with the GLM for activation detection in simulated data. Similarly, they detected more activated regions than did the GLM from multisubject experimental fMRI data on a visual (sensorimotor) event-related task.