Microwave-Assisted Synthesis of Coumarins via Pechmann Condensation in Wet Phosphoric Acid Imidazolium Dihydrogenphosphate

Phosphoric acid imidazolium dihydrogenphosphate was found to work well as a catalyst and excellent reaction medium in the Pechmann condensation of substituted phenols or α-naphthol with ethyl acetoacetate to give 4-methyl coumarins under microwave irradiation. This method is simple, cost effective, requires short reaction times, and gives very good to excellent yields.     

Dispersion properties of a dusty plasma containing nonspherical rotating dust grains

The dispersion relation for a dusty plasma containing elongated and rotating charged dust grains is obtained by assuming that the dipole moments of the dust particulates are nonzero. The longitudinal waves with frequency close to the angular rotation frequency of the dust grains are found to be unstable. The results should be relevant to enhanced fluctuations in astrophysical environments.     

Axisymmetric wave propagation of thermoelastic transversely isotropic half-space under buried loading using potential functions

By virtue of a new scalar potential function and Hankel integral transforms, the wave propagation analysis of a thermoelastic transversely isotropic half-space is presented under buried loading and heat flux. The governing equations of the problem are the differential equations of motion and the energy equation of the coupled thermoelasticity theory. Using a scalar potential function, these coupled equations have been uncoupled and a six-order partial differential equation governing the potential function is received. The displacements, temperature, and stress components are obtained in terms of this potential function in cylindrical coordinate system. Applying the Hankel integral transform to suppress the radial variable, the governing equation for potential function is reduced to a six-order ordinary differential equation with respect to z. Solving that equation, the potential function and therefore displacements, temperature, and stresses are derived in the Hankel transformed domain for two regions. Using inversion of Hankel transform, these functions can be obtained in the real domain. The integrals of inversion Hankel transform are calculated numerically via Mathematica software. Our numerical results for displacement and temperature are calculated for surface excitations and compared with the results reported in the literature and a very good agreement is achieved.     

In Vitro Assessment of Poly (Vinyl Alcohol) Film Incorporating Aloe Vera for Potential Application as a Wound Dressing

Since skin tissue acts as a vital protective barrier between the body and the external atmosphere, the repair or regeneration of skin injuries serves as a great challenge in regenerative medicine. Herein, hydrogel films composed of poly vinyl alcohol (PVA) and aloe vera (AV) extracted gel were prepared and characterized for wound dressing application. The physical and morphological properties, water absorption capacity, biodegradation behavior, and water transmission rate were characterized for several variations in the AV content (0–50%). The cytocompatibility of the films, as well as cell morphology in response to different films, was assessed using MTT assay and SEM, respectively. According to the results, AV incorporation improved the surface morphology, water absorption capacity, in vitro degradation rate, and water vapor permeability of the PVA films. However, these properties were affected by the AV content. The mechanical properties of the films were enhanced by introducing AV up to 30%, and then decreased significantly with further AV increase. Evaluation of fibroblast proliferation showed that AV can positively improve the bioactivity of the films without any cytotoxicity. In conclusion, the results demonstrated that PVA/AV optimized hydrogel film can be suggested as promising wound dressings for improving wound treatment.     

Vapor–liquid equilibria of asymmetrical systems using UNIFAC-NRF group contribution activity coefficient model

The UNIFAC-NRF group contribution activity coefficient model is used for the calculation of vapor–liquid equilibria of binary systems of the heavy alkanes and light gases such as CH₄, C₂H₆, CO₂ and N₂. The linear combination mixing rule, LCVM, of the Huron–Vidal and Michelsen, Chen et al. modification of PSRK and Universal Group Contribution Equation of State of Ahlers and Gmehling are combined with the UNIFAC-NRF group activity coefficient model to correlation of the vapor–liquid equilibrium of both light and heavy hydrocarbons. The results show that the LCVM mixing rule combing with UNIFAC-NRF group contribution model correlate the asymmetric systems better than the LCVM-UNIFAC and the other EOS/G^E models. Also the group contribution model is used for the prediction of the phase envelope of the synthetic fluid with accurate results.     

Numerical experiments on a hybrid WENO5 filter for shock‐capturing

In the present paper, a hybrid filter is introduced for high accurate numerical simulation of shock‐containing flows. The fourth‐order compact finite difference scheme is used for the spatial discretization and the third‐order Runge–Kutta scheme is used for the time integration. After each time‐step, the hybrid filter is applied on the results. The filter is composed of a linear sixth‐order filter and the dissipative part of a fifth‐order weighted essentially nonoscillatory scheme (WENO5). The classic WENO5 scheme and the WENO5 scheme with adaptive order (WENO5‐AO) are used to form the hybrid filter. Using a shock‐detecting sensor, the hybrid filter reduces to the linear sixth‐order filter in smooth regions for damping high frequency waves and reduces to the WENO5 filter at shocks in order to eliminate unwanted oscillations produced by the nondissipative spatial discretization method. The filter performance and accuracy of the results are examined through several test cases including the advection, Euler and Navier–Stokes equations. The results are compared with that of a hybrid second‐order filter and also that of the WENO5 and WENO5‐AO schemes.     

Numerical assessment of a shock‐detecting sensor for low dissipative high‐order simulation of shock–vortex interactions

Considering the importance of high‐order schemes implementation for the simulation of shock‐containing turbulent flows, the present work involves the assessment of a shock‐detecting sensor for filtering of high‐order compact finite‐difference schemes for simulation of this type of flows. To accomplish this, a sensor that controls the amount of numerical dissipation is applied to a sixth‐order compact scheme as well as a fourth‐order two‐register Runge–Kutta method for numerical simulation of various cases including inviscid and viscous shock–vortex and shock–mixing‐layer interactions. Detailed study is performed to investigate the performance of the sensor, that is, the effect of control parameters employed in the sensor are investigated in the long‐time integration. In addition, the effects of nonlinear weighting factors controlling the value of the second‐order and high‐order filters in fine and coarse non‐uniform grids are investigated. The results indicate the accuracy of the nonlinear filter along with the promising performance of the shock‐detecting sensor, which would pave the way for future simulations of turbulent flows containing shocks. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Calculation of<Emphasis Type="Italic">Z</Emphasis><Subscript>eff</Subscript> from plasma resistivity in IR-T1 tokamak

The effective ion charge,Z _eff, represents the average charge of ionsZ _i of gasses inside the system, which indicates the level of the impurities in the plasma. Several techniques have been applied to estimateZ _eff, like mass spectroscopy, anomaly factor and Bremsstrahlung radiation.

We estimatedZ _eff in the IR-T1 tokamak through anomaly factor. The IR-T1 tokamak is a small air-core transformer tokamak with circular cross section and with out conducting shell and divertor. Its aspect ratio is

$$\frac{R}{a} = \frac{{45 cm}}{{12.5 cm}}.$$

For a tokamak discharge of 30 kA plasma current and 1.5 V of loop voltage and by anomaly factor we observed thatZ _eff value is about 1.5.