Wet nanogranular materials: colloidal glass and gel

Partially wet granular medium is a mouldable material due to capillary cohesion and its behavior plays key roles in geophysics. However, completely wet nanogranules may also demonstrate mouldable properties via van der Waals attraction and they exhibit colloidal glass or gel characteristics, depending on the solvent. As solvent-enhanced attractions prevail, phase separation is observed and nanogranular gel can be obtained. In contrast, as cage effects dominate, the stable slurry is seen and the nanogranular glass can be prepared. Upon surfactant addition, however, the arrested glass state changes into colloidal gel due to the formation of hydrogen bonds between nanogranules.     

Leakage currents through In/MgO/n-type Si/In structures

Leakage currents through In/MgO/n-type Si/In structures were studied. The electrical conduction investigations suggest that the leakage behavior is governed by the Schottky (Poole-Frenkel) emission for the gate (substrate) injection. This is because of strong leakage current dependent on the interfacial property of devices. It is shown that the discrepancy in the MgO permittivity extracted from the Schottky and Poole-Frenkel emissions is due to the formation of intermediate MgSi_xO_y layer.     

Ultrahigh mobility in polymer field-effect transistors by design

In this article, the design paradigm involving molecular weight, alkyl substituents, and donor-acceptor interaction for the poly[2,6-(4,4-bis-alkyl-4H-cyclopenta[2,1-b;3,4-b']-dithiophene)-alt-4,7-(2,1,3-benzothiadiazole)] (cyclopentadithiophene-benzothiadiazole) donor-acceptor copolymer (CDT-BTZ) toward field-effect transistors (FETs) with ultrahigh mobilities is presented and discussed. It is shown that the molecular weight plays a key role in improving hole mobilities, reaching an exceptionally high value of up to 3.3 cm(2) V(-1) s(-1). Possible explanations for this observation is highlighted in conjunction with thin film morphology and crystallinity. Hereby, it is found that the former does not change, whereas, at the same time, crystallinity improved with ever growing molecular weight. Furthermore, other important structural design factors such as alkyl chain substituents and donor-acceptor interaction between the polymer backbones potentially govern intermolecular stacking distances crucial for charge transport and hence for device performance. In this aspect, for the first time we attempt to shed light onto donor-acceptor interactions between neighboring polymer chains with the help of solid state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). On the basis of our results, polymer design principles are inferred that might be of relevance for prospective semiconductors exhibiting hole mobilities even exceeding 3 cm(2) V(-1) s(-1).     

Empirical likelihood inference for median regression models for censored survival data

Recent advances in median regression model have made it possible to use this model for analyzing a variety of censored survival data. For inference on the model parameter vector, there are now semiparametric procedures based on normal approximation that are valid without strong conditions on the error distribution. However, the accuracy of such procedures can be quite low when the censoring proportion is high. In this paper, we propose an alternative semiparametric procedure based on the empirical likelihood. We define the empirical likelihood ratio for the parameter vector and show that its limiting distribution is a weighted sum of chi-square distributions. Numerical results from a simulation study suggest that the empirical likelihood method is more accurate than the normal approximation based method of Ying et al. (J. Amer. Statist. Assoc. 90 (1995) 178).     

Total Synthesis of Kaempferol and Methylated Kaempferol Derivatives

Kaempferol ( 1 ), a natural product from various plants, was synthesized in which the longest linear sequence is only seven steps in over all yields of 47% from commercially avail able 1,3,5‐trimethoxybenzene (10). The methylated kaempferols 2–5 were also pre pared by use of this concise synthetic methodology. The key transformations in this synthesis involved the I₂ oxidative‐promoting‐cyclization and DDO oxidative hydroxylation. Several strategies to achieve 1 are provided.     

Bioconversion of fumaric acid to succinic acid by recombinantE. coli

Applied Biochemistry and Biotechnology - Succinic acid was produced efficiently from fumaric acid by a recombinantE. coli strain DH5αt/pGC1002 containing multicopy fumarate reductase genes....     

Simplified Formula of Bending Loss for Optical Fiber Sensors

A simple fiber-optic bending loss formula is achieved for optical fiber sensors. This simple formula considers various bending radii, number of turns, extra bending angle, and wavelength and has good agreement with theoretical and experimental data. We also propose a simplified formula for sensitivity of the fiber-optic bending loss in this article. The defined sensitivity formula has the benefit of showing parameters for fiber-optic bending sensor systems.     

Design, synthesis, and biological evaluation of novel alkenylthiophenes as potent and selective CB1 cannabinoid receptor antagonists

A novel class of (5-(pent-1-enyl)thiophen-2-yl)pyrazole antagonists was discovered, many of which exhibited potent CB1 activity and good CB1/2 selectivity, suggesting that along with a 1,3-transposition of the carbonyl of the pyrazole 3-carboxamide, bioisosteric replacement of the conventional pyrazole 5-aryl group with a thienyl ring substituted with an appropriate alkenyl moiety is viable.     

Electrophoretic size separation of particles in a periodically constricted microchannel

The size separation of Brownian particles with the same free mobility in an electrophoretic microchannel with alternating thick regions and narrow constrictions is studied theoretically. The electrophoretic mobility is field dependent and generally increases with field strength. In weak fields, Brownian diffusion dominates and the migration is controlled by the entrance effect. Therefore, smaller particles migrate faster than larger ones. In strong fields, however, the particle tends to follow electric field lines. Smaller particles are susceptible to Brownian motion and thus influenced by the nonuniform electric field in the well significantly. As a result, larger particles possess higher mobilities. Our simulation results agree with the experimental observations and provide guidance for efficient nanofluidic separation.