Oleic acid-assisted phase transfer of nanosized silver colloids

In this study, it is demonstrated that silver nanoparticles can be transferred from formamide to chloroform using oleic acid as a phase transfer agent with a transfer efficiency of 90–95%. The silver nanoparticles are initially formed as an organosol by the reduction of silver ions with formamide. On aging the complex, the particles self-assemble to form an ordered close-packed two-dimensional array of silver nanocrystals when dissolved in CHCl₃. The size distribution of the colloidal silver particles after transfer in different solvents remains almost the same. On the basis of IR spectroscopy, we discuss the adsorption of oleic acid over the silver particles.     

A series of Cu(II)-azide polymers of Cu6 building units and the role of chelating diamine in controlling their dimensionality: synthesis, structures, and magnetic behavior

Four new neutral copper-azido polymers [Cu(6)(N(3))(12)(aem)(2)](n)(1), [Cu(6)(N(3))(12)(dmeen)(2)(H(2)O)(2)](n) (2), [Cu(6)(N(3))(12)(N,N'-dmen)(2)](n) (3), and [Cu(6)(N(3))(12)(hmpz)(2)](n) (4) [aem = 4-(2-aminoethyl)morpholine; dmeen = N,N-dimethyl-N'-ethylethylenediamine; N,N'-dmen = N,N'-dimethylethylenediamine and hmpz = homopiperazine] have been synthesized by using 0.33 mol equiv of the chelating diamine ligands with Cu(NO(3))(2)·3H(2)O/CuCl(2)·2H(2)O and an excess of NaN(3). Single crystal X-ray structures show that the basic unit of these complexes, especially 1-3, contains very similar Cu(II)(6) building blocks. But the overall structures of these complexes vary widely in dimensionality. While 1 is three-dimensional (3D) in nature, 2 and 3 have a two-dimensional (2D) arrangement (with different connectivity) and 4 has a one-dimensional (1D) structure. Cryomagnetic susceptibility measurements over a wide range of temperature exhibit dominant ferromagnetic behavior in all the four complexes. The experimental susceptibility data have been analyzed by some theoretical model equations.     

Effect of sphere to rod transition on the probe microenvironment in sodium dodecyl sulphate micelles: A time resolved fluorescence anisotropy study

The effect of different hydrotropic salts on the microenvironment at the anionic head group region of sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS) micelle has been studied through time-resolved fluorescence anisotropy measurements of a solubilized probe, coumarin-153 (C153). The organic cations of the hydrotropic salts used in this study, i.e. aniline hydrochloride (AHC) and o-, m- and p-toluidine hydrochlorides (OTHC, MTHC and PTHC, respectively), differ in their charge to size ratio and hydrophobicity. Present study utilizes the sensitivity of the fluorescence technique to understand the changes in the micropolarity and microviscosity experienced by the fluorescent probe, C153, solubilized in the micellar Stern layer, on addition of different hydrotropic salts. Significant changes are observed in the rotational relaxation dynamics of the probe with increasing concentration of the salts. The changes in the rotational relaxation dynamics clearly reflect the sphere to rod transition in the SDS micelles and correspond nicely with the reported results from dynamic light scattering measurements. The growth behavior of SDS micelles is found to be sensitive to the hydrophobicity of the organic cations. The charge to size ratio of the organic cations also indicated to play a role in inducing the sphere to rod transition in the SDS micelles. The interesting observation made from this study is that the sphere to rod transition of SDS micelles is largely facilitated by the presence of the hydrotropic salts and such a transition is successfully indicated by the simple fluorescence anisotropy measurements of a probe in the micelle carried out in the presence of different hydrotropic salts.     

Understanding how both the partitions of a bipartite network affect its one-mode projection

It is a well-known fact that the degree distribution (DD) of the nodes in a partition of a bipartite network influences the DD of its one-mode projection on that partition. However, there are no studies exploring the effect of the DD of the other partition on the one-mode projection. In this article, we show that the DD of the other partition, in fact, has a very strong influence on the DD of the one-mode projection. We establish this fact by deriving the exact or approximate closed-forms of the DD of the one-mode projection through the application of generating function formalism followed by the method of iterative convolution. The results are cross-validated through appropriate simulations.     

Uniform convergence analysis of hybrid numerical scheme for singularly perturbed problems of mixed type

In this article, we consider a class of singularly perturbed mixed parabolic‐elliptic problems whose solutions possess both boundary and interior layers. To solve these problems, a hybrid numerical scheme is proposed and it is constituted on a special rectangular mesh which consists of a layer resolving piecewise‐uniform Shishkin mesh in the spatial direction and a uniform mesh in the temporal direction. The domain under consideration is partitioned into two subdomains. For the spatial discretization, the proposed scheme is comprised of the classical central difference scheme in the first subdomain and a hybrid finite difference scheme in the second subdomain, whereas the time derivative in the given problem is discretized by the backward‐Euler method. We prove that the method converges uniformly with respect to the perturbation parameter with almost second‐order spatial accuracy in the discrete supremum norm. Numerical results are finally presented to validate the theoretical results.© 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 30: 1931–1960, 2014