Electromagnetically induced negative refraction in an atomic system with spontaneously generated coherence

We propose a new scheme for realizing left-handed electromagnetic properties in a coherently driven four-level system. At the presence of spontaneously generated coherence and the local field effect, both dielectric permittivity and magnetic permeability may have negative real parts of the same order in a small frequency band. Thus, one can achieve the negative refractive index and then manipulate it by modulating the coherent field or changing the atomic density. With incoherent pumping applied to have more remarkable spontaneously generated coherence, one can further obtain a wider frequency band of negative refraction and simultaneously reduce the accompanied absorption.     

Mono-Aryl/Alkylthio-Substituted (Hetero)acenes of Exceptional Thermal and Photochemical Stability by the Thio-Friedel–Crafts/Bradsher Cyclization Reaction

The highly substituted mono-aryl/alkylthio-(hetero)acenes prepared in this study have been found to be thermally more stable (T_decomp.=331–354 °C) than the known di-aryl/alkylthio-substituted acenes by an average of 25 °C. They are also much more photostable at 254 and 365 nm (in both argon and air) than the parent anthracene and other reported anthracenes. The most photostable aryl/alkylthio-anthracenes at 254 nm were found to be 60–70 (in air) and 130 (in argon) times more stable in solution than the unsubstituted anthracene, and much more stable than known EDG/EWG-substituted anthracenes (EDG=electron-donating group, EWG=electron-withdrawing group) with an extended aromatic core. Furthermore, the acenes showed significantly higher photostability at 365 nm in both air and argon. The anthracenes were obtained by the novel thio-Friedel–Crafts/Bradsher cyclization reaction of hitherto unknown [o-(1,3-dithian-2-yl)aryl](aryl)methyl thioethers. The developed approach provides a general access to mono-aryl/alkylthio-substituted (hetero)acene frameworks containing at least three fused (hetero)aromatic rings. The characteristic feature of this approach, which leads to highly substituted acenes, is that the substituents, unlike in other methods, may be introduced at an early stage of the synthesis. DFT and TD-DFT calculations confirmed the stabilizing role of the aryl/alkylthio substituent in the mono-aryl/alkylthio-substituted anthracenes, which are the most stable anthracenes prepared to date. Their high photostability is mainly due to the quenching of singlet oxygen by the acene and the quenching of the acene S₁ state by molecular oxygen.     

Recent Progress on Manganese-Based Nanostructures as Responsive MRI Contrast Agents

Manganese-based nanostructured contrast agents (CAs) entered the field of medical diagnosis through magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) some years ago. Although some of these Mn-based CAs behave as classic T₁ contrast enhancers in the same way as clinical Gd-based molecules do, a new type of Mn nanomaterials have been developed to improve MRI sensitivity and potentially gather new functional information from tissues by using traditional T₁ contrast enhanced MRI. These nanomaterials have been designed to respond to biological environments, mainly to pH and redox potential variations. In many cases, the differences in signal generation in these responsive Mn-based nanostructures come from intrinsic changes in the magnetic properties of Mn cations depending on their oxidation state. In other cases, no changes in the nature of Mn take place, but rather the nanomaterial as a whole responds to the change in the environment through different mechanisms, including changes in integrity and hydration state. This review focusses on the chemistry and MR performance of these responsive Mn-based nanomaterials.     

Antibacterial triterpenoids from the leaves of Ilex hainanensis Merr.

One new triterpenoid (1) and seven known analogues (2–8) were isolated from the leaves of Ilex hainanensis Merr.. Their structures were established by analysis of their MS, 1D and 2D NMR spectroscopic data and comparison with those in the literature. The antibacterial activity of compounds 1–8 were evaluated by determination of minimum inhibitory concentration using twofold microdilution broth method against Streptococcus mutans ATCC 25175 (Gram-positive) and Fusobacterium nucleatum ATCC 10953 (Gram-negative). Compounds 3 and 5 showed significant antibacterial activity against S. mutans in concentration of 9.7 μg/mL, while showed little antibacterial activity against F. nucleatum. On the contrary, the inhibitory activity of compounds 1, 2 and 6 against F. nucleatum were higher than them against S. mutans.     

Shedding Light on the Origin of Solid-State Luminescence Enhancement in Butterfly Molecules

Different molecular strategies have been carefully evaluated to produce solid-state luminescence enhancement (SLE) in compounds that show dark states in solution. A set of α-phenylstyrylarene derivatives with a butterfly shape have been designed and synthesised, for the first time, with the aim of improving the solid-state fluorescence emission of their parent styrylarene compounds. Although these butterfly molecules are not fluorescent in solution, one of them (1,2,4,5-tetra(α-phenylstyryl)benzene) exhibits a fluorescence quantum yield as high as 68 % in a drop-cast sample and 31 % in its crystalline form. In contrast, 1,3,5-tris(α-phenylstyryl)benzene and 4,6-bis(α-phenylstyryl)pyrimidine do not show SLE. A range of fluorescence spectroscopy experiments and DFT calculations were carried out to unravel the origin of different photophysical behaviour of these compounds in the solid state. The results indicate that a rational strategy to control the SLE effect in luminogens depends on a delicate balance between molecular properties and inter-/intramolecular interactions in the solid state.     

Dynamic pricing and scheduling in a multi-class single-server queueing system

This paper investigates an optimal sequencing and dynamic pricing problem for a two-class queueing system. Using a Markov Decision Process based model, we obtain structural characterizations of optimal policies. In particular, it is shown that the optimal pricing policy depends on the entire queue length vector but some monotonicity results prevail as the composition of this vector changes. A numerical study finds that static pricing policies may have significant suboptimality but simple dynamic pricing policies perform well in most situations.     

On nonoscillating integrals for computing inhomogeneous Airy functions

Integral representations are considered of solutions of the inhomogeneous Airy differential equation . The solutions of these equations are also known as Scorer functions. Certain functional relations for these functions are used to confine the discussion to one function and to a certain sector in the complex plane. By using steepest descent methods from asymptotics, the standard integral representations of the Scorer functions are modified in order to obtain nonoscillating integrals for complex values of . In this way stable representations for numerical evaluations of the functions are obtained. The methods are illustrated with numerical results.

     

Computing Complex Airy Functions by Numerical Quadrature

Integral representations are considered of solutions of the Airy differential equation w –zw=0 for computing Airy functions for complex values of z. In a first method contour integral representations of the Airy functions are written as non-oscillating integrals for obtaining stable representations, which are evaluated by the trapezoidal rule. In a second method an integral representation is evaluated by using generalized Gauss–Laguerre quadrature; this approach provides a fast method for computing Airy functions to a predetermined accuracy. Comparisons are made with well-known algorithms of Amos, designed for computing Bessel functions of complex argument. Several discrepancies with Amos' code are detected, and it is pointed out for which regions of the complex plane Amos' code is less accurate than the quadrature algorithms. Hints are given in order to build reliable software for complex Airy functions.