Application of epidemic models to phase transitions

The Susceptible-Infected-Recovered (SIR) and Susceptible-Exposed-Infected-Recovered (SEIR) models describe the spread of epidemics in a society. In the typical case, the ratio of the susceptible individuals fall from a value S ₀ close to 1 to a final value S_f , while the ratio of recovered individuals rise from 0 to R_f?=?1???S_f . The sharp passage from the level zero to the level R_f allows also the modeling of phase transitions by the number of “recovered” individuals R(t) of the SIR or SEIR model. In this article, we model the sol–gel transition for polyacrylamide–sodium alginate (SA) composite with different concentrations of SA as SIR and SEIR dynamical systems by solving the corresponding differential equations numerically and we show that the phase transitions of “classical” and “percolation” types are represented, respectively, by the SEIR and SIR models.     

Operational aircraft maintenance routing problem with remaining time consideration

The aircraft maintenance routing problem is one of the most studied problems in the airline industry. Most of the studies focus on finding a unique rotation that will be repeated by each aircraft in the fleet with a certain lag. In practice, using a single rotation for the entire fleet is not applicable due to stochasticity and operational considerations in the airline industry. In this study, our aim is to develop a fast responsive methodology which provides maintenance feasible routes for each aircraft in the fleet over a weekly planning horizon with the objective of maximizing utilization of the total remaining flying time of fleet. For this purpose, we formulate an integer linear programming (ILP) model by modifying the connection network representation. The proposed model is solved by using branch-and-bound under different priority settings for variables to branch on. A heuristic method based on compressed annealing is applied to the same problem and a comparison of exact and heuristic methods are provided. The model and the heuristic method are extended to incorporate maintenance capacity constraints. Additionally, a rolling horizon based procedure is proposed to update the existing routes when some of the maintenance decisions are already fixed.     

Performance of birnessite-type manganese oxide in the thermal-catalytic degradation of polyamide 6

Birnessite-type manganese oxide (BMO) was prepared by oxidation of Mn(NO₃)₂ with H₂O₂ in KOH solution. The nature and the extent of degradation of polyamide 6 (PA6) in the presence of samples were analysed by thermogravimetric analysis under static air atmosphere at several heating rates between 5 and 30 °C min^?1. The surface and structure of BMO were characterized using infrared (IR) spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, and thermal analysis techniques. The acid sites of BMO were investigated by IR using pyridine as a molecular probe. The activation energy for degradation estimated by Kissinger method for PA6 and BMO/PA6 system containing 10 mass% of BMO was found to be 212 and 144 kJ mol^?1 under air, respectively. The catalytic activity observed in BMP catalyst was associated to a high lattice oxygen mobility.     

Polyprenyl-hydroquinones and -furans from three marine sponges inhibit the cell cycle regulating phosphatase CDC25A

The CDC25 phosphatases regulate the cell division cycle by controlling the activity of cyclin-dependent kinases. While screening for inhibitors of phosphatases among natural products we repeatedly found that some polyprenyl-hydroquinones and polyprenyl-furans (furanoterpenoids) (furospongins, furospinosulins) were potent CDC25 phosphatase inhibitors. These compounds were extracted, isolated and identified independently from three sponge species (Spongia officinalis, Ircinia spinulosa, Ircinia muscarum), collected at different locations in the Mediterranean Sea. The compounds were inactive on the Ser/Thr phosphatase PP2C-alpha and on three kinases (CDK1, CDK5, GSK-3), suggesting that some potent and selective CDC25 phosphatase might be designed from these initial structures.     

Solutions of Two-Mode Bosonic and Transformed Hamiltonians

We have constructed the quasi-exactly-solvable two-mode bosonic realization of SU(2). Two-mode boson Hamiltonian is defined through a differential equation which is solved by quantum Hamilton-Jacobi formalism. The squeezed states of two-mode boson systems are characterized through canonical transformation. The illustrated concept of squeezed boson systems has been applied two-mode bosonic Hamiltonian which is a squeezed one and is determined through a differential equation. This differential equation is solved and energy eigenvalues are found approximately.     

Adsorption and solid phase extraction of 8-hydroxyquinoline from aqueous solutions by using natural bentonite

The nitrogen-heterocyclic compound 8-hydroxyquinoline (8HQ) is one of the components of coal tar and has a wide variety of uses in industry. Because of its toxicity for aquatic organisms and harmful effects for human health, the removal of 8HQ from aqueous solutions by adsorption onto natural bentonite was investigated in the present work. The experimental results show that the optimum pH value of 2.5 is favourable for the 8HQ adsorption. The experimental data were fitted well with the pseudo-second-order kinetic and Langmuir adsorption isotherm models at all studied temperatures. The maximum adsorption capacity obtained from the Langmuir isotherm model at 20 °C was 120.6 mg g⁻¹. The calculated thermodynamic results such as ΔG° (−24.3 kJ mol⁻¹) and ΔH° (−9.56 kJ mol⁻¹) indicate that the adsorption process is spontaneous and exothermic in nature. Solid phase extraction of 8HQ was also performed. The X-ray diffractometry (XRD), Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) and thermogravimetric (TG) analyses were carried out in order to confirm the 8HQ adsorption onto bentonite. According to the obtained results, natural bentonite can be a reusable and effective adsorbent for the removal of 8HQ.     

Charge localization increases chemical expansion in cerium-based oxides

In this work, we demonstrate the mechanism by which electronic charge localization increases the chemical expansion coefficient in two model systems, CeO(2-δ) and BaCeO(3-δ). Using Density Functional Theory calculations, we predict that this coefficient is increased by more than 70% when charge is fully localized, consistent with the observation that materials with a smaller degree of charge localization have smaller chemical expansion coefficients. This finding has important consequences for devising materials with smaller chemical expansion coefficients and for the reliability of the widely-used Shannon's ionic radii.     

Preparation and Spectral and Biological Investigation of vic-Dioxime Ligands Containing Piperazine Moiety and Their Mononuclear Transition-Metal Complexes

Two vic-dioxime ligands, N-(4-benzylpiperazine-1-yl) p-tolylglyoxime (L¹H₂) and N,N′-bis(4-benzylpiperazine-1-yl) glyoxime (L²H₂), containing piperazine moieties were synthesized, and their Ni(II), Cu(II), Co(II) and Zn(II) complexes were obtained. The ligands were characterized by elemental analysis, Fourier transform–infrared (FT-IR), ultraviolet–visible NMR (¹H, ¹³C, and heteronuclear multiple-bond correlation), and electrospray ionization (ESI) mass spectrometry. The isolated complexes were characterized by a combination of elemental analysis, IR, UV-vis, and ESI mass spectrometry and in the case of Ni(II) and Zn(II) complexes by ¹H and ¹³C NMR spectroscopy. The electrochemical behaviors of the ligands and their complexes were studied by cyclic voltammetry (CV) in dimethylsulfoxide solution containing tetrabutylammoniumtetrafluoroborate (TBATFB). The antibacterial activity was also studied against S. aureus ATCC 25923, S. aureus ATCC 29213, S. mutans RSHM 676, E. faecalis ATCC 29212, E. coli ATCC 25922, and P. aeruginosa ATCC 27853. The antimicrobial test results indicated that all the compounds have good antibacterial activity against P. auriginosa ATCC 27853 bacteria and were as effective as ampicilin.

[Supplementary materials are available for this article. Go to the publisher's online edition of Synthetic Communications® for the following free supplemental resources: Full experimental and spectral details.]