Magnetic-Bottle and Velocity-Map Imaging Photoelectron Spectroscopy of APS- (A=C14H10 or Anthracene): Electron Structure,Spin-Orbit Coupling of APS·, and Dipole-Bound State of APS-

Gaseous dibenzo-7-phosphanorbornadiene P-sulfide anions APS^-(A=C₁₄H₁₀ or anthracene) were generated via electrospray ionization, and characterized by magnetic-bottle photoelectron spectroscopy, velocity-map imaging (VMI) photoelectron spectroscopy, and quantum chemical calculations. The electron affinity (EA) and spin-orbit (SO) splitting of the APS^· radical are determined from the photoelectron spectra and Franck-Condon factor simulations to be EA=(2.62±0.05) eV and SO splitting=(43±7) meV. VMI photoelectron images show strong and sharp peaks near the detachment threshold with an identical electron kinetic energy (eKE) of 17.9 meV at three different detachment wavelengths, which are therefore assigned to autodetachment from dipole-bound anion states. The B3LYP/6-31++G(d, p) calculations indicate APS^· has a dipole moment of 3.31 Debye, large enough to support a dipole-bound electron.     

Crystal structure and physical properties of a ruthenium(II) bipyridine dimethylsulfoxide complex

The complex [Ru(bpy)₂(DMSO)C1]PF₆, where bpy is 2,2-bipyridine and DMSO is dimethylsulfoxide, crystallizes in the triclinic space group P1¯ (#2) with a = 8.873 (2), b = 12.805 (4), c = 12.864 (4) Å, = 97.76(3), = 106.45(2), = 107.88(2); Z = 2, and d _calc = 1.75 mg/m³. The coordination geometry is that of a distorted octahedron with a cis –RuN₄SCl arrangement of coordinating atoms. The four Ru—N distances to the bpy ligands are 2.082(5), 2.092(4), 2.044(4), and 2.078(5) Å. The Ru—Cl distance is 2.421(2) Å and the Ru—S distance to DMSO is 2.260(1) Å. The Ru—N bond distance trans to Cl is the shortest; the Ru—N bond distance trans to S is the longest. The complex is oxidized and reduced reversibly at 1.13 and –1.37 V vs. SSCE, respectively. It displays electronic absorptions at 515, 480 (1.5 × 10⁴), 342 (1.5 × 10⁴), 292 (1.2 × 10⁵), and 240 nm (6.2 × 10⁴) and has a broad emission band centered at 607 nm at 77 K in a 4:1 ethanol/methanol glass. The emission lifetime at room temperature is less than the pulse width of the laser, < 20 ns.     

Fundamental understanding and modeling of spin coating process: A review

A mathematical model is derived to elucidate the dominant mechanism governing film formation. It leads to a relation between film thickness and film radius spreading with time. Inclusion of evaporation and shear stress was made with extension to non-Newtonian fluid. The advantages and disadvantages of this process with applications are reviewed.      

Development and Validation of HPTLC Densitometric Method for Identification and Quantification of Geraniol in Palmarosa Oil

JPC – Journal of Planar Chromatography – Modern TLC - India is the main producer of palmarosa oil obtained from rosha grass (Cymbopogan martini var. motia) of family Graminae. The...     

Facile synthesis of seven to nine-membered-fused tricyclic quinolones and quinolinium salts under phase transfer catalyzed conditions

Phase transfer catalyzed one-pot syntheses of fused oxazepino, oxazocino, and oxazonino quinolinium cations and quinolones were achieved from 8-hydroxy quinoline derivatives with 1,ω-dihaloalkanes. Structures of all the products were elucidated by spectroscopic analysis. Single crystal X-ray crystallographic analysis of three compounds and graphical superposition of the structures indicate that products having seven-membered ring are less planar compared to the product having eight-membered ring.     

Forbidden configurations and Steiner designs

Let ${\mathcal{F}}$ be a (0, 1) matrix. A (0, 1) matrix ${\mathcal{M}}$ is said to have ${\mathcal{F}}$ as a configuration if there is a submatrix of ${\mathcal{M}}$ which is a row and column permutation of ${\mathcal{F}}$ . We say that a matrix ${\mathcal{M}}$ is simple if it has no repeated columns. For a given ${v \in \mathbb{N}}$ , we shall denote by forb ${(v, \mathcal{F})}$ the maximum number of columns in a simple (0, 1) matrix with v rows for which ${\mathcal{F}}$ does not occur as a configuration. We say that a matrix ${\mathcal{M}}$ is maximal for ${\mathcal{F}}$ if ${\mathcal{M}}$ has forb ${(v, \mathcal{F})}$ columns. In this paper we show that for certain natural choices of ${\mathcal{F}}$ , forb ${(v, \mathcal{F})\leq\frac{\binom{v}{t}}{t+1}}$ . In particular this gives an extremal characterization for Steiner t-designs as maximal (0, 1) matrices in terms of certain forbidden configurations.     

A novel content-based active contour model for brain tumor segmentation

Brain tumor segmentation is a crucial step in surgical and treatment planning. Intensity-based active contour models such as gradient vector flow (GVF), magneto static active contour (MAC) and fluid vector flow (FVF) have been proposed to segment homogeneous objects/tumors in medical images. In this study, extensive experiments are done to analyze the performance of intensity-based techniques for homogeneous tumors on brain magnetic resonance (MR) images. The analysis shows that the state-of-art methods fail to segment homogeneous tumors against similar background or when these tumors show partial diversity toward the background. They also have preconvergence problem in case of false edges/saddle points. However, the presence of weak edges and diffused edges (due to edema around the tumor) leads to oversegmentation by intensity-based techniques. Therefore, the proposed method content-based active contour (CBAC) uses both intensity and texture information present within the active contour to overcome above-stated problems capturing large range in an image. It also proposes a novel use of Gray-Level Co-occurrence Matrix to define texture space for tumor segmentation. The effectiveness of this method is tested on two different real data sets (55 patients - more than 600 images) containing five different types of homogeneous, heterogeneous, diffused tumors and synthetic images (non-MR benchmark images). Remarkable results are obtained in segmenting homogeneous tumors of uniform intensity, complex content heterogeneous, diffused tumors on MR images (T1-weighted, postcontrast T1-weighted and T2-weighted) and synthetic images (non-MR benchmark images of varying intensity, texture, noise content and false edges). Further, tumor volume is efficiently extracted from 2-dimensional slices and is named as 2.5-dimensional segmentation.     

Ultrasonication--a complementary 'green chemistry' tool to biocatalysis: a laboratory-scale study of lycopene extraction

Lycopene is bequeathed with multiple bio-protective roles, primarily attributed to its unique molecular structure. The concomitant exploitation of two of the green chemistry tools viz., sonication and biocatalysis is reported here for the laboratory scale extraction of lycopene from tomato peel. The coupled system improved the extraction by 662%, 225% and 150% times over the unaided, only cellulase ‘Onozuka R-10’ treated and only sonication treated samples respectively. The sonication parameters (duration, cycle and amplitude) during the coupled operation were optimized using response surface methodology (RSM). Derivative UV-visible spectra (i.e., dA/dλ and d²A/dλ² against λ), FTIR analysis, and DPPH scavenging test suggested that the reported extraction protocol did not affect the molecular structure and bioactivity of the extracted lycopene. The influence of sonication on the probable structural modulation (through UV-visible spectral analysis) and activity of the enzyme were also analyzed. A plausible mechanism is proposed for the enhanced extraction achieved via the coupled system.     

A combined gas-phase photoelectron spectroscopic and theoretical study of Zeise's anion and its bromine and iodine analogues

Shining light on Zeise: In a study of Zeise's anion, [PtCl(3)(C(2)H(4))](-), and its bromine and iodine analogues, electronic structure information for each species, derived from spectral features, is assigned through calculations at the coupled cluster level of theory. The calculations indicate that the electron binding energies decrease with halogen size and that there is a synergistic η(2) interaction between C(2)H(4) and the PtX(3)(-) anions.     

In situ spatial mapping of Gouy phase slip for high-detail attosecond pump-probe measurements

Attosecond pump-probe experiments routinely utilize extreme ultraviolet (XUV) and IR fields, with relative phase being the variable parameter. However, the Gouy phase slip between the focused IR and XUV pulses inevitably leads to a certain amount of phase averaging and loss of accuracy. By using ion imaging, we establish a one-to-one mapping between the local phase slip and the spatial coordinates of the focal volume, thus performing in situ characterization of the Gouy phase of a complex beam and its role in ionization of He and Xe. We demonstrate that spatially discriminated ion imaging enhances the contrast of a phase-dependent XUV+IR ionization signal. We utilize our technique to unmask a weak ionization asymmetry, thus opening pathways for further high-precision attosecond studies.