Poly(styrene-co-butyl acrylate)/mesoporous diatomaceous earth mineral nanocomposites by in situ AGET ATRP

Journal of Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry - Mesoporous diatomite platelets were used for in situ copolymerization of styrene and butyl acrylate by activators generated by electron transfer for...     

Fluorine-Boosted Kinetic and Selective Molecular Sieving of C6 Derivatives

Porous molecular sorbents have excellent selectivity towards hydrocarbon separation with energy saving techniques. However, to realize commercialization, molecular sieving processes should be faster and more efficient compared to extended frameworks. In this work, we show that utilizing fluorine to improve the hydrophobic profile of leaning pillararenes affords a substantial kinetic selective adsorption of benzene over cyclohexane (20 : 1 for benzene). The crystal structure shows a porous macrocycle that acts as a perfect match for benzene in both the intrinsic and extrinsic cavities with strong interactions in the solid state. The fluorinated leaning pillararene surpasses all reported organic molecular sieves and is comparable to the extended metal–organic frameworks that were previously employed for this separation such as UIO-66. Most importantly, this sieving system outperformed the well-known zeolitic imidazolate frameworks under low pressure, which opens the door to new generations of molecular sieves that can compete with extended frameworks for more sustainable hydrocarbon separation.     

A Bayesian network structure for operational risk modelling in structured finance operations

This paper is concerned with the design of a Bayesian network structure that is suitable for operational risk modelling. The model's structure is designed specifically from the perspective of a business unit operational risk manager whose role is to measure, record, predict, communicate, analyse and control operational risk within their unit. The problem domain modelled is a functioning structured finance operations unit within a major Australian bank. The network model design incorporates a number of existing human factor frameworks to account for human error and operational risk events within the domain. The design also supports a modular structure, allowing for the inclusion of many operational loss event types, making it adaptable to different operational risk environments.     

Electron–electron interaction induced spin thermalization in quasi-low-dimensional spin valves

We study the spin thermalization, i.e., the inter-spin energy relaxation mediated by electron–electron scattering in small spin valves. When one or two of the dimensions of the spin valve spacer are smaller than the thermal coherence length, the direct spin energy exchange rate diverges and needs to be regularized by the sample dimensions. Here we consider two model systems: a long quasi-1D wire and a thin quasi-2D sheet.     

A note on best proximity point theory using proximal contractions

In this paper, a reduction technique is used to show that some recent results on the existence of best proximity points for various classes of proximal contractions can be concluded from the corresponding results in fixed point theory.     

A photocatalytic green system for chemoselective reduction of nitroarenes

A highly efficient photocatalytic reduction of nitroarenes using TiO₂/polyethylene glycol 400-water (TiO₂/PEG–H₂O) is reported. This system at deoxygenated and illuminated (sunlight or violet LED) conditions efficiently reduced nitroarenes using oxalic acid or ammonium formate as a sacrificial electron donor. Reducible functional groups such as chloro, hydroxy, flouro, bromo and carbonyl were intact under the optimized reaction conditions. The 0.1 and 0.5–1 mmol amount of nitroarenes was used under sunlight and violet LED (400 nm) irradiation, respectively. Reusability of the nanotitania was successfully carried out four times. The analyses of the recovered catalyst after five runs including TEM, XRD, TGA and CHN were done and results showed that PEG is located on TiO₂; no change in morphology, crystallinity and particle sizes was observed.     

Cache Oblivious Algorithms for the RMQ and the RMSQ Problems

In the Range Minimum/Maximum Query (RMQ) and Range Maximum-Sum Segment Query (RMSQ) problems, we are given an array which we can preprocess in order to answer subsequent queries. In the RMQ query, we are given a range on the array and we need to find the maximum/minimum element within that range. On the other hand, in RMSQ query, we need to return the segment within the given query range that gives the maximum sum. In this paper, we present cache oblivious optimal algorithms for both of the above problems. In particular, for both the problems, we have presented linear time data structures having optimal cache miss. The data structures can answer the corresponding queries in constant time with constant cache miss.     

Selective adsorptive separation of cyclohexane over benzene using thienothiophene cages

The selective separation of benzene (Bz) and cyclohexane (Cy) is one of the most challenging chemical separations in the petrochemical and oil industries. In this work, we report an environmentally friendly and energy saving approach to separate Cy over Bz using thienothiophene cages (ThT-cages) with adaptive porosity. Interestingly, cyclohexane was readily captured selectively from an equimolar benzene/cyclohexane mixture with a purity of 94%. This high selectivity arises from the C–H⋯S, C–H⋯π and C–H⋯N interactions between Cy and the thienothiophene ligand. Reversible transformation between the nonporous guest-free structure and the host–guest assembly, endows this system with excellent recyclability with minimal energy requirements.

Selective adsorptive separation of cyclohexane was realized from an equimolar benzene and cyclohexane mixture via crystalline thienothiophene cages with a selectivity of 94%.     

Convergence of Picard’s iteration using projection algorithm for noncyclic contractions

Given $A$ and$B$ two nonempty subsets of a metric space, a mapping $T:A\cup B\to A\cup B$ is noncyclic provided that $T\left(A\right)?A$ and $T\left(B\right)?B$. A point $(p,q)\in A\times B$ is called a best proximity pair for the noncyclic mapping $T$ if $p=Tp,q=Tq$ and $d(p,q)=\mathrm{dist}(A,B)$. In this article, we survey the convergence of Picard’s iteration to a best proximity pair for noncyclic contractions using a projection algorithm in uniformly convex Banach spaces, where the initial point is in the proximal set of $A$. We also provide some sufficient conditions to ensure the existence of a common best proximity pairs for a pair of noncyclic mappings.