Combinatorial optimization and Green Logistics

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the area of Green Logistics and to describe some of the problems that arise in this subject which can be formulated as combinatorial optimization problems. The paper particularly considers the topics of reverse logistics, waste management and vehicle routing and scheduling.     

Multifunctional Electrocatalytic Cathodes Derived from Metal–Organic Frameworks for Advanced Lithium-Sulfur Batteries

The rechargeable lithium-sulfur (Li-S) battery is a promising candidate for the next generation of energy storage technology, owing to the high theoretical capacity, high specific energy density, and low cost of electrode materials. The main drawbacks in the development of long-life Li-S batteries are capacity fading and the sluggish kinetics at the cathode caused by the polysulfides shuttle. These limitations are addressed through the design of novel nanocages containing cobalt phosphide (CoP) nanoparticles embedded in highly porous nitrogen-doped carbon (CoP-N-GC) by thermal annealing of ZIF-67 in a reductive atmosphere followed by a phosphidation step using sodium hypophosphite. The CoP nanoparticles, with large surface area and uniform homogeneous distribution within the N-doped nanocage graphitic carbon, act as electrocatalysts to suppress the shuttle of soluble polysulfides through strong chemical interactions and catalyze the sulfur redox. As a result, the S@CoP-N-GC electrode delivers an extremely high specific capacity of 1410 mA h g⁻¹ at 0.1 C (1 C=1675 mA g⁻¹) with an excellent coulombic efficiency of 99.7 %. Moreover, capacity retention from 864 to 678 mA h g⁻¹ is obtained after 460 cycles with a very low decay rate of 0.046 % per cycle at 0.5 C. Therefore, the combination of the CoP catalyst and polar conductive porous carbon effectively stabilizes the sulfur cathode, enhancing the electrochemical performance and stability of the battery.     

On the Chaoticity of Some Tensor Product Weighted Backward Shift Operators Acting on Some Tensor Product Fock–Bargmann Spaces

In Advances in Mathematical Physics (2011) we showed that the weighted shift \(z^{p}\frac{d^{p+1}}{dz^{p+1}} (p=0, 1, 2,\ldots )\) acting on classical Bargmann space \(\mathbb {B}_{p}\) is chaotic operator. In Journal of Mathematical physics (2014), we constructed an chaotic weighted shift \(\mathbb {M}^{*^{p}}\mathbb {M}^{p+1} (p=0, 1, 2,\ldots )\) on some lattice Fock–Bargmann \(\mathbb {E}_{p}^{\alpha }\) generated by the orthonormal basis \( {e_{m}^{(\alpha ,p)}(z) = e_{m}^{\alpha } ; m=p, p+1,\ldots }\) where \( {e_{m}^{\alpha }(z) = (\frac{2\nu }{\pi })^{1/4}e^{\frac{\nu }{2}z^{2}}e^{-\frac{\pi ^{2}}{\nu }(m +\alpha )^{2} +2i\pi (m +\alpha )z}; m \in \mathbb {N}}\) with \(\nu , \alpha \) are real numbers; \(\nu > 0\), \(\mathbb {M}\) is an weighted shift and \(\mathbb {M^{*}}\) is the adjoint of the \(\mathbb {M}\). In this paper we study the chaoticity of tensor product \(\mathbb {M}^{*^{p}}\mathbb {M}^{p+1}\otimes z^{p}\frac{d^{p}}{dz^{p+1}} (p=0, 1, 2, \ldots )\) acting on \(\mathbb {E}_{p}^{\alpha }\otimes \mathbb {B}_{p}\).     

Sequences of nonlinear differential equations with related solutions

Summary A second-order nonlinear differential equation which occurs (together with variants of it) in many problems of applied mathematics, physics and engineering is here reduced to a first-order equation. This equation contains a parameter which is a quadratic rational function of two parameters appearing in the original equation. By applying a certain identity for a quadratic rational function, two (finite or infinite) sequences of nonlinear differential equations are generated whose solutions are determinable whenever the solution of any equation belonging to a sequence is known. The cases amenable to exact solution by quadrature are given. Entrata in Redazione il 16 luglio 1968.     

Ferromagnetism,half-metallicity and spin-polarised electronic structures characterisation insights in Ca1−xTixO

ABSTRACT

In this study, we have computed the structural, electronic and half-metallic ferromagnetic properties of Ca_1?xTi_xO compounds at concentrations x?=?0.125, 0.25, 0.5 and 0.75 by employing the first-principle approaches of density functional theory. The generalised gradient approximation of Wu and Cohen (GGA-WC) is used to calculate the structural parameters, whereas the electronic structures and magnetic properties are characterised by the accurate Tran–Blaha-modi?ed Becke–Johnson potential (TB-mBJ). The lattice constant, bulk modulus and indirect gap of CaO are in good agreement with other theoretical and experimental results. The Ca_0.25Ti_0.75O at x?=?0.75 has metallic ferromagnetic nature. The Ca_0.875Ti_0.125O, Ca_0.75Ti_0.25O and Ca_0.50Ti_0.50O compounds have total magnetic moments of 2?μ_B per Ti atom with a half-metallic character, a spin polarisation of 100% and a large half-metallic gap of 1.345?eV for x?=?0.125. Therefore, the Ca_1?xTi_xO material with a low concentration of Ti is a true half-metallic ferromagnet and seems to be a promising candidate for semiconductor spintronics.     

Silicene structures on silver surfaces

In this paper we report on several structures of silicene, the analog of graphene for silicon, on the silver surfaces Ag(100), Ag(110) and Ag(111). Deposition of Si produces honeycomb structures on these surfaces. In particular, we present an extensive theoretical study of silicene on Ag(111) for which several recent experimental studies have been published. Different silicene structures were obtained only by varying the silicon coverage and/or its atomic arrangement. All the structures studied show that silicene is buckled, with a Si-Si nearest neighbor distance varying between 2.28 and 2.5 ?. Due to the buckling in the silicene sheet, the apparent (lateral) Si-Si distance can be as low as 1.89 ?. We also found that for a given coverage and symmetry, one may observe different scanning tunneling microscopy images corresponding to structures that differ by only a translation.     

A new five-unknown refined theory based on neutral surface position for bending analysis of exponential graded plates

In the present paper, a new sinusoidal higher-order plate theory is developed for bending of exponential graded plates. The effects due to transverse shear and normal deformations are both included. The number of unknown functions involved in the present theory is only five as against six or more in case of other shear and normal deformation theories. The theory accounts for sinusoidal distribution of the transverse shear strains, and satisfies the zero traction boundary conditions on the surfaces of the plate without using shear correction factor. Based on the sinusoidal shear and normal deformation theory, the position of neutral surface is determined and the governing equilibrium equations based on neutral surface are derived. There is no stretching–bending coupling effect in the neutral surface-based formulation, and consequently, the governing equations of functionally graded plates based on neutral surface have the simple forms as those of isotropic plates. Numerical results of present theory are compared with three-dimensional elasticity solutions and other higher-order theories reported in the literature. It can be concluded that the proposed theory is accurate and efficient in predicting the bending response of exponential graded plates.     

Application of lower bound direct method to engineering structures

Direct methods provide elegant and efficient approaches for the prediction of the long-term behaviour of engineering structures under arbitrary complex loading independent of the number of loading cycles. The lower bound direct method leads to a constrained non-linear convex problem in conjunction with finite element methods, which necessitates a very large number of optimization variables and a large amount of computer memory. To solve this large-scale optimization problem, we first reformulate it in a simpler equivalent convex program with easily exploitable sparsity structure. The interior point with DC regularization algorithm (IPDCA) using quasi definite matrix techniques is then used for its solution. The numerical results obtained by this algorithm will be compared with those obtained by general standard code Lancelot. They show the robustness, the efficiency of IPDCA and in particular its great superiority with respect to Lancelot.