Thermal study on electrospun polyvinylpyrrolidone/ammonium metatungstate nanofibers: optimising the annealing conditions for obtaining WO<Subscript>3</Subscript> nanofibers

This article demonstrates how important it is to find the optimal heating conditions when electrospun organic/inorganic composite fibers are annealed to get ceramic nanofibers in appropriate quality (crystal structure, composition, and morphology) and to avoid their disintegration. Polyvinylpyrrolidone [PVP, (C₆H₉NO) _n ] and ammonium metatungstate [AMT, (NH₄)₆[H₂W₁₂O₄₀]·nH₂O] nanofibers were prepared by electrospinning aqueous solutions of PVP and AMT. The as-spun fibers and their annealing were characterized by TG/DTA-MS, XRD, SEM, Raman, and FTIR measurements. The 400–600 nm thick and tens of micrometer long PVP/AMT fibers decomposed thermally in air in four steps, and pure monoclinic WO₃ nanofibers formed between 500 and 600 °C. When a too high heating rate and heating temperature (10 °C min⁻¹, 600 °C) were used, the WO₃ nanofibers completely disintegrated. At lower heating rate but too high temperature (1 °C min⁻¹, 600 °C), the fibers broke into rods. If the heating rate was adequate, but the annealing temperature was too low (1 °C min⁻¹, 500 °C), the nanofiber morphology was excellent, but the sample was less crystalline. When the optimal heating rate and temperature (1 °C min⁻¹, 550 °C) were applied, WO₃ nanofibers with excellent morphology (250 nm thick and tens of micrometer long nanofibers, which consisted of 20–80 nm particles) and crystallinity (monoclinic WO₃) were obtained. The FTIR and Raman measurements confirmed that with these heating parameters the organic matter was effectively removed from the nanofibers and monoclinic WO₃ was present in a highly crystalline and ordered form.     

Azaphenanthrene alkaloids with antitumoral activity from Anaxagorea dolichocarpa Sprague & Sandwith (Annonaceae)

Phytochemical investigation of Anaxagorea dolichocarpa Sprague & Sandwith led to isolation of three azaphenanthrene alkaloids: eupolauramine, sampangine and imbiline 1. Their chemical structures were established on the basis of spectroscopic data from IR, HR-ESI-MS, NMR (including 2D experiments) and comparison with the literature. Sampangine and imbiline 1 are being described in the Anaxagorea genus for the first time. Eupolauramine and sampangine show concentration-dependent antitumoral activity in leukemic cells K562 with IC(50) of 18.97 and 10.95 μg/mL, respectively.     

First-return integrals

Properties of first-return integrals of real functions defined on the unit interval are explored. In particular, first-return integrals are shown to be continuous but not absolutely continuous.     

High energy radiation fluences in the ISS-USLab: Ion discrimination and particle abundances

The ALTEA (Anomalous Long Term Effects on Astronauts) detector was used to characterize the radiation environment inside the USLab of the International Space Station (ISS), where it measured the abundances of ions from Be to Fe. We compare the ALTEA results with Alteino results obtained in the PIRS module of the Russian segment of the ISS, and normalize to the high energy Si abundances given by Simpson. These are the first particle spectral measurements, which include ions up to Fe, performed in the USLab. The small differences observed between those made inside the USLab and the Simpson abundances can be attributed to the transport through the spacecraft hull. However, the low abundance of Fe cannot be attributed to only this process.     

Preparation and photoactivity of nanostructured anatase, rutile and brookite TiO2 thin films

Photoactive films consisting of pure anatase, brookite or rutile TiO2 were prepared by dip coating from water dispersions obtained by using TiCl4 as the precursor under similar mild experimental conditions.     

Using a factored dual in augmented Lagrangian methods for semidefinite programming

In the context of augmented Lagrangian approaches for solving semidefinite programming problems, we investigate the possibility of eliminating the positive semidefinite constraint on the dual matrix by employing a factorization. Hints on how to deal with the resulting unconstrained maximization of the augmented Lagrangian are given. We further use the approximate maximum of the augmented Lagrangian with the aim of improving the convergence rate of alternating direction augmented Lagrangian frameworks. Numerical results are reported, showing the benefits of the approach.     

Compactness and Vitali’s compactness criterion in vector-valued F-seminormed function spaces

Results of compactness for vector-valued F-seminormed function spaces and a general Vitali’s compactness criterion under the W-property are exhibited.

     

On a direct method for proving the Hyers-Ulam stability of functional equations

We study the stability of an equation in a single variable of the form

f(x)=af(h(x))+bf(−h(x))     

A polynomial path-following interior point algorithm for general linear complementarity problems

Linear Complementarity Problems (LCPs) belong to the class of \mathbbNP{\mathbb{NP}} -complete problems. Therefore we cannot expect a polynomial time solution method for LCPs without requiring some special property of the coefficient matrix. Our aim is to construct interior point algorithms which, according to the duality theorem in EP (Existentially Polynomial-time) form, in polynomial time either give a solution of the original problem or detects the lack of property P_*([(k)\tilde]){\mathcal{P}_*(\tilde\kappa)} , with arbitrary large, but apriori fixed [(k)\tilde]{\tilde\kappa}). In the latter case, the algorithms give a polynomial size certificate depending on parameter [(k)\tilde]{\tilde{\kappa}} , the initial interior point and the input size of the LCP). We give the general idea of an EP-modification of interior point algorithms and adapt this modification to long-step path-following interior point algorithms.