Fast,Facile and Solvent-Free Dry-Melt Synthesis of Oxovanadium(IV) Complexes: Simple Design with High Potency towards Cancerous Cells

A range of oxobis(phenyl-1,3-butanedione) vanadium(IV) complexes have been successfully synthesized from cheap starting materials and a simple and solvent-free one-pot dry-melt reaction. This direct, straightforward, fast and alternative approach to inorganic synthesis has the potential for a wide range of applications. Analytical studies confirm their successful synthesis, purity and solid-state coordination, and we report the use of such complexes as potential drug candidates for the treatment of cancer. After a 24 hour incubation of A549 lung carcinoma cells with the compounds, they reveal cytotoxicity values elevenfold greater than cisplatin and remain non-toxic towards normal cell types. Additionally, the complexes are stable over a range of physiological pH values and show the potential for interactions with bovine serum albumin.     

Polymer coated nanowire network promises self-healing and superstretchable conductors

<正>The generation of stretchable conductors is a mandatory precondition for the next-generation electronic devices including flexible, wearable electronics, smart skins and bioinspired devices [1–4]. This new class of electronic materials takes up external mechanical deformations and maintains structural integrity and electronic performance throughout bending, folding and stretching processes. Al-     

From SU(2) Gauge Theory to Qubits on the Fuzzy Sphere

We consider a classical pure SU(2) gauge theory, and make an ansatz, which separates the spatio-temporal degrees of freedom from the internal ones. This ansatz is gauge-invariant but not Lorentz invariant. In a limit case of the ansatz, obtained through a contraction map, and corresponding to a vacuum solution, the SU(2) gauge field reduces to an operator, which is the product of the generator of a global U(1) group times a Pauli matrix. We give a geometrical interpretation of the ansatz and of the contraction map in the framework of principal fiber bundles. Then, we identify the internal degrees of freedom of the gauge field with the non-commutative coordinates of the fuzzy sphere in the fundamental representation. In this way we obtain a qubit state.     

Tensor Networks and Hierarchical Tensors for the Solution of High-Dimensional Partial Differential Equations

Hierarchical tensors can be regarded as a generalisation, preserving many crucial features, of the singular value decomposition to higher-order tensors. For a given tensor product space, a recursive decomposition of the set of coordinates into a dimension tree gives a hierarchy of nested subspaces and corresponding nested bases. The dimensions of these subspaces yield a notion of multilinear rank. This rank tuple, as well as quasi-optimal low-rank approximations by rank truncation, can be obtained by a hierarchical singular value decomposition. For fixed multilinear ranks, the storage and operation complexity of these hierarchical representations scale only linearly in the order of the tensor. As in the matrix case, the set of hierarchical tensors of a given multilinear rank is not a convex set, but forms an open smooth manifold. A number of techniques for the computation of hierarchical low-rank approximations have been developed, including local optimisation techniques on Riemannian manifolds as well as truncated iteration methods, which can be applied for solving high-dimensional partial differential equations. This article gives a survey of these developments. We also discuss applications to problems in uncertainty quantification, to the solution of the electronic Schrödinger equation in the strongly correlated regime, and to the computation of metastable states in molecular dynamics.     

Akustische wellen in Gebieten,die von zwei lokal gestorten parallelen ebenen begrenzt sind

We consider acoustic waves in domains with boundaries, coinciding with two parallel planes outside a sufficiently large sphere. Several results on spectral properties of the Laplace operator in such domains are derived and used to prove uniqueness and existence of a solution of the Dirichlet boundary value problem for the reduced wave equation under additional restrictions. In particular, a class of domains is described for which no eigenvalues are present.     

Organic magnetoresistance and spin diffusion in organic semiconductor thin film devices

We review recent work in the field of organic spintronics, focusing on our own contributions to this field. There are two principle magnetoresistance effects that occur in organic devices. (i) Organic magnetoresistance (OMAR), which occurs in nonmagnetic organic semiconductor devices. For example, in devices made from the prototypical small molecule Alq₃ OMAR reaches values of 10% or more at room temperature. (ii) Organic spin‐valve effects that occur in devices that employ ferromagnetic electrodes for spin‐polarized current injection and detection. We undertake an analysis of these two types of magnetoresistance with the goal of identifying the dominant spin‐scattering mechanism. Analysis of OMAR reveals that hyperfine coupling is the dominant spin‐coupling mechanism. Spin–orbit coupling, on the other hand, is important only in organic semiconductor materials containing heavy atoms. We explore the reasons why spin–orbit coupling is relatively unimportant in hydrocarbon materials. Next, we present a theory for spin diffusion in disordered organic semiconductors based on hyperfine coupling, taking into account a combination of incoherent carrier hopping and coherent spin precession in the random hyperfine magnetic fields. We compare our findings with experimental values for the spin‐diffusion length. Finally, we demonstrate a criterion that allows the determination whether the organic spin‐valves operate in the tunneling or injection regimes. (© 2012 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)