Simultaneous Determination of Ascorbic Acid,Dopamine and Uric Acid,at a Graphene Paste Electrode Modified with Functionalized Graphene Sheets

The present study reports the simultaneous determination of ascorbic acid (AA), dopamine (DA) and uric acid (UA) in phosphate buffer solution (pH 7.0) using graphene paste electrode modified with functionalized graphene sheets (GPE‐MFGSs). The presence of FGS inhibited the adsorption of AA owing to the electrostatic repulsion, but was favorable for the affinity adsorption of DA and UA via the ion exchange and hydrogen bonding mechanisms, respectively. This led to the decrease in the oxidation potential of AA and the significantly enhanced oxidation peak currents of DA and UA at the GPE‐MFGSs. By cyclic voltammetry and differential pulse voltammetry, the oxidation potentials of AA, DA, and UA, at the GPE‐MFGSs in a ternary mixture were found to be well resolved so that their simultaneous determination could be achieved. Furthermore, the influence of some experimental variables such as graphene paste composition, working solution pH, scan rate and pulse amplitude was studied. In addition, by differential pulse voltammetry, the linear dependence of peak current on the concentration was obtained in the ranges of 0.05–9.0, 0.03–13, and 0.03–5.5 µM with the lowest detection limits of 0.02, 0.01, and 0.01 µM for AA, DAand UA, , respectively.     

LDC-CNTFET: A carbon nanotube field effect transistor with linear doping profile channel

In this paper, a novel carbon nanotube field effect transistor with linear doping profile channel (LDC-CNTFET) is presented. The channel impurity concentration of the proposed structure is at maximum level at source side and linearly decreases toward zero at drain side. The simulation results show that the leakage current, on-off current ratio, subthreshold swing, drain induced barrier lowering, and voltage gain of the proposed structure improve in comparison with conventional CNTFET. Also, due to spreading the impurity throughout the channel region, the proposed structure has superior performance compared with a single halo CNTFET structure with equal saturation current. Design considerations show that the proposed structure enhances the device performance all over a wide range of channel lengths.     

Synthesis and Characterization of Tin Oxide Nanoparticles by Solid State Chemical Reaction Method

High purity tin oxide nanopowders have been synthesized by using a solid-state chemical reaction technique with annealing at elevated temperature. The effects of two parameters, specifically by controlling the annealing temperature and kind of alkaline chlorides as precursors, the effect on particle size, morphology and IR spectra of synthesized tin oxide nanopowder were investigated. From the X-ray pattern, the crystal structure of the synthesized powders was confirmed as a tetragonal structure. Based on the recorded FTIR spectrum of SnO₂, the IR bands due to SnO₂ vibrations and its lattice modes were observed at 625 and 690 cm⁻¹, respectively. In addition, an important characterization peak has been identified at 1,450 cm⁻¹ due to Sn–O–Sn bridges observed only when LiCl was used as precursor. The formation of Sn–O–Sn bridges was confirmed by TGA–DTA analysis. According to the SEM images, it is obvious to notice that the kind of alkaline chlorides as precursors play a dominant role in controlling the morphology of tin oxide nanopowders.     

l-Proline: an efficient catalyst for the synthesis of new spirooxindoles

Abstract  

l-Proline was found to be a versatile organocatalyst for the synthesis of new spirooxindole derivatives in good yields under mild reaction conditions using 1-propanol as a solvent.     

Method/basis set dependence of NICS values among metallic nano-clusters and hydrocarbons

The influence of various all-electron basis sets and effective core potentials employed along with several DFT functionals (B3LYP, B3PW91, BLYP, BP86 and M06) on the magnitude of nucleus independent chemical shift (NICS) values in different metallic nano-clusters and hydrocarbons is studied. In general, it is demonstrated that the NICS values are very sensitive to the applied method/basis set; however, the method/basis set dependence is more prominent for computed NICS values in transition metal clusters. In hydrocarbons, medium-size basis sets perform roughly similar to large basis sets in most cases. It is also found that NICS(0) values are more sensitive to the method/basis set variation compared to the NICS values computed at 1 or 2 ? above the ring plane. However, in many cases, no broad-spectrum regulation is found for the effect of basis set/method on the magnitude of NICS values. A detailed study showed that bond length alternation in a molecule has an insignificant effect on the magnitude of NICS values so the influence of method/basis sets on the magnitude of NICS values mostly arises from the different predicted ring current intensities at various computational levels.     

Solvent‐Free One Pot Synthesis of 2‐aryl/Heteroarylbenzothiazoles Using Hypervalent Iodine (III) Reagents

In this article, an efficient, environmentally benign, one‐pot and simple synthesis of 2‐aryl/heteroarylbenzothiazoles by the reaction of 2‐aminothiophenol and aryl/heteroaryl aldehydes mediated by hypervalent iodine (III) reagents under solvent‐free condition at room temperature is demonstrated. All the reactions were carried out by grinding the reactants (2‐aminothiophenol and aryl/heteroaryl aldehydes) with hypervalent iodine (III) reagents in a mortar with pestle. Phenyliodine bistrifluoroacetate act as an efficient oxidizing reagent in comparison to iodobenzene diacetate in term of reaction time but yields are comparative. The advantages of this protocol are the one‐step procedure, mild reaction conditions, high yields of the products, and no side reactions.     

A robust optimization model for multi-product two-stage capacitated production planning under uncertainty

Production planning (PP) is one of the most important issues carried out in manufacturing environments which seeks efficient planning, scheduling and coordination of all production activities that optimizes the company’s objectives. In this paper, we studied a two-stage real world capacitated production system with lead time and setup decisions in which some parameters such as production costs and customer demand are uncertain. A robust optimization model is developed to formulate the problem in which minimization of the total costs including the setup costs, production costs, labor costs, inventory costs, and workforce changing costs is considered as performance measure. The robust approach is used to reduce the effects of fluctuations of the uncertain parameters with regards to all the possible future scenarios. A mixed-integer programming (MIP) model is developed to formulate the related robust production planning problem. In fact the robust proposed model is presented to generate an initial robust schedule. The performance of this schedule could be improved against of any possible occurrences of uncertain parameters. A case from an Iran refrigerator factory is studied and the characteristics of factory and its products are discussed. The computational results display the robustness and effectiveness of the model and highlight the importance of using robust optimization approach in generating more robust production plans in the uncertain environments. The tradeoff between solution robustness and model robustness is also analyzed.     

Minimizing the total completion time on a single machine with the learning effect and multiple availability constraints

This paper considers a single machine scheduling problem with the learning effect and multiple availability constraints that minimizes the total completion time. To solve this problem, a new binary integer programming model is presented, and a branch-and-bound algorithm is also developed for solving the given problem optimally. Since the problem is strongly NP-hard, to find the near-optimal solution for large-sized problems within a reasonable time, two meta-heuristics; namely, genetic algorithm and simulated annealing are developed. Finally, the computational results are provided to compare the result of the binary integer programming, branch-and-bound algorithm, genetic algorithm and simulated annealing. Then, the efficiency of the proposed algorithms is discussed.     

Possibility for mode-locked operation of a femtosecond UV storage ring free-electron laser using a low-loss Fabry–Perot resonator

A storage ring free-electron laser (SR-FEL) is inherently a self-mode-locked optical system. The gain broadening due to electron energy spread affects the small signal gain in order to determine the output coupling. Here, the dependence of the small signal gain, the optimum output coupling, and pulse duration on both electron energy spread and loss of a Fabry–Perot resonator in UV SR-FEL were investigated. It was shown that the output coupling strongly affects the mode-locked pulse duration and the present picosecond pulses can be shortened to femtosecond ones using a proper low-loss resonator.     

Synthesis of silver tin oxide nanocomposite powders via chemical coprecipitation method

A nanocomposite powder Ag-SnO₂ was produced by the chemical coprecipitation technique using Sn element, SnCl₂.2H₂O and silver nitrate as starting materials and carbonate solutions as precipitating agents. The effect of the chlorine ion, ionic strength and supersaturation were investigated for nanopowder using X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray mapping. The fine and uniformly dispersed microstructure are attained by using coprecipitation method. Higher ionic strength leads to lower particle size of nanocomposite. The undesirable chlorine ion, which leads to instability in contact surface, is eliminated by replacing SnCl₂.2H₂O instead of Sn element as starting material. Also the degree of agglomeration decreases with this change. The results show that the increasing in the supersaturation of environment enhances the nucleation. So it causes a reduction in the nanocomposite particle size to 50%.