Molecular organization of 4-cyano-4′-nonylbiphenyl in a dielectric medium: A statistical analysis

The molecular organization of 4-cyano-4′-nonylbiphenyl (CNBP) in a dielectric medium has been explored using a statistical model based on quantum mechanics and computer simulation. The complete neglect differential overlap (CNDO/2) method has been employed to evaluate the net atomic charge and atomic dipole components at each atomic centre of the molecule. The modified Rayleigh-Schrodinger perturbation theory along with multicentered multipole expansion method has been employed to evaluate the long-range intermolecular interactions, while the 6-exp potential function has been assumed for short-range interactions. The total interaction energies obtained through these computations were used as input to calculate the probability of occurrence of each configuration in a dielectric medium, benzene, at room temperature (300 K) using the MB formula. The various possible geometrical arrangements between a molecular pair during the different modes of interactions have been considered. This provides theoretical support to the experimental observations.     

Excited state proton transfer and solvent relaxation of a 3-hydroxyflavone probe in lipid bilayers

The photophysics of a ratiometric fluorescent probe, N-[[4'- N, N-diethylamino-3-hydroxy-6-flavonyl]methyl]- N-methyl- N-(3-sulfopropyl)-1-dodecanaminium, inner salt (F2N12S), incorporated into phospholipid unilamellar vesicles is presented. The reconstructed time-resolved emission spectra (TRES) unravels a unique feature in the photophysics of this probe. TRES exhibit signatures of both an excited-state intramolecular proton transfer (ESIPT) and a dynamic Stokes shift associated with solvent relaxation in the lipid bilayer. The ESIPT is fast, being characterized by a risetime of approximately 30-40 ps that provides an equilibrium to be established between the excited normal (N*) and the ESIPT tautomer (T*) on a time scale of 100 ps. On the other hand, the solvent relaxation displays a bimodal decay kinetics with an average relaxation time of approximately 1 ns. The observed slow solvent relaxation dynamics likely embodies a response of nonspecific dipolar solvation coupled with formation of probe-water H-bonds as well as the relocation of the fluorophore in the lipid bilayer. Taking into account that ESIPT and solvent relaxation are governed by different physicochemical properties of the probe microenvironment, the present study provides a physical background for the multiparametric sensing of lipid bilayers using ESIPT based probes.     

Mixed micelle formation and solubilization behavior toward polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons of binary and ternary cationic-nonionic surfactant mixtures

Water solubility enhancements of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), viz., naphthalene, anthracene and pyrene, by micellar solutions at 25 degrees C using two series of surfactants, each involving two cationic and one nonionic surfactant in their single as well as equimolar binary and ternary mixed states, were measured and compared. The first series was composed of three surfactants, benzylhexadecyldimethylammonium chloride (C16BzCl), hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide (C16Br), and polyoxyethylene(20)mono-n-hexadecyl ether (Brij-58) with a 16-carbon (C16) hydrophobic chain; the second series consisted of dodecyltrimethylammonium bromide (C12Br), dodecylethyldimethylammonium bromide (C12EBr), and polyoxyethylene(4)mono-n-dodecyl ether (Brij-30) with a 12-carbon (C12) chain. Solubilization capacity has been quantified in terms of the molar solubilization ratio, the micelle-water partition coefficient, the first stepwise association constant between solubilizate monomer and vacant micelle, and the average number of solubilizate molecules per micelle, determined employing spectrophoto-, tensio-, and flourimetric techniques. Cationic surfactants exhibited lesser solubilization capacity than nonionics in each series of surfactants with higher efficiency in the C16 series compared to the C12 series. Increase in hydrophobicity of head groups of cationics by incorporation of ethyl or benzyl groups enhanced their solubilization capacity. The mixing effect of surfactants on mixed micelle formation and solubilization efficiency has been discussed in light of the regular solution approximation (RSA). Cationic-nonionic binary combinations showed better solubilization capacity than pure cationics, nonionics, or cationic-cationic mixtures, which, in general, showed increase with increased hydrophobicity of PAHs. Equimolar cationic-cationic-nonionic ternary surfactant systems showed lower solubilization efficiency than their binary cationic-nonionic counterparts but higher than cationic-cationic ones. In addition, use of RSA has been extended, with fair success, to predict partition coefficients of ternary surfactant systems using data of binary surfactants systems. Mixed surfactants may improve the performance of surfactant-enhanced remediation of soils and sediments by decreasing the applied surfactant level and thus remediation cost.     

Synthesis and cellular uptake of cell delivering 2,6-pyridinediylbisalkanamide submicron-sized sheets in hela cells

2,6-Pyridinediylbisalkanamides were synthesized, using diaminopyridine (DAP) as a linker and alkyl chains of varying lengths, that upon self-assembly form submicron-sized sheets and their uptake into the cytoplasm of HeLa cells was studied by confocal microscopy.     

Microstrip patch array antenna on photonic crystal substrate at terahertz frequency

Recent advancement in the fabrication and packaging technology has led to the micrometer and nanometer-scale device modeling. This technological development and subsequent reduction in the dimension of devices like modulators, detectors and antennas has brought a thought of increasing the operating frequency of the system to the extent of sub-millimeter wavelength. In the view of the technical breakthrough in the area of fabrication and packaging, we have explored a printed antenna array on the photonic crystal in the terahertz spectrum in this paper. An equivalent circuit model of the antenna has been proposed and a methodology to investigate various electrical parameters is discussed. Tunable parameters of the structure have been explored to optimize the electrical performance of the proposed antenna. The analysis is also compared by using two simulators: (a) CST Microwave Studio based on finite integral technique and (b) Ansoft HFSS based on finite element method. The effect of the photonic crystal as substrate to enhance the gain of this kind of the antenna has also been demonstrated. The gain, directivity, front-to-back ratio (F/B ratio), and the radiation efficiency of the proposed antenna at 600 GHz is 16.88 dBi, 17.19 dBi, 14.77 dB and 89.72%, respectively. Finally, the performance of the antenna has been compared with the reported literature.     

Gravitational time advancement and its possible detection

The gravitational time advancement (negative time delay) is a natural but a consequence of curve space-time geometry. In the present work the possibility of experimental detection of time advancement effect has been explored.     

Chance constrained uncertain classification via robust optimization

This paper studies the problem of constructing robust classifiers when the training is plagued with uncertainty. The problem is posed as a Chance-Constrained Program (CCP) which ensures that the uncertain data points are classified correctly with high probability. Unfortunately such a CCP turns out to be intractable. The key novelty is in employing Bernstein bounding schemes to relax the CCP as a convex second order cone program whose solution is guaranteed to satisfy the probabilistic constraint. Prior to this work, only the Chebyshev based relaxations were exploited in learning algorithms. Bernstein bounds employ richer partial information and hence can be far less conservative than Chebyshev bounds. Due to this efficient modeling of uncertainty, the resulting classifiers achieve higher classification margins and hence better generalization. Methodologies for classifying uncertain test data points and error measures for evaluating classifiers robust to uncertain data are discussed. Experimental results on synthetic and real-world datasets show that the proposed classifiers are better equipped to handle data uncertainty and outperform state-of-the-art in many cases.     

Use of Oxygen Gas in the Low-Temperature Time-Resolved EPR Experiments

A large transient microwave signal seen in low-temperature time-resolved electron paramagnetic resonance (TREPR) experiments is attributed to the presence of nitrogen as a flushing gas, when pulses of a 266- or 248-nm laser light is used for photolysis. We report here that, using oxygen as the flushing gas, this transient can be largely removed. Based on the studies using 355 nm laser light and also nitrous oxide as the flushing gas, photoelectron emission from the inner walls of the microwave cavity is proposed to be the origin of this transient, and the electron attachment to oxygen gas is the mechanism of its removal. Using oxygen as the flushing gas, recording of TREPR spectra at low temperatures as well as very close to the laser pulse of 266 or 248 nm is possible.