Anionic complexes of some transition metals containing mixedβ-diketonato and alkylxanthato ligands

Summary Eleven complexes of the type K[M(acac)(Rxan)₂] and K[M(TTA)₂(Rxan)], where M=Co^II or Ni^II, acac=acetylacetonate, TTA=thenoyltrifluoroacetonate, and Rxan=alkylxanthate, R=methyl-, ethyl-, propyl-, butyl-, or cyclohexyl-, have been prepared. The magnetic and spectral data indicate that the complexes are octa-hedral and that the xanthate group is attached in a bidentate fashion to the metal ions. The conductivity data are commensurate with the ionic character in the complexes. T.g.a. were made for some of the complexes.Presented at the XXVI International Conference on Coordination Chemistry in Porto, Portugal, 28 August–2 September 1988.     

Facile Synthesis of Three‐Dimensional Pt‐TiO2 Nano‐networks: A Highly Active Catalyst for the Hydrolytic Dehydrogenation of Ammonia–Borane

Three‐dimensional (3D) porous metal and metal oxide nanostructures have received considerable interest because organization of inorganic materials into 3D nanomaterials holds extraordinary properties such as low density, high porosity, and high surface area. Supramolecular self‐assembled peptide nanostructures were exploited as an organic template for catalytic 3D Pt‐TiO₂ nano‐network fabrication. A 3D peptide nanofiber aerogel was conformally coated with TiO₂ by atomic layer deposition (ALD) with angstrom‐level thickness precision. The 3D peptide‐TiO₂ nano‐network was further decorated with highly monodisperse Pt nanoparticles by using ozone‐assisted ALD. The 3D TiO₂ nano‐network decorated with Pt nanoparticles shows superior catalytic activity in hydrolysis of ammonia–borane, generating three equivalents of H₂.     

Electron work function and surface energy of body-centered and face-centered cubic modifications of 4<Emphasis Type="Italic">d</Emphasis>- and 5<Emphasis Type="Italic">d</Emphasis>-metals

A technique for the evaluation of the electron work function of metallic single crystals and the electron work function anisotropy has been developed in the framework of the electron-statistical method. The surface energy and the electron work function have been calculated for crystal faces of allotropic modifications of 4d- and 5d-metals. A change in the electron work function due to the allotropic transformations has been estimated, and the periodic dependence of the electron work function has been determined. It has been shown that the results obtained using the proposed technique correlate with the available experimental data for polycrystals.     

In-vehicle augmented reality TSR to improve driving safety and enhance the driver’s experience

In-vehicle contextual augmented reality (AR) has the potential to provide novel visual feedbacks to drivers for an enhanced driving experience. In this paper, we propose a new AR traffic sign recognition system (AR-TSR) to improve driving safety and enhance the driver’s experience based on the Haar cascade and the Bag-of-Visual-Words approach, using spatial information to improve accuracy and an overview of studies related to the driver’s perception and the effectiveness of the AR in improving driving safety. In the first step, the region of interest (ROI) is extracted using a scanning window with a Haar cascade detector and an AdaBoost classifier to reduce the computational region in the hypothesis generation step. Second, we proposed a new computationally efficient method to model global spatial distribution of visual words by taking into consideration the spatial relationships of its visual words. Finally, a multiclass sign classifier takes the positive ROIs and assigns a 3D traffic sign for each one using a linear SVM. Experimental results show that the suggested method could reach comparable performance of the state-of-the-art approaches with less computational complexity and shorter training time, and the AR-TSR more strongly impacts the allocation of visual attention during the decision-making phase.     

A provably secure code‐based short signature scheme and its nontransferable variant

Signatures with partially message recovery in which some parts of messages are not transmitted with signatures to make them shorter are helpful where bandwidth is one of the critical concern. This primitive is especially used for signing short messages in applications such as time stamping, certified email services, and identity‐based cryptosystems. In this paper, to have quantum‐attack‐resistant short signatures, the first signature scheme with partially message recovery based on coding theory is presented. Next, it is shown that the proposal is secure under Goppa Parametrized Bounded Decoding and the Goppa Code Distinguishing assumptions in the random oracle model. Relying on the partially message recovery property, the proposal is shorter than Dallot signature scheme, the only provably secure and practical code‐based signature scheme, while it preserves Dallot signature efficiency. We should highlight that our scheme can be used as a building block to construct short code‐based signature schemes with special properties. To show this, we present a provably secure short designated verifier signature scheme, a nontransferable form of short signatures, which is used in electronic voting and deniable authentication protocols.     

Fabrication and characterization of chitosan-gelatin/single-walled carbon nanotubes electrospun composite scaffolds for cartilage tissue engineering applications

Cartilage is a connective tissue with a slow healing rate due to lack in blood circulation and slow metabolism. Designing tissue engineering scaffolds modified based on its specific features can assist its natural regeneration process. In this study, the chitosan-gelatin/single-walled carbon nanotubes functionalized by COOH (SWNTs-COOH) nanocomposite scaffolds were fabricated through electrospinning. The effect of each component and different duration of cross-linking were assessed in terms of morphology, porosity, chemical structure, thermal behavior, mechanical properties, wettability, biodegradability, and in vitro cell culture study. Adding SWNTs-COOH decreased fiber diameter, water contact angle and degradation rate while increased tensile strength, hydrophilicity, stability and cell viability, due to their high intrinsic electrical conductivity, and mechanical properties and the presence of COOH functional groups in its structure. All the sample presented a porosity percentage of more than 80%, which is essential for tissue engineering scaffolds. The presence SWNTs-COOH did not have any adverse effect on cytocompatibility. The optimal cross-linking time increased the stability of the scaffolds in PBS. It can be concluded that the chitosan-gelatin/1wt% SWNTs-COOH scaffold can be appropriate for cartilage tissue engineering applications.     

Descent relations and the oscillator level-truncation method

We reexamine the oscillator level-truncation method in the bosonic string field theory by calculating the descent relation . We use the fermionic vertices in the standard oscillator basis for the ghost sector. We propose two new calculation schemes: in the first, we assume that the insertion satisfies the overlap equation for the vertices; in the second, we use direct calculations. In both schemes, we obtain the correct structures of the exponent and preexponent of the vertex 〈V₂|, but we find different normalization factors . __________ Translated from Teoreticheskaya i Matematicheskaya Fizika, Vol. 150, No. 1, pp. 5–25, January, 2007.     

A kinetic study and application of electro-Fenton process for the remediation of aqueous environment containing toluene in a batch reactor

In this work, the degradation and mineralization of toluene (TOL) in synthetic wastewater were studied by electro-Fenton process in a batch reactor. Also the impact of operational factors such as applied current, electrolysis time, concentration of TOL and Ferrous ion have been explored on the removal of toluene. In optimum conditions, the removal efficiency of TOL and total organic carbon (TOC) were 94.5 and 32.3% after 60 min of reaction. Based on the kinetic study the pseudo first-order rate constant for the removal of toluene and TOC was obtained at k = 5.90 × 10^?2 and 9.8 × 10^?3 min^?1, respectively.