NNS tridentate thiosemicarbazide and 1,3,4-thiadiazole-2-amine complexes of some transition metal ions: syntheses,structure and fluorescence properties

The reactions of Zn(II), Mn(II), and Ni(II) acetates with 1-picolinoyl-4-phenyl-3-thiosemicarbazide (Hppts) yielded [Zn(ppts)₂]·CHCl₃ (3), [Mn(ppts)₂]·THF (4), and [Ni(ppts)₂]·THF (5), respectively, but HgCl₂ gave a cyclized product N-phenyl-5-(pyridin-2-yl)-1,3,4-oxadiazole-2-yl-amine (2). The treatment of Hppts with conc. H₂SO₄ formed N-phenyl-5-(pyridin-2-yl)-1,3,4-thiadiazole-2-yl-amine (1). Hppts is a nonfluorescent material, but 3, 4 and the cyclized products 1,3,4-oxadiazole/1,3,4-thiadiazole are fluorescent. The cyclized ligand N-phenyl-5-(pyridin-2-yl)-1,3,4-thiadiazole-2-amine (1) formed [Zn(2-Hppt)₂(OAc)₂] (6) and [Cd₂(2-Hppt)₂(OAc)₂(μ-OAc)₂] (7) in which Cd(II) has a binuclear acetate-bridged seven coordinate pentagonal bipyramidal geometry. Complex 7 is also a fluorescent material with maximum emission at 425 nm at an excitation wavelength of 254 nm.     

Experimental Investigations on Highly Conducting Solid Bio-Polymer Electrolytes Based on Latex of Calotropis gigantea Plant

The study has prepared highly conducting polymer electrolyte films using solution cast technique with poly(vinylidene fluoride-co-hexafluoropropylene) PVDF-HFP, mixture of ethylene carbonate (EC), and propylene carbonate (PC) as plasticizer and latex of Calotropis gigantea (CGL) as an ionic source. In this study, four films are prepared using PVDF-HFP:CGL in ratio 1:1 with the increasing concentration of EC+PC as 1, 2, 3, and 4 M named as 1:1:1, 1:1:2, 1:1:3, 1:1:4. The prepared polymer electrolyte is examined by polarized optical microscopy (POM), elemental dispersive X-ray technique (EDX), and complex impedance spectroscopy. EDX and POM are studied for the surface morphology of all prepared samples and to investigate the porous nature of films. The enhancement in ionic conductivity occurs due to CGL and increasing amount of EC-PC. Conductivity of highest composition (1:1:4) polymer electrolyte film is found to be ≈10⁻³ S cm⁻¹. The optimized polymer electrolyte film is considered as a promising candidate for application in supercapacitors.     

Ferroelectric relaxor behaviour in Pb(Fe0.5Ta0.5)O3

The relaxor ferroelectric lead iron tantalate, Pb(Fe_0.5Ta_0.5)O₃ (PFT) is synthesized by Coulombite precursor method. The X-ray diffraction pattern of the sample at room temperature shows a cubic phase. The field dependence of dielectric response is measured in a frequency range 0.1 kHz — 1 MHz and in a temperature range from 173–373 K. The temperature dependence of permittivity (ɛ′) shows broad maxima at various frequencies. The frequency dependence of the permittivity maximum temperature (T _m ) has been modelled using Vogel-Fulcher relation.      

Stability and bifurcation of an SIS epidemic model with treatment

An SIS epidemic model with a limited resource for treatment is introduced and analyzed. It is assumed that treatment rate is proportional to the number of infectives below the capacity and is a constant when the number of infectives is greater than the capacity. It is found that a backward bifurcation occurs if the capacity is small. It is also found that there exist bistable endemic equilibria if the capacity is low.     

Effect of manganese stress on the mineral content of the leaves of wheat seedlings by use of X-ray fluorescence excited by synchrotron radiation

The present study describes the potential of the synchrotron radiation based X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy technique for the rapid, sensitive, user friendly and simultaneous monitoring of the changes in the elemental profile of the wheat seedlings stressed by excess manganese (Mn). For this, X-ray fluorescence spectra of the leaves of the control and Mn treated wheat seedlings have been recorded by synchrotron radiation X-ray of energy 15?keV. The analyses of the recorded spectra show the presence of elements chlorine, potassium, calcium, manganese, iron, copper, nickel, and zinc. A calibration-free approach, PyMca has been used for the quantitative estimation of the detected elements in the leaves of the control and Mn treated wheat seedlings. The excess supply of Mn to wheat seedlings results in the accumulation of manganese in the leaves of the seedlings. The accumulation of manganese in wheat seedlings negatively affects the uptake and translocation of calcium, potassium, and iron while it has stimulating effect on the uptake of copper and zinc.     

A distributed data storage protocol for heterogeneous wireless sensor networks with mobile sinks

This paper presents ProFlex, a distributed data storage protocol for large-scale Heterogeneous Wireless Sensor Networks (HWSNs) with mobile sinks. ProFlex guarantees robustness in data collection by intelligently managing data replication among selected storage nodes in the network. Contrarily to related protocols in the literature, ProFlex considers the resource constraints of sensor nodes and constructs multiple data replication structures, which are managed by more powerful nodes. Additionally, ProFlex takes advantage of the higher communication range of such powerful nodes and uses the long-range links to improve data distribution by storage nodes. When compared with related protocols, we show through simulation that Proflex has an acceptable performance under message loss scenarios, decreases the overhead of transmitted messages, and decreases the occurrence of the energy hole problem. Moreover, we propose an improvement that allows the protocol to leverage the inherent data correlation and redundancy of wireless sensor networks in order to decrease even further the protocol’s overhead without affecting the quality of the data distribution by storage nodes.     

Experimental investigation and thermodynamic prediction of the Al–Ge–Zn phase diagram

The knowledge of the phase diagram of the Al?CGe?CZn ternary system is of importance in the development of high temperature soldering materials. In this study, the phase diagram of the Al?CGe?CZn ternary system was calculated by the calculation of phase diagrams method using binary thermodynamic parameters included in the COST MP0602 thermodynamic database. Chosen alloys with compositions along two vertical sections with molar ratio Al/Ge?=?3/1 and 1/3 were measured using DTA (differential thermal analysis). The experimentally determined phase transition temperatures from this work and phase equilibria data from literature were compared with calculation results and good mutual agreement was noticed.     

Electroviscous effects in steady fully developed flow of a power-law liquid through a cylindrical microchannel

Electroviscous effects in steady, fully developed, pressure-driven flow of power-law liquids through a uniform cylindrical microchannel have been investigated numerically by solving the Poisson–Boltzmann and the momentum equations using a finite difference method. The pipe wall is considered to have uniform surface charge density and the liquid is assumed to be a symmetric 1:1 electrolyte solution. Electroviscous resistance reduces the velocity adjacent to the wall, relative to the velocity on the axis. The effect is shown to be greater when the liquid is shear-thinning, and less when it is shear-thickening, than it is for Newtonian flow. For overlapping electrical double layers and elevated surface charge density, the electroviscous reduction in the near-wall velocity can form an almost stationary (zero shear) layer there when the liquid is shear-thinning. In that case, the liquid behaves approximately as if it is flowing through a channel of reduced diameter. The induced axial electrical field shows only a weak dependence on the power-law index with the dependence being greatest for shear-thinning liquids. This field exhibits a local maximum as surface charge density increases from zero, even though the corresponding electrokinetic resistance increases monotonically. The magnitude of the electroviscous effect on the apparent viscosity, as measured by the ratio of the apparent and physical consistency indices, decreases monotonically as the power-law index increases. Thus, overall, the electroviscous effect is stronger in shear-thinning, and weaker in shear-thickening liquids, than it is when the liquid is Newtonian.     

Acrylate terpolymer in fabrication of medicated skin patches

An acrylate based pressure sensitive adhesive (PSA) was synthesized to design a drug‐in‐adhesive (DIA) type transdermal therapeutic system (TTS) for nitroglycerin used in the treatment of angina pectoris. 2‐Ethylhexyl acrylate (EHA), methyl methacrylate (MMA) and acrylic acid (AA) were used to synthesize the PSA by free radical solution polymerization. The effects of reaction time, reaction temperature, initiator concentration and solvent on polymerization were studied. The synthesized terpolymer was characterized by ¹H‐NMR, FT‐IR, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and gel permeation chromatography (GPC) and also evaluated for intrinsic viscosity, refractive index, peel strength, moisture uptake and skin irritation potential. The PSA was used to develop DIA type patches of nitroglycerin. The patches were cast using solvent evaporation technique and dried at controlled temperature. The patches were evaluated for thickness uniformity, weight variation, peel strength and moisture pick‐up. The percent drug content and in vitro drug release was determined by high pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) method. On the basis of in vitro release profile, patches were selected for in vitro skin permeation studies. The developed formulation TP‐1 (K = 24.892 mcg/cm²/hr) followed zero‐order rate kinetics and showed better skin permeation rate in comparison to the marketed TTS (MTTS) (K = 17.413 mcg/cm²/hr). TP‐1 was subjected to stability testing for a period of 1 year according to ICH guidelines. The patches were found to be stable and an expiry date of 2 years was predicted with storage at 25 °C or below. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A numerical study of the steady forced convection heat transfer from an unconfined circular cylinder

Forced convection heat transfer from an unconfined circular cylinder in the steady cross-flow regime has been studied using a finite volume method (FVM) implemented on a Cartesian grid system in the range as 10 ≤ Re ≤ 45 and 0.7 ≤ Pr ≤ 400. The numerical results are used to develop simple correlations for Nusselt number as a function of the pertinent dimensionless variables. In addition to average Nusselt number, the effects of Re, Pr and thermal boundary conditions on the temperature field near the cylinder and on the local Nusselt number distributions have also been presented to provide further physical insights into the nature of the flow. The rate of heat transfer increases with an increase in the Reynolds and/or Prandtl numbers. The uniform heat flux condition always shows higher value of heat transfer coefficient than the constant wall temperature at the surface of the cylinder for the same Reynolds and Prandtl numbers. The maximum difference between the two values is around 15–20%.