The scale effect on the yield strength of nanocrystalline materials

The microstructure of the nanocrystalline can be divided generally into two parts: grain and interface. When the grain size is about or less than 10 nm, the interface can be divided into grain boundary and triple junctions. The mechanical performance of nanocrystalline materials with complicated microstructures is greatly different from that of the coarse grain materials. In this paper, the nanocrystalline material is considered as a composite with three phases: the grain core, the grain boundaries, and the triple junction. The model analysis for nanocrystalline material deformation is established and the relationship between yield strength and grain size is obtained. The obtained result explains the inverse Hall–Petch relation.     

Organic Hollow Mesoporous Silica as a Promising Sandalwood Essential Oil Carrier

As film-forming agents, fillers and adsorbents, microplastics are often added to daily personal care products. Because of their chemical stability, they remain in the environment for thousands of years, endangering the safety of the environment and human health. Therefore, it is urgent to find an environmentally friendly substitute for microplastics. Using n-octyltrimethoxysilane (OTMS) and tetraethoxysilane (TEOS) as silicon sources, a novel, environmentally friendly, organic hollow mesoporous silica system is designed with a high loading capacity and excellent adsorption characteristics in this work. In our methodology, sandalwood essential oil (SEO) was successfully loaded into the nanoparticle cavities, and was involved in the formation of Pickering emulsion as well, with a content of up to 40% (w/w). The developed system was a stable carrier for the dispersion of SEO in water. This system can not only overcome the shortcomings of poor water solubility and volatility of sandalwood essential oil, but also act as a microplastic substitute with broad prospects in the cosmetics and personal care industry, laying a foundation for the preparation and applications of high loading capacity microcapsules in aqueous media.     

Interface water-induced hydrophobic carbon chain unfolding in water

The folding and unfolding of the carbon chain, which is the basic constitutional unit of polymers,are important to the performance of the material. However, it is difficult to regulate conformational transition of the carbon chain, especially in an aqueous environment. In this paper, we propose a strategy to regulate the conformational transition of the carbon chain in water based on the all-atom molecular dynamics simulations. It is shown that the unfolded carbon chain will spontaneously collapse into the folded state, while the folded carbon chain will unfold with an external electric field. The regulation ability of the electric field is attributed to the electric field-induced redistribution of interface water molecules near the carbon chain. The demonstrated method of regulating conformational transition of the carbon chain in water in this study provides an insight into regulating hydrophobic molecules in water, and has great potential in drug molecule design and new polymer material development.     

Production of bottomonium-like Z_b states in e-h and ultraperipheral h-h collisions

The photoproduction of the bottomonium-like states Z_b(10610) and Z_b(10650) via γ p scattering is studied within an effective Lagrangian approach and the vector-meson-dominance model. The Regge model is employed to calculate the photoproduction of Z_b states via the t-channel with π exchange. The numerical results show that the values of the total cross-sections of Z_b(10610) and Z_b(10650) can reach 0.09 nb and 0.02 nb, respectively,near the center-of-mass energy of 22 GeV. Experimental measurements and studies of the photoproduction of Z_b states near the energy region around W ■ 22 GeV are suggested. Moreover, with the help of eSTARlight and STARlight programs, we have obtained the cross-sections and numbers of events for Z_b(10610) production in electron-ion collisions(EIC) and ultraperipheral collisions(UPCs). The results show that a considerable number of Z_b(10610)events can be produced in the relevant experiments on EICs and UPCs. We have also calculated the rates and kinematic distributions for γp → Z_bn in ep and pA collisions via EICs and UPCs. The results will provide an important reference for the RHIC, LHC, EIC-US, LHeC, and FCC experiments in searching for bottomonium-like Z_b states.     

Uncertainty principle for measurable sets and signal recovery in quaternion domains

The classical uncertainty principle of harmonic analysis states that a nontrivial function and its Fourier transform cannot both be sharply localized. It plays an important role in signal processing and physics. This paper generalizes the uncertainty principle for measurable sets from complex domain to hypercomplex domain using quaternion algebras, associated with the quaternion Fourier transform. The performance is then evaluated in signal recovery problems where there is an interplay of missing and time‐limiting data. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Density Function Theory Study on Effects of Different Energetic Substituent Groups and Bridge Groups on Performance of Carbon-Linked Ditetrazole 2N-Oxides

Based on the parent tetrazole 2N-oxide, six series of novel carbon-linked ditetrazole 2N-oxides with different energetic substituent groups (-NH₂, -N₃, -NO₂, NF₂, -NHNO₂) and energetic bridge groups (-CH₂-, -CH₂-CH₂-, -NH-, -N=N-, -NH-NH-) were designed. The overall performance and the effects of different energetic substituent groups and energetic bridge groups on the performance were investigated by density functional theory and electrostatic potential methods. The results showed that most of designed compounds have oxygen balance around zero, high heats of formation, high density, high energy, and acceptable sensitivity, indicating that tetrazole N-oxide is a useful parent energetic compound employed for obtaining high energy compounds, even only combined with some very common energetic substituent groups and bridge groups. Comprehensively considering the effects on energy and sensitivity, the -NO₂, -NF₂, -NH-and -NH-NH-are appropriate substituent groups for combining tetrozale N-oxide to design new energetic compounds, while -NH₂, -N₃, -CH₂-CH₂-, and -N=N-are inappropriate.     

Fredholmness of fringe operators over the bidisk

Let M be an invariant subspace of \(H^2\) over the bidisk. Associated with M, we have the fringe operator \(F^M_z\) on \(M\ominus w M\). For \(A\subset H^2\), let [A] denote the smallest invariant subspace containing A. Assume that \(F^M_z\) is Fredholm. If h is a bounded analytic function on \(\mathbb {D}^2\) satisfying \(h(0,0)\not =0\), then \(F^{[h M]}_z\) is Fredholm and \(\mathrm{ind}\,F^{[h M]}_z=\mathrm{ind}\,F^M_z\).     

Quantitative and qualitative determination of LiuweiDihuang preparations by ultra high performance liquid chromatography in dual‐wavelength fingerprinting mode and random forest

The classical traditional Chinese formulation LiuweiDihuang, shown to have clinical efficacy for “nourishing kidney‐yin” in traditional Chinese medicine, has been used for thousands of years in China. Little attention, however, has been paid to quality control methods for this formulation. Hence, a rapid and sensitive analytical technique is urgently needed for the evaluation of LiuweiDihuang preparations to assess its quality and pharmacological functionality. In this study, an ultra high performance liquid chromatography dual‐wavelength method was developed to simultaneously determine 11 constituents in LiuweiDihuang preparations. This robust approach provided a fast and comprehensive quantitative determination of the major bioactive markers within LiuweiDihuang preparations. To distinguish four dosage forms of LiuweiDihuang preparations, a random forest technique was applied on the spectrometric fingerprint data obtained. This combination approach of chromatographic techniques and data analyses might serve as a rapid and efficient tool to ensure the quality of LiuweiDihuang preparations and other Chinese medicinal formulations and can support quality control and scientific research into the pharmacological potential for these formulations.     

Molecular glues for manipulating enzymes: trypsin inhibition by benzamidine-conjugated molecular glues

Water-soluble bioadhesive polymers bearing multiple guanidinium ion (Gu⁺) pendants at their side-chain termini (Glue_n–BA, n = 10 and 29) that were conjugated with benzamidine (BA) as a trypsin inhibitor were developed. The Glue_n–BA molecules are supposed to adhere to oxyanionic regions of the trypsin surface, even in buffer, via a multivalent Gu⁺/oxyanion salt-bridge interaction, such that their BA group properly blocks the substrate-binding site. In fact, Glue₁₀–BA and Glue₂₉–BA exhibited 35- and 200-fold higher affinities for trypsin, respectively, than a BA derivative without the glue moiety (TEG–BA). Most importantly, Glue₁₀–BA inhibited the protease activity of trypsin 13-fold more than TEG–BA. In sharp contrast, ^mGlue₂₇–BA, which bears 27 Gu⁺ units along the main chain and has a 5-fold higher affinity than TEG–BA for trypsin, was inferior even to TEG–BA for trypsin inhibition.     

Synthesis,structure and properties of a new three‐dimensional interpenetrated metal–organic framework with 3,3′‐azodibenzoic acid (H2azdc) and 1,4‐bis(1H‐imidazol‐1‐yl)butane (bimb): {[Cd(azdc)(bimb)2]·H2O}n

A new three‐dimensional interpenetrated Cd^II–organic framework based on 3,3′‐azodibenzoic acid [3,3′‐(diazenediyl)dibenzoic acid, H₂azdc] and the auxiliary flexible ligand 1,4‐bis(1H‐imidazol‐1‐yl)butane (bimb), namely poly[[bis[μ₂‐1,4‐bis(1H‐imidazol‐1‐yl)butane‐κ²N³:N^3′][μ₂‐3,3′‐(diazenediyl)dibenzoato‐κ²O:O′]cadmium(II)] monohydrate], {[Cd(C₁₄H₈N₂O₄)(C₁₀H₁₄N₂)₂]·H₂O}_n, (1), was obtained by a typical solution reaction in mixed solvents (water and N,N′‐dimethylformamide). Each Cd^II centre is six‐coordinated by two O atoms of bis‐monodentate bridging carboxylate groups from two azdc²⁻ ligands and by four N atoms from four bimb ligands, forming an octahedral coordination environment. The Cd^II ions are connected by the bimb ligands, resulting in two‐dimensional (4,4) layers, which are further pillared by the azdc²⁻ ligands, affording a threefold interpenetrated three‐dimensional α‐Po topological framework with the Schläfli symbol 4¹²6³. The thermal stability and solid‐state fluorescence properties of (1) have been investigated.