Survey study and experimental investigation on the local behavior of pedestrian groups

Current research on pedestrian dynamics mainly focuses on the interactions among isolated individuals, the impact of the presence of groups is not fully considered. In recent 5 years, researchers have started to investigate pedestrian group movement. The aim of this work is to explore the local behavior of pedestrian groups by questionnaires and field observation. Survey study focused on pedestrians' psychology when walking in groups, which included five parts: group size, interpersonal distance, spatial relationship among group members, speed adjustment of group members, information transmission, and acid action among group members. Meantime a field observation was carried out to study group movement characteristics, which contained speed, step frequency, offset angle and interpersonal distance. The survey results show that group members have a closer interpersonal distance, faster information transmission and plenty of acid action. Conversely, group walking has a negative influence on pedestrian's speed, step frequency by comparing with the way isolated pedestrian walks. In addition, it is found that for a certain group, the group members are able to keep movement consistent. Also there exists obvious movement diversity among different group types (male dyads, female dyads, couple groups, and ordinary‐friend groups) because of different gender and social relationship. Ultimately the results will be more promising for helping to model the movement of pedestrian groups. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Complexity 20: 87–97, 2015     

Investigating the effects of side chain length on the AIE properties of water-soluble TPE derivatives

The emissive properties of fluorophores in aggregated state are important for the development of bio-sensors or bio-imaging reagents. So three water-soluble TPE derivatives with different lengths of side chains have been synthesized and we investigated the effects of side chains on aggregation-induced emission (AIE) properties in the aggregated states. The results indicate that side chains on the fluorophores play a pivotal role in their emission in aggregated state mediated by heparin or solid state, because the coplanarity of these TPE derivatives was affected by side chains. The rates of radiative decay k_f and non-radiative decay k_nr have been obtained through the quantum yields and lifetime, and a larger k_f and smaller k_nr were present for compound TPE-C4N, suggesting that the aggregated TPE-C4N should posses the most remarkable fluorescent property.     

Evolution of coercivity and its angular dependence in CoFe nanostructures subjected to field cooling

Evolution of coercivity and its angular dependence in CoFe nanostructures subjected to field cooling has been investigated in this work. Spherical CoFe grains with an average diameter of 30 nm were grown on a silicon substrate using electron beam evaporation. Further, the as‐deposited sample was subjected to field cooling. The morphology and topography of the sample before and after field cooling were characterized by atomic force microscopy and SEM. Magnetic force microscopy indicated that there is a good uniformity of magnetization throughout the sample after field cooling. Vibrating sample magnetometer measurements indicate that the coercivity in CoFe nanostructures is dependent on shape of the nanostructures. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Synthesis of chlorophyll-a derivatives possessing (un)substituted 13-exo-methylene moiety and their optical properties

Chlorophyll-a derivatives possessing an un/mono/disubstituted methylene moiety at the 13¹-position were prepared by (un)substituted methylation of the 13-carbonyl group and successive dehydration. Substitution of the 13¹-oxo to the methylene group slightly blue-shifted electronic absorption and emission bands in a solution and decreased chemical stability to give an oxidation product cleaved at the E-ring. Further mono/disubstitution at the methylene terminal increased wavelengths of absorption and emission maxima as well as oxidative tolerance.     

An updated version of the computational package SIMPRE that uses the standard conventions for Stevens crystal field parameters

The crystal field approach used by SIMPRE is analyzed, verifying the exactness of the results concerning energy levels and magnetic properties calculated by the package. To coincide with the prevailing conventions, we reformulate the presentation of the crystal field parameters, so that the results are now, also from a formal point of view, strictly correct. New calculations are presented to test the influence of neglecting the excited J states, a common but critical approximation employed by SIMPRE. For that, we examine the case of Er(trensal) complex (H₃trensal = 2,2′,2″‐tris(salicylideneimino)triethylamine) where the influence of this approximation is found to be minimal. A patched version of the code, SIMPRE 1.1, and an updated version of the user manual are now available. Finally, we comment on “Software package SIMPRE – revisited,” which apparently revisits a software package without inspecting or using the code. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Software package SIMPRE—Revisited

This article elucidates the pitfalls identified in the software package SIMPRE recently developed by Baldoví et al. (J. Comput. Chem. 2013, 34, 1961) for modeling the spectroscopic and magnetic properties of single ion magnets as well as single‐molecule magnets. Analysis of the methodology used therein reveals that the crystal field parameters (CFPs), expressed nominally in the Stevens formalism, exhibit features characteristic for the CFPs expressed in the Wybourne notation. The resemblance of the two types of CFPs introduces a serious confusion that may lead to wrong comparisons of the CFPs taken from various sources. To clarify this confusion, the properties of the CFPs ( , ) associated with the Stevens operators ( X = S , J , or L ), which belong to the class of the tesseral‐tensor operators, are contrasted with those of the CFPs B_kq associated with the Wybourne operators , which belong to the class of the spherical‐tensor operators. Importantly, the confused properties of Stevens and Wybourne operators may bear on reliability of SIMPRE calculations. To consider this question independent calculations are carried out using the complete approach and compared with those of the restricted approach utilized earlier. It appears that the numerical results of the package SIMPRE are formally acceptable, however, the meaning of the CFPs must be properly reformulated. Several other conceptual problems arising from misinterpretations of the crucial notions and the CFP notations identified therein are also discussed and clarified. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Valence state parameters of all transition metal atoms in metalloproteins—development of ABEEMσπ fluctuating charge force field

To promote accuracy of the atom‐bond electronegativity equalization method (ABEEMσπ) fluctuating charge polarizable force fields, and extend it to include all transition metal atoms, a new parameter, the reference charge is set up in the expression of the total energy potential function. We select over 700 model molecules most of which model metalloprotein molecules that come from Protein Data Bank. We set reference charges for different apparent valence states of transition metals and calibrate the parameters of reference charges, valence state electronegativities, and valence state hardnesses for ABEEMσπ through linear regression and least square method. These parameters can be used to calculate charge distributions of metalloproteins containing transition metal atoms (Sc‐Zn, Y‐Cd, and Lu‐Hg). Compared the results of ABEEMσπ charge distributions with those obtained by ab initio method, the quite good linear correlations of the two kinds of charge distributions are shown. The reason why the STO‐3G basis set in Mulliken population analysis for the parameter calibration is specially explained in detail. Furthermore, ABEEMσπ method can also quickly and quite accurately calculate dipole moments of molecules. Molecular dynamics optimizations of five metalloproteins as the examples show that their structures obtained by ABEEMσπ fluctuating charge polarizable force field are very close to the structures optimized by the ab initio MP2/6–311G method. This means that the ABEEMσπ/MM can now be applied to molecular dynamics simulations of systems that contain metalloproteins with good accuracy. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Design of a reaction field using a linear‐combination‐based isotropic periodic sum method

In our previous study (Takahashi et al., J. Chem. Theory Comput. 2012, 8, 4503), we developed the linear‐combination‐based isotropic periodic sum (LIPS) method. The LIPS method is based on the extended isotropic periodic sum theory that produces a ubiquitous interaction potential function to estimate homogeneous and heterogeneous systems. The LIPS theory also provides the procedure to design a periodic reaction field. To demonstrate this, in the present work, a novel reaction field of the LIPS method was developed. The novel reaction field was labeled LIPS‐SW, because it provides an interaction potential function with a shape that resembles that of the switch function method. To evaluate the ability of the LIPS‐SW method to describe in homogeneous and heterogeneous systems, we carried out molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of bulk water and water–vapor interfacial systems using the LIPS‐SW method. The results of these simulations show that the LIPS‐SW method gives higher accuracy than the conventional interaction potential function of the LIPS method. The accuracy of simulating water–vapor interfacial systems was greatly improved, while that of bulk water systems was maintained using the LIPS‐SW method. We conclude that the LIPS‐SW method shows great potential for high‐accuracy, high‐performance computing to allow large scale MD simulations. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Acceleration of self‐consistent field convergence in ab initio molecular dynamics simulation with multiconfigurational wave function

The Lagrange interpolation of molecular orbital (LIMO) method, which reduces the number of self‐consistent field iterations in ab initio molecular dynamics simulations with the Hartree–Fock method and the Kohn–Sham density functional theories, is extended to the theory of multiconfigurational wave functions. We examine two types of treatments for the active orbitals that are partially occupied. The first treatment, as denoted by LIMO(C), is a simple application of the conventional LIMO method to the union of the inactive core and the active orbitals. The second, as denoted by LIMO(S), separately treats the inactive core and the active orbitals. Numerical tests to compare the two treatments clarify that LIMO(S) is superior to LIMO(C). Further applications of LIMO(S) to various systems demonstrate its effectiveness and robustness. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.