Consistent treatment of inter- and intramolecular polarization in molecular mechanics calculations

A protocol is described for the treatment of molecular polarization in force field calculations. The resulting model is consistent in that both inter- and intramolecular polarization are handled within a single scheme. An analytical formula for removing intramolecular polarization from a set of atomic multipoles for an arbitrary static structure or conformation is given. With the help of the intramolecular polarization, these permanent atomic multipoles can then be applied in modeling alternative conformations of a molecule. Equipped with this simple technique, one can derive transferable electrostatic parameters for peptides and proteins using flexible model compounds such as dipeptides. The proposed procedure is tested for its ability to describe the electrostatic potential around various configurations of the N-methylacetamide dimer. The effect of different intramolecular polarization schemes on the accuracy of a force field model of the electrostatic potential of alanine dipeptide is investigated. A group-based scheme for including direct intramolecular polarization is shown to be most successful in accounting for the conformational dependence of electrostatic potentials.     

Size-controllable carbon spheres doped Ni (II) for enhancing the catalytic oxidation of methanol

Ni(II)/CSs were prepared using a simple two-step hydrothermal method. The morphology and composition of the catalysts were studied with scanning electron microscope, transmission electron microscope, and X-ray diffraction. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy showed that the surface of the prepared carbon spheres was rich in hydroxyl groups, which was beneficial to remove CO intermediates, and therefore, improving the catalytic efficiency and the antipoisoning ability of the catalysts. The results of cyclic voltammetry and chronoamperometry showed that the electrocatalytic activity and stability of Ni(II)/CSs were higher than that of unloaded NiAc under alkaline environment. When the nickel content was 5 wt.%, the peak oxidation current density of methanol on Ni(II)/CSs electrocatalyst reached the maximum of 34.54 mA/cm², which was about 1.8 times that of unloaded NiAc. These results indicate that Ni(II)/CSs has potential applications in the electrocatalytic oxidation of methanol.     

熵驱大分子胶体粒子的柱状受限结晶

熵是物理化学的基本状态参量,在统计力学和热力学中处于核心位置.按照玻尔兹曼的微观解释,熵可以由孤立系统微观状态的数目(W)给出,即S=kBlnW,这里kB为玻尔兹曼常数[1,2].根据此公式,微观状态数越多,系统越混乱,熵越大,所以熵常被视作体系无序程度的度量.但熵增仅对应体系微观状态数的增加,与可观测的结构有序程度无关[3~5].在一些典型的软物质体系中,结构越有序熵反而越大,如胶体硬球在随机密堆积点的有序结晶[6]及描述各向异性棒状分子从各向同性相到向列相转变的Onsager原理[7].     

Mussel‐inspired method to decorate commercial nanofiltration membrane for heavy metal ions removal

Nanofiltration (NF) membranes have been widely used for the treatment of electroplating, aerospace, textile, pharmaceutical, and other chemical industries. In this work, halloysite nanotubes (HNTs) were directly anchored on the surface of commercial nanofiltration (NF) membrane by dopamine modification following advantageous bio‐inspired methods. SEM and AFM images were used to characterize the HNTs decorated membrane surface in terms of surface morphology and roughness. Water contact angle (WCA) was employed in evidencing the incorporation of HNTs and dopamine in terms of hydrophilicity or hydrophobicity. Augmentation of HNTs was found to obviously enhance the hydrophilicity and surface roughness resulting in improved water permeability of membrane. More importantly, the rejection ratios of membrane also increased during the removal of heavy metal ions from wastewater. The permeability and Cu²⁺ rejection ratio of modified NF membrane were as high as 13.9 L·m^?2·h^?1·bar^?1 and 74.3%, respectively. Incorporation of HNTs was also found to enhance the anti‐fouling property and stability of membrane as evident from long‐term performance tests. The relative concentration of HNTs and dopamine on membrane surface was optimized by investigating the trade‐off between water permeability and rejection ratio.     

基于氧化石墨烯的长周期光纤光栅的全光控制

实验验证了一种通过将氧化石墨烯分散液沉积在长周期光纤光栅的全光控制的相关研究。通过外加的垂直泵浦光的作用,氧化石墨烯吸收泵浦光产生热量,改变长周期光纤光栅的包层模式的相位差,由于热膨胀的作用改变了氧化石墨烯所覆盖部分的光栅周期,使得谐振谱发生了移动,其最大调制深度可达10.6 dB,谐振谱最大可红移12.8 nm。通过实验发现,沉积相同浓度氧化石墨烯分散液的次数影响实验结果,通过在相同光栅的相同位置分别沉积三次,发现沉积三次可以在光纤表面获得更加均匀的氧化石墨烯膜,进行了时间响应的测试,其中沉积三次后的长周期光纤光栅的响应速度可达0.61 ms,沉积多次氧化石墨烯分散液可以在光纤表面沉积得更加平整均匀,从而获得更大的导热性能。     

Polarizable molecular dynamics simulation of Zn(II) in water using the AMOEBA force field

The hydration free energy, structure, and dynamics of the zinc divalent cation are studied using a polarizable force field in molecular dynamics simulations. Parameters for the Zn(2+) are derived from gas-phase ab initio calculation of Zn(2+)-water dimer. The Thole-based dipole polarization is adjusted based on the Constrained Space Orbital Variations (CSOV) calculation while the Symmetry Adapted Perturbation Theory (SAPT) approach is also discussed. The vdW parameters of Zn(2+) have been obtained by comparing the AMOEBA Zn(2+)-water dimerization energy with results from several theory levels and basis sets over a range of distances. Molecular dynamics simulations of Zn(2+) solvation in bulk water are subsequently performed with the polarizable force field. The calculated first-shell water coordination number, water residence time and free energy of hydration are consistent with experimental and previous theoretical values. The study is supplemented with extensive Reduced Variational Space (RVS) and Electron Localization Function (ELF) computations in order to unravel the nature of the bonding in Zn(2+)(H(2)O)(n) (n=1,6) complexes and to analyze the charge transfer contribution to the complexes. Results show that the importance of charge transfer decreases as the size of Zn-water cluster grows due to anticooperativity and to changes in the nature of the metal-ligand bonds. Induction could be dominated by polarization when the system approaches condensed-phase and the covelant effects are eliminated from the Zn(II)-water interaction. To construct an "effective" classical polarizable potential for Zn(2+) in bulk water, one should therefore avoid over-fitting to the ab initio charge transfer energy of Zn(2+)-water dimer. Indeed, in order to avoid overestimation of condensed-phase many-body effects, which is crucial to the transferability of polarizable molecular dynamics, charge transfer should not be included within the classical polarization contribution and should preferably be either incorporated in to the pairwise van der Waals contribution or treated explicitly.     

Monotone iterative method for abstract impulsive integro-differential equations with nonlocal conditions in Banach spaces

In this paper we use a monotone iterative technique in the presence of the lower and upper solutions to discuss the existence of mild solutions for a class of semilinear impulsive integro-differential evolution equations of Volterra type with nonlocal conditions in a Banach space E $$\left\{ \begin{gathered} u'(t) + Au(t) = f(t,u(t),Gu(t)) t \in J,t \ne t_k , \hfill \\ \Delta _{\left. u \right|_{t = t_k } } = u\left( {t_k^ + } \right) - u\left( {t_k^ - } \right) = I_k \left( {u\left( {t_k } \right)} \right), k = 1,2, \ldots ,m, \hfill \\ u(0) = g(u) + x_0 , \hfill \\ \end{gathered} \right.$$ where A: D(A) ? E → E is a closed linear operator and ?A generates a strongly continuous semigroup T(t) (t ? 0) on E, f ∈ C(J × E × E, E), J = [0, a], 0 < t ₁ < t ₂ < ... < t _m < a, I _k ∈ C(E, E), k = 1, 2, ..., m, and g constitutes a nonlocal condition. Under suitable monotonicity conditions and noncompactness measure conditions, we obtain the existence of the extremal mild solutions between the lower and upper solutions assuming that ?A generates a compact semigroup, a strongly continuous semigroup or an equicontinuous semigroup. The results improve and extend some relevant results in ordinary differential equations and partial differential equations. Some concrete applications to partial differential equations are considered.     

Memory‐efficient calculation of the isotopic mass states of a molecule

Our previous work postulated a transition concept among different isotopic mass states (i.e., isotopic species) of a molecule, and developed a hierarchical algorithm for accurately calculating their masses and abundances. A theoretical mass spectrum can be generated by convoluting a peak shape function to these discrete mass states. This approach suffers from limited memory if a level in the hierarchical structure has too many mass states. Here we present a memory efficient divide‐and‐recursively‐combine algorithm to do the calculation, which also improves the truncation method used in the previous hierarchical algorithm. Instead of treating all of the elements in a molecule as a whole, the new algorithm first ‘strips’ each element one by one. For the mass states of each element, a hierarchical structure is established and kept in the memory. This process reduces the memory usage by orders of magnitude (e.g., for bovine insulin, memory can be reduced from gigabytes to kilobytes). Next, a recursive algorithm is applied to combine mass states of elements to mass states of the whole molecule. The algorithm described above has been implemented as a computer program called Isotope Calculator, which was written in C++. It is freely available under the GNU Lesser General Public License from http://www.cs.brandeis.edu/～hong/software.html or http://people.brandeis.edu/～agar . Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Approximation Technique for Fractional Evolution Equations with Nonlocal Integral Conditions

We consider a class of fractional evolution equations with nonlocal integral conditions in Banach spaces. New existence of mild solutions to such a problem are established using Schauder fixed-point theorem, diagonal argument and approximation techniques under the hypotheses that the nonlinear term is Carathéodory continuous and satisfies some weak growth condition, the nonlocal term depends on all the value of independent variable on the whole interval and satisfies some weak growth condition. This work may be viewed as an attempt to develop a general existence theory for fractional evolution equations with general nonlocal integral conditions. Finally, as a sample of application, the results are applied to a fractional parabolic partial differential equation with nonlocal integral condition. The results obtained in this paper essentially extend some existing results in this area.     

Mixed monotone iterative technique for a class of semilinear impulsive evolution equations in Banach spaces

This paper deals with the existence of mild L-quasi-solutions to the initial value problem for a class of semilinear impulsive evolution equations in an ordered Banach space E. Under a new concept of upper and lower solutions, a new monotone iterative technique on the initial value problem of impulsive evolution equations has been established. The results improve and extend some relevant results in ordinary differential equations and partial differential equations. An example is also given.