39,803 research outputs found
A new conducting polymer with exceptional visible-light photocatalytic activity derived from varbituric acid polycondensation
Abstract A novel covalent, metal-free, photocatalytic material is prepared by thermal polymerization of barbituric acid (BA). The structure of the photocatalyst is analyzed by using scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, and infrared, UV?visible, and 1H solution and 13C solid-state NMR spectroscopy. The photodegradation efficiency of BA thermally polymerized at different temperatures is tested by photocatalytic degradation of aquatic rhodamine B (RhB) dye under visible-light irradiation. It is shown that heating BA at an optimized temperature of 300 °C, that is, still in the range that polymer-like polycondensation takes place, results in a photocatalyst that can remove RhB with 96% photodegradation efficiency after 70 min exposure to visible light. The polycondensation reaction of BA is identified to process through precipitation of trimer units as primary building blocks. Reference experiments such as addition of scavengers and saturation with oxygen are studied to understand the photodegradation process. It is shown that the presence of triethanolamine, and excess of oxygen and p-benzoquinone in the solution of RhB and photocatalyst (BA300) is not beneficial, but decreases the photodegradation efficiency
Universality and correlations in individuals wandering through an online extremist space
The 'out of the blue' nature of recent terror attacks and the diversity of
apparent motives, highlight the importance of understanding the online
trajectories that individuals follow prior to developing high levels of
extremist support. Here we show that the physics of stochastic walks, with and
without temporal correlation, provides a unifying description of these online
trajectories. Our unique dataset comprising all users of a global social media
site, reveals universal characteristics in individuals' online lifetimes. Our
accompanying theory generates analytical and numerical solutions that describe
the characteristics shown by individuals that go on to develop high levels of
extremist support, and those that do not. The existence of these temporal and
also many-body correlations suggests that existing physics machinery can be
used to quantify and perhaps mitigate the risk of future events
Evidence for anisotropic motion of the clouds in broad-line regions of BL Lacertae objects
The masses of central massive black holes in BL Lac objects are estimated
from their host galaxy absolute magnitude at R-band by using the empirical
relation between absolute magnitude of host galaxy and black hole mass. Only a
small fraction of BL Lac objects exhibit weak broad-line emission, and we
derive the sizes of the broad-line regions (BLRs) in these BL Lac objects from
the widths of their broad emission lines on the assumption of the clouds being
virilized in BLRs. It is found that the sizes of the BLRs in these sources are
usually 2-3 orders of magnitude larger than that expected by the empirical
correlation between BLR size and optical luminosity defined by a sample of
Seyfert galaxies and quasars. We discuss a variety of possibilities and suggest
it may probably be attributed to anisotropic motion of the BLR clouds in these
BL Lac objects. If the BLR geometry of these sources is disk-like, the viewing
angles between the axis and the line of sight are in the range of 2-12 degrees,
which is consistent with the unification schemes.Comment: 5 pages, accepted for publication in Ap
Metal-to-insulator transition and magnetic ordering in CaRu_{1-x}Cu_xO_3
CaRuO_3 is perovskite with an orthorhombic distortion and is believed to be
close to magnetic ordering. Magnetic studies of single crystal and
polycrystalline CaRu_{1-x}Cu_xO_3 (0\le x \le 15 at.%Cu) reveal that
spin-glass-like transition develops for x\le 7 at.%Cu and obtained value for
effective magnetic moment p_{eff}=3.55 mu_B for x=5 at.% Cu, single crystal,
indicates presence of Ru^{5+}. At higher Cu concentrations more complex
magnetic behaviors are observed. Electrical resistivity measured on
polycrystalline samples shows metal-to-insulator transition (MIT) at 51 K for
only 2 at.% Cu. Charge compensation, which is assumed to be present upon
Cu^{2+/3+} substitution, induces appearance of Ru^{5+} and/or creation of
oxygen vacancies in crystal structure. Since the observed changes in physical
properties are completely attributable to the charge compensation, they cannot
be related to behaviors of pure compound where no such mechanism is present.
This study provides the criterion for "good" chemical probes for studying
Ru-based perovskites.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figure
An Agent Based Model for the Simulation of Transport Demand and Land Use
Agent based modelling has emerged as a promising tool to provide planners with insights on social behaviour and
the interdependencies characterising urban system, particularly with respect to transport and infrastructure planning.
This paper presents an agent based model for the simulation of land use and transport demand of an urban area
of Sydney, Australia. Each individual in the model has a travel diary which comprises a sequence of trips the person
makes in a representative day as well as trip attributes such as travel mode, trip purpose, and departure time.
Individuals are associated with each other by their household relationship, which helps define the interdependencies
of their travel diary and constrains their mode choice. This allows the model to not only realistically reproduce how
the current population uses existing transport infrastructure but more importantly provide comprehensive insight into
future transport demands. The router of the traffic micro-simulator TRANSIMS is incorporated in the model to inform
the actual travel time of each trip and changes of traffic density on the road network. Simulation results show very
good agreement with survey data in terms of the distribution of trips done by transport modes and by trip purposes,
as well as the traffic density along the main road in the study area
Pinned Low Energy Electronic Excitation in Metal Exchanged Vanadium Oxide Nanoscrolls
We measured the optical properties of mixed valent vanadium oxide nanoscrolls
and their metal exchanged derivatives in order to investigate the charge
dynamics in these compounds. In contrast to the prediction of a metallic state
for the metal exchanged derivatives within a rigid band model, we find that the
injected charges in Mn exchanged vanadium oxide nanoscrolls are pinned.
A low-energy electronic excitation associated with the pinned carriers appears
in the far infrared and persists at low temperature, suggesting that the
nanoscrolls are weak metals in their bulk form, dominated by inhomogeneous
charge disproportionation and Madelung energy effects.Comment: 4 figure
Destruction of the Mott Insulating Ground State of Ca_2RuO_4 by a Structural Transition
We report a first-order phase transition at T_M=357 K in single crystal
Ca_2RuO_4, an isomorph to the superconductor Sr_2RuO_4. The discontinuous
decrease in electrical resistivity signals the near destruction of the Mott
insulating phase and is triggered by a structural transition from the low
temperature orthorhombic to a high temperature tetragonal phase. The magnetic
susceptibility, which is temperature dependent but not Curie-like decreases
abruptly at TM and becomes less temperature dependent. Unlike most insulator to
metal transitions, the system is not magnetically ordered in either phase,
though the Mott insulator phase is antiferromagnetic below T_N=110 K.Comment: Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. B (Rapid Communications
The relation between star formation rate and accretion rate in LINERs
It is argued that there is a linear correlation between star formation rate
(SFR) and accretion rate for normal bright active galactic nuclei (AGNs).
However, it is still unclear whether this correlation holds for LINERs, of
which the accretion rates are relatively lower than those of normal bright
AGNs. The radiatively inefficient accretion flows (RIAFs) are believed to be
present in these LINERs. In this work, we derive accretion rates for a sample
of LINERs from their hard X-ray luminosities based on spectral calculations for
RIAFs. We find that LINERs follow the same correlation between star formation
rate and accretion rate defined by normal bright AGNs, when reasonable
parameters are adopted for RIAFs. It means that the gases feed the black hole
and star formation in these low-luminosity LINERs may follow the same way as
that in normal bright AGNs, which is roughly consistent with recent numerical
simulations on quasar evolution.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in PASP, in pres
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