Highly selective detection of Hg2+ and MeHgI by di-pyridin-2-yl-[4-(2-pyridin-4-yl-vinyl)-phenyl]-amine and its zinc coordination polymer

©2016 the Partner Organisations. Solvothermal reaction of Zn(NO3)2·6H2O with di-pyridin-2-yl-[4-(2-pyridin-4-yl-vinyl)-phenyl]-amine (ppvppa) and 1,4-naphthalenedicarboxylic acid (1,4-H2NDC) in H2O and MeCN at 150 °C yielded a two-dimensional (2D) coordination Zn(ii) polymer [Zn(ppvppa)(1,4-NDC)]n (1). Compound 1 was characterized by elemental analysis, IR spectroscopy, powder X-ray diffraction, single-crystal X-ray diffraction and thermogravimetric analysis. Compound 1 consists of dimeric [Zn2(ppvppa)2] units linked by 1,4-NDC bridges to generate a 2D honeycomb network. Either compound 1 or ppvppa alone can detect Hg2+ or MeHgI selectively and with good sensitivity. Upon addition of Hg2+ ions to a MeCN solution of ppvppa, marked changes in the UV-vis and fluorescence spectra are observed, associated with colour changes, which are easily identified by the naked eye. The pyridinyl rings of ppvppa are coordinated to the Hg2+ ion. This motif in the presence of NO3- ions forms a binuclear complex [Hg2(ppvppa)2(NO3)4] (2), which has been characterized as the solvate [Hg2(ppvppa)2(NO3)4]·H2O·4MeCN (2·H2O·4MeCN) by single-crystal X-ray diffraction studies. In aqueous solution, compound 1 emits pale orange light at ambient temperature and the addition of Hg2+ or MeHgI induces an change of fluorescence color from pale orange to blue. Compound 1 is a promising candidate as a sensitive naked-eye indicator for Hg2+ or MeHgI in water under a UV lamp. Introduction to the international collaboration Prof. Lang and Prof. Brammer met with each other in Nanjing, China when Prof. Brammer taught lectures at Nanjing Tech University last November. Prof. Lang's research involves metal sulfide cluster chemistry, design and development of new coordination complex-based catalysts, bioinorganic chemistry related to mimicking metal sites of enzymes and proteins, and so on. Prof. Brammer's research interest covers supramolecular chemistry and crystal engineering, in particular host-guest chemistry and catalysis in metal-organic frameworks, reactions in molecular solids and fundamentals of intermolecular interactions. Both professors recognised their many mutual research interests and decided to initiate an international collaborative project in the area of coordination polymers. Both will visit the partner's lab in China and UK in the near future and expand this project to a higher level

Design of welded stainless steel I-shaped members subjected to shear

This paper aims to develop design methods for the shear strength of welded stainless steel I-shaped members. The current American AISC Design Guide 27 has been published for Structural Stainless Steel, and it refers to the specification ANSI/AISC 360-16 for structural steel buildings for the shear strength without considering tension field action (TFA). All the available test data on stainless steel plate girders were collected from literatures and employed to assess the provisions in the Design Guide 27, as well as the codified ones in Eurocode 3 Part 1.4. Based on the test results and obtained comparisons, two new proposals for unstiffened webs or webs with transverse stiffeners widely spaced (without TFA), and for interior webs with stiffeners spaced at 3hw or smaller (considering TFA) were developed and presented to match the format of the expressions in ANSI/AISC 360-16 for stainless steel webs under shear. Reliability analysis was further performed to calculate the Load and Resistance Factor Design (LRFD) resistance factors determined by the new proposals and to further justify the target factor in AISC Design Guide 27 for structural stainless steel.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Bi-local baryon interpolating fields with two flavours

We construct bi-local interpolating field operators for baryons consisting of three quarks with two flavors, assuming good isospin symmetry. We use the restrictions following from the Pauli principle to derive relations/identities among the baryon operators with identical quantum numbers. Such relations that follow from the combined spatial, Dirac, color, and isospin Fierz transformations may be called the (total/complete) Fierz identities. These relations reduce the number of independent baryon operators with any given spin and isospin. We also study the Abelian and non-Abelian chiral transformation properties of these fields and place them into baryon chiral multiplets. Thus we derive the independent baryon interpolating fields with given values of spin (Lorentz group representation), chiral symmetry ($U_L(2) \times U_R(2)$ group representation) and isospin appropriate for the first angular excited states of the nucleon.Comment: 15 pages, 4 tables, accepted by EPJ

Linearization and Decomposition Methods for Large Scale Stochastic Inventory Routing Problem with Service Level Constraints

A stochastic inventory routing problem (SIRP) is typically the combination of stochastic inventory control problems and NP-hard vehicle routing problems, for a depot to determine delivery volumes to its customers in each period, and vehicle routes to distribute the delivery volumes. This paper aims to solve a large scale multi-period SIRP with split delivery (SIRPSD) where a customer’s delivery in each period can be split and satisfied by multiple vehicles if necessary. The objective of the problem is to minimize the total inventory and transportation cost while some constraints are given to satisfy other criteria, such as the service level to limit the stockout probability at each customer and the service level to limit the overfilling probability of the warehouse of each customer. In order to tackle the SIRPSD with notorious computational complexity, we propose for it an approximate model, which significantly reduces the number of decision variables compared to its corresponding exact model. We develop a hybrid approach that combines the linearization of nonlinear constraints, the decomposition of the model into sub-models with Lagrangian relaxation, and a partial linearization approach for a sub model. A near optimal solution of the model can be found by the approach, and then be used to construct a near optimal solution of the SIRPSD. Numerical examples show that, for an instance of the problem with 200 customers and 5 periods that contains about 400 thousands decision variables where half of them are integer, our approach can obtain high quality near optimal solutions with a reasonable computational time on an ordinary PC

Metal requirements for building electrical grid systems of global wind power and utility-scale solar photovoltaic until 2050

Wind and solar photovoltaic (PV) power form vital parts of the energy transition toward renewable energy systems. The rapid development of these two renewables represents an enormous infrastructure construction task including both power generation and its associated electrical grid systems, which will generate demand for metal resources. However, most research on material demands has focused on their power generation systems (wind turbines and PV panels), and few have studied the associated electrical grid systems. Here, we estimate the global metal demands for electrical grid systems associated with wind and utility-scale PV power by 2050, using dynamic material flow analysis based on International Energy Agency's energy scenarios and the typical engineering parameters of transmission grids. Results show that the associated electrical grids require large quantities of metals: 27-81 Mt of copper cumulatively, followed by 20-67 Mt of steel and 11-31 Mt of aluminum. Electrical grids built for solar PV have the largest metal demand, followed by offshore and onshore wind. Power cables are the most metal-consuming electrical components compared to substations and transformers. We also discuss the decommissioning issue of electrical grids and their recovery potential. This study would deepen the understanding of the nexus between renewable energy, grid infrastructure, and metal resources.Industrial Ecolog

Chiral Baryon Fields in the QCD Sum Rule

We study the structure of local baryon fields using the method of QCD sum rule. We only consider the single baryon fields and calculate their operator product expansions. We find that the octet baryon fields belonging to the chiral representations [(3,3*)+(3*,3)] and [(8,1)+(1,8)] and the decuplet baryon fields belonging to the chiral representations [(3,6)+(6,3)] lead to the baryon masses which are consistent with the experimental data of ground baryon masses. We also calculate their decay constants, check our normalizations for baryon fields in PRD81:054002(2010) and find that they are well-defined.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figure, 1 table, accepted by EPJ

Expression of wheat gibberellins 2-oxidase gene induced dwarf or semi-dwarf phenotype in rice

Gibberellins (GAs) are a class of plant hormones that play important roles in diverse aspects during plant growth and development. A series of GA synthesis and metabolism genes have been reported or proved to have essential functions in different plant species, while a small number of GA 2-oxidase genes have been cloned or reported in wheat. Previous studies have provided some important findings on the process of GA biosynthesis and the enzymes involved in its related pathways. These may facilitate understanding of the complicated process underlying GA synthesis and metabolism in wheat. In this study, GA 2-oxidase genes TaGA2ox1-1, TaGA2ox1-2, TaGA2ox1-3, TaGA2ox1-4, TaGA2ox1-5, and TaGA2ox1-6 were identified and further overexpressed in rice plants to investigate their functions in GA biosynthesis and signaling pathway. Results showed overexpression of GA 2-oxidase genes in rice disrupted the GA metabolic pathways and induced catalytic responses and regulated other GA biosynthesis and signaling pathway genes, which further leading to GA signaling disorders and diversity in phenotypic changes in rice plants

Two charged strangeonium-like structures observable in the Y(2175)→ϕ(1020)π+π−Y(2175) \to \phi(1020)\pi^{+} \pi^{-} process

Via the Initial Single Pion Emission (ISPE) mechanism, we study the $\phi(1020)\pi^{+}$ invariant mass spectrum distribution of $Y(2175) \to \phi(1020)\pi^{+} \pi^{-}$. Our calculation indicates there exist a sharp peak structure ($Z_{s1}^+$) close to the $K\bar{K}^\ast$ threshold and a broad structure ($Z_{s2}^+$) near the $K^\ast\bar{K}^\ast$ threshold. In addition, we also investigate the $\phi(1680) \to \phi(1020)\pi^{+} \pi^{-}$ process due to the ISPE mechanism, where a sharp peak around the $K\bar{K}^\ast$ threshold appears in the $\phi(1020)\pi^{+}$ invariant mass spectrum distribution. We suggest to carry out the search for these charged strangeonium-like structures in future experiment, especially Belle II, Super-B and BESIII.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures. Accepted by Eur. Phys. J.

Observation of Two New N* Peaks in J/psi -> ppi−nˉp pi^- \bar n and pˉπ+n\bar p\pi^+n Decays

The $\pi N$ system in decays of $J/\psi\to\bar NN\pi$ is limited to be isospin 1/2 by isospin conservation. This provides a big advantage in studying $N^*\to \pi N$ compared with $\pi N$ and $\gamma N$ experiments which mix isospin 1/2 and 3/2 for the $\pi N$ system. Using 58 million $J/\psi$ decays collected with the Beijing Electron Positron Collider, more than 100 thousand $J/\psi \to p \pi^- \bar n + c.c.$ events are obtained. Besides two well known $N^*$ peaks at 1500 MeV and 1670 MeV, there are two new, clear $N^*$ peaks in the $p\pi$ invariant mass spectrum around 1360 MeV and 2030 MeV. They are the first direct observation of the $N^*(1440)$ peak and a long-sought "missing" $N^*$ peak above 2 GeV in the $\pi N$ invariant mass spectrum. A simple Breit-Wigner fit gives the mass and width for the $N^*(1440)$ peak as $1358\pm 6 \pm 16$ MeV and $179\pm 26\pm 50$ MeV, and for the new $N^*$ peak above 2 GeV as $2068\pm 3^{+15}_{-40}$ MeV and $165\pm 14\pm 40$ MeV, respectively

Search for Invisible Decays of η\eta and η′\eta^\prime in J/ψ→ϕηJ/\psi \to \phi\eta and ϕη′\phi \eta^\prime

Using a data sample of $58\times 10^6$ $J/\psi$ decays collected with the BES II detector at the BEPC, searches for invisible decays of $\eta$ and $\eta^\prime$ in $J/\psi$ to $\phi\eta$ and $\phi\eta^\prime$ are performed. The $\phi$ signals, which are reconstructed in $K^+K^-$ final states, are used to tag the $\eta$ and $\eta^\prime$ decays. No signals are found for the invisible decays of either $\eta$ or $\eta^\prime$, and upper limits at the 90% confidence level are determined to be $1.65 \times 10^{-3}$ for the ratio $\frac{B(\eta\to \text{invisible})}{B(\eta\to\gamma\gamma)}$ and $6.69\times 10^{-2}$ for $\frac{B(\eta^\prime\to \text{invisible})}{B(\eta^\prime\to\gamma\gamma)}$. These are the first searches for $\eta$ and $\eta^\prime$ decays into invisible final states.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures; Added references, Corrected typo