Synthesis,characterisation, and electrical properties of novel nanostructured conducting poly(aniline-<Emphasis Type="Italic">co</Emphasis>-<Emphasis Type="Italic">m</Emphasis>-chloroaniline) with incorporated silver particles

Novel copolymers of poly(aniline-co-m-chloroaniline)-doped dodecylbenzenesulphonic acid (DBSA) with embedded silver nanoparticles were synthesised using the in situ chemical oxidative method. The structural properties of the copolymers were characterised using the UV-VIS and FTIR spectroscopic methods. The crystalline nature of the copolymer was demonstrated by way of the X-ray diffraction (XRD) pattern. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) revealed the presence of particle agglomerates measuring 50 nm to 100 nm on the surface of the nanocomposites. The electrical conductivity of the copolymer was dependent on the monomer composition and was found to be in the range of 10^?2 S cm^?1 to 10^?6 S cm^?1 with an increasing chloroaniline content and exhibiting improved solubility.     

Revisiting and enhancing electrochemical properties of SnO2 as anode for sodium-ion batteries

Journal of Solid State Electrochemistry - The tin oxide (SnO2) thin films have been prepared by the pulsed laser deposition (PLD) at deposition temperatures (Td) ranging from 300 to...     

Hamilton cycles and closed trails in iterated line graphs

Let G be an undirected connected graph that is not a path. We define h(G) (respectively, s(G)) to be the least integer m such that the iterated line graph L^m(G) has a Hamiltonian cycle (respectively, a spanning closed trail). To obtain upper bounds on h(G) and s(G), we characterize the least integer m such that L^m(G) has a connected subgraph H, in which each edge of H is in a 3-cycle and V(H) contains all vertices of degree not 2 in L^m(G). We characterize the graphs G such that h(G) — 1 (respectively, s(G)) is greater than the radius of G.     

Fracture in precursor-derived Si–C–N ceramics – Analysis of crack roughness and damage mechanisms

Roughness analysis of fracture in precursor-derived amorphous and phase segregated Si–C–N ceramics using fractal methods is reported, towards examining the possible correlations between fractal scaling of roughness and fracture properties as well as fracture damage mechanisms. Topography of the fracture surfaces created at a crack velocity of ～10^?4 m/s was recorded using atomic force microscopy, and analyzed using RMS roughness and second order height–height correlation functions. The evolution of roughness was well correlated with the evolution of structural and compositional inhomogeneities in the amorphous materials, and the formation of second phases in the phase segregated materials. All the investigated fracture surfaces displayed self-affine scaling with a correlation length of ～50–100 nm and a roughness exponent of 0.8 ± 0.1, commensurate with the universal exponent conjectured by Bouchaud et al. corresponding to dynamic damage regime. No correlation was observed between the roughness exponents and the fracture toughness of the corresponding materials. Examination of the crack opening near the tip region revealed no persistent damage cavities assignable to ‘plastic deformation’ preceding fracture, suggesting that the fracture in the Si–C–N ceramics proceeds in a brittle manner at the employed crack velocities.     

MultiMCS: a fast algorithm for the maximum common substructure problem on multiple molecules

Several efficient correspondence graph-based algorithms for determining the maximum common substructure (MCS) of a pair of molecules have been published in the literature. The extension of the problem to three or more molecules is however nontrivial; heuristics used to increase the efficiency in the two-molecule case are either inapplicable to the many-molecule case or do not provide significant speedups. Our specific algorithmic contribution is two-fold. First, we show how the correspondence graph approach for the two-molecule case can be generalized to obtain an algorithm that is guaranteed to find the optimum connected MCS of multiple molecules, and that runs fast on most families of molecules using a new divide-and-conquer strategy that has hitherto not been reported in this context. Second, we provide a characterization of those compound families for which the algorithm might run slowly, along with a heuristic for speeding up computations on these families. We also extend the above algorithm to a heuristic algorithm to find the disconnected MCS of multiple molecules and to an algorithm for clustering molecules into groups, with each group sharing a substantial MCS. Our methods are flexible in that they provide exquisite control on various matching criteria used to define a common substructure.     

A novel variable resolution global spectral method on the sphere

A variable resolution global spectral method is created on the sphere using High resolution Tropical Belt Transformation (HTBT). HTBT belongs to a class of map called reparametrisation maps. HTBT parametrisation of the sphere generates a clustering of points in the entire tropical belt; the density of the grid point distribution decreases smoothly in the domain outside the tropics. This variable resolution method creates finer resolution in the tropics and coarser resolution at the poles. The use of FFT procedure and Gaussian quadrature for the spectral computations retains the numerical efficiency available with the standard global spectral method. Accuracy of the method for meteorological computations are demonstrated by solving Helmholtz equation and non-divergent barotropic vorticity equation on the sphere.     

Limiting weak-type behavior for singular integral and maximal operators

The following limit result holds for the weak-type (1,1) constant of dilation-commuting singular integral operator in : for , ,

For the maximal operator , the corresponding result is