This book presents a number of studies on the molecular dynamics of cement-based materials. It introduces a practical molecular model of cement-hydrate, delineates the relationship between molecular structure and nanoscale properties, reveals the transport mechanism of cement-hydrate, and provides useful methods for material design. Based on the molecular model presented here, the book subsequently sheds light on nanotechnology applications in the design of construction and building materials. As such, it offers a valuable asset for researchers, scientists, and engineers in the field of construction and building materials.

Quantum Chemistry provides a coherent and structured approach in introducing the concept of 'quantum' to the students of quantum mechanics. An attempt is made to bring out the subtleties of quantum mechanics, hidden in its abstract laws and equations, applicable to the atomic domain by showing its relevance to the observable macroscopic world as well. The book will help students dispel the stigma associated with quantum mechanics. The emphasis on conceptual approach provides a platform to stand on, and a stimulus to pursue higher quantum mechanics-the doorway to the all-pervasive quantum world. Print edition not for sale in South Asia (India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan or Bhutan).

Surface tension provides a thermodynamic avenue for analyzing systems in equilibrium and formulating phenomenological explanations for the behavior of constituent molecules in the surface region. While there are extensive experimental observations and established ideas regarding desorption of ions from the surfaces of aqueous salt solutions, a more successful discussion of the theory has recently emerged, which allows the quantitative calculation of the distribution of ions in the surface region. Surface Tension and Related Thermodynamic Quantities of Aqueous Electrolyte Solutions provides a detailed and systematic analysis of the properties of ions at the air/water interface. Unifying older and newer theories and measurements, this book emphasizes the contributions of simple ions to surface tension behavior, and the practical consequences. It begins with a general discussion on Gibbs surface thermodynamics, offering a guide to his theoretical insight and formulation of the boundary between fluids. The text then discusses the thermodynamic formulae that are useful for practical experimental work in the analysis of fluid/fluid interfaces. Chapters cover surface tension of pure water at air/water and air/oil interfaces, surface tension of solutions and the thermodynamic quantities associated with the adsorption and desorption of solutes, and surface tension of simple salt solutions. They also address adsorption of ions at the air/water interface, surface tension of solutions and the effect of temperature, adsorption from mixed electrolyte solutions, and thermodynamic properties of zwitterionic amino acids in the surface region. Focusing on the thermodynamic properties of ions at air/fluid interfaces, this book gives scientists a quantitative, rigorous, and objectively experimental methodology they can employ in their research.

This book presents the state-of-the-art in supercomputer simulation. It includes the latest findings from leading researchers using systems from the High Performance Computing Center Stuttgart (HLRS) in 2019. The reports cover all fields of computational science and engineering ranging from CFD to computational physics and from chemistry to computer science with a special emphasis on industrially relevant applications. Presenting findings of one of Europe's leading systems, this volume covers a wide variety of applications that deliver a high level of sustained performance. The book covers the main methods in high-performance computing. Its outstanding results in achieving the best performance for production codes are of particular interest for both scientists and engineers. The book comes with a wealth of color illustrations and tables of results.

This book presents a comprehensive overview of the fundamental concept, design, working protocols, and diverse photo-chemicals aspects of different solar cell systems with promising prospects, using computational and experimental techniques. It presents and demonstrates the art of designing and developing various solar cell systems through practical examples. Compared to most existing books in the market, which usually analyze existing solar cell approaches this volume provides a more comprehensive view on the field. Thus, it offers an in-depth discussion of the basic concepts of solar cell design and their development, leading to higher power conversion efficiencies. The book will appeal to readers who are interested in both fundamental and application-oriented research while it will also be an excellent tool for graduates, researchers, and professionals working in the field of photovoltaics and solar cell systems.

This book addresses the construction and application of the major types of basis sets for computational chemistry calculations. In addition to a general introduction, it includes mathematical basics and a discussion of errors arising from incomplete or inappropriate basis sets. The different chapters introduce local orbitals and orbital localization as well as Slater-type orbitals and review basis sets for special applications, such as those for correlated methods, solid-state calculations, heavy atoms and time-dependent adaptable Gaussian bases for quantum dynamics simulations. This detailed review of the purpose of basis sets, their design, applications, possible problems and available solutions provides graduate students and beginning researchers with information not easily obtained from the available textbooks and offers valuable supporting material for any quantum chemistry or computational chemistry course at the graduate and/or undergraduate level. This book is also useful as a guide for researchers who are new to computational chemistry but are willing to extend their research tools by applying such methods.

This book discusses recent advances in theoretical-computational studies on the biosynthesis of melanin pigment (melanogenesis). These advances are being driven by the development of high-performance computers, new experimental findings, and extensive work on medical applications involving the control of pigmentation and the treatment of challenging dermatological diseases. Understanding the elementary processes involved in chemical reactions at the atomic scale is important in biochemical reaction design for effective control of the pigmentary system. Accordingly, the book focuses on the elementary steps involved in melanogenesis, which crucially affect the composition of the resulting melanin pigment by means of competitive reactions. The book also addresses reactions analogous to melanogenesis, with a focus on o-quinone reactions, which are especially important for understanding melanogenesis-associated cytotoxicity.

This book covers intentional design aspects for combinations of drugs, single-molecule hybrids with potential or actual multiple actions, pro-drugs which could yield multiple activity outcomes, and future possibilities. The approach of the book is interdisciplinary, and it provides greater understanding of the complex interplay of factors involved in the medicinal chemistry design and laboratory development of multiply active antibacterials. The scope of the book appeals to readers who are researching in the field of antibacterials using the approach of medicinal chemistry design and drug development.

This detailed book collects modern and established computer-based methods aimed at addressing the drug discovery challenge from disparate perspectives by exploiting information on ligand-protein recognition. Beginning with methods that allow for the exploration of specific areas of chemical space and the designing of virtual libraries, the volume continues with sections on methods based on docking, quantitative models, and molecular dynamics simulations, which are employed for ligand discovery or development, as well as methods exploiting an ensemble of protein structures for the identification of potential protein targets. Written for the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology series, chapters include introductions to their respective topics, lists of the necessary materials, step-by-step, readily reproducible laboratory protocols, and tips on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls. Authoritative and cutting-edge, Protein-Ligand Interactions and Drug Design provides detailed practical procedures of solid computer-aided drug design methodologies employed to rationalize and optimize protein-ligand interactions, for experienced researchers and novices alike.

Proteins are exposed to various interfacial stresses during drug product development. They are subjected to air-liquid, liquid-solid, and, sometimes, liquid-liquid interfaces throughout the development cycle-from manufacturing of drug substances to storage and drug delivery. Unlike small molecule drugs, proteins are typically unstable at interfaces where, on adsorption, they often denature and form aggregates, resulting in loss of efficacy and potential immunogenicity. This book covers both the fundamental aspects of proteins at interfaces and the quantification of interfacial behaviors of proteins. Importantly, this book introduces the industrial aspects of protein instabilities at interfaces, including the processes that introduce new interfaces, evaluation of interfacial instabilities, and mitigation strategies. The audience that this book targets encompasses scientists in the pharmaceutical and biotech industry, as well as faculty and students from academia in the surface science, pharmaceutical, and medicinal chemistry areas.

This is a comprehensive textbook addressing the unique aspects of drug development for ophthalmic use. Beginning with a perspective on anatomy and physiology of the eye, the book provides a critical appraisal of principles that underlie ocular drug product development. The coverage encompasses topical and intraocular formulations, small molecules and biologics (including protein and gene therapies), conventional formulations (including solutions, suspensions, and emulsions), novel formulations (including nanoparticles, microparticles, and hydrogels), devices, and specialty products. Critical elements such as pharmacokinetics, influence of formulation technologies and ingredients, as well as impact of disease conditions on products development are addressed. Products intended for both the front and the back of the eye are discussed with an eye towards future advances.

This volume summarises recent developments and highlights new techniques which will define possible future directions for small molecule X-ray crystallography. It provides an insight into how specific aspects of crystallography are developing and shows how they may interact or integrate with other areas of science. The development of more sophisticated equipment and the massive rise in computing power has made it possible to solve the three-dimensional structure of an organic molecule within hours if not minutes. This successful trajectory has resulted in the ability to study ever more complex molecules and use smaller and smaller crystals. The structural parameters for over a million organic and organometallic compounds are now archived in the most commonly used database and this wealth of information creates a new set of problems for future generations of scientists. The volume provides some insight into how users of crystallographic structural data banks can navigate their way through a world where "big data" has become the norm. The coupling of crystallography to quantum chemical calculations provides detailed information about electron distributions in crystals affording a much more detailed analysis of bonding than has been possible previously. In quantum crystallography, quantum mechanical wavefunctions are used to extract information about bonding and properties from the measured X-ray structure factors. The advent of quantum crystallography has resulted in form and structure factors derived from quantum mechanics which have been used in advanced refinement and wavefunction fitting. This volume describes how quantum mechanically derived atomic form factors and structure factors are constructed to allow the improved description of the diffraction experiment. It further discusses recent developments in this field and illustrates their applications with a wide range of examples. This volume will be of interest to chemists and crystallographers with an interest in the synthesis, characterisation and physical and catalytic properties of solid-state materials. It will also be relevant for the community of computational chemists who study chemical systems. Postgraduate students entering the field will benefit from a historical introduction to the way in which scientists have used the data derived from crystallography to develop new structural and bonding models.

This volume summarises recent developments and possible future directions for small molecule X-ray crystallography. It reviews specific areas of crystallography which are rapidly developing and places them in a historical context. The interdisciplinary nature of the technique is emphasised throughout. It introduces and describes the chemical crystallographic and synchrotron facilities which have been at the cutting edge of the subject in recent decades. The introduction of new computer-based algorithms has proved to be very influential and stimulated and accelerated the growth of new areas of science. The challenges which will arise from the acquisition of ever larger databases are considered and the potential impact of artificial intelligence techniques stressed. Recent advances in the refinement and analysis of X-ray crystal structures are highlighted. In addition the recent developments in time resolved single crystal X-ray crystallography are discussed. Recent years have demonstrated how this technique has provided important mechanistic information on solid-state reactions and complements information from traditional spectroscopic measurements. The volume highlights how the prospect of being able to routinely "watch" chemical processes as they occur provides an exciting possibility for the future. Recent advances in X-ray sources and detectors that have also contributed to the possibility of dynamic single-crystal X-ray diffraction methods are presented. The coupling of crystallography and quantum chemical calculations provides detailed information about electron distributions in crystals and has resulted in a more detailed understanding of chemical bonding. The volume will be of interest to chemists and crystallographers with an interest in the synthesis, characterisation and physical and catalytic properties of solid-state materials. Postgraduate students entering the field will benefit from a historical introduction to the subject and a description of those techniques which are currently used. Since X-ray crystallography is used so widely in modern chemistry it will serve to alert senior chemists to those developments which will become routine in coming decades. It will also be of interest to the broad community of computational chemists who study chemical systems.

This book highlights a comprehensive introduction to the fundamental statistical mechanics underneath the inner workings of neural networks. The book discusses in details important concepts and techniques including the cavity method, the mean-field theory, replica techniques, the Nishimori condition, variational methods, the dynamical mean-field theory, unsupervised learning, associative memory models, perceptron models, the chaos theory of recurrent neural networks, and eigen-spectrums of neural networks, walking new learners through the theories and must-have skillsets to understand and use neural networks. The book focuses on quantitative frameworks of neural network models where the underlying mechanisms can be precisely isolated by physics of mathematical beauty and theoretical predictions. It is a good reference for students, researchers, and practitioners in the area of neural networks.

This book sheds light on the molecular aspects of liquids and liquid-based materials such as organic or inorganic liquids, ionic liquids, proteins, biomaterials, and soft materials including gels. The reader discovers how the molecular basics of such systems are connected with their properties, dynamics, and functions. Once the use and application of liquids and liquid-based materials are understood, the book becomes a source of the latest, detailed knowledge of their structures, dynamics, and functions emerging from molecularity. The systems discussed in the book have structural dimensions varying from nanometers to millimeters, thus the precise estimation of structures and dynamics from experimental, theoretical, and simulation methods is of crucial importance. Outlines of the practical knowledge needed in research and development are helpfully included in the book.

This book covers recent advances of the fragment molecular orbital (FMO) method, consisting of 5 parts and a total of 30 chapters written by FMO experts. The FMO method is a promising way to calculate large-scale molecular systems such as proteins in a quantum mechanical framework. The highly efficient parallelism deserves being considered the principal advantage of FMO calculations. Additionally, the FMO method can be employed as an analysis tool by using the inter-fragment (pairwise) interaction energies, among others, and this feature has been utilized well in biophysical and pharmaceutical chemistry. In recent years, the methodological developments of FMO have been remarkable, and both reliability and applicability have been enhanced, in particular, for non-bio problems. The current trend of the parallel computing facility is of the many-core type, and adaptation to modern computer environments has been explored as well. In this book, a historical review of FMO and comparison to other methods are provided in Part I (two chapters) and major FMO programs (GAMESS-US, ABINIT-MP, PAICS and OpenFMO) are described in Part II (four chapters). dedicated to pharmaceutical activities (twelve chapters). A variety of new applications with methodological breakthroughs are introduced in Part IV (six chapters). Finally, computer and information science-oriented topics including massively parallel computation and machine learning are addressed in Part V (six chapters). Many color figures and illustrations are included. Readers can refer to this book in its entirety as a practical textbook of the FMO method or read only the chapters of greatest interest to them.

This book focuses on the computational modeling of organometallic reactivity. In recent years, computational methods, particularly those based on Density Functional Theory (DFT) have been fully incorporated into the toolbox of organometallic chemists' methods. Nowadays, energy profiles of multistep processes are routinely calculated, and detailed mechanistic pictures of the reactions arise from these calculations. This type of analysis is increasingly performed even by experimentalists themselves. The volume aims to connect established computational organometallics with the more recent theoretical and methodological developments applied to this field. This would allow broadening of the simulation scope toward emergent organometallic areas (as ligand design or photoactivated processes), to narrow the gap between calculations and experiments (microkinetic models) and even to discover new reactions (automated methods). Given the broad interest and extensive application that computational methods have reached within the organometallic community, this new volume will attract the interest of both experimental and computational organometallic chemists.

This book focuses on theoretical and computational studies by the editor's group on the direct hydroxylation of methane, which is one of the most challenging subjects in catalyst chemistry. These studies of more than 20 years include gas-phase reactions by transition-metal oxide ions, enzymatic reactions by two types of methane monooxygenase (soluble and particulate MMO), catalytic reactions by metal-exchanged zeolites, and methane C-H activation by metal oxide surfaces. Catalyst chemistry has been mostly empirical and based on enormous experimental efforts. The subject of the title has been tackled using the orbital interaction and computations based on extended Huckel, DFT, and band structure calculations. The strength of the theoretical studies is in the synergy between theory and experiment. Therefore, the group has close contacts with experimentalists in physical chemistry, catalyst chemistry, bioinorganic chemistry, inorganic chemistry, and surface chemistry. This resulting book will be useful for the theoretical analysis and design of catalysts.

This book embraces all physiochemical aspects of the structure and molecular dynamics of water, focusing on its role in biological objects, e.g. living cells and tissue, and in the formation of functionally active structures of biological molecules and their ensembles. Water is the single most abundant chemical found in all living things. It offers a detailed look into the latest modern physical methods for studying the molecular structure and dynamics of the water and provides a critical analysis of the existing literature data on the properties of water in biological objects. Water as a chemical reagent and as a medium for the formation of conditions for enzymatic catalysis is a core focus of this book. Although well suited for active researchers, the book as a whole, as well as each chapter on its own, can be used as fundamental reference material for graduate and undergraduate students throughout chemistry, physics, biophysics and biomedicine.

This book, a consecutive contribution to the series Challenges and Advances in Computational Chemistry and Physics, focuses on understanding the photoinduced processes in biological systems. Understanding and fine control of light fate in molecules is vital for the progress of society and environmental safety. Light induced changes of various physico-chemical and spectroscopic properties in nucleic acids and proteins is the basis of fundamental biological events such as vision, DNA photodamage or photosensing. The investigation of these processes is challenging to both theoretical and experimental studies. This volume encompasses the quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics theory in several subfields, including: advanced computational methods for nucleic acids and proteins systems; dynamics, spectroscopic and physico-chemical properties of biological photoreceptors; DNA photodamage. This book is of interest to readers in both fundamental and application-oriented research by overviewing recent achievements in computational modeling of excited states in nucleic acids and proteins.

This book fills a gap in knowledge between chemistry- and physics-trained researchers about the properties of macroscopic (bulk) material. Although many good textbooks are available on solid-state (or condensed matter) physics, they generally treat simple systems such as simple metals and crystals consisting of atoms. On the other hand, textbooks on solid-state chemistry often avoid descriptions of theoretical background even at the simplest level. This book gives coherent descriptions from intermolecular interaction up to properties of condensed matter ranging from isotropic liquids to molecular crystals. By omitting details of specific systems for which comprehensive monographs are available-on liquid crystals and molecular conductors, for instance-this book highlights the effects of molecular properties, i.e., the presence of the shape and its deformation on the structure and properties of molecular systems.

This book covers the role of water in global atmospheric phenomena, focussing on the physical processes involving water molecules and water microparticles. It presents the reader with a detailed look at some of the most important types of global atmospheric phenomena involving water, such as water circulation, atmospheric electricity and the greenhouse effect. Beginning with the cycle of water evaporation and condensation, and the important roles played by the nucleation and growth processes of water microdroplets, the book discusses atmospheric electricity as a secondary phenomenon of water circulation in the atmosphere, comprising a chain of processes involving water molecules and water microdroplets. Finally, the book discusses aspects of the molecular spectroscopy of greenhouse atmospheric components, showing how water molecules and water microdroplets give the main contribution to atmospheric emission in the infrared spectrum range. Featuring numerous didactic schematics and appendices detailing all necessary unit conversion factors, this book is useful to both active researchers and doctoral students working in the fields of atmospheric physics, climate science and molecular spectroscopy.

This thesis makes significant advances to the understanding of bottlebrush polymers. While bottlebrushes have received much attention due to the recent discovery of their unprecedented properties, including supersoftness, ultra-low viscosity, and hyperelasticity, this thesis is the first fundamental investigation at the molecular level that comprises structure and dynamics. Neutron scattering experiments, detailed within, reveal spherical or cylindrical shapes, instead of a random coil conformation. Another highlight is the analysis of the fast dynamics at the sub nm-length scale. The combination of three neutron spectrometers and the development of a new analysis technique enabled the calculation of the mean-square displacement over seven orders of magnitude in time scale. This unprecedented result can be applied to a broad class of samples, including polymers and other materials. The thesis is accessible to scientists from other fields, provides the reader with easily understandable guidelines for applying this analysis to other materials, and has the potential to make a significant impact on the analysis of neutron scattering data.

This book presents a comprehensive overview of state-of-the-art quantum dot photodetectors, including device fabrication technologies, optical engineering/manipulation strategies, and emerging photodetectors with building blocks of novel quantum dots (e.g. perovskite) as well as their hybrid structured (e.g. 0D/2D) materials. Semiconductor quantum dots have attracted much attention due to their unique quantum confinement effect, which allows for the facile tuning of optical properties that are promising for next-generation optoelectronic applications. Among these remarkable properties are large absorption coefficient, high photosensitivity, and tunable optical spectrum from ultraviolet/visible to infrared region, all of which are very attractive and favorable for photodetection applications. The book covers both fundamental and frontier research in order to stimulate readers' interests in developing novel ideas for semiconductor photodetectors at the center of future developments in materials science, nanofabrication technology and device commercialization. The book provides a knowledge sharing platform and can be used as a reference for researchers working in the fields of photonics, materials science, and nanodevices.

The thesis provides the necessary experimental and analytical tools to unambiguously observe the atomically resolved chemical reactions. A great challenge of modern science has been to directly observe atomic motions during structural transitions, and while this was first achieved through a major advance in electron source brightness, the information content was still limited and new methods for image reconstruction using femtosecond electron diffraction methods were needed. One particular challenge lay in reconciling the innumerable possible nuclear configurations with the observation of chemical reaction mechanisms that reproducibly give the same kind of chemistry for large classes of molecules. The author shows that there is a simple solution that occurs during barrier crossing in which the highly anharmonic potential at that point in nuclear rearrangements couples high- and low-frequency vibrational modes to give highly localized nuclear motions, reducing hundreds of potential degrees of freedom to just a few key modes. Specific examples are given in this thesis, including two photoinduced phase transitions in an organic system, a ring closure reaction, and two direct observations of nuclear reorganization driven by spin transitions. The emerging field of structural dynamics promises to change the way we think about the physics of chemistry and this thesis provides tools to make it happen.