Informational analysis of seismic sequences by applying the Fisher Information Measure and the Shannon entropy: An application to the 2004–2010 seismicity of Aswan area (Egypt)

The interevent-time (IET) and interevent-distance (IED) series of seismic events occurred at Aswan area (Egypt) from 2004 to 2010 were investigated by means of the Fisher Information Measure and the Shannon entropy. The analysis was performed varying the depth and the magnitude thresholds. The results point out to an increase of level of organization and order with the decrease of magnitude threshold and the increase of depth threshold for the IET series, while the IED series are characterized by a level of uncertainty approximately constant with the threshold magnitude. The complexity measure, calculated as the product of the Fisher Information Measure and the Shannon entropy power, presents very similar pattern for both the types of seismic series, indicating an increasing complexity with the decrease of the threshold magnitude and the increase of the threshold depth.     

On applicability of PCA,voxel-wise variance normalization and dimensionality assumptions for sliding temporal window sICA in resting-state fMRI

Subject-level resting-state fMRI (RS-fMRI) spatial independent component analysis (sICA) may provide new ways to analyze the data when performed in the sliding time window. However, whether principal component analysis (PCA) and voxel-wise variance normalization (VN) are applicable pre-processing procedures in the sliding-window context, as they are for regular sICA, has not been addressed so far. Also model order selection requires further studies concerning sliding-window sICA. In this paper we have addressed these concerns. First, we compared PCA-retained subspaces concerning overlapping parts of consecutive temporal windows to answer whether in-window PCA and VN can confound comparisons between sICA analyses in consecutive windows. Second, we compared the PCA subspaces between windowed and full data to assess expected comparability between windowed and full-data sICA results. Third, temporal evolution of dimensionality estimates in RS-fMRI data sets was monitored to identify potential challenges in model order selection in a sliding-window sICA context. Our results illustrate that in-window VN can be safely used, in-window PCA is applicable with most window widths and that comparisons between windowed and full data should not be performed from a subspace similarity point of view. In addition, our studies on dimensionality estimates demonstrated that there are sustained, periodic and very case-specific changes in signal-to-noise ratio within RS-fMRI data sets. Consequently, dimensionality estimation is needed for well-founded model order determination in the sliding-window case. The observed periodic changes correspond to a frequency band of ≤ 0.1 Hz, which is commonly associated with brain activity in RS-fMRI and become on average most pronounced at window widths of 80 and 60 time points (144 and 108 s, respectively). Wider windows provided only slightly better comparability between consecutive windows, and 60 time point or shorter windows also provided the best comparability with full-data results. Further studies are needed to determine the cause for dimensionality variations.     

Radiation vulcanization of NR/SBR composite enhanced with different polyfunctional monomers

The effect of different polyfunctional monomers (PFMs) as enhancing agents on the properties of natural rubber/styrene-butadiene rubber blend reinforced with 40 (phr) part per hundred part of rubber, by weight of HAF carbon black and vulcanized with gamma irradiation was investigated. The coagents N,N’ methylene diacrylamide (MDA), trimethylol propane-trimethacrylate (TMPTMA) and trimethylol-methane tetraacrylate (TMMTA) were used at a constant content of 5 phr. The physico-chemical properties such as tensile strength, tensile modulus at 100 % elongation, elongation at break, gel fraction and swelling number were studied. The results indicated that the properties are greatly improved by PFMs at lower doses. TMMTA as coagent is more effective than TMPTMA and MDA.     

Further studies on the properties and effect of high energetic ionizing radiation on copper(II) complexes: 1H NMR,electronic absorption,ESR spectra and solid electrical conductivity

The effect of energetic γ-radiation on ¹H NMR, electronic absorption, ESR spectra, differential thermal analysis (DTA) and solid state dc electrical conductivity of the ligand N-phenyl-2-(2-(phenylamino)acetyl)hydrazine carbothioamide (H₂L) and its copper(II) complexes; Cu(HL)(OAc)H₂O, Cu(HL)BrH₂O and Cu(H₂L)₂(NO₃)₂?3H₂O before and after γ-irradiation (hereafter referred to as (B), (B ₁ ), (B ₂ ), (B ₃ ) and (A), (A ₁ ), (A ₂ ), (A ₃ ), respectively) has been studied. Electronic spectral bands of the complexes after irradiation exhibited some better resolved shapes with a remarkably higher absorbance, ESR spectrum of complex Cu(HL)BrH₂O (B ₂ ) before irradiation showed isotropic spectrum with g _iso = 2.075 however, after irradiation (A ₂ ) displayed axial ESR spectrum with g _∥ > g _⊥ > 2.0023 and d _(x2?y2) ground state. DTA of the compounds reveals that γ-irradiation induced generation of new peaks as well as changes in the peak intensities. Solid state dc electrical conductivity for complexes was investigated before and after γ-irradiation. Complexes were found to be semiconductors, the activation energies (E _a) were calculated for the complexes by using the Arrhenius plot.     

Gamma-ray and sunlight-induced synthesis of silver nanoparticles using bacterial cellulose and cell-free filtrate produced by Komagataeibacter rhaeticus N1 MW322708 strain

Cellulose - Antibacterial coatings based on bacterial cellulose (BC) have been widely used in many fields including food packaging and wound dressing. In this study, we aimed to synthesis of...     

Improved growth of solution‐deposited thin films on polycrystalline Cu(In,Ga)Se2

CdS and Zn(O,S) grown by chemical bath deposition (CBD) are well established buffer materials for Cu(In,Ga)Se₂ (CIGS) solar cells. As recently reported, a non‐contiguous coverage of CBD buffers on CIGS grains with {112} surfaces can be detected, which was explained in terms of low surface energies of the {112} facets, leading to deteriorated wetting of the chemical solution on the CIGS surface. In the present contribution, we report on the effect of air annealing of CIGS thin films prior to the CBD of CdS and Zn(O,S) layers. In contrast to the growth on the as‐grown CIGS layers, these buffer lay‐ ers grow densely on the annealed CIGS layer, even on grains with {112} surfaces. We explain the different growth behavior by increased surface energies of CIGS grains due to the annealing step, i.e., due to oxidation of the CIGS surface. Reference solar cells were processed and completed by i‐ZnO/ZnO:Al layers for CdS and by (Zn,Mg)O/ZnO:Al for Zn(O,S) buffers. For solar cells with both, CdS and Zn(O,S) buffers, air‐annealed CIGS films with improved buffer coverage resulted in higher power‐conversion efficiencies, as compared with the devices containing as‐grown CIGS layers. (© 2016 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH &Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Synthesis of Some New Tetrahydrobenzo[b]thiophene Derivatives and Tetrahydrobenzothienopyrimidine Derivatives Under Microwave Irradiation

A simple, straightforward method to synthesize 2,9-dicarbanitrile-1, 10-phenanthroline from 2,9-dimethyl-1, 10-phenanthroline via 2,9-dicarbamoyl-1, 10-phenanthroline is described.