Synthesis,characterization, electrochemical behaviour and X-ray crystal structures of nickel(II) complexes with a N2O4 donor set macrocyclic Schiff base ligand

Two nickel(II) complexes of [1 + 1] macrocyclic Schiff base ligand (L) have been prepared by cyclocondensation reactions between 1,3-diamino-2-propanol and 2-[3-(2-formylphenoxy)-2-hydroxypropoxy] benzaldehyde, using NiX₂ (X = Br, and I) salts as template agents, and characterized by elemental analyses, IR, molar conductivity and electronic spectra in both solid and solution states. The single-crystal X-ray diffractions of the complexes are also reported that contain nickel(II) ion in a distorted octahedral geometry coordination of N₂O₃X (X = Br, I and NO₃). In all complexes the ligand behaves as a pentadentate ligand. Cyclic voltammetric studies of nickel(II) complexes indicate a quasi-reversible redox wave in the negative potential range.     

PVA-Based Sol–Gel Synthesis and Characterization of CdO–ZnO Nanocomposite

CdO–ZnO nanocomposite was fabricated by a sol–gel pyrrolysis method based on the poly vinyl alcohol (PVA) polymeric network. The prepared nanocomposite was carefully characterized using scanning electron microscopy, X-Ray dispersive energy analysis, ICP-atomic emission spectroscopy, X-Ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy and UV–visible spectroscopy. The structure, composition, and morphology of this composite depend on a number of aspects: the amounts of cadmium salt, zinc salt, and PVA in the initial solution, the solvent composition, and the pyrrolysis temperature. The obtained results showed that the nanocomposite had excellent linear nanoclusters created from nanograins. Each nanograin was made of a CdO core, completely covered by ZnO layers. Total diameter of each nanograin was 70–90 nm.     

Preparation and biological evaluation of radiogallium labeled glucagon for SPECT imaging

In this work, recently prepared ⁶⁷Ga-labeled glucagon (⁶⁷Ga-DTPA-GCG) for imaging studies (radiochemical purity >94%; HPLC, S.A. 296–370 GBq/mM) was used in biological studies. The wild-type rat biodistribution results, 2 h post injection, demonstrated high tissue:muscle ratios for target tissues (liver, kidney, heart, spleen, fat intestine stomach and pancreas), 234, 18.45, 7.12, 1.75, 128.7, 4.9, 6.3 and 1.11, respectively. The tracer binding capacity using freshly prepared rat brain homogenate demonstrated significant specific binding of the tracer to neuronal GCG receptors (⁶⁷Ga-DTPA-GCG/⁶⁷Ga:3 and ⁶⁷Ga-DTPA-GCG/⁶⁷GaDTPA:2.2 at 90 min). SPECT images also demonstrated target specific binding of the tracer at 4 h. The data suggests the tracer is accumulated in GCGR rich tissues 2–4 h post injection, suggesting potentials of the tracer for future imaging studies in glocagonoma models.     

Efficient GRASP+VND and GRASP+VNS metaheuristics for the traveling repairman problem

The traveling repairman problem is a customer-centric routing problem, in which the total waiting time of the customers is minimized, rather than the total travel time of a vehicle. To date, research on this problem has focused on exact algorithms and approximation methods. This paper presents the first metaheuristic approach for the traveling repairman problem.     

Acoustic detection and classification of river boats

We present a robust algorithm to detect the arrival of a boat of a certain type when other background noises are present. It is done via the analysis of its acoustic signature against an existing database of recorded and processed acoustic signals. We characterize the signals by the distribution of their energies among blocks of wavelet packet coefficients. To derive the acoustic signature of the boat of interest, we use the Best Discriminant Basis method. The decision is made by combining the answers from the Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) classifier and from the Classification and Regression Trees (CART) that is also accompanied with an additional unit, called Aisles, that reduces false alarms rate. The proposed algorithm is a generic solution for process control that is based on a learning phase (training) followed by an automatic real time detection while minimizing the false alarms rate.     

Amplifying single-photon nonlinearity using weak measurements

We show that weak measurement can be used to "amplify" optical nonlinearities at the single-photon level, such that the effect of one properly postselected photon on a classical beam may be as large as that of many unpostselected photons. We find that "weak-value amplification" offers a marked improvement in the signal-to-noise ratio in the presence of technical noise with long correlation times. Unlike previous weak-measurement experiments, our proposed scheme has no classical equivalent.     

Enhancement of Kerr nonlinearity at long wavelength in a quantum dot nanostructure

The giant Kerr nonlinearity with reduced linear and nonlinear absorption in a four-level quantum dot by employing the tunnel coupling is investigated. It is shown that by enhancement of tunnel coupling value the Kerr nonlinearity increases and at the same time linear and nonlinear absorption reduces at the long wavelength which is very important for communicational applications. Enhanced of Kerr nonlinearity in a double quantum dots is investigated. It is found that the electron tunneling has an essential role to reducing the linear absorption and increasing the Kerr nonlinearity at long wavelength.     

Estimates of B-decays into K-resonances and dileptons

Short and long distance contributions to the exclusive B-decays into various K-resonances and dileptons, i.e. $B \to K^i \ell \bar \ell (\ell = e,\mu ,\nu )$ , are examined. The heavy quark effective theory has been used to calculate the hadronic matrix elements. Substantial branching fractions are obtained for the dileptonic B-decays into some higher excited states of K-mesons. The long distance (resonance) contributions to these exclusive rare B-decay modes dominate the short distance contributions mostly by two orders of magnitude. It is pointed out that, excluding the resonance contributions, the P-wave channels are dominant, accounting for about 50% of the inclusiveB??X _s ? ⁺ ? ^? branching fraction.     

Dual-Vivaldi wideband nanoantenna with high radiation efficiency over the infrared frequency band

A dual-Vivaldi nanoantenna is proposed to demonstrate the possibility of wideband operation at IR frequencies. The antenna geometry design is guided by the material properties of metals at IR frequencies. According to our numerical results, this nanoantenna has both high radiation efficiency and good impedance-matching properties over a wide frequency band (more than 122%) in the IR frequency band. The design is based on the well-known Vivaldi antenna placed on quartz substrate but operating as a pair instead of a single element. Such a pair of Vivaldi antennas oriented in opposite directions produces the main lobe in the broadside direction (normal to the axes of the antennas) rather than the usual peak gain along the axis (end fire) of a single Vivaldi antenna. The dual-Vivaldi nanoantenna is easy to fabricate in a conventional electron-beam lithography process, and it provides a large number of degrees of freedom, facilitating design for ultra-wideband operation.     

A Note on Classification of Cylindrically Symmetric Non-static Space–Times According to Their Teleparallel Killing Vector Fields in the Teleparallel Theory of Gravitation

In this paper, we explored the conservation laws of cylindrically symmetric non-static space–times by using direct integration technique. This classification also covers non-static plane symmetric space–times, static cylindrically symmetric space–times and plane symmetric static space–times. In this paper, we will only present the results of non-static cylindrically symmetric and non-static plane symmetric space–times. The results of static cylindrically symmetric space–times and plane static space–times can be found in Shabbir and Khan (Mod Phys Lett A 25:525, 2010). It turns out that the non-static cylindrically symmetric space–times admit four, five, or seven conservation laws. It is important to note that the above space–times admit at least one or at the most four extra conservation laws.