Characteristics of spontaneously formed nanoemulsions in octane/AOT/brine systems

Nanoemulsions were formed spontaneously by diluting water-in-oil (W/O) or brine-in-oil (B/O) microemulsions of a hydrocarbon (octane), anionic surfactant (Aerosol-OT or AOT) and water or NaCl brine in varying levels of excess brine. The water-continuous nanoemulsions were characterized by interfacial tension, dynamic light scattering, electrophoresis, optical microscopy and phase-behavior studies. The mechanism of emulsification was local supersaturation and resulting nucleation of oil during inversion. For nanoemulsions formed at low salinities with Winsor I phase behavior, octane drops grew from initial diameters of 150-250nm to 480-1000nm over 24h, depending on salinity. Growth was caused by mass transfer but seemed to approach the asymptotic stage of Ostwald ripening described by the Lifshitz-Slyozov-Wagner (LSW) theory only for dilution with salt-free water. Near the higher cross-over salinity (Winsor III), the nanoemulsions showed much slower growth with droplet size consistently remaining below 200nm over 24h and reaching 250nm after 1week. Birefringence indicated the presence of liquid crystal for these conditions, which could have contributed to the slow growth rate. At even higher salinity levels in the Winsor II domain, W/O/W multiple emulsions having drops greater than 1μm in diameter were consistently recorded for the first 5-7h, after which size decreased to values below 1μm. The number and size of internal water droplets in multiple emulsion drops was found to decrease over time, suggesting coalescence of internal droplets with the continuous water phase and mass transfer of water from internal droplets to continuous phase as possible mechanisms of the observed drop shrinkage. Electrophoresis studies showed the nanoemulsions to be highly negatively charged (zeta potentials of -60mV to -120mV). The high charge on octane droplets helped assure stability to flocculation and coalescence, thereby allowing mass transfer to control growth in the Winsor I and III regions.     

Short aspect ratio gold nanorods prepared using gamma radiation in the presence of cetyltrimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) as a directing agent

The synthesis of short aspect ratio gold nanorods using gamma radiation method by incorporating cetyltrimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) as a directing agent is reported in this communication. The radiolysis of Au⁺, in the presence of 2.5 nm Au seeds and 0.1 mol dm^?3 isopropanol, results in the formation of Au spheres as evident from surface plasmon resonance band at 527 nm. However, by carrying out radiolysis at lower radiation dose rate, short aspect gold nanorods having surface plasmon bands at 513 and 670 nm have been prepared. The formation of rods at low radiation dose rate was observed to be governed by the kinetics of particle growth. The TEM of as-synthesized nanoparticles confirmed the formation of uniform sized nanorods having an aspect of 2.4.     

Analysis of pulsed discharge characteristics of solid-state switch (IGBT) based 16?kHz repetition rate, 100?W average power copper–HBr lasers

We present for the first time a comprehensive analysis (both time resolved and time averaged) of the gas-discharge characteristics of a solid-state switch (IGBT) based on high average power (100?W class), high pulse repetition rate (16?kHz) copper?CHBr laser under various excitation conditions. We evaluate various discharge-plasma parameters such as the electrical inductance, electrical resistance, active laser-head voltage, active electrical power, pre-pulse electron density, and axial gas temperature by numerical processing of the measured laser head voltage?Ccurrent waveforms. For the first time, we evaluate fractional losses at various intermediate stages of the circuit elements as well as effective coupling for the laser excitation process during transfer of energy from the wall plug to the laser-discharge plasma. We conclude that irrespective of the capacitive storage input power (P _in), a constant fraction of ~40% of P _in is coupled into the laser-discharge plasma. With a low to moderate specific input power of 0.4?C0.7?kW/?, the tube produced 70?C110?W average output power at an efficiency of????3.2?C2.8%, respectively. The average laser performances at various P _in are correlated to its time-resolved and average gas-discharge parameters such as the inter-pulse electron density and axial gas temperature.     

Regional homogeneity of resting-state fMRI contributes to both neurovascular and task activation variations

The task induced blood oxygenation level dependent signal changes observed using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) are critically dependent on the relationship between neuronal activity and hemodynamic response. Therefore, understanding the nature of neurovascular coupling is important when interpreting fMRI signal changes evoked via task. In this study, we used regional homogeneity (ReHo), a measure of local synchronization of the BOLD time series, to investigate whether the similarities of one voxel with the surrounding voxels are a property of neurovascular coupling. FMRI scans were obtained from fourteen subjects during bilateral finger tapping (FTAP), digit–symbol substitution (DSST) and periodic breath holding (BH) paradigm. A resting-state scan was also obtained for each of the subjects for 4 min using identical imaging parameters. Inter-voxel correlation analyses were conducted between the resting-state ReHo, resting-state amplitude of low frequency fluctuations (ALFF), BH responses and task activations within the masks related to task activations. There was a reliable mean voxel-wise spatial correlation between ReHo and other neurovascular variables (BH responses and ALFF). We observed a moderate correlation between ReHo and task activations (FTAP: r = 0.32; DSST: r = 0.22) within the task positive network and a small yet reliable correlation within the default mode network (DSST: r = − 0.08). Subsequently, a linear regression was used to estimate the contribution of ReHo, ALFF and BH responses to the task activated voxels. The unique contribution of ReHo was minimal. The results suggest that regional synchrony of the BOLD activity is a property that can explain the variance of neurovascular coupling and task activations; but its contribution to task activations can be accounted for by other neurovascular factors such as the ALFF.     

Neural and vascular variability and the fMRI-BOLD response in normal aging

Neural, vascular and structural variables contributing to the blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) signal response variability were investigated in younger and older humans. Twelve younger healthy human subjects (six male and six female; mean age: 24 years; range: 19–27 years) and 12 older healthy subjects (five male and seven female; mean age: 58 years; range: 55–71 years) with no history of head trauma and neurological disease were scanned. Functional magnetic resonance imaging measurements using the BOLD contrast were made when participants performed a motor, cognitive or a breath hold (BH) task. Activation volume and the BOLD response amplitude were estimated for the younger and older at both group and subject levels. Mean activation volume was reduced by 45%, 40% and 38% in the elderly group during the motor, cognitive and BH tasks, respectively, compared to the younger. Reduction in activation volume was substantially higher compared to the reduction in the gray matter volume of 14% in the older compared to the younger. A significantly larger variability in the intersubject BOLD signal change occurred during the motor task, compared to the cognitive task. BH-induced BOLD signal change between subjects was significantly less-variable in the motor task-activated areas in the younger compared to older whereas such a difference between age groups was not observed during the cognitive task. Hemodynamic scaling using the BH signal substantially reduced the BOLD signal variability during the motor task compared to the cognitive task. The results indicate that the origin of the BOLD signal variability between subjects was predominantly vascular during the motor task while being principally a consequence of neural variability during the cognitive task. Thus, in addition to gray matter differences, the type of task performed can have different vascular variability weighting that can influence age-related differences in brain functional response.     

Swift heavy ion irradiation induced modification of BiFeO3 thin films prepared by sol-gel method

We report the preparation of multiferroic BiFeO₃ thin films on ITO coated glass substrates through sol-gel spin coating method followed by thermal annealing and their modification by swift heavy ion (SHI) irradiation. X-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy studies revealed amorphous nature of the as deposited films. Rhombohedral crystalline phase of BiFeO₃ evolved on annealing the films at 550°C. Both XRD and Raman studies indicated that SHI irradiation by 200 MeV Au ions result in fragmentation of particles and progressive amorphization with increasing irradiation fluence. The average crystallite size estimated from the XRD line width decreased from 38 nm in pristine sample annealed at 550°C to 29 nm on irradiating these films by 200 MeV Au ions at 1 × 10¹¹ ions cm⁻². Complete amorphization of the rhombohedral BiFeO₃ phase occurs at a fluence of 1 × 10¹² ions.cm⁻². Irradiation by another ion (200 MeV Ag) had the similar effect. For both the ions, the electronic energy loss exceeds the threshold electronic energy loss for creation of amorphized latent tracks in BiFeO₃.