Investigation of the effect of power ultrasound on the nucleation of water during freezing of agar gel samples in tubing vials

Nucleation, as an important stage of freezing process, can be induced by the irradiation of power ultrasound. In this study, the effect of irradiation temperature (−2 °C, −3 °C, −4 °C and −5 °C), irradiation duration (0 s, 1 s, 3 s, 5 s, 10 s or 15 s) and ultrasound intensity (0.07 W cm⁻², 0.14 W cm⁻², 0.25 W cm⁻², 0.35 W cm⁻² and 0.42 W cm⁻²) on the dynamic nucleation of ice in agar gel samples was studied. The samples were frozen in an ethylene glycol-water mixture (−20 °C) in an ultrasonic bath system after putting them into tubing vials. Results indicated that ultrasound irradiation is able to initiate nucleation at different supercooled temperatures (from −5 °C to −2 °C) in agar gel if optimum intensity and duration of ultrasound were chosen. Evaluation of the effect of 0.25 W cm⁻² ultrasound intensity and different durations of ultrasound application on agar gels showed that 1 s was not long enough to induce nucleation, 3 s induced the nucleation repeatedly but longer irradiation durations resulted in the generation of heat and therefore nucleation was postponed. Investigation of the effect of ultrasound intensity revealed that higher intensities of ultrasound were effective when a shorter period of irradiation was used, while lower intensities only resulted in nucleation when a longer irradiation time was applied. In addition to this, higher intensities were not effective at longer irradiation times due to the heat generated in the samples by the heating effect of ultrasound. In conclusion, the use of ultrasound as a means to control the crystallization process offers promising application in freezing of solid foods, however, optimum conditions should be selected.     

EVH black hole solutions with higher derivative corrections

We analyze the effect of higher derivative corrections to the near horizon geometry of the extremal vanishing horizon (EVH) black hole solutions in four dimensions. We restrict ourselves to a Gauss–Bonnet correction with a dilation dependent coupling in an Einstein–Maxwell-dilaton theory. This action may represent the effective action as it arises in tree level heterotic string theory compactified to four dimensions or the K3 compactification of type II string theory. We show that EVH black holes, in this theory, develop an AdS₃ throat in their near horizon geometry.     

Analysis of the magnetic losses in iron-based soft magnetic composites with MgO insulation produced by sol-gel method

This work investigated the magnetic losses of heat treated iron-based soft magnetic composites with a thin MgO insulating layer produced by sol-gel method. The samples were characterized by energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, X-ray analysis and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The results show that the surface of the powders contains a thin layer of MgO insulation. The loss results indicate that the hysteresis part for both the core loss and total loss factor was approximately the same for the MgO-insulated compacts and conventional SOMALOY^TM samples with phosphate insulation after annealing at 600 °C. But the MgO-insulated compacts exhibited significantly lower eddy current contribution of both core loss and total loss factor with respect to SOMALOY^TM samples after annealing. Also the contribution of eddy current in the iron particles for MgO insulated compacts (k_p=0.91) was noticeably higher than this contribution for SOMALOY^TM samples (k_p=0.18) after annealing due to the higher electrical resistivity of the MgO-insulated compacts.     

A note on the sum of the sample autocorrelation function

It is shown that the sum of the sample autocorrelation function at lag h≥1 is always for any stationary time series with arbitrary length T≥2 (Hassani, 2009 [1]). In this paper, the distribution of a set of the sample autocorrelation function using the properties of this quantity is considered. It is found that the distribution of a set of the sample autocorrelation estimates is not independent and identically distributed. This finding implies that the result of diagnostic check and model building using the traditional assumption of iid can be quite misleading.     

Sonocatalytic epoxidation of alkenes by vanadium-containing polyphosphomolybdate immobilized on multi-wall carbon nanotubes

A Keggin type polyoxometalate (POM) has been immobilized in the unique network structure of multi-wall carbon nanotubes (CNTs). The vanadium-containing polyphosphomolybdate (PVMo) supported on CNTs, which was prepared by a one-step solid-state reaction, was characterized by FT-IR, XRD, SEM and elemental analyses. These uniform nanoparticles have an average size 20–30 nm. Furthermore, due to the chemical interaction between PVMo and carboxylic acid groups, PVMo nanoparticles were successfully immobilized on the CNTs. Moreover, the obtained composite was found as an efficient catalyst for oxidation of hydrocarbons under reflux and ultrasonic irradiation (US) conditions.     

Factorization Method and Special Orthogonal Functions

We present a general construction for ladder operators for the special orthogonal functions based on Nikiforov-Uvarov mathematical formalism. A list of creation and annihilation operators are provided for the well known special functions. Furthermore, we establish the dynamic group associated with these operators.     

On Dynamics of Brans–Dicke Theory of Gravitation

We study longstanding problem of cosmological clock in the context of Brans–Dicke theory of gravitation. We present the Hamiltonian formulation of the theory for a class of spatially homogeneous cosmological models. Then, we show that formulation of the Brans–Dicke theory in the Einstein frame allows how an identification of an appropriate cosmological time variable, as a function of the scalar field in the theory, can be emerged in quantum cosmology. The classical and quantum results are applied to the Friedmann–Robertson–Walker cosmological models.     

On differential modular forms and some analytic relations between Eisenstein series

In the present article we define the algebra of differential modular forms and we prove that it is generated by Eisenstein series of weight 2, 4 and 6. We define Hecke operators on them, find some analytic relations between these Eisenstein series and obtain them in a natural way as coefficients of a family of elliptic curves. The fact that a complex manifold over the moduli of polarized Hodge structures in the case h ¹⁰=h ⁰¹=1 has an algebraic structure with an action of an algebraic group plays a basic role in all of the proofs.