Bentonite-modified electrochemical sensors: a brief overview of features and applications

Bentonites are promising materials for electrochemical sensing because of their unique physicochemical properties. They have relatively high surface area, good adsorption and ion-exchange ability, highly tunable surface and interlayer composition, non-toxic nature, and excellent biocompatibility. Moreover, they are outstanding substrates for stable immobilization of different functional moieties. The primary focus of this review article is to highlight the applications of bentonite-modified electrodes for the analysis of organic and inorganic analytes in different matrices. A brief summary on the necessity of analysis of different compounds is provided. For the first time, features and applications of bentonite-modified electrodes are critically appraised. The key features of bentonite-modified electrodes that enhance their electrocatalytic activity toward detection of certain target analytes are highlighted. At the end, an account of current status of bentonite-modified electrodes along with future research directions is provided.     

Neutral Particle Motion around a Schwarzschild Black Hole in Modified Gravity

We investigate circular motion of neutral test particles on equatorial plane near a black hole in scalar-tensor-vector gravity. We consider three cases (i) α < G/G_N (ii) α = G/G_N and (iii) α > G/G_N to find the regions where motion can exist. The corresponding effective potential, energy, angular momentum and center of mass energy are evaluated. Further, we define four different cases for α > G/G_N and identify stable and unstable regions of circular orbits. It is found that circular orbits having zero angular momentum exist at r = αGNM due to repulsive gravity effects. We conclude that the structure of stable regions for α < G/G_N as well as α = G/G_N case is completely different from that of α > G/G_N.     

Vibrational Spectroscopic Investigation,First Hyper Polarizability and Homo–Lumo Analysis of Tetrahydroxy-1,4Quinone Hydrate Using Density Functional Theory and Hartree-Fock Method

The FTIR and FT-Raman spectra of tetrahydroxy-1,4quinone hydrate have been recorded in the regions 4000–400 and 3500–50 cm^–1 respectively. Using the observed Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and FT-Raman data, a complete vibrational assignment and analysis of the fundamental modes of the compound has been carried out. The optimum molecular geometry, harmonic vibrational frequencies, infrared intensities and Raman scattering activities, were calculated by the density functional theory (DFT/B3LYP) and Hartree–Fock (HF) method with 6-311+G(d,p) basis set. The difference between the observed and scaled wavenumber values of most of the fundamental vibrations is very small. A detailed interpretation of the infrared and Raman spectra of tetrahydroxy-1,4quinone hydrate is also reported. The calculated HOMO and LUMO energies show that charge transfer occurs within the molecule.     

Delayed feedback control of phase synchronisation in a neuronal network model

The human cerebral cortex can be separated into cortical areas forming a clustered network structure. We build two different clustered networks, where one network is based on a healthy brain and the other according to a brain affected by a neurodegenerative process. Each cortical area has a subnetwork with small-world properties. We verify that both networks exhibit rich-club organisation and phase synchronisation. Due to the fact that neuronal synchronisation can be related to brain diseases, we consider the delayed feedback control as a method to suppress synchronous behaviours. In this work, it is presented that depending on the feedback parameters, intensity and time delay, phase synchronisation in both networks can be suppressed. Therefore, one of our main results is to show that delayed feedback control can be used to suppress undesired synchronous behaviours not only in the healthy brain, but also in the brain marked by neurodegenerative processes.     

Characteristics of in-out intermittency in delay-coupled FitzHugh–Nagumo oscillators

We analyze a pair of delay-coupled FitzHugh–Nagumo oscillators exhibiting in-out intermittency as a part of the generating mechanism of extreme events. We study in detail the characteristics of in-out intermittency and identify the invariant subsets involved – a saddle fixed point and a saddle periodic orbit – neither of which are chaotic as in the previously reported cases of in-out intermittency. Based on the analysis of a periodic attractor possessing in-out dynamics, we can characterize the approach to the invariant synchronization manifold and the spiralling out to the saddle periodic orbit with subsequent ejection from the manifold. Due to the striking similarities, this analysis of in-out dynamics also explains in-out intermittency     

Characterisation of electric discharge in hollow electrode Z-pinch device by means of Rogowski coils

In this paper, the energy spectra of the general molecular potential are obtained using the asymptotic iteration method within the framework of non-relativistic quantum mechanics.With the energy spectrum obtained, the vibrational partition function is calculated in a closed form and is used to obtain an expression for other thermodynamic functions such as vibrational mean energy U, vibrational mean free energy F, vibrational entropy S and vibrational specific heat capacity C. These thermodynamic functions are studied for the electronic state \(\mathrm{X}^{1}\Sigma _g^+ \) of \(K_2\) diatomic molecules.     

Optimisation of a hybrid photoneutron source in a linear accelerator using GEANT4 and MCNPX Monte Carlo codes

The \(\alpha \) decay half-lives of hyper and normal isotopes of Po nuclei are studied in the present work. The inclusion of \(\Lambda \)–N interaction changes the half-life for \(\alpha \) decay. The theoretical predictions on the \(\alpha \) decay half-lives of normal Po isotopes are compared with experimental results and are seen to be matching well with each other. The neutron shell closure at \(N = 126\) is found to be the same for both normal and hypernuclei. The Geiger–Nuttal (G–N) law for \(\alpha \) decay is unaltered in the case of hypernuclei. The hypernuclei will decay into normal nuclei by mesonic or non-mesonic decay modes. Since the half-lives of normal Po nuclei are well within the experimental limits, our theoretical results suggest experimental verification of the \(\alpha \) emission from hyper Po nuclei in a cascade process.