Role of Ge incorporation in the physical and dielectric properties of Se<Subscript>75</Subscript>Te<Subscript>25</Subscript> and Se<Subscript>85</Subscript>Te<Subscript>15</Subscript> glassy alloys

The effect of Ge additive on the physical and dielectric properties of Se₇₅Te₂₅ and Se₈₅Te₁₅ glassy alloys has been investigated. It is inferred that on adding Ge, the physical properties i.e., average coordination number, average number of constraints and average heat of atomization increase but lone pair electrons, fraction of floppy modes, electronegativity, degree of crosslinking and deviation of stoichiometry (R) decrease. The effect of Ge doping on the dielectric properties of the bulk Se₇₅Te₂₅ and Se₈₅Te₁₅ glassy alloys has also been studied in the temperature range 300–350 K for different frequencies (1 kHz–5 MHz). It is found that, with doping, the dielectric constant ε^′ and dielectric loss ε^″ increase with increase in temperature and decrease with increase in frequency. The role of the third element Ge, as an impurity in the two pure binary Se₇₅Te₂₅ and Se₈₅Te₁₅ glassy alloys has been discussed in terms of the nature of covalent bonding and electronegativity difference between the elements used in making the aforesaid glassy systems.     

Silica‐gel‐supported Phosphorus Pentoxide:a Simple and Efficient Solid‐supported Reagent for Esterification of Long‐ Chain Carboxylic Acids and Their Antimicrobial Screening

A silica-gel-supported heterogeneous phosphorus pentoxide reagent has been developed for the esterification of various long-chain carboxylic acids with aromatic alcohols. The reactions occurred under relatively mild conditions and afforded the desired products in good yields. All the compounds 3a—3x were screened for antibacterial and antifungal activity, which showed good activity against Gram positive and Gram negative bacteria and also good results against almost all fungal strains. The structures of the synthesized compounds were elucidated by IR, ¹H NMR, ¹³C NMR, mass spectroscopic techniques and elemental analysis.     

Femto-Second Transform Limited Pulse Generation with Higher Order Dispersion Effects for Dispersion-Shifted Optical Communication System

The paper deals with the influence of higher-order effects of dispersion on the femto-second transform limited pulse generation by compensating for linear chirp of self-phase modulation spectra in the dispersion-shifted fibers. It has been shown that the minimum propagation length with first-order dispersion term is 23 m, as reported earlier. If the higher-order dispersion effects are taken into consideration, this length is reduced to 11.5 m. With compensation of the first-order dispersion term, this length can be enhanced to 6.8161 × 10³ km. This length can further be improved to 6.0343 × 10⁹ km by compensation of first- and second-order dispersion terms together. The minimum pulse width and linewidth product without dispersion, with dispersion including higher-order dispersion effects, and with dispersion compensation, is found to be 0.44, 0.4418, and 0.4411, respectively.     

Coherent oscillations of holes in GaAs0.86P0.14/Al0.7Ga0.3As surface quantum well

We show that in a GaAs_0.86P_0.14/Al_0.7Ga_0.3As near-surface quantum well, there is coherent oscillation of holes observed in time-resolved reflectivity signal when the top barrier of the quantum well is sufficiently thin. The quantum well states interact with the surface states under the influence of the surface electric field. The time period of the observed oscillation is 120±10 fs.     

Ionizing radiation-induced XRCC4 phosphorylation is mediated through ATM in addition to DNA-PK

XRCC4 (X-ray cross-complementation group 4) is a protein associated with DNA ligase IV, which is thought to join two DNA ends at the final step of DNA double-strand break repair through non-homologous end-joining. It has been shown that, in response to irradiation or treatment with DNA damaging agents, XRCC4 undergoes phosphorylation, requiring DNA-PK. Here we explored possible role of ATM, which is structurally related to DNA-PK, in the regulation of XRCC4. The radiosensitizing effects of DNA-PK inhibitor and/or ATM inhibitor were dependent on XRCC4. DNA-PK inhibitor and ATM inhibitor did not affect the ionizing radiation-induced chromatin recruitment of XRCC4. Ionizing radiation-induced phosphorylation of XRCC4 in the chromatin-bound fraction was largely inhibited by DNA-PK inhibitor but further diminished by the combination with ATM inhibitor. The present results indicated that XRCC4 phosphorylation is mediated through ATM as well as DNA-PK, although DNA-PK plays the major role. We would propose a possible model that DNA-PK and ATM acts in parallel upstream of XRCC4, regulating through phosphorylation.     

Brief report: Volume dependence of Grüneisen parameter for solids under extreme compression

The Nie expression is amended in such a way that the expression follows the infinite pressure behaviour, i.e., \(P\to \infty \) or V → 0. A new empirical relationship is developed to predict the values of volume dependence of Grüneisen parameter. NaCl and ε-Fe have been employed to test the suitability of the expression. The results obtained reveal that the relationship is reliable as there is a good agreement between the calculated and the experimental data.     

Measurement of 232Th(n, γ) and 232Th({n}, {2n}) cross-sections at neutron energies of 13.5, 15.5 and 17.28?MeV using neutron activation techniques

The ²³²Th(n, ??) reaction cross-section at average neutron energies of 13.5, 15.5 and 17.28?MeV from the ⁷Li(p, n) reaction has been determined for the first time using activation and off-line ??-ray spectrometric technique. The ²³²Th(n, 2n) cross-section at 17.28?MeV neutron energy has also been determined using the same technique. The experimentally determined ²³²Th(n, ??) and ²³²Th(n, 2n) reaction cross-sections from the present work were compared with the evaluated data of ENDF/BVII and JENDL-4.0 and were found to be in good agreement. The present data, along with literature data in a wide range of neutron energies, were interpreted in terms of competition between ²³²Th(n, ??), (n, f), (n, nf) and (n, xn) reaction channels. The ²³²Th(n, ??) and ²³²Th(n, 2n) reaction cross-sections were also calculated theoretically using the TALYS 1.2 computer code and were found to be in good agreement with the experimental data from the present work but were slightly higher than the literature data at lower neutron energies.