Strong flux of low-energy neutrons produced by thunderstorms

We report here for the first time about the registration of an extraordinary high flux of low-energy neutrons generated during thunderstorms. The measured neutron count rate enhancements are directly connected with thunderstorm discharges. The low-energy neutron flux value obtained in our work is a challenge for the photonuclear channel of neutron generation in thunderstorm: the estimated value of the needed high-energy γ-ray flux is about 3 orders of magnitude higher than that one observed.     

Diffusion of dextran within poly(methacrylic acid) hydrogels

We describe an investigation of fluorescence correlation spectroscopy into the diffusion of fluorescein‐tagged dextran (FDEX) in a poly(methacrylic acid) (PMAA) hydrogel. The temperature dependence of FDEX diffusion is shown to follow Zimm behavior in pure water, and the decrease in the diffusion coefficient when in the PMAA hydrogel has been modeled. The addition of acid and alkali (HCl and NaOH, respectively) not only control the swelling and collapse of the hydrogel but also reveal a strong pH dependence of the dextran diffusion coefficient, which shows a (nonmonatonic) increase with pH. The addition of NaCl and CaCl₂ salts similarly showed evidence of network swelling, most notably at low salt concentration, but also that the diffusion coefficient within the gel at these low concentrations is larger than that in the equivalent solution without the hydrogel, indicating that the combination of hydrogel and salt works to increase the diffusion coefficient above that in pure water. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys, 2012     

Multi-Component Study of Extensive Air Showers at the Tien Shan Mountain Station of LPI and Peculiarities of the Particles Flux Behavior in the Central Region of the (1–100) PeV EAS

Physics of Atomic Nuclei - New multipurpose experimental complex of the Tien Shan mountain cosmic ray station of LPI incorporates a set of detector subsystems for simultaneous investigation of the...     

Recent trends in ultra‐fast HPLC: New generation superficially porous silica columns

New generation columns, i.e. packed with superficially porous silica particles are available as trade names with following manufacturers: Halo, Ascentis Express, Proshell 120, Kinetex, Accucore, Sunshell, and Nucleoshell. These provide ultra‐fast HPLC separations for a variety of compounds with moderate sample loading capacity and low back pressure. Chemistries of these columns are C₈, C₁₈, RP‐Amide, hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography, penta fluorophenyl (PFP), F5, and RP‐aqua. Normally, the silica gel particles are of 2.7 and 1.7 μm as total and inner solid core diameters, respectively, with 0.5‐μm‐thick of outer porous layer having 90 Å pore sizes and 150 m²/g surface area. This article describes these new generation columns with special emphasis on their textures and chemistries, separations, optimization, and comparison (inter and intra stationary phases). Besides, future perspectives have also been discussed.     

A Regularization Technique for a Class of Singular Integral Problems

We discuss here a method for the extraction of the singularparts of a variety of problems involving singular integrands.The method is based on the systematic use of a partial fractionidentity; we give here applications to numerical quadratureand to the solution of singular integral equations of variouskinds.     

Some natural aqueous extracts of plants as green inhibitor for carbon steel corrosion in 0.5 M sulfuric acid

The inhibiting impact of natural aqueous extracts of some plants such as curcumin, parsley and cassia bark extracts for the corrosion of carbon steel (C-steel) in 0.5 M H₂SO₄ solution was inspected utilizing some techniques such as galvanostatic and potentiodynamic anodic polarization and weight loss measurements. Outcomes indicated that the percentage inhibition efficiency increases with increasing the concentration of the extract due to its horizontal adsorption on the C-steel surface. The process of adsorption is followed by the Temkin isotherm. These natural extracts acted as pitting corrosion inhibitors by shifting the pitting potential to more noble values. The sequence of inhibition efficiency of the natural extracts decreases in the following order: cassia bark extract > parsley extract > curcumin extract. This arrangement is related to the molecular size of the major components of the three natural extracts used.     

Detecting electronic states at stacking faults in magnetic thin films by tunneling spectroscopy

Co islands grown on Cu(111) with a stacking fault at the interface present a conductance in the empty electronic states larger than the Co islands that follow the stacking sequence of the Cu substrate. Electrons can be more easily injected into these faulted interfaces, providing a way to enhance transmission in future spintronic devices. The electronic states associated with the stacking fault are visualized by tunneling spectroscopy, and its origin is identified by band structure calculations.     

Geophysical Aspect of Cosmic Ray Studies at the Tien Shan Mountain Station: Monitoring of Radiation Background,Investigation of Atmospheric Electricity Phenomena in Thunderclouds,and the Search for the Earthquake Precursor Effects

Physics of Atomic Nuclei - The multipurpose detector complex of the Tien Shan mountain station of LPI provides the means to carry out studies in the various fields of experimental geophysics. The...     

Functional neural network analysis in frontotemporal dementia and Alzheimer's disease using EEG and graph theory

Background  

Although a large body of knowledge about both brain structure and function has been gathered over the last decades, we still have a poor understanding of their exact relationship. Graph theory provides a method to study the relation between network structure and function, and its application to neuroscientific data is an emerging research field. We investigated topological changes in large-scale functional brain networks in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) by means of graph theoretical analysis of resting-state EEG recordings. EEGs of 20 patients with mild to moderate AD, 15 FTLD patients, and 23 non-demented individuals were recorded in an eyes-closed resting-state. The synchronization likelihood (SL), a measure of functional connectivity, was calculated for each sensor pair in 0.5–4 Hz, 4–8 Hz, 8–10 Hz, 10–13 Hz, 13–30 Hz and 30–45 Hz frequency bands. The resulting connectivity matrices were converted to unweighted graphs, whose structure was characterized with several measures: mean clustering coefficient (local connectivity), characteristic path length (global connectivity) and degree correlation (network 'assortativity'). All results were normalized for network size and compared with random control networks.