Outdoor ground impedance models

Many models for the acoustical properties of rigid-porous media require knowledge of parameter values that are not available for outdoor ground surfaces. The relationship used between tortuosity and porosity for stacked spheres results in five characteristic impedance models that require not more than two adjustable parameters. These models and hard-backed-layer versions are considered further through numerical fitting of 42 short range level difference spectra measured over various ground surfaces. For all but eight sites, slit-pore, phenomenological and variable porosity models yield lower fitting errors than those given by the widely used one-parameter semi-empirical model. Data for 12 of 26 grassland sites and for three beech wood sites are fitted better by hard-backed-layer models. Parameter values obtained by fitting slit-pore and phenomenological models to data for relatively low flow resistivity grounds, such as forest floors, porous asphalt, and gravel, are consistent with values that have been obtained non-acoustically. Three impedance models yield reasonable fits to a narrow band excess attenuation spectrum measured at short range over railway ballast but, if extended reaction is taken into account, the hard-backed-layer version of the slit-pore model gives the most reasonable parameter values.     

Study of Pion Transverse Momentum Distributions in Ultra-Relativistic Heavy Ion Collisions: A USTFM Approach

Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Physics - The mid-rapidity (|y| < 0.5) transverse momentum distributions of identified charged pions produced in different collision systems at...     

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.     

Effect of Temperature Anisotropy on Various Modes and Instabilities for a Magnetized Non-relativistic Bi-Maxwellian Plasma

Using kinetic theory for homogeneous collisionless magnetized plasmas, we present an extended review of the plasma waves and instabilities and discuss the anisotropic response of generalized relativistic dielectric tensor and Onsager symmetry properties for arbitrary distribution functions. In general, we observe that for such plasmas only those modes whose magnetic-field perturbations are perpendicular to the ambient magnetic field, i.e., B ₁ $\bot $ B ₀, are effected by the anisotropy. However, in oblique propagation all modes do show such anisotropic effects. Considering the non-relativistic bi-Maxwellian distribution and studying the relevant components of the general dielectric tensor under appropriate conditions, we derive the dispersion relations for various modes and instabilities. We show that only the electromagnetic R- and L- waves, those derived from them (i.e., the whistler mode, pure Alfvén mode, firehose instability, and whistler instability), and the O-mode are affected by thermal anisotropies, since they satisfy the required condition $\mathbf{B}_{1}\bot \mathbf{B}_{0}$ . By contrast, the perpendicularly propagating X-mode and the modes derived from it (the pure transverse X-mode and Bernstein mode) show no such effect. In general, we note that the thermal anisotropy modifies the parallel propagating modes via the parallel acoustic effect, while it modifies the perpendicular propagating modes via the Larmor-radius effect. In oblique propagation for kinetic Alfvén waves, the thermal anisotropy affects the kinetic regime more than it affects the inertial regime. The generalized fast mode exhibits two distinct acoustic effects, one in the direction parallel to the ambient magnetic field and the other in the direction perpendicular to it. In the fast-mode instability, the magneto-sonic wave causes suppression of the firehose instability. We discuss all these propagation characteristics and present graphic illustrations. The threshold conditions for different instabilities are also obtained.     

An application of univariate marginal distribution algorithm in MIMO communication systems

The paper discusses a sequence detector based on univariate marginal distribution algorithm (UMDA) that jointly estimates the symbols transmitted in a multiple input multiple output (MIMO) communication system. While an optimal maximum likelihood detection using an exhaustive search method is prohibitively complex, it has been shown that sphere decoder (SD) achieves the optimal bit error rate (BER) performance with polynomial time complexity for smaller array sizes. However, the worst‐case complexity of SD is exponential in the problem dimensions, this brings in question its practical implementation for larger number of spatial layers and for higher‐order signal constellation. The proposed detector shows promising results for this overly difficult and complicated operating environment, confirmed through simulation results. A performance comparison of the UMDA detector with SD is presented for higher‐order complex MIMO architectures with limited average transmit power. The proposed detector achieves substantial performance gain for higher‐order systems attaining a near optimal BER performance with reduced computational complexity as compared with SD. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Microwave Irradiation and Glutamic Acid-Assisted Phytotreatment of Tannery and Surgical Industrial Wastewater by Sorghum

We investigated how different doses of microwave irradiation (MR) affect seed germination in Sorghum, including the level of remediation against textile and surgical wastewater (WW) by modulating biochemical and morpho-physiological mechanisms under glutamic acid (GA) application. The experiment was conducted to determine the impact of foliar-applied GA on Sorghum under wastewater conditions. Plants were treated with or without microwave irradiation (30 s, 2.45 GHz), GA (5 and 10 mM), and wastewater (0, 25, 50, and 100). Growth and photosynthetic pigments were significantly decreased in plants only treated with various concentrations of WW. GA significantly improved the plant growth characteristics both in MR-treated and -untreated plants compared with respective controls. HMs stress increased electrolyte leakage (EL), hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂), and malondialdehyde (MDA) content; however, the GA chelation significantly improved the antioxidant enzymes activities such as ascorbate oxidase (APX), superoxide dismutase (SOD), peroxidase (POD), and catalase (CAT) both in MR-treated and -untreated plants under WW stress compared with respective controls. The results suggested that the MR-treated plants accumulate higher levels of HMs under GA addition in comparison to the WW-only-treated and MR-untreated plants. The maximum increase in Cd accumulation was observed in the range of 14–629% in the roots, 15–2964% in the stems, and 26–4020% in the leaves; the accumulation of Cu was 18–2757% in the roots, 15–4506% in the stems, and 23–4605% in the leaves; and the accumulation of Pb was 13–4122% in the roots, 21–3588% in the stems, and 21–4990% in the leaves under 10 mM GA and MR-treated plants. These findings confirmed that MR-treated sorghum plants had a higher capacity for HMs uptake under GA and could be used as a potential candidate for wastewater treatment.     

Yttria‐based sol–gel coating for capillary microextraction online coupled to high‐performance liquid chromatography

This work about the development of yttria‐based polymeric coating using [bis(hydroxyethyl) amine] terminated polydimethylsiloxanes and yttrium trimethoxyethoxide inside the capillary. The coated capillary was utilized for online capillary microextraction and high‐performance liquid chromatography analysis. The prepared coating material was characterized using scanning electron microscopy, X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy, energy dispersive X‐ray spectrometry, and thermogravimetric analysis. The coated capillary with polymer presented better extraction efficiency compared with the pure yttria‐based coated capillary with applicability in extreme pH environments (pH 0–pH 14). Excellent extraction towards polyaromatic hydrocarbons, aldehydes, ketones, alcohols, phenols, and amides was observed with limit of detection ranging from 0.18 to 7.35 ng/mL (S/N = 3) and reproducibility in between 0.6 and 6.8% (n = 3). Capillary‐to‐capillary extraction analysis has presented reproducibility between 4.1 and 9.9%. The analysis provided linear response for seven selected phenols in the range of 5–200 ng/mL with R² values between 0.9971 and 0.9998. The inter‐day, intra‐day, and capillary‐to‐capillary reproducibility for phenols was also <10%. Real sample analysis by spiking 5, 50, and 200 ng/mL of phenols in wastewater and pool‐water produced recovery between 84.7 and 94.3% and reproducibility within 7.6% (n = 3).