Rapid crack growth in a thermoelastic solid under mixed-mode thermomechanical loading

A two-dimensional steady-sate analysis of semi-infinite brittlecrack growth at a constant subcritical rate in an unboundedfully-coupled thermoelastic solid under mixed-mode thermomechanicalloading is made. The loading consists of normal and shear tractionsand heat fluxes applied as point sources (line loads in theout-of-plane direction). A related problem is solved exactly in an integral transformspace, and robust asymptotic forms used to reduce the originalproblem to a set of integral equations. The equations are partiallycoupled and exhibit operators of both Cauchy and Abel types,yet can be solved analytically. The temperature change field at a distance from the moving crackedge is then constructed, and its dominant term is found tobe controlled by the imposed heat fluxes. The role of this termis, indeed, enhanced if the heat fluxes serve to render thecrack as a net heat source/sink for the solid, as opposed tobeing a transmitter of heat across its plane. More generally,the influence of the thermoelastic coupling on this field, aswell as other functions, is found to increase with crack speed.     

Synthetic magnetic opals

We present studies of novel nanocomposites of BiNi impregnated into the structure of opals as well as inverse opals. Atomic force microscopy and high resolution elemental analyses show a highly ordered structure and uniform distribution of the BiNi filler in the matrix. These BiNi-based nanocomposites are found to exhibit distinct ferromagnetic-like ordering with transition temperature of about 675 K. As far as we know there exists no report in literature on any BiNi compound which is magnetic.     

Infrared absorption features of gaseous isopropyl carbocations.

C3H7+ ions were formed in the cell of a Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometer and assayed by their multi-photon dissociation (MPD) behavior, triggered by the absorption of tunable IR radiation from a free-electron laser source providing a high fluence. The derived experimental IRMPD spectrum, which reflects the active vibrational modes of the ion, was compared with the IR spectra calculated for the optimized structures of the most-stable species on the C3H7+ potential energy surface, namely, a chiral iC3H7+ ion of C2 symmetry and an asymmetric corner-protonated cyclopropane, cC3H7+. The significant features in the IRMPD spectra of both the unlabeled and the perdeuterated ions obtained by ionization and fragmentation of isobutane or 2-chloro[D7]propane confirm the presence of the isopropyl cation, the ground-state isomer, whose IR spectroscopic features can thus be comparatively checked in the gas phase and in condensed superacid media. Details of the IRMPD features are suggested to result from the nearly barrierless interconversion of the two C2 enantiomers.     

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.     

Fingerprint IR spectroscopy to probe amino acid conformations in the gas phase

We report the infrared (IR) absorption spectra of different conformational isomers of gas phase amino acid molecules in the molecular fingerprint region of 330-1500 cm(-1). The IR absorption spectra for three conformers of the amino acid tryptophan show absorption bands that uniquely identify the conformational structure of the molecule and that are well matched by density functional theory calculations. The present observations hold great promise for future identification of conformational folding of larger molecules by means of their IR absorption characteristics.