Theoretical considerations on the directionality in polymerization mechanism and polymer type

The directionality (D_n) of a polymerization mechanism can be defined as the average orientation of the reaction or the degree of randomness of head-to-tail, head-to-head, tail-to-tail or tail-to-head reactions within the polymer at the n-th monomer or reaction (n ≫ 2). Directionality of a polymer type can be defined as the average orientation inside a polymer. If the directionality is random, D_n = 0.5. For full directionality, D_n = 1. It is demonstrated that these situations correspond to step and chain polymerization, respectively. Directionality can be as important for the functional properties of polymers as length and composition distributions and the functionality of the original monomers.     

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.     

Optically induced gate voltage spectroscopy in a GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructure

We report on measurements of optically induced gate voltage spectroscopy in a GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructure with a high mobility 2-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) in a thin (55 nm) GaAs layer. The optically induced gate voltage between the front gate and the 2DEG is sensitive to excess electron concentrations below 10⁷ cm⁻². In the gate voltage spectrum we observe a peak below the bandgap energy of GaAs, which is not observed in the photocurrent, luminescence or excitation spectra. Due to the extremely high sensitivity of this technique we attribute this below bandgap signal to very weak absorption lines below the GaAs bandgap energy by impurity bands or defect absorption. The fall-off of the below bandgap signal varies as exp (hω/E₀), where E₀ is an indicative for the quality of the heterostructure.     

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.     

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.