Laser reflectometry in situ measurement of lead zirconate titanate film growth

A convenient method is described for optical characterization of thin films during growth. The method has been demonstrated on lead zirconate titanate (PZT) films deposited by pulsed laser ablation for various temperatures. The optical constants of the PZT films as well as the film growth rate were determined in situ by fitting (with three free parameters) the calculated reflectance as a function of film thickness to the experimental reflectance curve as a function of deposition time, as obtained by unpolarized laser reflectometry. The fitted parameters are the uniform complex PZT refractive index and the layer thickness (assumed proportional to time), with the complex refractive index of the platinum substrate being measured previously. These results compare well with the subsequent ellipsometric measurements made to assess the precision of the reflectometry technique.     

Direct electrochemical probing of DNA hybridization on oligonucleotide-functionalized polypyrrole

We here report a new approach for the direct label of a free detection of DNA hybridization using electrochemical techniques applied to a system made of a polypyrrole matrix supported at the surface of an electrode and modified with DNA probes by covalent grafting. The binding occurs at sites where the polypyrrole is functionalized with activated ester groups. The hybridization reactions with the DNA complementary target and non-complementary target were investigated by both amperometric analysis and non-faradaic electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. The results show a significant modification in the electrochemical response of the layer upon addition of the complementary target. A variation of the redox activity of polypyrrole was demonstrated and was shown to correlate with the result obtained with impedance measurement which was related to the modification of conjugation of the polypyrrole backbone.

The Nyquist plots obtained upon hybridization reaction were analysed by the Randles circuit. Electrical parameters such as capacity and transfer charge resistance were analysed and it was shown that the hybridization reaction caused a decrease of charge transfer and an increase of capacity. The charge transfer resistance R₂ showed a linear variation as a function of the complementary target concentration. The sensitivity and the detection limit were determined and raised 1 pmol which constituted a substantial enhancement when compared to the results obtained by other systems.     

Wavelet decomposition and regime shifts: Assessing the effects of crude oil shocks on stock market returns

While there is a large body of empirical studies on the relationship between crude oil price changes and stock market returns, they have failed to achieve a consensus on this subject. In this paper, we combine wavelet analysis and Markov Switching Vector Autoregressive (MS-VAR) approach to explore the impact of the crude oil (CO) shocks on the stock market returns for UK, France and Japan over the period from January 1989 to December 2007. Our procedure involves the estimation of the extended MS-VAR model in order to investigate the importance of the resultant wavelet filtering series (after removing random components) in determining the behavior of the stock market volatilities. We show that CO shocks do not affect the recession stock market phases (except for Japan). However, they significantly reduce moderate and/or expansion stock market phases temporarily. Moreover, this negative relationship appears to be more pronounced during the pre-1999 period. The empirical findings will prove extremely useful to investors who need to understand the exact effect of international oil changes on certain stocks prices as well as for policy managers who need a more thorough evaluation about the efficiency of hedging policies affected by oil price changes.     

Influence of the laser pulse duration on spectrochemical analysis of solids by laser-induced plasma spectroscopy

Quantitative analysis of aluminum and copper alloys by means of laser-induced plasma spectroscopy (LIPS) has been investigated for three representative laser pulse durations (80 fs, 2 ps, and 270 ps). The experiments were carried out in air at atmospheric pressure with a constant energy density of 20 J/cm2. Because the decay rate of the spectral emission depends on the laser pulse duration, the optimum detection requires an optimization of the temporal gating acquisition parameters. LIPS calibration (sensitivity and nonlinearity) and the limit of detection (LOD) are discussed in detail. While the LOD of minor elements embedded in alloy samples obtained by sub-picosecond or sub-nanosecond laser pulses are both time and element dependent, provided an appropriate temporal window is chosen, the optimum LODs (several parts per million (ppm)) prove to be independent of the laser pulse duration. Finally, it is found that for elements such as those detected here, gated LIPS spectra using picosecond or sub-picosecond laser pulses provide much better LOD values than non-gated spectra.     

Experimental and theoretical study of hydrogen absorption by LaNi3.6Mn0.3Al0.4Co0.7 alloy using statistical physics modeling

A monolayer model treated by statistical physics by means of the grand canonical ensemble has been developed, describing PCT isotherms for absorption of hydrogen by LaNi_3.6Mn_0.3Al_0.4Co_0.7 alloy. This model presents a high correlation with the experimental results. The experimental absorption isotherms are fitted at three temperature different (T = 293 K to T = 313 K). The physicochemical parameters involved in the model were determined from the experimental isotherms by numerical simulation. These parameters, such as two numbers of absorbed atoms per site n₁ and n₂, two receptor site densities N_1M and N_2M, and two energetic parameters, P₁ and P₂ are discussed in relationship with absorption process. The different thermodynamic functions which govern the absorption mechanism such as entropy (S_a), free enthalpy of Gibbs (G) and internal energy (E_int) are derived by statistical physics model calculations.     

MADCR:Mobility Aware Dynamic Clustering-Based Routing Protocol in Internet of Vehicles

Internet of Vehicles (IoV) is an evolution of the Internet of Things (IoT) to improve the capabil-ities of vehicular ad-hoc networks (VANETs) in in-telligence t...     

Hybrid spatial‐spectral MoM analysis of microstrip structures

In this paper, a new hybrid method formulation to resolve the mixed potential integral equation in an efficient and a fast approach, which is based on a simultaneous formulation in both spatial and spectral domains, is proposed. The entries of the method of moments matrix are then given by the sum of two integrals. The first one is expressed in the spatial domain. This part is analytically evaluated after a development in Taylor series of the exponential terms in the function to integrate. The integrals expressed in the spectral domain have a finite range, and they are calculated using numerical integration. Then the convergence problem is avoided in this approach. A good agreement between the simulated and measured results has been achieved. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.