A new algorithm for zero-modified models applied to citation counts

Scientometrics - In this era of interdisciplinary science, many scientific achievements, such as artificial intelligence (AI), have brought dramatic revolutions to human society. The increasing...     

Diffusion time dependence of magnetic resonance diffusion signal decays: an investigation of water exchange in human brain in vivo

Object

To understand the behavior of diffusion signal decays of water in white matter of human brain in vivo and to estimate tissue microstructure parameters such as exchange time of diffusing water molecules in human brain.

Materials and methods

Diffusion decays were measured over an extended range of diffusion weightings (b-values) up to a maximum of 12,500?s/mm² and diffusion times between 19.9 and 53.8?ms in eight healthy human subjects using MRI scans. The diffusion signal decays were all Rician noise corrected and then analyzed using multi-component non-negative least squares (NNLS) data analysis.

Results

Three diffusion coefficients including one at (0.930?±?0.003)?×?10^?3 (80?±?1%)?mm²/s, another at (0.067?±?0.002)?×?10^?3 (19?±?1%)?mm²/s and a small contribution at (1.20?±?0.02)?×?10^?2 (1.00?±?0.01%)?mm²/s were observed in the diffusion decay using the highest b-value. The diffusion decays show diffusion time dependence for the slow diffusion coefficient which has not previously been reported.

Conclusion

This study presents the accurate diffusion parameters by the use of very large b-values along with Rician noise correction and multi-component data analysis. The experimental results are consistent with the theoretical predictions used to estimate the exchange time of diffusing water molecules for a model of human brain tissue.     

Effect of operating conditions and liquid physical properties on the size of monodisperse microbubbles produced in a capillary embedded T-junction device

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of operating parameters such as liquid flow rate, gas inlet pressure, and capillary diameter as well as the influence of the physical properties of the liquid, in particular viscosity, on the generation of monodisperse microbubbles in a circular cross section T-junction device. Aqueous glycerol solutions with viscosities ranging from 1- to 100 mPa s were used in the experiments. The bubble diameter generated was studied for systematically varied combinations of gas inlet pressure, liquid flow rate, and liquid viscosity with a fixed capillary inner diameter of 150 μm for the liquid and gas inlet channels as well as the outlet channel. In addition, the effect of channel geometry on bubble size was studied using capillaries with inner diameters of first 100 and then 200 μm. In all the experiments the distance between the coaxial capillaries at the junction was set to be 200 μm. All the microbubbles produced in this study were highly monodisperse (polydispersity index <1 %) and it was found, as expected, that bubble formation and size were influenced by the ratio of liquid to gas flow rate, capillary size, and liquid viscosity. The experimental data were then compared with empirical scaling laws derived for rectangular cross-section junctions. In contrast with these previous studies, which have found bubble size to be dependent on either the flow rate ratio (the squeezing regime) or capillary number (the dripping regime), in this experimental study bubble size was found to depend on both capillary number and flow ratio.     

Distributed Adaptive Dynamic Surface Control for Synchronization of Uncertain Nonlinear Multi-agent Systems

In this paper a distributed adaptive dynamic surface controller is proposed for multi-agent systems under fixed directed graph topologies. The agents have uncertain nonlinear dynamics and are influenced by bounded unknown disturbances. The controller should synchronize the states of all agents with the corresponding states of the nonautonomous leader. It is proved that, with the proposed controller, the synchronization error remains bounded; and the bounds can be arbitrarily decreased by increasing the controller gains. The control rules are designed such that each agent only requires the state information of its neighbors, rendering a distributed control. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated through two simulation examples.     

Perfect state transfer on spin-1 chains

We show that networks of spin-1 particles connected in a special geometry and subject to Affleck–Kennedy–Lieb–Tasaki (AKLT) interaction are capable of perfectly transferring states of particles (qubits and qutrits) if we also allow a global control of the network in predetermined time intervals. The geometry can be one, two, and three dimensional. The strengths of the couplings have the same modulus, and only their signs differ on various bonds. Any particle which is routed in the network acquires relative phase shifts which can be corrected after it is extracted from the network. An advantage of this protocol is that one can route more than one particle through the network simultaneously. We show that a uniform magnetic fields do not deteriorate the fidelity and only change the relative phases in a controllable way.     

Nickel‐Catalyzed Reductive Benzylation of Aldehydes with Benzyl Halides and Pseudohalides

The reductive benzylation of aromatic and aliphatic aldehydes with benzylic halides is reported using a nickel/zinc catalyst system. In addition to benzylic halides, the first report on the addition of benzylic triflates, acetates, tosylates and tritylates to aldehydes is also presented. By this new method a range of alcohols was synthesized efficiently from aldehydes and benzylic substrates at room temperature in moderate to high yields. The mild reaction conditions and good functional group tolerance make this nickel‐catalyzed process synthetically useful for the synthesis of diverse benzylic alcohols.

     

Simultaneous Determination of Pentaerythritol Tetranitrate and 2,4,6‐Trinitrotoluene by High Performance Thin Layer Chromatography and Partial Least Squares Regression (PLSR) Method

High performance thin layer chromatography (HPTLC) has been used for the simultaneous determination of pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) and 2,4,6‐trinitrotoluene (TNT). With this aim, the spots were developed on silica gel 60 F₂₅₄ layers with petroleum ether–acetone (2 : 1 v/v). Both PETN and TNT compounds were separated from other constituent materials, and were developed at the same speed, by this solvent system. Then ultraviolet (UV) spectra of these materials were recorded with TLC‐scanner3 of CAMAG Company, and partial least squares regression‐2 (PLSR‐2) method was applied for the calibration and quantitative determination of these materials. The figure of merit (FOM) of this method was determined, and the method was applied for the analysis of an artificial sample.