Synthesis and Characterization of Some Organic Semiconductors and Investigations on the Effect of Swift Heavy Ions on Their Properties

In this work polymers belonging to polyaniline and polyaniline doped with camphor sulphonic acid are synthesised. Cobalt phthalocyanine is an interesting candidate belonging to the tetramers. Studies on the composites containing cobalt phthalocyanine tetramer and polyaniline doped with camphor sulphonic acid for various concentration are also undertaken in order to understand the mechanism. RF plasma polymerised aniline and furfural are prepared. The structural and electrical properties are evaluated. The bombardment of swift heavy ions of these films are carried out and the effect of irradiation on their properties is also investigated.

On the Tailoring of Magnetic Properties of Fe-Based Alloy Thin Films by Swift Heavy Ion Irradiation and Thermal Annealing

The development of new materials has been the hall mark of human civilization. The quest for making new devices and new materials has prompted humanity to pursue new methods and techniques that eventually has given birth to modern science and technology. With the advent of nanoscience and nanotechnology, scientists are trying hard to tailor materials by varying their size and shape rather than playing with the composition of the material. This, along with the discovery of new and sophisticated imaging tools, has led to the discovery of several new classes of materials like (3D) Graphite, (2D) graphene, (1D) carbon nanotubes, (0D) fullerenes etc. Magnetic materials are in the forefront of applications and have beencontributing their share to remove obsolescence and bring in new devices based on magnetism and magnetic materials. They find applications in various devices such as electromagnets, read heads, sensors, antennas, lubricants etc. Ferromagnetic as well as ferrimagnetic materials have been in use in the form of various devices. Among the ferromagnetic materials iron, cobalt and nickel occupy an important position while various ferrites finds applications in devices ranging from magnetic cores to sensors.

Analisis de un tratamiento individual de danza movimiento terapia en un caso crónico de esquizofrenia residual

En el siguiente estudio presento1 el análisis retrospectivo de un tratamiento individual de 17 sesiones de danza movimiento terapia en un caso crónico de una mujer de 59 años, institucionalizada, con un diagnóstico de esquizofrenia residual. Mi objetivo es evaluar la evolución y conclusión del tratamiento, con el fin de encontrar puntualizaciones de interés en la técnica de la DMT para pacientes con diagnósticos de psicosis y seguir construyendo y fortaleciendo la teoría y técnica de la DMT en esta población. Mis influencias teórico-técnicas provienen principalmente de los modelos de trabajo con pacientes psiquiátricos de Chaiklin y Schmais, S. (1979), Chaiklin, S. (1981), Jones (1992) y Liebowitz (1992). Utilicé las técnicas de la improvisación, el reflejo empático (Sandel, S. 1995), la verbalización (Stark & Lohn, 1995), la imagen, la metáfora y el símbolo (Sandel, S. 1995) y las enseñanzas del sistema de análisis del movimiento de Kestenberg (1999). Las aportaciones sobre creatividad de Brainsky (1988) y Pinchas Noy (1968-1969) me fueron de gran ayuda. Para el análisis triangulo información de varias fuentes: diarios de campo realizados durante el tratamiento junto con sus señalamientos producto de supervisiones y tutorías, la entrevista inicial y final a la paciente y un video analizado con la paciente y posteriormente estudiado bajo la óptica del sistema de análisis del movimiento de Kestenberg (Kestenberg y otros, 1999). Vivencio a través de mi paciente la utilidad y éxito de la DMT en la psicosis y las técnicas que nos permiten acercarnos a esta población. La DMT trabaja la estructura, no exclusivamente el fenómeno psicótico; aunque no se transforme la personalidad se fortalece, permitiéndole al sujeto vivir mejor en su condición, ser más autónomo, eficaz, feliz y móvil. La condición perse del proceso terapéutico con un psicótico es establecer una relación terapéutica para la cual es necesario entender en el cuerpo y en la mente que el funcionamiento de un psicótico no es el mismo que el de un neurótico; la barrera neurótica del terapeuta ha de sobrepasarse para lograr la fusión simbiótica que permitirá el bottom-up del psicótico. Los objetivos de trabajo en el caso individual son: integrar y desarrollar la unidad psiquesoma, contactar y expresar emociones, desarrollar las habilidades interpersonales y sociales, expandir el universo simbólico y desarrollar el movimiento espontáneo y la creatividad. Las fases del tratamiento son: los acercamientos y observaciones preliminares; la exploración del cuerpo, identificación de los focos de trabajo y comienzo de la ampliación del movimiento; la profundización y nacimiento del símbolo en la terapia y la consolidación de los avances y cierre del tratamiento. La técnica principal, es el reflejo empático del movimiento y la emoción en la improvisación y otras útiles, el masaje, automasaje, relajación, el dibujo, entre otras.

Maximum mass of neutron stars

We determine the structure of neutron stars within a Brueckner-Hartree-Fock approach based on realistic nucleon-nucleon, nucleon-hyperon, and hyperon-hyperon interactions. Our results indicate rather low maximum masses below 1.4 solar masses. This feature is insensitive to the nucleonic part of the EOS due to a strong compensation mechanism caused by the appearance of hyperons and represents thus strong evidence for the presence of nonbaryonic "quark" matter in the interior of heavy stars.

Risk Assessment of Rooftop- Collected Rainwater for Individual Household and Community Use in Central Kerala, India

Water quality of rooftop-collected rainwater is an issue of increased interest particularly in developing countries where the collected water is used as a source of drinking water. Bacteriological and chemical parameters of 25 samples of rooftop-harvested rainwater stored in ferrocement tanks were analyzed in the study described in this article. Except for the pH and lower dissolved oxygen levels, all other physicochemical parameters were within World Health Organization guidelines. Bacteriological results revealed that the rooftop-harvested rainwater stored in tanks does not often meet the bacteriological quality standards prescribed for drinking water. Fifty percent of samples of harvested rainwater for rural and urban community use and 20% of the samples for individual household use showed the presence of E. coli. Fecal coliform/fecal streptococci ratios revealed nonhuman animal sources of fecal pollution. Risk assessment of bacterial isolates from the harvested rainwater showed high resistance to ampicillin, erythromycin, penicillin, and vancomycin. Multiple antibiotic resistance (MAR) indexing of the isolates and elucidation of the resistance patterns revealed that 73% of the isolates exhibited MAR

Studies on the optical band gap and cluster size of the polyaniline thin films irradiated with swift heavy Si ions

Polyaniline thin films prepared by RF plasma polymerisation were irradiated with 92MeV Si ions for various fluences of 1 1011, 1 1012 and 1 1013 ions/cm2. FTIR and UV–vis–NIR measurements were carried out on the pristine and Si ion irradiated polyaniline thin films for structural evaluation and optical band gap determination. The effect of swift heavy ions on the structural and optical properties of plasma-polymerised aniline thin film is investigated. Their properties are compared with that of the pristine sample. The FTIR spectrum indicates that the structure of the irradiated sample is altered. The optical studies show that the band gap of irradiated thin film has been considerably modified. This has been attributed to the rearrangement in the ring structure and the formation of CRC terminals. This results in extended conjugated structure causing reduction in optical band gap

Swift heavy ion induced surface modification for tailoring coercivity in Fe–Ni based amorphous thin films

Fe–Ni based amorphous thin films were prepared by thermal evaporation. These films were irradiated by 108 MeV Ag8+ ions at room temperature with fluences ranging from 1 1012 to 3 1013 ions/cm2 using a 15 UD Pelletron accelerator. Glancing angle x-ray diffraction studies showed that the irradiated films retain their amorphous nature. The topographical evolution of the films under swift heavy ion SHI bombardment was probed using atomic force microscope and it was noticed that surface roughening was taking place with ion beam irradiation. Magnetic measurements using a vibrating sample magnetometer showed that the coercivity of the films increases with an increase in the ion fluence. The observed coercivity changes are correlated with topographical evolution of the films under SHI irradiation. The ability to modify the magnetic properties via SHI irradiation could be utilized for applications in thin film magnetism

Swift heavy ion induced surface and microstructural evolution in metallic glass thin films

Swift heavy ion induced changes in microstructure and surface morphology of vapor deposited Fe–Ni based metallic glass thin films have been investigated by using atomic force microscopy, X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy. Ion beam irradiation was carried out at room temperature with 103 MeV Au9+ beam with fluences ranging from 3 1011 to 3 1013 ions/cm2. The atomic force microscopy images were subjected to power spectral density analysis and roughness analysis using an image analysis software. Clusters were found in the image of as-deposited samples, which indicates that the film growth is dominated by the island growth mode. As-deposited films were amorphous as evidenced from X-ray diffraction; however, high resolution transmission electron microscopy measurements revealed a short range atomic order in the samples with crystallites of size around 3 nm embedded in an amorphous matrix. X-ray diffraction pattern of the as-deposited films after irradiation does not show any appreciable changes, indicating that the passage of swift heavy ions stabilizes the short range atomic ordering, or even creates further amorphization. The crystallinity of the as-deposited Fe–Ni based films was improved by thermal annealing, and diffraction results indicated that ion beam irradiation on annealed samples results in grain fragmentation. On bombarding annealed films, the surface roughness of the films decreased initially, then, at higher fluences it increased. The observed change in surface morphology of the irradiated films is attributed to the interplay between ion induced sputtering, volume diffusion and surface diffusion

Study on period search methods of variable stars: Application to ASAS and CRTS databases

Study on variable stars is an important topic of modern astrophysics. After the invention of powerful telescopes and high resolving powered CCD’s, the variable star data is accumulating in the order of peta-bytes. The huge amount of data need lot of automated methods as well as human experts. This thesis is devoted to the data analysis on variable star’s astronomical time series data and hence belong to the inter-disciplinary topic, Astrostatistics. For an observer on earth, stars that have a change in apparent brightness over time are called variable stars. The variation in brightness may be regular (periodic), quasi periodic (semi-periodic) or irregular manner (aperiodic) and are caused by various reasons. In some cases, the variation is due to some internal thermo-nuclear processes, which are generally known as intrinsic vari- ables and in some other cases, it is due to some external processes, like eclipse or rotation, which are known as extrinsic variables. Intrinsic variables can be further grouped into pulsating variables, eruptive variables and flare stars. Extrinsic variables are grouped into eclipsing binary stars and chromospheri- cal stars. Pulsating variables can again classified into Cepheid, RR Lyrae, RV Tauri, Delta Scuti, Mira etc. The eruptive or cataclysmic variables are novae, supernovae, etc., which rarely occurs and are not periodic phenomena. Most of the other variations are periodic in nature. Variable stars can be observed through many ways such as photometry, spectrophotometry and spectroscopy. The sequence of photometric observa- xiv tions on variable stars produces time series data, which contains time, magni- tude and error. The plot between variable star’s apparent magnitude and time are known as light curve. If the time series data is folded on a period, the plot between apparent magnitude and phase is known as phased light curve. The unique shape of phased light curve is a characteristic of each type of variable star. One way to identify the type of variable star and to classify them is by visually looking at the phased light curve by an expert. For last several years, automated algorithms are used to classify a group of variable stars, with the help of computers. Research on variable stars can be divided into different stages like observa- tion, data reduction, data analysis, modeling and classification. The modeling on variable stars helps to determine the short-term and long-term behaviour and to construct theoretical models (for eg:- Wilson-Devinney model for eclips- ing binaries) and to derive stellar properties like mass, radius, luminosity, tem- perature, internal and external structure, chemical composition and evolution. The classification requires the determination of the basic parameters like pe- riod, amplitude and phase and also some other derived parameters. Out of these, period is the most important parameter since the wrong periods can lead to sparse light curves and misleading information. Time series analysis is a method of applying mathematical and statistical tests to data, to quantify the variation, understand the nature of time-varying phenomena, to gain physical understanding of the system and to predict future behavior of the system. Astronomical time series usually suffer from unevenly spaced time instants, varying error conditions and possibility of big gaps. This is due to daily varying daylight and the weather conditions for ground based observations and observations from space may suffer from the impact of cosmic ray particles. Many large scale astronomical surveys such as MACHO, OGLE, EROS, xv ROTSE, PLANET, Hipparcos, MISAO, NSVS, ASAS, Pan-STARRS, Ke- pler,ESA, Gaia, LSST, CRTS provide variable star’s time series data, even though their primary intention is not variable star observation. Center for Astrostatistics, Pennsylvania State University is established to help the astro- nomical community with the aid of statistical tools for harvesting and analysing archival data. Most of these surveys releases the data to the public for further analysis. There exist many period search algorithms through astronomical time se- ries analysis, which can be classified into parametric (assume some underlying distribution for data) and non-parametric (do not assume any statistical model like Gaussian etc.,) methods. Many of the parametric methods are based on variations of discrete Fourier transforms like Generalised Lomb-Scargle peri- odogram (GLSP) by Zechmeister(2009), Significant Spectrum (SigSpec) by Reegen(2007) etc. Non-parametric methods include Phase Dispersion Minimi- sation (PDM) by Stellingwerf(1978) and Cubic spline method by Akerlof(1994) etc. Even though most of the methods can be brought under automation, any of the method stated above could not fully recover the true periods. The wrong detection of period can be due to several reasons such as power leakage to other frequencies which is due to finite total interval, finite sampling interval and finite amount of data. Another problem is aliasing, which is due to the influence of regular sampling. Also spurious periods appear due to long gaps and power flow to harmonic frequencies is an inherent problem of Fourier methods. Hence obtaining the exact period of variable star from it’s time series data is still a difficult problem, in case of huge databases, when subjected to automation. As Matthew Templeton, AAVSO, states “Variable star data analysis is not always straightforward; large-scale, automated analysis design is non-trivial”. Derekas et al. 2007, Deb et.al. 2010 states “The processing of xvi huge amount of data in these databases is quite challenging, even when looking at seemingly small issues such as period determination and classification”. It will be beneficial for the variable star astronomical community, if basic parameters, such as period, amplitude and phase are obtained more accurately, when huge time series databases are subjected to automation. In the present thesis work, the theories of four popular period search methods are studied, the strength and weakness of these methods are evaluated by applying it on two survey databases and finally a modified form of cubic spline method is intro- duced to confirm the exact period of variable star. For the classification of new variable stars discovered and entering them in the “General Catalogue of Vari- able Stars” or other databases like “Variable Star Index“, the characteristics of the variability has to be quantified in term of variable star parameters.

Study of individual lactation patterns of Iranian dairy buffaloes

The aims of the current study were 1) to investigate the effects of some environmental factors on lactation curve traits (LCTs) including initial milk yield (A), peak yield (PY), days to attain peak yield (PD), inclining- and declining slope of lactation (B and C, respectively), persistency (Per), and 240-d milk yield, and 2) to estimate pairwise phenotypic correlations between these traits in two Iranian buffalo ecotypes (Khuzestani and Azeri buffaloes). The dataset consisted of 15396 and 9283 lactations from 6632 Khuzestani and 3558 Azeri buffaloes, respectively (collected during 1992–2009). The results revealed that almost all of the factors had significant effects on the majority of the LCTs, whereby age group, parity and season of calving had greater influence on 240-d milk yield and PY than the other LCTs in both of the ecotypes. These effects were more apparent in Khuzestani buffaloes than in Azeri buffaloes. In the Khuzestani ecotype, the LCTs were significantly correlated with each other. However, in the Azeri ecotype the 240-d milk yield showed no significant relationship with parameters B, PD and Per. In conclusion, the studied factors play an important role in determining both the shape of the lactation curve and the overal performance of Iranian dairy buffaloes.

Individual Decision-Making and Inflation Persistence

The traditional task of a central bank is to preserve price stability and, in doing so, not to impair the real economy more than necessary. To meet this challenge, it is of great relevance whether inflation is only driven by inflation expectations and the current output gap or whether it is, in addition, influenced by past inflation. In the former case, as described by the New Keynesian Phillips curve, the central bank can immediately and simultaneously achieve price stability and equilibrium output, the so-called ‘divine coincidence’ (Blanchard and Galí 2007). In the latter case, the achievement of price stability is costly in terms of output and will be pursued over several periods. Similarly, it is important to distinguish this latter case, which describes ‘intrinsic’ inflation persistence, from that of ‘extrinsic’ inflation persistence, where the sluggishness of inflation is not a ‘structural’ feature of the economy but merely ‘inherited’ from the sluggishness of the other driving forces, inflation expectations and output. ‘Extrinsic’ inflation persistence is usually considered to be the less challenging case, as policy-makers are supposed to fight against the persistence in the driving forces, especially to reduce the stickiness of inflation expectations by a credible monetary policy, in order to reestablish the ‘divine coincidence’. The scope of this dissertation is to contribute to the vast literature and ongoing discussion on inflation persistence: Chapter 1 describes the policy consequences of inflation persistence and summarizes the empirical and theoretical literature. Chapter 2 compares two models of staggered price setting, one with a fixed two-period duration and the other with a stochastic duration of prices. I show that in an economy with a timeless optimizing central bank the model with the two-period alternating price-setting (for most parameter values) leads to more persistent inflation than the model with stochastic price duration. This result amends earlier work by Kiley (2002) who found that the model with stochastic price duration generates more persistent inflation in response to an exogenous monetary shock. Chapter 3 extends the two-period alternating price-setting model to the case of 3- and 4-period price durations. This results in a more complex Phillips curve with a negative impact of past inflation on current inflation. As simulations show, this multi-period Phillips curve generates a too low degree of autocorrelation and too early turnings points of inflation and is outperformed by a simple Hybrid Phillips curve. Chapter 4 starts from the critique of Driscoll and Holden (2003) on the relative real-wage model of Fuhrer and Moore (1995). While taking the critique seriously that Fuhrer and Moore’s model will collapse to a much simpler one without intrinsic inflation persistence if one takes their arguments literally, I extend the model by a term for inequality aversion. This model extension is not only in line with experimental evidence but results in a Hybrid Phillips curve with inflation persistence that is observably equivalent to that presented by Fuhrer and Moore (1995). In chapter 5, I present a model that especially allows to study the relationship between fairness attitudes and time preference (impatience). In the model, two individuals take decisions in two subsequent periods. In period 1, both individuals are endowed with resources and are able to donate a share of their resources to the other individual. In period 2, the two individuals might join in a common production after having bargained on the split of its output. The size of the production output depends on the relative share of resources at the end of period 1 as the human capital of the individuals, which is built by means of their resources, cannot fully be substituted one against each other. Therefore, it might be rational for a well-endowed individual in period 1 to act in a seemingly ‘fair’ manner and to donate own resources to its poorer counterpart. This decision also depends on the individuals’ impatience which is induced by the small but positive probability that production is not possible in period 2. As a general result, the individuals in the model economy are more likely to behave in a ‘fair’ manner, i.e., to donate resources to the other individual, the lower their own impatience and the higher the productivity of the other individual. As the (seemingly) ‘fair’ behavior is modelled as an endogenous outcome and as it is related to the aspect of time preference, the presented framework might help to further integrate behavioral economics and macroeconomics.

The Individual is Nothing, the Class Everything: Psychophysics and Modeling of Recognition in Obect Classes

Most psychophysical studies of object recognition have focussed on the recognition and representation of individual objects subjects had previously explicitely been trained on. Correspondingly, modeling studies have often employed a 'grandmother'-type representation where the objects to be recognized were represented by individual units. However, objects in the natural world are commonly members of a class containing a number of visually similar objects, such as faces, for which physiology studies have provided support for a representation based on a sparse population code, which permits generalization from the learned exemplars to novel objects of that class. In this paper, we present results from psychophysical and modeling studies intended to investigate object recognition in natural ('continuous') object classes. In two experiments, subjects were trained to perform subordinate level discrimination in a continuous object class - images of computer-rendered cars - created using a 3D morphing system. By comparing the recognition performance of trained and untrained subjects we could estimate the effects of viewpoint-specific training and infer properties of the object class-specific representation learned as a result of training. We then compared the experimental findings to simulations, building on our recently presented HMAX model of object recognition in cortex, to investigate the computational properties of a population-based object class representation as outlined above. We find experimental evidence, supported by modeling results, that training builds a viewpoint- and class-specific representation that supplements a pre-existing repre-sentation with lower shape discriminability but possibly greater viewpoint invariance.