Optical determination and identification of organic shells around nanoparticles: application to silver nanoparticles

We present a simple method to prove the presence of an organic shell around silver nanoparticles. This method is based on the comparison between optical extinction measurements of isolated nanoparticles and Mie calculations predicting the expected wavelength of the Localized Surface Plasmon Resonance of the nanoparticles with and without the presence of an organic layer. This method was applied to silver nanoparticles which seemed to be well protected from oxidation. Further experimental characterization via Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) measurements allowed to identify this protective shell as ethylene glycol. Combining LSPR and SERS measurements could thus give proof of both presence and identification for other plasmonic nanoparticles surrounded by organic shells

Bilan hydrologique et envasement du barrage Saboun (Maroc)

La présente étude s'inscrit dans le cadre d'un programme de recherche sur la gestion des lacs et barrages collinaires en zone méditerranéenne HYDROMED. Elle a pour objectif le suivi hydrologique et la sédimentation du barrage collinaire Saboun, situé dans la zone de Tanger au Nord-Ouest du Maroc. Un dispositif hydro-pluviométrique automatique a été installé à ce sujet depuis novembre1997. Il a permis le suivi du bilan en eau de la retenue et l'analyse de son fonctionnement hydrologique. Parallèlement, une étude de la bathymétrie par sondage ponctuel a montré que le taux de sédimentation est de l'ordre de 2% par an. Cette perte en eau de la capacité totale de la retenue est une conséquence directe d'une forte dégradation des sols du bassin versant estimée à 115 T/ha/an.It is proposed that many Mediterranean countries could make better use of their water resources by constructing small hill reservoirs. Since 1980, Morocco has built more than 158 small dams in order to meet the requirements of rural population water use. Due to both environmental degradation and bad management, these small infrastructures are now in a critical situation. Furthermore, pollution and siltation, resulting in a deterioration of water quality and a reduction of water capacity, are problems at these sites.The present study is part of the HYDROMED research program on the hydrological balance of small dams in the Mediterranean area. Its objective is the monitoring of hydrological balance and siltation of a small dam, Saboun, located in Tangier in Northwest Morocco. A remote hydrological station was installed in November 1997. This station allowed the examination of the dam water balance and analyses of its hydrological function.The analyses of water balance demonstrated that the volume of water stored in the Saboun reservoir increased rapidly in November 1997, and was then followed by a progressive decrease. The load factor varied from 1.9 in 1997/98 to approximately 2 times the current capacity of reservoir, to only 0.3 in the following year 1998/99. These results show that even for a short hydrological period (2 years), the hydrological balance of the Saboun reservoir varied greatly as a result of the irregularity of its hydrological parameters. The essential reasons for this variability were the rainfall characteristics that control the runoff from the watershed and bad management practices.In addition, a bathymetric survey was carried out by a punctual method to estimate the rate of dam siltation and sedimentation from the watershed. The results of this control demonstrated that the dam siltation rate was about 2 % per year. This loss of total water retention capacity of the dam is the consequence of high specific soil degradation of the watershed. The rate of sediment delivered from watershed and deposited in the reservoir was estimated at 37 T/ha/year. The total soil erosion for watershed was estimated at 115 T/ha/year by integrating both the sediment evacuated at the time of dam overflow and the sediment deposited in stream flow. This erosion, which comes essentially from cultivated soil (95 % of the watershed surface), may have serious effects on the hydrological balance of the dam, particularly by reducing the reservoir capacity of the dam, and on the reservoir water quality

Deterministic KPZ-type equations with nonlocal “gradient terms”

The main goal of this paper is to prove existence and non-existence results for deterministic Kardar–Parisi–Zhang type equations involving non-local “gradient terms”. More precisely, let Ω ⊂ RN, N≥ 2 , be a bounded domain with boundary ∂Ω of class C2. For s∈ (0 , 1) , we consider problems of the form {(-Δ)su=μ(x)|D(u)|q+λf(x),inΩ,u=0,inRN\Ω,(KPZ)where q> 1 and λ> 0 are real parameters, f belongs to a suitable Lebesgue space, μ∈ L∞(Ω) and D represents a nonlocal “gradient term”. Depending on the size of λ> 0 , we derive existence and non-existence results. In particular, we solve several open problems posed in [Abdellaoui in Nonlinearity 31(4): 1260-1298 (2018), Section 6] and [Abdellaoui in Proc Roy Soc Edinburgh Sect A 150(5): 2682-2718 (2020), Section 7]. © 2022, Fondazione Annali di Matematica Pura ed Applicata and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature

Transport électronique dans l’alliage liquide binaire Or–Argent

Electronic transport in liquid binary alloys Gold-SilverThe electrical resistivity of the liquid alloy Gold-Silver was measured on the totality of the diagram of phase since the melting point until 1150°C. Our measurements, made in a quartz cell equipped with tungsten electrodes, were compared with those obtained by Roll and Motz using a technique without electrodes. The  technique that we used does not reproduce the anomalies observed by Roll and Motz in the curves of resistivity and its temperature coefficient as function of the concentration. The confrontation of our experimental results with the theory was made by using two types of  dephasing as well as the pseudopotential suggested by Idress et al. and used by Alam and Tomak

The effect of the natural raw barite and the dolomite material on borate glass formation

No Abstract

The use of reproductive vigor descriptors in studying genetic variability in nine Tunisian faba bean (Vicia faba L.) populations

A collection of nine Tunisian faba bean (Vicia faba) populations belonging to three botanical classes (Var. minor, var. equina and var. major) was evaluated using twenty seven agro-morphological traits. Analysis of variance, correlation coefficients and principal components analysis (PCA) were performed based on MVSP 3.13 program. Significant differences between populations were noted for most agromorphological traits in four main groups. The first group, positively correlated to the two axes, isrepresented by ‘Bachaar’ belonging to V. faba. var. minor, the second group, including V. faba. var. minor population (‘Massri’ and ‘Badï’), is positively correlated to the PC1 and negatively correlated to the PC2 while the third group, is composed of two V. faba var. major (‘Malti’ and ‘Batata’) and were positively and negatively correlated to the PC2 and PC1, respectively. Finally, the fourth group negatively correlated to the two axes, gathers the remaining population (‘Chahbi’, ‘Chemlali’, ‘Aguadulce’ and ‘Super Aguadulce’). The dendrogram based on Nei's genetic distance of the 9 populations using UPGMA method, show some genetic drift between populations.Key words: Faba bean, agromorphological traits, principal components analysis, UPGMA method

A Novel Design of a Miniature Metamaterial Antenna for RFID Reader Applications

In this article, we propose a novel design of a dual band antenna based metamaterial for RFID applications. The proposed antenna consists of a rectangular patch using inverted u-slot in radiating element and two split ring resonators loaded in the ground plane. The antenna is printed on an FR4 substrate having athickness of 1.6 mm, permitivitty of 4.4 and loss tanget of 0.025. this antenna is feed by a micostrip line having caracteristique of 50 Ohms. The designed antenna resonates at the UHF band around 900Mz with an input impedance of 87MHz and also, resonates at the ISM band around 2.45GHz with a large bandwidth about 516MHz. The designed antenna is simulated bys using CST and the results is validated by HFSS. After simulation, a prototype of the proposed antenna is fabricated, and the measured results show a good agreement with the simulated one