Magnetic and electron transport properties of the rare-earth cobaltates, La0.7-xLnxCa0.3CoO3 (Ln = Pr, Nd, Gd and Dy) : A case of phase separation

Magnetic and electrical properties of four series of rare earth cobaltates of the formula La0.7-xLnxCa0.3CoO3 with Ln = Pr, Nd, Gd and Dy have been investigated. Compositions close to x = 0.0 contain large ferromagnetic clusters or domains, and show Brillouin-like behaviour of the field-cooled DC magnetization data with fairly high ferromagnetic Tc values, besides low electrical resistivities with near-zero temperature coefficients. The zero-field-cooled data generally show a non-monotonic behaviour with a peak at a temperatures slightly lower than Tc. The near x = 0.0 compositions show a prominent peak corresponding to the Tc in the AC-susceptibility data. The ferromagnetic Tc varies linearly with x or the average radius of the A-site cations, (rA). With increase in x or decrease in (rA), the magnetization value at any given temperature decreases markedly and the AC-susceptibility measurements show a prominent transition arising from small magnetic clusters with some characteristics of a spin-glass. Electrical resistivity increases with increase in x, showed a significant increase around a critical value of x or (rA), at which composition the small clusters also begin to dominate. These properties can be understood in terms of a phase separation scenario wherein large magnetic clusters give way to smaller ones with increase in x, with both types of clusters being present in certain compositions. The changes in magnetic and electrical properties occur parallely since the large ferromagnetic clusters are hole-rich and the small clusters are hole-poor. Variable-range hopping seems to occur at low temperatures in these cobaltates.Comment: 23 pages including figure

Training needs assessment in Malaysia: Exercise held at Kuala Lampur and Kota Bharu from 13th October 1989

Training / Irrigation / Evaluation / Malaysia

Catalytic activity of nickel ferrite nanoparticles in synthesis of 4-aryl benzelidene-2- ((5-fluoro-1H-indol-1-yl)methyl)oxazol-5(4H)-one and its evalute the biological activity

ABSTRACT. Seven 4-arylbenzelidene-2-((5-fluoro-1H-indol-1-yl)methyl)oxazol-5(4H)-one derivatives were synthesized by the condensation of 2-(2-(5-fluoro-1H-indol-1-yl) acetoamide) acetic acid, substituted aromatic aldehydes with acetic anhydride and sodium acetate in the presence of MgO/Al2O3 under reflux using nickel ferrite nanoparticles. Seven of the compounds are new derivatives. 2-(2-(5-fluoro-1H-indol-1-yl)acetoamide) acetic acid was obtained from 2-(5-fluoro-1H-indol-1-yl)acetyl chloride with lysine in the presence of NaOH and HCl in the ice cold solution. 2-(5-fluoro-1H-indol-1-yl)acetyl chloride can be prepared from 5-fluoro indole with chloroacetyl chloride in triethylamine and dichloromethane. The structures of the compounds were evaluated based on 1H-NMR, 13C-NMR and LC-MS and by elemental analysis. These compounds were screened by anti-oxidant as well as anti-microbial activity.               KEY WORDS: 2-(5-Fluoro-1H-indol-1-yl)acetyl chloride, 2-(2-(5-Fluoro-1H-indol-1-yl)acetoamide) acetic acid, 4-Aryl Benzelidene-2-((5-fluoro-1H-indol-1-yl)methyl)oxazol-5(4H)-one, Anti-oxidant, Anti-microbial activity, Nickel ferrite Bull. Chem. Soc. Ethiop. 2019, 33(3), 517-526.  DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.4314/bcse.v33i3.1

The eigenspectra of Indian musical drums

In a family of drums used in the Indian subcontinent, the circular drum head is made of material of non-uniform density. Remarkably, and in contrast to a circular membrane of uniform density, the low eigenmodes of the non-uniform membrane are harmonic. In this work we model the drum head by a non-uniform membrane whose density varies smoothly between two prescribed values. Using a Fourier-Chebyshev spectral collocation method we obtain the eigenmodes and eigenvalues of the drum head. For a suitable choice of parameters, which we find by optimising a cost function, the eigenspectra obtained from our model are in excellent agreement with experimental values. Our model and the numerical method should find application in numerical sound synthesis

Isomorphism testing of read-once functions and polynomials

In this paper, we study the isomorphism testing problem of formulas in the Boolean and arithmetic settings. We show that isomorphism testing of Boolean formulas in which a variable is read at most once (known as read-once formulas) is complete for log-space. In contrast, we observe that the problem becomes polynomial time equivalent to the graph isomorphism problem, when the input formulas can be represented as OR of two or more monotone read-once formulas. This classifies the complexity of the problem in terms of the number of reads, as read-3 formula isomorphism problem is hard for coNP. We address the polynomial isomorphism problem, a special case of polynomial equivalence problem which in turn is important from a cryptographic perspective[Patarin EUROCRYPT\u2796, and Kayal SODA\u2711]. As our main result, we propose a deterministic polynomial time canonization scheme for polynomials computed by constant-free read-once arithmetic formulas. In contrast, we show that when the arithmetic formula is allowed to read a variable twice, this problem is as hard as the graph isomorphism problem

Ferromagnetic insulating state in tensile-strained LaCoO3_3 thin films

With local density approximation + Hubbard $U$ (LDA+$U$) calculations, we show that the ferromagnetic (FM) insulating state observed in tensile-strained LaCoO$_3$ epitaxial thin films is most likely a mixture of low-spin (LS) and high-spin (HS) Co, namely, a HS/LS mixture state. Compared with other FM states, including the intermediate-spin (IS) state (\textit{metallic} within LDA+$U$), which consists of IS Co only, and the insulating IS/LS mixture state, the HS/LS state is the most favorable one. The FM order in HS/LS state is stabilized via the superexchange interactions between adjacent LS and HS Co. We also show that Co spin state can be identified by measuring the electric field gradient (EFG) at Co nucleus via nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy