In situ synthesis of long tubular water-dispersible polyaniline with core/shell gold and silver@graphene oxide nanoparticles for gas sensor application.

Gold nanoparticles (Au NPs) with graphene oxide (GO) shell (Au@GO), silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) with GO shell (Ag@GO), and gold silver nanoparticles (AuAgNPs) with GO shell (AuAg@GO) were synthesized employing a cationic surfactant. The prepared core@shell structures were used for in situ synthesis of long tubular polyaniline structures employing cetyl trimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) as a soft template. This process led to a notable enhancement in the tubular nanostructure of PANI, extending its length beyond 10 μm, in the case of using core/shell Au@GO, Ag@GO, and AuAg@GO structures.

The impact of mask-wearing in mitigating the spread of COVID-19 during the early phases of the pandemic.

Masks have been widely recommended as a precaution against COVID-19 transmission. Several studies have shown the efficacy of masks at reducing droplet dispersion in lab settings. However, during the early phases of the pandemic, the usage of masks varied widely across countries.

Preparing for a future COVID-19 wave: insights and limitations from a data-driven evaluation of non-pharmaceutical interventions in Germany.

To contain the COVID-19 pandemic, governments introduced strict Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions (NPI) that restricted movement, public gatherings, national and international travel, and shut down large parts of the economy. Yet, the impact of the enforcement and subsequent loosening of these policies on the spread of COVID-19 is not well understood. Accordingly, we measure the impact of NPIs on mitigating disease spread by exploiting the spatio-temporal variations in policy measures across the 16 states of Germany.

Noise, delocalization, and quantum diffusion in one-dimensional tight-binding models.

As an unusual type of anomalous diffusion behavior, namely (transient) superballistic transport, has been experimentally observed recently, but it is not yet well understood. In this paper, we investigate the white noise effect (in the Markov approximation) on quantum diffusion in one-dimensional tight-binding models with a periodic, disordered, and quasiperiodic region of size L attached to two perfect lattices at both ends in which the wave packet is initially located at the center of the sublattice. We find that in a completely localized system, inducing noise could delocalize the system to a desirable diffusion phase.