Sharif Digital Repository

The rational design of composite catalysts is critically essential for electrochemical water splitting. Here, we report on a novel hierarchical composite that comprises NiFeSe2 nanoparticles and NiCo2O4 nanoflakes supported on nickel foam (NF) as an efficient electrocatalyst for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). The conjunction of the NiFeSe2 nanoparticles and NiCo2O4 nanoflakes introduces a new synergistic effect for the HER, resulting in an improved NiCo2O4 catalyst. The as-prepared NiFeSe2/NiCo2O4/NF electrode exhibited an enhanced HER activity, with a low overpotential of 83 mV at a current density of 10 mA cm−2, a low Tafel slope of 45 mV dec−1, and an excellent long-term... 

In this article, the synthesis, characterization, and cyclic voltammetry (CV) measurements are reported for ferrocene-terminated oligophenyleneimine (OPI_Fc) and ferrocene-terminated conjugation-broken oligophenyleneimine (CB-OPI_Fc) self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) in two different electrolytes, namely, 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium-bis (trifluoromethyl-sulfonyl) imide (EMITFSI) ionic liquid and tetrabutylammonium hexafluorophosphate (Bu4NPF6) in acetonitrile (0.1 M solution). The SAMs were synthesized on Au surfaces by the sequential imine condensation reactions. CV was used to investigate the kinetics of electron transfer (ET) to the ferrocene, and it was observed that the standard ET rate... 

The main aim of this work was to assess the ability of Bayesian multivariate adaptive regression splines (BMARS) and Bayesian radial basis function (BRBF) techniques for modelling the gas chromatographic retention indices of volatile components of Artemisia species. A diverse set of molecular descriptors was calculated and used as descriptor pool for modelling the retention indices. The ability of BMARS and BRBF techniques was explored for the selection of the most relevant descriptors and proper basis functions for modelling. The results revealed that BRBF technique is more reproducible than BMARS for modelling the retention indices and can be used as a method for variable selection and... 

In this work, the role of Lewis acid–base (LAB) interaction on the stereoselectivity of the Diels–Alder (DA) reaction has been studied by DFT in gas and solution (dichloromethane) phases. The calculations were performed at the B3LYP/6-311G++ (d, p) level. Two different series of DA reactions were investigated: (1)—three mono-substituted cyclopentadienes + dimethyl(vinyl)borane; (2)—five α,β-unsaturated carbonyl compounds + cyclopenta-2,4-dien-1-yldimethylborane. The reacting diene and dienophile pairs were chosen to restrict LAB interaction to the exo reaction pathway. It was found that in some of the examined cases, the favorable LAB interaction is so strong that it can lead to a completely... 

The main aim of the present work was to collect and categorize anti-HIV molecules in order to identify general structure-activity relationships. In this respect, a total of 5580 drugs and drug-like molecules was collected from 256 different articles published between 1992 and 2010. An algorithm called genetic algorithm-pattern search counterpropagation artificial neural networks (GPS-CPANN) was proposed for the classification of compounds. In addition, the CART (classification and regression trees) method was used for construction of decision trees and finding the best molecular descriptors. The results revealed that the developed CPANN models and decision tree can correctly classify the... 

This paper presents an efficient scheme for blind watermark attacking using the concept of matching of the long-range data. The main idea of the proposed attack is to add plenty of noise to the watermarked image and then try to restore an unwatermarked copy of the noisy image. The aim is to destroy the watermark information without accessing the parameters used during the watermark embedding process. So, it allows our approach to be completely free from any pre-assumption on the watermarking algorithm or any other parameters that is used during the watermark embedding procedure. Experimental results show the proposed algorithm's superiority over several other traditional watermarking... 

Along with the improvement of image watermarking techniques, the necessity for effectively and comprehensively evaluating various algorithms becomes imperative. In this paper, we first propose a new categorization that fits for most of the existing watermarking algorithms that work in the wavelet domain. Then an adaptive watermarking attack for evaluating the robustness of watermarking schemes that are based on the proposed categorization is presented. This attack determines the flat regions, edges, and textures of the watermarked image and based on known features of each region the proposed attack tries to destroy the watermark information. This is done by separately manipulating the... 

In this paper, we used image inpainting as a means for reconstruction of small damaged portions of a watermarked image so that the hidden watermark is not detectable afterwards. Our new watermarking attack algorithm extends the exemplar-based inpainting method, and then we apply it to intended noisy watermarked images to alter the watermark detection process. Our approach is completely free from any pre-assumption on the watermarking algorithm or any other parameters that is used during the watermark embedding procedure. The average PSNR/SSIM of the watermarked image after applying the proposed attack is more than 35/0.98 and the average NC for extracted watermark is lowers than 0.5, so... 

In this paper, a discrete cosine transform (DCT) based blind watermarking scheme based on spread spectrum communications is proposed. We perform block-based DCT (BDCT) on the host image; then using the DC coefficients of each block, we construct a low-resolution approximation image. We apply BDCT on this approximation image, then watermark is embedded by adding a pseudo random noise sequence into its high frequencies. In detection stage, we extract the approximation image from the watermarked image, then the same pseudo random noise sequence is generated, and its correlation is computed with high frequencies of the watermarked approximation image. In our method, higher robustness is obtained... 

In this paper, we proposed a categorization for most of the existing watermarking algorithms that work in wavelet domain. Then an adaptive watermarking attack for digital images that is based on the proposed categorization is presented. This attack determines the flat regions, edges and textures of the watermarked image and based on known features of each region the proposed attack tries to destroy the watermark information by manipulating the wavelet coefficients of each region separately such that the least visual distortion will be imposed on the attacked image. We have tested the proposed method to attack two recent and robust watermarking methods and the results sound impressive. The... 

In this paper, we propose a new method for damaging and destroying robust invisible watermarks using an image resizing technique which is named seam carving. By using this method we are able to resize watermarked images in a content-aware manner so that the synchronization of the embedder and extractor of watermarking system is broken and the watermark detection becomes impossible. In contrast to the available benchmarks like Stirmark, proposed attack does not severely reduce the quality of the watermarked image. Therefore it maintains the commercial value of the watermarked image. We have tested the proposed method to attack 3 recent and robust watermarking methods and the results sound... 

In this paper, a DCT-based blind watermarking scheme based on spread spectrum communications is proposed. We perform block-based DCT on the host image; then using the DC coefficients of each block, we construct a low-resolution approximation image. We apply block-based DCT on this approximation image, then watermark is embedded by adding a pseudo random noise sequence into its high frequencies. In detection stage, we extract the approximation image from the watermarked image, then the same pseudo random noise sequence is generated, and its correlation is computed with high frequencies of the watermarked approximation image. In our method, higher robustness is obtained because of embedding... 

In this paper we present a blind low frequency watermarking scheme on gray level images, which is based on DCT transform and spread spectrum communications technique. We compute the DCT of non overlapping 8x8 blocks of the host image, then using the DC coefficients of each block we construct a low-resolution approximation image. We apply block based DCT on this approximation image, then a pseudo random noise sequence is added into its high frequencies. For detection, we extract the approximation image from the watermarked image, then the same pseudo random noise sequence is generated, and its correlation is computed with high frequencies of the watermarked approximation image. In our method,... 

Promoting efficacious and low-cost catalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER), as the sluggish half-reaction of the water splitting, is inevitable to make sustainable energy technologies more promising. In this work, we report a series of novel nanocomposites comprising CeO2 nanorods decorated with CoSe2 nanoparticles. The nanocomposites were prepared via a conventional hydrothermal synthesis or a rapid electrodeposition process, and their structure, morphology, and electrochemical performance toward OER in alkaline solution were compared. To tune the electrocatalytic activity, the mass ratio of CoSe2 to CeO2 was systematically varied. Compared with the hydrothermal synthesis, the... 

In this article, we report the computational examination of the impact of hydrogen bonding (HB) on the stereoselectivity of a series of Diels-Alder (DA) reactions. Four different types of diene/dienophile couples were studied including (a) cyclopenta-2,4-dien-1-ol and heteroatom-substituted cyclopentenes, (b) substituted cyclopentadienes andN-protonated 2,5-dihydro-1H-pyrrole, (c) furan andN-protonated 5-azabicyclo[2.1.1]hex-2-ene, and (d)N-protonated cyclopenta-2,4-dien-1-amine and α,β-unsaturated carbonyl compounds. These systems were designed such that the HB can only exist in theexoreaction pathway. The optimized structures of the transition states (TSs) and products, along with the... 

Designing efficient and inexpensive catalysts toward the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is vital for achieving sustainable and green hydrogen fuel production through water electrolysis. Herein, we have synthesized several bi- and trimetallic metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) composed of Co, Ni, and Mn metals and benzene-1,3,5-tricarboxylic acid linker. The MOFs were prepared via a simple hydrothermal method, and their electrocatalytic performances in alkaline OER were investigated. A battery of analytical techniques was employed to characterize the as-synthesized materials, including field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM),...