Solution combustion synthesis of iron tungstate nanoparticles for photoelectrochemical water splitting towards oxygen evolution

Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Electronics - Iron tungstate (FeWO4) nanoparticles were prepared by simple solution combustion technique. The preparation method discloses the first...     

A novel biometric system for signature verification based on score level fusion approach

Multimedia Tools and Applications - The active modality of handwriting is broadly related to signature verification in the context of biometric user authentication systems. Signature verification...     

Characterisation of manganese dioxides II. Kinetics of Interaction with Manganese (II) Ions in Aqueous Solution

The interaction between MnO₂ (I.C.S. No. 5), in the Na⁺ form and ⁵⁴Mn²⁺-labelled solution at pH 6 involves: a rapid process assumed to be Na⁺/Mn²⁺ ion-exchange and a slower process assumed to involve the exchange between Mn²⁺ ions in solution and Mn ions in a surface phase. The activation parameters ΔH^# and ΔS^# were found to be 52 and 83 kJ mol^?1 and ?130 and ?63 J mol^?1 for the two processes respectively. Exposing the solid to a flux of moderated neutrons had no effect on the rate of the second process. The exchange of Mn ions from the solid to the solution was demonstrated using ⁵⁶Mn-labelled solid and inactive Mn²⁺ solution. There was evidence of a still slower process.     

Test and Reliability in Approximate Computing

This paper presents an overview of test and reliability approaches for approximate computing architectures. We focus on how specific methods for test and reliability can be used to improve the characteristics of approximate computing in terms of power consumption, area, life expectancy and precision. This paper does not address specification and design of approximate hardware/software/algorithms, but provides an in-depth knowledge on how the reliability and test related techniques can be efficiently used to maximize the benefits of approximate computing.     

Investigation of the collapse of bubbles after the impact of a piston on a liquid free surface

A novel technique based on the impact of a piston on a liquid confined in a vessel is described. Pressure measurements reveal that strong pressure variations (up to 100 atmospheres) with a rich content of frequencies are efficiently transmitted to the liquid. High‐speed camera visualizations show that pre‐existing millimetric bubbles always collapse during the first instants of the impact whereas the behavior of submillimetric bubbles depends on the features of the pressure evolution in the system. In addition to the impact velocity, the amount of gas/vapor trapped between the piston and the liquid's surface plays an important role on how pressure evolves. Only when negative pressure occurs tiny bubbles grow significantly and collapse. The violent collapse of bubbles promote turbulence and mixing at very small length‐scales which renders this technique interesting to intensify processes limited by heat and mass diffusion. © 2017 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 63: 2483–2495, 2017     

Discoloration of a red cationic dye by supported TiO(2) photocatalysis

The degradation under UV, visible and sunlight irradiation of C.I. Basic Red 46 (BR 46) dye used for acrylic fibers dyeing has been studied in a lab-scale continuous system with two different immobilized TiO(2) systems. Catalyst I was based on TiO(2) particles deposited on cellulose fibers; Catalyst II combined TiO(2) particles deposited on a layer of cellulose fibers (as in Catalyst I) with a layer of carbon fibers and finally a layer of cellulose fibers. The treatment of aqueous dye solutions and industrial wastewater contaminated with the same dye has been evaluated in terms of color removal and chemical oxygen demand (COD) decrease. With UV light, aqueous solutions containing dye were decolorized slightly more rapidly with Catalyst II than with Catalyst I. Sunlight was also very effective and experiments involving sunlight irradiation showed Catalyst II to be the more efficient, giving more than 90% discoloration after 20 min of treatment. Comparing the discoloration yield by adsorption or under visible light for both catalysts, it was observed that the difference between them is below 5%. The adsorption kinetics was found to follow a second-order rate law for Catalyst I and a first-order rate law for Catalyst II. The kinetics of photocatalytic degradation under UV or sunlight were found to follow a first-order rate law for both catalytic systems. Under sunlight the COD removal yield for textile wastewater reaches 33% with Catalyst I against 93% with Catalyst II.     

Embedding Pyramids into 3D Meshes

The pyramid architecture is a powerful topology in the area of computer vision. On the other hand, the 3D mesh architecture possesses rich topological features which make it suitable for building scalable parallel processor systems. The usefulness of these two architectures has led us to consider the problem of embedding pyramids into 3D meshes, for which we present two solutions. The first solution, termednatural embedding,maps a pyramid into a 3D mesh such that each level of the pyramid is mapped to a single level of the 3D mesh. The second solution, termedmultiple embedding,allows simultaneous embedding of multiple pyramids into a single 3D mesh. The quality of both solutions is evaluated using dilation and expansion measures. Using the multiple embedding, we are able to obtain an average dilation of 1.26 and a near-optimal expansion of 1.12.     

Predicting heat inactivation of Staphylococcus aureus under nonisothermal treatments at different pH

The aim was to assess whether heat resistance data obtained from isothermal treatments allow the estimation of survivors of Staphylococcus aureus under nonisothermal conditions and to find a model that accurately predicts its heat inactivation at constantly rising heating rates (0.5-9 degrees C/min) in media of different pH (4.0-7.4). S. aureus showed a higher heat resistance under isothermal treatments at pH 4.0 than at pH 5.5-7.4. However, under nonisothermal treatments S. aureus increased its heat resistance at pH 5.5-7.4 and became more thermotolerant than at pH 4.0. Estimations of survival curves under nonisothermal treatments obtained from heat resistance parameters of isothermal treatments did not adequately fit experimental values. Whereas the number of survivors was much higher than estimated at pH 5.5-7.4, that obtained at the slower heating rates at pH 4.0 was lower. An equation based on the Weibullian-like distribution (log10 S(t) = (t/delta)p) accurately described survival curves obtained under nonisothermal conditions. A nonlinear relationship was observed among the scale parameter (delta) and the heating rate which allowed the development of two equations capable of predicting the inactivation rate of S. aureus under nonisothermal treatments. This study might contribute to prevent public health risks in foods requiring long heating lag phases during their processing.     

Extinction conditions of a premixed flame in a channel

A local refinement method is used to numerically predict the propagation and extinction conditions of a premixed flame in a channel considering a thermodiffusive model. A local refinement method is employed because of the numerous length scales that characterize this phenomenon. The time integration is self adaptive and the solution is based on a multigrid method using a zonal mesh refinement in the flame reaction zone. The objective is to determine the conditions of extinction which are characterized by the flame structure and its properties. We are interested in the following properties: the curvature of the flame, its maximum temperature, its speed of propagation and the distance separating the flame from the wall. We analyze the influence of heat losses at the wall through the thermal conductivity of the wall and the nature of the fuel characterized by the Lewis number of the mixture. This investigation allows us to identify three propagation regimes according to heat losses at the wall and to the channel radius. The results show that there is an intermediate value of the radius for which the flame can bend and propagate provided that its curvature does not exceed a certain limit value. Indeed, small values of the radius will choke the flame and extinguish it. The extinction occurs if the flame curvature becomes too small. Furthermore, this study allows us to predict the limiting values of the heat loss coefficient at extinction as well as the critical value of the channel radius above which the premixed flame may propagate without extinction. A dead zone of length 2-4 times the flame thickness appears between the flame and the wall for a Lewis number (Le) between 0.8 and 2. For small values of Le, local extinctions are observed.     

Digital micromirror device as a spatial illuminator for fluorescence lifetime and hyperspectral imaging

Time-domain fluorescence lifetime imaging (FLIM) and hyper-spectral imaging (HSI) are two advanced microscopy techniques widely used in biological studies. Typically both FLIM and HSI are performed with either a whole-field or raster-scanning approach, which often prove to be technically complex and expensive, requiring the user to accept a compromise among precision, speed, and spatial resolution. We propose the use of a digital micromirror device (DMD) as a spatial illuminator for time-domain FLIM and HSI with a laser diode excitation source. The rather unique features of the DMD allow both random and parallel access to regions of interest (ROIs) on the sample, in a very rapid and repeatable fashion. As a consequence both spectral and lifetime images can be acquired with a precision normally associated with single-point systems but with a high degree of flexibility in their spatial construction. In addition, the DMD system offers a very efficient way of implementing a global analysis approach for FLIM, where average fluorescence decay parameters are first acquired for a ROI and then used as initial estimates in determining their spatial distribution within the ROI. Experimental results obtained on phantoms employing fluorescent dyes clearly show how the DMD method supports both spectral and temporal separation for target identification in HSI and FLIM, respectively.