Proton exchange membranes by radiation grafting of styrene onto fep films. III. Structural investigation

Structural investigation on proton-exchange membranes, obtained by the radiation grafting of styrene onto FEP films and subsequent sulfonation, was carried out by differential scanning calorimetry. The membrane crystallinity was found to show a decreasing trend with increasing degree of grafting. The melting temperature of all the membranes also showed a slight decrease as compared to the ungrafted FEP. The results have been explained in terms of the cumulative effect of the decrease in the crystalline/amorphous ratio by the incorporation of amorphous polystyrene grafts and of disruption of spherulitic crystallites of the FEP component in the membranes. The glass transition temperature of the membranes with different water contents was also evaluated. A correlation of the glass transition temperature with the residual water in dried membranes was established. © 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Satellite broadcasting of time and frequency signals

The authors discuss the advantages of broadcasting time from a satellite over the more traditional ground based methods such as short wave and low frequency standard time and frequency broadcasts. The authors describe several one way satellite time services currently operational and discuss, in particular, a broadcast service using the Indian domestic satellite INSAT. The signal format, transmitting and receiving setups, and the methods for satellite position prediction are described in detail for the INSAT broadcast. Some typical results of time and frequency calibration are also discussed     

Distributed fair scheduling in a wireless LAN

Fairness is an important issue when accessing a shared wireless channel. With fair scheduling, it is possible to allocate bandwidth in proportion to weights of the packet flows sharing the channel. This paper presents a fully distributed algorithm for fair scheduling in a wireless LAN. The algorithm can be implemented without using a centralized coordinator to arbitrate medium access. The proposed protocol is derived from the Distributed Coordination Function in the IEEE 802.11 standard. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm is able to schedule transmissions such that the bandwidth allocated to different flows is proportional to their weights. An attractive feature of the proposed approach is that it can be implemented with simple modifications to the IEEE 802.11 standard.     

A parametric study of strength reduction factors for elasto-plastic oscillators

Strength reduction factors (SRFs) continue to play a key role in obtaining design forces from elastic design spectra (via response modification factors) in ductility-based earthquake-resistant design. Despite several years of sustained research efforts, it has not been conclusively shown how SRF for a given singledegree-of-freedom structural system depends on various source and site parameters. A parametric study is carried out here for the explicit dependence of SRF spectrum (describing variation of SRF with system period for a given ductility demand) on strong motion duration, earthquake magnitude, geological site conditions, and epicentral distance in case of (non-degrading) elasto-plastic oscillators. For this, scaled response spectra are considered for different combinations of earthquake magnitude, site conditions and epicentral distance, and SRF spectra are generated from 1274 accelerograms recorded in western USA after making those compatible with each of these spectra. It is shown that there is no clear and significant dependence of SRF spectrum on strong motion duration. Further, the parametric dependence on earthquake magnitude, site conditions, and epicentral distance broadly conforms to the trends reported by earlier investigations. In particular, this study confirms that the dependence of SRF spectra on earthquake magnitude should not be ignored. This paper has been contributed in honour of Professor R N Iyengar, Indian Institute of Science, on the occasion of his formal retirement.     

A Study of Interspeaker Variability in Speaker Verification

We propose a new approach to the problem of estimating the hyperparameters which define the interspeaker variability model in joint factor analysis. We tested the proposed estimation technique on the NIST 2006 speaker recognition evaluation data and obtained 10%-15% reductions in error rates on the core condition and the extended data condition (as measured both by equal error rates and the NIST detection cost function). We show that when a large joint factor analysis model is trained in this way and tested on the core condition, the extended data condition and the cross-channel condition, it is capable of performing at least as well as fusions of multiple systems of other types. (The comparisons are based on the best results on these tasks that have been reported in the literature.) In the case of the cross-channel condition, a factor analysis model with 300 speaker factors and 200 channel factors can achieve equal error rates of less than 3.0%. This is a substantial improvement over the best results that have previously been reported on this task.     

Design development of a static sunshade using small scale modeling technique

The rising global demand for energy has triggered emphasis on conservation of energy. Buildings are one of the important energy consuming sectors. Passive solar architecture encompasses a wide range of strategies and options resulting in energy efficient building design and increased occupant's comfort. Passive solar design, aiming at increasing direct solar gains during winter period and to avoid overheating during summer period should make use of specific shading devices over energy efficient window. The static sunshades are most effective for solar control inside the buildings.Countries like India have composite climate, which can be classified under summer, winter and rainy season. Depending on the seasonal requirements, this paper introduces a new geometry of a static sunshade, designed by calculating the sun angles for the two dates. The static sun shading design methodology is validated with the help of small scale modeling experimentation technique, carried out in Pilani, Rajasthan (India). Although insulating materials can be used as a part of a building structure, its feasibility should be checked before particular application. In the present paper, the two small-scale experimental models of actual construction material with varying static sunshades, i.e. horizontal and the proposed one have been constructed and analyzed with the models of insulating material (Polyurethane Foam [PUF]). Depending upon the solar intersection over south facade wall, sunlit area and shaded area have been correlated with temperature inside the models to decide the effectiveness of the proposed sunshade.     

Synthesis and characterization of acidic properties of Al-SBA-15 materials with varying Si/Al ratios

Al-SBA-15 of varying Si/Al ratios in the range 11.4–78.4 was synthesized using tri-block copolymer P123. The calcined materials were examined by XRD, pore size distribution, surface area, ²⁷Al NMR spectroscopy. The acidity and acid strength distribution were studied using microcalorimetric adsorption of NH₃. The acidic properties were also examined by cumene cracking reaction as a function of Si/Al ratios. Systematic variation of acidity and activity was observed as a function of Si/Al ratio. The initial heats of NH₃ adsorption correlated well with activity indicate that acid sites with ΔH > 100 kJ/mole is responsible for cumene cracking activity. Linear correlations were obtained with total acidity and cumene cracking activities. The tetrahedral aluminum was found to be responsible for the observed acidities and catalytic activities.     

Elongational viscosity of LDPEs and polystyrenes using entrance loss data

For two low‐density polyethylenes and two polystyrenes, axisymmetric and planar elongational viscosities are estimated using entrance loss data from capillary and slit rheometers, respectively. The elongational viscosity is estimated by optimizing the values of various parameters in the Sarkar–Gupta elongational viscosity model such that the entrance loss predicted by a finite element simulation agrees with the corresponding experimental data. The predicted entrance loss is in good agreement with the experimental data at high flow rates. The difference in the experimental and predicted entrance loss at lower flow rates might have been caused by large error in the experimental data in this range. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 2008. © 2007 Society of Plastics Engineers     

The schnittaxiom and unions of fuzzy subgroups

A necessary and sufficient condition for the union of an arbitrary family of fuzzy subgroups of a group to be a fuzzy group has been proposed. The criterion which gives a cut of the unit interval is called the Schnittaxiom. It has been applied successfully to investigate fuzzy subgroupness of arbitrary unions of homomorphic images and preimages.