Studies on a newly developed linseed oil‐based alumina‐filled polyesteramide anticorrosive coating

Polyesteramide (PEA) and alumina‐filled polyesteramide (APEA) resins were synthesized from N,N′‐bis(2 hydroxyethyl) linseed amide. The FTIR, ¹H‐NMR, DSC, TGA, thermal curing, and physico‐chemical characterization of these polymers were carried out. The coatings of PEA and APEA were made on mild steel strips. The mechanical behavior and protective efficiency of these coatings in acid, alkali, and organic solvents were investigated. APEA coatings have been found to show superior performance in comparison to other coatings. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 72: 1679–1687, 1999     

Effect of heavy mixing lithium with doping of manganese on structural, EPR and dielectric spectroscopic properties of Layered Na2Ti3O7

Sintered ceramic samples of Na₂Ti₃O₇ with 50 % (1.0 Molar Percentage of Li₂CO₃ i. e. 50 % Lithium) with different doping molar percentages MnO₂ (0.0 < X<0.1) have been prepared through solid state reaction route. The microstructure, EPR, dielectric properties and ac conductivity of (NaLi)Ti₃O₇ with Mn [0.0 ≤ X≤0.1] have been investigated. The X-ray diffraction patterns of pure and doped layered ceramics suggest the crystals are orthorhombic in phase. The room temperature electron paramagnetic resonance spectra reveal that that for lower percentage of doping manganese ions occupies Ti ⁴⁺ site with oxidation state Mn³⁺, while higher percentage of manganese ions doping leads to oxidation state Mn²⁺ in interlayer mixed (Na Li) site. In both cases the charge compensation mechanism should operate to maintain the overall charge neutrality of the lattice. For all pure and doped layered ceramics, ferroelectric transition having high transition temperature has been identifying at 648 K. Manganese ion doping decreases dielectric loss and increases dielectric constant due to inhibition of domain wall motion. It is apparent that ionic conduction becomes difficult due to presence of more lithium ions with sodium ions in interlayer space which shrinking the wide space of interlayer channels.     

Synthesis and characterization of antibacterial polychelates of urea–formaldehyde resin with Cr(III), Mn(II), Fe(III), Co(II), Ni(II), Cu(II), and Zn(II) metal ions

We studied the reaction between urea and formaldehyde with the purpose of preparing new polychelates of Cr(III), Mn(II), Fe(III), Co(II), Ni(II), Cu(II), and Zn(II) metal ions. These compounds were characterized by elemental analysis, IR spectroscopy, ¹H‐NMR, electronic spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), and molar conductance measurements. The percentage of metal in all of the polychelates was found to be consistent with 1:1.5 (metal/ligand) stoichiometry. The thermal behaviors of these coordination polymers were studied by TGA in a nitrogen atmosphere up to 750°C. The TGA results reveal that the complexes had higher thermal‐resistance properties compared to the common urea–formaldehyde resin. The molar conductivity and magnetic susceptibility measurements of the synthesized polychelates confirmed the geometry of the complexes. The antibacterial activity of the polychelates was also investigated with agar diffusion methods. The antibacterial activity of these polychelates was found to be reasonably good compared with standard drugs, namely, ciprofloxacin, ampicillin, and kanamycin. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 100: 928–936, 2006     

The grid protocol: a high performance scheme for maintainingreplicated data

A new protocol for maintaining replicated data that can provide both high data availability and low response time is presented. In the protocol, the nodes are organized in a logical grid. Existing protocols are designed primarily to achieve high availability by updating a large fraction of the copies, which provides some (although not significant) load sharing. In the new protocol, transaction processing is shared effectively among nodes storing copies of the data, and both the response time experienced by transactions and the system throughput are improved significantly. The authors analyze the availability of the new protocol and use simulation to study the effect of load sharing on the response time of transactions. They also compare the new protocol with a voting-based scheme     

Low Temperature Growth of Vertically Aligned Carbon Nanotubes via Floating Catalyst Chemical Vapor Deposition Method

Synthesis of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) below 600℃ using supporting catalyst chemical vapor deposition method was reported by many research groups.However,the floating catalyst chemical vapor deposition received less attention due to imperfect nanotubes produced.In this work,the effects of varying the preheating temperature on the synthesis of CNT were investigated.The reaction temperature was set at 570℃.The preheating set temperature was varied from 150 to 400℃ at 50℃ interval.Three O-ring shape heating mantels were used as heating source for the preheater.In situ monitoring device was used to observe the temperature profile in the reactor.Benzene and ferrocene were used as the carbon source and catalyst precursor,respectively.Vertically aligned CNTs were synthesized when the preheating temperature was set at 400℃.When the preheating temperature was increased up to 400℃,both the length and the alignment of CNTs produced were improved.     

Fault-tolerant atomic computations in an object-based distributed system

A distributed system can support fault-tolerant applications by replicating data and computation at nodes that have independent failure modes. We present a scheme called parallel execution threads (PET) which can be used to implement fault-tolerant computations in an object-based distributed system. In a system that replicates objects, the PET scheme can be used to replicate a computation by creating a number of parallel threads which execute with different replicas of the invoked objects. A computation can be completed successfully if at least one thread does not encounter any failed nodes and its completion preserves the consistency of the objects. The PET scheme can tolerate failures that occur during the execution of the computation as long as all threads are not affected by the failures. We present the algorithms required to implement the PET scheme and also address some performance issues. Mustaque Ahamad received his B.E. (Hons.) degree in Electrical Engineering from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, India. He obtained his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1983 and 1985 respectively. Since September 1985, he is an Assistant Professor in the School of Information and Computer Science at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta. His research interests include distributed operating systems, distributed algorithms, faulttolerant systems and performance evaluation. Partha Dasgupta is an Assistant Professor at Georgia Tech since 1984. He has a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He is the technical project director of the Clouds distributed operating systems project, as well as a coprincipal investigator of Georgia Tech's NSF-CER award. His research interests include building distributed operating systems, distributed algorithms, fault-tolerant systems and distributed programming support. Richard J. LeBlanc, Jr. received the B.S. degree in physics from Louisiana State University in 1972 and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in computer sciences from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1974 and 1977, respectively. He is currently a Professor in the School of Information and Computer Science of the Georgia Institute of Technology. His research interests include programming language design and implementation, programming environments, and software engineering. Dr. LeBlanc's current research work involves application of these interests in distributed processing systems. As co-director of the Clouds Project, he is studying language concepts and software engineering methodology for utilizing a highly reliable, object-based distributed system. He is also interested in specification-based software development methodologies and tools. Dr. LeBlanc is a member of the Association for Computing Machinery, the IEEE Computer Society and Sigma Xi.This work was supported in part by NSF grants CCR-8619886 and CCR-8806358, and RADC contract number F30602-86-C-0032     

Performance characterization of quorum-consensus algorithms forreplicated data

The authors develop a model and define performance measures for a replicated data system that makes use of a quorum-consensus algorithm to maintain consistency. They consider two measures: the proportion of successfully completed transactions in systems where a transaction aborts if data is not available, and the mean response time in systems where a transaction waits until data becomes available. Based on the model, the authors show that for some quorum assignment there is an optimal degree of replication beyond which performance degrades. There exist other quorum assignments which have no optimal degree of replication. The authors also derive optimal read and write quorums which maximize the proportion of successful transactions     

Designed Patterning of Mesoporous Metal Films Based on Electrochemical Micelle Assembly Combined with Lithographical Techniques

Mesoporous noble metals and their patterning techniques for obtaining unique patterned structures are highly attractive for electrocatalysis, photocatalysis, and optoelectronics device applications owing to their expedient properties such as high level of exposed active locations, cascade electrocatalytic sites, and large surface area. However, patterning techniques for mesoporous substrates are still limited to metal oxide and silica films, although there is growing demand for developing techniques related to patterning mesoporous metals. In this study, the first demonstration of mesoporous metal films on patterned gold (Au) substrates, prefabricated using photolithographic techniques, is reported. First, different growth rates of mesoporous Au metal films on patterned Au substrates are demonstrated by varying deposition times and voltages. In addition, mesoporous Au films are also fabricated on various patterns of Au substrates including stripe and mesh lines. An alternative fabrication method using a photoresist insulating mask also yields growth of mesoporous Au within the patterning. Moreover, patterned mesoporous films of palladium (Pd) and palladium–copper alloy (PdCu) are demonstrated on the same types of substrates to show versatility of this method. Patterned mesoporous Au films (PMGFs) show higher electrochemically active surface area (ECSA) and higher sensitivity toward glucose oxidation than nonpatterned mesoporous Au films (NMGF).     

Ultrahigh Gain Polymer Photodetectors with Spectral Response from UV to Near‐Infrared Using ZnO Nanoparticles as Anode Interfacial Layer

Significant increase of photocurrent upon UV light exposure is demonstrated in a narrow‐bandgap polymer‐based photodetector using ZnO nanoparticles as anode interfacial layer. The phenomenon is attributed to the UV light illumination induced oxygen molecules desorption from surface of ZnO nanoparticles, which reduces the electron injection barrier at the anode interface. Ultrahigh external quantum efficiency of 140 000% and extremely low gain threshold voltage of 1.5 mV are achieved in this device with 30 s UV light irradiation. The gain mechanism is explained by the fast transit and replenishment of photogenerated electrons within their lifetime, which is prolonged by the electron‐only device structure, and the experiment results fit well with the proposed photoconductive model.