Particle dispersion in viscous three-phase inverse fluidized beds

Dispersion characteristics of low density fluidized particles such as polyethylene and polypropylene were investigated by using the stochastic method in three-phase inverse fluidized beds with viscous liquid medium ( in height). To establish the relationship between the pressure drop variation and the particle dispersion in test section, the histogram of pressure drop fluctuations were also measured and analyzed. Effects of operating variables such as gas and liquid velocities, liquid viscosity and media particle kind (density) on the fluctuating frequency, dispersion coefficient and exiting rate of media particles from the test section were determined. The fluctuating frequency and dispersion coefficient of particles increased with increasing gas or liquid velocity, but decreased considerably with increasing liquid viscosity in three-phase inverse fluidized beds. The dispersion coefficient of media particles of relatively higher density exhibited a value higher than that of lower density particles. The dispersion coefficients of particles were well correlated with operating variables in terms of dimensionless groups.     

Controllably mobile infrastructure for low energy embedded networks

We discuss the use of mobility to enhance network performance for a certain class of applications in sensor networks. A major performance bottleneck in sensor networks is energy since it is impractical to replace the batteries in embedded sensor nodes post-deployment. A significant portion of the energy expenditure is attributed to communications and, in particular, the nodes close to the sensor network gateways used for data collection typically suffer a large overhead as these nodes must relay data from the remaining network. Even with compression and in-network processing to reduce the amount of communicated data, all the processed data must still traverse these nodes to reach the gateway. We discuss a network infrastructure based on the use of controllably mobile elements to reduce the communication energy consumption at the energy constrained nodes and, thus, increase useful network lifetime. In addition, our approach yields advantages in delay-tolerant networks and sparsely deployed networks. We first show how our approach helps reduce energy consumption at battery constrained nodes. Second, we describe our system prototype, which utilizes our proposed approach to improve the energy performance. As part of the prototyping effort, we experienced several interesting design choices and trade-offs that affect system capabilities and performance. We describe many of these design challenges and discuss the algorithms developed for addressing these. In particular, we focus on network protocols and motion control strategies. Our methods are tested using a practical system and do not assume idealistic radio range models or operation in unobstructed environments.     

Chloride Passivation of ZnO Electrodes Improves Charge Extraction in Colloidal Quantum Dot Photovoltaics

The tunable bandgap of colloidal quantum dots (CQDs) makes them an attractive material for photovoltaics (PV). The best present‐day CQD PV devices employ zinc oxide (ZnO) as an electron transport layer; however, it is found herein that ZnO's surface defect sites and unfavorable electrical band alignment prevent devices from realizing their full potential. Here, chloride (Cl)‐passivated ZnO generated from a solution of presynthesized ZnO nanoparticles treated using an organic‐solvent‐soluble Cl salt is reported. These new ZnO electrodes exhibit decreased surface trap densities and a favorable electronic band alignment, improving charge extraction from the CQD layer and achieving the best‐cell power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 11.6% and an average PCE of 11.4 ± 0.2%.     

Enhanced performance of GaN-based LEDs via electroplating of a patterned copper layer on the backside

InGaN/GaN multi-quantum well light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are conventionally grown on a sapphire substrate due to a lack of compatible substrates with a high compressive strain. This is a result of the relatively large lattice, and thermal expansion coefficient mismatches between GaN and sapphire. The compressive strain is considered to be a major obstacle to further improve next-generation high-performance GaN-based LEDs. In this paper, we have designed, electroplated, and tested an efficient substrate using a patterned copper (Cu) layer on the backside of sapphire to relax the compressive strain in a GaN epilayer. The patterned Cu layer has a significant function in that it supports the GaN/sapphire LEDs with an external tensile stress. The external tensile stress is capable of compensating for the compressive strain in the GaN/sapphire LEDs by controlling the curvature of the wafer bowing. This patterned Cu layer, when applied to the GaN/sapphire LEDs, suppresses the compressive strain by up to 0.28 GPa. The GaN-based LEDs on this innovative and effective sapphire/Cu substrate offer improved optical and electrical performance.     

Temperature effects of silane coupling on moisture treated silica surface

Moisture and temperature effects were investigated on silica/(triethoxysilylpropyl) disulfide (TESPD)/carbon black (CB)/S‐SBR compounds with respect to processability, vulcanization characteristics, physical properties, and alcohol residues. The moisture‐treated compounds exhibited lower rates of viscous heat generation during mixing, lower discharging temperatures (drop temperatures), lower Mooney viscosities, shorter cure times (T_c‐90), higher torque rises (M_H ? M_L), less heat build ups (HBU), and equal or less alcohol residues than the control. As the drop temperatures of the compound were increased, decreased temperature differences between mixer sensor (set drop) and real (proven) temperatures, increased the scorch times (T_s‐2), decreased the cure times (T_c‐90), increased the tensile moduli, and decreased the alcohol residues remaining in the compound. The higher temperature drop compounds (160 and 176°C) exhibited no reversion behavior; however, the lower temperature (120 and 140°C) drop compounds exhibited marching behavior. The treatment of moisture on the silica surface influenced the hydrolysis reaction to the silane and improved coupling on the silica surface. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 95:623–633, 2005     

Object Modeling with Color Arrangement for Region‐Based Tracking

In this paper, we propose a new color histogram model for object tracking. The proposed model incorporates the color arrangement of the target that encodes the relative spatial distribution of the colors inside the object. Using the color arrangement, we can determine which color bin is more reliable for tracking. Based on the proposed color histogram model, we derive a mean shift framework using a modified Bhattacharyya distance. In addition, we present a method of updating an object scale and a target model to cope with changes in the target appearance. Unlike conventional mean shift based methods, our algorithm produces satisfactory results even when the object being tracked shares similar colors with the background.     

Oxygen Ion Drift‐Induced Complementary Resistive Switching in Homo TiOx/TiOy/TiOx and Hetero TiOx/TiON/TiOx Triple Multilayer Frameworks

Developing a means by which to compete with commonly used Si‐based memory devices represents an important challenge for the realization of future three‐dimensionally stacked crossbar‐array memory devices with multifunctionality. Therefore, oxide‐based resistance switching memory (ReRAM), with its associated phenomena of oxygen ion drifts under a bias, is becoming increasingly important for use in nanoscalable crossbar arrays with an ideal memory cell size due to its simple metal–insulator–metal structure and low switching current of 10–100 μA. However, in a crossbar array geometry, one single memory element defined by the cross‐point of word and bit lines is highly susceptible to unintended leakage current due to parasitic paths around neighboring cells when no selective devices such as diodes or transistors are used. Therefore, the effective complementary resistive switching (CRS) features in all Ti‐oxide‐based triple layered homo Pt/TiO_x/TiO_y/TiO_x/Pt and hetero Pt/TiO_x/TiON/TiO_x/Pt geometries as alternative resistive switching matrices are reported. The possible resistive switching nature of the novel triple matrices is also discussed together with their electrical and structural properties. The ability to eliminate both an external resistor for efficient CRS operation and a metallic Pt middle electrode for further cost‐effective scalability will accelerate progress toward the realization of cross‐bar ReRAM in this framework.     

Development of Selective Electroless-Deposited Electrode in Heterojunction with Intrinsic Thin-Layer Solar Cell

In this paper, we describe selective deposition of a major electrode and a protection electrode in a heterojunction with intrinsic thin-layer (HIT) type solar cell. Sn and Ni were used for the protection electrode to prevent the oxidation of Cu, which was used for the main electrode. SEM and TEM were used to analyze the microstructural evolution and changes in the interface as a result of each electroless deposition. Finally, the performance of our solar cell created via electroless deposition was evaluated. We determined the photovoltaic conversion efficiency (PCE) to be 16.4 %, the fill factor (FF) to be 72.2 %, the open circuit voltage (Voc) to be 681 mV, and the short circuit current (Jsc) to be 33.0 mA/cm². These output values match the performance of an Ag screen-printed solar cell and demonstrate the possibility of commercializing an inexpensive HIT solar cell with high efficiency.     

Adaptive Scanning Based on a Morphological Representation of Coefficients for H.264/AVC

In this letter, an effective scanning method based on a morphological representation of quantized coefficients is proposed for intra coding in H.264. In the proposed scanning method, the scan order for each block is adaptively reconfigured by exploiting a residual correlation beyond the border of the block. An initial scan order for the current block is determined first by using the pattern of nonzero coefficients in the adjacent block. Then, a complete scan order is obtained by performing the dilation operation at each position within the initial scan order. Experimental results show that the proposed method improves the coding efficiency up to 3.7% compared to the conventional zigzag scanning method.