Synthesis of ethylene and butyl methacrylate-based copolymer by emulsion polymerization

The emulsion copolymerization of ethylene with butyl methacrylate (BMA) was carried out in an aqueous medium at 60 °C under moderate reaction conditions. The polymer system is well controlled with a linear increase in the molecular weight (M_n) versus ethylene feed pressure and narrow molecular weight distributions (>1.36) were observed throughout the copolymerization reaction. The spectroscopic analyses confirm the presence of acrylate functional as well as methylene group in the synthesized poly(ethylene-co-BMA) copolymer. Morphological behavior of poly(ethylene-co-BMA) has been studied using SEM and TEM analyses. Thermal stability of the copolymers was investigated by thermogravimetric analysis and it was observed that the copolymer is stable up to 380 °C. X-ray diffraction analysis confirmed the amorphous behavior of poly(ethylene-co-BMA). Dynamic light scattering measurement confirms the formation of poly(ethylene-co-BMA) nanoparticles. The particle size of copolymer nanoparticles were in the range of 85–108 nm with low polydispersity indexes (>0.2). The viscous and the elastic property of the copolymer were investigated and established that at high temperature elastic behavior predominant over viscous effect. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2019 , 136, 47994.     

An Improved Method for Load Taxonomy Using Sample Shifting Technique and Signature Analysis

This paper illustrates an improved method of classification of electrical appliances, particularly for domestic loads, to construct load taxonomy on the basis of their signature analysis. Each electrical load is characterized by its own distinct signature and hence load signature analysis is useful in monitoring the health of the equipment, power quality, in determining individual energy usage etc. type of services. On the other hand, load taxonomy classifies these loads in several clusters on the basis of some features extracted from their signatures. In traditional methods of construction of load taxonomy, different signature patterns based on power metrics, V-I trajectories, Eigen vectors, etc. In this proposed method, with the adoption of sample shifting technique the required number of feature extraction is reduced to a lower value to find out various signature patterns than those are required in traditional load taxonomies. Moreover, a better taxonomy, having well separated groups of loads is achieved with lower number of extracted features.     

Human Platelet Membrane Functionalized Microchips with Plasmonic Codes for Cancer Detection

The possibility of functional roles played by platelets in close alliance with cancer cells has inspired the design of new biomimetic systems that exploit platelet–cancer cell interactions. Here, the role of platelets in cancer diagnostics is leveraged to design a microfluidic platform capable of detecting cancer‐derived extracellular vesicles (EVs) from ultrasmall volumes (1 µL) of human plasma samples. Further, the captured EVs are counted by direct optical coding of plasmonic nanoprobes modified with EV‐specific antibodies. Owing to the inherent properties of platelets for multifaceted interaction with cancer cells, the microfluidic chip equipped with a biologically interfaced platelet membrane‐cloaked surface (denoted “PLT‐Chip”) can capture a significantly higher number of EVs from multiple types of cancer cell lines (prostate, lung, bladder, and breast) than the normal cell‐derived EVs. Furthermore, this chip allows the monitoring of the growth of tumor spheroids (100 µm–2.5 mm) and clearly distinguishes the plasma of cancer patients from that of normal healthy controls. This robust, multifaceted, and cancer‐specific binding affinity, coupled with excellent biocompatibility, is a unique feature of platelet membrane‐cloaked surfaces, which therefore represent promising alternatives to antibodies for application in EVs‐based cancer theranostics.     

Design of a compact protrudent‐shaped ultra‐wideband multiple‐input‐multiple‐output/diversity antenna with band‐rejection capability

In this endeavor, a new multiple‐input‐multiple‐output antenna with a sharp rejection at wireless local area network (WLAN) band is designed and practically examined for portable wireless ultra‐wideband applications. The intended diversity antenna possess a small size of 15 mm × 26 mm and two inverted L‐strip are loaded over the conventional rectangular patch antenna to form protrudent‐shaped radiator that acts as a radiating element. The sharp band‐rejection capability at WLAN is established by incising the L‐shaped slits at the decoupling structure. More than ?21 dB isolation is accomplished for the complete working band (ie, 2.87 ‐17 GHz). Degradation in the antenna efficiency at the center frequency of band rejection corroborates the good interference rejection capability. The working capabilities of the intended antenna are tested by using the isolation between the ports, total efficiency, gain, envelope correlation coefficient, radiation pattern, mean effective gain, and total active reflection coefficient.     

Analysis of three-dimensional transient seepage into ditch drains from a ponded field

An analytical solution in the form of infinite series is developed for predicting time-dependent three-dimensional seepage into ditch drains from a flat, homogeneous and anisotropic ponded field of finite size, the field being assumed to be surrounded on all its vertical faces by ditch drains with unequal water level heights in them. It is also assumed that the field is being underlain by a horizontal impervious barrier at a finite distance from the surface of the soil and that all the ditches are being dug all the way up to this barrier. The solution can account for a variable ponding distribution at the surface of the field. The correctness of the proposed solution for a few simplified situations is tested by comparing predictions obtained from it with the corresponding values attained from the analytical and experimental works of others. Further, a numerical check on it is also performed using the Processing MODFLOW environment. It is noticed that considerable improvement on the uniformity of the distribution of the flow lines in a three-dimensional ponded drainage space can be achieved by suitably altering the ponding distribution at the surface of the soil. As the developed three-dimensional ditch drainage model is pretty general in nature and includes most of the common variables of a ditch drainage system, it is hoped that the drainage designs based on it for reclaiming salt-affected and water-logged soils would prove to be more efficient and cost-effective as compared with designs based on solutions developed by making use of more restrictive assumptions. Also, as the developed model can handle three-dimensional flow situations, it is expected to provide reliable and realistic drainage solutions to real field situations than models being developed utilizing the two-dimensional flow assumption. This is because the existing two-dimensional solutions to the problem are actually valid not for a field of finite size but for an infinite one only.     

Sparse Approximation of 3D Meshes Using the Spectral Geometry of the Hamiltonian Operator

The discrete Laplace operator is ubiquitous in spectral shape analysis, since its eigenfunctions are provably optimal in representing smooth functions defined on the surface of the shape. Indeed, subspaces defined by its eigenfunctions have been utilized for shape compression, treating the coordinates as smooth functions defined on the given surface. However, surfaces of shapes in nature often contain geometric structures for which the general smoothness assumption may fail to hold. At the other end, some explicit mesh compression algorithms utilize the order by which vertices that represent the surface are traversed, a property which has been ignored in spectral approaches. Here, we incorporate the order of vertices into an operator that defines a novel spectral domain. We propose a method for representing 3D meshes using the spectral geometry of the Hamiltonian operator, integrated within a sparse approximation framework. We adapt the concept of a potential function from quantum physics and incorporate vertex ordering information into the potential, yielding a novel data-dependent operator. The potential function modifies the spectral geometry of the Laplacian to focus on regions with finer details of the given surface. By sparsely encoding the geometry of the shape using the proposed data-dependent basis, we improve compression performance compared to previous results that use the standard Laplacian basis and spectral graph wavelets.