Simulation of maximum power in the wearable thermoelectric generator with a small thermopile

Miniature thermopiles that could be fabricated by using modern thin- and thick-film technologies are discussed as a power supply to wearable devices. The maximum power that can be produced by a thermopile of a medium-to-small size was simulated in case of typical thermal properties of humans and their living environment. The local thermal resistances of human being required for the simulation were obtained experimentally. The designs of wearable thermoelectric generators are discussed. The general design optimization of wearable thermoelectric energy harvester with a miniature thermopile was performed in case of near-maximum power generated per unit volume of thermoelectric generator. The obtained performance characteristics allow prediction of the application area for wearable energy harvesters of human body heat and the perspectives of their market success.     

A Dynamic Logic for deductive verification of multi-threaded programs

We present MODL, a Dynamic Logic and a deductive verification calculus for a core Java-like language that includes multi-threading. The calculus is based on symbolic execution. Even though we currently do not handle non-atomic loops, employing the technique of symmetry reduction allows us to verify systems without limits on state space or thread number. We have instantiated our logic for (restricted) multi-threaded Java programs and implemented the verification calculus within the KeY system. We demonstrate our approach by verifying a central method of the StringBuffer class from the Java standard library in the presence of unbounded concurrency.     

Reliability of phases retrieved from 400-kV spot-scan images of purple membranes acquired on a slow-scan CCD camera

Glucose-embedded purple membranes were used as a test specimen to evaluate the reliability of phases retrieved from 400-kV spot-scan images acquired on a 1024 × 1024 slow-scan CCD camera. This specimen was chosen because it represents a broad class of low-contrast radiation-sensitive biological objects and its structure is well established. The amplitudes of computed reflections from these images were strongly damped by the modulation transfer function of the camera. Nevertheless, their phases on average were < 12° different from the reference data of Henderson et al . (1986), Ultramicroscopy , 19 , 147–178, up to 8.8 Å resolution, which corresponds to 0.8 of the Nyquist frequency of the camera.     

Asymptotic simulation of imperfect bonding in periodic fibre-reinforced composite materials under axial shear

An asymptotic approach for simulation of the imperfect interfacial bonding in composite materials is proposed. We introduce between the matrix and inclusions a flexible bond layer of a volume fraction c⁽³⁾ and of a non-dimensional rigidity λ⁽³⁾, derive a solution for such three-component structure, and then set c⁽³⁾→0, λ⁽³⁾→0. In the asymptotic limit depending on the ratio λ⁽³⁾/c⁽³⁾ different degrees of the interface's response can be simulated. A problem of the axial shear of elastic fibre-reinforced composites with square and hexagonal arrays of cylindrical inclusions is considered. The performed analysis is based on the asymptotic homogenization method, the cell problem is solved using the underlying principles of the boundary shape perturbation technique. As a result, we obtain approximate analytical solutions for the effective shear modulus and for the stress field on micro level depending on the degree of the interfacial debonding. Developed solutions are valid for all values of the components’ volume fractions and properties. In particular, they work well in cases of rapid oscillations of local stresses (e.g., in the case of densely packed perfectly rigid inclusions), while many of other commonly used methods may face computational difficulties.     

Formaldehyde as a basis for residential ventilation rates

Traditionally, houses in the US have been ventilated by passive infiltration in combination with active window opening. However in recent years, the construction quality of residential building envelopes has been improved to reduce infiltration, and the use of windows for ventilation also may have decreased due to a number of factors. Thus, there has been increased interest in engineered ventilation systems for residences. The amount of ventilation provided by an engineered system should be set to protect occupants from unhealthy or objectionable exposures to indoor pollutants, while minimizing energy costs for conditioning incoming air. Determining the correct ventilation rate is a complex task, as there are numerous pollutants of potential concern, each having poorly characterized emission rates, and poorly defined acceptable levels of exposure. One ubiquitous pollutant in residences is formaldehyde. The sources of formaldehyde in new houses are reasonably understood, and there is a large body of literature on human health effects. This report examines the use of formaldehyde as a means of determining ventilation rates and uses existing data on emission rates of formaldehyde in new houses to derive recommended levels. Based on current, widely accepted concentration guidelines for formaldehyde, the minimum and guideline ventilation rates for most new houses are 0.28 and 0.5 air changes per hour, respectively.     

Tunneling Density of States of Indium Oxide Films Through the Superconductor to Insulator Transition

We present planar tunneling junction spectroscopy measurements on disordered amorphous indium oxide films on both sides of the superconductor–insulator transition. Our measurements directly reveal a superconducting gap in the insulating phase. The measured energy gap has the same energy scale on both sides of the transition. Unlike the case of granular films, the tunneling curves cannot be fitted to the BCS density of state expression, even when introducing a broadening parameter to account for nonthermal broadening sources. The results are consistent with the presence of superconducting islands of which superconducting properties depend on film disorder and on the carrier density of the superconducting material.     

Impedance Analysis of Dielectric Nanoparticles Enabled via a Self‐Assembled Monolayer

Impedance spectroscopy has been shown to be a powerful tool to investigate the dielectric characteristics of powders suspended in suitable liquids. The electrical and dielectrical contributions of different components of the slurry can be extracted from the impedance spectra through measurement of frequency‐dependent relaxations. However, for ferroelectric powders that possess innate surface conductivity, such as BaTiO₃, nanoparticles have sufficient conductivity to exclude low‐frequency fields that preclude impedance characterization of the particle core. In this work, the slurry technique is shown to be effective for dielectric characterization of not only micrometer‐sized particles through equivalent circuit modeling but also applicable to nanometer size dielectric particles upon remediating the conductive surface defect. Application of a self‐assembled monolayer (SAM) onto the nanoparticle as a surface passivation layer reduces the surface conductivity, stabilizes the nanoparticles to dissolution, and allows a reproducible measurement and modeling of the nanoparticle dielectric characteristics including nanoparticle permittivity. The dielectric permittivity of surface passivated, ~40 nm diameter barium titanate particles was measured to be ε_r ~ 135.     

New generalized conversion method of the MDCT to MDST coefficients in the frequency domain for arbitrary symmetric windowing function

A new generalized conversion method of the MDCT to MDST coefficients directly in the frequency domain is proposed for arbitrary symmetric windowing function. Based on the compact block matrix representation of the MDCT and MDST filter banks, on their properties and on relations among transform sub-matrices, a relation in the matrix-vector form between the MDCT and MDST coefficients in the frequency domain is derived. Given MDCT coefficients of three consecutive data blocks at a decoder, the MDST coefficients of the current data block can be obtained by combining the MDCT coefficients of the previous, current and next blocks via conversion matrices. Since the forms of conversion matrices depend on the employed windowing function, a specific solution for each windowing function is derived. Because the conversion matrices have a very regular structure, the matrix-vector products are reduced to simple analytical formulas. The new generalized conversion method is more efficient and structurally simpler both in terms of arithmetic complexity and memory requirements compared to existing exact frequency domain-based conversion methods. Although the new generalized conversion method enables us to compute the exact MDST coefficients only in specified one or more frequency ranges, the computation of complete set of MDST coefficients still requires a high number of arithmetic operations. As an alternative, an efficient and flexible approximate conversion method is constructed. With properly selected parameters it can produce acceptable approximated results with much lower computational complexity. Therefore, the approximate conversion method has a potential to be used in many MDCT-based audio decoders, and particularly at resource-limited and low-cost decoders for spectral analysis to obtain the magnitude and phase information.