Glass formation region and lithium ion conduction in the oxyfluorophosphate glasses

Oxyfluorophosphate glasses containing about 80 mol% of [LiF+Li₂O] show unusually high lithium ion conductivity at elevated temperatures. A detailed investigation has been carried out on the glasses prepared by both conventional cooling and a rapid quenching technique. Chemical analysis of the glasses reveals fluorine loss during melting and it becomes difficult to make glasses with exact predetermined compositions. Electrical conductivity of the glasses, determined from complex impedance analysis increases with Li₂O content. A glass with nominal composition 70 LiF15 Li₂O15 Al(PO₃)₃ shows the highest conductivity (~ 1.3×10^–3 ohm^–1 cm^–1 around 200° C) among all the compositions studied. An interesting feature of the impedance plot is the near perfect semicircle for bulk relaxation indicating a narrow distribution of relaxation times. This has been explained on the basis of a relatively small proportion of lithium ions which are mobile. The electrical conductivity of the glasses is found to be essentailly independent of dissolved water content. The infrared spectra of these glasses (2 to 50m region) could not produce much useful structural information.     

EMI shielding of intinsically conductive polymers

Results of this study, in which shielding efficiencies are measured for a number of blends containing various conductive fillers including intrinsically conductive polymers, are reported. It is shown that a very high level of shielding performance can be achieved by use of intrinsically conductive polymers in thermoplastic blends and that the most reliable measure of this performance is obtained from far-field shielding measurements. However, near-field measurements provide a useful method for comparing the relative shielding effectiveness of different samples. A PVC blend containing nearly uniformly dispersed intrinsically conductive polymer proved to be the best performing sample.     

Optimal production of intermediate for zero—first and first—first order reaction sequences in fluidised bed reactors1

An analysis of zero—first and first—first order reaction schemes has been carried out in a fluidised bed with a view to optimising the production of intermediate R for a given bubble diameter. For the zero—first order reaction sequence, the gas residence time at which the maximum concentration of R occurs is shown to be fixed and independent of bubble size in the bed. On the other hand, for a first—first order reaction scheme, an optimum gas residence time exists for the concentration maximum to occur at the bed exit. This interaction between bubble diameter, gas residence time and maximum concentration of intermediate is resolved by recourse to a three dimensional diagram which optimises the production of intermediate for any given value of bubble diameter or gas residence time.     

An EXAFS study of the Mo/TiO2 hydrodesulphurization catalysis

In-situ EXAFS studies of sulphided Mo/TiO₂ catalysts have shown that at low Mo loadings (2–4 wt%), an active species with a short Mo-S distance of 2.25 Å is formed, while on Mo/TiO₂ with high Mo loadings as well as on Mo/-Al₂O₃, bulk MoS₂ (Mo-S, 2.42 Å) is formed. The species with the short Mo-S distance has Mo in an oxidation state close to 6 + and is likely to result from the sulphidation of the tetrahedral molybdate species present in the oxidic precursor at low Mo loadings. The calcination temperature of the oxidic precursor appears crucial, a high calcination temperature of 973 K favouring the formation of MoS₃ on sulphidation, and a low calcination temperature of 623 K favouring MoS₂.Contribution No. 790 from the Solid State and Structural Chemistry Unit.     

Glycated proteome: From reaction to intervention

Glycation, a nonenzymatic reaction between reducing sugars and proteins, is a proteome wide phenomenon, predominantly observed in diabetes due to hyperglycemia. Glycated proteome of plasma, kidney, lens, and brain are implicated in the pathogenesis of various diseases, including diabetic complications, neurodegenerative diseases, cancer, and aging. This review discusses the strategies to characterize protein glycation, its functional implications in different diseases, and intervention strategies to protect the deleterious effects of protein glycation.     

Phase-precipitation studies of Fe-B-Si metallic glasses using Mössbauer spectroscopy

Phase-precipitation studies have been performed on samples of the metallic glasses Fe₇₉B₁₆Si₅ and Fe₇₈B₁₃Si₉, heated in the range 300–475 °C for various times (1–16 h) using ⁵⁷Fe Mössbauer transmission spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction methods. These measurements have helped in identifying the temperature ranges and annealing durations in which the amorphous structure of these metallic glasses is retained. The results revealed that the thermal stability increases as boron is replaced by silicon in the Fe-B-Si metallic glasses and that these alloys remain amorphous below 450 °C. The various phases precipitated above this temperature were identified as -Fe, -(Fe, Si), Fe₃B, and Fe₂B. The direction of magnetization in the two metallic glasses appears to change upon annealing.     

Indium selenide microrod films: chemical bath deposition from acidic bath

Films of indium selenide was deposited onto glass and indium tin oxide coated glass substrates in acidic medium using chemical bath deposition at room temperature. Indium sulphate and sodium selenosulphate were used as precursors of In³⁺ and Se^2?, respectively. The structural, surface morphological and optical properties of the deposited films were studied. Diffractograms in structural study revealed the deposited material is In₂Se₃ films. Controlled bath conditions resulted in the evolution of the In₂Se₃ microrod-like morphology. The optical band gap of the film was found to be 1.7 eV.     

Common-input models for multiple neural spike-train data

Recent developments in multi-electrode recordings enable the simultaneous measurement of the spiking activity of many neurons. Analysis of such multineuronal data is one of the key challenge in computational neuroscience today. In this work, we develop a multivariate point-process model in which the observed activity of a network of neurons depends on three terms: (1) the experimentally-controlled stimulus; (2) the spiking history of the observed neurons; and (3) a hidden term that corresponds, for example, to common input from an unobserved population of neurons that is presynaptic to two or more cells in the observed population. We consider two models for the network firing-rates, one of which is computationally and analytically tractable but can lead to unrealistically high firing-rates, while the other with reasonable firing-rates imposes a greater computational burden. We develop an expectation-maximization algorithm for fitting the parameters of both the models. For the analytically tractable model the expectation step is based on a continuous-time implementation of the extended Kalman smoother, and the maximization step involves two concave maximization problems which may be solved in parallel. The other model that we consider necessitates the use of Monte Carlo methods for the expectation as well as maximization step. We discuss the trade-off involved in choosing between the two models and the associated methods. The techniques developed allow us to solve a variety of inference problems in a straightforward, computationally efficient fashion; for example, we may use the model to predict network activity given an arbitrary stimulus, infer a neuron's ring rate given the stimulus and the activity of the other observed neurons, and perform optimal stimulus decoding and prediction. We present several detailed simulation studies which explore the strengths and limitations of our approach.     

Magnetic properties of Cu-Cd ferrite investigated by Mössbauer spectroscopy

Samples of the copper-cadmium ferrite series Cd _x Cu_1–x Fe₂O₄ (x=0 to 1) have been investigated by means of Mössbauer spectroscopy at 77 K. Mössbauer spectra forx=0.0 to 0.7 suggest the existence of two hyperfine fields, one due to the Fe³⁺ tetrahedral ions (A-sites) and the other due to the Fe³⁺ octahedral ions (B-sites), while forx=0.8 it shows relaxation behaviour and forx0.9 it exhibits a paramagnetic quadrupole doublet. The systematic dependence of the isomer shifts, line widths, quadrupole interactions and nuclear magnetic fields of⁵⁷Fe³⁺ ions in both A and B sites has been determined as a function of cadmium content. The variation of nuclear magnetic fields at the A and B sites is explained on the basis of the A-B and B-B supertransferred hyperfine interactions. Analysis of the average Mössbauer line widths as a function of cadmium concentration suggests that the relaxation spectrum observed atx=0.8 (77 K) is possibly due to domain wall oscillations. It has been found here that QS (B) increases from CuFe₂O₄to CdFe₂O₄ as the cadmium concentration is increased.     

Proactive thermal management in green datacenters

The increasing demand for faster computing and high storage capacity has resulted in an increase in energy consumption and heat generation in datacenters. Because of the increase in heat generation, cooling requirements have become a critical concern, both in terms of growing operating costs as well as their environmental and societal impacts. Presently, thermal management techniques make an effort to thermally profile and control datacenters’ cooling equipment to increase their efficiency. In conventional thermal management techniques, cooling systems are triggered by the temperature crossing predefined thresholds. Such reactive approaches result in delayed response as the temperature may already be too high, which can result in performance degradation of hardware.