Properties of modified polyacrylonitrile membranes prepared by copolymerization with hydrophilic monomers for water–ethanol mixture separation

A new kind of terpolymer membrane was employed to separate a permselective water–alcohol mixture. This membrane was prepared via the copolymerization of acrylonitrile, sodium salt styrene sulfonic acid (SStSA), and hydroxyethyl methacrylate in dimethylsulfoxide with azobisisobutyronitrile as an initiator. The reaction mechanism, resultant structure, and polymer composition were confirmed by IR and elemental analysis. The effects of the feed composition on the polymer composition, mechanical properties, thermal properties, and degree of swelling were investigated. It was found that water permeated through the membrane preferentially in a water/alcohol system. The flux increased with the increase of SStSA, but the separation factor decreased drastically with higher SStSA. For a 50 wt % water–ethanol mixture, a flux of 0.65 kg/m² h and a separation factor of 212 were obtained at 30°C when the membrane containing the highest SStSA content was used. The capacities of the metal ions absorbed by the membranes were investigated in the study. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 90: 244–250, 2003     

Polymerization Catalysis in Liquid Propylene: High Activities and Molecular Weights in Propylene/CO Copolymerization Reactions

Summary: The dicationic [(dppp)Pd(NCCH₃)₂](BF₄)₂ catalyst (dppp = 1,3‐bis(diphenylphosphino)propane) was applied in a liquid monomer, two phase process for the CO/propene copolymerization reaction. For the first time it was possible to synthesize propene/CO copolymers with an activity up to 7 500 g/(mol · h) and molecular weights of 500 000 g/mol. Activities up to 40 000 g/(mol · h) could be obtained with the use of the unsymmetric catalyst [(CF₃‐dppp)Pd(NCCH₃)](BF₄)₂ (CF₃‐dppp = 1‐diphenylphosphino‐3‐bis[3,5‐di(trifluormethyl)phenyl]phosphinopropane) in homogeneous liquid propene solution.

Granules found after copolymerization.     

Synthesis and dielectric properties of polystyrene‐clay nanocomposite materials

Polystyrene‐clay nanocomposite (PsCN) materials were synthesized and their properties of crystallinity, thermal behavior, and dielectric characteristics were investigated. A polymerizable cationic surfactant, [2‐(dimethylamino)ethyl]triphenylphonium bromide, was used for the intercalation of montmorillonite (MMT). The organophilic MMT was prepared by Na⁺‐exchanged MMT and ammonium cations of a cationic surfactant in an aqueous medium. Organophilic styrene monomers were intercalated into the interlayer regions of organophilic clay hosts followed by a free‐radical polymerization. Exfoliation to 2 wt % MMT in the polystyrene (PS) matrix was achieved as revealed by X‐ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Thermal properties by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) were also studied. The dielectric properties of PsCNs in the form of film with clay loading from 1.0 to 5.0 wt % were measured under frequencies of 100 Hz–1 MHz at 25–70°C. A decreased dielectric constant and low dielectric loss were observed for PsCN materials. The dielectric response at low frequency that originated from dipole orientation was suppressed due to the intercalation of clay materials. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 91: 1368–1373, 2004     

Preparation and the properties of PMR‐type polyimide composites with aluminum nitride

A new polyimide composite was developed relying on the concept of in situ polymerization of monomer reactants polyimide. High thermal conductive, low dielectric constant and dielectric loss, and thermal‐stable composites were successfully demonstrated by incorporating aluminum nitride powder into the polyimide. The weight percent of aluminum nitride was up to 80%. The thermal and dielectric properties follow the classic composite theories. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 89: 3913–3917, 2003     

Water‐assisted injection molding of thermoplastic materials: Effects of processing parameters

The objective of this study was to experimentally investigate the effects of various processing parameters on the water‐assisted injection molding of thermoplastic materials. Experiments were carried out on a lab‐developed water‐assisted injection molding system, which included a water pump, a water injection pin, a water tank equipped with a temperature regulator, and a control circuit. Two types of water injection pins designs were proposed to mold the parts. After molding, the lengths of water penetration in molded parts were measured. The effects of different processing parameters on the lengths of water penetration were determined. It was found that the shrinkage rate and the viscosity of the polymeric materials, and the void shapes of the hollowed cores mainly determined the water‐penetration lengths in molded products. In addition, a comparison has been made between the parts molded by water assisted injection molding and gas‐assisted injection molding. It was found that water‐assisted injection molded parts exhibit less uniform void sizes along the water channel. The cycle time for water‐assisted injection molded parts was shorter than that of conventional injection molded parts and gas‐assisted injection molded parts.     

A low‐profile antenna with circularly polarized reconfigurable and omnidirectional radiation patterns

A low profile circularly polarized (CP) antenna with reconfigurable polarization is designed and presented, which can radiate omnidirectional patterns that can be switched between left‐hand circularly polarized (LHCP) and right‐hand circularly polarized (RHCP). A pair of arc‐shaped complementary dipoles is acted as reconfigurable elements by bridging four pin diodes at the dipole arced arms. A meander phase shift line is employed to connected the arc dipole arms and plate cavity to adjust the phase relationship of two sources. The proposed antenna exhibits the omnidirectional radiation pattern by combining six identical elements placed in a circular array configuration. 24 p‐i‐n diodes are exploited to six elements, by manipulating the dc bias voltage across the diodes, the polarization state of the antenna can be switched. The patterns of the antenna are similar to that of a dipole, but its size is only about Φ0.87 × 0.029λ₀ at 5.8 GHz. The overlapped bandwidth of measured 3‐dB axial ratio (AR) and 10‐dB return loss is 5.724‐5.87 and 5.738‐5.91 GHz for two polarization states, which are right on the target of ISM band. It can be well adapted to medical diagnosis systems.     

A pair of parallel differential magnetic‐field probes with high measurement accuracy and high electric‐field suppression ratio

Magnetic‐field probes can be used for electromagnetic interference measurement of high‐speed circuits. The main magnetic probe performance includes sensitivity, spatial resolution, electric‐field suppression ratio (EFSR), and measurement accuracy. In this article, a pair of differential magnetic‐field probes is proposed to improve measurement accuracy without reducing sensitivity. The proposed differential probes consist of two asymmetric loop probes, which are designed in the same plane and separated by a row of periodic vias. The proposed differential probes are fabricated under PCB process. High accuracy can be achieved by measuring difference between outputs of the two probes. In addition, EFSR can be improved by size optimization of the differential magnetic‐field probes. Simulation and measurement results show the operating bandwidth is from 100 MHz to 12 GHz, the measurement error is 3.4% and the EFSR is about 40 dB. The proposed probes have higher measurement accuracy and higher EFSR than the conventional single probe, and larger operation bandwidth than the stacked differential probes.     

Design of a broadband dielectric resonator antenna and its application in low sensitivity frequency beam‐scanning array with wide scanning angle and suppressed sidelobes

In this paper, a broadband dielectric resonator antenna (DRA) with a simple H‐slot feeding structure is proposed. The broad bandwidth (~45%) and uni‐directional radiation enable this DRA suitable to work as a radiation element in the construction of a beam‐scanning array with not only low frequency sensitivity which is important for accurate angle estimation of in‐coming targets, but also a wide scanning range. Moreover, stable coupling coefficients are established around all the above three resonances with respect to its corresponding feeding line, ensuring a low sidelobe level (SLL) across the whole operating frequency range. In order to realize such a DRA, a latticed rectangular structure is utilized to generate the lower two resonances, while the upper resonance is generated by its H‐shaped feeding slot. The shape of the latticed dielectric resonator is also modified according to a 3‐D printed fixing structure for an accurate installation. A 20‐element beam‐scanning prototype is demonstrated and manufactured. The range of scanning angle is from ?36° to +13° within the bandwidth of 10 to 16 GHz, corresponding to a frequency sensitivity of only 122.5 MHz/^o. The achieved SLL are smaller than 19 dB for all scanning beams. The above performance indicates that, this array is very suitable for near‐range radar systems requiring an accurate angle estimation.     

A robust video zero-watermarking based on deep convolutional neural network and self-organizing map in polar complex exponential transform domain

In this paper, a robust video zero-watermarking scheme for copyright protection using a combination of convolutional neural network (CNN) and self-organizing map (SOM) in polar complex exponential transform (PCET) space is presented. The scheme is developed not only to remedy the existing problems of lacking in some performance assessments but also to enhance the robustness. It starts with extracting the content feature of each frame by CNN and then some significant frames are selected using SOM clustering and maximum entropy. Secondly, the PCET is applied to all selected frames to abstract invariant moments, and further, is scrambled by a chaotic logistic map and is reduced in dimensions by singular value decomposition (SVD). Next, a binary sequence is generated by comparing adjacent values of the obtained compact PCET moments in the previous step, and further is permuted to produce a binary matrix. Finally, a bitwise exclusive-OR operation is imposed on the binary matrix and the encrypted watermark by the chaotic map to generate a zero-watermark signal. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed scheme has adequate equalization and distinguishability of zero-watermarks as well as strong robustness against common signal processing, geometric, compression, and inter-frame attacks. Also, compared with existing video zero-watermarking and traditional video watermarking methods, the proposed scheme exhibits superior robustness.

     

结合Pix2Pix生成对抗网络的灰度图像着色方法

针对神经网络在进行图像着色时容易出现物体边界不明确、图像着色质量不高的问题,提出结合Pix2Pix生成对抗网络的灰度图像着色方法.首先改进U-Net结构,采用8个下采样层和8个上采样层对图像进行特征提取和颜色预测,提高网络模型对图像深层次特征的提取能力;然后使用L1损失和smooth L 1损失度量生成图像与真实图像之间的差距,对比不同损失函数下的图像着色质量;最后加入梯度惩罚,在生成图像和真实图像分布之间构造新的数据分布,对每个输入数据进行梯度惩罚,改变判别器网络梯度限制方法,提高网络在训练过程中的稳定性.在相同实验环境下,使用Pix2Pix模型和summer2winter数据进行对比分析.实验结果表明,改进后的U-Net和使用smooth L 1损失作为生成器损失可以生成更好的着色图像;而L1损失能更好地保持图像结构信息,使用梯度惩罚可以加速模型的收敛速度,提高模型稳定性和图像质量;该方法能更好地学习图像的深层次特征,减少图像着色模糊现象,在有效地保持图像结构相似性的同时提高图像着色质量.