Influence of process variables on growth of ZnO nanowires by cathodic electrodeposition on zinc substrate

Influence of the deposition duration and electrolyte concentration on the structural and morphological features of the ZnO thin films, grown by cathodic electrodeposition on zinc substrate followed by annealing in air at 400 °C, have been investigated. The surface morphology of the as-synthesized films shows two distinct features, presence of ‘2-dimensional nanosheets’ on the area near the electrolyte-air interface and ‘granular’ nanostructures, below the interface region. However, upon annealing, the formation of ZnO nanowires, possessing length of several microns and diameter less than 20 nm, on the entire substrate is observed. The X-ray and selected area electron diffraction patterns clearly confirm the polycrystalline nature of the ZnO nanowires.     

WO3 and W2N nanowire arrays for photoelectrochemical hydrogen production

Tungsten oxide (WO₃) nanowire array samples were nitrided in a NH₃ atmosphere to get complete conversion to tungsten nitride (W₂N) nanowires. UV–vis absorption spectroscopy shows that the band gap of WO₃ reduced from 2.9 eV to 2.2 eV after nitridation to W₂N. Photoelectrochemical properties of both WO₃ and W₂N nanowire array electrodes were investigated. WO₃ nanowire arrays show maximum incident photon-to-current conversion efficiency of 85% at 370 nm at 1.2 V vs. SCE. The high quantum efficiency is attributed to the nanowire architecture which ensures efficient light absorption and charge transport. The nanowire arrays were stable even up to 8 h of continuous gas evolution. W₂N nanowire arrays showed good photoactivity even at moderate bias. However, the pure W₂N electrodes were unstable with respect to photocorrosion. The mixed phase W₂N–WO₃ nanowires showed improvement in stability compared to pure W₂N nanowire arrays.     

Structural, dielectric and electrical properties of Pb(SnTi)O3 ferroelectric system

We have synthesized (PST) with x=0.45, 0.55, 0.65 ferroelectric ceramics by a solid-state reaction technique and performed preliminary X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis and the temperature and frequency dependence dielectric measurements on them. The a.c. and d.c. conductivities have been investigated over a wide range of temperature and the activation energy have also been calculated. It is observed that: (i) the relative dielectric permittivity () and loss tangent (tan ) are dependent on frequency, (ii) the temperature of dielectric permittivity maximum shifts toward lower temperature side, (iii) permittivity maximum decreases with the increase of Sn content in the (PST) compounds and (iv) no frequency dispersion of the dielectric permittivity reveals the no-relaxor behavior of the materials.     

An experimental evaluation of I/O optimizations on different applications

Many large scale applications have significant I/O requirements as well as computational and memory requirements. Unfortunately, the limited number of I/O nodes provided in a typical configuration of the modern message-passing distributed-memory architectures such as Intel Paragon and IBM SP-2 limits the I/O performance of these applications severely. We examine some software optimization techniques and evaluate their effects in five different I/O-intensive codes from both small and large application domains. Our goals in this study are twofold. First, we want to understand the behavior of large-scale data-intensive applications and the impact of I/O subsystems on their performance and vice versa. Second, and more importantly, we strive to determine the solutions for improving the applications' performance by a mix of software techniques. Our results reveal that different applications can benefit from different optimizations. For example, we found that some applications benefit from file layout optimizations whereas others take advantage of collective I/O. A combination of architectural and software solutions is normally needed to obtain good I/O performance. For example, we show that with a limited number of I/O resources, it is possible to obtain good performance by using appropriate software optimizations. We also show that beyond a certain level, imbalance in the architecture results in performance degradation even when using optimized software, thereby indicating the necessity of an increase in I/O resources.     

Thermodynamic performance assessment of an indirect intercooled reheat regenerative gas turbine cycle with inlet air cooling and evaporative aftercooling of the compressor discharge

This study provides a computational analysis to investigate the effects of cycle pressure ratio, turbine inlet temperature (TIT), and ambient relative humidity (φ) on the thermodynamic performance of an indirect intercooled reheat regenerative gas turbine cycle with indirect evaporative cooling of the inlet air and evaporative aftercooling of the compressor discharge. Combined first and second‐law analysis indicates that the exergy destruction in various components of gas turbine cycles is significantly affected by compressor pressure ratio and turbine inlet temperature, and is not at all affected by ambient relative humidity. It also indicates that the maximum exergy is destroyed in the combustion chamber; which represents over 60% of the total exergy destruction in the overall system. The net work output, first‐law efficiency, and the second‐law efficiency of the cycle significantly varies with the change in the pressure ratio, turbine inlet temperature and ambient relative humidity. Results clearly shows that performance evaluation based on first‐law analysis alone is not adequate, and hence more meaningful evaluation must include second‐law analysis. Decision makers should find the methodology contained in this paper useful in the comparison and selection of gas turbine systems. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

MEASUREMENT OF PARTICLE VELOCITY IN PNEUMATIC TRANSPORT OF COAL USING CROSS-CORRELATION TECHNIQUE

Particle velocity has been determined experimentally in a solid-gas flow using the cross-correlation technique. Signals from two flow-monitoring devices, one based on the measurement of the dielectric constant of coal/air and the other based on the rate of static charge transfer technique, have been utilized to determine the cross-correlation function and hence the time delays between the signals. Other pertinent fluid dynamic parameters have been evaluated using experimentally determined particle velocities.     

Challenges and Promising Results in NoC Prototyping Using FPGAs

Although a significant amount of theoretical work supports the potential of NoC architectures, such results need to be demonstrated by actual implementations before the NoC paradigm becomes a reality. Besides demonstrating the feasibility of the overall approach, prototyping enables accurate evaluation of power, performance, area, and various design trade-offs. This article presents four NoC prototypes, discusses the challenges associated with their design, and assesses the potential of the NoC approach.     

Dielectric anomaly in LiCa2V5O15 ceramics

A polycrystalline sample of LiCa₂V₅O₁₅ (LCV) was prepared using a mixed oxide method at low temperature (i.e., at 630 °C). X-ray structural analysis shows the single-phase formation of the compound in the orthorhombic crystal system at room temperature. A study on the surface morphology of the compound showed uniform grain distribution on the surface and in the bulk of the sample with less porosity. A dielectric anomaly suggests that the compound has a transition temperature at 274 °C. The activation energy, calculated from the temperature dependence of ac conductivity (dielectric data), of the compound was found to be 0.67 eV at 10 kHz. The nature of the variation of conductivity and value of activation energy in different regions, suggest that the conduction process is of mixed type (i.e., ionic-polaronic and space charge generated from the oxygen ion vacancies).     

Control approaches for probabilistic gene regulatory networks - What approaches have been developed for addreassinig the issue of intervention?

This article presents a tutorial survey of some of the recent results on intervention in the context of probabilistic gene regulatory networks, which, owing to their original binary formulation and their usual application using binary and ternary gene-expression quantization, are generically called probabilistic Boolean networks (PBNs). These are essentially probabilistic generalizations of the standard Boolean networks introduced by Kauffman that allow the incorporation of uncertainty into the intergene relationships. Given a PBN, the transition from one state to the next takes place in accordance with certain transition probabilities and their dynamics, and hence intervention can be studied in the context of homogeneous Markov chains with finite state spaces     

Impacts of reservoirs on groundwater and vegetation: A study based on remote sensing and GIS techniques

Suspended sediment is an important parameter for the monitoring of water quality, water movement, erosion, and deposition. Quantitative suspended sediment concentrations have been identified through the analysis of remotely sensed airborne multi-spectral video imagery. From a statistical analysis of the data, a single band ( 675-725 nm) was shown to be sufficient for determining suspended sediment concentrations within lakes of the Mackenzie Delta, N.W.T., Canada. A statistical analysis and derived linear regression equation were used to quantitatively determine suspended sediment concentrations for a number of lakes within the Mackenzie Delta. The results were compared with a qualitative interpretation of simultaneous colour photography. The multi-spectral video imagery proved to have superior suspended sediment concentration resolution characteristics.