Hydrogen absorption in beryllium substituted Mg2Ni

The alloys Mg₂Ni_1–xBe_x (x = 0.15 and 0.25) retain the Mg₂Ni structure showing a lattice dilation proportional to the beryllium content. The pressure-composition isotherms are reported for the dissociation of hydrided samples. The results suggest that there are two type of interstices able to absorb up to 4 H atoms per formula unit. The heats of formation obtained from the van't Hoff relationship show an increased stability for the hydrides of the beryllium substituted alloys compared to the pure Mg₂Ni. The results suggest that the electronic factors are more important for hydride stability than variations in the unit cell volume.     

IEEE-Compliant IDCT on FPGA-Augmented TriMedia

This paper presents a TriMedia processor extended with an IDCT reconfigurable design, and assesses the performance gain such an extension has when performing MPEG-2 decoding. We first propose the skeleton of an extension of the TriMedia architecture, which consists of a Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA)-based Reconfigurable Functional Unit (RFU), a Configuration Unit managing the reconfiguration of the RFU, and their associated instructions. Then, we address the computation of the 8 × 8 (2-D) IDCT on such extended TriMedia and propose a scheme to implement the 1-D IDCT operation on the RFU. When mapped on an ACEX EP1K100 FPGA from Altera, the proposed 1-D IDCT exhibits a latency of 16 and a recovery of 2 TriMedia@200 MHz cycles, and occupies 45% of the logic cells of the device. By configuring the 1-D IDCT on the RFU at application launch-time, the IEEE-compliant 2-D IDCT can be computed with the throughput of 1/32 IDCT/cycle. This figure translates to an improvement over the standard TriMedia of more than 40% in terms of computing time when 2-D IDCT is carried out in the framework of MPEG-2 decoding. Finally, the proposed reconfigurable IDCT is compared to a number of existing designs.Mihai Sima was born in Bucharest, Romania. He received the MS degree in Electrical Engineering from Politehnica University of Bucharest, and the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands. He had been with the Microelectronics Company in Bucharest for 3 years, where he was involved in instrumentation electronics for integrated circuit testing. Subsequently, he joined the Telecommunications Department of Politehnica University of Bucharest, where he had been involved in digital signal processing and speech recognition for 6 years. More recently, he had been with the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics, and Computer Science, Delft University of Technology, where he worked on reconfigurable architectures for mediaprocessing domain. He is currently an assistant professor with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Victoria, B.C., Canada. His research interests include computer architecture, reconfigurable computing, embedded systems, digital signal processing, and speech recognition.Sorin D. Coofan was born in Mizil, Romania. He received the MS degree in Computer Science from the Politehnica University of Bucharest, Romania, and the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands. He had worked with the Research & Development Institute for Electronic Components (ICCE) in Bucharest for a decade, being involved in structured design of digital systems, design rule checking of ICs layout, logic and mixed-mode simulation of electronic circuits, testability analysis, and image processing. He is currently an associate professor with the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics, and Computer Science, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands. His research interests include computer arithmetic, parallel architectures, embedded systems, reconfigurable computing, nano-electronics, neural networks, computational geometry, and computer aided design.Jos T.J. van Eijndhoven was born in Roosendaal, The Netherlands. He studied Electrical Engineering at the Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands, obtaining the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in 1981 and 1984, respectively, for a work on piecewise linear circuit simulation. Then, he became a senior research member in the design automation group of the Eindhoven University of Technology. In 1986 he spent a sabbatical period at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Laboratory, Yorktown Heights, New York, for research on high level synthesis. In 1998 he joined Philips Research Laboratories in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, to work on the architectural design of programmable multimedia hardware and the associated mapping of media processing applications.Stamatis Vassiliadis was born in Manolates, Samos, Greece. He is a professor with the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics, and Computer Science, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands. He has also served in the faculties of Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, and the State University of New York (S.U.N.Y.), Binghamton, NY.He hadworked for a decade with IBM in the AdvancedWorkstations and Systems laboratory in Austin TX, the Mid-Hudson Valley Laboratory in Poughkeepsie, NY, and the Glendale Laboratory in Endicott, NY. In IBM he was involved in a number of projects regarding computer design, organizations, and architectures and the leadership to advanced research projects. A number of his design and implementation proposals have been implemented in commerciallyavailable systems and processors including the IBM 9370 model 60 computer system, the IBM POWER II, the IBM AS/400 Models 400, 500, and 510, Server Models 40S and 50S, the IBM AS/400 Advanced 36, and the IBM S/390 G4 and G5 computer systems. For his work, he received numerous awards including 23 levels of Publication Achievement Awards, 15 levels of Invention Achievement Awards and an Outstanding Innovation Award for Engineering/Scientific Hardware Design in 1989. In 1990 he has been awarded the highest number of USA patents in IBM, six of his 70 USA patents being rated with the highest patent ranking in IBM.Kees A. Vissers graduated the Delft University of Technology, receiving his M.Sc. in 1980. He started directly with Philips Research Laboratories in Eindhoven where he was involved in highlevel simulation and high-level synthesis. He had been heading the research on hardware/software co-design and system level design for many years, and had a significant contribution to the TriMedia VLIW processor. From 1987 till 1988 he was a visiting researcher at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with the group of Don Thomas. He is currently a Research Fellow with University of California at Berkeley, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences. His research interests include video processing, embedded media processing systems, and reconfigurable computing.     

The influence of aluminium on the properties of the Mg2Cu-H2 system

The addition of aluminium to a mixture of Mg-Cu (2:1 atomic ratio) leads by melting to the formation of increasing amounts of Mg(Cu,Al)₂ where aluminium substitutes for copper atoms in the MgCu₂ lattice, raising the lattice parameter. The hydrogen absorbed in this phase is strongly bounded, as proved by desorption isotherms and nuclear magnetic resonance data.     

Small-molecule vacuum processed melamine-C60, organic field-effect transistors

The transfer of benchtop knowledge into large scale industrial production processes represents a challenge in the field of organic electronics. Large scale industrial production of organic electronics is envisioned as roll to roll (R2R) processing which nowadays comprises usually solution-based large area printing steps. The search for a fast and reliable fabrication process able to accommodate the deposition of both insulator and semiconductor layers in a single step is still under way. Here we report on the fabrication of organic field effect transistors comprising only evaporable small molecules. Moreover, both the gate dielectric (melamine) and the semiconductor (C₆₀) are deposited in successive steps without breaking the vacuum in the evaporation chamber. The material characteristics of evaporated melamine thin films as well as their dielectric properties are investigated, suggesting the applicability of vacuum processed melamine for gate dielectric layer in OFETs. The transistor fabrication and its transfer and output characteristics are presented along with observations that lead to the fabrication of stable and virtually hysteresis-free transistors. The extremely low price of precursor materials and the ease of fabrication recommend the evaporation processes as alternative methods for a large scale, R2R production of organic field effect transistors.     

The Effect of the Ionizing Radiation on Hydroxyapatite–Polydimethylsiloxane Layers

The bio hydroxyapatite (HAp) was used from a long time in different medical and environmental applications. The HAp layers with a uniform surface were used for various medical applications such as orthopedic and dental metal implants. In this work, we reported on the influence of X‐ray radiation on the structural and morphological properties of composite layers based on HAp and polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) deposited on titanium substrates. The HAp:PDMS layers were investigated by different complementary methods such as scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and glow discharge optical emission spectrometry (GDOES). FTIR spectral analysis showed that the molecular structure of the coatings was not changed after their irradiation even though, the depth profile analysis performed by GDOES indicated a depletion of Ca and P elements from the HAp:PDMS irradiated samples. By SEM, we showed that the morphological features of the coatings were also changed, as the irradiated layers are delaminated. The biological assays confirmed that the antibacterial activity of HAp:PDMS composite layers increased after irradiation. The results obtained in this study highlighted that the biological properties of HAp:PDMS layers could be influenced by irradiation. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 59:2406–2412, 2019. © 2019 Society of Plastics Engineers     

Chemical Bonding by the Chemical Orthogonal Space of Reactivity

The fashionable Parr–Pearson (PP) atoms-in-molecule/bonding (AIM/AIB) approach for determining the exchanged charge necessary for acquiring an equalized electronegativity within a chemical bond is refined and generalized here by introducing the concepts of chemical power within the chemical orthogonal space (COS) in terms of electronegativity and chemical hardness. Electronegativity and chemical hardness are conceptually orthogonal, since there are opposite tendencies in bonding, i.e., reactivity vs. stability or the HOMO-LUMO middy level vs. the HOMO-LUMO interval (gap). Thus, atoms-in-molecule/bond electronegativity and chemical hardness are provided for in orthogonal space (COS), along with a generalized analytical expression of the exchanged electrons in bonding. Moreover, the present formalism surpasses the earlier Parr–Pearson limitation to the context of hetero-bonding molecules so as to also include the important case of covalent homo-bonding. The connections of the present COS analysis with PP formalism is analytically revealed, while a numerical illustration regarding the patterning and fragmentation of chemical benchmarking bondings is also presented and fundamental open questions are critically discussed.     

Development and characterisation of microporous biomimetic scaffolds loaded with magnetic nanoparticles as bone repairing material

Fine-tuning of the scaffolds structural features for bone tissue engineering can be an efficient approach to regulate the specific response of the osteoblasts. Here, we loaded magnetic nanoparticles aka superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs) into 3D composite scaffolds based on biological macromolecules (chitosan, collagen, hyaluronic acid) and calcium phosphates for potential applications in bone regeneration, using a biomimetic approach. We assessed the effects of organic (chitosan/collagen/hyaluronic acid) and inorganic (calcium phosphates, SPIONs) phase over the final features of the magnetic scaffolds (MS). Mechanical properties, magnetic susceptibility and biological fluids retention are strongly dependent on the final composition of MS and within the recommended range for application in bone regeneration. The MS architecture/pore size can be made bespoken through changes of the final organic/inorganic ratio. The scaffolds undertake mild degradation as the presence of inorganic components hinders the enzyme catalytic activity. In vitro studies indicated that osteoblasts (SaOS-2) on MS9 had similar cell behaviour activity in comparison with the TCP control. In vivo data showed an evident development of integration and resorption of the MS composites with low inflammation activity. Current findings suggest that the combination of SPIONs into 3D composite scaffolds can be a promising toolkit for bone regeneration.     

Double Variational Binding—(SMILES) Conformational Analysis by Docking Mechanisms for Anti-HIV Pyrimidine Ligands

Variational quantitative binding–conformational analysis for a series of anti-HIV pyrimidine-based ligands is advanced at the individual molecular level. This was achieved by employing ligand-receptor docking algorithms for each molecule in the 1,3-disubstituted uracil derivative series that was studied. Such computational algorithms were employed for analyzing both genuine molecular cases and their simplified molecular input line entry system (SMILES) transformations, which were created via the controlled breaking of chemical bonds, so as to generate the longest SMILES molecular chain (LoSMoC) and Branching SMILES (BraS) conformations. The study identified the most active anti-HIV molecules, and analyzed their special and relevant bonding fragments (chemical alerts), and the recorded energetic and geometric docking results (i.e., binding and affinity energies, and the surface area and volume of bonding, respectively). Clear computational evidence was also produced concerning the ligand-receptor pocket binding efficacies of the LoSMoc and BraS conformation types, thus confirming their earlier presence (as suggested by variational quantitative structure-activity relationship, variational-QSAR) as active intermediates for the molecule-to-cell transduction process.