Role of particle size in microwave processing of metallic material systems

Processing of metallic materials using microwave energy has been a challenge. However, exploiting the size factor of particles in these candidate materials opened up further opportunities. The amount of heat evolved inside a particle per unit volume primarily depends upon its size, shape, electromagnetic and thermal properties. Finer particles can potentially absorb more microwave energy than coarser units and get heated rapidly with higher uniformity. It results in better properties in the processed part and energy economy. This work reviews the relevant literature and summarises fundamentals of microwave heating of metallic materials. Roles of particle size in processing these materials have been discussed. Challenges in microwave processing of finer metallic particles have been identified; opportunities for future research are outlined.     

Modular mutagenesis of a TEM-barrel enzyme: the crystal structure of a chimeric E.coli TIM having the eighth {beta}{alpha}-unit replaced by the equivalent unit of chicken TIM

Abstract The crystal structure of a hybrid Escherichia coli triosephosphateisomerase (TIM) has been determined at 2.8 Å resolution.The hybrid TIM (ETIM8CHI) was constructed by replacing the eighthß-unit of E.coli TIM with the equivalent unit of chickenTIM. This replacement involves 10 sequence changes. One of thechanges concerns the mutation of a buried alanine (Ala232 instrand 8) into a phenylalanine. The ETIM8CHI structure showsthat the A232F sequence change can be incorporated by a side-chainrotation of Phe224 (in helix 7). No cavities or strained dihedralsare observed in ETIM8CHI in the region near position 232, whichis in agreement with the observation that ETIM8CHI and E.coliTIM have similar stabilities. The largest CA (C-alpha atom)movements, 3 Å, are seen for the C-terminal end of helix8 (associated with the outward rotation of Phe224) and for theresidues in the loop after helix 1 (associated with sequencechanges in helix 8). From the structure it is not clear whythe k_cat of ETIM8CHI is 10 times lower than in wild type E.coliTIM     

Maximum-Likelihood Header Estimation: A Cross-Layer Methodology for Wireless Multimedia

We propose a novel cross-layer header estimation methodology that can be used by UDP-based wireless multimedia applications to estimate corrupted packet headers, thereby realizing significant throughput improvements. The proposed methodology requires only minor modifications to the protocol stack at the receiver while no modifications are needed to senders or intermediate nodes. We formulate header estimation as a problem of maximum-likelihood estimation of known parameters in noise. We derive likelihood functions for two wireless channel models, namely Markov and multifractal wavelet models. Our trace-driven video simulations at 2, 5.5 and 11 Mbps data rates of an 802.11b LAN demonstrate that significant improvements over normal UDP and UDP Lite can be achieved by employing header estimation with UDP.     

Fuzzy-Based Cluster Head Amendment (FCHA) Approach to Prolong the Lifetime of Sensor Networks

Wireless Personal Communications - Wireless sensor networks (WSN) consist of large number of sensor nodes that work collaboratively. Sensors segregate groups with similar traits and get arranged in...     

Majority and minority intrinsic defects in lithium and sodium halides

We present new findings on the enthalpies of formation of vacancies and interstitial ion defects on either sublattice in the alkali halide crystals MX (X=F, Cl, Br and M=Li, Na) using the MPPI model. The model uses a minimum fit to crystal properties and is fully consistent with the dielectric response. The role of the non-Coulombic short range forcesvis-a-vis polarization fields in the stabilization of the defect formation process is examined and discussed in detail. It is shown that it is important to treat the electrostatic polarization caused by the point defect carefully and variation in potential modelling has a comparatively minor effect on the calculations of enthalpies of formation.     

A new family of nonredundant transforms using hybrid wavelets and directional filter banks.

We propose a new family of nonredundant geometrical image transforms that are based on wavelets and directional filter banks. We convert the wavelet basis functions in the finest scales to a flexible and rich set of directional basis elements by employing directional filter banks, where we form a nonredundant transform family, which exhibits both directional and nondirectional basis functions. We demonstrate the potential of the proposed transforms using nonlinear approximation. In addition, we employ the proposed family in two key image processing applications, image coding and denoising, and show its efficiency for these applications.     

Evaluation of intranets in a distributed environment

The capture and dissemination of intra-organizational information is widely recognized to be essential for supporting operational and strategic corporate decision-making. Intranet technology has proven to be effective in accessing and disseminating intra-organizational data and knowledge, yet because of the novelty of intranets, very little research has been conducted to understand this technology in terms of its planning, management, and implementation. The objective of this study is to evaluate the role of intranet technology in a distributed environment with respect to its contributions to interconnectivity, information dissemination, process reengineering, organizational performance, and team collaboration.     

End-to-end rate-based congestion control: convergence properties and scalability analysis

We study several properties of binary-feedback congestion control in rate-based applications. We first derive necessary conditions for generic binary-feedback congestion control to converge to fairness monotonically (which guarantees asymptotic stability of the fairness point) and show that AIMD is the only TCP-friendly binomial control with monotonic convergence to fairness. We then study the steady-state behavior of binomial controls with n competing flows on a single bottleneck. Our main result here shows that combined probing for new bandwidth by all flows results in significant overshoot of the available bandwidth and rapid (often super-linear as a function of n) increase in packet loss. We also show that AIMD has the best scalability and lowest packet-loss increase among all TCP-friendly binomial schemes. We conclude the paper by deriving the conditions necessary to achieve constant packet loss regardless of the number of competing flows, n, and, in both simulation and streaming experiments, examine one new scheme, called ideally scalable congestion control, with such constant packet loss.     

Defect models in silver halides

Silver halide crystals AgCl and AgBr exhibit all the three types of intrinsic point defects, namely, cationic Frenkel disorder, Schottky disorder and the bound vacancy pair disorder. The ionic conductivity anomaly at high temperatures, the unusual behaviour in respect of self- and impurity diffusion and the contrasting features in the anion self-diffusion between AgCl and AgBr do not all satisfactorily fit into the prevailing models of ionic transport. We review these features critically. We also discuss the potential and polarization models used in the theoretical evaluation of the enthalpies of formation of the intrinsic defects in these crystals. Results of our recent investigations on these questions will be presented to highlight their implications to the defect physics of these materials.