Technical and economic analysis of solvent-based lithium-ion electrode drying with water and NMP

Processing lithium-ion battery (LIB) electrode dispersions with water as the solvent during primary drying offers many advantages over N-methylpyrrolidone (NMP). An in-depth analysis of the comparative drying costs of LIB electrodes is discussed for both NMP- and water-based dispersion processing in terms of battery pack $/kWh. Electrode coating manufacturing and capital equipment cost savings are compared for water vs. conventional NMP organic solvent processing. A major finding of this work is that the total electrode manufacturing costs, whether water- or NMP-based, contribute about 8–9% of the total pack cost. However, it was found that up to a 2?×?reduction in electrode processing (drying and solvent recovery) cost can be expected along with a $3–6?M savings in associated plant capital equipment (for a plant producing 100,000 10-kWh Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV) batteries) using water as the electrode solvent. This paper shows a different perspective in that the most important benefits of aqueous electrode processing actually revolve around capital equipment savings and environmental stewardship and not processing cost savings.     

On Cost Aware Cloudlet Placement for Mobile Edge Computing

As accessing computing resources from the remote cloud inherently incurs high end-to-end (E2E) delay for mobile users, cloudlets, which are deployed at the edge of a network, can potentially mitigate this problem. Although some research works focus on allocating workloads among cloudlets, the cloudlet placement aiming to minimize the deployment cost (i.e., consisting of both the cloudlet cost and average E2E delay cost) has not been addressed effectively so far. The locations and number of cloudlets have a crucial impact on both the cloudlet cost in the network and average E2E delay of users. Therefore, in this paper, we propose the Cost Aware cloudlet PlAcement in moBiLe Edge computing (CAPABLE) strategy, where both the cloudlet cost and average E2E delay are considered in the cloudlet placement. To solve this problem, a Lagrangian heuristic algorithm is developed to achieve the suboptimal solution. After cloudlets are placed in the network, we also design a workload allocation scheme to minimize the E2E delay between users and their cloudlets by considering the user mobility. The performance of CAPABLE has been validated by extensive simulations.      

Effect of ZnO layer thickness upon optoelectrical properties of NiO/ ZnO heterojunction prepared at room temperature

In this work, p-NiO/n-ZnO heterostructures were successfully prepared at room temperature using RF sputtering technique. The influence of ZnO layer thickness on the performance of the heterojunction was investigated. The deposited ZnO layers have a hexagonal Wurtzite structure with preferable growth orientations along (002) and (103) for thinner films. Increasing the thickness results in more crystallographic orientation randomness. The current–voltage measurements of the realized heterojunctions showed a clear rectifying behavior. The measured ideality factor varies from 2.5 to 1.6 according to the thickness of ZnO layer. The series resistance of the device is enlarged with increasing ZnO thickness. The deduced parameters from the I–V characteristics suggest that 200 nm is the optimal thickness of the ZnO layer according to our experimental conditions. We attribute the relatively better performance of this thickness to achieving reasonable compensation between serial resistance and ideality factor. The best heterojunction was tested and successfully used as a UV detector.     

Finding all hops shortest paths

In this letter, we introduce and investigate a new problem referred to as the All Hops Shortest Paths (AHSP) problem. The AHSP problem involves selecting, for all hop counts, the shortest paths from a given source to any other node in a network. We derive a tight lower bound on the worst-case computational complexities of the optimal comparison-based solutions to AHSP.     

Understanding the differences between how novice and experienced designers approach design tasks

Research was undertaken to understand how to provide the most appropriate support for novice designers in engineering design. However, how designers apply their experience and knowledge is not understood and further research in this area is required. This paper describes an observational study to understand how novice and experienced designers approach design tasks. Electronic Publication     

Effect of postoperative mydriatics on the iris

PURPOSE: To assess the role postoperative mydriatics play after extracapsular cataract extraction (ECCE) and posterior chamber intraocular lens (IOL) implantation in causing iris modifications and in controlling inflammation. SETTING: Outpatients Department, Ninewells Hospital, Dundee, Scotland. METHODS: The prospective study comprised 136 patients who had standardized ECCE. Half the patients used a mydriatic for 2 weeks postoperatively. Anterior chamber activity, pain, and eye redness were evaluated at 2 weeks postoperatively; pupil shape, peripheral anterior synechias, IOL position, and iris adhesions, at 6 weeks. RESULTS: Iris-lens adhesions were significantly more common in the group using a mydriatic. There was no difference between the two groups in postoperative inflammation. CONCLUSION: Mydriatics should not be used routinely after ECCE with posterior chamber IOL implantation.     

Stereoselectivity in cutaneous hydrolysis and transdermal transport of propranolol prodrug

This review is written to evaluate the stereoselectivity in cutaneous hydrolysis and transdermal transport of propranolol prodrug. This discussion will be useful in the development of knowledge about stereoselective cutaneous hydrolysis and its influence on stereoselective transdermal transport of many other chiral prodrugs and drugs. Propranolol prodrugs undergo stereoselective hydrolysis in hairless mouse skin homogenate and in excised skin samples during permeation; the stereoselectivity is markedly biased towards hydrolysis of the (R) isomer. Unlike the liver, the esterase activity of the skin is high in its cytosolic fraction. Most of the lipophilic propranolol prodrugs cause stereoselective permeation across hairless mouse skin. A mechanism of stereoselective permeation of propranolol prodrug across the skin has been proposed, which indicates that the stereoselectivity in permeation is resulted from the stereoselective hydrolysis of lipophilic prodrug during permeation.     

Low-loss three-phase frequency conversion using a TDM-PWM technique

A strategy for the realisation of a product-modulation frequency conversion technique is presented. For maximum efficiency and spectral purity, a pulse-width modulation (PWM) circuit is used. The addition of pulse-width-modulated signals from the three input phases to each of the three output phases is accomplished by time-division multiplexing (TDM). The need for the product modulator to accommodate multiplication by negative numbers is eliminated by a modification to the basic equations.