Effects of gallia additions on sintering behavior of gadolinia-doped ceria

The effects of gallia additions on the sintering behavior of gadolinia-doped ceria were systematically investigated from the following aspects: the variation in sintered density, the variation in grain size, and the existing forms of Ga₂O₃ in CeO₂.Sintered density increased with increasing Ga₂O₃ content up to 5 mol.% and then it decreased with further addition of Ga₂O₃. Grain size also increased with increasing Ga₂O₃ content up to 5 mol.% and then decreased with further addition of Ga₂O₃. Decrease in grain size was caused by a pinning effect of Ga₂O₃ precipitation at grain boundaries. Lattice constant decreased with increasing Ga₂O₃ content up to 5 mol.%. This decrease will be due to the substitution of smaller Ga³⁺ ions for Ce⁴⁺ ions in the CeO₂ structure. According to the results obtained from scanning electron microscope (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) analyses, the solubility limit of Ga₂O₃ in Ce_0.8Gd_0.2O_1.9 ceramics can be estimated to be nearly 5 mol.%. The addition of Ga₂O₃ up to the solubility limit was found to promote the sintering properties of Gd₂O₃-doped CeO₂.     

Synthesis and characterization of a series of star-branched poly(ε-caprolactone)s with the variation in arm numbers and lengths

A series of star-branched poly(ε-caprolactone)s (SPCLs) was synthesized with structural variation of the arm numbers and lengths through ring-opening polymerization under bulk condition. Arm numbers were varied to be 3, 4, and 6 by using multifunctional initiating cores such as trimethylol propane, pentaerythritol, and dipentaerythritol, respectively. The lengths of the poly(ε-caprolactone) arms were varied by controlling the molar ratio of monomer-to-initiating hydroxyl group molar ratio ([CL]₀/[-OH]₀=5, 10, 15). Molecular weights were determined by both ¹H NMR end-group analysis and MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry, which gave reasonably consistent values. On the contrary, the GPC method failed to give accurate values of molecular weight of SPCLs due to the discrepancy with the linear standard. The branching architecture of SPCLs was evaluated by the branching ratio, g, which is the ratio of the mean-square radius of SPCL to that of liner counterpart, linear poly(ε-caprolactone) (LPCL), which is of the same chemistry and having the same molecular weight. The radii of gyration of SPCLs and LPCLs were determined using small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) from the initial slopes of Zimm plots, represented as 1/I(q) vs q² with I(q) and q being the scattered intensity and scattering vector, respectively. The g values were observed to decrease with increasing arm numbers, indicating more compact molecular structure for SPCLs with higher arm numbers, while no such effect was observed for arm length variation. Thermal properties as well as the degree of crystallinity of SPCLs were found to be also dependent on structural variations. The melting points and the degradation temperatures were observed to increase with increasing arm lengths but with constant arm number. On the other hand, arm number variation with constant arm length gave no such changes to the thermal transitions of SPCLs. However, for the SPCLs with equivalent molecular weights, the degree of crystallinity was found to decrease with increasing arm numbers.     

Protein binding study of isoflavone, perillyl alcohol and S-ibuprofen by high-performance frontal analysis

High-performance frontal analysis (HPFA) was used for a protein binding study of isoflavones (daidzein, genistin, and genistein), enantiomers of perillyl alcohol and S-ibuprofen to human serum albumin (HSA). The analyses were performed on a Develosil and Inertsil 100-Diol-5 column (10 cm×4.6mm). Sodium phosphate solution (pH 7.4, ionic strength 0.17) was used as the mobile phase at a flow rate of 1 ml/min. To ensure the drug to be eluted as a trapezoidal peak with a plateau, injection volumes were each fixed up the zonal profile with an evident plateau appears. The unbound drug concentration was determined from a plateau height of the plateau region after that experimental data were fitted by Scatchard equation. The binding constants (K) and total binding affinities (nK) of drugs to HSA were calculated, respectively.     

W-band divide-by-3 frequency divider using 0.1 /spl mu/m InAlAs/InGaAs metamorphic HEMT technology

A W-band divide-by-3 frequency divider with wide bandwidth and low power dissipation is presented using harmonic injection-locking technique. A cascode FET is employed for a self-oscillating second-harmonic mixer which is injection-locked by third-harmonic input to obtain the division order of three. The fabricated frequency divider using 0.1 /spl mu/m GaAs metamorphic HEMT technology shows superior performance such as large bandwidth of 6.1 GHz around 83.1 GHz (7.3%) under small DC power consumption of 12 mW.     

Prediction and quality control of the melt index during production of high-density polyethylene

In polyolefin processes the melt index (MI) is the most important control variable indicating product quality. Because of the difficulty in the on-line measurement of MI, a lot of MI estimation and correlation methods have been proposed. In this work a new dynamic MI estimation scheme is developed based on system identification techniques. The empirical MI estimation equation proposed in the present study is derived from the 1 ^st -order dynamic models. Effectiveness of the present estimation scheme was illustrated by numerical simulations based on plant operation data including grade change operations in high density polyethylene (HDPE) processes. From the comparisons with other estimation methods it was found that the proposed estimation scheme showed better performance in MI predictions. The virtual sensor model developed based on the estimation scheme was combined with the virtual on-line analyzer (VOA) to give a quality control system to be implemented in the actual HDPE plant. From the application of the present control system, significant reduction of transition time and the amount of off-spec during grade changes was achieved     

Onset of buoyancy-driven convection in melting from below

When a horizontal homogeneous solid is melted from below, convection can be induced in a thermally unstable melt layer. In this study the onset of buoyancy-driven convection during time-dependent melting is investigated by using similarly transformed disturbance equations. The critical Rayleigh numbers based on the melt-layer thickness are found numerically for various conditions. For small superheats, the present predictions approach the well known results of classical Rayleigh-Bénard problems, that is, critical Rayleigh numbers are located between 1,296 and 1,708, regardless of the Prandtl number. However, for high superheats the critical Rayleigh number increases with an increase in phase change rate but with decrease in Prandtl number.     

Finger assignment schemes for RAKE receivers with multiple-way soft handover

We propose and analyze new finger assignment techniques that are applicable for RAKE receivers in the soft handover (SHO) region. Specifically, extending the results for the case of two-base station (BS), we consider the multi-BS situation, attack the statistics of several correlated generalized selection combining (GSC) stages, and provide closed-form expressions for the statistics of the output signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). By investigating the tradeoff among the error performance, the average number of required path estimations/comparisons, and the SHO overhead, we show through numerical examples that the new schemes offer commensurate performance in comparison with more complicated GSC-based diversity systems while requiring a smaller estimation load and SHO overhead.     

Study on the c-axis preferred orientation of ZnO film on various metal electrodes

ZnO thin film was deposited on various metal electrodes by reactive sputtering, and c-axis preferred orientation of the film has been studied. ZnO, which has high piezoelectricity, is promising for oscillators or filter devices such as surface acoustic wave (SAW) device, gas sensor, and film bulk acoustic resonator (FBAR). But, for the application of ZnO film for these devices, the film should be grown with c-axis normal to the electrode. In this study, Pt, Al, and Au were deposited on Si wafer, and the surface roughness and crystal structure of the ZnO film on the electrode were investigated using AFM, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and X-ray diffraction (XRD). Columnar structures of ZnO films were grown with c-axis normal to all electrodes, and among them Pt electrode showed the highest preferred orientation of ZnO film.