Ionic conductivities and high resolution microscopic evaluation of grain and grain boundaries of cerium-based codoped solid electrolytes

Doped CeGdO and codoped CeGdOSmO compositions were synthesized, giving rise to nanoparticulate powders. Ionic conductivities at bulk and grain boundaries of the sintered samples were determined, exhibiting increased conductivity in the samaria-codoped samples. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) showed a significant reduction in the grain size of samaria-codoped electrolytes. This reduced grain size of the codoped samples caused a reduction in Schottky barrier height, increasing oxygen vacancy concentration in the space-charge layer of the grain boundary and culminating in greater ionic conductivity in the boundary region. For the gadolinium doped samples, high resolution transmission electron microscopy images at grains showed the presence of large cluster of defects (nanodomains), hindering the movement of charge carriers and reducing ionic conductivity. However, the samaria-codoped system displayed better homogeneity at atomic level, resulting in reduced oxygen vacancy ordering and, consequently, smaller nanodomains and higher bulk (grain) conductivity. The reduced grain sizes and smaller nanodomains caused by codoping favor the ionic conductivity of ceria-based ceramics, doped with gadolinia and codoped with samaria.     

Data collection: evaluation of a pilot model

The overall purpose of this study was to explore nurses' feelings about the applicability and adequacy of a pilot model of nursing assessment (PMNA) developed for coronary care units (CCU) in order to obtain data that could help in establishing a definitive model. The evaluation, performed by 11 CCU nurses, showed that they considered the development and implementation of PMNA as valuable, and that its design was adequate for interviewing cardiac patients. These results will be employed in the elaboration of a definitive model of nursing assessment.     

The Role of Network Topologies in the Optical Core of IP-over-WDM Networks with Static Wavelength Routing

In this paper, we present a performance analysis of network topologies for the optical core of IP-over-WDM networks with static wavelength routing. The performance analysis is focused on regular degree four topologies, and, for comparison purposes, degree three topologies are also considered. It is shown that the increase of the nodal degree from three (degree three topology with smallest diameter) to four (degree four topology with smallest diameter) improves the network performance if a larger number of wavelengths per link is available. However, the influence of wavelength interchange on the nodal degree gain is small. The performance of regular degree four topologies with smallest diameter is also compared with the performance of mesh–torus topologies (which are also degree four topologies), and it is shown that the blocking probability of degree four topologies with smallest diameter is about two orders of magnitude lower than the blocking probability of mesh–torus topologies. It is also presented a performance comparison of WDM-based networks with nodal degrees ranging from two to five and it is shown that the increase of the nodal degree from two to three leads to high nodal degree gains, while de increase of the nodal degree from four to five leads to low nodal degree gains. These results show that degree three and degree four topologies are very attractive for use in the optical core of IP-over-WDM networks.     

Phase equilibrium in a polarized saturated3He—4He mixture

We present experimental results on the phase equilibrium of a saturated³He−⁴He mixture, which has been cooled to a temperature of 10–15 mK and polarized in a⁴He circulating dilution refrigerator to a stationary polarization of 15%, 7 times higher than the equilibrium polarization in the external field of 7 T. The pressure dependence of the polarization enhancement in the refrigerator shows that the molar susceptibilities of the concentrated and dilute phase of a saturared³He-⁴He mixture are equal atp=2.60±0.04 bar. This result affects the Fermi liquid parameters of the dilute phase. The osmotic pressure in the dilute phase has been measured as a function of the polarization of the coexisting concentrated phase up to 15%. We find that the osmotic pressure at low polarization (<7%) agrees well with thermodynamics using the new Fermi liquid parameters of the dilute phase.     

Efficient computation of the steady-state response of periodicnonlinear microwave circuits using a convolution-based sample-balancetechnique

The authors describe an efficient and robust approach to the computation of the steady-state response of periodic nonlinear microwave circuits. The problem of solving a set of differential equations is converted into that of solving a system of nonlinear algebraic equations using a technique called convolution-based sample balance. Although exact in all cases for which harmonic-balance techniques are exact, this technique does not require the use of discrete Fourier transforms, and calculating the Jacobian is straightforward. For the solution of the resulting system of nonlinear equations, an efficient and yet robust algorithm has been developed. In the examples given, savings in computational effort of over 85% are reported when this algorithm is compared with Newton's method     

How far can one compress digital fault records? Analysis of a matching pursuit-based algorithm

In this paper, we verify how far electric disturbance signals can be compressed without compromising the analysis of encoded fault records. A recently proposed compression algorithm, referred to as Damped Sinusoidal Matching Pursuit (DSMP) has the remarkable feature of obtaining both compact and physically interpretable representations. However, for fault analysis applications, one is primarily interested in how accurate can be the analysis performed on compressed signals, instead of evaluating mean-squared error figures. Unlike previous works in digital fault records compression, the performance of the DSMP compression method is evaluated using a protocol based on fault analysis procedures commonly performed by expert engineers. This protocol is applied for comparing the results obtained in the analysis of both uncompressed records and their compressed versions at different compression ratios. The results show that the DSMP is a reliable compression system since it achieves high compression ratios (6.4:1) without causing fault analysis misinterpretation.