Are Diamonds a MEMS' Best Friend?

Next-generation military and civilian communication systems will require technologies capable of handling data/ audio, and video simultaneously while supporting multiple RF systems operating in several different frequency bands from the MHz to the GHz range [1]. RF microelectromechani-cal/nanoelectromechanical (MEMS/NEMS) devices, such as resonators and switches, are attractive to industry as they offer a means by which performance can be greatly improved for wireless applications while at the same time potentially reducing overall size and weight as well as manufacturing costs.     

Decentralizing India's urban development

Early in 1983 the Indian Planning Commission appointed four Task Forces on Housing and Urban Development to review existing urban policies and to recommend appropriate action starting from the Seventh Plan (1985–1989). The Task Forces covered four areas of major concern: (1) urban planning, (2) urban finance, (3) urban organizations, and (4) urban shelter. They submitted their reports by the end of 1983, and taken together these constitute the most significant review of urban policy ever undertaken in India. ¹ The Task Forces had distinguished urban experts, both officials and academics, as members, with a common Member-Secretary from the Planning Commission. The common theme in all four reports is a plea for a decentralized and equitable approach towards urban development in the country.     

Hierarchical Fuzzy Systems Integrated with Particle Swarm Optimization for Daily Reference Evapotranspiration Prediction: a Novel Approach

Water Resources Management - Reference evapotranspiration (ET0) is a crucial element for deriving irrigation scheduling of major crops. Thus, precise projection of ET0 is essential for better...     

Design of particle-reinforced polyurethane mould materials for soft tooling process using evolutionary multi-objective optimization algorithms

Polyurethane is used for making mould in soft tooling (ST) process for producing wax/plastic components. These wax components are later used as pattern in investment casting process. Due to low thermal conductivity of polyurethane, cooling time in ST process is long. To reduce the cooling time, thermal conductive fillers are incorporated into polyurethane to make composite mould material. However, addition of fillers affects various properties of the ST process, such as stiffness of the mould box, rendering flow-ability of melt mould material, etc. In the present work, multi-objective optimization of various conflicting objectives (namely maximization of equivalent thermal conductivity, minimization of effective modulus of elasticity, and minimization of equivalent viscosity) of composite material are conducted using evolutionary algorithms (EAs) in order to design particle-reinforced polyurethane composites by finding the optimal values of design parameters. The design parameters include volume fraction of filler content, size and shape factor of filler particle, etc. The Pareto-optimal front is targeted by solving the corresponding multi-objective problem using the NSGA-II procedure. Then, suitable multi-criterion decision-making techniques are employed to select one or a small set of the optimal solution(s) of design parameter(s) based on the higher level information of the ST process for industrial applications. Finally, the experimental study with a typical real industrial application demonstrates that the obtained optimal design parameters significantly reduce the cooling time in soft tooling process keeping other processing advantages.     

Effects of Silicon on Growth,Yield and Fruit Quality of Cantaloupe under Drought Stress

Silicon - Silicon (Si) plays an important role in mitigating adverse effects of various biotic and abiotic stresses including drought. Polyhouse experiment was conducted to evaluate the effects of...     

The mechanical properties of nickel oxide and their relationship to the morphology of thick oxide scales formed on nickel

The oxidation of metals that form P-type semiconducting oxide scales, such as NiO on nickel and CoO on cobalt, takes place by outward cation diffusion and inward vacancy diffusion. The large number of cation vacancies precipitate in the scale near the oxide-metal interface and may coalesce to form macroscopic pores, resulting in a transition from a dense, columnar scale to a duplex scale which contains an inner, fine-grained, equiaxed, porous layer. Increasing temperature and/or purity eliminate the transition, which has been found to depend upon oxide plasticity. The mechanical properties of bulk nickel oxides having a range of porosities have been studied in compression. Three regimes were observed: (1) brittle at low temperatures, (2) ductile at elevated temperatures, and (3) a transition region at intermediate temperatures. Fracture strength in the brittle region was strongly dependent on porosity due to the effect of pores on the elastic modulus and the size of fracture-initiating flaws. The plastic flow stress in the ductile region depended primarily on grain size and impurity content except for very porous materials in which porosity substantially reduced the plastic flow stress. The development of the duplex structure in scales during oxidation has been shown to depend upon inhibition of slip on the {110} 110 system in the highly textured grains rather than by diffusion-controlled processes such as creep. The duplex structure forms when the rate of deformation of the scale is less than the rate of void formation. Grain size, porosity, and impurities play an important role; all of these effects are discussed in detail.Research sponsored by the Office of Naval Research, Mathematics and Information Sciences Division, under Contract ONR N00014-69-A-0200-4021, NR-048-239.     

Nanoscale Studies of the Early Stages of Oxidation of a TiAl-Base Alloy

The strategy to perform nanoscale studies of the initial stages of oxidation of TiAl involved first gaining some information on the electronic structure of pure TiO₂ surfaces and then on TiAl surfaces before and after oxidation both in low- and high-oxygen potentials. Both materials were studied in atomically-cleaned states generated by repeated sputtering and heating. It was found that the oxygen vacancies created additional defect states in the band gap of stoichiometric TiO₂. The results obtained on TiO₂ were used as fingerprints to study the oxide nucleation. The results on the initial stages of oxidation of TiAl confirm the nucleation of Ti₂O₃ islands of nanometer size and monolayer height in a low-oxygen-pressure environment, whilst a TiO₂ layer developed in an atmospheric environment. The ledges on atomically-cleaned surfaces usually acted as nucleation sites.     

The role of pressure on thin amorphous carbon films deposited using microwave surface wave plasma CVD

We report the effects of gas composition pressure (GCP) on the optical, structural and electrical properties of thin amorphous carbon (a-C) films grown on p-type silicon and quartz substrates by microwave surface wave plasma chemical vapor deposition (MW SWP CVD). The films, deposited at various GCPs ranging from 50 to 110 Pa, were studied by UV/VIS/NIR spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy, Raman spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and current–voltage characteristics. The optical band gap of the a-C film was tailored to a relatively high range, 2.3–2.6 eV by manipulating GCPs from 50 to 110 Pa. Also, spin density strongly depended on the band gap of the a-C films. Raman spectra showed qualitative structured changes due to sp³/sp² carbon bonding network. The surfaces of the films are found to be very smooth and uniform (RMS roughness < 0.5 nm). The photovoltaic measurements under light illumination (AM 1.5, 100 mW/cm²) show that short-circuit current density, open-circuit voltage, fill factor and photo-conversion efficiency of the film deposited at 50 Pa were 6.4 μA/cm², 126 mV, 0.164 and 1.4 × 10^− 4% respectively.