Economic growth and electricity consumption in Cote d'Ivoire: Evidence from time series analysis

This paper examines the causal relationship between the electric power industry and the economic growth of Cote d'Ivoire. Using the data from 1971 to 2008, a test was conducted for the cointegration and Granger causality within an error correction model. Results from these tests reveal a bidirectional causality between per capita electricity consumption and per capita GDP. A unidirectional causality running from electricity consumption to industry value added appears in the short run. Economic growth is found to have great effects on electricity consumption and a reverse causality from electricity to economic growth may also appear. In the long run, there is a unidirectional causality between electricity and both GDP and industry value added. From these findings, we conclude that the country will be energy dependent in the long run and must therefore secure the production network from shortfalls to ensure a sustainable development path. Accordingly, government should adopt policies aimed at increasing the investment in the sector by stepping up electricity production from existing and new energy sources.     

The landscape of multimedia ontologies in the last decade

Many efforts have been made in the area of multimedia to bridge the so-called “semantic-gap” with the implementation of ontologies from 2001 to the present. In this paper, we provide a comparative study of the most well-known ontologies related to multimedia aspects. This comparative study has been done based on a framework proposed in this paper and called FRAMECOMMON. This framework takes into account process-oriented dimension, such as the methodological one, and outcome-oriented dimensions, like multimedia aspects, understandability, and evaluation criteria. Finally, we derive some conclusions concerning this one decade state-of-art in multimedia ontologies.     

Microstructured Photopolymerization of Liquid Crystalline Elastomers in Oxygen‐Rich Environments

Liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) are soft materials that undergo large anisotropic shape change in response to stimuli. Rational organization of the local director field can impart spatial control of the strain profile, enabling stretch‐based deformation capable of nearly 20 J kg^?1 of output force. LCEs are increasingly being considered in end‐use applications in robotics, therapeutics, and optics. Here, a new synthetic approach is introduced to prepare LCEs composed of main chain mesogens via the cationic photopolymerization of the epoxy liquid crystal monomer (LCM). This examination details the optical, mechanical, and thermal properties of epoxide‐based LCEs as a function of spacer length (3, 6, or 11 carbons). The oxygen insensitivity of the cationic photopolymerization of these monomers makes this approach particularly attractive for implementation with emerging additive manufacturing techniques. This contribution focuses on microstructuring LCEs via 2‐photon direct laser writing (2P‐DLW). A custom heated cell facilitated 2P‐DLW of the aligned LCE epoxy resin melts to fabricate diverse geometric arrays. Enabled by the orthogonality of the reaction chemistry, hybrid and microstructured material compositions are prepared via the encapsulation of LCE epoxy micropatterns with free‐radical polymerization of acrylate‐based LCEs. The distinct thermomechanical response of the hybridized and microstructured LCE composites enables local and spatially controlled actuation.     

Analysis of Chromatic Dispersion Variation in Optical Fiber under Large Stretching

In the frame of a large-stroke optical fiber delay line implementation, using the ability of silica fibers to induce large and variable group delay when they are stretched, we intend to express theoretically the evolution of second-order chromatic dispersion versus fiber stretching. Both an experimental analysis and a numerical analysis are presented in this paper. The main result consists of the observation of a linear variation of the second-order chromatic dispersion versus a 0 to 32-cm group delay variation. The numerical simulation exhibits a discrepancy of 10% with respect to the experimental results.     

Colorimetric quantification of amino groups in linear and dendritic structures

BACKGROUND: The aim of the work reported was to develop a procedure using 96‐well microtiter plates for the easy determination of protonated groups of compounds including linear poly(amino acid)s and dendritic polymers divided into dendrigraft and dendrimeric structures. This study is a prerequisite step for the quantification of protonated groups in a macromolecule grafted onto a solid surface. RESULTS: The procedure was developed from the modified Bradford protein assay and incorporates several modifications that enable one to determine available amino groups (or even other cationic groups) present on the polyresidues backbone, all within five minutes. Based on the Atherton mathematical model, we evaluated the maximal number of Coomassie blue binding sites on linear, dendrigraft or even dendrimeric structures. CONCLUSION: The mean calculated percentage of occupied sites on a given macromolecule led us to demonstrate that one Coomassie blue molecule interacts with only one single protonated group. Consequently, the developed method using Coomassie blue binding can be used for the quantification of cationic groups in a macromolecule grafted onto a solid surface. Copyright © 2009 Society of Chemical Industry     

12 nm FWHM 20 dB stop-band filter based on cascaded dual concentriccore fibre filters

A spectral stop-band filter with peak attenuation = 5 dB, full width at half-maximum (FWHM) = 31 nm based on a dual asymmetric concentric core optical fibre is investigated. An efficient 12 nm FWHM 20 dB peak attenuation is demonstrated at 1300 nm by cascading four filters