Thermal characterization of the HDPE/LDPE blend (10/90) irradiated using γ-rays

Gamma irradiation effect over the properties of slow cooled and fast cooled HDPE/LDPE 10/90 blend was studied. The blend and the neat polyethylenes were irradiated at room temperature in the presence of air using the following doses (4.8 kGy/h): 0, 50, 150, 400 and 1000 kGy. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) experiments were carried out using the following heating rates: 5, 10 and 20 °C/min. DSC results for the slow and fast cooled blend showed traces with three melting peaks and with increasing irradiation dose two melting peaks were obtained, i.e. the high melting peak shifts toward lower temperatures to merge with the intermediate melting peak into one endotherm. No changes in crystal structure by X-ray diffraction were found as a result of samples irradiation. Radiation crosslinking prevents crystal rearrangements during heating in the DSC. Gel content and melt flow index (MFI) measurements showed that radiation induced a high degree of crosslinking for all samples; gel content values were above 50% and a drop of more than 90% in the MFI was found. Irradiation of slow cooled samples resulted in larger values of gel content and lower MFI values than for fast cooled samples, mainly because of the higher degree of crosslinking for the former.     

Critical races in Ada programs

It is noted that critical races in concurrent Ada programs are an insidious source of system errors, and that the Ada language does not have concurrency features to ease the development of critical race-free programs. The authors illustrate this using the CRF language, which extends the Ada language by the addition of a powerful caller selection mechanism. It is this facility that implements a discriminatory mutual exclusion (dimutex) construct, an important feature for building less critical race-prone programs. The MLog language supports the CRF caller selection mechanisms; thus it is convenient as a rapid-prototyping platform. A design method for systematically converting CRF designs into Ada designs is presented. The method uses a mixture of mechanical and creative transformations that are guaranteed not to introduce critical races. D. Helmbold and D. Luckham's (1985) gas-station example is used to illustrate the various approaches to applying the design method     

Data predistortion techniques using intersymbol interpolation

Two data predistortion techniques are presented that compensate for high-power amplifier (HPA) nonlinearities in digital microwave radio systems by employing quadrature amplitude-modulation (QAM) signal formats. The first one is a T/2-spaced predistortion technique that ensures distortion-free HPA output at two points per symbol interval T. The second is a T/3-spaced predistortion technique which cancels nonlinear distortion at the HPA output at three points per symbol interval. As opposed to conventional data predistortion, which can only compensate for warping of the signal constellation, the new techniques are effective against intersymbol interference. Using the 64- and 256-QAM signal constellations, it is shown that the proposed techniques lead to a very efficient utilization of the available HPA power. It is shown that, of the two techniques, the T/3-spaced data predistortion employs narrower transmit-pulse shaping and achieves higher protection against adjacent-channel interference at the expense of some additional complexity     

Production of 11C in Fullerene Cages: Short Half-Life Tracers

¹¹C “raditfullerenes” C_n1¹¹C (n = 60, 70, 76 to 84) have been produced, purified by high performance liquid chromatography, and characterized using optical absorption spectroscopy and an ultrasensitive coincidence counting technique for radioactivity measurement. The first successful direct labelling of the higher fullerenes C_n-1¹¹C (n = 76 to 84), in addition to C₅₉¹¹C and C₆₉¹¹C, suggests that well characterized ¹¹C radiofullerenes of various sizes could find possible applications as tracers in fluid flow systems (both biological and physical) and in porosity characterization of nanoscale membranes.     

ALC crystal oscillators based pressure and temperature measurement integrated circuit for high temperature oil well applications

An application specific integrated circuit for the pressure and temperature measurement at the high temperature oil well bottom conditions is presented in this paper. The circuit is mainly composed of three high performance automatic level controlled (ALC) oscillator circuits, which drive three external crystals (the sensitive elements), as well as mixing and filtering stages. The integrated circuit was successfully tested up to 220 degrees C, showing a frequency resolution of 0.0003 ppm (0.0007 psi, for the pressure measurement) and a drift of 1.5 Hz/month (0.5 psi/month) concerning, respectively, the short- and long-term measurement stability. A drastic reduction of the whole measurement tool size and cost was then allowed by means of this application specific BiCMOS integrated circuit.     

Sensing of H2O2 at low surface density assemblies of Pt nanoparticles in polyelectrolyte

Amperometric detection of H2O2 was studied at random arrays of 2.5 nm polyacrylate-capped Pt nanoparticles (NP) assembled in poly(diallydimethylammonium chloride), PDDA, as a function of NP surface coverage. The arrays were assembled by varying the adsorption time of PDDA-modified electrodes in the nanoparticles solution. Pt NP-on-PDDA assemblies exhibited significant sensitivity and stability facing constant anodic polarization and a low limit of detection at small Pt mass in submonolayer coverage. The current output was measured at approximately 0.5 A M(-1) cm(-2)(geom) over a linear range from 42 nM to 0.16 mM H2O2 at a loading of 0.87 microg(Pt)/cm(2) or an estimated coverage of 0.4 of an assumed monolayer, or higher, and decreased with decreasing NP surface density to 0.2 A M(-1) cm(-2)(geom) at a Pt loading of 190 ng/cm. On the other hand, the intrinsic sensitivity measured relative to the real Pt surface area increased with decreasing coverage and reached a significant limiting value of 0.9 A M(-1) cm(-2) real at approximately 190-380 ng/cm(2). The behavior shows a significant effective turnover rate per Pt site and mass (1 A M(-1)/microg of Pt) in loosely packed assemblies, while overlap of individual diffusion fields (of particles or islands) and inaccessibility of some active sites lowers the sensitivity per nanoparticle in densely packed arrays. The reported trend agrees with the behavior of ultramicroelectrode arrays.     

The formation mechanism of Cd–S–Se quantum dots with CdSe/CdS core–shell structure within silicate glass

The formation mechanism of Cd–S–Se quantum dots (QDs) with a CdS/CdSe core–shell structure within a silicate glass system was investigated by monitoring the change in the first excitonic absorption peak of CdSe, CdS, and Cd–S–Se QDs as a function of the heat-treatment (HT) duration. When a silicate glass containing QD formation components for CdSe or CdS single-phased QDs was heat-treated, CdSe QDs grew via Ostwald ripening, whereas CdS QDs hardly formed within the given silicate glass matrix. When the glass, including CdO, ZnSe, and ZnS, was utilized for the synthesis of Cd–S–Se QDs within the glass matrix, Cd–S–Se QDs were successfully formed and exhibited similar growth behavior to CdSe QDs during the initial stage of HT. The structural changes in the QD-embedded glasses during HT were also monitored by Raman spectroscopy and discussed, and a possible formation mechanism of CdSe/CdS core–shell-structured QDs within silicate glasses is suggested.