Chromium and nickel substituted iron oxide thin films by DC sputtering

Chromium and nickel substituted iron oxide thin films have been deposited by DC sputtering. Films were coated in the thickness range of 130-400 nm, on boro silicate glass and quartz substrates. The films showed transmission as high as 90% in the visible region. The refractive index of the films was 1.6-2.1. The microwave dielectric constant varied as a function of composition from 24 to 12 at frequencies of 8.98 and 11.88 GHz. All the films were X-ray amorphous independent of deposition and post deposition annealing conditions. Surface morphology indicates that roughness is a function of both sputtering pressure as well as inter-electrode distance.     

Thermal expansion studies on Inconel-600 by high temperature X-ray diffraction

The lattice thermal expansion characteristics of Inconel-600^® have been studied by high temperature X-ray diffraction (HT-XRD) technique in the temperature range 298-1200 K. Altogether four experimental runs were conducted on thin foils of about 75-100 μm thickness. The diffraction profiles have been accurately calibrated to offset the shift in 2θ values introduced by sample buckling at elevated temperatures. The corrected lattice parameter data have been used to estimate the instantaneous and mean linear thermal expansion coefficients as a function of temperature. The thermal expansion values estimated in the present study show a fair degree of agreement with other existing dilatometer based bulk thermal expansion estimates. The lattice parameter for this alloy at 300 K is found to be 0.3549(1) nm. The mean linear thermal expansivity is found to be 11.4 × 10⁻⁶ K⁻¹.     

A computational approach for multi‐scale analysis of heterogeneous elasto‐plastic media subjected to short duration loads

The asymptotic expansion homogenization (AEH) approach has found wide acceptance for the study of heterogeneous structures due to its ability to account for multi‐scale features. The emphasis of the present study is to develop consistent AEH numerical formulations to address elasto‐plastic material response of structures subjected to short‐duration transient loading. A second‐order accurate velocity‐based explicit time integration method, in conjunction with the AEH approach, is currently developed that accounts for large deformation non‐linear material response. The approach is verified under degenerate homogeneous conditions using existing experimental data in the literature and its ability to account for heterogeneous conditions is demonstrated for a number of test problems. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Dynamic pricing models for electronic business

Dynamic pricing is the dynamic adjustment of prices to consumers depending upon the value these customers attribute to a product or service. Today's digital economy is ready for dynamic pricing; however recent research has shown that the prices will have to be adjusted in fairly sophisticated ways, based on sound mathematical models, to derive the benefits of dynamic pricing. This article attempts to survey different models that have been used in dynamic pricing. We first motivate dynamic pricing and present underlying concepts, with several examples, and explain conditions under which dynamic pricing is likely to succeed. We then bring out the role of models in computing dynamic prices. The models surveyed include inventory-based models, data-driven models, auctions, and machine learning. We present a detailed example of an e-business market to show the use of reinforcement learning in dynamic pricing.     

Organizational Design for Enhancing the Impact of Incremental Innovations: A Qualitative Analysis of Innovative Cases in the Context of a Developing Economy

Research literature on innovation in established firms has made a useful distinction between radical innovation and incremental innovation and identified the organizational features associated with each. An implied assumption of many such studies is that radical innovations (compared to incremental) would have a greater impact on the organization as well as the economy. While this is generally true, it is incorrect to assume that all incremental innovations could be uniformly categorized as low‐impact innovations. In a study of 31 cases of innovation implemented in large corporations in India, it was observed that though all of them could be classified as ‘incremental’, their impact varied considerably. A combined index for assessing the impact based on the novelty of the idea, revenues generated/costs saved, dissemination within and outside the organization, extent of commercialization and patentability, was used to categorize the innovations into high impact (HI) and low impact (LI) groups. The analysis of the two groups was qualitative and was based on the detailed case studies prepared through extensive interviews of people involved in the projects. Inferences from the comparative analysis are explained under six sub‐themes that emerged as important in differentiating between low and high impact innovations, namely: individual versus team action; the top management support; the role of the immediate supervisor; rewards, recognition and incentives; focus on core versus non core areas; and documenting and patenting practices. An important factor that enhances the impact of innovations is that organizations should have a deliberate innovation strategy and corresponding organizational structures and processes. Coupled with the innovation strategy, organizations should also develop and implement a value appropriation strategy.     

Influence of Chemical Treatment on Thermal Decomposition and Crystallite Size of Coir Fiber

Coir fibers were treated with sodium hydroxide (NaOH) and glutaraldehyde (GA). The influence of alkali and aldehyde treatment on thermal degradation and crystallinity of coir fiber was studied in detail. Thermogravimetric analysis and X-ray diffraction techniques were mainly used to characterize the coir samples. Activation energy of degradation was calculated from Broido and Horowitz–Metzger equations. NaOH-treated samples showed an increase in thermal stability. Removal of impurities such as waxy and fatty acid residues from the coir fiber by reacting with strong base solution improved the stability of fiber. Crosslinking of cellulose with GA in the fiber enhanced the stability of the material. Scanning electron microscopy was employed to analyze the change in surface morphology upon chemical treatment. Improvement in the properties suggests that NaOH and GA can be effectively used to modify coir fiber with excellent stability.     

A user-centric network communication broker for multimedia collaborative computing

The development of collaborative multimedia applications today follows a vertical development approach, where each application is built on top of low-level network abstractions such as the socket interface. This stovepipe development process is a major inhibitor that drives up the cost of development and slows down the innovation pace of new generations of communication applications. In this paper, we propose a network communication broker (NCB) that provides a unified higher-level abstraction for the class of multimedia collaborative applications. We demonstrate how NCB encapsulates the complexity of network-level communication control and media delivery, and expedites the development of applications with various communication logics. We investigate the minimum necessary requirements for the NCB abstraction. We identify that the concept of user-level sessions involving multiple parties and multiple media, is critical to designing a reusable NCB to facilitate next-generation multimedia communications. Furthermore, the internal design of NCB decouples the user-level sessions from network-level sessions, so that the NCB framework can accommodate heterogeneous networks, and applications can be easily ported to new network environments. In addition, we demonstrate how the extensible and self-managing design of NCB supports dynamic adaptation in response to changes in network conditions and user requirements.     

Recent coal-fire and land-use status of Jharia Coalfield,India from satellite data

The Jharia Coalfield (JCF) in India is known for its high grade coal and associated coal fires. Before it can be exploited, valuable coal reserves are destroyed in the sub-surface due to fire. The combined act of fire and subsidence has endangered the environmental safety of the JCF, although several methods have been adopted to control the coal fires. Coal fire is a dynamic phenomenon, hence, its location and extent changes with time. To control the coal fires effectively, the status of the fires and the landscape must be assessed periodically. In this study, the thermal band in Landsat-7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) data (daytime) of 29 March 2003 and Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) data (night-time) of 9 October 2006 are used to delineate the coal-fire areas. The kinetic temperature of the coal fire-affected areas is calculated from Landsat-7 ETM+ data using a Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI)-derived emissivity model, and from band 13 of ASTER data with a fixed emissivity value. The study showed that the eastern part of the JCF is more affected by coal fires than the western part. The affected collieries in the eastern part are Kusunda, Lodna, Bararee, Gonudih and Ena. Among all collieries, Kusunda is the most affected by coal fires (29% of the area) and showed a 0.56 km² increase in fire area from the year 2003 to 2006. During this period, a total increase in coal-fire area of 0.51 km² occurs in the JCF. The land-use map prepared from Indian Remote Sensing (IRS) Satellite-P6 Linear Imaging Self-scanning Sensor (LISS)-III data showed that 6.9% of the area in the JCF is occupied by mining-related activities, which indicates its vulnerability to environmental degradation.