Action Patterns Probing for Dynamic Service Composition in Home Network

The concept of a smart home has been discussed in recent years. The major purpose is to make life more convenient, safe, and fun in various areas, including home automation, security, entertainment, and so on. In order to automate the interactions between the home users and devices or even between devices, the prediction of the home user’s actions and the integration of devices are very important. The UPnP Device Architecture defines the protocols for communication between the UPnP control point and devices. Exploiting UPnP techniques, home users can easily control intelligent devices through the control point. However, UPnP devices lack a composition mechanism to complete a novel application or value-added service.In this paper, an action patterns probing algorithm is proposed. We propose a dynamic service composition system which coordinates the primitive UPnP services at home. We can predict the action and the data flow with satisfactory accuracy. At first, we define data type ontology for UPnP devices to describe their service interfaces. Afterwards, the interface matching mechanism is employed to construct a service graph that describes which services can be composed together. And we have to analyze the record of user’s actions by using the service graph. Finally, we can find the devices which can be composed and worked together in common use. These devices can be composed dynamically by user’s habits and can be automated by our mechanism.     

A generalized Norde plot for reverse biased Schottky contacts

When a metal makes intimate contact with a semiconductor material,a Schottky barrier may be created.The Schottky contact has many important applications in the integrated circuit (IC) electronics field.The parameters of such contacts can be determined from their current-voltage (Ⅰ-Ⅴ) characteristics.The literature contains many proposals for extracting the contact parameters using graphical methods.However,such methods are generally applicable only to contacts with a forward bias,whereas many Schottky contacts actually operate under a reverse bias.Accordingly,the present study proposed a generalized reverse current-voltage (Ⅰ-Ⅴ) plot which enables the series resistance,barrier height,and ideality factor of a reverse biased Schottky contact to be extracted from a single set of Ⅰ-Ⅴ measurements.A theoretical derivation of the proposed approach was presented and a series of validation tests were then performed.The results show that the proposed method is capable of extracting reliable estimates of the contact parameters even in the presence of experimental noise.     

Iron/carbon-black composite nanoparticles as an iron electrode material in a paste type rechargeable alkaline battery

Iron/carbon-black composite nanoparticles were synthesized by chemically reducing the iron salt mixing with carbon black by adding NaBH₄ in the aqueous solution. Carbon-black particles, with a mean particle size of approximately 40 nm, function as the nucleation cores for iron deposition. Additionally, core-shell iron composite particles are observed to be 30-100 nm with spherical sharp. At the first time discharge, the iron/carbon-black composite nanoparticle discharged 1200 mAh g⁻¹(Fe) at plateau one and 400 mAh g⁻¹at plateau two at a high current density of 200 mA g⁻¹(Fe). The capacity is larger than the theoretical value, which is attributed to the formation of iron hydride (FeH_x) while the iron was reduced by NaBH₄, followed the hydrogen reaction as an active material while the battery discharge occurs. In further cycles, the iron/carbon-black composite iron electrode shows a good reversibility of about 600 mAh g⁻¹(Fe) when the nickel-iron battery operated between 1.65 and 0.8 V. XRD analysis results indicate that the carbon black in the core of the iron/carbon-black composite enhances the reduction/oxidation reactions of iron, as achieved by the carbon black forming an enhanced electronic conductive network while iron is discharged as the insulator species such as Fe(OH)₂ and Fe₃O₄. SEM images reveal that the iron/carbon-black composite keeps particle sizes smaller than 300 nm during the electrode cycling, indicating that carbon black also acts as the nucleation cores for the dissolution-deposition of iron.     

Glass biochip fabrication by laser micromachining and glass-molding process

Due to their low cost, small size, and high-speed performance, biochips are often used in various bio-experiments. Compared with polymer-based biochips, glass-based substrates are less sensitive to heat and organic environments. This study presents a hybrid processing approach that uses laser micromachining (LMM) and precision glass molding (PGM) techniques to mass-produce glass-based biochips. A silicon carbide (SiC) mold with an outside diameter of 20 mm was used to hot emboss biochip channels measuring 200 μm wide and 185 μm deep. This study also identifies the optimal conditions for glass molding when processing soda-lime glass for biochip applications, and discusses the influence of the major processing parameters on biochip channel depth. This study uses the Taguchi method to assess the effects of several molding parameters on larger-the-better performance characteristics. The experiments in this study consider the effects of several molding parameters, such as molding temperature, pressing force, moving speed, temperature holding time, and vacuum environment, to achieve optimum characteristics for biochip channels. Orthogonal array analysis indicates that the optimal process parameters includes a 620 °C molding temperature, 1 kN pressing force, 5 mm/min moving speed, 60 s temperature holding time, and a vacuum-free environment. This study also investigates the surface roughness of glass biochip channels.     

Rainwater: A Potential Alternative Source for Scarce Safe Drinking and Arsenic Contaminated Water in Bangladesh

Although Bangladesh receives plenty of rainwater during its monsoon, both rural and urban areas suffer from shortages of safe drinking water during dry season. Arsenic contamination of ground water affects many rural areas, whilst some urban areas including the capital, Dhaka City, lack sufficient potable ground water to meet the demand. To cope with the problem, this research explore: the feasibility of harvesting rainwater during monsoon as a source of quality safe drinking water in Dhaka City. A questionnaire survey was conducted about potable water shortage in four slums of Dhaka City. Rainwater was collected using a non-toxic waterproof cloth as a catchment during monsoon and stored in a ferro-cement storage tank with an initial flushing device attached at the inlet of the tank. Different important physical, chemical and bacteriological parameters were tested throughout the storage period of 4 months. The efficiency of the rainwater harvesting system increased from 51% to 80% before and after installing the system. The test results were compared with the Bangladesh water quality standards. The tests have revealed slightly higher pH value (8.1 to 8.3) and enormity of color beyond the acceptable range. Although the presence of total coliform was detected after three months, traditional filtering of that stored rainwater showed a promising solution to mitigate potable water shortages in Bangladesh.     

Optical characteristics of silver film on the moth-eye structure

The development of coating optics to lower the reflected light and thereby to increase the optical efficiency of an optical system has been a very important issue for many years. Conventional solutions to this, such as multilayered alternation of high and low refractive index layers, often lead to an expensive coating process. Recently, the use of antireflection structured (ARS) surface, which is called “moth-eye structure”, has been proposed as an applicable option based on both the theoretical and experimental studies. In the current study, the experimental results of the reflectance and transmittance of two different thicknesses of silver films deposited on the moth-eye structure were carried out. The moth-eye structure arrays were fabricated by holographic exposure and photolithographic processes on the polymer film. The structure arrays were consisted of periodic length of about 300 nm, with the diameter of about 250 nm and the height of 150 nm. Compared with the silver coating film on the flat PET substrate, the optical property of the silver coating film on the moth-eye structure showed a better result for the anti-reflection application. The 25 nm-thick silver film on the moth-eye structure is suggested to be applied for the car window glass of antireflective films to obtain the high performance of heat insulation with acceptable transparency in the visible range.     

Morphology of and surface modification by TiO2 deposits on a porous ceramic substrate

We investigate the morphology of and surface modification by titanium dioxide (TiO₂) deposits on porous ceramic substrates placed in a horizontal, tubular, hot-wall, atmospheric pressure chemical vapor deposition (CVD) reactor with titanium tetraisoperoxide (TTIP) as the precursor. The TiO₂ particles are produced from TTIP through two routes: first by thermal decomposition which then kicks off hydrolysis. The deposit characteristics is found to be location dependent. Those at the reactor entrance and exit are different from that within the reactor. Within the reactor, the deposit characteristics is further found to depend strongly on the deposition temperature (T_d) and is almost independent of the flow-rate and concentration of the reactant. With a T_d of about 380 °C, the deposited TiO₂ forms a forest-like structure with poor adhesivity to the substrate and results in an insignificant pore size reduction for the substrate. If T_d drops down to about 300 °C, the deposited TiO₂ forms a rock-packing structure with good adhesivity to the substrate and can reduce the pore size of the substrate from about 1–2 m down to about 64 nm. At both the reactor entrance and exit, the deposited TiO₂ are loosely-packed spherical particles of average diameter of 140–400 nm. A theory, based on whether or not the reaction is gas-phase or surface dominated, is proposed to explain the dramatic effect of T_d.     

Coating and Characterization of Titania Membrane on Porous Ceramic Supports

In this article, we reported experimental results on the development of microstructure of the membrane layer deposited on a porous support. The changes in porosity and mean pore diameter were followed as a function of layer thickness. It was found that in addition to particle packing and sintering within the membrane layer, the porous structure of support surface also exhibited certain effects on membrane microstructure until a critical thickness was reached. After that, the porous characteristics of a membrane would be totally determined by the packing and sintering characteristics of particles. It was also shown that the surface roughness could be reduced from about 1.5 m of the support, to 0.8 m after coating with 0.5 m titania particle and further reduced to about 0.55 m after another coating with 30 nm titania colloids. With proper dispersing and coating procedures, we could reduce the mean pore diameter from about 1.5 m of the support to 0.12 m, while the gas permeability was only changed from 500 × 10–7 to 250 × 10–7 mol/m2 s Pa.     

力学量取值定理

绍了广义Ｃａｕｃｈｙ－Ｓｃｈｗａｒｚ不等式，测不准量子力学中的两项假设及力学量取值定理，并把我们的表述与形式上接近的一些理论作了比较．