A low cost approach for the fabrication of microwave phase shifter on laminates

This paper presents a simple and low cost fabrication approach using extended printed circuit board processing techniques for an electrostatically actuated phase shifter on a common microwave laminate. This approach uses 15 μm thin copper foils for realizing the bridge structures as well as for a spacer. A polymeric thin film deposited by spin coating and patterned using lithographic process is used as a dielectric layer to improve the reliability of the device. The prototype of the phase shifter for X-band operation is fabricated and tested for electrical and electromechanical performance parameters. The realized devices have a figure of merit of 70°/dB for a maximum applied bias potential of 85 V. Since these phase shifters can be conveniently fabricated directly on microwave substrates used for feed distribution networks of phased arrays, the overall addition in cost, dimensions and processing for including these phase shifters in these arrays is minimal.

     

The interaction between skill, postures, forces and back pain in wool handling

Wool handling is an important rural occupation where workers process 200 or more fleeces daily, separating them into various quality components. Loads and postures they experience carry substantial risk of low back pain (LBP). Although a formal skill training structure exists, interaction with loads and LBP is unknown. We examined whether skill and LBP influenced trunk postures and loads of 60 wool handlers representing 3 skill levels. LBP prevalence ranged from 20% for junior (lowest skill) to 45% for open class (highest skill) wool handlers. Open class wool handlers demonstrated increased lateral bend and more axially twisted postures, generating greater medio-lateral shear forces and lateral bend and axial twist moments. LBP was associated with open class wool handlers spending more time in severe axially twisted postures. These findings suggest that skill-based training needs to be reviewed to reduce the quantity of axially twisted posture which may help reduce the prevalence of LBP in this workforce.     

Application Layer Scheduling in Cloud: Fundamentals,Review and Research Directions

The cloud computing paradigm facilitates a finite pool of on-demand virtualized resources on a pay-per-use basis. For large-scale heterogeneous distributed systems like a cloud, scheduling is an essential component of resource management at the application layer as well as at the virtualization layer in order to deliver the optimal Quality of Services (QoS). The cloud scheduling, in general, is an NP-hard problem due to large solution space, thus, it is difficult to find an optimal solution within a reasonable time. In application layer scheduling, the tasks are mapped to logical resources (i.e., virtual machines), aiming to optimize one or more QoS parameters, and conforming to several constraints. Various algorithms have been proposed in the literature for application layer scheduling, where each of them is based on some fundamental design techniques like simple heuristics, meta-heuristics, and most recently hybrid heuristics. Although ample literature survey exists for cloud scheduling algorithms, none of them present their study exclusively for the application layer. In this survey paper, we present a study on task scheduling algorithms used only at the application layer of the cloud. We classify our study according to various fundamental techniques used in designing such scheduling algorithms. One of the main features of our study is that it covers numerous application type e.g., a set of independent tasks, simple workflow, scientific workflow, and MapReduce jobs. We also provide a comparative analysis of existing algorithms on various parameters like makespan, cost, resource utilization, etc. In the end, research directions for future work have been provided.     

Annealing behaviour of electron-beam deposited tin dioxide films

The sheet resistivity of tin dioxide films deposited by electron-beam evaporation has been studied during annealing, both as a function of time and temperature. The annealing behaviour of SnO₂ films under the above two different conditions is consistent. A qualitative interpretation has been given for the decrease and the minimum observed in the resistivity. The increase in resistivity has been confirmed by scanning-electron micrographs. The films were also characterized by x-ray diffractometry.     

Adsorptive recovery of water soluble essential oil components

Many essential oils are produced by the process of steam distillation. During this process valuable oxygenated components of the oil which have relatively higher solubility in water are preferentially lost in the distillate water. This loss is directly reflected in a lower yield and poor quality of the oil. Adsorption is extensively used for recovery of such valuable organics from dilute aqueous streams. This paper describes a preliminary study on the feasibility of adsorptive recovery. The following synthetic polymeric adsorbents were used in this work: Amberlite XAD-2, XAD-4 and XAD-7. Equilibrium and column exahaustion studies were carried out for the adsorption of phenyl ethyl alcohol (PEA), linalool (LL) and eugenol (EG) and also of mixtures of PEA and LL, and EG and LL from dilute aqueous solutions. The results indicate that XAD-4 is a relatively better adsorbent for all the three solutes studied.     

Experimental analogy of different texture feature extraction techniques in image retrieval systems

Content based image retrieval (CBIR) is an extrusive technique of retrieving the relevant images from vast image archives by extracting their low level features. In this research paper, the pursuance of five most prominent texture feature extraction techniques used in CBIR systems are experimentally compared in detail. The main issue with the CBIR systems is the proper selection of techniques for the extraction of low level features which comprises of color, texture and shape. Among these features, texture is one of the most decisive and dominant features. This selection of features completely depends upon the type of images to be retrieved from the database. The texture techniques explored here are Grey level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM), Discrete wavelet transform (DWT), Gabor transform, Curvelet and Local binary pattern (LBP). These are experimented on three touchstone databases which are Wang, Corel-5 K and Corel-10 K. The chief parameters of CBIR systems are evaluated here such as precision, recall and F-measure on all these databases using all the techniques. After detailed investigation it is figured out that LBP, GLCM and DWT provide highlighted and comparable results in all these datasets in terms of average precision. Besides practical implementation, the précised conceptual examination of these three texture techniques is also proposed in this article. So, this analysis is extremely beneficial for selecting the appropriate feature extraction technique by taking into consideration the experimental results along with image conditions such as noise, rotation etc.

     

Some phorbol esters might partially resemble bryostatin 1 in their actions on LNCaP prostate cancer cells and U937 leukemia cells

Phorbol 12‐myristate 13‐acetate (PMA) and bryostatin 1 are both potent protein kinase C (PKC) activators. In LNCaP human prostate cancer cells, PMA induces tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFα) secretion and inhibits proliferation; bryostatin 1 does not, and indeed blocks the response to PMA. This difference has been attributed to bryostatin 1 not localizing PKCδ to the plasma membrane. Since phorbol ester lipophilicity influences PKCδ localization, we have examined in LNCaP cells a series of phorbol esters and related derivatives spanning some eight logs in lipophilicity (logP) to see if any behave like bryostatin 1. The compounds showed marked differences in their effects on proliferation and TNFα secretion. For example, maximal responses for TNFα secretion relative to PMA ranged from 97 % for octyl‐indolactam V to 24 % for phorbol 12,13‐dibenzoate. Dose–response curves ranged from monophasic for indolactam V to markedly biphasic for sapintoxin D. The divergent patterns of response, however, correlated neither to lipophilicity, to plasma membrane translocation of PKCδ, nor to the ability to interact with model membranes. In U937 human leukemia cells, a second system in which PMA and bryostatin 1 have divergent effects, viz. PMA but not bryostatin 1 inhibits proliferation and induces attachment, all the compounds acted like PMA for proliferation, but several induced a reduced level or a biphasic dose–response curve for attachment. We conclude that active phorbol esters are not all equivalent. Depending on the system, some might partially resemble bryostatin 1 in their behavior; this encourages the concept that bryostatin‐like behavior may be obtained from other structural templates.     

Multifold stiffness and fracture toughness enhancement in W-doped VO2 microcrystals

Vanadium dioxide is popular for the metal-insulator phase transition at 68°C. Chemical doping is one of the effective ways adopted to tune the phase transition temperature, where tungsten is known to reduce the transition temperature of VO₂. This work investigates the effect of tungsten doping on the mechanical properties of VO₂ microcrystals and their polymer composites. Doping of VO₂ with W shows a systematic reduction in phase transition temperature up to 33°C for 4 wt% W-doped VO₂. For 3 wt% W-doped VO₂, the elastic modulus values enhance by 50%. The fracture toughness of 3 wt% W-doped VO₂ shows an enhancement of fourfold compared to the undoped VO₂. The dynamic compressive strength of 3 wt% W-doped VO₂–UHMWPE polymer composite at room temperature is found to be 7% higher than the undoped VO₂—composite.     

Effect of m‐nitroaniline doping on the optical humidity‐sensing characteristics of cobalt/poly(vinyl alcohol) nanocomposites

Cobalt (Co) nanoparticles (with different loadings, 1 and 2 wt %, of Co) were synthesized in situ in a poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) matrix with and without meta‐nitroaniline (m‐NA) as a dopant (2.5 wt %). The obtained nanocomposite films were characterized with various physicochemical techniques, including ultraviolet–visible spectrophotometry, X‐ray diffraction analysis, scanning electron microscopy, and Fourier transform infrared analysis. To study the effect of the humidity, the nanocomposite solutions were coated on planar glass substrates. The beam of an He–Ne laser was incident normal to the film surface and was subjected to variable relative humidities (RHs; 4–93%); the transmitted intensity was measured on a photovoltaic diode. Variations in the intensity of light caused by the changes in RH within the range 3–93% were recorded. We optimized the response by varying the film thickness by coating the solution layer by layer. We generated the RH (4–100%) by passing wet water vapors. The neat PVA film of similar thickness gave humidity sensing in the range 78–93% RH. The sensors with m‐NA‐doped Co/PVA gave better sensitivity (6.4 mV/% RH) than the undoped samples (1.78–2.45 mV/% RH), exhibiting a fast response of 3 s (2–93% RH) and a recovery of 10 s (93 to 2% RH). These samples also showed reversible behavior and long‐term stability (for nearly a year) with a good sensitivity and a large dynamic range (2–95% RH). An attempt was made to explain the results on the basis of a bulk mechanism. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2012     

A new class of PANI-Ag core-shell nanorods with sensing dimensions

A single-step, cost-effective and eco-safe synthesis of a new class of homogeneous silver-polyaniline (PANI-Ag) core-shell nanorods is carried out via mild photolysis by ultraviolet radiation from sunlight (SUN UV-radiation). X-ray diffraction (XRD) of these core-shell nanorods gives two additional peaks from PANI centered at 2θ = 20.5° and 24. 9°. A validation of the core-shell structural information is given by transmission electron spectroscopy (TEM) whereas the tubular shape morphology is determined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). UV-Vis. absorption shows a strong blue-shift along with photoluminescence emission. Fourier transform-infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) also support the core-shell formation. Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) shows good thermal stability and allows excellent detection of hydrogen peroxide and hydrazine. The cyclic voltammetry (CV) results show excellent electro-activation, indicating its promising potential in sensing of clinical and environmental analytes.