The design,analysis, and cost estimation of a generic adder and subtractor using the layered T (LT) logic reduction methodology with a quantum-dot cellular-automata-based approach

The quantum-dot cellular automata (QCA) is considered to be one of the ground-breaking nanotechnologies developed over the last two decades. A layered T (LT) logic cell library is constructed herein, and the methodology is extended to generic adder and subtractor module designs. The two proposed algorithms lead to more efficient QCA layout designs for an n-bit ripple carry adder (RCA) and subtractor based on an effective clock zone assignment approach. The suggested one-, four-, and eight-bit RCAs and subtractors surpass most of their existing counterparts by offering lower effective area and cell complexity. A comparative analysis is presented regarding the complexity, irreversible power dissipation, and Cost_α of the proposed n-bit layouts from a cost estimation purview.

     

Abrasion Resistance of Field-Assisted Ion-Exchanged Glass

The fracture strength of HF-etched samples was measured as a function of field-assisted K-Na ion exchange depth, as well as the severity of abrasion. As expected, the more severe the abrasion, the greater the depth required to make the strength insensitive to abrasion. An abrasion-independent weakening mechanism that increased with exchange depth was also found to be operative.     

Performance of floating cum tilted-wick type solar still with the effect of water flowing over the glass cover

A simple transient performance of floating cum tilted-wick type solar still has been presented by incorporating the effects of water flowing over a glass cover, heat capacity of tilted-wick water surface and floating-wick water surface. Explicit expressions for flowing water, glass, tilted-wick water surface and floating-wick water surface temperature and efficiency of the system have been derived. Numerical calculations have been carried out for a typical day in the month of March 2004. The relative standard deviations between the numerical and experimental results of different temperature components of the proposed still have been found. The results indicate that the relative standard deviations between theoretical and experimental results are less than 8% (glass cover), 2% (tiltedwick water surface), 1% (floating-wick water surface) and 2% (flowing water at the lower end of the glass cover) an average for the working hours of the day. Moreover, based on the numerical results, the following conclusions have been drawn: (i) glass cover temperature decreases significantly; (ii) the effect of water flowing over the glass cover has a fascinating effect on the production of distillate output during peak sunny hours; (iii) water flow rate of 1.5 m/s is optimum, and beyond it the efficiency decreases. Experimental investigations have been performed at Sri Ramakrishna Mission Vidyalaya College of Arts and Science, Coimbatore, India.     

A Simple D 2-Sampling Based PTAS for k-Means and Other Clustering Problems

Given a set of points \(P \subset\mathbb{R}^{d}\) , the k-means clustering problem is to find a set of k centers \(C = \{ c_{1},\ldots,c_{k}\}, c_{i} \in\mathbb{R}^{d}\) , such that the objective function ∑ _x∈P e(x,C)², where e(x,C) denotes the Euclidean distance between x and the closest center in C, is minimized. This is one of the most prominent objective functions that has been studied with respect to clustering. D ²-sampling (Arthur and Vassilvitskii, Proceedings of the Eighteenth Annual ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms, SODA’07, pp. 1027–1035, SIAM, Philadelphia, 2007) is a simple non-uniform sampling technique for choosing points from a set of points. It works as follows: given a set of points \(P \subset\mathbb{R}^{d}\) , the first point is chosen uniformly at random from P. Subsequently, a point from P is chosen as the next sample with probability proportional to the square of the distance of this point to the nearest previously sampled point. D ²-sampling has been shown to have nice properties with respect to the k-means clustering problem. Arthur and Vassilvitskii (Proceedings of the Eighteenth Annual ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms, SODA’07, pp. 1027–1035, SIAM, Philadelphia, 2007) show that k points chosen as centers from P using D ²-sampling give an O(logk) approximation in expectation. Ailon et al. (NIPS, pp. 10–18, 2009) and Aggarwal et al. (Approximation, Randomization, and Combinatorial Optimization. Algorithms and Techniques, pp. 15–28, Springer, Berlin, 2009) extended results of Arthur and Vassilvitskii (Proceedings of the Eighteenth Annual ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms, SODA’07, pp. 1027–1035, SIAM, Philadelphia, 2007) to show that O(k) points chosen as centers using D ²-sampling give an O(1) approximation to the k-means objective function with high probability. In this paper, we further demonstrate the power of D ²-sampling by giving a simple randomized (1+?)-approximation algorithm that uses the D ²-sampling in its core.     

Effect of coupling agents on thermal and electrical properties of mica/epoxy composites

The influence of 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane, 3-glycidyloxypropyltrimethoxysilane, and neoalkoxytric(dioctyl pyrophosphato)zirconate on thermal expansion behavior, dielectric strength, and arc resistance of mica/epoxy composites has been investigated. The addition of mica up to 30% resulted in the reduction of thermal expansion with respect to neat resin. However, the coefficient of linear thermal expansion of 30% mica treated with aminosilane was the least among the various coupling agent-coated filler/epoxy composites. Mica (30%)/epoxy composites showed the highest dielectric strength values (26 kV/mm), but the highest arc resistance was obtained in zirconate-treated mica (30%)/epoxy composite. © 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Preparation and characterization of low-halogen and nonhalgoen fire-resistant low-smoke (FRLS) cable sheathing compound from blends of functionalized polyolefins and PVC

An attempt is made to develop a novel series of cable sheathing compounds with variation in chlorine content and sufficient fire retardance and unique low-smoke characteristics. These are prepared by blending PVC and functionalized polyolefins in different compositions. PE and EPDM have been functionalized by grafting dibutyl maleate (DBM) using DCP as initiator. FRLS compounds made from PVC-functionalized polyolefin blends possess the special characteristics of low-smoke, low-acid-gas generation, increased fire retardance, and improved volume resistivity, which are much better in comparison with a typical PVC sheathing compound. Thermoplastic elastomer (TPE) based nonhalogen FRLS compounds are also reported. The mechanisms for grafting, polymer-polymer and polymer-filler interactions have been presented.     

Algorithm for computation of molecular weight distribution and its moments in reversible step-growth polymerization in batch reactors

The differential equations governing the molecular weight distribution (MWD) in step-growth polymerization are coupled and nonlinear and a large number of them must be solved simultaneously to keep the truncation error low. In this work, these equations have been decoupled so that they can be solved sequentially. The solution of these is independent of the truncation error and there is considerable saving of computation time. To demonstrate the efficiency of the algorithm, the formation of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) in batch reactors with ethylene glycol evaporating has been analyzed. The feed to the reactor is taken as polymer with its oligomers present according to the Flory's distribution. The effect of pressure and temperature of the reactor on the progress of polymerization has been modelled and evaluated. The amount of ethylene glycol distilled, the concentrations of the first five oligomers Q₁ to Q₅, the number average chain length, and the polydispersity index of the polymer have been determined. It is shown that the reduced pressure and increased temperature reduce the concentration of the condensation product in the reaction mass, thus pushing the polymerization in the forward direction. Lastly the CPU time on Dec 1090 using this algorithm is only 0.40 s compared to about 10 min for similar computations using other existing methods.     

Adaptive tracking control of an autonomous underwater vehicle

This paper presents the trajectory tracking control of an autonomous underwater vehicle(AUV). To cope with parametric uncertainties owing to the hydrodynamic effect, an adaptive control law is developed for the AUV to track the desired trajectory. This desired state-dependent regressor matrix-based controller provides consistent results under hydrodynamic parametric uncertainties.Stability of the developed controller is verified using the Lyapunov s direct method. Numerical simulations are carried out to study the efficacy of the proposed adaptive controller.     

A microfluidic device for thermal particle detection

We demonstrate the use of heat to count microscopic particles. A thermal particle detector (TPD) was fabricated by combining a 500-nm-thick silicon nitride membrane containing a thin-film resistive temperature detector with a silicone elastomer microchannel. Particles with diameters of 90 and 200 μm created relative temperature changes of 0.11 and ?0.44 K, respectively, as they flowed by the sensor. A first-order lumped thermal model was developed to predict the temperature changes. Multiple particles were counted in series to demonstrate the utility of the TPD as a particle counter.