Enhanced lifetime of heterogeneous wireless sensor network using stable election protocol with region-based energy-conscious sink movement

The Journal of Supercomputing - A new region-based energy-conscious sink movement (RESM) is presented to enhance the lifetime of the heterogeneous wireless sensor network using stable election...     

Guest editorial: New trends in data pre-processing methods for signal and image classification

Neural Computing and Applications -     

A performance comparison of trained multilayer perceptrons andtrained classification trees

The important differences between multilayer perceptrons and classification trees are considered. A number of empirical tests on three real-world problems in power-system load forecasting, power-system security prediction, and speaker-independent vowel recognition are presented. The load-forecasting problem, which is partially a regression problem, uses past trends to predict the critical needs of future power generation. The power-security problem uses the classifier as an interpolator of previously known states of the system. The vowel-recognition problem is representative of the difficulties in automatic speech recognition caused by variability across speakers and phonetic context. In all cases even with various sizes of training sets, the multilayer perceptron performed as well as or better than the trained classification trees. It is therefore concluded that there is not enough theoretical basis to demonstrate clear-cut superiority of one technique over the other     

Characteristics of brush plated copper indium telluride films

Copper indium telluride (CIT) films were deposited for the first time by the brush plating technique at different substrate temperatures in the range of 30–80 °C and at a constant deposition current density of 1 mA cm^?2.The Films exhibited single phase CIT. The grain size increased with increase of substrate temperature. Optical band gap of the films varied in the range of 0.98–1.00 eV. Atomic force microscopy studies indicated that the grain size and surface roughness vary from 20 to 50 nm and 1.0 to 1.5 nm, respectively with increase of substrate temperature. The films exhibited photoconductivity.     

Influence of graphene oxide on thermal,electrical, and morphological properties of new achiral polyimide

In this study, a new diamine N‐[2‐(1H‐indol‐3‐yl)ethyl]‐3,5‐diaminobenzamide (IEDAB) was synthesized using tryptamine as starting material and characterized by FT‐IR, ¹H‐NMR, ¹³C‐NMR, and mass spectroscopy. Then, it was polymerized with 3,3',4,4'‐benzophenone tetracarboxylic dianhydride (BTDA) via thermal imidization to produce polyimide (PI). A series PI/GO nanocomposite films were prepared by incorporating different ratios (1, 3, and 5 wt%) of synthesized GO by solution casting method. The synthesized PI was confirmed by Ubbelohde viscometer and FT‐IR spectroscopy. SEM and Raman spectroscopy showed that GO was well dispersed in the PI matrix. XRD patterns indicated the PI and PI/GO nanocomposite films were highly amorphous in nature. The synthesized PI and their nanocomposites show high thermal stability as their T_10% weight loss are in the range of 498 to 563°C with 30.6 to 40% of char yield and the glass transition temperatures (T_g s) are in the range of 188 to 262°C. The limited oxygen index (LOI) values increased from 31.4% to 56.0% with increases of 5% GO content in the PI/GO nanocomposite. They have high dielectric constant in the range of 2.6 to 5.1 at 1 MHz and also good mechanical properties with tensile strength of 81 to 116 MPa, elongation at break 5 to 9%. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 2017. © 2017 Society of Plastics Engineers     

Catalytic activity of MnTUD-1 for liquid phase oxidation of ethylbenzene with tert-butyl hydroperoxide

Manganese was incorporated into silica matrix of TUD-1 using tetraethylene glycol (TEG) as the template. Three samples with Si/Mn ratio of 115, 44 and 18 were prepared and characterized by various techniques. MnTUD-1 is shown to be mesoporous with tetrahedrally coordinated Mn when Si/Mn?=?115; and nano-particles of manganese oxides are visible at higher loading of manganese (Si/Mn?=?44 and 18). The catalytic activity of MnTUD-1 was explored in the liquid-phase oxidation of ethylbenzene with tert-butylhydroperoxide (TBHP) as oxidant. Influence of various reaction parameters such as time, Si/Mn ratio, oxidant and solvent were studied. Finally the catalytic activity also compared with well-known microporous and mesoporous catalysts like MnAlPO-5, Mn containing MCM-41, MCM-48 and SBA-15.     

Microwave‐assisted synthesis and characterization of polyimide/functionalized MWCNT nanocomposites containing quinolyl moiety

Polyimide‐MWCNT nanocomposites were prepared by the reaction of a heterocyclic diamine monomer of bis(4‐amino‐3,5‐dimethylphenyl)‐2‐chloro‐3‐quinolylmethane (BACQM), pyromellitic dianhydride (PMDA) with unmodified MWCNT (MWCNT), acid‐functionalized MWCNT (acid‐MWCNT) or amine‐functionalized MWCNT (amine‐MWCNT) using microwave irradiation as well as by the conventional method. The structure of the monomer was confirmed by FTIR, ¹H‐NMR, and ¹³C‐NMR spectral techniques. The glass transition temperature (T_g) of the MWCNTs/polyimide nanocomposite was found to be higher than that of the unfilled polyimide system. The T_g's of both systems were higher when prepared with the microwave method than the conventional synthesis. The T_g's of the nanocomposites using acid and amine functionalized MWCNTs are greater than 300°C, in both methods. This is attributed to the presence of hydrogen bond and strong covalent bond in both the acid‐MWCNT/polyimide and amine‐MWCNT/polyimide systems. The morphological studies of the nanocomposites synthesized using microwave irradiation show that a distinct MWCNT nanofibrillar network is formed in the matrix when MWCNT or acid‐MWCNT is used. A homogeneous morphology, without distinct nanotube domains is seen when the amine‐MWCNT is covalently linked to the polymer. POLYM. COMPOS., 37:2417–2424, 2016. © 2015 Society of Plastics Engineers