Tailoring of optical and electrical properties of PMMA by incorporation of Ag nanoparticles

Silver–poly(methyl methacrylate) (Ag–PMMA) nanocomposite films were prepared via ex situ chemical route by employing sodium borohydride (\(\hbox {NaBH}_{4}\)) as a reducing agent. In this study, PVP-stabilized Ag nanoparticles were prepared and mixed with PMMA solution. Optical and structural characterizations of resulting nanocomposite films were performed using UV–visible spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Characteristic surface plasmon resonance (SPR) peak of Ag nanoparticles was observed at about 3.04 eV (408 nm) in absorption spectra of Ag–PMMA nanocomposite films. TEM micrograph revealed that the spherical Ag nanoparticles with an average diameter of 5.4\(\,\pm \,\)2.5 nm are embedded in PMMA. In Raman spectra, besides shifting of vibrational bands, enhancement in intensity of Raman signal with incorporation of Ag nanoparticles was observed. Current (I)–voltage (V) measurements revealed that conductivity of PMMA increased with increasing concentration of Ag nanoparticles. Analysis of I–V data further disclosed that at voltage <2 V, ohmic conduction mechanism is the dominant mechanism, while at voltage >2 V Poole–Frenkel is the dominant conduction mechanism. Urbach’s energy, the measure of disorder, increased from 0.40 eV for PMMA to 1.11 eV for Ag–PMMA nanocomposite films containing 0.039 wt% of Ag nanoparticles.     

A Low-Current and Analog Memristor with Ru as Mobile Species

The switching parameters and device performance of memristors are predominately determined by their mobile species and matrix materials. Devices with oxygen or oxygen vacancies as the mobile species usually exhibit a great retention but also need a relatively high switching current (e.g., >30 µA), while devices with Ag or Cu as cation mobile species do not require a high switching current but usually show a poor retention. Here, Ru is studied as a new type of mobile species for memristors to achieve low switching current, fast speed, good reliability, scalability, and analog switching property simultaneously. An electrochemical metallization-like memristor with a stack of Pt/Ta₂O₅/Ru is developed. Migration of Ru ions is revealed by energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy mapping and in situ transmission electron microscopy within a sub-10 nm active device area before and after switching. The results open up a new avenue to engineer memristors for desired properties.     

Exploitability prediction of software vulnerabilities

The number of security failure discovered and disclosed publicly are increasing at a pace like never before. Wherein, a small fraction of vulnerabilities encountered in the operational phase are exploited in the wild. It is difficult to find vulnerabilities during the early stages of software development cycle, as security aspects are often not known adequately. To counter these security implications, firms usually provide patches such that these security flaws are not exploited. It is a daunting task for a security manager to prioritize patches for vulnerabilities that are likely to be exploitable. This paper fills this gap by applying different machine learning techniques to classify the vulnerabilities based on previous exploit-history. Our work indicates that various vulnerability characteristics such as severity, type of vulnerabilities, different software configurations, and vulnerability scoring parameters are important features to be considered in judging an exploit. Using such methods, it is possible to predict exploit-prone vulnerabilities with an accuracy >85%. Finally, with this experiment, we conclude that supervised machine learning approach can be a useful technique in predicting exploit-prone vulnerabilities.     

Investigation of Spontaneous Polarization and Phase Transition Phenomena in KH2PO4-Type Crystals by Green’s Function Approach

Journal of Low Temperature Physics - In this paper, the spontaneous polarization and the phase transition of order–disorder type H-bonded KH2PO4-type crystals are theoretically investigated....     

A compact dual‐band zeroth‐order resonator antenna loaded with meander line inductor

A novel zeroth‐order resonator (ZOR) meta‐material (MTM) antenna with dual‐band is suggested using compound right/left handed transmission line as MTM. In this article, suggested antenna consists of patch through series gap, two meander line inductors, and two circular stubs. The MTM antenna is compact in size which shows dual‐band properties with first band centered at 2.47 GHz (2.05‐2.89 GHz) and second band is centered at 5.9 GHz (3.70‐8.10 GHz) with impedance bandwidth of (S₁₁ < ? 10 dB) 34.69% and 72.45%, respectively. At ZOR mode (2.35 GHz), the suggested antenna has overall dimension of 0.197λ_o × 0.07λ_o × 0.011λ_o with gain of 1.65 dB for ZOR band and 3.35 dB for first positive order resonator band which covers the applications like Bluetooth (2.4 GHZ), TV/Radio/Data (3.700‐6.425 GHz), WLAN (5‐5.16 GHz), C band frequencies (5.15‐5.35, 5.47‐5.725, or 5.725‐5.875 GHz) and satellite communication (7.25‐7.9 GHz). The radiation patterns of suggested structure are steady during the operating band for which sample antenna has been fabricated and confirmed experimentally. It exhibits novel omnidirectional radiation characteristics in phi = 0° plane with lower cross‐polarization values.     

A Probabilistic Model of Clock Offset Estimator (PMCOE) for Clock Synchronization in Wireless Sensor Network

Wireless Personal Communications - Synchronization of clock within a wireless sensor network epitomizes crucial problems in the efficient and reliable operation of the sensors. This paper discusses...     

Supervised learning and frequency domain averaging-based adaptive channel estimation scheme for filterbank multicarrier with offset quadrature amplitude modulation

Filterbank multicarrier with offset quadrature amplitude modulation (FBMC-OQAM) is an attractive alternative to the orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) modulation technique. In comparison with OFDM, the FBMC-OQAM signal has better spectral confinement and higher spectral efficiency and tolerance to synchronization errors, primarily due to per-subcarrier filtering using a frequency-time localized prototype filter. However, the filtering process introduces intrinsic interference among the symbols and complicates channel estimation (CE). An efficient way to improve the CE in FBMC-OQAM is using a technique known as windowed frequency domain averaging (FDA); however, it requires a priori knowledge of the window length parameter which is set based on the channel's frequency selectivity (FS). As the channel's FS is not fixed and not a priori known, we propose a k-nearest neighbor-based machine learning algorithm to classify the FS and decide on the FDA's window length. A comparative theoretical analysis of the mean-squared error (MSE) is performed to prove the proposed CE scheme's effectiveness, validated through extensive simulations. The adaptive CE scheme is shown to yield a reduction in CE-MSE and improved bit error rates compared with the popular preamble-based CE schemes for FBMC-OQAM, without a priori knowledge of channel's frequency selectivity.     

Plasma‐induced surface modification and adhesion enhancement of polypropylene surface

Unoriented (UPP) and biaxially oriented (BOPP) polypropylene films were treated under radio frequency plasma of air, nitrogen, oxygen, and ammonia. Surface modification of polypropylene films was investigated by using surface energy measurement and attenuated total reflection (ATR)‐FTIR spectroscopy. Surface energy of air and nitrogen plasma‐treated polypropylene film increased for shorter treatment time and then decreased and attained an equilibrium value. Such changes in surface energy were not observed for oxygen and ammonia plasma‐treated polypropylene film, which increased to an equilibrium value. ATR‐FTIR studies revealed characteristic differences in the absorption spectra for short‐duration and long‐duration treatments. From the relative intensity change in the C—H stretching vibration, the mechanism of surface chemical reaction could be inferred. Studies regarding the durability of surface modification due to plasma treatment were evaluated by investigating surface energy of samples aged for 2 months. Treated films subjected to peel strength measurement showed improvement in bondability for UPP and BOPP film by hydrophilic surface modification accompanied by surface crosslinking. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 86: 925–936, 2002     

Labelling Proteins with Carbon Nanodots

We present efficient labelling of several proteins with orange‐emissive carbon dots. N‐Hydroxysuccinimide was used to activate the carboxyl groups of carbon dots, which subsequently reacted with the lysine groups present on the protein. Labelling was confirmed by UV absorption spectroscopy, PAGE and fluorescence correlation spectroscopy. Protein‐conjugated carbon dots showed an enhancement in fluorescence lifetime and intensity owing to reduced intramolecular dynamic fluctuations. Single‐molecule fluorescence measurements showed reduced fluorescence fluctuations and higher photon budget after protein tagging. Our study opens up opportunities to use carbon dots as highly precise biolabelling probes.     

Nonlinear Dynamic Response of Cylindrical Roller Bearing–Rotor System with 9 Degree of Freedom Model Having a Combined Localized Defect at Inner–Outer Races of Bearing

This article presents a nonlinear dynamic model for a cylindrical roller bearing–rotor system with interaction forces between the inner race, outer race, and roller. Roller–race contacts are modeled predicting nonlinear stiffness (Hertz contact theory) and nonlinear damping for a rotor–cylindrical roller bearing system. Here a shaft–rotor bearing system is modeled with 9 degrees of freedom with one defect on the inner race and one defect on the outer race for a case of combined localized defects. In the mathematical formulation, contacts between rolling elements and inner and outer races are considered as nonlinear springs and nonlinear damping is taken into consideration. Contact force calculations with nonlinearity are solved using the Newton-Raphson method for n unknown nonlinear simultaneous equation. The Newmark-β implicit integration technique coupled with the Newton-Raphson method is used to solve the differential equations. The results are obtained in the form of a time domain plot, frequency domain plot, and phase plot/Poincare map. The validity of the proposed model is compared with experimental results. A bifurcation graph of speed versus peak amplitude predicts the behavior of the system.