Sage of Lacock

Abstract

‘The good is oft interred with their bones.’ Much of what has been written of William Henry Fox Talbot has done him meagre justice: criticism for patenting his inventions, accusations that he patented the ideas of others, denigration of the importance of his discoveries. Though acknowledged as a scientist, his place as an artistic worker in the medium he invented has not been appreciated.     

Fuzzy based genetic neural networks for the classification of murder cases using Trapezoidal and Lagrange Interpolation Membership Functions

This paper describes the construction of a decision system to be used by judges who is about to pass sentence in murder cases. Classification models of murder cases based on fuzzy neural network with random weights and fuzzy neural network with Genetic Algorithm based weights are designed. A simulation program in C++ has been deliberated and developed for analyzing the consequences. Results show that the fuzzy neural networks increase the rate of convergence in comparison with conventional neural networks with backpropagation algorithm. That the fuzzy neural networks for classification of murder cases using Trapezoidal Membership Function outperform Lagrange Interpolation and Gaussian Membership Function is also reported. Comparative studies are carried out for a number of networks and configurations.     

Revamping SiO2 Spheres by Core–Shell Porosity Endowment to Construct a Mazelike Nanoreactor for Enhanced Catalysis in CO2 Hydrogenation to Methanol

Beyond the catalytic activity of nanocatalysts, the support with architectural design and explicit boundary could also promote the overall performance through improving the diffusion process, highlighting additional support for the morphology-dependent activity. To delineate this, herein, a novel mazelike-reactor framework, namely multi-voids mesoporous silica sphere (MVmSiO₂), is carved through a top-down approach by endowing core-shell porosity premade Stöber SiO₂ spheres. The precisely-engineered MVmSiO₂ with peripheral one-dimensional pores in the shell and interconnecting compartmented voids in the core region is simulated to prove combined hierarchical and structural superiority over its analogous counterparts. Supported with CuZn-based alloys, mazelike MVmSiO₂ nanoreactor experimentally demonstrated its expected workability in model gas-phase CO₂ hydrogenation reaction where enhanced CO₂ activity, good methanol yield, and more importantly, a prolonged stable performance are realized. While tuning the nanoreactor composition besides morphology optimization could further increase the catalytic performance, it is accentuated that the morphological architecture of support further boosts the reaction performance apart from comprehensive compositional optimization. In addition to the found morphological restraints and size-confinement effects imposed by MVmSiO₂, active sites of catalysts are also investigated by exploring the size difference of the confined CuZn alloy nanoparticles in CO₂ hydrogenation employing both in-situ experimental characterizations and density functional theory calculations.     

Influence of substrate temperature on crystalline copper aluminium oxide thin films synthesized through chemical spray pyrolysis (CSP) technique

Copper aluminium oxide (CuAlO₂) of well ordered crystalline films were deposited on to glass substrates with Cu/Al ratio r = 0.8 at the substrate temperatures of 250, 300, 350, 400 and 450 °C. Films which were characterized had a thickness of the order of few micrometers. Films deposited at the optimized deposition temperature (450 °C) revealed well-crystalline CuAlO₂ phase with XRD peak at 2θ = 31.7° corresponds to (006) reflection. The peak positions of the core level XPS spectra, confirm the presence of delafossite CuAlO₂ phase. The optical transmission of 80 % has been observed in the visible spectrum. The obtained band gap energy is 4.1 eV. From the observed results it was evidenced that the substrate temperature has strong influence on the structural and optical properties of the spray pyrolysed copper aluminium oxide films.     

Impact of interfacial solubility on penetration of metals into dielectrics and the mechanism of failure

Copper solubility in low-k dielectrics has been shown to be a major factor in decreasing the useful lifetime of an interconnect. A number of groups have shown experimentally that increased surface oxygen concentration, increased moisture content in the dielectric, and an increase in interfacial copper concentration from chemical–mechanical polishing all contribute to accelerated failure. Here, we assumed that all these processes led to an increase in the solubility of metal at the SiO₂/metal. We systematically varied the value of the interfacial solubility, C_e over a wide range and showed that the solubility strongly affects the distribution of copper and the local electric field within the dielectric. This changes the mechanism by which failure occurs from one where copper must penetrate all the way through the dielectric to one where copper penetration is limited to a thin layer near the surface. The solubility levels required to alter the failure mechanism, 10²⁶–10²⁷ atoms/m³, are within the realm of possibility and have been reported in the context of fabricating Cu-SiO₂ resistive switching elements for memory applications.     

Chryseobacterium meningosepticum in a parapneumonic effusion in a chronic kidney disease patient on hemodialysis

Chryseobacterium meningosepticum is an uncommon human pathogen, which is an inhabitant of soil and water. It should be included in the list of suspected nosocomial infections, especially in patients with immunocompromised status. C. meningosepticum infections are not common but are clinically important because the organism is naturally resistant to multiple antibiotics. We report a case where the bacterium was isolated from the pleural fluid from a chronic kidney disease patient on hemodialysis, who developed pneumonia with complicated parapneumonic effusion. To the best of our knowedge, this is the first case where C. meningosepticum is isolated from the pleural effusion, from India.