Pore morphology in sintered ZrO2–8 mol% Y2O3 ceramic: a small-angle neutron scattering investigation

Pore morphology and pore size distribution in yttria-stabilized zirconia (ZrO₂–8 mol% Y₂O₃) have been investigated, for two sintering temperatures, namely 1200 and 1270 °C, using small-angle neutron scattering. The results show that the reduction in the porosity, at 1270 °C compared to that at 1200 °C, occurs by the elimination of the pores at the lower end of the pore size distribution. In addition, the polydispersity is also lower at 1270 °C and the nature of the distribution is altered significantly near the smaller radius range. The average pore size shifts towards the higher radius range. The specific surface area of the pores is also diminished at 1270 °C because of the elimination of the finer pores.     

Hybrid mode-switched control of DC-DC boost converter circuits

This paper has proposed a new switching scheme for controlling dc-dc boost converter circuits. The converter is represented as a hybrid system with three modes of operation. The switching among these modes is governed by the adjustable reference voltage and a reference current which are calculated by an energy balance principle. The scheme has been applied to a realistic converter circuit modeled with various parasitic components. All the specifications related to the ripple voltage, line and load regulation are shown to be achievable by relating them to the switching surfaces, namely a reference voltage and a reference current. The state trajectories have been shown to reach a hybrid limit cycle already proved to be super-stable from consideration of chaos. Numerical results clearly bring out the advantages of the proposed control scheme.     

Xe-p9, a Xenopus Suc1/Cks protein, is essential for the Cdc2-dependent phosphorylation of the anaphase- promoting complex at mitosis

Degradation of mitotic cyclins on exit from M phase occurs by ubiquitin-mediated proteolysis. The ubiquitination of mitotic cyclins is regulated by the anaphase-promoting complex (APC) or cyclosome. Xe-p9, the Xenopus homolog of the Suc1/Cks protein, is required for some step in mitotic cyclin destruction in Xenopus egg extracts. Specifically, if p9 is removed from interphase egg extracts, these p9-depleted extracts are unable to carry out the proteolysis of cyclin B after entry into mitosis and thus remain arrested in M phase. To explore the molecular basis of this defect, we depleted p9 from extracts that had already entered M phase and thus contained an active APC. We found that ubiquitin-mediated proteolysis of cyclin B was not compromised under these circumstances, suggesting that p9 is not directly required for ubiquitination or proteolysis. Further analysis of extracts from which p9 had been removed during interphase showed that, at the beginning of mitosis, these extracts are unable to carry out the hyperphosphorylation of the Cdc27 component of the APC, which coincides with the initial activation of the APC. p9 can be found in a complex with a small fraction of the Cdc27 protein during M phase but not interphase. The phosphorylation of the Cdc27 protein (either associated with the APC or in an isolated, bacterially expressed form) by recombinant Cdc2/cyclin B is strongly enhanced by p9. Our results indicate that p9 directly regulates the phosphorylation of the APC by Cdc2/cyclin B. These studies indicate that the Suc1/Cks protein modulates substrate recognition by a cyclin-dependent kinase.     

Sol-gel preparation of silica glass

This paper is a preliminary report on the preparation of silica glass containing very low amount of hydroxyl by the sol-gel processing technique. Gels were prepared from optimized amounts of tetraethyl orthosilicate, fumed silica and water. Acids and bases in small quantities were added for catalysing hydrolysis and adjusting the pH. Dried gels were heated up to 1400°C in various atmospheres to obtain transparent silica glass of the required density and very low (<5 ppm) hydroxyl content.     

Hardware-Efficient Systolic-Like Modular Design for Two-Dimensional Discrete Wavelet Transform

A systolic-like modular architecture is presented for hardware-efficient implementation of two-dimensional (2-D) discrete wavelet transform (DWT). The overall computation is decomposed into two distinct stages; where column processing is performed in stage-1, while row processing is performed in stage-2. Using a new data-access scheme and a novel folding technique, the computation of both the stages are performed concurrently for transposition-free implementation of 2-D DWT. The proposed design can offer nearly the same throughput rate, and requires the same or less the number of adders and multipliers as the best of the existing structures. The storage space is found to occupy most of the area in the existing 2-D DWT structures but the proposed structure does not require any on-chip or off-chip storage of input samples or storage/transposition of intermediate output. The proposed one, therefore, involves considerably less hardware complexity compared with the existing structures. Apart from that, it has less duration of cycle period in comparison to the existing structures, and has a latency of cycles while all the existing structures have latency of cycles, the filter order being small compared to the input size .     

DC Electrical Resistivity and Magnetic Property of Single-Phase α-Fe2O3 Nanopowder Synthesized by a Simple Chemical Method

Nanocrystalline pure α-Fe₂O₃ powder, with an average particle size of 35 nm, has been synthesized by using an aqueous solution-based synthetic route. DC electrical resistivity of the synthesized material was measured with respect to temperature by the two-probe method from 28° to 225°C. Room temperature resistivity of the nanopowder was ∼10⁸Ω·cm. Magnetic hysteresis measurement revealed that the synthesized α-Fe₂O₃ nanopowder exhibited ferromagnetic behavior at room temperature. The hysteretic features are high saturation magnetization of 5.1 emu/g, high remanence of 2.2 emu/g, and coercivity of 200.5 Oe.     

Synthesis and Catalytic Applications of Mesoporous Polymer Colloids in Olefin Hydrosilylation

Mesoporous polymer particles (MPPs) have been synthesized by using the spherical microparticles of siliceous mesocellular foam (MCF) as a hard template. The MPPs possessed a robust structure with ultralarge mesopores, and a clean and inert surface. The surface properties of the MPPs could be tailored for various applications by using different functionalized monomers. An imidazolium‐pyrrolidine ligand was successfully immobilized onto MPPs and used as a supported platinum organometallic catalyst in olefin hydrosilylation. The MPP‐supported catalyst provided superior activity and selectivity for this reaction as compared to the MCF‐supported catalyst.