Improved phase estimation based on complete bispectrum and modified group delay

In this paper, a new method for extracting the system phase from the bispectrum of the system output has been proposed. This is based on the complete bispectral data computed in the frequency domain and modified group delay. The frequency domain bispectrum computation improves the frequency resolution and the modified group delay reduces the variance preserving the frequency resolution. The use of full bispectral data also reduces the variance as it is used for averaging. For the proposed method at a signal to noise ratio of 5dB, the reduction in root mean square error is in the range of 1.5–7 times over the other methods considered.     

Hydrothermally treated chitosan spontaneously forms water-soluble spherical particles stable at a wide pH range

The authors report the spontaneous formation of water-soluble chitosan-tartaric acid (CS-TA) spherical particles. Particles are formed by heating chitosan in the presence of tartaric acid under hydrothermal conditions. Tartaric acid serves as an ionic cross-linker, a depolymerizing agent, and a particle stabilizer in aqueous phase. The CS-TA particles exhibit superior colloidal stability at a wide pH range due to their surface charge tunability, which is due to the colocalization of surface hydroxyl, amine, and carboxyl groups. At physiological pH condition, particles have zwitterionic structure as determined by the zeta potential measurements. Still, CS-TA maintains colloidal stability at neutral pH due to the abundance of surface hydroxyl groups. As a proof-of-concept study, the CS-TA particles were labeled with a model insoluble cargo (fluorescein isothiocyanate [FITC]) to demonstrate their capacity for solubilizing hydrophobic drugs. The CS-TA/FITC conjugates were found to remain well dispersed at neutral pH, while maintaining FITC fluorescence properties.     

The Effect of Pitting on Fatigue Lives of Peak-Aged and Overaged 7075 Aluminum Alloys

Fatigue lives at high peak stresses for peak-aged (T6) and overaged (T73) 7075 aluminum alloy were compared in the uncorroded and precorroded (pitted) states. Absolute fatigue lives of T73 samples were much higher than that of T6 in the virgin as well as precorroded condition, but the normalized life of T73 was less than that of T6, indicating an intrinsic crack initiation resistance in the former, borne out by fractography, which showed that fatigue cracks almost always initiated at pits for T73 but not for T6. The various crack initiation methodologies observed and the effect of pitting on fatigue lives in the two aging conditions are discussed.     

Three-Body Excitations in Fock-Space Coupled-Cluster: Fourth Order Perturbation Correction to Electron Affinity and Its Relation to Bondonic Formalism

In this paper, we present a formulation of highly correlated Fock-space multi-reference coupled-cluster (FSMRCC) methods, including approximate triples on top of the FSMRCC with singles and doubles, which correct the electron affinities by at least at third and up to the fourth order in perturbation. We discuss various partial fourth-order schemes, which are reliable and yet computationally more efficient than the full fourth-order triples scheme. The third-order scheme is called MRCCSD+T^*(3). We present two approximate fourth-order schemes, MRCCSD+T^*−a(4) and MRCCSD+T^*(4). The results that are presented allow one to choose an appropriate fourth-order scheme, which is less expensive and right for the problem. All these schemes are based on the effective Hamiltonian scheme, and provide a direct calculation of the vertical electron affinities. We apply these schemes to a prototype Li₂ molecule, using four different basis sets, as well as BeO and CH⁺. We have calculated the vertical electron affinities of Li₂ at the geometry of the neutral Li₂ molecule. We also present the vertical ionization potentials of the Li₂ anion at the geometry of the anion ground state. We have also shown how to calculate adiabatic electron affinity, though in that case we lose the advantages of direct calculation. BeO has been examined in two basis sets. For CH⁺, four different basis sets have been used. We have presented the partial fourth-order schemes to the EA in all the basis sets. The results are analyzed to illustrate the importance of triples, as well as highlight computationally efficient partial fourth-order schemes. The choice of the basis set on the electron affinity calculation is also emphasized. Comparisons with available experimental and theoretical results are presented. The general fourth-order schemes, which are conceptually equivalent with the Fock-space multi-reference coupled-cluster singles, doubles, and triplets (MRCCSD+T) methods, based on bondonic formalism, are also presented here in a composed way, for quantum electronic affinity.     

Optical and field emission characteristics of anodic aluminium oxide/ZnO hybrid nanostructure

Arrays of ZnO nanowires (NWs) were fabricated within the well-distributed pores of anodic aluminium oxide (AAO) template by a simple chemical method. The photoluminescence (PL) and field emission (FE) properties of the AAO/ZnO NWs hybrid structure were investigated in detail. The hybrid nanostructure exhibits interesting PL characteristics. ZnO NWs exhibit UV emission at 378 nm and two prominent blue-green emissions at about 462 and 508 nm. Intense blue emission from the AAO template itself was observed at around 430 nm. Herein, for the first time we report the FE characteristics of the ZnO/AAO hybrid structure to show the influence of the AAO template on the FE property of the hybrid structure. It is found that the turn-on electric field of the vertically grown and aligned ZnO NWs within the pores of AAO template is lower than the entangled unaligned ZnO NWs extracted from the template. Although the AAO template exhibits no FE current but it helps to achieve better FE property of the ZnO NWs through better alignment. The turn-on electric field of aligned NWs was found to be 3 V μm⁻¹ at a current of 0.1 μA. Results indicate that the AAO embedded ZnO NW hybrid structure may find useful applications in luminescent and field emission display devices.     

Magnetic properties of binary Cu50–(Ni, Fe and Co)50 alloys prepared by ball milling and isothermal annealing

The magnetic properties of Cu–Ni, Cu–Fe and Cu–Co binary alloys prepared by ball milling and subsequent isothermal annealing have been investigated systematically. A detailed microstructural characterization by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and high-resolution transmission electron microscopic (HRTEM) analysis shows that single phase Cu–Ni solid solution formed by isothermal annealing of ball-milled Cu–Ni powder blend deteriorates the magnetic properties. In contrast, isothermal annealing of Cu–Fe and Cu–Co powder blends resulted into significant improvement of magnetic properties due to precipitation of Fe and Co from the respective supersaturated solid solution. Dispersion of Co nanoparticle in Cu matrix yielded the most attractive magnetic properties.     

Processing of In Situ Aluminium Matrix Composites by Micropyretic Reactive Sintering

In situ aluminium matrix composites were processed by the micropyretic reactions between the host aluminium matrix and powder containing nanodimensional Fe₂O₃ crystallites used as the precursor compound. Differential Scanning Calorimetric (DSC), studies have shown, use of nanosized Fe₂O₃ crystallites has decreased the initiation temperature of the in situ micropyretic reaction and the desirable reinforcements; iron-aluminide and alumina are formed during sintering. Microstructural features of the composite consist of well-dispersed reinforcements in the host Al matrix with size less than 1 µm. Wear tests performed on the composite samples have revealed coefficient of friction and wear volume can be reduced significantly by incorporating 20 vol% reinforcement.     

Improved bispectrum estimation based on modified group delay

This article proposes an improved estimation method for the bispectrum of a system or signal, by applying the modified group delay (MMGD) in the bispectrum domain. To achieve a higher frequency resolution, the bispectrum is computed in frequency domain and further to reduce the variance preserving the frequency resolution, MMGD is applied in the bispectrum domain. The proposed method due to its better frequency resolution not only properly detects the phase coupled frequencies but also reduces the bispectrum magnitude estimate’s variance significantly compared to that of biperiodogram. Compared to the proposed method, though the windowed bispectrum (WB) provides a better reduction in variance, it is unable to detect the coupled frequencies due to its poor frequency resolution. For an AR process in the presence of noise (SNR = 4 dB), the system magnitude estimate by the proposed method has a 27.63% lower normalized sum sample mean square error (NSSMSE) than that by the WB. Also for a non-minimum phase system in presence of noise (SNR = 7 dB), the phase estimation by the new approach has 8.6% lower NSSMSE than that by WB and also it is marginally better than that obtained by applying MMGD in system group delay domain.     

Preparation of glass-nickel microcomposites byin situ reduction via sol-gel route

Gel has been prepared with nickel chloride and glucose in the starting solution followed by heat treatment at higher temperature, where glucose decomposes to carbon and water vapour, which in turn react to form hydrogenin situ to reduce nickel chloride to metallic nickel. The presence and distribution of nickel granules in the microcomposite, has been established by transmission electron microscopy, selected area diffraction and electron paramagnetic resonance analysis.