Low temperature crystallographic data on Kevlar 49 fibres

Using X-ray diffraction data, the behaviour of Kevlar 49 fibres at low temperatures, up to –100°C, has been analysed. During cooling, the basal plane of the monoclinic unit cell shrinks whereas the c- (unique, chain axis) length is not significantly affected. In contrast, in the return heating cycle to ambient temperature, the basal plane expands and contraction occurs along the chain direction. The unit cell registers a reduction in volume in both the cooling and heating cycles. Conspicuously, after a cycle of cooling and heating, the unit cell does not return to its initial volume.     

Analysis and simulation of substrate coupling in integrated circuits

A technique is presented which allows efficient calculation of substrate-coupling macromodels in integrated circuits. the technique can be used to calculate node-to-node resistances or impedances in substrate models. Examples of the technique applied to several test structures are presented.     

Phase Transformation Introduced by Mechanical and Chemical Surface Preparations of Tetragonal Zirconia Polycrystals

Cutting of Y₂O₃-doped TZP rods by a low-speed diamond saw introduces an unidentified, metastable phase X (x -ZrO₂) coexisting with the tetragonal ( t -ZrO₂) and the monoclinic ( m -ZrO₂) phases initially present in the sample. Further mechanical deformation of the cut surface by indentation or polishing sustains the x -ZrO₂. Chemical etching removes the x -ZrO₂ and increases the m -ZrO₂content.     

A study on development of cognitive support features in recent ontology visualization tools

Ontologies are currently emerging as representation techniques for overlapping compatibility context domains. The continuing need for more effective information retrieval has lead to the creation of the notions of the semantic web and personalized information management. Subsequently, the need for effective ontology visualization for design, management and browsing has arisen. Several ontology visualization tools have come out to strengthen the users’ cognitive support. The primary goal of this paper is to present a survey on recently implemented ontology visualization tools and their contributions in the enrichment of users’ cognitive support. This work also presents the preliminary results of an evaluation of three visualization tools to determine the suitability of each method for end user applications where ontologies are used as browsing aids.     

Morphology of EVA based nanocomposites under shear and extensional flow

Shear and extensional rheological measurements were conducted in conjunction with laser light scattering (LLS) on ethylene‐vinyl acetate copolymer (EVA) nanocomposites. The materials were prepared by melt‐mixing EVA and commercially acquired layered silicates. Wide Angle X‐Ray Scattering (WAXS) was used to ascertain the degree of layer swelling. This could be attributed to the intercalation of polymer chains into the interlayer of the silicates. The nanocomposites prepared were determined to be predominantly intercalated in nature. In shear rheological tests, the nanocomposites exhibited an increase in viscoelastic properties compared to the pure EVA. The extent of this property enhancement was not as pronounced as had been reported in many instances with respect to other polymer nanocomposites. This could be attributed to the absence of a network structure normally observed in an exfoliated system. The extensional rheological tests showed an increase in extensional flow properties. This was confirmed by the LLS, which indicated that the filled systems had higher deformability than the unfilled one. Polym. Eng. Sci. 44:1220–1230, 2004. © 2004 Society of Plastics Engineers.     

Bulk and interfacial physical properties of aqueous solutions of sodium lauryl sulphate and lauryl alcohol with air and benzene system: Part I: Aqueous solutions of sodium lauryl sulphate

Experimental measurements were made of the pH, density, bulk viscosity and electrical conductivity of aqueous solutions of sodium lauryl sulphate for a wide range of concentrations at 25°C. Also, the time-dependent interfacial tension data of this system with mutually saturated benzene phases are reported. Comparison of these data with literature values shows fair agreement in the majority of the cases and further reveals the lack of data in the earlier investigations below the critical micelle concentration of sodium lauryl sulphate in water. A detailed compilation of the data, reported in the literature since 1937, of the pH, density, bulk viscosity, electrical conductivity, surface tension, interfacial tension with benzene, surface excess concentration, surface shear viscosity, diffusivity and critical micelle concentration of the sodium lauryl sulphate system is given. The importance of this anionic surfactant system together with the various factors which influence the physical properties is examined.     

Design and implementation of a block‐backstepping based tracking control for nonholonomic wheeled mobile robot

This paper presents formulation of a novel block‐backstepping based control algorithm to overcome the challenges posed by the tracking and the stabilization problem for a differential drive wheeled mobile robot (WMR). At first, a two‐dimensional output vector for the WMR has been defined in such a manner that it would decouple the two control inputs and, thereby, allow the designer to formulate the control laws for the two inputs one at a time. Actually, the decoupling has been carried out in a way to convert the system into block‐strict feedback form. Thereafter, block‐backstepping control algorithm has been utilized to derive the expressions of the control inputs for the WMR system. The proposed block‐backstepping technique has further been enriched by incorporating an integral action for enhancing the steady state performance of the overall system. Global asymptotic stability of the overall system has been analyzed using Lyapunov stability criteria. Finally, the proposed control algorithm has been implemented on a laboratory scale differential drive WMR to verify the effectiveness of the proposed control law in real‐time environment. Indeed, the proposed design approach is novel in the sense that it has judiciously exploited the nonholonomic constraint of the WMR to result in a reduced order block‐backstepping controller for the WMR, and thereby, it has eventually yielded a compact expression of the control law that is amenable to real‐time implementation. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Neutrosophic classifier: An extension of fuzzy classifer

Fuzzy classification has become of great interest because of its ability to utilize simple linguistically interpretable rules and has overcome the limitations of symbolic or crisp rule based classifiers. This paper introduces an extension to fuzzy classifier: a neutrosophic classifier, which would utilize neutrosophic logic for its working. Neutrosophic logic is a generalized logic that is capable of effectively handling indeterminacy, stochasticity acquisition errors that fuzzy logic cannot handle. The proposed neutrosophic classifier employs neutrosophic logic for its working and is an extension of commonly used fuzzy classifier. It is compared with the commonly used fuzzy classifiers on the following parameters: nature of membership functions, number of rules and indeterminacy in the results generated. It is proved in the paper that extended fuzzy classifier: neutrosophic classifier; optimizes the said parameters in comparison to the fuzzy counterpart. Finally the paper is concluded with justifying that neutrosophic logic though in its nascent stage still holds the potential to be experimented for further exploration in different domains.     

Product beamforming and nested array in tandem for enhanced sonar performance

Multidimensional Systems and Signal Processing - High-performance sonar systems mostly combine a large sensor array and an efficient beamformer for enhancing the overall detection capabilities and...