Acoustic study of nano-crystal embedded PbO-P2O5 glass

Nano-crystal embedded PbO-P₂O₅ glass has been prepared and characterized by XRD and TEM measurements. The ultrasonic velocity and attenuation measured within the temperature range 80–300 K show significant structure and interesting feature with the presence of nano-crystalline region. The glass samples were prepared by melt-quench method and nano-crystals of different sizes were produced by heat treatment of the glasses for different durations of heating. All the processes were carried out at or above glass transition temperature. A theoretical model that takes account of the effects of thermally activated relaxation, anharmonicity as well as microscopic elastic inhomogeneities arising out of fluctuations has been successfully applied to interpret the variation of ultrasonic velocity and attenuation data. An interesting outcome of this application has been to propose a method for the determination of the size of nano-crystals from the ultrasonic attenuation data.     

Elastomer–carbon black interaction: Influence of elastomer chemical structure and carbon black surface chemistry on bound rubber formation

The contribution of elastomer polarity and reactivity to bound rubber formation has been investigated. In this study, a number of elastomers of different chemical nature have been tested. The surface of the carbon black (N110) has also been modified by nitric acid oxidation in order to increase the concentration of surface functional groups. The experimental results have shown that the bound rubber formation is barely related to the polarity of the polymers. It is the reactive sites in both the elastomer and carbon black which are mainly responsible for bound rubber formation. It therefore appears that the elastomer/carbon black interaction leading to the formation of bound rubber is essentially a chemical process involving primary bond formation between elastomer and carbon black. The oxidized carbon black exhibits a higher surface activity which may be due to an increased concentration of oxygen-containing reactive surface sites, namely, phenolic hydroxyl, carboxyl, lactone, and quinone groups. © 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Inductively Verifying Invariant Properties of Parameterized Systems

Verification of distributed algorithms can be naturally cast as verifying parameterized systems, the parameter being the number of processes. In general, a parameterized concurrent system represents an infinite family (of finite state systems) parameterized by a recursively defined type such as chains, trees. It is therefore natural to verify parameterized systems by inducting over this type. However, construction of such proofs require combination of model checking with deductive capability. In this paper, we develop a logic program transformation based proof methodology which achieves this combination. One of our transformations (unfolding) represents a single resolution step. Thus model checking can be achieved by repeated application of unfolding. Other transformations (such as folding) represent deductive reasoning and help recognize the induction hypothesis in an inductive proof. Moreover the unfolding and folding transformations can be arbitrarily interleaved in a proof, resulting in a tight integration of decision procedures (such as model checking) with deductive verification.Based on this technique, we have designed and implemented an invariant prover for parameterized systems. Our proof technique is geared to automate nested induction proofs which do not involve strengthening of induction hypothesis. The prover has been used to automatically verify invariant properties of parameterized cache coherence protocols, including broadcast protocols and protocols with global conditions. Furthermore, we have employed the prover for automatic verification of mutual exclusion in the Java Meta-Locking Algorithm. Meta-Locking is a distributed algorithm developed recently by designers in Sun Microsystems for ensuring secure access of Java objects by an arbitrary number of Java threads.     

Rapid, online quantification of H2S in JP-8 fuel reformate using near-infrared cavity-enhanced laser absorption spectroscopy

One of the key challenges in reforming military fuels for use with fuel cells is their high sulfur content, which can poison the fuel cell anodes. Sulfur-tolerant fuel reformers can convert this sulfur into H(2)S and then use a desulfurizing bed to remove it prior to the fuel cell. In order to optimize and verify this desulfurization process, a gas-phase sulfur analyzer is required to measure H(2)S at low concentrations (<1 ppm(v)) in the presence of other reforming gases (e.g., 25-30% H(2), 10-15% H(2)O, 15% CO, 5% CO(2), 35-40% N(2), and trace amounts of light hydrocarbons). In this work, we utilize near-infrared cavity-enhanced optical absorption spectroscopy (off-axis ICOS) to quantify H(2)S in a JP-8 fuel reformer product stream. The sensor provides rapid (2 s), highly precise (±0.1 ppm(v)) measurements of H(2)S in reformate gases over a wide dynamic range (0-1000 ppm(v)) with a low detection limit (3σ = ±0.09 ppm(v) in 1 s) and minimal cross-interferences from other present species. It simultaneously quantifies CO(2) (±0.2%), CH(4) (±150 ppm(v)), C(2)H(4) (±30 ppm(v)), and H(2)O (±300 ppm(v)) in the reformed gas for a better characterization of the fuel reforming process. Other potential applications of this technology include measurement of coal syngas and H(2)S in natural gas. By including additional near-infrared, distributive feedback diode lasers, the instrument can also be extended to other reformate species, including CO and H(2).     

Triglyceride composition of Buchanania lanzan seed oil

The fatty acid composition of Buchanania lanzan seed oil, determined by urea complex formation and gas liquid chromatography (g.l.c), was found to be: myristic, 0.6; palmitic, 33.4; stearic, 6.3; oleic, 53.7; and linoleic, 6.0%. Triglyceride compositions of the native seed oil and its randomised product were calculated from the fatty acid compositions of the triglycerides and of the corresponding 2-monoglycerides produced by pancreatic lipase hydrolysis. The oil is composed of 3.2, 35.8, 45.5 and 15.5% trisaturated, monounsaturated disaturated, diunsaturated monosaturated and triunsaturated glycerides respectively. The special characteristic of the B. lanzan seed oil is its content of 22.7, 31.0 and 11.3% dipalmitoolein, dioleopalmitin and triolein respectively. The percent GS₃ content in the oil increased from 3.2 to 7.5 by the process of randomisation. On directed interesterification the oil yielded a product with a slip point of 41.5°C which may be suitable as a coating material for delayed action tablets. The oil also appears to be a promising one as a commercial source of palmitic and oleic acids.     

Philosophical Dimensions of Information and Ethics in the Internet of Things (IoT) Technology

This article discusses the various dimensions of philosophy of information for the Internet of Things (IoT) technology. The aspects of attention, subjectivity, objectivity, happiness, key ethical concerns, and the need for algorithmic transparency and accountability in autonomous IoT applications that are necessary to build an IoT belief system have been highlighted here. The interplay of smart devices, smart services, and humans has been depicted to highlight trust permeability in human and IoT interfaces.     

Fractional order two-temperature thermoelasticity with finite wave speed

In this paper, a new theory of two-temperature generalized thermoelasticity is constructed in the context of a new consideration of heat conduction with fractional orders. The two-temperature Lord–Shulman (2TLS) model and two-temperature Green–Naghdi (2TGN) models of thermoelasticity are combined into a unified formulation using the unified parameters. The basic equations have been written in the form of a vector-matrix differential equation in the Laplace transform domain which is then solved by using a state-space approach. The inversions of Laplace transforms are computed numerically using the method of Fourier series expansion technique. The numerical estimates of the quantities of physical interest are obtained and depicted graphically. Some comparisons of the thermophysical quantities are shown in figures to estimate the effects of the temperature discrepancy and the fractional order parameter.     

Analytical derivation of explicit J–V model of a solar cell from physics based implicit model

Recently a simple explicit model was introduced to represent the J–V characteristics of an illuminated solar cell with parasitic resistances and bias dependent photocurrent as v^m + jⁿ = 1. Here the normalized voltage, v and normalized current density j can be represented as v = V/V_oc and j = J/J_sc respectively, where V_oc is the open circuit voltage and J_sc is the short circuit current density. This model is useful for design, characterization and simple fill factor calculation and its applicability was demonstrated with the measured data of a wide variety of solar cells. This explicit form is intuitive and hence the model lacks the analytical support. In this paper an analytical derivation of this closed form explicit model is presented, which is derived from the physics based implicit J–V equation. The derivation expands the scope of model applicability and provides a new insight of analytical modeling of the solar cell.