Separation of water-alcohol mixtures by pervaporation on composite polar-2 and MDK-P membranes

Curves of unit membrane output versus water concentration in initial propanol-water and ethanol-water mixtures are established experimentally. Polar-2 and MDK-P membranes are compared with MGA-95, MGA-100, MG-1, and MG-2 membranes. __________ Translated from Khimicheskoe i Neftegazovoe Mashinostroenie, No. 6, pp. 9–10, June, 2006.     

Effect of stationary ionization of traps near the midgap on the spectrum of thermally stimulated capacitance of semiconductor devices

An algorithm for calculating the parameters of deep-level centers in the space-charge region of semiconductor devices on the basis of an analysis of the curves of thermally stimulated capacitance in the presence of recombination centers with the levels located near the midgap is suggested. The method is tested using the commercial AL-107 GaAs-based light-emitting diodes. The results of calculations of the deep-center parameters in the materials under study are consistent with the results of other methods of analysis.     

Heat transfer in YBaCuO thin film/sapphire substrate system

The thermal boundary resistance at the YBaCuO thin film/Al₂O₃ substrate interface was investigated. The transparency for thermal phonons incident on the interface as well as for phonons moving from the substrate was determined. We have measured a transient voltage response of current-biased films to continuously modulated radiation. The observed knee in the modulation frequency dependence of the response reflects the crossover from the diffusion regime to the contact resistance regime of the heat transfer across the interface. The values of transparency were independently deduced both from the phonon escape time and from the time of phonon return to the film which were identified with peculiarities in the frequency dependence. The results are much more consistent with the acoustic mismatch theory than the diffuse mismatch model.We are grateful to A. Elantev for helpful discussion. We acknowledge the financial support of the Russian Scientific Council on the HTS problem (Project No. 90462).     

Langevin dynamics simulations of micromechanics on graphics processors

Due to the very long timescales involved (ms-s), theoretical modeling of fundamental biological processes including folding, misfolding, and mechanical unraveling of biomolecules, under physiologically relevant conditions, is challenging even for distributed computing systems. Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) are emerging as an alternative programming platform to the more traditional CPUs as they provide high raw computational power that can be utilized in a wide range of scientific applications. Using a coarse-grained Self Organized Polymer (SOP) model, we have developed and tested the GPU-based implementation of Langevin simulations for proteins (SOP-GPU program). Simultaneous calculation of forces for all particles is implemented using either the particle based or the interacting pair based parallelization, which leads to a ∼90-fold acceleration compared to an optimized CPU version of the program. We assess the computational performance of an end-to-end application of the SOP-GPU program, where all steps of the algorithm are running on the GPU, by profiling the associated simulation time and memory usage for a number of small proteins, long protein fibers, and large-size protein assemblies. The SOP-GPU package can now be used in the theoretical exploration of the mechanical properties of large-size protein systems to generate the force-extension and force-indentation profiles under the experimental conditions of force application, and to relate the results of singlemolecule experiments in vitro and in silico.     

Formation of Planar Field-Emission Devices Based on Carbon Nanotubes on Co–Nb–N–(O) Alloy

Semiconductors - Integrated field-emission devices and integrated circuits (ICs) based on them are a promising direction in microelectronics, which is associated with the use of low-voltage and...     

Formation of carbon nanotubes on an amorphous Ni<Subscript>25</Subscript>Ta<Subscript>58</Subscript>N<Subscript>17</Subscript> alloy film by chemical vapor deposition

It is shown that it is possible to grow carbon nanotubes on the surface of an amorphous Ni–Ta–N metal alloy film with a low Ni content (~25 at %) by chemical deposition from acetylene at temperature 400–800°C. It is established that the addition of nitrogen into the Ni–Ta alloy composition is favorable for the formation of tantalum nitride and the expulsion of Ni clusters, which act as a catalyst of the growth of carbon nanotubes, onto the surface. From Raman spectroscopy studies, it is found that, as the temperature of synthesis is raised, the quality of nanotubes is improved.     

Amplitude estimation of signal with unknown duration

Quasilikelihood and maximum likelihood algorithms for estimating the amplitude of arbitrary waveform signal with unknown duration have been synthesized. Characteristics of the synthesized algorithms have been also found.     

Improving technique of testing insulators under pollution and damping conditions

The estimation of the influence of the moment of measuring the specific layer conductivity on its value is carried out. It is shown that the value of the specific layer conductivity in the first and subsequent periods of an alternating voltage can differ significantly. An advanced technique of measuring the specific layer conductivity is suggested in the testing of external insulation under pollution conditions.