Electrochemical synthesis and characterization of chloride doped polyaniline

Chloride doped polyaniline conducting polymer films have been prepared in a protic acid medium (HCl) by potentiodynamic method in an electrochemical cell and studied by cyclic voltammetry and FTIR techniques. The FTIR spectra confirmed Cl^- ion doping in the polymers. The polymerization rate was found to increase with increasing concentration of aniline monomer. But the films obtained at high monomer concentration were rough having a nonuniform flaky polyaniline distribution. Results showed that the polymerization rate did not increase beyond a critical HCl concentration. Cyclic voltammetry suggested that, the oxidation-reduction current increased with an increase in scan rate and that the undoped polyaniline films were not hygroscopic whereas chloride doped polyaniline films were found to be highly hygroscopic.     

Formation of a geometric pattern with a mobile wireless sensor network

Mobile wireless sensor networks (MWSNs) will enable information systems to gather detailed information about the environment on an unprecedented scale. These self‐organizing, distributed networks of sensors, processors, and actuators that are capable of movement have a broad range of potential applications, including military reconnaissance, surveillance, planetary exploration, and geophysical mapping. In many of the foreseen applications, the MWSN will need to form a geometric pattern without assistance from the user. In military reconnaissance, for example, the nodes will be dropped onto the battlefield from a plane and land at random positions. The nodes will be expected to arrange themselves into a predetermined formation in order to perform a specific task. Thus, we present algorithms for forming a line, circle, and regular polygon from a given set of random positions. The algorithms are distributed and use no communication between the nodes to minimize energy consumption. Unlike past studies of geometric problems where algorithms are either tested in simulations where each node has global knowledge of all the other nodes or implemented on a small number of robots, the robustness of our algorithms has been studied with simulations that model the sensor system in detail. The simulations demonstrate that the algorithms are robust against random errors in the sensors and actuators. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Reversed Temperature-Dependent Propagation Delay Characteristics in Nanometer CMOS Circuits

The supply voltage to threshold voltage ratio is reduced with each new technology generation. The gate overdrive variation with temperature plays an increasingly important role in determining the speed characteristics of CMOS integrated circuits. The temperature-dependent propagation delay characteristics, as shown in this brief, will experience a complete reversal in the near future. Contrary to the older technology generations, the speed of circuits in a 45-nm CMOS technology is enhanced when the temperature is increased at the nominal supply voltage. Operating an integrated circuit at the prescribed nominal supply voltage is not preferable for reliable operation under temperature fluctuations. A design methodology based on optimizing the supply voltage for temperature-variation-insensitive circuit performance is proposed in this brief. The optimum supply voltage is 45% to 53% lower than the nominal supply voltage in a 180-nm CMOS technology. Alternatively, the optimum supply voltage is 15% to 35% higher than the nominal supply voltage in a 45-nm CMOS technology. The speed and energy tradeoffs in the supply voltage optimization technique are also presented     

Mixed oxide supported hydrodesulfurization catalysts—a review

Support effects form important aspect of hydrodesulfurization (HDS) studies and mixed oxide supports received maximum attention in the last two decades. This review will focus attention on studies on mixed oxide supported Mo and W catalysts. For convenience of discussion, these are divided into Al₂O₃ containing mixed oxide supports, TiO₂ containing mixed oxide supports, ZrO₂ containing mixed oxide supports and other mixed oxide supports containing all the rest. TiO₂ containing mixed oxides received maximum attention, especially TiO₂–Al₂O₃ supported catalysts. A brief discussion about their prospects for application to ultradeep desulfurization is also included. An overview of the available literature with emphasis on research carried out in our laboratory form the contents of this publication.     

Unstructured tree search on SIMD parallel computers

We present new methods for load balancing of unstructured tree computations on large-scale SIMD machines, and analyze the scalability of these and other existing schemes. An efficient formulation of tree search on an SIMD machine consists of two major components: a triggering mechanism, which determines when the search space redistribution must occur to balance the search space over processors, and a scheme to redistribute the search space. We have devised a new redistribution mechanism and a new triggering mechanism. Either of these can be used in conjunction with triggering and redistribution mechanisms developed by other researchers. We analyze the scalability of these mechanisms and verify the results experimentally. The analysis and experiments show that our new load-balancing methods are highly scalable on SIMD architectures. Their scalability is shown to he no worse than that of the best load-balancing schemes on MIMD architectures. We verify our theoretical results by implementing the 15-puzzle problem on a CM-2 SIMD parallel computer     

Management, Market, and Financial Factors Separating Winners and Losers in E-Business

There have been many successful e‐businesses as well as many failed e‐businesses. The methods and practices that were evident in the development of both surviving e‐businesses and failed ones have much to teach us. Why did some e‐businesses fail while others survived? At present few guidelines exist to assist e‐business owners and managers wanting to succeed in their Internet‐based ventures. This study empirically investigated factors that may lead to e‐business success or failure; these were categorized as management, market, and financial factors. The results of a survey were combined with one‐on‐one interviews of venture capitalists who funded successful and failed e‐businesses. The results indicate that certain factors deemed applicable to an e‐business may have contributed to the firm’s eventual success or failure.