Depth profile analysis of polyimide film treated by potassium hydroxide

The structural change in the depth direction of a polyimide (UPILEX‐S) film treated in alkaline solution, which was a representative surface treatment used to form a seed layer for plating and to improve the adhesive strength, was analyzed by means of micro Fourier transform infrared attenuated total reflection (FTIR‐ATR) line analysis with gradient shaving preparation. The polyimide film was treated with KOH. The imide ring opened through the alkaline treatment, and the amide structure and carboxylic acid salt were formed. The attainment depth of this structural change was almost proportional to the treatment time, and it reached about 8 μm after a 30‐min treatment. The degree of structural change through the alkaline treatment was almost constant after it reached a considerably degraded stage, and the chemically changed region penetrated into the inner part of the film from the surface. An intermediate layer before the final degraded stage appeared in the treated layer, and its thickness increased with the treatment time. The region that was changed chemically by the alkaline treatment progressed to the inner part simultaneously and continuously as the treatment time increased. The combined use of gradient shaving preparation and micro FTIR‐ATR line analysis was found to be extremely effective for the depth profiling of organic materials. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 41: 2071–2078, 2003     

On the Representation of Band-Dominant Functions on the Sphere Using Finitely Many Bits

A band-dominant function on the Euclidean sphere embedded in R ^q+1 is the restriction to this sphere of an entire function of q+1 complex variables having a finite exponential type in each of its variables. We develop a method to represent such a function using finitely many bits, using the values of the function at scattered sites on the sphere. The number of bits required in our representation is asymptotically the same as the metric entropy of the class of such functions with respect to any of the L ^p norms on the sphere.     

Nonlocality of Reaction-Diffusion Equations Induced by Delay: Biological Modeling and Nonlinear Dynamics

We present a short survey on the biological modeling, dynamics analysis, and numerical simulation of nonlocal spatial effects, induced by time delays, in diffusion models for a single species confined to either a finite or an infinite domain. The nonlocality, a weighted average in space, arises when account is taken of the fact that individuals have been at different points in space at previous times. We discuss and compare two existing approaches to correctly derive the spatial averaging kernels, and we summarize some of the recent developments in both qualitative and numerical analysis of the nonlinear dynamics, including the existence, uniqueness (up to a translation), and stability of traveling wave fronts and periodic spatio-temporal patterns of the model equations in unbounded domains and the linear stability, boundedness, global convergence of solutions and bifurcations of the model equations in finite domains.     

Interior point cutting plane method for optimal power flow

In this paper, an interior point cutting plane method (IPCPM)is applied to solve optimal power flow (OPF) problems. Comparedwith the simplex cutting plane method (SCPM), the IPCPM is simpler,and efficient because of its polynomial-time characteristic.Issues in implementing IPCPM for OPF problems are addressed,including (1) how to generate cutting planes without using thesimplex tableau, (2) how to identify the basis variables inIPCPM, and (3) how to generate mixed integer cutting planes.The calculation speed of the proposed algorithm is further enhancedby utilizing the sparsity features of the OPF formulation. Numericalsimulations on IEEE 14-300-bus test systems have shown thatthe proposed method is effective.     

Degradation of ZnS:Cu,Al,Au phosphor powder in different gas mixtures

The ZnS:Cu,Al,Au (P22G) phosphor powder was bombarded by an electron beam in an O₂ ambient, Ar ambient and other mixture of gases. These gases consisted of mixtures of O₂ and CO_x, and O₂, CO_x and Ar gas. Auger electron spectroscopy (AES) was used to monitor changes in the surface composition of the P22G phosphor during electron bombardment. When the P22G phosphor powder was exposed to the electron beam in a water-rich O₂ ambient, a chemically limited ZnO layer was formed on the surface. The electron beam degradation of the P22G phosphor powder was also performed in a dry O₂ ambient and a layer of ZnSO₄ was formed on the surface. The ZnSO₄ formation decayed exponentially with time and it is postulated that this was due to the diffusion of the charge reactants through the ZnSO₄ film to the reaction interfaces. The P22G phosphor exposed to the electron beam in an Ar ambient and to the other gas mixtures degraded at a lower rate than in the case of the O₂ ambient. This suggests that Ar and CO_x may suppress the degradation of the P22G phosphor powder.     

Vibration analysis of a beam with PCLD Patch

An analytical approach for vibration response analysis of a beam with single passive constrained layer damping (PCLD) patch is presented. The governing equation of motion of the beam is firstly derived on the basis of an energy approach and the Lagrange equation. The noval contribution is that a third admissible function is introduced to represent the longitudinal displacements of the constraining layer in the PCLD patch when the assumed-modes method is applied for discretizing the governing equation. In conventional analytical approaches, only two admissible functions are used together with a longitudinal static equilibrium equation of a section of base beam or constraining layer. Comparison of the computational results from the proposed analytical approach and the conventional analytical approach as well as a commercial FEM code reveals that the proposed analytical approach can describe the vibration responses of the damped beam more accurately for commonly used viscoelastic material (VEM) layer in the PCLD patch while the conventional analytical approach, in general, overestimates the damping effects of the PCLD patch. The advantages and disadvantages of the proposed analytical approach and conventional analytical approach are discussed through some case studies.     

T-duality in Affine NA Toda Models

The construction of non-Abelian affine Toda models is discussed in terms of its underlying Lie algebraic structure. It is shown that a subclass of such non-conformal two-dimensional integrable models naturally leads to the construction of a pair of actions, which share the same spectra and are related by canonical transformations.