Electrochemical characterization of poly(vinylidenefluoride)-zinc triflate gel polymer electrolyte and its application in solid-state zinc batteries

Gel polymer electrolyte (GPE) films comprising of poly(vinylidenefluoride), propylene carbonate, ethylene carbonate and zinc trifluoromethane sulfonate are prepared and characterized. The composition of GPE is optimized to contain minimum liquid components with a maximum specific conductivity of 3.94×10⁻³ S cm⁻¹ at (25±1) °C. A detailed investigation on the properties such as ionic conductivity, transport number, electrochemical stability window, reversibility of Zn/Zn²⁺ couple and Zn/gel electrolyte interfacial stability have been carried out. The ionic conductivity follows a VTF behaviour with an activation energy of about 0.0014 eV. Cationic transport number varies from 0.51 at 25 °C to 0.18 at 70 °C. Several cells have been assembled with GPE as the electrolyte, zinc as the anode, γ-MnO₂ as the cathode and their charge–discharge behaviour followed. Capacity values of 105, 82, 64 and 37 mAh/g of MnO₂ have been achieved at 10, 50, 100 and 200 μA/cm² discharge current densities, respectively. The discharge capacity values are almost constant for about 55 cycles for all values of current densities. Cyclic voltammetric study of MnO₂ electrode in Zn/GPE/MnO₂ cell clearly shows intercalation/deintercalation of Zn²⁺.     

Some inhomogeneous magnetized viscous-fluid cosmological models with varyingΛ

Some cylindrically symmetric inhomogeneous viscous-fluid cosmological models with electromagnetic field are obtained. To get a solution a supplementary condition between metric potentials is used. The viscosity coefficient of bulk viscous fluid is assumed to be a power function of mass density. Without assuming anyad hoc law, we obtain a cosmological constant as a decreasing function of time. The behaviour of the electromagnetic field tensor together with some physical aspects of the model are also discussed.     

The sliding-window packet switch: a new class of packet switch architecture with plural memory modules and decentralized control

Shared-memory based packet switches are known to provide the best possible throughput performance for bursty data traffic in high-speed packet networks and internets compared with other buffering strategies under conditions of identical memory resources deployed in the switch. However, scaling of shared-memory packet switches to a larger size has been restricted mainly due to the physical limitations imposed by the memory-access speed and the centralized control for switching functions in shared-memory switches. A new scalable architecture for a shared-memory packet switch, called the sliding-window (SW) switch, is proposed to overcome these limitations. The SW switch introduces a new class of switching architecture, where physically separate multiple memory modules are logically shared among all the ports of the switch, and the control is decentralized. The SW switch alleviates the bottleneck caused by the centralized control of switching functions in large shared-memory switches. Decentralized switching functions enable the SW switch to operate in a pipeline fashion to enhance scalability and switching capacity compared with that of previously known classes of shared-memory switch architecture.     

High-rate vector quantization for detection

We investigate high-rate quantization for various detection and reconstruction loss criteria. A new distortion measure is introduced which accounts for global loss in best attainable binary hypothesis testing performance. The distortion criterion is related to the area under the receiver-operating-characteristic (ROC) curve. Specifically, motivated by Sanov's theorem, we define a performance curve as the trajectory of the pair of optimal asymptotic Type I and Type II error rates of the most powerful Neyman-Pearson test of the hypotheses. The distortion measure is then defined as the difference between the area-under-the-curve (AUC) of the optimal pre-encoded hypothesis test and the AUC of the optimal post-encoded hypothesis test. As compared to many previously introduced distortion measures for decision making, this distortion measure has the advantage of being independent of any detection thresholds or priors on the hypotheses, which are generally difficult to specify in the code design process. A high-resolution Zador-Gersho type of analysis is applied to characterize the point density and the inertial profile associated with the optimal high-rate vector quantizer. The analysis applies to a restricted class of high-rate quantizers that have bounded cells with vanishing volumes. The optimal point density is used to specify a Lloyd-type algorithm which allocates its finest resolution to regions where the gradient of the pre-encoded likelihood ratio has greatest magnitude.     

Analysis of finite capacity discrete-time <Emphasis Type="Italic">GI</Emphasis>/<Emphasis Type="Italic">Geo</Emphasis>/1 queueing system with multiple vacations

This paper investigates a discrete-time single-server finite-buffer queueing system with multiple vacations in which arrivals occur according to a discrete-time renewal process. Service and vacation times are mutually independent and geometrically distributed. We obtain steady-state system length distributions at prearrival, arbitrary and outside observer's observation epochs under the late arrival system with delayed access and early arrival system. The analysis of actual waiting-time for both the systems has also been carried out. The model has potential application in high-speed computer network, digital communication systems and other related areas.     

Direct and inverse estimates for a new family of linear positive operators

In the present paper we introduce a new family of linear positive operators and study some direct and inverse results in simultaneous approximation.     

An efficient palladium catalyzed synthesis of 2-arylbenzothiazoles

A novel and convergent palladium catalyzed synthesis of 2-arylbenzothiazoles has been investigated. The key step in the synthesis is a Suzuki biaryl coupling of 2-bromobenzothiazole with aryl boronic acids to provide a variety of 2-arylbenzothiazole derivatives in good yield. The synthetic utility of this methodology is demonstrated by the synthesis of 2-(4-aminophenyl)-6-methoxybenzothiazole, a PET probe precursor for the in vivo imaging of Alzheimer's disease.     

Wavelength-scanning Talbot effect and its application for arbitrary three-dimensional step-height measurement

We demonstrate the phenomenon of Talbot self-image plane shift by tuning the wavelength of the broadband light source. A superluminescent diode (SLD) is used as a broad-band light source and an acousto-optic tunable filter (AOTF) as wavelength-scanning device. A periodic grating is illuminated by the wavelength tuned light of SLD using AOTF and Talbot self-image plane is shifted continuously in the longitudinal direction without mechanically moving the grating. The wavelength-scanning Talbot effect is then implemented for the measurement of arbitrary step-height of discontinuous objects with extended range. The main advantages of the proposed system are non-mechanical scanning, high stability because of it’s common-path geometry and compactness. Since the measurement of the phase is not required the system is free from phase ambiguity problem and therefore, the range of measurement is large as compare to interferometric techniques.