Calculation of the brillouin frequencies close to phase transitions in NaNO2.

We calculate here the Brillouin frequencies of the L-mode [010], [001] and [100] of NaNO2 for the phase transitions from the paraelectric phase to the sinusoidal anti-ferroelectric phase near the Neel temperature (TN = 437.7 K) and to the ferroelectric phase near the critical temperature (TC = 436.3 K) in this crystalline system. For calculating the frequencies. we use the thermal expansivity data for the phase regions considered, under the assumption that the mode Gruneisen parameter determined for each mode remains constant across the phase transitions. Our calculated frequencies agree well with the observed frequencies for the modes studied in NaNO2.     

Benzamide species retained by DMSO composites at a kaolinite surface

The surface area of kaolinite-benzamide (K-Bz)6.62 m² g^–1, whichis noticeably lower than that of kaolinite-dimethyl sulphoxide (K-DMSO) 14.61m² g^–1, the co-perturbationof the inner-surface hydroxyl features at 3697 and 3650 cm^–1,and the increase of d(001) value by 7.44 Å are all related to the benzamidespecies inserted into the kaolinite structure through the replacement of theK-DMSO composites. Disappearance of the DMSO reflections and emergence ofwell-defined features at 6.04(2θ) and 11.16(2θ), 001 and 002 reflectionswith d values of 14.62 and 7.92 Å, respectively point out that the DMSOspecies were substituted efficiently by benzamide molecules. The thermal stabilityof the K-Bz derivative up to 300°C can be attributed to the slightly tiltedaromatic ring keying into the gibbsitic sheets via the –NH₂groups.     

Anthracene Substituted Co (II) and Cu (II) phthalocyanines; Preparations,Investigation of Catalytical and Electrochemical Behaviors

An approach to investigation of catalytical behaviors of Co (II) and Cu (II) phthalocyanines is reported that is based on changing any parameter to effect these behaviors. Towards this end, new anthracene substituted Co (II) and Cu (II) phthalocyanines were prepared and characterized spectroscopic methods. New cobalt (II) and copper (II) phthalocyanines were used as catalyst for oxidation of different phenolic compounds (such as 2,3‐dichlorophenol, 4‐methoxyphenol, 4‐nitrophenol, 2,3,6‐trimethylphenol) with different oxidants. Then, electrochemical characterization of cobalt (II) and copper (II) phthallocyanines were determined by using cyclic voltammetry (CV) and square wave voltammetry (SWV) techniques. Although copper (II) phthalocyanine showed similar Pc based electron transfer processes, cobalt (II) phthalocyanine showed metal and ligand based reduction reactions as expected.     

A simulation as a service cloud middleware

Many seemingly simple questions that individual users face in their daily lives may actually require substantial number of computing resources to identify the right answers. For example, a user may want to determine the right thermostat settings for different rooms of a house based on a tolerance range such that the energy consumption and costs can be maximally reduced while still offering comfortable temperatures in the house. Such answers can be determined through simulations. However, some simulation models as in this example are stochastic, which require the execution of a large number of simulation tasks and aggregation of results to ascertain if the outcomes lie within specified confidence intervals. Some other simulation models, such as the study of traffic conditions using simulations may need multiple instances to be executed for a number of different parameters. Cloud computing has opened up new avenues for individuals and organizations with limited resources to obtain answers to problems that hitherto required expensive and computationally-intensive resources. This paper presents SIMaaS, which is a cloud-based Simulation-as-a-Service to address these challenges. We demonstrate how lightweight solutions using Linux containers (e.g., Docker) are better suited to support such services instead of heavyweight hypervisor-based solutions, which are shown to incur substantial overhead in provisioning virtual machines on-demand. Empirical results validating our claims are presented in the context of two case studies.     

Dendrimer Templated Synthesis of Carbon Nanotube Supported PdAu Catalyst and its Application as Hydrogen Peroxide Sensor

At present, CNT supported catalysts were prepared by two different methods as NaBH₄ reduction and dendrimer templated NaBH₄ reduction method to observe the effect of preparation method on the sensitivity and activity of H₂O₂ reduction. Then, CNT supported Pd_xAu_y bimetallic nanocatalysts having various atomic ratio were synthesized via novel dendrimer templated NaBH₄ reduction method. The resulting materials were characterized employing XRD and TEM. Crystallite size of 10 %Pd_0.7Au_0.3/CNT_dendrimer was obtained from XRD 17.1 nm and mean particle size obtained from TEM is about 15 nm. Moreover, the electrochemical behavior of these catalysts was characterized by cyclic voltammetry (CV) and chronoamperometry (CA) techniques. Pd_xAu_y bimetallic nanocatalysts have excellent electrocatalytic properties and great potential for applications in electrochemical detection. The sensitivity and the limit of detection values for the prepared sensor with monometallic 10 % Pd/CNT_dendrimer catalysts are 219.78 μA mM^?1cm^?2 and 2.6 μM, respectively. However, the sensor constructed with 10 %Pd_0.7Au_0.3/CNT_dendrimer modified electrode has a very high sensitivity of 316.89 μA mM^?1 cm^?2 with a quick response time of 2 s and a wide linear range of 0.001–19.0 mM. In addition, the interference experiment indicated that the 10 % Pd_0.7Au_0.3/CNT_dendrimer nanoparticles have good selectivity toward H₂O₂.     

Influence of Mn incorporation on the structural and optical properties of sol gel derived ZnO film

Undoped and manganese doped ZnO (ZnO:Mn) films were prepared by sol gel method using spin coating technique. The effect of Mn incorporation on the structural and optical properties of the ZnO film has been investigated. The crystalline structure and orientation of the films have been investigated by using their X-ray diffraction spectra. The films exhibit a polycrystalline structure. Mn incorporation led to substantial changes in the structural characteristics of the ZnO film. The scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images of the films showed that the surface morphology of the ZnO film was affected by the Mn incorporation. The transparency of the ZnO film decreased with the Mn incorporation. The optical band gap and Urbach energy values of the ZnO and ZnO:Mn films were found to be 3.22, 3.19 eV and 0.10, 0.23 eV, respectively. The optical constants of these films, such as refractive index, extinction coefficient and optical dielectric constants were determined using transmittance and reflectance spectra. The refractive index dispersion curve of the films obeys the single oscillator model with dispersion parameters. The oscillator energy, E _o , and dispersion energy, E _d, of the films were determined 5.30 and 16.26 eV for ZnO film and 5.80 and 12.14 eV for ZnO:Mn film, respectively.     

Fully integrated PDMS/SU-8/quartz microfluidic chip with a novel macroporous poly dimethylsiloxane (PDMS) membrane for isoelectric focusing of proteins using whole-channel imaging detection

A fully integrated polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)/modified PDMS membrane/SU-8/quartz hybrid chip was developed for protein separation using isoelectric focusing (IEF) mechanism coupled with whole-channel imaging detection (WCID) method. This microfluidic chip integrates three components into one single chip: (i) modified PDMS membranes for separating electrolytes in the reservoirs from the sample in the microchannel and thus reducing pressure disturbance, (ii) SU-8 optical slit to block UV light (below 300?nm) outside the channel aiming to increase detection sensitivity, and (iii) injection and discharge capillaries for continuous operation. Integration of all these components on a single chip is challenging because it requires fabrication techniques for perfect bonding between different materials and is prone to leakage and blockage. This study has addressed all the challenges and presented a fully integrated chip, which is more robust with higher sensitivity than the previously developed IEF chips. This chip was tested by performing protein and pI marker separation. The separation results obtained in this chip were compared with that obtained in commercial cartridges. Side-by-side comparison validated the developed chip and fabrication techniques.     

VQ-adaptive block transform coding of images

Two new design techniques for adaptive orthogonal block transforms based on vector quantization (VQ) codebooks are presented. Both techniques start from reference vectors that are adapted to the characteristics of the signal to be coded, while using different methods to create orthogonal bases. The resulting transforms represent a signal coding tool that stands between a pure VQ scheme on one extreme and signal-independent, fixed block transformation-like discrete cosine transform (DCT) on the other. The proposed technique has superior compaction performance as compared to DCT both in the rendition of details of the image and in the peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) figures.     

Design of efficient M-band coders with linear-phase andperfect-reconstruction properties

This paper presents a new design technique for obtaining M-band orthogonal coders where M=2ⁱ. The structures obtained using the proposed technique have the perfect reconstruction property. Furthermore, all filters that constitute the subband coder are linear-phase FIR-type filters. In contrast with conventional design techniques that attempt to find a unitary alias-component matrix in the frequency domain, we carry out the design in the time domain, based on time-domain orthonormality constraints that the filters must satisfy. The M-band design problem is reduced to the problem of finding a suitable lowpass filter h₀(n). Once a suitable lowpass filter is found, the remaining (M-1) filters of the coder are obtained through the use of shuffling operators on the lowpass filter. This approach leads to a set of filters that use the same numerical coefficient values in different shift positions, allowing very efficient numerical implementation of the subband coder. In addition, by imposing further constraints on the lowpass branch impulse response h₀(n), we are able to construct continuous bases of M-channel wavelets with good regularity properties. Design examples are presented for four-, eight-, and 16-band coders, along with examples of continuous wavelet bases that they generate