Energies of Charge Transfer for the Supramolecular Complexes of [60]- and [70]Fullerenes with a Series of meso-Tetraphenylporphyrins in the Solution State

Supramolecular complexes of [60]- and [70]fullerenes with various meso-tetraphenylporphyrins in toluene solutions have been studied by electronic absorption spectroscopy. Charge transfer (CT) absorption bands are observed in the visible region. Vertical ionization potentials (I _D ^V) of the meso-tetraphenylporphyrins are reported from a study of EDA interaction of these porphyrins with a number of electron acceptors like o-chloranil, p-chloranil, 2,3-dichloro-5,6-dicyanobenzoquinone (DDQ) and vitamin K. The dependence of the CT transition energy on the donor ionization potential has been utilized to estimate the vertical electron affinities (E _A ^V) of [60]- and [70]fullerenes in solution. The value of E _A ^V for [60]fullerene is found to be 0.10 eV lower in magnitude than that of [70]fullerene. We have extracted degrees of CT, and oscillator and transition dipole strengths of the fullerenes/meso-tetraphenylporphyrins complexes. The experimental results show that the CT complexes studied here have a neutral character in their ground states. Electronic coupling elements have been determined for fullerene/meso-tetraphenylporphyrin complexes. Values of the solvent reorganization energy indicate that the electron transfer process takes place at a faster rate in the case of [70]fullerene/meso-tetraphenylporphyrin complexes.     

Some principles for designing a wide-area WDM optical network

We explore design principles for next-generation optical wide-area networks, employing wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) and targeted to nationwide coverage. This optical network exploits wavelength multiplexers and optical switches in routing nodes, so that an arbitrary virtual topology may be embedded on a given physical fiber network. The virtual topology, which is used as a packet-switched network and which consists of a set of all-optical “lightpaths”, is set up to exploit the relative strengths of both optics and electronics-viz. packets of information are carried by the virtual topology “as far as possible” in the optical domain, but packet forwarding from lightpath to lightpath is performed via electronic switching, whenever required. We formulate the virtual topology design problem as an optimization problem with one of two possible objective functions: (1) for a given traffic matrix, minimize the network-wide average packet delay (corresponding to a solution for present traffic demands), or (2) maximize the scale factor by which the traffic matrix can be scaled up (to provide the maximum capacity upgrade for future traffic demands). Since simpler versions of this problem have been shown to be NP-hard, we resort to heuristic approaches. Specifically, we employ an iterative approach which combines “simulated annealing” (to search for a good virtual topology) and “flow deviation” (to optimally route the traffic-and possibly bifurcate its components-on the virtual topology). We do not consider the number of available wavelengths to be a constraint, i.e., we ignore the routing of lightpaths and wavelength assignment for these lightpaths. We illustrate our approaches by employing experimental traffic statistics collected from NSFNET     

Landcover classification in MRF context using Dempster-Shafer fusion for multisensor imagery.

This work deals with multisensor data fusion to obtain landcover classification. The role of feature-level fusion using the Dempster-Shafer rule and that of data-level fusion in the MRF context is studied in this paper to obtain an optimally segmented image. Subsequently, segments are validated and classification accuracy for the test data is evaluated. Two examples of data fusion of optical images and a synthetic aperture radar image are presented, each set having been acquired on different dates. Classification accuracies of the technique proposed are compared with those of some recent techniques in literature for the same image data.     

Peak effect at microwave frequencies in swift heavy ion irradiated YBa2Cu3O7-δ thin films

The vortex dynamics at microwave frequencies in YBa₂Cu₃O_7-δ (YBCO) films have been studied. We observe a peak in the microwave (4.88 and 9.55 GHz) surface resistance in some films in magnetic fields up to 0.8 T. This is associated with the ‘peak-effect’ phenomenon and reflects the order-disorder transformation of the flux line lattice near the transition temperature. Introduction of artificial pinning centers like columnar defects created as a result of irradiation with 200 MeV Ag ion (at a fluence of 4×10¹⁰ ions/cm²) leads to the suppression of the peak in films previously exhibiting ‘peak effect’.     

Enhanced magnetic anisotropy of nickel nanosheet prepared in Na-4 mica

Nanosheets of nickel with thickness equal to 0.6 nm have been grown within the interlayer spaces of Na-4 mica. The sheets are made up of percolative clusters of nanodisks. Magnetization characteristics indicate a superparamagnetic behavior with a blocking temperature of 428 K. The magnetic anisotropy constant as extracted from the coercivity data has been found to be higher than that of bulk nickel by two orders of magnitude. This is ascribed to a large aspect ratio of the nickel nanophase. The Bloch exponent is also found to be considerably different from that of bulk nickel because of a size effect. The Bloch equation is still found to be valid for the two dimensional structures.     

Thionyl Chloride-pyridine Mediated Rearrangement. Synthesis of Potential Intermediates for (+) and (±)-Occidol

Thionyl chloride-pyridine mediated rearrangement of cylohexadienyl alcohols (2) and (8) has provided hyposantonin (3) and tetrahydronaphthalene (9), respectively, which in turn have served as potential intermediates for the synthesis of optically active and racemic occidol (6), respectively.     

Pipelined VLSI Architecture using CORDIC for Transform Domain Equalizer

In this paper, a pipelined architecture using CORDIC for realization of transform domain equalizer is presented. Transform domain equalizer has much faster convergence than its time domain counterpart for practical hardware realization having nonzero adaptation delay. Here running DFT is employed as the transform, and CORDIC is used for realization of running DFT. Pipelining is applied throughout the architecture, thus limiting the critical path delay to the propagation delay of a single 16 bit adder for 16 bit arithmetic. For N tap equalizer, primary clock speed is N times of the sample clock speed, so that on arrival of each sample, the computation of whole transform and weight update is possible. In the proposed architecture, hardware complexity is reduced by fully utilizing the pipeline without using parallel structures. The adaptation delay is only 2 sample clock periods resulting in fast convergence. The proposed architecture is suitable for VLSI implementation with primary clock speed limited by the binary adder propagation delay which could be as low as 2 ns in the present state-of-the-art technology.     

Peptide‐poly(ε‐caprolactone) biohybrids by grafting‐from ring‐opening polymerization: Synthesis,aggregation, and crystalline properties

Well‐defined peptide‐poly(ε‐caprolactone) (Pep‐PCL) biohybrids were successfully synthesized by grafting‐from ring‐opening polymerization (ROP) of ε‐caprolactone (CL) using designed amine‐terminated sequence‐defined peptides as macroinitiators. MALDI‐TOF‐MS and ¹H NMR analyses confirmed the successful attachment of peptide to the PCL chain. The gel permeation chromatography (GPC) measurement showed that the Pep‐PCL biohybrids with controllable molecular weights and low polydispersities (PDI <1.5) were obtained by this approach. The aggregation of Pep‐PCL hybrid molecules in THF solution resulted in the formation of micro/nanospheres as confirmed through FESEM, TEM, and DLS analyses. The circular dichroism study revealed that the secondary structure of peptide moiety was changed in the peptide‐PCL biohybrids. The crystallization and melting behavior of Pep‐PCL hybrids were somewhat changed compared with that of neat PCL of comparable molecular weight as revealed by DSC and XRD measurements. In Pep‐PCL biohybrids, extinction rings were observed in the PCL spherulites, in contrast with the normal spherulite morphology of the neat PCL. There was a substantial decrease (4–5 folds) in the spherulitic growth rate after the incorporation of peptide moiety at the end of PCL chain as measured by polarizing optical microscopy. Pseudomonas lipase catalyzed enzymatic degradation was studied for Pep‐PCL hybrids and neat PCL. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem, 2012