Kinetics of reaction of triethylammonium carboxylates with ethyl α‐halogenoacetate in various solvents

The kinetics of the reaction of ethyl α‐halogenoacetate with benzoic acid in the presence of triethylamine in aqueous acetone and in various solvents have been investigated. The rate constant of the reaction is 4–260 times higher in aprotic dipolar solvents than in protic solvents. The simple regression and multiple regression of log k₂ with various solvent parameters have led to the conclusion that in addition to the solvent polarity, various other solvent properties, together or individually, influence the reaction rate. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Int J Chem Kinet 31: 894–900, 1999     

Unsteady flow past an impulsively started vertical plate with heat and mass transfer

Finite difference solution of the transient free-convection flow of an incompressible viscous fluid past an impulsively started semi-infinite vertical plate with heat and mass transfer is presented here. The steady state velocity, temperature and concentration profiles are shown graphically. Velocity profiles are compared with exact solution. It has been observed that there is a rise in the velocity due to the presence of a mass diffusion. An increase in Schmidt number, leads to a fall in the velocity. Stability and the convergence of the finite difference scheme are established. Received on 7 January 1998     

India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO)

We present some physics possibilities with an iron calorimeter detector (ICAL) and a status report on the feasibility study to construct such a detector at a future possible India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO). This talk was given at the workshop on high energy physics phenomenology, WHEPP-8, in Jan. 2004, at IIT Bombay.     

蓝牙模块的测试方案

测试项目在蓝牙环境中，哪些方面需要测试？蓝牙模块包括连接到主机设备的无线电 (硬件)和堆栈 (软件)。协议是构成堆栈的一套代码，在生产车间中将不会测试协议。修订系统软件可能会改变硬件性能，但必须在设计集成阶段对其进行粼选。需要使用的一些重要参数，如误码率(BER)、功率电平等对功能进行测试。选择测试必需理解由于无线电的设计方式哪些内容可能会改变，并根据测试的项目查看其发挥的作用。它是否提供了独特的功能？没有提供哪些功能？如打印机使用的蓝牙链路。在技术得到验证前，打印机可能仍会通过电缆提供打印功能，因此测…     

Parasitic compensated switched capacitor circuits

A parasitic-insensitive switched capacitor circuit is presented which can functionally replace the `toggle-switched? capacitor. Its properties are established via an inverting integrator application. A related parasitic-insensitive realisation is also shown for a noninverting integrator, which can provide a 3/2 clock period transmission delay.     

Orthogonal arrays: An introduction and their application in optimizing underrelaxation factors in ‘simple’-based algorithm

The primary aim of this paper is to demonstrate how the ‘design-of-experiments’ techniques which are successful in physical experiments could also be adapted to a numerical simulation code. As an example this technique is applied to a general finite difference code used for predicting three-dimensional turbulent recirculating flows. Here the equations for velocities and continuity are solved using the algorithm called SIMPLE, which stands for semi-implicit method for pressure-linked equations. Physical modelling of turbulence is taken care of by means of kinetic energy and turbulence dissipation rate equations. The objective is to optimize the underrelaxation factors of primary and secondary flow variables so that the number of iterations required for convergence is minimum. This is done by the orthogonal array technique (a particular type of design-of-experiment technique). The geometry considered for this purpose is that of a simple gas turbine can combustor and the study is restricted to the isothermal non-reacting condition. Tests are carried out on three different grid configurations. In each case the underrelaxation factor for velocities contributed most to speed up the rate of convergence. Also, for each grid configuration the underrelaxation factor settings for minimum iterations for convergence was found to be same. Hence it is proposed that when doing grid independence tests for any similar flow situation, all the underrelaxation factors could be optimized on coarse grids.     

Universality in structure and elasticity of polymer-nanoparticle gels

We propose a combination of polymer field theory and off-lattice computer simulations to study polymer-bridged gelation in polymer-nanoparticle mixtures. We use this method to study the structure of gels formed in attractive polymer-colloid systems. Our results indicate that such gels exhibit a universal structure with a fractal dimension d(f) approximately 2.5 characteristic of random percolation. By mapping to an affine-network model, the enhancement in elastic moduli is predicted to follow a critical exponent nu(eta) approximately 1.8 characteristic of the resistor network percolation. We analyze selected experimental results to suggest the existence of a universality class corresponding to our results.     

Characterization of secondary and tertiary conformational changes of beta-lactoglobulin adsorbed on silica nanoparticle surfaces

Nanoparticles possess unique properties as a result of their large surface area per unit volume and therefore can be functionalized by the immobilization of enzymes for a variety of biosensing applications. Changes in the tertiary conformation of beta-lactoglobulin adsorbed on 90 nm silica nanoparticles with time were inferred using tryptophan fluorescence and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) for different surface concentrations, temperature, pH, ionic strength, and 2,2,2-trifluoroethanol (TFE) and dithiothreitol (DTT) concentrations. Rapid initial unfolding followed by a much slower rate at longer times was observed, with the extent of unfolding being higher at lower surface concentrations, higher ionic strengths, higher temperature, higher TFE and DTT concentrations, and pI. The effect of temperature on the unfolding of adsorbed protein on the nanoparticle surface was similar to that in the bulk even though the extent of unfolding was higher for adsorbed protein molecules. The results of the extent of change in tertiary conformation using FTIR as indicated by the change in the ratio of amide II'/amide I were consistent with those obtained by tryptophan fluorescence whereas the rates of conformational changes given by FTIR were found to be much faster. Circular dichroism (CD) spectra showed that altering the surface concentration by itself did not change the secondary structure of beta-lactoglobulin on the surface. TFE was found to increase the alpha helix content at the expense of the fraction of the beta sheet, whereas the beta sheet was converted to an unordered conformation in the presence of DTT.