Template-free electrochemical nanofabrication of polyaniline nanobrush and hybrid polyaniline with carbon nanohorns for supercapacitors.

Polyaniline (PANI) nanobrushes were synthesized by template-free electrochemical galvanostatic methods. When the same method was applied to the carbon nanohorn (CNH) solution containing aniline monomers, a hybrid nanostructure containing PANI and CNHs was enabled after electropolymerization. This is the first report on the template-free method to make PANI nanobrushes and homogeneous hybrid soft matter (PANI) with carbon nanoparticles. Raman spectroscopy was used to analyze the interaction between CNH and PANI. Electrochemical nanofabrication offers simplicity and good control when used to make electronic devices. Both of these materials were applied in supercapacitors and an improvement capacitive current by using the hybrid material was observed.

Short-channel polymer field-effect-transistor fabrication using spin-coating-induced edge template and ink-jet printing

A method to fabricate polymer field-effect transistors with submicron channel lengths is described. A thin polymer film is spin coated on a prepatterned resist with a low resolution to create a thickness contrast in the overcoated polymer layer. After plasma and solvent etching, a submicron-sized line structure, which templates the contour of the prepattern, is obtained. A further lift-off process is applied to define source-drain electrodes of transistors. With a combination of ink-jet printing, transistors with channel length down to 400 nm have been fabricated by this method. We show that drive current density increases as expected, while the on/off current ratio 106 is achieved. © 2005 American Institute of Physics.

An approach to scenario analysis of the sustainability of an industrial sector applied to clothing and textiles in the UK

Companies aiming to be 'sustainability leaders' in their sector and governments wanting to support their ambitions need a means to assess the changes required to make a significant difference in the impact of their whole sector. Previous work on scenario analysis/scenario planning demonstrates extensive developments and applications, but as yet few attempts to integrate the 'triple bottom line' concerns of sustainability into scenario planning exercises. This paper, therefore, presents a methodology for scenario analysis of large change to an entire sector. The approach includes calculation of a 'triple bottom line graphic equaliser' to allow exploration and evaluation of the trade-offs between economic, environmental and social impacts. The methodology is applied to the UK's clothing and textiles sector, and results from the study of the sector are summarised. In reflecting on the specific study, some suggestions are made about future application of a similar methodology, including a template of candidate solutions that may lead to significant reduction in impacts. © 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Accurate GTO model for circuit simulations

The GTO model presented in this paper uses analytical expressions to describe the internal physics of the device. It has been implemented to run as compiled code in the SPICE simulation package and as a MAST template in the Saber simulator. A rigorous comparison of measured simulated waveforms and performance parameters (including turn-off energies) for a 3000A device is described and discussed.

Customizing roadmapping

The T-Plan fast-start approach provides a template and a set of customization principles that provide benefits in their own right, as well as initiating a longer-term process. The fast-start approach can be used to explore a particular strategic issue without the commitment to continue to develop an ongoing and embedded process. However, the option to do so is one of the outcomes of the approach and can lead to a strong, well-grounded roadmapping process.

Characterisation and simulation of asphalt road surfaces

Accurate simulation of rolling-tyre vibrations, and the associated noise, requires knowledge of road-surface topology. Full scans of the surface types in common use are, however, not widely available, and are likely to remain so. Ways of producing simulated surfaces from incomplete starting information are thus needed. In this paper, a simulation methodology based solely on line measurements is developed, and validated against a full two-dimensional height map of a real asphalt surface. First the tribological characteristics-asperity height, curvature and nearest-neighbour distributions-of the real surface are analysed. It is then shown that a standard simulation technique, which matches the (isotropic) spectrum and the probability distribution of the height measurements, is unable to reproduce these characteristics satisfactorily. A modification, whereby the inherent granularity of the surface is enforced at the initialisation stage, is introduced, and found to produce simulations whose tribological characteristics are in excellent agreement with the measurements. This method will thus make high-fidelity tyre-vibration calculations feasible for researchers with access to line-scan data only. In addition, the approach to surface tribological characterisation set out here provides a template for efficient cataloguing of road textures, as long as the resulting information can subsequently be used to produce sample realisations. A third simulation algorithm, which successfully addresses this requirement, is therefore also presented. © 2011 Elsevier B.V.

Learning feedforward commands to muscles using time-shifted sensory feedback

In adapting to changing forces in the mechanical environment, humans change the force being applied by the limb by reciprocal changes in the activation of antagonistic muscles. However, they also cocontract these muscles when interaction with the environment is mechanically unstable to increase the mechanical impedance of the limb. We have postulated that appropriate patterns of muscle activation could be learned using a simple scheme in which the naturally occurring stretch reflex is used as a template to adjust feedforward commands to muscles. Feedforward commands are modified iteratively by shifting a scaled version of the reflex response forward in time and adding it to the previous feedforward command. We show that such an algorithm can account for the principal features of changes in muscle activation observed when human subjects adapt to instabilities in the mechanical environment. © 2006.

Coarse-level object recognition using interlevel products of complex wavelets

This paper introduces the Interlevel Product (ILP) which is a transform based upon the Dual-Tree Complex Wavelet. Coefficients of the ILP have complex values whose magnitudes indicate the amplitude of multilevel features, and whose phases indicate the nature of these features (e.g. ridges vs. edges). In particular, the phases of ILP coefficients are approximately invariant to small shifts in the original images. We accordingly introduce this transform as a solution to coarse scale template matching, where alignment concerns between decimation of a target and decimation of a larger search image can be mitigated, and computational efficiency can be maintained. Furthermore, template matching with ILP coefficients can provide several intuitive "near-matches" that may be of interest in image retrieval applications. © 2005 IEEE.

Bayesian classification of acoustical waveforms under environmental variability

We present in this paper a new multivariate probabilistic approach to Acoustic Pulse Recognition (APR) for tangible interface applications. This model uses Principle Component Analysis (PCA) in a probabilistic framework to classify tapping pulses with a high degree of variability. It was found that this model, achieves a higher robustness to pulse variability than simpler template matching methods, specifically when allowed to train on data containing high variability. © 2011 IEEE.

Blue-phase templated fabrication of three-dimensional nanostructures for photonic applications.

A promising approach to the fabrication of materials with nanoscale features is the transfer of liquid-crystalline structure to polymers. However, this has not been achieved in systems with full three-dimensional periodicity. Here we demonstrate the fabrication of self-assembled three-dimensional nanostructures by polymer templating blue phase I, a chiral liquid crystal with cubic symmetry. Blue phase I was photopolymerized and the remaining liquid crystal removed to create a porous free-standing cast, which retains the chiral three-dimensional structure of the blue phase, yet contains no chiral additive molecules. The cast may in turn be used as a hard template for the fabrication of new materials. By refilling the cast with an achiral nematic liquid crystal, we created templated blue phases that have unprecedented thermal stability in the range -125 to 125 °C, and that act as both mirrorless lasers and switchable electro-optic devices. Blue-phase templated materials will facilitate advances in device architectures for photonics applications in particular.