Lithium ion conducting polymer electrolytes based on alternating maleic anhydride copolymer with oligo-oxyethylene side chains

A comb polymer with oligo-oxyethylene side chains of the type -(CH2CB2O)(12)CH3 was prepared from methyl vinyl ether/maleic anhydride copolymer and poly (ethylene glycol) methyl ether. The polymer can dissolve LiClO4 salt to form homogeneous amorphous polymer electrolyte. The ac ion conduction was measured using the complex impedance method, and conductivities were investigated as functions of temperatures and salt concentration. The complexes were first found to have two classes of glass transition which increase with increasing salt content, The optimum conductivity attained at 25 degrees C is in the order of 5.50 x 10(-6)Scm(-1). IR spectroscopy was used to study the cation-polymer interaction.

Synthesis and thermal transitional properties of side-chain liquid crystalline polyacrylates containing para-nitroazobenzene as mesogenic groups

The synthesis and characterization of side-chain liquid crystalline (LC) polyacrylates containing para-nitroazobenzene (Pn) as mesogenic groups were described. Homopolymers with 3 and 4 carbon atoms in the spacers were non-LC polymers; for homopolymers with 6 carbon atoms in the spacer, nematic LC behavior was observed. Copolymers with acrylic acid as one component exhibited an S-Ad phase according to the WAXD results which showed the d/l of 1.4-1.54 for the copolymers with 3, 4, and 6 carbon atoms in the spacers. Considering the molecular structure as well as the WAXD results of the copolymers, the possible molecular arrangement in the smectic Sad phase was proposed, in which the smectic layers were composed of the antiparallel mesogens and the antiparallel arrangement was considered to be enhanced due to the H bond between - COOH and - NO2. The stress-induced orientational phenomena of Pn in the LC states was also discussed. (C) 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

IONIC-CONDUCTION OF A NOVEL COMB POLYMER ELECTROLYTE BASED ON MALEIC-ANHYDRIDE COPOLYMER WITH OLIGO-OXYETHYLENE SIDE-CHAINS

A comb-shaped polymer (BM350) with oligo-oxyethylene side chains of the type -O(CH2CH2O)(7)CH3 was prepared from methyl vinyl ether/maleic anhydride copolymer. Homogeneous amorphous polymer electrolyte complexes were made from the comb polymer and LICF(3)SO(3) by solvent casting from acetone, and their conductivities were measured as a function of temperature and salt concentration. Maximum conductivity close to 5.08 X 10(-5) Scm(-1) was obtained at room temperature and at a [Li]/[EO] ratio of about 0.12. The conductivity which displayed non-Arrhenius behaviour was analyzed using the Vogel-Tammann-Fulcher equation and interpreted on the basis of the configurational entropy model. The results of mid-IR showed that the coordination of Li+ to side chains made the C-O-C band become broader and shift slightly. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis indicated that the oxygen atoms in the two situations could coordinate to Li+ and this coordination resulted in the reduction of the electron orbit binding energy of F and S.

边坡动力响应分析及应用研究

As a marginal subject, dynamic responses of slopes is not only an important problem of engineering geology (Geotechnical problem), but also of other subjects such as seismology, geophysics, seismic engineering and engineering seismic and so on. Owning to the gulf between different subjects, it is arduous to study dynamic responses of slopes and the study is far from ripeness. Studying on the dynamic responses of slopes is very important in theories as well as practices. Supported by hundreds of bibliographies, this paper systemically details the development process of this subject, introduces main means to analyze this subject, and then gives brief remarks to each means respectively. Engineering geology qualitative analysis is the base of slopes dynamic responses study. Because of complexity of geological conditions, engineering geology qualitative analysis is very important in slopes stability study, especially to rock slopes with complex engineering geology conditions. Based on research fruits of forerunners, this paper summarizes factors influencing slopes dynamic stability into five aspects as geology background, stratums, rock mass structure, and topography as well as hydrogeology condition. Based on rock mass structure controlling theory, engineering geology model of the slope is grouped into two typical classes, one is model with obvious controlling discontinuities, which includes horizontal bedded slope, bedding slope, anti-dip slope, slide as well as slope with base rock and weathered crust; the other is model without obvious controlling discontinuities, which includes homogeneous soil slope, joint rock mass slope. Study on slope failure mechanism under dynamic force, the paper concludes that there are two effects will appear in slope during strong earthquake, one is earthquake inertia force, the other is ultra pore pressure buildup. The two effects lead to failure of the slope. To different types of slope failure, the intensity of two effects acting on the slope is different too. To plastic flow failure, pore pressure buildup is dominant; to falling rock failure and toppling failure, earthquake inertia force is dominant in general. This paper briefly introduces the principle of Lagrangian element method. Through a lot of numerical simulations with FLAC3D, the paper comprehensively studies dynamic responses of slopes, and finds that: if the slope is low, displacement, velocity and acceleration are linear enlarging with elevation increasing in vertical direction; if the slope is high enough, displacement, velocity and acceleration are not linear with elevation any more, on the other hand, they fluctuate with certain rhythm. At the same time, the rhythm appears in the horizontal direction in the certain area near surface of the slope. The distribution form of isoline of displacement, velocity and acceleration in the section of the slope is remarkably affected by the slope angle. In the certain area near the slope surface, isoline of displacement, velocity and acceleration is parallel to the surface of the slope, in the mean time, the strike direction of the extreraum area is parallel to the surface of the slope too. Beyond this area, the isoline direction and the strike direction of the extremum area turn to horizontal with invariable distance. But the rhythm appearing or not has nothing to with the slope angle. The paper defines the high slope effect and the low slope effect of slopes dynamic responses, discusses the threshold height H^t of the dynamic high slope effect, and finds that AW is proportional to square root of the dynamic elastic moduli El P , at the same time, it is proportional to period Tof the dynamic input. Thus, the discriminant of H^t is achieved. The discriminant can tell us that to a slope, if its height is larger than one fifth of the wavelength, its response regular will be the dynamic high slope effect; on the other hand, its response regular will be the dynamic low slope effect. Based on these, the discriminant of different slopes taking on same response under the same dynamic input is put forward in this paper. At the same time, the paper studies distribution law of the rhythm extremum point of displacement, velocity and acceleration, and finds that there exists relationship of N = int among the slope height H, the number of the rhythm extremum VHlhro) point N and ffthre- Furthermore, the paper points out that if N^l, the response of the slope will be dynamic high slope effect; \fNside of Jinpingdahewan, is the highest double-curvature arch dam planned in building in the world. However, deep fractures are well developed at the left abutment slope, so stability of the slope is a key engineering geological problem. The paper studies the dynamic stability of the slope. In the analysis, considering regional geology and regional seismology of the slope, combining with characteristics of the slope as well as the scale of the project, PGA(peak ground acceleration) of the site is decided (about 197.1cm/s2) by engineering seismology, and then the seismic input used in the slope dynamic analysis is determined. Comprehensive studies are carried out on the slope, especially to its deep fractures, and then the paper concludes that the deep fractures of slope are the result of the combination unloading effect of gravity and tectonic stress. At the same time, the failure model of the slope under dynamic input is attained. Based on these, the stability is comprehensively studied for section IV-IV with numerical simulation method as well as method putting forward in chapter 5. At last, the paper concludes that under dynamic input, the section will slide along fault f9, some deep fractures and fault/5 with certain permanent displacement, and this must be taken into consideration in the engineering.

A Two-Tiered On-Line Server-Side Bandwidth Reservation Framework for the Real-Time Delivery of Multiple Video Streams

The advent of virtualization and cloud computing technologies necessitates the development of effective mechanisms for the estimation and reservation of resources needed by content providers to deliver large numbers of video-on-demand (VOD) streams through the cloud. Unfortunately, capacity planning for the QoS-constrained delivery of a large number of VOD streams is inherently difficult as VBR encoding schemes exhibit significant bandwidth variability. In this paper, we present a novel resource management scheme to make such allocation decisions using a mixture of per-stream reservations and an aggregate reservation, shared across all streams to accommodate peak demands. The shared reservation provides capacity slack that enables statistical multiplexing of peak rates, while assuring analytically bounded frame-drop probabilities, which can be adjusted by trading off buffer space (and consequently delay) and bandwidth. Our two-tiered bandwidth allocation scheme enables the delivery of any set of streams with less bandwidth (or equivalently with higher link utilization) than state-of-the-art deterministic smoothing approaches. The algorithm underlying our proposed frame-work uses three per-stream parameters and is linear in the number of servers, making it particularly well suited for use in an on-line setting. We present results from extensive trace-driven simulations, which confirm the efficiency of our scheme especially for small buffer sizes and delay bounds, and which underscore the significant realizable bandwidth savings, typically yielding losses that are an order of magnitude or more below our analytically derived bounds.

Profiling side-channel attacks on cryptographic algorithms

Traditionally, attacks on cryptographic algorithms looked for mathematical weaknesses in the underlying structure of a cipher. Side-channel attacks, however, look to extract secret key information based on the leakage from the device on which the cipher is implemented, be it smart-card, microprocessor, dedicated hardware or personal computer. Attacks based on the power consumption, electromagnetic emanations and execution time have all been practically demonstrated on a range of devices to reveal partial secret-key information from which the full key can be reconstructed. The focus of this thesis is power analysis, more specifically a class of attacks known as profiling attacks. These attacks assume a potential attacker has access to, or can control, an identical device to that which is under attack, which allows him to profile the power consumption of operations or data flow during encryption. This assumes a stronger adversary than traditional non-profiling attacks such as differential or correlation power analysis, however the ability to model a device allows templates to be used post-profiling to extract key information from many different target devices using the power consumption of very few encryptions. This allows an adversary to overcome protocols intended to prevent secret key recovery by restricting the number of available traces. In this thesis a detailed investigation of template attacks is conducted, along with how the selection of various attack parameters practically affect the efficiency of the secret key recovery, as well as examining the underlying assumption of profiling attacks in that the power consumption of one device can be used to extract secret keys from another. Trace only attacks, where the corresponding plaintext or ciphertext data is unavailable, are then investigated against both symmetric and asymmetric algorithms with the goal of key recovery from a single trace. This allows an adversary to bypass many of the currently proposed countermeasures, particularly in the asymmetric domain. An investigation into machine-learning methods for side-channel analysis as an alternative to template or stochastic methods is also conducted, with support vector machines, logistic regression and neural networks investigated from a side-channel viewpoint. Both binary and multi-class classification attack scenarios are examined in order to explore the relative strengths of each algorithm. Finally these machine-learning based alternatives are empirically compared with template attacks, with their respective merits examined with regards to attack efficiency.

Colonizing the heart from the epicardial side.

The clinical use of stem cells, such as bone marrow-derived and, more recently, resident cardiac stem cells, offers great promise for treatment of myocardial infarction and heart failure. The epicardium-derived cells have also attracted attention for their angiogenic paracrine actions and ability to differentiate into cardiomyocytes and vascular cells when activated during cardiac injury. In a recent study, Chong and colleagues have described a distinct population of epicardium-derived mesenchymal stem cells that reside in a perivascular niche of the heart and have a broad multilineage potential. Exploring the therapeutic capacity of these cells will be an exciting future endeavor.

Financing of SME's: an asset side story

The main sources of financing for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) are equity (internally generated cash), trade credit paid on time, long and short term bank credits, delayed payment on trade credit and other debt. The marginal costs of each financing instrument are driven by asymmetric information (cost of gathering and analysing information) and transactions costs associated with non-payment (costs of collecting and selling collateral). According to the Pecking Order Theory, firms will choose the cheapest source in terms of cost. In the case of the static trade-off theory, firms choose finance so that the marginal costs across financing sources are all equal, thus an additional Euro of financing is obtained from all the sources whereas under the Pecking Order Theory the source is determined by how far down the Pecking Order the firm is presently located. In this paper, we argue that both of these theories miss the point that the marginal costs are dependent of the use of the funds, and the asset side of the balance sheet primarily determines the financing source for an additional Euro. An empirical analysis on a unique dataset of Portuguese SME's confirms that the composition of the asset side of the balance sheet has an impact of the type of financing used and the Pecking Order Theory and the traditional Static Trade-off theory are rejected.

Managing the supply side for product development in China: a Guanxi network approach

Based on the IMP research tradition this paper regards relationships and networks as key issues in the product development and supply management agenda. Within business networks, co-development is only possible to be analysed when emphasis is placed on interdependences and interactive relationships. Co-development usually implies close relationships that allow companies to rely on each other's resources. Close relationships imply interdependences, which may improve companies' technical and product development. By looking at the actual interactions - between a UK company and its Chinese suppliers - that led to an innovative solution and a successful product launch, evolving relationship patterns are identified and analysed in a case study. Both the literature review and case study findings highlight the importance of the 'guanxi' concept (meaning interpersonal relationships in Mandarin) when analysing business-to-business networks in China. Hence, it is suggested that guanxi-based thinking and acting should be incorporated into the interaction model when considering business networking that embrace China. 'Guanxi' broadens the validity of the interaction model, in terms of geographical proximity, and deepens its theoretical base. The case study provides valuable insights for supply management under a product development context in China. In practice, the main point of interest is that Chinese suppliers are important 'resource' providers as well as 'network' providers. Hence, it is suggested that guanxi practice should be reflected into theoretical developments.