Proportional resonant controller based circulating power setup for thermal testing of multilevel inverter

A regenerative or circulating-power method is presented in this paper for heat run test on the legs of a three-level neutral point clamped (NPC) inverter. This test ensures that only losses are drawn from the dc supply, while rated power is circulated between the two legs, thus minimising wastage of energy. A proportional-resonant (PR) controller based current control scheme is proposed here for the circulating power test setup in NPC inverter. Simulation and experimental results are presented to validate the controller design at various operating conditions. Results of thermal test on the inverter legs are presented at two different operating conditions.

Power-law transformation for enhanced recognition of born-digital word images

In this paper, we discuss the issues related to word recognition in born-digital word images. We introduce a novel method of power-law transformation on the word image for binarization. We show the improvement in image binarization and the consequent increase in the recognition performance of OCR engine on the word image. The optimal value of gamma for a word image is automatically chosen by our algorithm with fixed stroke width threshold. We have exhaustively experimented our algorithm by varying the gamma and stroke width threshold value. By varying the gamma value, we found that our algorithm performed better than the results reported in the literature. On the ICDAR Robust Reading Systems Challenge-1: Word Recognition Task on born digital dataset, as compared to the recognition rate of 61.5% achieved by TH-OCR after suitable pre-processing by Yang et. al. and 63.4% by ABBYY Fine Reader (used as baseline by the competition organizers without any preprocessing), we achieved 82.9% using Omnipage OCR applied on the images after being processed by our algorithm.

Electrocatalytic oxidation of C-3-aliphatic alcohols on electrodeposited Pd-PEDOT nanodendrites in Alkaline medium

Nanodendritic Pd is electrodeposited on poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) coated carbon paper electrode. Electrodeposited Pd is non-dendritic in the absence of PEDOT. The electrooxidation of C-3-aliphatic alcohols, namely, propanol (PA), 1,2- propanediol (1, 2-PD), 1, 3-propanediol (1, 3-PD), and glycerol (GL) is studied in 1.0 M NaOH. The catalytic activity of nanodendritic Pd is greater than that of non-dendritic Pd for oxidation of the four alcohols molecules. Among those molecules the oxidation rate increases as: PA< 1, 2-PD < 1, 3-PD < GL. The cyclic voltammetric oxidation current peak appearing in the reverse direction of the sweep is greatly influenced by the nature of alcohol. The reduction of oxide film on Pd surface is attributed to affect the magnitude of backward peak current density. The amperometry and repeated cyclic voltammetry data suggest a high stability of nanodendritic Pd in alkaline medium. Glycerol is expected to be an appropriate alcohol for application as a fuel in alkaline fuel cells at nanodendritic electrodeposited Pd.

Multicomponent self-sorting of a Pd-7 molecular boat and its use in catalytic Knoevenagel condensation

Unique three-component self-assembly of a cis-blocked 90 degrees Pd(II) acceptor with amixture of tri- and tetra-imidazole donors led to the self-sorting of a Pd-7 molecular boat with an internal nanocavity, which catalyses the Knoevenagel condensation of a series of aromatic aldehydes with 1,3-dimethylbarbituric acid and Meldrum's acid in aqueous media.

Pt-Ru decorated self-assembled TiO2-carbon hybrid nanostructure for enhanced methanol electrooxidation

Porous titanium oxide-carbon hybrid nanostructure (TiO2-C) with a specific surface area of 350 m(2)/g and an average pore-radius of 21 center dot 8 is synthesized via supramolecular self-assembly with an in situ crystallization process. Subsequently, TiO2-C supported Pt-Ru electro-catalyst (Pt-Ru/TiO2-C) is obtained and investigated as an anode catalyst for direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs). X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) have been employed to evaluate the crystalline nature and the structural properties of TiO2-C. TEM images reveal uniform distribution of Pt-Ru nanoparticles (d (Pt -aEuro parts per thousand Ru) = 1 center dot 5-3 center dot 5 nm) on TiO2-C. Methanol oxidation and accelerated durability studies on Pt-Ru/TiO2-C exhibit enhanced catalytic activity and durability compared to carbon-supported Pt-Ru. DMFC employing Pt-Ru/TiO2-C as an anode catalyst delivers a peak-power density of 91 mW/cm(2) at 65 A degrees C as compared to the peak-power density of 60 mW/cm(2) obtained for the DMFC with carbon-supported Pt-Ru anode catalyst operating under similar conditions.

Interconnected, ultrafine osmium nanoclusters: preparation and surface enhanced Raman scattering activity

Interconnected Os nanochains consisting of ultrafine particles prepared using a simple procedure yield a coupled surface plasmon peak in the visible region and can be used as substrates for surface enhanced Raman scattering of various analytes.

Origin of enhanced photocatalytic activity and photoconduction in high aspect ratio ZnO nanorods

Faceted ZnO nanorods with different aspect ratios were synthesized by a solvothermal method by tuning the reaction time. Increased reaction leads to the formation of high aspect ratio ZnO nanorods largely bound by the prism planes. The high aspect ratio rods showed significantly higher visible light photocatalytic activity when compared to the lower aspect ratio structures. It is proposed that the higher activity is due to better charge separation in the elongated 1D structure. In addition, the fraction of unsaturated Zn2+ sites is higher on the {10 (1) over bar0} facets, leading to better adsorption of oxygen-containing species. These species enhance the production of reactive radicals that are responsible for photodegradation. The photocurrent for these ZnO nanostructures under solar light was measured and a direct correlation between photocurrent and aspect ratio was observed. Since the underlying mechanisms for photodegradation and photocurrent generation are directly related to the efficiency of electron-hole creation and separation, this observation corroborates that the charge separation processes are indeed enhanced in the high aspect ratio structures. The efficiency of photoconduction (electron-hole pair separation) could be further improved by attaching Au nanoparticles on ZnO, which can act as a sink for the electrons. This heterostructure exhibits a high chemisorption of oxygen, which facilitates the production of highly reactive radicals contributing to the high photoreactivity. The suggested mechanisms are applicable to other n-type semiconductor nanostructures with important implications for applications relating to energy and the environment.

Optical read-out scheme based on Grated Waveguide Cantilever cavity resonance for interrogation of cantilever sensor arrays

The design and analysis of an optical read-out scheme based on a grated waveguide (GWG) resonator for interrogating microcantilever sensor arrays is presented. The optical system consisting of a micro cantilever monolithically integrated in proximity to a grated waveguide (GWG), is realized in silicon optical bench platform. The mathematical analysis of the optical system is performed using a Fabry-Perot interferometer model with a lossy cavity formed between the cantilever and the GWG and an analytical expression is derived for the optical power transmission as a function of the cantilever deflection which corresponds to cavity width variation. The intensity transmission of the optical system for different cantilever deflections estimated using the analytical expression captures the essential features exhibited by a FDTD numerical model.

Interdiffusion study in the Pd-Pt system

Interdiffusion, intrinsic, tracer and impurity diffusion coefficients are calculated in the Pd-Pt system. Interdiffusion coefficients are more or less insensitive to composition change. Activation energy varies in the range of 324-353 kJ/mol. Impurity diffusion coefficients calculated in this study and available tracer diffusion coefficients in pure elements indicate that Pd has higher diffusion rate compared to Pt in pure Pd, whereas, both the elements have similar diffusion rates in Pt. Kirkendall marker experiments indicate that Pd has much higher diffusion rate in Pd3.5at.%Pt compared to Pt.

Polymorphic phase boundaries and enhanced piezoelectric response in extended composition range in the lead free ferroelectric BaTi1-xZrxO3

Neutron powder diffraction study of Ba(Ti1-xZrx)O-3 at close composition intervals has revealed coexistence of ferroelectric phases: orthorhombic (Amm2) + tetragonal (P4mm) for 0.02 <= x <= 0.05 and rhombohedral (R3m) + orthorhombic (Amm2) for 0.07 <= x < 0.09. These compositions exhibit relatively enhanced piezoelectric properties as compared to their single phase counterparts outside this composition region, confirming the polymorphic phase boundary nature of the phase coexistence regions. (C) 2013 AIP Publishing LLC.

Enhanced DMT-optimality criterion for STBC schemes for asymmetric MIMO systems

For any n(t) transmit, n(r) receive antenna (n(t) x n(r)) multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system in a quasi-static Rayleigh fading environment, it was shown by Elia et al. that linear space-time block code schemes (LSTBC schemes) that have the nonvanishing determinant (NVD) property are diversity-multiplexing gain tradeoff (DMT)-optimal for arbitrary values of n(r) if they have a code rate of n(t) complex dimensions per channel use. However, for asymmetric MIMO systems (where n(r) < n(t)), with the exception of a few LSTBC schemes, it is unknown whether general LSTBC schemes with NVD and a code rate of n(r) complex dimensions per channel use are DMT optimal. In this paper, an enhanced sufficient criterion for any STBC scheme to be DMT optimal is obtained, and using this criterion, it is established that any LSTBC scheme with NVD and a code rate of min {n(t), n(r)} complex dimensions per channel use is DMT optimal. This result settles the DMT optimality of several well-known, low-ML-decoding-complexity LSTBC schemes for certain asymmetric MIMO systems.

Enhanced photoabsorption efficiency of incomplete nanoshells

The rather low scattering or extinction efficiency of small nanoparticles, metallic and otherwise, is significantly enhanced when they are adsorbed on a larger core particle. But the photoabsorption by particles with varying surface area fractions on a larger core particle is found to be limited by saturation. It is found that the core-shell particle can have a lower absorption efficiency than a dielectric core with its surface partially nucleated with absorbing particles-an ``incomplete nanoshell'' particle. We have both numerically and experimentally studied the optical efficiencies of titania (TiO2) nucleated in various degrees on silica (SiO2) nanospheres. We show that optimal surface nucleation over cores of appropriate sizes and optical properties will have a direct impact on the applications exploiting the absorption and scattering properties of such composite particles.

Flow-enhanced pairing and other unusual effects in Fermi gases in synthetic gauge fields

Recent experiments on fermions in synthetic gauge fields result in systems with a spin-orbit coupling along one spatial axis, a detuning field, and a Zeeman field. We show theoretically that the presence of all three results in interesting and unusual phenomena in a system of interacting fermions (interactions described by a scattering length). For two fermions, bound states appear only over a certain range of the center-of-mass momenta. The deepest bound state appears at a nonzero center-of-mass momentum. For center-of-mass momenta without a bound state, the gauge field induces a resonance-like feature in the scattering continuum resulting in a large scattering phase shift. In the case of many particles, we demonstrate that the system, in a parameter range, shows flow-enhanced pairing, i.e., a Fulde-Farrell-Larkin-Ovchnnikov superfluid state made of robust pairs with a finite center-of-mass momentum. Yet another regime of parameters offers the opportunity to study strongly interacting normal states of spin-orbit-coupled fermionic systems utilizing the resonance-like feature induced by the synthetic gauge field.

The dual role of Zn-acid medium for one-step rapid synthesis of M@rGO (M = Au, Pt, Pd and Ag) hybrid nanostructures at room temperature

We report a new protocol for the synthesis of M@rGO (M = Au, Pt, Pd, Ag and rGO = reduced graphene oxide) hybrid nanostructures at room temperature in Zn-acid medium. The roles of Zn-acid are to reduce the GO by generated hydrogen and the deposition of metal nanoparticles on rGO by galvanic replacement reaction between Zn and Mn+.

An enthalpy-based model of dendritic growth in a convecting binary alloy melt

Purpose-In the present work, a numerical method, based on the well established enthalpy technique, is developed to simulate the growth of binary alloy equiaxed dendrites in presence of melt convection. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach-The principle of volume-averaging is used to formulate the governing equations (mass, momentum, energy and species conservation) which are solved using a coupled explicit-implicit method. The velocity and pressure fields are obtained using a fully implicit finite volume approach whereas the energy and species conservation equations are solved explicitly to obtain the enthalpy and solute concentration fields. As a model problem, simulation of the growth of a single crystal in a two-dimensional cavity filled with an undercooled melt is performed. Findings-Comparison of the simulation results with available solutions obtained using level set method and the phase field method shows good agreement. The effects of melt flow on dendrite growth rate and solute distribution along the solid-liquid interface are studied. A faster growth rate of the upstream dendrite arm in case of binary alloys is observed, which can be attributed to the enhanced heat transfer due to convection as well as lower solute pile-up at the solid-liquid interface. Subsequently, the influence of thermal and solutal Peclet number and undercooling on the dendrite tip velocity is investigated. Originality/value-As the present enthalpy based microscopic solidification model with melt convection is based on a framework similar to popularly used enthalpy models at the macroscopic scale, it lays the foundation to develop effective multiscale solidification.