Influence of annealing temperature on Raman and photoluminescence spectra of electron beam evaporated TiO2 thin films

Titanium dioxide (TiO2) thin films were deposited on fused quartz substrates by electron beam evaporation method at room temperature. The films were annealed at different temperatures in ambient air. The surface morphology/roughness at different annealing temperatures were analyzed by atomic force microscopy (AFM). The crystallinity of the film has improved with the increase of annealing temperature. The effect of annealing temperature on optical, photoluminescence and Raman spectra of TiO2 films were investigated. The refractive index of TiO2 films were studied by envelope method and reflectance spectra and it is observed that the refractive index of the films was high. The photoluminescence intensity corresponding to green emission was enhanced with increase of annealing temperature. The peaks in Raman spectra depicts that the TiO2 film is of anatase phase after annealing at 300 degrees C and higher. The films show high refractive index, good optical quality and photoluminescence characteristics suggest that possible usage in opto-electronic and optical coating applications. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Influence of the Blade Hub Geometry on the Performance of Low-Head Axial Flow Turbines

The influence of geometric parameters, such as blade profile and hub geometry on axial flow turbines for micro hydro application remains poorly characterized. This paper first introduces a holistic theoretical model for studying the hydraulic phenomenon resulting from geometric modification to the blades. It then describes modification carried out on two runner stages, of which one has untwisted blades and the other has twisted blades obtained by modifying the inlet hub. The experimental results showed that the performance of the untwisted blade runner was satisfactory with a maximum efficiency of 68%. However, positive effects of twisted blades were clearly evident with an efficiency rise of more than 2%. This study also looks into the possible limitations of the model and suggests the extension of the experimental work and the use of computational tools to conduct a progressive validation of all experimental findings, especially on the flow physics within the hub region and the slip phenomena. The paper finally underlines the importance of developing a standardization philosophy for axial flow turbines specific for micro hydro requirements. DOI:10.1061/(ASCE)EY.1943-7897.0000060. (C) 2012 American Society of Civil Engineers.

Simulation of Influence of Bilayer Melting on Dynamics and Thermodynamics of Interfacial Water

We investigate the effect of bilayer melting transition on thermodynamics and dynamics of interfacial water using molecular dynamics simulation with the two-phase thermodynamic model. We show that the diffusivity of interface water depicts a dynamic crossover at the chain melting transition following an Arrhenius behavior until the transition temperature. The corresponding change in the diffusion coefficient from the bulk to the interface water is comparable with experimental observations found recently for water near 1,2-dipalmitoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (DPPC) vesicles Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. 13, 7732 (2011)]. The entropy and potential energy of interfacial water show distinct changes at the bilayer melting transition, indicating a strong correlation in the thermodynamic state of water and the accompanying first-order phase transition of the bilayer membrane. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.110.018303

Influence of Side-Chain on Structural Order and Photophysical Properties in Thiophene Based Diketopyrrolopyrroles: A Systematic Study

In this work, we have synthesized a series of TDPP derivatives with different alkyl groups such as n-hexyl (-C6H13) 3a, 2-ethylhexyl (-(2-C2H5)C6H12) 3b, triethylene glycol mono methyl ether (-(CH2CH2O)(3c)H-3, TEG) 3c, and octadodecyl (-(8-C8H17)C12H22) 3d. N,N dialkylation of Othiophene-diketopyrrolopyrrole (TDPP, 1) strongly influences its solubility, solid state packing, and structural order. These materials allow us to explicitly study the influence of alkyl chain on solid state packing and photophysical properties. TDPP moiety containing two different alkyl groups 3e (TEG and 2-ethylhexyl) and 3f (TEG and n-hexyl) were synthesized for the first time. The absorption spectra of all derivatives exhibited a red shift in solid state when compared to their solution spectra. The type of alkyl chains leads to change in the optical band gaps in solid state. The fluorescence study reveals that TDPP derivatives have strong pi-pi interaction in the solid state and the extent of bathochromic shift is due to combination of intramolecular interaction and formation of aggregates in solid state. This behavior strongly depends on the nature of alkyl chain. The presence of strong C-H center dot center dot center dot O inter chain interactions and CH-pi interactions in solid state exhibits strong influence on the photophysical properties of TDPP chromophore.

Incentive Compatible Influence Maximization in Social Networks with Application to Viral Marketing

Information diffusion and influence maximization are important and extensively studied problems in social networks. Various models and algorithms have been proposed in the literature in the context of the influence maximization problem. A crucial assumption in all these studies is that the influence probabilities are known to the social planner. This assumption is unrealistic since the influence probabilities are usually private information of the individual agents and strategic agents may not reveal them truthfully. Moreover, the influence probabilities could vary significantly with the type of the information flowing in the network and the time at which the information is propagating in the network. In this paper, we use a mechanism design approach to elicit influence probabilities truthfully from the agents. Our main contribution is to design a scoring rule based mechanism in the context of the influencer-influencee model. In particular, we show the incentive compatibility of the mechanisms and propose a reverse weighted scoring rule based mechanism as an appropriate mechanism to use.

Influence limitation in multi-campaign social networks: A Shapley value based approach

We investigate the problem of influence limitation in the presence of competing campaigns in a social network. Given a negative campaign which starts propagating from a specified source and a positive/counter campaign that is initiated, after a certain time delay, to limit the the influence or spread of misinformation by the negative campaign, we are interested in finding the top k influential nodes at which the positive campaign may be triggered. This problem has numerous applications in situations such as limiting the propagation of rumor, arresting the spread of virus through inoculation, initiating a counter-campaign against malicious propaganda, etc. The influence function for the generic influence limitation problem is non-submodular. Restricted versions of the influence limitation problem, reported in the literature, assume submodularity of the influence function and do not capture the problem in a realistic setting. In this paper, we propose a novel computational approach for the influence limitation problem based on Shapley value, a solution concept in cooperative game theory. Our approach works equally effectively for both submodular and non-submodular influence functions. Experiments on standard real world social network datasets reveal that the proposed approach outperforms existing heuristics in the literature. As a non-trivial extension, we also address the problem of influence limitation in the presence of multiple competing campaigns.

Influence of nature of support on the catalytic activity of supported molybdenum-oxo species in benzyl alcohol conversion

Supported catalysts containing 15 wt.% of molybdenum have been prepared by the incipient wetness impregnation method. CaO, MgO, Al2O3, Zr(OH)4 and Al(OH)3 have been used as supports for the preparation of supported Mo catalysts. Characterisation of all the materials prepared has been carried out through BET surface area measurement, X-ray diffractometry and FT-IR spectroscopy. Catalytic activity measurements have been carried out with reference to structure-sensitive benzyl alcohol conversion in the liquid phase. The percentage conversion of benzyl alcohol to benzaldehyde and toluene varied over a large range depending on the support used for the preparation of catalysts, indicating the importance of the support on catalytic activity of Mo catalysts. Al(OH)3 has been found to be the best support for molybdenum among all the supports used. Support–metal interaction (SMI) has been found to play an important role in determining the catalytic activity of supported catalysts.

Generation of a short-duration ultrawideband chirped-pulse using CRLH transmission lines

In this paper we present the various design issues related to CRLH-Transmission lines for the generation of short duration Ultra-Wideband chirped-pulse. The major parameters of the CRLH Transmission lines affecting the BandWidth are discussed and methods to increase BandWidth are also suggested. Also presented is the role of components of CRLH Transmission lines in determining the chirp duration. The techniques of controlling the chirp duration by regulating these components are also discussed. Simulations results are also included.

Analysis of distance relay trip regions for EHV and UHV transmission lines

This paper presents comparative evaluation of the distance relay characteristics for UHV and EHV transmission lines. Distance protection relay characteristics for the EHV and UHV systems are developed using Electromagnetic Transients (EMT) program. The variation of ideal trip boundaries for both the systems are presented. Unlike the conventional distance protection relay which uses a lumped parameter model, this paper uses the distributed parameter model. The effect of larger shunt susceptance on the trip boundaries is highlighted. Performance of distance relay with ideal trip boundaries for EHV and UHV lines have been tested for various fault locations and fault resistances. Electromagnetic Transients (EMT) program has been developed considering distributed parameter line model for simulating the test systems. The voltage and current phasors are computed from the signals using an improved full cycle DFT algorithm taking 20 samples per cycle. Two practical transmission systems of Indian power grid, namely 765 kV UHV transmission line and SREB 24-bus 400kV EHV system are used to test the performance of the proposed approach.

Improved Detection of Remote Homologues Using Cascade PSI-BLAST: Influence of Neighbouring Protein Families on Sequence Coverage

Background: Development of sensitive sequence search procedures for the detection of distant relationships between proteins at superfamily/fold level is still a big challenge. The intermediate sequence search approach is the most frequently employed manner of identifying remote homologues effectively. In this study, examination of serine proteases of prolyl oligopeptidase, rhomboid and subtilisin protein families were carried out using plant serine proteases as queries from two genomes including A. thaliana and O. sativa and 13 other families of unrelated folds to identify the distant homologues which could not be obtained using PSI-BLAST. Methodology/Principal Findings: We have proposed to start with multiple queries of classical serine protease members to identify remote homologues in families, using a rigorous approach like Cascade PSI-BLAST. We found that classical sequence based approaches, like PSI-BLAST, showed very low sequence coverage in identifying plant serine proteases. The algorithm was applied on enriched sequence database of homologous domains and we obtained overall average coverage of 88% at family, 77% at superfamily or fold level along with specificity of similar to 100% and Mathew's correlation coefficient of 0.91. Similar approach was also implemented on 13 other protein families representing every structural class in SCOP database. Further investigation with statistical tests, like jackknifing, helped us to better understand the influence of neighbouring protein families. Conclusions/Significance: Our study suggests that employment of multiple queries of a family for the Cascade PSI-BLAST searches is useful for predicting distant relationships effectively even at superfamily level. We have proposed a generalized strategy to cover all the distant members of a particular family using multiple query sequences. Our findings reveal that prior selection of sequences as query and the presence of neighbouring families can be important for covering the search space effectively in minimal computational time. This study also provides an understanding of the `bridging' role of related families.

Influence of strain localization on reliability based design of bridge abutments using pseudo-dynamic method

The paper focuses on reliability based design of bridge abutments when subjected to earthquake loading. Planar failure surface has been used in conjunction with pseudo-dynamic approach to compute the seismic active earth pressures on the bridge abutment. The proposed pseudo dynamic method, considers the effects of strain localization in the backfill soil and associated post-peak reduction in the shear resistance from peak to residual values along a previously formed failure plane, phase difference in shear waves and soil amplification along with the horizontal seismic accelerations. Four modes of stability viz. sliding, overturning, eccentricity and bearing capacity of the foundation soil are considered for the reliability analysis. The influence of various design parameters on the seismic reliability indices against four modes of failure is presented, following the suggestions of Japan Road Association, Caltrans Bridge Design Specifications and U.S Department of the Army.

Influence of anthropogenic contamination on groundwater chemistry in Mulbagal town, Kolar District, India

Geochemical studies are performed to examine the impact of leachate infiltration from on-site sewage disposal systems on the groundwater chemistry in Mulbagal town, Kolar District, Karnataka State, India. The leachate infiltration imposed nitrate concentrations ranging from 4 mg/L to 388 mg/L in the groundwater samples; it was observed that 79% of the samples exhibited nitrate concentrations in excess of drinking water permissible limit (45 mg/L). The average (of 43 measurements) E. coli levels in the groundwater samples corresponded to 189 MPN/100 mL and 55% of the samples tested exhibit pathogen contamination. Results also showed that the groundwater in the study area is characterized by acidic pH, large calcium + magnesium ion and Na/Cl ratios of < unity causing majority of the ground water samples to classify as Ca-Mg-Cl type and Na-Cl type. Saturation index (SI) computation using Visual MINTEQ program showed that the groundwater samples are under-saturated with respect to calcite. The theoretical SI values (of calcite) however suggested that the groundwater samples ought to be over-saturated with calcite. Under-saturation of the groundwater samples with calcite is attributed to increased dissolution of the mineral in the acidic environment of the groundwater.

Effect of fault resistance and grid short circuit MVA on impedance seen by distance relays on lines fed from wind turbine generating units (WTGU)

This paper deals with line protection challenges experienced in system having substantial wind generation penetration. Two types of WTGU: Doubly Fed (DFIG) and Squirrel Cage (SCIG) Induction Generators are simulated and connected to grid with single circuit transmission line. The paper summarizes analytical investigations carried out on the impedance seen by distance relays by varying fault resistances and grid short circuit MVA, for the protection of such transmission lines during faults. The results are also compared with systems having conventional synchronous machine connected to the grid.

Influence of tool rotation speed and feed rate on the forming limit of friction stir welded AA6061-T6 sheets

In this study, the influence of tool rotation speed and feed rate on the forming limit of friction stir welded Al 6061-T651 sheets has been investigated. The forming limit curve was evaluated by limit dome height test performed on all the friction stir welded sheets. The welding trials were conducted at a tool rotation speed of 1300 and 1400 r/min and feed rate of 90 and 100 mm/min. A third trial of welding was performed at a rotational speed of 1500 r/min and feed rate 120 mm/min. It is found that with increase in the tool rotation speed, from 1300 to 1400 r/min, for a constant feed rate, the forming limit of friction stir welded blank has improved and with increase in feed rate, from 90 to 100 mm/min, for a constant tool rotation speed, it has decreased. The forming limit of friction stir welded sheets is better than unwelded sheets. The thickness gradient after forming is severe in the cases of friction stir welded blanks made at higher feed rate and lower rotation speed. The strain hardening exponent of weld (n) increases with increase in tool rotation speed and it decreases with increase in feed rate. It has been demonstrated that the change in the forming limit of friction stir welded sheets with respect to welding parameters is due to the thickness distribution severity and strain hardening exponent of the weld region during forming. There is not much variation in the dome height among the friction stir welded sheets tested. When compared with unwelded sheets, dome height of friction stir welded sheets is higher in near-plane-strain condition, but it is lesser in stretching strain paths.

Influence of rock depth on seismic site classification for shallow bedrock regions

Seismic site classifications are used to represent site effects for estimating hazard parameters (response spectral ordinates) at the soil surface. Seismic site classifications have generally been carried out using average shear wave velocity and/or standard penetration test n-values of top 30-m soil layers, according to the recommendations of the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP) or the International Building Code (IBC). The site classification system in the NEHRP and the IBC is based on the studies carried out in the United States where soil layers extend up to several hundred meters before reaching any distinct soil-bedrock interface and may not be directly applicable to other regions, especially in regions having shallow geological deposits. This paper investigates the influence of rock depth on site classes based on the recommendations of the NEHRP and the IBC. For this study, soil sites having a wide range of average shear wave velocities (or standard penetration test n-values) have been collected from different parts of Australia, China, and India. Shear wave velocities of rock layers underneath soil layers have also been collected at depths from a few meters to 180 m. It is shown that a site classification system based on the top 30-m soil layers often represents stiffer site classes for soil sites having shallow rock depths (rock depths less than 25 m from the soil surface). A new site classification system based on average soil thickness up to engineering bedrock has been proposed herein, which is considered more representative for soil sites in shallow bedrock regions. It has been observed that response spectral ordinates, amplification factors, and site periods estimated using one-dimensional shear wave analysis considering the depth of engineering bedrock are different from those obtained considering top 30-m soil layers.