Effect of 100 KeV Ar+ ion beam irradiation on ZnO thin films – Influence of morphology vis-a-vis electrode/electrolyte interface and its impact on photoelectrochemical water splitting

The present study attempts quantitative determination of changes in the morphological surface features viz. fractal dimension, lower and upper cut off length scale through Power Spectral Density analysis prior to and after irradiation of 100 KeV Ar⁺ ion beam at incidence angles of 0°, 40° and 60° on ZnO thin films. All the unirradiated and irradiated samples are subjected to photoelectrochemical characterization and a correlation between photoelectrochemical performance and morphological parameters is established. Sample irradiated at 40° angle at the fluence of 5 × 10¹⁶ ions/cm² is found to possess maximum fractal dimension of 2.72, lower and upper cut off length scale of 3.16 nm and 63.00 nm respectively. This sample exhibits maximum photocurrent density of 3.19 mA/cm² and applied bias photon-to-current efficiency of 1.12% at 1.23 V/RHE. Hydrogen gas collected for duration of 1 h for the same sample was ~4.83 mLcm^?2.     

Carbon-based TiO2-x heterostructure nanocomposites for enhanced photocatalytic degradation of dye molecules

Application of brown titanium dioxide (TiO_2-x) and its modified composite forms in the photocatalytic decomposition of organic pollutants in the environment is a promising way to provide solutions for environmental redemption. Herein, we report the synthesis of effective and stable TiO_2-x nanoparticles with g-C₃N₄, RGO, and multiwalled carbon nanotubes (CNTs) using a simple hydrothermal method. Among all the as-synthesized samples, excellent photocatalytic degradation activity was observed for RGO-TiO_2-x nanocomposite with high rate constants of 0.075 min^?1_, 0.083 min^?1 and 0.093 min^?1 for methylene blue, rhodamine-B, and rosebengal dyes under UV–Visible light irradiation, respectively. The altered bandgap (1.8 eV) and the large surface area of RGO-TiO_2-x nanocomposite impacts on both absorption of visible light and efficiency of photogenerated charge electron (e^?)/hole (h⁺) pair separation. This resulted in enhanced photocatalytic property of carbon-based TiO_2-x nanocomposites. A systematic study on the influence of different carbon nanostructures on the photocatalytic activity of brown TiO_2-x is carried out.     

A machine learning system for identifying transmembrane domains from amino acid sequences

We present our machine learning system, that uses inductive logic programming techniques to learn how to identify transmembrane domains from amino acid sequences. Our system facilitates the use of operators such as ‘contains’, that act on entire sequences, rather than on individual elements of a sequence. The prediction accuracy of our new system is around 93%, and this compares favourably with earlier results. This work was carried out with the support of a research grant from ISIS, Fujitsu Laboratories.     

Effect of microwave heating on quality and mycoflora of sorghum grain

Sorghum (cv. Maldandi M35-1) was modified to 12, 14 and 16% moisture content (m.c.) and heat-treated with microwave energy at 3 levels, for 30 sec (=4.5, 9 and 18 kJ), and 60 sec (=9, 18 and 36 kJ). The effect of microwave heating on rise and subsequent fall in grain temperature, reduction in m.c. and quality characteristics including germination, seedling dry matter, free fatty acids (FFA) and contaminant fungi was determined. The temperature attained and the moisture loss in the sorghum grain was affected by grain m.c. and the time of exposure. At the lowest and highest microwave treatment level grain temperatures reached 30–40°C and 90–101°C, respectively. However, a 60-sec treatment at the highest energy level was lethal for the grain, particularly at 14 and 16% m.c. The FFA values were unaffected by microwave treatment. Statistical analyses showed that the microwave power level and time individually, and power level × time interactions were significant for most quality characteristics. The fungi present most abundantly on the sorghum grain were Eurotium spp., Aspergillus candidus, A. niger and Penicillium spp. Increasing m.c. and microwave heating resulted in elimination of most fungi after a 30-sec exposure time. With a 60-sec exposure period, practically all fungi were eliminated from the grain.     

Vinyl acetate monomer—a pilot plant study

The kinetics of the reaction of acetic acid and acetylene over zinc acetate-activated carbon catalyst was investigated over a wide range of process variables in a pilot reactor. Although various catalytic reaction mechanisms were postulated, the rate of reaction was most satisfactorily correlated by a mechanism of surface reaction between charged adsorbed acetic acid and acetylene, which assumes that the rate controlling step was the irreversible charged adsorption of acetylene and acetic acid.     

A mathematical framework for algorithm-based fault-tolerant computing over a ring of integers

In this work, we establish a complete mathematical framework for algorithm-based fault-tolerant computing for data vectors defined over a ring of integers. The ring of integers consists of integers {0,1,…,M−1} and all the arithmetic operations are performed modulo the integerM, which is assumed to be composite. The importance of the work lies in the suitability of modulo arithmetic in certain computational environments. Lack of an underlying Galois field,GF(q), presents a unique challenge to this framework. We develop the theory and algorithms for single as well as multiple fault correction and detection. We also analyze the parallel and serial nature of the encoder and decoder configurations. Certain known but rather old results in the theory of numbers dealing with linear congruences and matrix algebra are also described and extended further using mathematical terminology that modern-day researchers are expected to be familiar with.     

Oxidation of some aliphatic polyols on anodically deposited MnO2

Galvanostatic steady state current potential measurements were carried out for oxidation of a series of aliphatic alcohols having varying number of hydroxyl groups. The anodically deposited layer of MnO₂ on platinum was used as the electrode material. The deposit was characterised by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDAX) and electrode potential measurements. The catalytic role of MnO₂ in the electro-oxidation of alcohols was indicated by the chronopotentiograms and the cyclic voltammograms. An analysis of the electrochemical data indicated a catalytic EC mechanism in which Mn (V) is generated electrochemically and consumed chemically in succession. Based on this and the hydrogen bonding interaction between alcoholic hydroxyl groups and MnO₂ layer, a mechanism was proposed which accounts for the variation in the observed electrochemical reaction orders. Tafel behaviour was found to be followed only approximately. Current efficiency of the electrochemical oxidation of polyols was studied. Replacement of platinum by carbon as current collector was found to leave the electrocatalytic activity of the MnO₂ deposit practically unaltered.     

Impact of QOS requirements on video coding for ATM networks

The broadband integrated services digital networks (B-ISDN) based on asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) technology can support a wide range of applications such as voice, video, still images, and data. Compression techniques increase the effective bandwidth utilization, but the bursty and asynchronous nature of the traffic can still lead to congestion in the network, and degradation of image quality and quality of service (QOS). Some of the features to provide better coding schemes for ATM networks are layered coding, resynchronization, buffering, interleaved schemes, constrained bit rate due to buffers, encapsulation with the RTP or AAL1 for clock recovery, lapped transforms, motion compensation, and optimal bit allocation for coders based on wavelet transforms. We review various techniques forimage and video coding such as transforms, motion compensation, vector quantization, and subband coding. We outline the impact of the cell loss ratio (CLR), delay and cell delay variation (CDV) on video coding: blocking effects, loss of frame synchronization, motion vectors, and vector quantization codewords. The open problems include tuning coding parameters to the available QOS provided by the network.