This work reports the structural, optical, electrical and thermoelectric properties of vanadium pentoxide (V2O5) thin films deposited at room temperature by thermal evaporation on Corning glass substrates. A post-deposition thermal treatment up to 973 K under atmospheric conditions induces the crystallization of the as-deposited amorphous films with an orthorhombic V2O5 phase with grain sizes around 26 nm. As the annealing temperature rises up to 773 K the electrical conductivity increases. The films exhibit thermoelectric properties with a maximum Seebeck coefficient of -218 μV/K and electrical conductivity of 5.5 (Ω m) -1. All the films show NIR-Vis optical transmittance above 60% and optical band gap of 2.8 eV. © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

This paper characterizes transparent current mirrors with n-type amorphous gallium-indium-zinc-oxide (a-GIZO) thin-film transistors (TFTs). Two-TFT current mirrors with different mirroring ratios and a cascode topology are considered. A neural model is developed based on the measured data of the TFTs and is implemented in Verilog-A; then it is used to simulate the circuits with Cadence Virtuoso Spectre simulator. The simulation outcomes are validated with the fabricated circuit response. These results show that the neural network can model TFT accurately, as well as the current mirroring ability of the TFTs. © 2005-2012 IEEE.

Electrical Protective Devices are key elements in the electrical network. Their purpose is to perform fault detection in electric power systems, by analysing power system voltages and currents. In order to achieve a more centralized control, protective devices can be connected using Web Services through a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) approach. This work targets planning and specification of a mapping between Abstract Communication Service Interface (ACSI) Reporting and Device Profile for Web Services (DPWS) Eventing to achieve a better protective electrical devices control, obtaining an event based alert software system, replacing conventional polling-based systems.

This Chapter presents the optimal design of radio-frequency integrated spiral inductors. The basic idea is to generate an analytical model to characterize integrated inductors based on the double {\ensuremathπ}-model, and offer to the designer an approach to determine the inductor layout parameters. Particle Swarm Optimization technique is used to generate optimal values of parameters of the developed models. Viability of the proposed models is highlighted via comparison with ASITIC simulation results.

The layer-by-layer (LbL) assembly of polyelectrolyte pairs on temperature and pH-sensitive cross-linked poly(N-isopropylacrylamide)-co-(methacrylic acid), poly(NIPAAm-co-MAA), microgels enabled a fine-tuning of the gel swelling and responsive behavior according to the mobility of the assembled polyelectrolyte (PE) pair and the composition of the outermost layer. Microbeads with well-defined morphology were initially prepared by synthesis in supercritical carbon dioxide. Upon LbL assembly of polyelectrolytes, interactions between the multilayers and the soft porous microgel led to differences in swelling and thermoresponsive behavior. For the weak PE pairs, namely poly(l-lysine)/poly(l-glutamic acid) and poly(allylamine hydrochloride)/poly(acrylic acid), polycation-terminated microgels were less swollen and more thermoresponsive than native microgel, whereas polyanion-terminated microgels were more swollen and not significantly responsive to temperature, in a quasi-reversible process with consecutive PE assembly. For the strong PE pair, poly(diallyldimethylammonium chloride)/poly(sodium styrene sulfonate), the differences among polycation and polyanion-terminated microgels are not sustained after the first PE bilayer due to extensive ionic cross-linking between the polyelectrolytes. The tendencies across the explored systems became less noteworthy in solutions with larger ionic strength due to overall charge shielding of the polyelectrolytes and microgel. ATR FT-IR studies correlated the swelling and responsive behavior after LbL assembly on the microgels with the extent of H-bonding and alternating charge distribution within the gel. Thus, the proposed LbL strategy may be a simple and flexible way to engineer smart microgels in terms of size, surface chemistry, overall charge and permeability.The layer-by-layer (LbL) assembly of polyelectrolyte pairs on temperature and pH-sensitive cross-linked poly(N-isopropylacrylamide)-co-(methacrylic acid), poly(NIPAAm-co-MAA), microgels enabled a fine-tuning of the gel swelling and responsive behavior according to the mobility of the assembled polyelectrolyte (PE) pair and the composition of the outermost layer. Microbeads with well-defined morphology were initially prepared by synthesis in supercritical carbon dioxide. Upon LbL assembly of polyelectrolytes, interactions between the multilayers and the soft porous microgel led to differences in swelling and thermoresponsive behavior. For the weak PE pairs, namely poly(l-lysine)/poly(l-glutamic acid) and poly(allylamine hydrochloride)/poly(acrylic acid), polycation-terminated microgels were less swollen and more thermoresponsive than native microgel, whereas polyanion-terminated microgels were more swollen and not significantly responsive to temperature, in a quasi-reversible process with consecutive PE assembly. For the strong PE pair, poly(diallyldimethylammonium chloride)/poly(sodium styrene sulfonate), the differences among polycation and polyanion-terminated microgels are not sustained after the first PE bilayer due to extensive ionic cross-linking between the polyelectrolytes. The tendencies across the explored systems became less noteworthy in solutions with larger ionic strength due to overall charge shielding of the polyelectrolytes and microgel. ATR FT-IR studies correlated the swelling and responsive behavior after LbL assembly on the microgels with the extent of H-bonding and alternating charge distribution within the gel. Thus, the proposed LbL strategy may be a simple and flexible way to engineer smart microgels in terms of size, surface chemistry, overall charge and permeability.

The C 1s and N 1s photoelectron spectra of gas-phase 5-aminotetrazole (5ATZ) were recorded using synchrotron radiation, with the aim of evaluating 1H/2H tautomer population ratios. The core-electron binding energies (CEBEs) were estimated from computational results, using the delta self-consistent-field (ΔSCF) approach. Simulated spectra were generated using these CEBEs and the results from Gaussian-n (Gn, n=1, 2 and 3) and Complete Basis Set (CBS-4M and CBS-Q) methods. Results reveal the almost exclusive predominance of the 2H-tautomer, with a 1H/2H ratio of ca. 0.12/0.88, taken from a gross analysis of the XPS C 1s spectrum, recorded at 365 K.

Spreadsheets are considered to be the most widely used programming language in the world, and reports have shown that 90% of real-world spreadsheets contain errors. In this work, we try to identify spreadsheet smells, a concept adapted from software, which consists of a surface indication that usually corresponds to a deeper problem. Our smells have been integrated in a tool, and were computed for a large spreadsheet repository. Finally, the analysis of the results we obtained led to the refinement of our initial catalog.

Spreadsheets are widely recognized as popular programming systems with a huge number of spreadsheets being created every day. Also, spreadsheets are often used in the decision processes of profit-oriented companies. While this illustrates their practical importance, studies have shown that up to 90% of real-world spreadsheets contain errors. In order to improve the productivity of spreadsheet end-users, the software engineering community has proposed to employ model-driven approaches to spreadsheet development. In this paper we describe the evaluation of a bidirectional model-driven spreadsheet environment. In this environment, models and data instances are kept in conformity, even after an update on any of these artifacts. We describe the issues of an empirical study we plan to conduct, based on our previous experience with end-user studies. Our goal is to assess if this model-driven spreadsheet development framework does in fact contribute to improve the productivity of spreadsheet users.

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