We study competition between two multi-product firms with distinct production technologies in a market where customers have heterogeneous preferences on a single taste attribute. The mass customizer (MC) has a perfectly flexible production technology, thus can offer any variety within a product space, represented by Hotelling’s (1929) linear city. The mass producer (MP) has a more focused produ...

We proposed the flexible thermoelectric generator (TEG) using double side FPCB (flexible printed circuit boards). The proposed flexible thermoelectric generator has the unique vertical structure. The heat of the flexible thermoelectric generator flows vertically via plated through hole (PTH). The n-type (Bi-Te) and p-type (Sb-Te) thin films are deposited by the co-evaporator and patterned using...

Design of polymeric membranes for fuel cells application requires suitable selection and modification of polymers. This review accounts the various polymeric membranes available for use in fuel cells, advantages of sulphonation of polymers, various sulphonation methods and the characterization techniques. Presently, SPEEK finds extensive application as polymeric membrane in fuel cells. The adva...

The ability to monitor sugarcane expansion in Brazil, the world’s largest producer and exporter of sugar and second largest producer of ethanol, is important due to its agricultural, economic, strategic and environmental relevance. With the advent of flex fuel cars in 2003 the sugarcane area almost doubled over the last decade in the South-Central region of Brazil. Using remote sensing images, ...

This paper presents a Gaussian radial basis function neural network based on sliding mode control for trajectory tracking and vibration control of a flexible joint manipulator. To study the effectiveness of the controllers, designed controller is developed for tip angular position control of a flexible joint manipulator. The adaptation laws of designed controller are obtained based on sliding m...

Paper, as an inexpensive substrate for flexible electronics and energy devices, has garnered great attention because of its abundance, biodegradability, renewability and sustainability. However, the intrinsic opacity and higher roughness of regular paper greatly restricts further applications. One promising method is to use cellulose nanofibers (CNs) to fabricate nanopaper with a high optical t...

Biofuel, a form of renewable fuel, has promising future, especially as the alternative fuel for transportation. Biofuel is usually blended with petroleum fuel and used in flex fuel engines. Since the characteristics of biofuel are quite different from those of the petroleum based fuel, it is very important to optimize the combustion properties for biofuel engines under different fuel blends. Th...

There is much interest in developing fuel cells for commercial applications. This interest is driven by technical and environmental advantages offered by the fuel cell, including high performance characteristics, reliability, durability, and clean power. A fuel cell is similar to a battery—it uses an electrochemical process to directly convert chemical energy to electricity. Unlike a battery, h...

Ultra-thin chips of less than 20 lm become flexible, allowing integration of silicon IC technology with highly flexible electronics such as food packaging sensor systems or healthcare and sport monitoring tags as wearable patches or even directly in clothing textile. The ultra-thin chips in these products will be bent to a very high curvature, which puts a large strain on the chips during use. ...

This paper presents an application of Continuum (i.e. Lagrangian) and Finite Element Techniques to flexible manipulator arms for derivation of the corresponding Dynamic Equations of Motion. Specifically a one-link flexible arm is considered for detailed analysis, and the results are extended for the case of a two - link flexible manipulator. Numerical examples are given for the case of both one...