Hydrothermal Synthesis of Acicular Lead Titanate Fine Powders

A pure, acicular lead titanate (PbTiO₃) fine powder with a white color has been prepared by hydrothermal synthesis. It is a new phase of PbTiO₃ with I 4 symmetry, cell parameters of a = 12.358 Å and b = 14.541 Å, and a density of 6.80 g.cm⁻³. The influences of pH (12.5 to 14.4), Pb/Ti ratio (1.0 to 1.6) in the feedstock, reaction temperature (130° to 230°C), time (0.25 to 4 h), starting materials, and additives on the formation of acicular PbTiO₃ under hydrothermal conditions have been investigated. The acicular PbTiO₃ with I 4 symmetry, referred to as the PX phase, can be converted to the perovskite-type (PE phase) of PbTiO₃ at about 605°C while its acicular morphology is essentially unchanged. The preferable conditions for preparing pure acicular PX-phase PbTiO₃ are that the pH is 13.0 to 14.0, Pb/Ti ratio is >1.3, reaction temperature is 170° to 200°C, time is 0.5 to 1.0 h, titanium butoxide (Ti[O(CH₂)₃CH₃]₄) is the starting material, and poly(vinyl alcohol) is an additive. The acicular grain of the PX phase is usually less than 100 nm in diameter and more than 1000 nm in length.     

Software structure evaluation based on the interaction and encapsulation of methods

Software structure is the most important factor affecting the quality of a program.The evaluation of software structure is a foundational technique for software development.However,the traditional evaluation criteria,such as "high cohesion and low coupling",are no longer appropriate for the new web applications,which are designed with a hierarchical framework.A novel approach is proposed in this paper to evaluate software quality based on the interaction and encapsulation of methods.In particular,two criteria for high quality software,the functional and hierarchical structure,are proposed to support widely used web applications.The cohesion and coupling and layer matching ratios between methods within a software package are calculated to determine whether the package is well implemented in terms of functional or hierarchical structure.This approach enables us to quantify the quality of a software system according to the structural types of its packages.Experiments were carried out on 18 versions of Struts and six open-source software packages.Our evaluation concurs with the intuition that minor upgrades,aimed at fixing bugs and adding minor functionality quickly,reduce software quality,whereas major upgrades,which normally clean up messy code and re-construct the software,improve software quality.     

A damage model for assessing pipeline safety in corrosion environments

Considering such practical pipeline service conditions in the petroleum transportation field as corrosion from harmful media (H₂S, CO₂ etc.) and load from the pressure of flowing petroleum as key factors, the degradation of the mechanical properties of pipeline steels and the corresponding variations in stress states are studied. A damage variable is introduced to reflect the degradation in the mechanical properties of the pipeline due to corrosion. A diluted solution approach is proposed to model the corrosion process of harmful media within the pipeline and the distribution of the damage variable along the radial direction of the pipeline is derived. An approach to the safety evaluation of damaged pipeline is proposed by comparing the instant properties of pipeline steels with servicing conditions.     

Asymptotic solvers for second-order differential equation systems with multiple frequencies

In this paper, an asymptotic expansion is constructed to solve second-order differential equation systems with highly oscillatory forcing terms involving multiple frequencies. An asymptotic expansion is derived in inverse of powers of the oscillatory parameter and its truncation results in a very effective method of dicretizing the differential equation system in question. Numerical experiments illustrate the effectiveness of the asymptotic method in contrast to the standard Runge–Kutta method.     

不同类型过载下Ⅰ型疲劳裂纹的扩展行为

研究了Ⅱ、Ⅲ型过载对Ⅰ型疲劳裂纹扩展行为的影响并与Ⅰ型过载进行比较．结果表明：单周Ⅱ、Ⅲ型过载也延迟了其后的Ⅰ型疲劳裂纹扩展，但作用程度小于Ⅰ型过载；过载延迟效应随过载时基础载荷的降低和过载比的加大而增强，在近门槛区过载表现为疲劳裂纹扩展停止、疲劳门槛提高，在高基础载荷过载时疲劳裂纹则延缓、减速扩展．过载延迟行为主要由裂尖尾迹塑性诱导裂纹闭合和裂尖附近残余压应力状态引起。     

Fine-Tuning Alkyl Chains on Quinoxaline Nonfullerene Acceptors Enables High-Efficiency Ternary Organic Solar Cells with Optimizing Molecular Stacking and Reducing Energy Loss

Material design of guest acceptor is always a big challenge for improving the efficiency of ternary organic solar cells (OSCs). Here, a pair of isomeric nonfullerene acceptors based on quinoxaline core, Qx–p-C₇H₈O and Qx–m-C₇H₈O, is designed and synthesized. By moving the alkoxy chain attached on side phenyl from meta-position to para-position, both π–π stacking distance and crystallinity are enhanced simultaneously. They obtain the uplifted lowest unoccupied molecular orbital level. Compared to Qx–m-C₇H₈O, Qx–p-C₇H₈O exhibits wider absorption spectrum and higher extinction coefficient. Using D18-Cl:N3 as host materials, the addition of guest acceptor Qx–p-C₇H₈O significantly improves the power conversion efficiency (PCE) from 17.61% to 18.49% because of higher open-circuit voltage (0.875 V) and short-circuit current density (27.85 mA cm⁻²). This can be attributed to the faster exciton dissociation, more balanced carrier mobility, fine fiber morphology, and lower energy loss in the ternary devices. However, Qx–m-C₇H₈O-based ternary device achieves relatively low PCE of 17.17% because this device shows extremely low electron mobility. The results indicate that molecular stacking, film morphology, etc., can be effectively modulated by fine-tuning the side chains of guest materials, which may be an effective design rule for further improving the PCE of OSCs.     

An approach for moving object recognition based on BPR and CI

A recognition and classification method of multiple moving objects in traffic based on the combination of the Biomimetic Pattern Recognition (BPR) and Choquet Integral (CI) is proposed. The recognition process consists of three stages. At the first stage, vehicles and pedestrians are detected in video images and the area, the shape and the velocity features are obtained by classical methods. At the second stage, BPR is used to classify the Zernike moments extracted at the first stage. At the last stage, CI is then adopted for multi-features fusion based on the output of BPR, and the area and the velocity features obtained at the first stage to improve the recognition accuracy. Experiment results show that this approach is efficient.     

Deriving industrial logistics hub reference models for manufacturing based economies

Global enterprises require extended logistics operations that integrate channel intermediaries into the network. The method for deriving integrated models for logistics hubs that improve the efficiency of manufacturers’ global operations is the focus of this paper. Under government sponsorship, six industrial logistics hubs were implemented by leading manufacturing sectors across Taiwan over a five year period from 2004 until 2008. Each industry sector had unique industry characteristics, business strategies, and logistics models. Therefore, this paper describes how generalized and quick to implement integrated logistics hubs are developed by studying the successful reference models and systems used by six independent industrial sectors. The research results provide a field tested method for deriving integrated logistics hub models in different manufacturing economies with notes that provide sufficient methodological detail for repeating the construction of logistics hubs in other manufacturing economies.