Review of composite cathodes for intermediate-temperature solid oxide fuel cell applications

A composite cathode exhibits low activation polarisation by spreading its electrochemically active area within its volume. Composite cathodes enable the development of high-performance electrodes for solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) at intermediate temperatures (600 °C – 800 °C) because of their significant role in determining the kinetics of oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). Few anions O²⁻ are transferred through the electrolyte component when the ORR is low, thereby lowering the reaction with cation H⁺ from an anode side to transfer electrons along the outer circuit to the cathode side to participate in ORR. The resistance to the ORR at the cathode is minimised, thereby contributing to performance degradation and efficiency loss in existing SOFCs, especially at intermediate temperatures. The suitability and compatibility of the cathode and electrolyte are crucial in the development of cathodes and electrochemical reactions. The intercomponent compatibility is important to ensure the robustness and durability of SOFCs, especially at an operating temperature around 800 °C, at which the components experience extreme thermal and mechanical stresses. Composite cathodes are used to improve cathode performance. These composite cathodes help enhance the properties of mixed electronic–ionic conductors and the intercomponent compatibility. Herein, we reviewed historical data of composite-cathode development for SOFCs, including its basic principle and criteria. The overall performance of as-synthesised composite cathodes in terms of microstructure, electrochemical reaction and intercomponent compatibility is briefly discussed.     

Microscopic melanoma detection and classification: A framework of pixel‐based fusion and multilevel features reduction

The numbers of diagnosed patients by melanoma are drastic and contribute more deaths annually among young peoples. An approximately 192,310 new cases of skin cancer are diagnosed in 2019, which shows the importance of automated systems for the diagnosis process. Accordingly, this article presents an automated method for skin lesions detection and recognition using pixel‐based seed segmented images fusion and multilevel features reduction. The proposed method involves four key steps: (a) mean‐based function is implemented and fed input to top‐hat and bottom‐hat filters which later fused for contrast stretching, (b) seed region growing and graph‐cut method‐based lesion segmentation and fused both segmented lesions through pixel‐based fusion, (c) multilevel features such as histogram oriented gradient (HOG), speeded up robust features (SURF), and color are extracted and simple concatenation is performed, and (d) finally variance precise entropy‐based features reduction and classification through SVM via cubic kernel function. Two different experiments are performed for the evaluation of this method. The segmentation performance is evaluated on PH2, ISBI2016, and ISIC2017 with an accuracy of 95.86, 94.79, and 94.92%, respectively. The classification performance is evaluated on PH2 and ISBI2016 dataset with an accuracy of 98.20 and 95.42%, respectively. The results of the proposed automated systems are outstanding as compared to the current techniques reported in state of art, which demonstrate the validity of the proposed method.     

用于机床减振的磁流变阻尼器优化设计

以三平动冗余驱动并联机床为研究对象,设计了一种具有位移放大功能的磁流变阻尼器,通过Ansys workbench有限元分析软件,对阻尼器的磁路饱和情况进行模拟仿真和分析,使阻尼器的阻尼出力达到最优。研究结果表明,通过优化使磁场分布更加合理,提高了阻尼器的力学性能,优化方法是可行有效的。     

Hydrodynamic drag constrains head enlargement for mouthbrooding in cichlids

Presumably as an adaptation for mouthbrooding, many cichlid fish species have evolved a prominent sexual dimorphism in the adult head. Since the head of fishes serves as a bow during locomotion, an evolutionary increase in head volume to brood more eggs can trade-off with the hydrodynamic efficiency of swimming. Here, the differences between males and females in three-dimensional shape and size of the external head surfaces and the effect thereof on drag force during locomotion was analysed for the Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus), a maternal mouthbrooder. To do so, three-dimensional body surface reconstructions from laser scans and computational fluid dynamics simulations were performed. After scaling the scanned specimens to post-cranial body volume, in order to theoretically equalize propulsive power, the external volume of the head of females was 27% larger than that of males (head length + 14%; head width + 9%). These differences resulted in an approximate 15% increase in drag force. Yet, hydrodynamics imposed important constraints on the adaptation for mouthbrooding as a much more drastic drop in swimming efficiency seems avoided by mainly enlarging the head along the swimming direction.     

Graph-based video fingerprinting using double optimal projection

A double optimal projection method that involves projections for intra-cluster and inter-cluster dimensionality reduction are proposed for video fingerprinting. The video is initially set as a graph with frames as its vertices in a high-dimensional space. A similarity measure that can compute the weights of the edges is then proposed. Subsequently, the video frames are partitioned into different clusters based on the graph model. Double optimal projection is used to explore the optimal mapping points in a low-dimensional space to reduce the video dimensions. The statistics and geometrical fingerprints are generated to determine whether a query video is copied from one of the videos in the database. During matching, the video can be roughly matched by utilizing the statistics fingerprint. Further matching is thereafter performed in the corresponding group using geometrical fingerprints. Experimental results show the good performance of the proposed video fingerprinting method in robustness and discrimination.     

Low‐order optimal regulation of parabolic PDEs with time‐dependent domain

Observer and optimal boundary control design for the objective of output tracking of a linear distributed parameter system given by a two‐dimensional (2‐D) parabolic partial differential equation with time‐varying domain is realized in this work. The transformation of boundary actuation to distributed control setting allows to represent the system's model in a standard evolutionary form. By exploring dynamical model evolution and generating data, a set of time‐varying empirical eigenfunctions that capture the dominant dynamics of the distributed system is found. This basis is used in Galerkin's method to accurately represent the distributed system as a finite‐dimensional plant in terms of a linear time‐varying system. This reduced‐order model enables synthesis of a linear optimal output tracking controller, as well as design of a state observer. Finally, numerical results are prepared for the optimal output tracking of a 2‐D model of the temperature distribution in Czochralski crystal growth process which has nontrivial geometry. © 2014 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 61: 494–502, 2015     

Porous nitrogen doped carbon foam with excellent resilience for self-supported oxygen reduction catalyst

Fabrication of graphitized carbon materials (e.g. carbon nanotubes and graphene) normally entails the assistance of transition metal catalyst. In this paper, a nitrogen doped carbon foam (NCF) with both graphitized and porous carbon structure was fabricated by direct pyrolysis of melamine foam (MF) without using any transition metal catalyst. The graphitized carbon structure was possibly attributed to the triazine moieties in the MF precursor. The introduction of oxygen groups in the oxidation step resulted in the formation of large amount of micro- and mesopores and therefore high specific surface area. The NCF exhibited a three-dimensional cellular network consisting of carbon microfiber with abundant micro- and mesopores and giving rise to a specific surface area over 980 m² g⁻¹. Due to such graphitized porous structure, the NCF was demonstrated to have superior resilience, excellent electrocatalytic activity and good durability for oxygen reduction.     

Fatigue behaviour of composite–composite joints reinforced with cold metal transfer welded pins

In this paper the fatigue properties of through-the-thickness reinforced joints are studied in detail. Unreinforced specimens, specimens reinforced with cold metal transfer welded titanium and steel pins and specimens reinforced with titanium z-pins are investigated. Besides classical S–N diagrams, hysteresis curves and stiffness based approaches are applied to improve the understanding of the mechanical behaviour of the joints in the progress of their fatigue life. Furthermore full field strain analysis gives information about damage initiation and growth in the joint section.     

Correlation between instrumental texture and colour quality attributes with sensory analysis of selected cheeses as affected by fat contents

This study evaluated several physical and sensory parameters of different types of cheese available in the Polish market. The measurements of textural properties were conducted in an Instron universal testing machine, while the colour properties of cheeses were measured using a Minolta chromameter. The chemical composition was determined by means of the near‐infrared spectroscopy (NIRs). Moreover, a trained sensory panel was invited to assess the cheese texture‐related properties. Generally, cheeses with reduced fat content were characterised by higher hardness, adhesiveness, cohesiveness and elasticity. Texture‐related parameters of cheese with canola oil were comparable to that of most of full‐fat cheeses. The correlation analysis between physical and sensory attributes related to cheese textural properties indicated the potential applications of TPA, shear and penetration tests (r = 0.766, r = 0.75 and r = 0.765, respectively) for the evaluation of sensory properties related to the hardness. Meanwhile, the elasticity of cheese obtained from sensory evaluation was strongly correlated with the elasticity determined from the shear test (r = 0.722) and moderately correlated with the elasticity from penetration test (r = 0.588), indicating a need to refine the method of penetration test. In addition, cheeses exhibited higher meltability during convection heating at 230 °C than microwave heating. The values of meltability for cheese with reduced fat content were lower than those of full‐fat cheese.     

Relations between asphaltene content,viscosity reduction rate of heavy oil and ultrasonic parameters

Ultrasonic treatment could decrease the viscosity of heavy oil and previous study on had focused on one heavy oil sample and involved less on the influence of asphaltene content. This study examined the effect of asphaltene content on viscosity reduction rate by ultrasonication. A comparison on samples with various asphaltene content and vibration parameter was made. The results showed that the optimal vibration frequency might decrease as the asphaltene content increased, whereas the optimal vibration intensity and the optimal treatment time were suggested to be enlarged. A semi-quantitative correlation was matched, which helped for numerical simulation about ultrasonic treatment.