Pan-valvular annular calcification in Takayasu's arteritis: report of 3 cases

Takayasu's arteritis is a chronic inflammatory arteriopathy. It mainly affects the aortic arch and its main branches. The aortic valve annulus and coronary and pulmonary arteries are rarely affected. Mitral and tricuspid annular calcification were not reported previously. We identified mitral annular calcification by using transthoracic echocardiography in 3 patients with Takayasu's arteritis, in whom none had any of the reported causes of mitral annular calcification. Two of them had concomitant tricuspid and aortic annular calcification.     

Synthesis of Poly(p-Benzenesulphonamide) Part I. Preparation of Sulphanilic Acid Derivatives for Use as Intermediates

In view of the unique properties of poly (p-benzamide), particularly as a fibre, the synthesis of the structurally related poly (p-benzenesulphonamide) has been investigated. This first paper describes the preparation of two groups of possible precursors of the polymer starting with sulphanilic acid. The first group includes N-sulphinylaniline-4-sulphochloride, aniline-4-sulphochloride hydrochloride and aniline-4-sulphochloride. The key to the synthesis of these intermediates is the conversion of sulphanilic acid to N-sulphinylaniline-4-sulphochloride by reaction with thionyl chloride in the presence of a catalytic amount of dimethyl formamide. For the synthesis of poly (N-methyl-benzenesulphonamide), N-methylsulphanilic acid has been converted into N-methylaniline-4-sulphochloride hydrochloride by treatment with thionyl chloride. Some N-acetylated sulphanilic acid derivatives, CH₃CONH-C₆H₄-SO₂X, where X?OH, OEt, OC₆H₅ and Cl, and N-acetyl-1-naphthylamine-4-sulphochloride have also been prepared for evaluation as monomers in the synthesis of polysulphonamides by melt polymerisation.     

Changes of electrical properties by Al content of AlxGa1−xAs in pHEMT structures as observed using HRXRD

Characterizations on the pseudomorphic High Electron Mobility Transistor structure under High-Resolution X-ray Diffraction (HRXRD) have been carried out at room temperature. Variation of Al contents in Al_xGa_1−xAs alloys has been found to show a shift of diffraction peaks. This variation is also found to show the change of lattice constant of crystal and also sheet carrier concentration as obtained from a Hall effect measurement. The latter phenomenon is considerably interesting to study in the early stage of the electrical properties of device based on the crystal structure.     

Current-voltage behavior of AlGaAs/InGaAs pHEMT structures and the effect of optical illumination

Various pseudomorphic High Electron Mobility Transistor (pHEMT) structures of AlGaAs/InGaAs alloys have been observed their current-voltage behavior. The tungsten probes were used for a measurement the structures by ramping the voltage from −5 to 5 V and measure the electrical current. Measurement was carried out at room temperature and also under optical illumination. From the measurement, the electrical current was found to increase as the increase of Al content in the AlGaAs alloys layer in the pHEMT structure. This phenomenon was supported by the decrease of sheet resistance as obtained from Hall effect measurement. Under visible light illumination, the current-voltage behavior of pHEMT structure was observed to vary as the light power density was varied for 0, 25 and 55 μW/cm.     

Comparative study of conventional and micro WEDM based on machining of meso/micro Sized Spur Gear

This paper discusses the comparison of micro machining process using conventional and micro wire electrical discharge machining (WEDM) for fabrication of miniaturized components. Seventeen toothed miniaturized spur gear of 3.5 and 1.2 mm outside diameter were fabricated by conventional and micro WEDM respectively. The process parameters for both conventional and micro WEDM were optimized by preliminary experiments and analysis. The gears were investigated for the quality of surface finish and dimensional accuracy which were used as the criteria for the process evaluation. An average surface roughness (R_a) of 50 nm and dimensional accuracy of 0.1–1 μm were achieved in micro WEDM. Whenever applied conventional WEDM for meso/micro fabrication, a R_a surface roughness of 1.8 μm and dimensional accuracy of 2–3 μm were achieved. However, this level of surface roughness and dimensional accuracy are acceptable in many applications of micro engineering. A window of conventional WEDM consisting of low energy discharge parameters is identified for micromachining.     

Effects of additives on oxidation characteristics of palm oil‐based trimethylolpropane ester in hydraulics applications

Hydraulic fluids represent one of the most important groups of industrial lubricants. Increasing attention to environmental issues drives the lubricant industry to choose vegetable‐based hydraulic fluids which are biodegradable as compared to mineral‐based fluids. However, the lubricating properties of vegetable oil, such as poor oxidative stability and high pour point, have hindered their use. In this study, trimethylolpropane ester, which was derived from palm‐based methyl ester, was used as the base hydraulic fluid. The purpose of the study was to determine the optimum formulation for palm oil‐based synthetic lubricants by using suitable additives that can improve the oxidative stability and viscosity in accordance with the standard regulations for hydraulic fluid applications. The oxidative stability of the oil was evaluated by total acid number (TAN) and viscosity tests. In general, base oil without additive began to degrade after 200 h. The formulated oil, on the other hand, was quite stable even after 800 h of operation. The best formulation was obtained using 1.0% of either additive A or additive B. Both TAN and viscosity values were found to increase with increasing heating temperature. Meanwhile, the results have also shown that additive A performs better than additive B. After 800 h of exposure, the final TAN value for the formulated oil was only at 0.32 as compared to 4.88 mg KOH/g for the oil without additive. However, the kinematic viscosity of the oil at 40 and 100 °C was almost unchanged as compared to the oil without additive.     

An adaptive resource management for mobile terminals on vertical handoff

Mobile communications and wireless networks are developing at a fast pace. The increasing number of mobile subscribers and terminals are the real life evidence of the fast growing development in the area of wireless communication. Wireless communication technology is now pursuing 4G (fourth generation) and seeking a scheme to provide quality of service (QoS) to the various applications continuously even moving to another network. In this paper, we proposed a dynamic resource management architecture which considers vertical handoff situation with minimal disruption of service to the users considering seamless provision of QoS. The proposed scheme efficiently manages resources and provides stable services to the mobile terminal. The simulation results show that resource management enabled mobile terminals utilize system resources, CPU and memory, efficiently improved by 40% and 65%, respectively, rather than mobile terminals without resource tuning.