Poly(lactide)/cellulose nanocrystal nanocomposites by high-shear mixing

There is currently considerable interest in developing stiff, strong, tough, and heat resistant poly(lactide) (PLA) based materials with improved melt elasticity in response to the increasing demand for sustainable plastics. However, simultaneous optimization of stiffness, strength, and toughness is a challenge for any material, and commercial PLA is well-known to be inherently brittle and temperature-sensitive and to show poor melt elasticity. In this study, we report that high-shear mixing with cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) leads to significant improvements in the toughness, heat resistance, and melt elasticity of PLA while further enhancing its already outstanding room temperature stiffness and strength. This is evidenced by (i) one-fold increase in the elastic modulus (6.48 GPa), (ii) 43% increase in the tensile strength (87.1 MPa), (iii) one-fold increase in the strain at break (∼6%), (iv) two-fold increase in the impact strength (44.2 kJ/m²), (v) 113-fold increase in the storage modulus at 90°C (787.8 MPa), and (vi) 10³-fold increase in the melt elasticity at 190°C and 1 rad/s (∼10⁵ Pa) via the addition of 30 wt% CNC. It is hence possible to produce industrially viable, stiff, strong, tough, and heat resistant green materials with improved melt elasticity through high-shear mixing.     

LTL model checking for communicating concurrent programs

Innovations in Systems and Software Engineering - We present in this paper a new approach to the static analysis of concurrent programs with procedures. To this end, we model multi-threaded...     

Coralline Skeleton Biomaterial Reduces Phagocytosis in Mouse Blood in vitro

Inflammatory and immunogenic response to foreign bodies presents a challenge in the use of biomaterials as implants for tissue restoration. Therefore, there is a need to understand the interactions between such implants and the blood. One such material, currently in clinical use for bone replacement in humans, is the skeleton of corals, in the form of crystalline aragonite. This biomaterial has been shown to impart a protective and supportive influence on several types of cells ex vivo. The carbonate skeleton activates secretion in phagocytes in vitro, however its effects on these cells in the blood, and on the process of phagocytosis itself, remain unknown. Using 1–500 μm particles of coral skeleton, we show that these particles bind blood proteins and alter the leukocyte population, reducing the proportion of granulocytes by more than 3-fold with no effect on the proportion of monocytes. In addition, the presence of coral skeleton in the blood causes a reduction in phagocytosis. Specifically, we observed a decrease in the percentage of phagocytic cells by 27 % in the granulocytes and by 73 % in monocyte family, as well as a 41.6 % reduction in the MFI of granulocytes, but with no such effect on monocytes. Taken together, the results suggest that the coral skeleton biomaterial may act as a strong, promotive scaffold for tissue regeneration due to its ability to reduce its rejection by inflammatory reactions such as phagocytosis.     

Robocast zirconia-toughened alumina scaffolds: Processing,structural characterisation and interaction with human primary osteoblasts

Zirconia-toughened alumina (ZTA) is the gold-standard ceramic in hip arthroplasty, but still lacks direct osseointegration and a metal shell, often coated with a bioactive layer, is currently required. The latter could potentially be replaced by a thinner, architectured ZTA layer, thereby allowing for larger acetabular components, with larger range of motion and lower dislocation risk. Robocasting may be an adequate technique to fabricate the architectured layer. Therefore, as a first step, this study aimed to produce ZTA scaffolds (3D-ZTA) by robocasting and assess their in vitro response. Shape retention was achieved by using a stable, well-dispersed, high solid loading ink injected in acid pH waterbath. 3D-ZTA exhibit regularly spaced microporous, rough struts and fully interconnected macroporosity. Human primary osteoblasts were homogenously distributed inside 3D-ZTA and showed increased osteogenic marker expression compared to 2D-ZTA control. Further work will focus on optimizing scaffold design to improve cell retention and extracellular matrix maturation.     

Forest governance and REDD+ in Central Africa: towards a participatory model to increase stakeholder involvement in carbon markets

Forests play a significant role in the global carbon budget, and can help to mitigate climate change impacts. Tropical forests which experience high rates of deforestation and forest degradation are particularly important, as they are the most active in winter. Based on academic research into global environmental policies in Central Africa, this study finds that REDD+ policies can succeed when there is a carbon market mechanism that increases participation by developing countries, with better integration of forest management and community forestry. Incentives should be based on an appropriate baseline, accurate carbon stocks and fluxes estimation, a suitable silvicultural system and regular monitoring.     

Electrical characterization of polyaniline‐based adhesive blends

Preparation and processing of conductive blends based on doped polyaniline (c‐PANI) or tetra‐aniline (c‐TANI) with epoxy resins is described. The dedoping of c‐PANI by the epoxy hardener, in the process of the blend curing, has been investigated by UV–vis–NIR spectroscopy. Classical amine hardeners lead to a quick increase of the blend resistivity during its processing, which can be correlated with the observed spectral features, characteristic of the deprotonation of c‐PANI. For these reasons, for further investigations, BF₃‐amine complexes have been selected as curing agents. Using these hardeners and tuning the curing conditions (temperature and time), it is possible to obtain blends with resistivities down to 10² Ω·cm, depending on the type of the epoxy resin used. In general, resins with higher epoxy network densities give c‐PANI‐based blends of lower percolation thresholds. The effect of the c‐PANI processing solvent on the resistivity of the resulting blend is even more pronounced than the epoxy network density. In particular, blends processed from toluene show much higher resistivities than those processed from tetrahydrofuran (THF) of ethylacetate (EA). Above the percolation threshold, c‐TANI‐based epoxy blends show at least three orders of magnitude higher resistivities than their c‐PANI analogues. They are however technologically interesting, because they are not very sensitive to the processing/curing conditions and show lower percolation thresholds. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2011     

Compound Node–Kayles on paths

In his celebrated book [J.H. Conway, On Numbers and Games, Academic Press, New-York, 1976, Second edition (2001), A.K. Peters, Wellesley, MA], J.H. Conway introduced twelve versions of compound games. We analyze these twelve versions for the Node–Kayles game on paths. For usual disjunctive compound, Node–Kayles has been solved for a long time under normal play, while it is still unsolved under misère play. We thus focus on the ten remaining versions, leaving only one of them unsolved.     

Complexity bounds for the rational Newton-Puiseux algorithm over finite fields

We carefully study the number of arithmetic operations required to compute rational Puiseux expansions of a bivariate polynomial F over a finite field. Our approach is based on the rational Newton-Puiseux algorithm introduced by D. Duval. In particular, we prove that coefficients of F may be significantly truncated and that certain complexity upper bounds may be expressed in terms of the output size. These preliminary results lead to a more efficient version of the algorithm with a complexity upper bound that improves previously published results. We also deduce consequences for the complexity of the computation of the genus of an algebraic curve defined over a finite field or an algebraic number field. Our results are practical since they are based on well established subalgorithms, such as fast multiplication of univariate polynomials with coefficients in a finite field.