Novel composite membrane based on zirconium phosphate-ionic liquids for high temperature PEM fuel cells

Composite membranes composed of zirconium phosphate (ZrP) and imidazolium-based ionic liquids (IL), supported on polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) were prepared and evaluated for their application in proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEM) operating at 200 °C. The experimental results reported here demonstrate that the synthesized membrane has a high proton conductivity of 0.07 S cm^?1, i.e, 70% of that reported for Nafion. Furthermore, the composite membranes possess a very high proton conductivity of 0.06 S cm^?1 when processed at 200 °C under completely anhydrous conditions. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images indicate the formation of very small particles, with diameters in the range of 100–300 nm, within the confined pores of PTFE. Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) reveals a maximum of 20% weight loss up to 500 °C for the synthesized membrane. The increase in proton conductivity is attributed to the creation of multiple proton conducting paths within the membrane matrix. The IL component is acting as a proton bridge. Therefore, these membranes have potential for use in PEM fuel cells operating at temperatures around 200 °C.     

A hybrid approach for identifying non-human traffic in online digital advertising

Multimedia Tools and Applications - Click fraud is a serious problem facing online advertising business. The malicious intent of clicking online ads either committed by humans or by non-humans,...     

Optimal performance assessment for a photo‐Fenton degradation pilot plant driven by solar energy using artificial neural networks

Artificial neural networks (ANN) were proposed as a multivariate experimental design tool for monitoring a photo‐Fenton treatment of wastewaters containing a synthetic mixture of pesticides. ANN and Nelder‐Mead simplex methods were used to find out the optimum operating parameters of a photo‐Fenton pilot plant. ANN was developed to predict the most important operating parameters (e.g., the total organic carbon and the initial mineralization kinetic rate constants of the reactions), which determine the photo‐catalytic degradation efficiency in photo‐Fenton processes. Experimental measurements of temperature, pH, hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂) consumption, initial concentration of Fe²⁺, and the AE were used as input data for the ANN learning. A feed‐forward with one hidden layer, a Levenberg–Marquardt learning algorithm, a hyperbolic tangent sigmoidal transfer function and a linear transfer function were used to develop the ANN model. The best fitting of the training database was obtained with an ANN architecture constituted by seven neurons in the hidden layer. The simulated results were validated with experimental measurements, showing an acceptable agreement (R² > 0.99). The ANN was subsequently coupled with a Nelder–Mead simplex method to obtain the optimum operating parameters of the photo‐Fenton pilot plant. The H₂O₂ consumption was used as key variable for evaluating the optimization procedure. Errors less than 1% between simulated and experimental data were found. The obtained results showed that the use of ANN provides an excellent predictive performance tool with the additional capability to assess the influence of each operating parameter on the removal process of water pollutants. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Structurally laminated CrN films deposited by multi pulse modulated pulsed power magnetron sputtering

The paper presents the results on the deposition of nanoscale structurally laminated CrN films using a novel multi pulse modulated pulsed power (MPP) magnetron sputtering technique. With the multi pulse MPP approach, thin films with a structural modulation in the nanometer range are obtained by alternately switching two (or even more) high power MPP pulses on the same target, which have different pulse lengths, frequencies and powers. Each pulse was turned on for a pulse repeat duration during which this given pulse shape was repeated. In this study, CrN films have been deposited in a closed field unbalanced magnetron sputtering system using the multi pulse MPP technique by varying the pulse repeat duration of two different pulses. The CrN films were also deposited by dc magnetron sputtering (dcMS) and single pulse MPP techniques for comparison. The microstructure and properties of the films were characterized using glancing incident X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, nanoindentation, and ball-on-disk wear tests. The structure and properties of the multi pulse MPP CrN films depended on the pulse repeat duration. The highest hardness of 30.5 GPa and an H/E ratio of 0.9 have been achieved in the multi pulse MPP CrN films. The wear rate of the single pulse MPP and multi pulse MPP CrN films decreased by a factor of 5.8–17 as compared to the dcMS CrN films.     

Effect of chlorine dioxide gas on physical,thermal, mechanical,and barrier properties of polymeric packaging materials

The effects of gaseous chlorine dioxide (ClO₂) on properties and performance of 10 selected polymeric packaging materials, including polyethylene (PE), biaxially oriented poly(propylene), polystyrene, poly(vinyl chloride), poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET), poly(lactic acid), nylon, and a multilayer structure of ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA)/ethylene vinyl alcohol (EVOH), were evaluated. Physical, mechanical, barrier, and color properties as well as infrared (IR) spectra were assessed before and after polymer samples were exposed to 3600 ppmV ClO₂ gas at 23°C for 24, 168, and 336 h. The IR spectra of the ClO₂‐treated samples revealed many changes in their chemical characteristics, such as the formation of polar groups in the polyolefin, changes in functional groups, main chain scission degradation, and possible chlorination of several materials. The ClO₂‐treated PE samples showed a decrease in tensile properties compared with the untreated (control) films. Decreases in moisture, oxygen, and/or carbon dioxide barrier properties were observed in the treated PE, PET, and multilayer EVA/EVOH/EVA samples. A significant increase (P < 0.05) in the barrier to O₂ was observed in the ClO₂‐treated nylon, possibly the result of molecular reordering, which was found through an increase in the crystallinity of the material. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2010     

Hierarchical steganography using novel optimum quantization technique

Security and imperceptibility are fundamental issues for steganography. This paper presents a multi-level steganography system based on concealing and deception. Basically, the secret image is embedded in a cover image, which in turn is embedded in another higher-level cover image. Each steganography level provides additional security, with lower levels implemented using stronger steganography methods. Furthermore, in the event that the higher level steganography is compromised, it would include misleading information to deceive the attacker that he/she is successfully eavesdropping. One challenge of hierarchical system is retaining hidden data in lower level in a higher level stenographic technique. To mitigate this issue, we designed a novel technique which combines discrete cosine transform and least significant bit (LSB). The technique objective is to maximize the capacity and invisibility of the secret image with minimal modification to the cover image (at most k-bits per block). The performance (capacity and peak signal-to-noise ratio) of the proposed method has superior performance compared with LSB since it combines the benefits of 1-bit and 3-bit LSBs. Furthermore, the paper demonstrates that the secret message is successfully embedded and extracted in two-level steganography system with peak signal-to-nose ratio greater than 20 dB.     

可持续性钢结构

论述了建筑可持续发展的三个重要方面,即经济增长、社会进步和有效保护环境。具体包括有效地利用自然资源、减少能源消耗、减少废气排放量、减少浪费、更有效地利用土地、减少对施工现场的影响及创造更好的就业条件。着重讨论了钢结构的可持续发展。建造过程中采用钢结构的优势在于高速、预制、安全、较少的废弃物、具备工厂生产和现场施工条件。     

The Effect of Hardness on Eddy Current Residual Stress Profiling in Shot-Peened Nickel Alloys

Recent research results indicate that eddy current conductivity measurements can be exploited for nondestructive evaluation of subsurface residual stresses in surface-treated nickel-base superalloy components. According to this approach, first the depth-dependent electric conductivity profile is calculated from the measured frequency-dependent apparent eddy current conductivity spectrum. Then, the residual stress depth profile is calculated from the conductivity profile based on the piezoresistivity coefficient of the material, which is determined separately from calibration measurements using known external applied stresses. This paper presents new results that indicate that in some popular nickel-base superalloys the relationship between the electric conductivity profile and the sought residual stress profile is more tenuous than previously thought. It is shown that in delta-processed IN718 the relationship is very sensitive to the state of precipitation hardening and, if left uncorrected, could render the eddy current technique unsuitable for residual stress profiling in components of 36 HRC or harder, i.e., in most critical engine applications. The presented experimental results show that the observed dramatic change in the eddy current response of hardened IN718 to surface treatment is caused by very fine nanometer-scale features of the microstructure, such as γ′ and γ″ precipitates, rather than micrometer-scale features, such as changing grain size or δ phase and carbide precipitates.     

Formation of trajectory of industrial robot based on artificial neural network

The application of the neural network approach to solving the problem of optimizing the trajectory of industrial robots with respect to minimum energy consumption and maximum performance is considered. The results of an investigation of the proposed approach for industrial robots are presented.