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.     

Detailed analysis on thermal,microstructural, mechanical,and morphological features of side chain liquid crystalline polymer/isotactic polypropylene graft copolymers: Effect of grafted and ungrafted polymer units

The main scope of this comprehensive study is to investigate the effects of poly(p-benzophenoneoxycarbonylphenyl acrylate), poly(BPOCPA), which presenting as only graft units or both graft and ungrafted units in the matrix, on the fundamental features of isotactic polypropylene (IPP). The graft copolymerization of BPOCPA onto IPP was performed with the aid of bulk melt polymerization at varying monomer content levels ranging from 5% to 40%. The thermal behavior, crystal quality, mechanical performance, and surface morphology of the samples were investigated by means of differential scanning calorimeter, X-ray diffractometer (XRD), universal mechanical test, and scanning electron microscope (SEM) techniques. Thermal analyses depicted that there existed the noteworthy enhancements in both crystalline melting temperatures and percent crystallinities of matrix polymers. Furthermore, according to XRD results, a and b parameters increased significantly at low percentages of the graft units, while the parameter c decreased in all products in consistence with the content. As for the mechanical characterization, the grafting led to remarkable improvements in modulus, tensile and impact strength of the products. SEM micrographs indicated that the samples were completely homogeneous without any phase separation and the products exhibited brittle nature with some ductility.     

Multi-scale directional-filtering-based method for follicular lymphoma grading

Follicular lymphoma (FL) is a group of malignancies of lymphocyte origin that arise from lymph nodes, spleen, and bone marrow in the lymphatic system. It is the second most common non-Hodgkins lymphoma. Characteristic of FL is the presence of follicle center B cells consisting of centrocytes and centroblasts. Typically, FL images are graded by an expert manually counting the centroblasts in an image. This is time consuming. In this paper, we present a novel multi-scale directional filtering scheme and utilize it to classify FL images into different grades. Instead of counting the centroblasts individually, we classify the texture formed by centroblasts. We apply our multi-scale directional filtering scheme in two scales and along eight orientations, and use the mean and the standard deviation of each filter output as feature parameters. For classification, we use support vector machines with the radial basis function kernel. We map the features into two dimensions using linear discriminant analysis prior to classification. Experimental results are presented.     

Cation Exchange Equilibria with Chromium (III) Species by Strong Acid Ion Exchangers

The exchange of hydrogen ions for trivalent chromium species with strongly acidic exchange resins has been investigated. The experiments comprised of systems with chromium chloride and basic chromium sulphate which are applied in leather tanning. Exchange equilibria at ambient temperature were investigated as a function of pH and total chromium concentration. Exchange strongly depends on the speciation in each system. As can be expected, with chromium chloride solutions a strong preference of chromium species occurs. However, a complete pattern is found for systems with basic chromium sulphate where chromium species are not fully preferred.     

Chemical and microbiological status and volatile profiles of mouldy Civil cheese,a Turkish mould‐ripened variety

The objective of this study is to characterise the gross chemical and microbiological status and identify the volatile compounds of mouldy Civil cheeses. A total of forty‐one samples were surveyed, and gross compositional status of the cheeses was (as mean values): 6.5 for pH, 6.2% for fat‐in‐dry matter, 51.8% for moisture and 15.3% for water‐soluble nitrogen (as% of total nitrogen). Chemical composition of the cheese samples varied widely. Mouldy Civil cheese has similar pH values and moisture contents when compared with blue‐type cheeses, but it has distinct feature for fat contents. The microbiological counts of the samples were found to be high and some samples contained coliform bacteria. A total of 95 volatiles, including esters (28), acids (6), ketones (12), aldehydes (3), alcohols (15), terpenes (10), sulphur compounds (3) and miscellaneous (18), were identified in the volatile fractions of the cheeses, and principal volatile groups were esters, alcohols and ketones.     

CFD for incompressible flows at NASA Ames

Over the past 30 years, numerical methods and simulation tools for incompressible flows have been advanced as a subset of the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) discipline. Although incompressible flows are encountered in many areas of engineering, the simulation of compressible flows has driven most of the development of computational algorithms and tools at NASA Ames Research Center. This is due to the stringent requirements for predicting aerodynamic performances of flight vehicles. Conversely, low-speed incompressible flow through or past flow devices did not require the same numerical accuracy. This practice of tolerating relatively low-fidelity solutions in engineering applications has changed, as the design of low-speed flow devices have become more sophisticated, along with more strict efficiency requirements. Accurate and robust CFD tools have become increasingly important in fluid engineering for incompressible and low-speed flow. This paper reviews advances in computational technologies for incompressible flow simulation developed at Ames, and some engineering successes brought about by these advances made during the same period. Additionally, some of the current challenges faced in computing incompressible flows are presented.     

Antioxidative Effects of Oat Oil and its Fractions

The antioxidative properties of oat oil and its fractions were studied using the Rancimat method and lard, tallow and soybean oil as substrates. Oat oil extracted with isopropanol increased the induction time of oxidation of lard and tallow from 2 to 8-fold compared with the corresponding times without antioxidants, when applied at 1.0 to 5% concentrations. The same increase in stability was achieved with 0.25 to 1.5% concentrations of the separated fractions. The most effective fraction was the lecithin fraction isolated by supercritical CO₂ extraction. Almost equal results were achieved with a single-step ultrafiltration. Effects on the stability of soybean oil were similar but weaker.