The effect of alkalization and fiber loading on the mechanical properties of bamboo fiber composites,Part 1: — Polyester resin matrix

Bamboo strips [10 cm × 1.5 cm × (1?1.5) mm] were treated with caustic solutions for 1 h at different concentrations e.g., 0, 10, 15, 20, and 25%. Bamboo strips reinforced polyester resin composites were fabricated by hand‐lay‐up technique using both alkali‐treated and untreated bamboo strips, using a room temperature curing system for the polyester resin. This study aims at the evaluation of the influence of caustic concentration on the mechanical properties of bamboo strips reinforced polyester resin composites at a constant 50% loading of reinforcement. Maximum improvement in property was achieved possibly with 20% of caustic treated strip reinforcements. Beyond 20%, there was degradation in all the strength properties because of failure in mechanical properties of the reinforcements itself. The effect of fiber loading variation upon mechanical properties was also studied. It was observed that superior mechanical properties were obtained with 60% filler loading. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2009     

Poly(ethylene oxide)/clay nanocomposite: Thermomechanical properties and morphology

Poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO)/clay nanocomposites were prepared by a solution intercalation method using chloroform as a solvent. The nanocomposites were characterised by X-ray diffraction (XRD), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), hot-stage polarized optical microscopy (POM), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), tensile analysis, dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) characterisation techniques. Formation of nanocomposite was confirmed by X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis. A decrease in PEO crystallinity in case of nanocomposite, was confirmed by a decrease in the heat of melting and spherulite size as indicated by DSC and POM studies, respectively. Improvement in tensile properties in all respect was observed for nanocomposites with optimum clay content (12.5 wt%). DMA studies indicate an increase in loss peak temperature and broadening of loss peak as a result of clay intercalation.     

Biomolecular Template-Induced Biomimetic Coating of Hydroxyapatite on an SS 316 L Substrate

Bone, a natural composite, comprises non-stoichiometric calcium hydroxyapatite (HAp) precipitated in a controlled reaction environment of a highly aligned, anisotropic organic template (type I collagen) that leads to its exotic tensile and compressive strength. It differs from stoichiometric hydroxyapatite in composition, crystallinity, and other physical and mechanical properties. In the present study, functionalized biomolecular template-induced precipitation of HAp on an SS 316 L substrate following biomimetic route exhibits distinct alterations in crystal growth and geometry, which in turn indicates the potential of the process to develop a non-stoichiometric HAp coating on metal implants.     

Electrical Conduction in Nano-Structured La0.9Sr0.1Al0.85Co0.05Mg0.1O3 Perovskite Oxide

Nanocrystalline La_0.9Sr_0.1Al_0.85Co_0.05Mg_0.1O₃ oxide powder was synthesized by a citrate–nitrate auto-ignition process and characterized by thermal analysis, X-ray diffraction, and impedance spectroscopy measurements. Nanocrystalline (50–100 nm) powder with perovskite structure could be produced at 900°C by this process. The powder could be sintered to a density more than 96% of the theoretical density at 1550°C. Impedance measurements on the sintered samples unequivocally established the potential of this process in developing nanostructured lanthanum aluminate-based oxides. The sintered La_0.9Sr_0.1Al_0.85Co_0.05Mg_0.1O₃ sample exhibited a conductivity of 2.40 × 10⁻² S/cm in air at 1000°C compared with 4.9 × 10⁻³ S/cm exhibited by La_0.9Sr_0.1Al_0.85Mg_0.15O₃.     

Concurrent optimisation of a computer vision system’s multiple responses

A number of recent research works have focused on how to improve the performance of production systems. This paper examines the system based on a simulation model with two manufacturing cells under a re-entrant environment. With the model a set of experiments has been carried out to study how the factors influence the system performance. Different release times and lot sizes have been compared, and scheduling heuristics for both bottleneck and non-bottleneck have been discussed to capture the essence of the production system. We used ANOVA to analyze the experimental results and achieved the conclusions that: interval releasing is better than beginning releasing; lot size can improve one of the performance indicators, but deteriorate the other under interval releasing; NC policy can obtain both good due-date performance and high throughput.     

Whole Body Ip6k1 Deletion Protects Mice from Age-Induced Weight Gain,Insulin Resistance and Metabolic Dysfunction

(1) Background: We previously demonstrated that disruption of IP6K1 improves metabolism, protecting mice from high-fat diet-induced obesity, insulin resistance, and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and steatohepatitis. Age-induced metabolic dysfunction is a major risk factor for metabolic diseases. The involvement of IP6K1 in this process is unknown. (2) Methods: Here, we compared body and fat mass, insulin sensitivity, energy expenditure and serum-, adipose tissue- and liver-metabolic parameters of chow-fed, aged, wild type (aWT) and whole body Ip6k1 knockout (aKO) mice. (3) Results: IP6K1 was upregulated in the adipose tissue and liver of aWT mice compared to young WT mice. Moreover, Ip6k1 deletion blocked age-induced increase in body- and fat-weight and insulin resistance in mice. aKO mice oxidized carbohydrates more efficiently. The knockouts displayed reduced levels of serum insulin, triglycerides, and non-esterified fatty acids. Ip6k1 deletion partly protected age-induced decline of the thermogenic uncoupling protein UCP1 in inguinal white adipose tissue. Targets inhibited by IP6K1 activity such as the insulin sensitivity- and energy expenditure-inducing protein kinases, protein kinase B (PKB/Akt) and AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK), were activated in the adipose tissue and liver of aKO mice. (4) Conclusions: Ip6k1 deletion maintains healthy metabolism in aging and thus, targeting this kinase may delay the development of age-induced metabolic dysfunction.     

Isolation of transport mechanisms in PEFCs using high resolution neutron imaging

Liquid water saturation profiles were determined using high resolution neutron radiography for commercially available fuel cell materials and hardware. Temperature, pressure, and relative humidity (concentration) gradients were imposed on the cell to determine individual influences on water content for each gradient. The asymmetric anode/cathode channel/land architecture used in this work results in significant water accumulation in the anode diffusion media with saturation values of up to ∼50%. Anode water content was found to change substantially with imposed pressure or concentration gradient, whereas the cathode saturation profile remained relatively consistent, indicating the channel/land ratio and thickness have a determinant role in diffusion media retention. The data generated in this work has been made publicly available through www.pemfcdata.org, and should be useful for computational modelers seeking validation data.     

CNS: a new energy efficient transmission scheme for wireless sensor networks

We present in this paper a new energy-efficient communication scheme called CNS (Compression with Null Symbol) that combines the power of data compression and communication through silent symbol. The concept of communication through silent symbol is borrowed from the energy efficient schemes proposed in Sinha (Proceedings of 6th IEEE consumer communications and networking conference (CCNC), Las Vegas, pp. 1–5, 2009), Ghosh et al. (Proceedings of 27th IEEE international performance computing and communications conference (IPCCC), USA, pp. 85–92, 2008), and Sinha and Sinha (Proceedings of international conference on distributed computing and internet technologies (ICDCIT), LNCS, pp. 139–144, 2008). We show that the average theoretical energy saving at the transmitter by CNS is 62.5%, assuming an ideal channel and for equal likelihood of all possible binary strings of a given length. Next, we propose a transceiver design that uses a hybrid modulation scheme utilizing FSK and ASK so as to keep the cost/complexity of the radio devices low. Considering an additive white gaussian noise (AWGN) channel and a non-coherent detection based receiver, CNS shows a saving in transmitter energy by 30% when compared to binary FSK, for equal likelihood of all possible binary strings of a given length. Simultaneously, there is a saving of 50% at the receiver for all types of data modulation due to halving of the transmitted data duration, compared to binary encoding. In contrast, RBNSiZeComm proposed in Sinha (Proceedings of 6th IEEE consumer communications and networking conference (CCNC), Las Vegas, pp. 1–5, 2009), TSS proposed in Ghosh et al. (Proceedings of 27th IEEE international performance computing and communications conference (IPCCC), USA, pp. 85–92, 2008) and RZE proposed in Sinha and Sinha (Proceedings of international conference on distributed computing and internet technologies (ICDCIT), LNCS, pp. 139–144, 2008) generate average transmitter energy savings of about 41, 20, and 35.2%, respectively. Also, at the receiver side, while RBNSiZeComm does not generate any saving, TSS and RZE produce about 36.9 and 12.5% savings on an average, respectively. Considering certain data types that may occur in the context of some wireless sensor networks (WSN) based applications (e.g., remote healthcare, agricultural WSNs, etc.), our simulation results demonstrate that for AWGN noisy channels, the transmitter side savings vary from about 33–50% on an average, while for RBNSiZeComm, this saving is about 33–61% on the same data set (Sinha in Proceedings of 6th IEEE consumer communications and networking conference (CCNC), Las Vegas, pp. 1–5, 2009). Thus, taking into account the low cost/complexity of the proposed transceiver, these results clearly establish that CNS can be a suitable candidate for communication in low power wireless sensor networks, such as in remote healthcare applications, body area networks, home automation, WSNs for agriculture and many others.     

Dispersion polymerization of aniline using hydroxypropylcellulose as stabilizer: role of rate of polymerization

Hydroxypropylcellulose (HPC) has been used as a steric stabilizer for preparing polyaniline dispersions using the route of oxidative dispersion polymerization of aniline. Using strongly acidic conditions (1 mol l^?1 HCl), low temperature of about 2 °C and a concentration of aniline as low as 0.5%, ammonium peroxodisulfate at 1.25% and hydroxypropylcellulose concentrations at 0.5–1 g d l^?1, unstable dispersions were obtained not only in water but also in aqueous alcohols (ethanol and methanol) up to at least 70 vol% alcohol. In contrast, dispersions that remained stable for at least 72 h were obtained when the alcohol concentration of the medium was as high as about 80 vol%. Kinetic studies of the polymerization systems suggested that success in the latter case was due to a lowering of the rate of polymerization. Transmission electron microscopy studies showed that dispersion particles prepared in 80 vol% alcohol media are spherical in shape and their diameter decreases with increasing stabilizer concentration. However, a change of morphology from spherical to aggregated needle‐shaped was observed when the rate was increased by increasing the aniline concentration from 0.5% to 0.75% g d l^?1 in the above recipe. The aggregated particles were found to be broken down to spherical nanoparticles when the as‐prepared dispersions were sonicated for about 30 min. The sonicated dispersion on drying showed the presence of fractal clusters of polyaniline particles in the dried film. The fractal dimension was determined to be 1.77 which agreed well with the theoretical value determined by computer simulation based on a diffusion limited cluster–cluster aggregation model in three dimensions. © 2001 Society of Chemical Industry