Cooling slope casting to produce EN AW 6082 forging stock for manufacture of suspension components

The potential of cooling slope casting process to produce EN AW 6082 forging stock for the manufacture of EN AW 6082 suspension components was investigated. EN AW 6082 billets cast over a cooling plate offer a fine uniform structure that can be forged even without a separate homogenization treatment. This is made it possible by the limited superheat of the melt at the start of casting and the fractional solidification that occurs already on the cooling plate. Suspension parts forged from cast and homogenized billets with or without Cr all showed a uniform structure, and the hardness reached HV 110 after the standard artificial ageing treatment.     

A note on the incidence and antibiotic resistance of Staphylococcus aureus isolated from meat and chicken samples

One hundred and fifty samples of raw calf/lamb meat samples (mince and chunks) and chicken parts (giblets, carcass) were analysed for the presence of Staphylococcus aureus. Eighty S. aureus strains were isolated and identified. Resistance of the strains to methicillin and other antibiotics was determined by the Kirby-Bauer disc diffusion test. The overall methicillin resistance rate for S. aureus was 67.5%. Of S. aureus strains, 87.5% were resistant to bacitracin. A high prevalence of penicillin G resistance was detected for S. aureus (53.8%). Few of the strains were resistant to erythromycin (7.5%). All strains were susceptible to vancomycin, sulbactam–ampicillin, ciprofloxacin and cefaperazone–sulbactam. This study confirmed the presence of S. aureus, especially antibiotic-resistant strains, in the foods examined, indicating poor sanitary conditions during processing which may create a health risk for consumers.     

铝合金半固态浆料中球形颗粒的演变

用AlSi7Mg0.6半固态浆料进行实验,研究球形颗粒的演变机理.在略高于液相线温度下水淬的样品中结晶相主要为枝晶,而采用旋转圆筒的方式来搅拌熔体使其冷却到半固态温度范围内时样品的结晶相完全球化.在铸造前进行较长时间的内冷却和搅拌,可以得到较高的固相分数.不同大小的枝晶碎片的存在表明,在搅拌过程中,初始的固相分数形成后不再受冷却的影响.     

Effect of Boron and Heat Treatment on Mechanical Properties of White Cast Iron for Mining Application

 Heat treatment methods were applied to white cast iron for improving the impact and wear resistance. Additionally, chemical composition optimization was made. Furthermore, the effect of boron addition on such applications was investigated. Samples were investigated by using optical and electron microscope methods. Hardness, wear and impact tests were conducted. The results showed that the secondary carbides in the standard alloy were iron-enriched, needle-like carbides M3C when the boron-added alloy contained Fe23(C,B)6 type, globular secondary carbides. It was concluded that heat treatment B provided higher wear and hardness properties, compared to the standard heat treatment. Optimum mechanical properties were obtained by lower destabilisation temperatures and increasing temperature reduced the wear resistance and hardness.     

Photochromic Polymers Based on the Photoinduced Opening and Thermal Closing of [1,3]Oxazine Rings

Two macromolecular constructs incorporating a single polymer backbone with multiple photochromic side chains are developed. Both systems are prepared from preformed photochromic [1,3]oxazines after the ring‐opening polymerization of their norbornene appendages. In solution, UV illumination of these polymers opens the [1,3]oxazine rings in their side chains in less than 6 ns and with a quantum yield of 0.09 in both instances. The photogenerated species incorporate a 4‐nitrophenolate chromophore, and hence, their formation is accompanied by the appearance of an intense band in the visible region of the absorption spectrum. The photoproducts revert spontaneously to the original state with first‐order kinetics in microseconds. Furthermore, both photochromic polymers tolerate hundreds of switching cycles with no sign of degradation, even in the presence of molecular oxygen. Thus, this design logic and choice of functional building blocks can translate into the realization of innovative photoresponsive materials with excellent photochromic performance.     

Thermodynamic analysis of the interaction between 3-aminophenylboronic acid and monosaccharides for development of biosensor

The special interaction between 3-aminophenylboronic acid and monosaccharides, particularly glucose, fructose and galactose, has been investigated and used for the development of electrochemical and surface plasmon resonance (SPR) based saccharide sensors. The binding constants and thermodynamic parameters of interaction such as free energy of binding (ΔG), enthalpy (ΔH) and entropy (ΔS) were determined for the first time using isothermal titration calorimetry revealed the enthalpic and entropic contributions to the free energies of binding. Effects of pH and buffer on the binding constants (k) between 3-aminophenylboronic acid and monosaccharides were also examined. The binding constant of fructose was found to be six times higher than glucose and four times higher than galactose at pH 11, leading the specific detection of fructose. SPR and potentiometric calibration for fructose were linear in the concentration range of 10–120 mM and 8–84 mM, respectively. Limit of detection of the SPR and potentiometric method were found to be as 8.9 mM and 1.4 mM, respectively.     

Magnetic hydrophobic affinity nanobeads for lysozyme separation

N-Methacryloyl-l-phenylalanine (MAPA) containing poly(2-hydroxyethylmethacrylate) based magnetic [mag-poly(HEMA–MAPA)] nanobeads was prepared for lysozyme purification form chicken egg white. MAPA was synthesized by reacting methacryloyl chloride with l-phenylalanine methyl ester and provided hydrophobic functionality to the nanobeads. Size of mag-poly(HEMA–MAPA) nanobeads was 386 nm and obtained by surfactant free emulsion polymerization of HEMA and MAPA having a specific surface area of 580 m²/g. Mag-poly(HEMA–MAPA) nanobeads were characterized by FTIR, AFM, TEM, ESR, and elemental analysis. Lysozyme adsorption experiments were investigated under different conditions in batch system (i.e., medium pH, protein concentration, temperature, salt type). Lysozyme adsorption capacity of mag-poly(HEMA) and mag-poly(HEMA–MAPA) nanobeads from aqueous solutions was estimated as 24 and 517 mg/g, respectively. Lysozyme molecules were desorbed with 50% ethylene glycol solution with 98% recovery. It was observed that mag-poly(HEMA–MAPA) nanobeads can be used without significant decrease in lysozyme adsorption capacity after ten adsorption–desorption cycles. Mag-poly(HEMA–MAPA) nanobeads was used for the purification of lysozyme from chicken egg white. Purity of lysozyme was estimated by SDS-PAGE.     

High-temperature abrasive wear testing of potential tool materials for thixoforming of steels

High temperature abrasive wear performance of Inconel 617, Stellite 6 alloys and X32CrMoV33 hot work tool steel was investigated. The wear resistance of the latter is degraded at 750 °C due to its inferior oxidation resistance. Extensive oxidation co-occuring with abrasive wear at 750 °C leads to substantial material loss due to the lack of a protective oxide scale, sufficiently ductile to sustain the abrasion without extensive spalling. The wear resistance of the Inconel 617 and Stellite 6 alloys, on the other hand, improves at 750 °C owing to protective oxides that sustain the abrasion without spalling.     

Impact of non-normal random effects on inference by multiple imputation: A simulation assessment

Multivariate extensions of well-known linear mixed-effects models have been increasingly utilized in inference by multiple imputation in the analysis of multilevel incomplete data. The normality assumption for the underlying error terms and random effects plays a crucial role in simulating the posterior predictive distribution from which the multiple imputations are drawn. The plausibility of this normality assumption on the subject-specific random effects is assessed. Specifically, the performance of multiple imputation created under a multivariate linear mixed-effects model is investigated on a diverse set of incomplete data sets simulated under varying distributional characteristics. Under moderate amounts of missing data, the simulation study confirms that the underlying model leads to a well-calibrated procedure with negligible biases and actual coverage rates close to nominal rates in estimates of the regression coefficients. Estimation quality of the random-effect variance and association measures, however, are negatively affected from both the misspecification of the random-effect distribution and number of incompletely-observed variables. Some of the adverse impacts include lower coverage rates and increased biases.     

Perturbation-Based Eigenvector Updates for On-Line Principal Components Analysis and Canonical Correlation Analysis

Principal components analysis is an important and well-studied subject in statistics and signal processing. Several algorithms for solving this problem exist, and could be mostly grouped into one of the following three approaches: adaptation based on Hebbian updates and deflation, optimization of a second order statistical criterion (like reconstruction error or output variance), and fixed point update rules with deflation. In this study, we propose an alternate approach that avoids deflation and gradient-search techniques. The proposed method is an on-line procedure based on recursively updating the eigenvector and eigenvalue matrices with every new sample such that the estimates approximately track their true values as would be calculated analytically from the current sample estimate of the data covariance matrix. The perturbation technique is theoretically shown to be applicable for recursive canonical correlation analysis, as well. The performance of this algorithm is compared with that of a structurally similar matrix perturbation-based method and also with a few other traditional methods like Sanger’s rule and APEX.

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