Synthesis and Morphology of TiO2 Nanotube Arrays by Anodic Oxidation Using Modified Glycerol-Based Electrolytes

Titanium dioxide (TiO₂) nanotube arrays were prepared by electrochemical anodization of titanium sheets in the glycerol 176 mL/H₂O 44 mL/NH₄F 0.5 wt% electrolytes modified with H₂SO₄ and NaAc addition. The surface morphologies, average inner diameter, and the length of the nanotube arrays changed with the solution pH in the range from 5.6 to 4.0 by adding H₂SO₄. A uniform surface morphology of the nanotubes with average inner diameter of ∼80 nm and a length of ∼1000 nm was obtained when the solution pH was 5.0. The growth rates of the nanotubes were remarkably enhanced by NaAc addition in the range of 0.04–0.14 M . With NaAc addition of 0.10 M , the length of the nanotube arrays reached 4.16 μm after an 8-h anodization, increasing 3.23 μm compared with no NaAc addition. The relationship between solution pH and growth of TiO₂ nanotubes was analyzed by current–time curves, solution electrical conductivities, and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and the role of NaAc was also discussed based on SEM and solution electrical conductivities.     

微晶纤维素增粘剂的研制

以棉浆为原料，废盐酸为水解催化剂，所得合成革用微晶纤锥素增粘剂的质量指标达到了德国和日本同类产品的标准。     

Study of different effect on foaming process of biodegradable bionolle in supercritical carbon dioxide

Microcellular foaming of biodegradable Bionolle in supercritical CO₂ has been produced. The effects of a series of variable factors, such as saturation temperature, saturation pressure, and depressurization time and step on the foam structures and density, were studied through measurement of density and SEM observation. The experimental results show that higher saturation temperatures lead to an increase in bulk densities; and different depressurization time and step result in different product cell morphology. In addition, at some saturation temperature, the orientation of the cells can be found in the product morphology. XRD experimental results show that the foaming treatment with SC CO₂ increased the crystallinity of Bionolle. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 100: 2901–2906, 2006     

Tungsten Oxide Nanorods Array and Nanobundle Prepared by Using Chemical Vapor Deposition Technique

Tungsten oxide (WO₃) nanorods array prepared using chemical vapor deposition techniques was studied. The influence of oxygen gas concentration on the nanoscale tungsten oxide structure was observed; it was responsible for the stoichiometric and morphology variation from nanoscale particle to nanorods array. Experimental results also indicated that the deposition temperature was highly related to the morphology; the chemical structure, however, was stable. The evolution of the crystalline structure and surface morphology was analyzed by scanning electron microscopy, Raman spectra and X-ray diffraction approaches. The stoichiometric variation was indicated by energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy.     

Derivation and analysis of a filtered backprojection algorithm for cone beam projection data

The authors address the problem of three-dimensional image reconstruction from cone beam projections. Modifying a result due to A.A. Kirillov (Soviet Math. Dokl., vol. 2, p.268-9, 1961), the authors derive an inversion formula for the case where the cone vertices form an unbounded curve. For the special case in which the cone vertices form a circle, an approximate reconstruction formula is developed and shown to be essentially equivalent to the practical cone-beam algorithm of L.A. Feldkamp et al. (1984). For this approximate inverse, the authors derive the resulting spatially varying point spread function, examine the effect of bandlimiting due to sampling, and compare the resulting image quality as a function of the radius of the circle formed by the cone vertices.     

Cation interdiffusion between thick film of YBa2Cu3O7-δ and ceramic substrate

Thick films of superconducting oxides, YBa₂Cu₃O_7-, were successfully made by conventional screen-printing technology on Al₂O₃, MgO, and ZrO₂ substrates. Interdiffusion between the superconductive film and substrate was investigated using analytical electron microscopy. The results indicate that MgO and ZrO₂ are superior to Al₂O₃ for substrate materials.     

Haptic teleoperation of a multirotor aerial robot using path planning with human intention estimation

Classical haptic teleoperation systems heavily rely on operators’ intelligence and efforts in aerial robot navigation tasks, thereby posing significantly users’ workloads. In this paper, a novel shared control scheme is presented facilitating a multirotor aerial robot haptic teleoperation system that exhibits autonomous navigation capability. A hidden Markov model filter is proposed to identify the intention state of operator based on human inputs from haptic master device, which is subsequently adopted to derive goal position for a heuristic sampling based local path planner. The human inputs are considered as commanded velocity for a trajectory servo controller to drive the robot along the planned path. In addition, vehicle velocity is perceived by the user via haptic feedback on master device to enhance situation awareness and navigation safety of the user. An experimental study was conducted in a simulated and a physical environment, and the results verify the effectiveness of the novel scheme in safe navigation of aerial robots. A user study was carried out between a classical haptic teleoperation system and the proposed approach in the identical simulated complex environment. The flight data and task load index (TLX) are acquired and analyzed. Compared with the conventional haptic teleoperation scheme, the proposed scheme exhibits superior performance in safe and fast navigation of the multirotor vehicle, and is also of low task and cognitive loads.

     

Electrochemical investigation of La0.4Sr0.6TiO3 synthesized in air for SOFC application

Journal of Applied Electrochemistry - La-doped titanate materials have been widely investigated as alternative Ni-free anodes for solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs). In this study, La0.4Sr0.6TiO3 (LST)...     

A setup for panoramic stereo imaging

In this paper, based on the proposed basic implementation of circular projection, a multi-camera setup which can be used for panoramic stereo imaging is presented. Firstly, we get multiple stereo pairs instantly by fixing multiple cameras on the proposed setup, which is an approximate implementation of circular projection. We then prove that the influence on the resultant stereo pairs generated by this approximate setup is slight based on similar triangles and structural similarity (SSIM). With these stereo pairs, the automatic panoramic image stitching algorithm is applied to generate panoramas for both eyes. In addition, with reasonable distance between cameras and the scene, physical dimensions of this setup are given. Finally, experimental results demonstrate that our scheme can be used to generate cylindrical stereo panoramic image with proper scene depth, which can provide viewers with distinguishing stereoscopic experience. The device can be installed on the mobile equipment and captures panoramic stereo image in a moment without stopping. In the future, the proposed setup can be used in the field of network navigation, video monitor and virtual reality.