Role of additives in fabrication of soy-based rigid polyurethane foam for structural and thermal insulation applications

Environmental concerns continue to pose the challenge to replace petroleum-based products with renewable ones completely or at least partially while maintaining comparable properties. Herein, rigid polyurethane (PU) foams were prepared using soy-based polyol for structural and thermal insulation applications. Cell size, density, thermal resistivity, and compression force deflection (CFD) values were evaluated and compared with that of petroleum-based PU foam Baydur 683. The roles of different additives, that is, catalyst, blowing agent, surfactants, and different functionalities of polyol on the properties of fabricated foam were also investigated. For this study, dibutyltin dilaurate was employed as catalyst and water as environment friendly blowing agent. Their competitive effect on density and cell size of the PU foams were evaluated. Five different silicone-based surfactants were employed to study the effect of surface tension on cell size of foam. It was also found that 5 g of surfactant per 100 g of polyol produced a foam with minimum surface tension and highest thermal resistivity (R value: 26.11 m²·K/W). However, CFD values were compromised for higher surfactant loading. Additionally, blending of 5 g of higher functionality soy-based polyol improved the CFD values to 328.19 kPa, which was comparable to that of petroleum-based foam Baydur 683.     

A robust control of robot manipulators for physical interaction: stability analysis for the interaction with unknown environments

Intelligent Service Robotics - A robust control designed for multiple degrees-of-freedom (DOF) robot manipulators performing complex tasks requiring frequent physical interaction with unknown...     

Electrocatalytic Reduction of CO2 to Ethylene by Molecular Cu‐Complex Immobilized on Graphitized Mesoporous Carbon

The electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide (CO₂) to hydrocarbons is a challenging task because of the issues in controlling the efficiency and selectivity of the products. Among the various transition metals, copper has attracted attention as it yields more reduced and C2 products even while using mononuclear copper center as catalysts. In addition, it is found that reversible formation of copper nanoparticle acts as the real catalytically active site for the conversion of CO₂ to reduced products. Here, it is demonstrated that the dinuclear molecular copper complex immobilized over graphitized mesoporous carbon can act as catalysts for the conversion of CO₂ to hydrocarbons (methane and ethylene) up to 60%. Interestingly, high selectivity toward C2 product (40% faradaic efficiency) is achieved by a molecular complex based hybrid material from CO₂ in 0.1 m KCl. In addition, the role of local pH, porous structure, and carbon support in limiting the mass transport to achieve the highly reduced products is demonstrated. Although the spectroscopic analysis of the catalysts exhibits molecular nature of the complex after 2 h bulk electrolysis, morphological study reveals that the newly generated copper cluster is the real active site during the catalytic reactions.     

D-limonene Inhibits Pentylenetetrazole-Induced Seizure via Adenosine A2A Receptor Modulation on GABAergic Neuronal Activity

Background: Epilepsy is a chronic neurological disorder characterized by the recurrence of seizures. One-third of patients with epilepsy may not respond to antiseizure drugs. Purpose: We aimed to examine whether D-limonene, a cyclic monoterpene, exhibited any antiseizure activity in the pentylenetetrazole (PTZ)-induced kindling mouse model and in vitro. Methods: PTZ kindling mouse model was established by administering PTZ (30 mg/kg) intraperitoneally to mice once every 48 h. We performed immunoblot blots, immunohistochemistry (IHC), and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) analysis after the behavioral study. Results: An acute injection of PTZ (60 mg/kg) induced seizure in mice, while pretreatment with D-limonene inhibited PTZ-induced seizure. Repeated administration of PTZ (30 mg/kg) increased the seizure score gradually in mice, which was reduced in D-limonene (10 mg/kg)-pretreated group. In addition, D-limonene treatment increased glutamate decarboxylase-67 (GAD-67) expression in the hippocampus. Axonal sprouting of hippocampal neurons after kindling was inhibited by D-limonene pretreatment. Moreover, D-limonene reduced the expression levels of Neuronal PAS Domain Protein 4 (Npas4)-induced by PTZ. Furthermore, the adenosine A2A antagonist {"type":"entrez-protein","attrs":{"text":"SCH58261","term_id":"1052882304","term_text":"SCH58261"}}SCH58261 and ZM241385 inhibited anticonvulsant activity and gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA)ergic neurotransmission-induced by D-limonene. Conclusion: These results suggest that D-limonene exhibits anticonvulsant activity through modulation of adenosine A2A receptors on GABAergic neuronal function.     

Effect of Initial Grain Size on Friction Stir Weldability for Rolled and Cast CoCrFeMnNi High-Entropy Alloys

Metals and Materials International - This study investigated the influence of the initial grain size on the plastic deformation and tunnel defects that occurred from friction stir welding of...     

Fabrication of lotus-type porous carbon steel by the continuous zone melting method and its mechanical properties

A lotus-type porous carbon steel with cylindrical pores was fabricated by the continuous zone melting method in a pressurized mixture of hydrogen and helium gases. The porosity increases with increasing partial pressure of the hydrogen gas, while the pore diameter remains almost constant, independent of the pressure. The ultimate tensile strength of the specimen with cylindrical pores parallel to the tensile direction is lower than the estimated value, assuming that the strength is decreased in proportion to the decrease of the cross-sectional area of the specimen, while the yield strength is higher than the estimated value. The compressive yield strength is also higher than the estimated value. The increase in yield strength is considered to be due to precipitation strengthening. The tensile strength is increased by quenching and tempering, while the elongation decreases. Such mechanical properties are discussed in terms of the microstructural analysis.     

An MPEG‐4 Compliant Interactive Multimedia Streaming Platform Using Overlay Networks

This paper presents a multimedia streaming platform for efficiently transmitting MPEG‐4 content over IP networks. The platform includes an MPEG‐4 compliant streaming server and client, supporting object‐based representation of multimedia scenes, interactivity, and advanced encoding profiles defined by the ISO standard. For scalability purposes, we employ an application‐layer multicast scheme for media transmission using overlay networks. The overlay network, governed by the central entity of the network distribution manager, is dynamically deployed according to a set of pre‐defined criteria. The overlay network supports both broadcast delivery and video‐on‐demand content. The multimedia streaming platform is standards‐compliant and utilizes widespread multimedia protocols such as MPEG‐4, real‐time transport protocol, real‐time transport control protocol, and real‐time streaming protocol. The design of the overlay network was architected with the goal of transparency to both the streaming server and the client. As a result, many commercial implementations that use industry‐standard protocols can be plugged into the architecture relatively painlessly and can enjoy the benefits of the platform.     

A high-performance multichannel dual-gate poly-Si TFT fabricated by excimer laser irradiation on a floating a-Si thin film

A new excimer laser annealing (ELA) process that uses a floating amorphous-Silicon (a-Si) thin film with a multichannel structure is proposed for high-performance poly-Si thin-film transistors (TFTs). The proposed ELA method produces two-dimensional (2-D) grain growth, which can result in a high-quality grain structure. The dual-gate structure was employed to eliminate the grain boundaries perpendicular to the current flow in the channel. A multichannel structure was adapted in order to arrange the grain boundary to be parallel to the current flow. The proposed poly-Si TFT exhibits high-performance electrical characteristics, which are a high mobility of 504 cm/sup 2//Vsec and a low subthreshold slope of 0.337 V/dec.     

Development of a safety critical software requirements verification method with combined CPN and PVS: a nuclear power plant protection system application

Safety-critical software systems such as certain nuclear instrumentation and control (NI&C) systems should be developed with thorough verification. This study presents a method of software requirement verification with a case study for a nuclear power plant (NPP) protection system. The verification introduces colored petri net (CPN) for system modeling and prototype verification system (PVS) for mathematical verification. In order to aid flow-through from modeling by CPN to mathematical proof by PVS, an information extractor from CPN models has been developed in this paper. In order to convert the extracted information to the PVS specification language, a translator has also been developed. This combined method has been applied to the functional requirements of the Wolsong NPP Shut Down System #2 (SDS2); logical properties of the requirements were verified. Through this research, guidelines and a tool support for the use of formal methods have been developed for application to NI&C software verification.