Local Scouring at Bed Sills in a Mountain River: Plima River, Italian Alps

The main characteristics of local scouring below 26 bed sills constituting a sequence of grade-control structures in a mountain river (Plima River, Italian Alps) have been surveyed. Bed sills were built with concrete strengthened boulders and other loose boulders were placed in the river bed to enhance habitat diversity for fish. The most likely formative water discharge is used to evaluate specific flow energy at each bed sill. Measured maximum scour depths are well predicted by an empirical equation developed through laboratory results, showing an average relative error of 0.15.     

Determinants of e-consumer productivity in product retrieval on a commercial website: An experimental approach

This article investigates what determines e-consumer productivity, in the specific case of product retrieval, on a commercial website. With a 2 × 2 × 2 factorial design on 292 participants, an online experiment reveals that productivity in product retrieval (measured in terms of effectiveness, efficiency, and time) relates to website design (e.g., abstraction level of labels, animation), user characteristics (e.g., Internet experience, product category familiarity, cognitive absorption), and situational characteristics (e.g., task nature). The results also confirm interactive effects among the type of strategy used, the nature of the task, and the website design. These findings have notable implications for both research and practice.     

Gossypol material balance,denaturation of protein,and loss of thiamine in commercial processing of cottonseed

Summary The processing of cottonseed by five commercial mills has been systematically examined with reference to free gossypol reduction, nitrogen solubility, thiamine reduction, material balances of total gossypol, and the distribution of gossypol in processing. One hydraulic mill reduced the free gossypol in the meal to a low level, approximating the level obtained in screw pressing. For a given mill the free gossypol contents of the meals were found to be fairly uniform. Low free gossypol content of hydraulic-pressed meals depends on the thoroughness with which the gossypol is bound in the cooking. Gossypol is bound in both the cooking and pressing in the production of screw-pressed meals. A relatively small amount of total gossypol is lost or destroyed in processing cottonseed by either hydraulic- or screw-pressing methods. This small loss occurs while the meats are being prepared for pressing. No significant loss was found which could be attributed to the pressing operations. Serew-pressed oils appear to contain several times as much gossypol as hydraulic-pressed oils, with the amount dependent on the extent of the binding of gossypol in the cooking and mechanical preparation of the meats for pressing. The high temperatures developed in screw pressing contributed to a higher reduction in thiamine and nitrogen solubility than was observed for hydraulic pressing. One of the laboratories of the Bureau of Agricultural and Industrial Chemistry, Agricultural Research Administration, U. S. Department of Agriculture.     

Rate of radical polymerization of N,N-dimethylaminoethyl methacrylate in cyclohexane

Summary Anions of propene, isobutylene and cycloheptatriene have been prepared using Lochmann's Base. Star polymers in the form of one arm star, two arm star and three arm star polymers of styrene have been synthesized from the allyl anion (2), 2-methylenepropylenyl dianion (4) and the cycloheptatrienyl trianion (6) respectively, with acid end groups by quenching the living polymers with carbon dioxide. The number average molecular weight has been determined by stoichiometry, HPSEC and end group analysis by titration.     

Innovative design of hollow polymeric microneedles for transdermal drug delivery

Hypodermic injections give the best results in terms of drug administration efficiency, but benefit from a negative image among patients due to the fear of pain linked to needles. Transdermal drug delivery (TDD) has thus been greatly developed in the past ten years in order to be able to by-pass the skin protective layers in a minimally invasive way. With the advent of micro electro mechanical systems, opportunities have appeared, particularly in the area of microneedles. In this paper we present a new design of hollow polymeric microneedles aimed at being used for TDD by allowing injection of a liquid in the non-innerve part of the dermis. The design has been studied in order to be able to manufacture these microneedles arrays using techniques that may be applicable to industrial production at low cost. The envisioned microfabrication processes and their stacking are presented which involve injection micromolding and excimer laser ablation. Microneedles are also numerically characterized in terms of mechanics and microfluidics showing that the design also involves interesting features in terms of needles resistance and microfluidic. Due to the innovative double-molding technique, the micro-needles are indeed emptied leaving a cavity. An outlet channel on the side of the needle allows fluid flowing out of the needles. The characteristics of this outlet channel contribute to flow homogenization when several needles are placed in an array pattern. This microneedle design thus combines interesting characteristics in terms of ease of fabrication at large scale, mechanical resistance and fluid dynamics.

     

Micropatterning of sandwiched FeCuNbSiB/Cu/FeCuNbSiB for the realization of magneto-impedance microsensors

This work presents the fabrication of magnetic field microsensors based on the magneto-impedance phenomenon and dedicated to NDC applications. The multilayer structure, ferromagnetic/conductive/ferromagnetic, is composed of a copper layer sandwiched with two Finemet^? alloy films. The later, initially an amorphous material, is nanocrystallized by heat treatment. The fabrication process has been optimized in order to minimize coercivity and induce transversal anisotropy. The technological defects induced by the lift-off and sputtering processes change the magneto-impedance properties of the sensors. Eliminating these defects permits the sensor to reach to a sensitivity of 1,200 V/T/A at 30 MHz with a bias field larger than the anisotropy field and without hysteresis. The angular dependence of the sensitivity shows that the sensor is only sensitive to the axial component of the magnetic field.     

Innovative design of hollow polymeric microneedles for transdermal drug delivery

Hypodermic injections give the best results in terms of drug administration efficiency, but benefit from a negative image among patients due to the fear of pain linked to needles. Transdermal drug delivery (TDD) has thus been greatly developed in the past ten years in order to be able to by-pass the skin protective layers in a minimally invasive way. With the advent of micro electro mechanical systems, opportunities have appeared, particularly in the area of microneedles. In this paper we present a new design of hollow polymeric microneedles aimed at being used for TDD by allowing injection of a liquid in the non-innerve part of the dermis. The design has been studied in order to be able to manufacture these microneedles arrays using techniques that may be applicable to industrial production at low cost. The envisioned microfabrication processes and their stacking are presented which involve injection micromolding and excimer laser ablation. Microneedles are also numerically characterized in terms of mechanics and microfluidics showing that the design also involves interesting features in terms of needles resistance and microfluidic. Due to the innovative double-molding technique, the micro-needles are indeed emptied leaving a cavity. An outlet channel on the side of the needle allows fluid flowing out of the needles. The characteristics of this outlet channel contribute to flow homogenization when several needles are placed in an array pattern. This microneedle design thus combines interesting characteristics in terms of ease of fabrication at large scale, mechanical resistance and fluid dynamics.     

Locating Outfalls on Meandering Channels to Optimise Transverse Mixing

Many sources of river pollution approximate steady-state conditions and, under such conditions, the rate of transverse mixing is critical in determining the impact of pollutants. Results are presented from transverse-mixing experiments which were carried out on a large-scale laboratory channel with meander planform geometry of natural cross-section, generated by flow over a mobile bed. Dye-tracer measurements below three point sources within one cross-section are presented and compared, together with hydrodynamic measurements. The results show the importance of locating outfalls to maximise mixing rates, hence minimising pollution impact (depending on the environmental need). A release on the outside of a bend is shown to result in a faster rate of transverse mixing than a release on the inside of a bend.