Android application that provides information on the foot and mouth disease in Korea

The foot and mouth disease is one of the most infectious diseases among artiodactyla. This occurred in and caused great damage to Korea in 2010. The effect was spread all over the country since it was not dealt with effectively at the early stages of the outbreak. Thus, this study aims to develop an application with the menu items such as the outbreak areas, and symptoms, and prompt reports of the foot and mouth disease so that stock farmers can download it through Smartphone and tablet PC web markets. The developed application enables stock farmers to get realtime information on the foot and mouth disease anywhere anytime, and to cope with this disease promptly when it occurs around their farming areas. It is expected that this application will be of help in preventing the foot and mouth disease from spreading further.     

A multi-material part design framework in additive manufacturing

Additive manufacturing (AM) technologies provide more freedom to functional part design in various industries. One of the unique capabilities of AM is that multi-material parts can be produced with material compositional and geometric complexity. Multi-material parts have the advantage of achieving multiple performance requirements. In the research, we propose a framework for designing multi-material parts using AM processes. The proposed framework is composed of four interacting modules, including design requirement identification, primary material selection, AM process selection, material composition, and part geometry determination. Rules and guidelines for AM are integrated into the proposed framework with AM processes’ capabilities and constraints compiled in databases. We also introduce databases to assist in decision-making and ensure manufacturability of the designed multi-material part in various product design phases. The proposed framework is applied to a case study involving a conceptual design of a multi-material battery pack cooling plate.     

Five New Oxylipins from Chaenomeles sinensis

In the course of our continuing search for bioactive constituents of Korean medicinal plants, we isolated five new oxylipins, chaenomic acid A–E ( 1 – 5 ), and six known ones ( 6 – 11 ) from the twigs of Chaenomeles sinensis. The structures of the new compounds ( 1 – 5 ) were determined by spectroscopic methods, including 1D and 2D NMR (¹H and ¹³C NMR, ¹H–¹H COSY, HMQC, HMBC, and NOESY), olefin cross‐metathesis, and LC/MS analysis. The known compounds ( 6 – 11 ) were identified by comparison of their spectroscopic data and specific optical rotation with the reported data. The isolated compounds ( 1 – 11 ) were tested for their inhibitory effects on nitric oxide production in lipopolysaccharide‐activated murine microglial cells and for their cytotoxic activities against four human cancer cell lines (A549, SK‐OV‐3, A498, and HCT‐15).     

Antioxidant activities and nutritional properties of Jeonyak prepared with beef bone stock and gelatin

The antioxidant activities and nutritional properties of Jeonyak made with beef bone stock and gelatin were investigated. Traditional Jeonyak (J1) was prepared with beef bone stock, whereas modified Jeonyak was made with gelatin and honey (J2) or with gelatin and oligosaccharides (J3). All 3 kinds of Jeonyak had antioxidant activities and J1 had the highest activity. The α-glucosidase inhibitory activity was measured to investigate the antidiabetic effect and J3 had the highest inhibitory activity of 80.47%. Glycine was the most abundant amino acid in all 3 kinds of Jeonyak. Both traditional and modified Jeonyaks have antioxidative and antidiabetic effects, suggesting that Jeonyak can be used as an effective traditional functional food.     

An experimental study of acoustically driven medium-scale pool fires

A set of experiments has been conducted on a medium-scale propane fueled pool fire acoustically forced in order to facilitate repeatable measurements defining the flame’s transient behavior. The fuel flow was slightly perturbed at the pool fire’s natural frequency by a sine waveform driven with a loudspeaker which was installed under the burner. As a result of the perturbation, the puffing behavior of the pool fire and the fire shape were modified. As the magnitude of the sine wave was increased larger perturbations were clearly observed, based on the measurement of the radiative heat flux and image analysis. Temperature and soot volume fractions were measured along the center line and throughout a slice of the flame. The soot volume fractions in the flame region are in good agreement with the data of other researchers. The reproducibility of these measurements was established through several experiments. The acoustically driven flame provides the possibility of more repeatable measurements of the transient behavior of these pool fires.     

Low‐Temperature Sintering of Bi0.5(Na,K)0.5TiO3 for Multilayer Ceramic Actuators

We investigated the influence of CuO amount (0.5–3.0 mol%), sintering temperature (900°C–1000°C), and sintering time (2–6 h) on the low‐temperature sintering behavior of CuO‐added Bi_0.5(Na_0.78K_0.22)_0.5TiO₃ (BNKT22) ceramics. Normalized strain (S_max/E_max), piezoelectric coefficient (d₃₃), and remanent polarization (P_r) of 1.0 mol% CuO‐added BNKT22 ceramics sintered at 950°C for 4 h was 280 pm/V, 180 pC/N, and 28 μC/cm², respectively. These values are similar to those of pure BNKT22 ceramics sintered at 1150°C. In addition, we investigated the performance of multilayer ceramic actuators made from CuO‐added BNKT22 in acoustic sound speaker devices. A prototype sound speaker device showed similar output sound pressure levels as a Pb(Zr,Ti)O₃‐based device in the frequency range 0.66–20 kHz. This result highlights the feasibility of using low‐cost multilayer ceramic devices made of lead‐free BNKT‐based piezoelectric materials in sound speaker devices.     

The effect of BMP‐2 and VEGF loading of gelatin‐pectin‐BCP scaffolds to enhance osteoblast proliferation

A composite scaffold of gelatine (Gel)‐pectin (Pec)‐biphasic calcium phosphate (BCP) was successfully fabricated. Growth factors such as bone morphogenetic protein‐2 (BMP‐2) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) were loaded into the Gel‐Pec‐BCP hydrogel scaffolds by freeze‐drying. The surface morphology was investigated by scanning electron microscopy, and BCP dispersion in the hydrogel scaffolds was measured by energy dispersive and X‐ray diffraction spectroscopy. The results obtained from Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and quantitative measurements showed successfully loading of BMP‐2 and VEGF into the Gel‐Pec‐BCP hydrogel scaffolds. In addition MC3T3‐E1 preosteoblasts were cultivated on the three types of scaffolds to investigate the effects of BMP‐2 and VEGF on cell viability and proliferation. The Gel‐Pec‐BCP scaffolds loaded with VEGF and BMP‐2 demonstrated more cell spreading and proliferation compared to those of the Gel‐Pec‐BCP scaffolds. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2015 , 132, 41241.