High Pressure Rheology of Environmentally Friendly Vegetable Oils

Environment-friendly lubricant is the key demand in twenty-first century for the issue of global climate change. Vegetable oils as base oil for lubricants and biodiesel fuel are environmentally preferable to petroleum. They are usually excellent boundary lubricants, but their high-pressure behavior is not investigated yet properly. In this research, first solidification characteristics of rapeseed oil, soybean oil, sunflower oil, palm oil, coconut oil, olive oil, camellia oil, mustard oil, castor oil, rapeseed methylester, and soybean methylester were investigated. Next, a very useful viscosity–pressure–temperature relation on the basis of phase diagram was derived for the nine vegetable oil.     

Bearing Fatigue Life Tests of Two Advanced Base Oils for Space Applications Under Vacuum and Atmospheric Environments

Four series of rolling-element bearing fatigue tests were conducted with 51104 size thrust ball bearings with three balls made from SUJ2 (AISI 52100) steel lubricated with two advanced synthetic base oils used for space applications. The test lubricants were perfluoropolyether (PFPE) and multiply alkyated cyclopentane (MAC). Each oil was tested with bearings under vacuum and atmospheric environments. The bearings were tested at a maximum Hertzian stress of 4 GPa on the inner and outer races. The outer race was rotated at a speed of 250 rpm. A pool lubrication system was used. Fresh lubricant was used for each test bearing. Testing in vacuum conditions was at 5 × 10^?2 Pa. The test oils were analyzed to determine whether changes occurred as a result of operating in air and in a vacuum. In a vacuum environment, the PFPE 815Z oil exhibited a longer fatigue life than the MAC 2001A oil. However, in an air environment, the MAC 2001A oil had a longer L₁₀ fatigue life than the PFPE 815Z oil. The fatigue life tests of PFPE 815Z oil in vacuum resulted in a longer L₁₀ life than when tested in an air environment. In an air environment, hydrogen fluoride was generated in the bearing tests with the PFPE 815Z oils. Under vacuum conditions, hydrogen fluoride was not generated with the PFPE 815Z oil, resulting in longer bearing fatigue lives. The fatigue life tests of MAC 2001A oil in a vacuum resulted in shorter L₁₀ fatigue life than in an air environment. The shorter life was attributed to the lower elastohydrodynamic oil film formation with the MAC 2001A oil because of a higher operating temperature and decomposition of the oil in vacuum.     

Defining decision making process performance: Conceptualization and validation of an index

Many studies have demonstrated the impact of information technology (IT) on decision making but few have used decision making process performance (DMPP) as a dependent variable. Our study proposes a rich formative conceptualization of DMPP, a valid and reliable measure for this construct, and studies its influence on the quality of decision making. The results show that DMPP is a formative second-order aggregate construct composed of procedural rationality, exhaustivity of the information analyzed, openness of spirit, and effort. This study illustrates the importance of building proper definitions of constructs and contributes to the development of shared meaning in IS.     

Structure activity relationships of monocyte chemoattractant proteins in complex with a blocking antibody

Monocyte chemoattractant proteins (MCPs) are cytokines that direct immune cells bearing appropriate receptors to sites of inflammation or injury and are therefore attractive therapeutic targets for inhibitory molecules. 11K2 is a blocking mouse monoclonal antibody active against several human and murine MCPs. A 2.5 A structure of the Fab fragment of this antibody in complex with human MCP-1 has been solved. The Fab blocks CCR2 receptor binding to MCP-1 through an adjacent but distinct binding site. The orientation of the Fab indicates that a single MCP-1 dimer will bind two 11K2 antibodies. Several key residues on the antibody and on human MCPs were predicted to be involved in antibody selectivity. Mutational analysis of these residues confirms their involvement in the antibody-chemokine interaction. In addition to mutations that decreased or disrupted binding, one antibody mutation resulted in a 70-fold increase in affinity for human MCP-2. A key residue missing in human MCP-3, a chemokine not recognized by the antibody, was identified and engineering the preferred residue into the chemokine conferred binding to the antibody.     

Construction of phase diagram up to 2 GPa and 200°C for thermo‐reversible gel lubricants by diamond anvil cell

The objective of this research was to make the phase diagram up to 2.0 GPa and 200°C of thermo‐reversible gel lubricants (TR Gel‐Lube) using diamond anvil cell (DAC). TR Gel‐Lube consisted of base fluid and gelling agent. The most important characteristic of TR Gel‐Lube is the reversible change of its physical state. The DAC is able to concerning visual observation of the sol/gel and liquid/viscoelastic–solid transition at high pressure and high temperature. DAC enables the visual observation of the photoelastic effect in order to generate local principal stress difference under the compression field for liquid/viscoelastic‐solid transition of base oil poly‐α‐olefin. The direct observation for sol/gel transition of TR Gel‐Lube at high pressure was also made possible. The phase diagram corresponding to transition from liquid to viscoelastic solid for base oil poly‐α‐olefin and sol to gel for TR Gel‐Lube was made by using DAC. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Kinetics feasibility study of alcohol sulfate esterification reactions in tropospheric aerosols

Sulfate esters have recently been identified in the secondary organic aerosol (SOA) formed in the photooxidation of biogenic hydrocarbons both in laboratory and under ambient atmospheric conditions. In the present study, the kinetics feasibility of direct reactions between alcohols and sulfuric acid to form sulfate esters in aerosol particles is explored. Nuclear magnetic resonance methods were used to monitor the bulk reaction kinetics of sulfate esterification reactions for a number of simple alcohols. The experiments were carried out at various sulfuric acid concentrations and a range of temperatures in order to estimate the rate constants of such reactions in aerosols under the previously studied laboratory conditions and under ambient atmospheric conditions. The measured rate constants did not depend greatly on the identity of the reactant alcohol, but increased strongly as a function of the sulfuric acid concentration, as predicted by excess acidity theory. Because of the strong temperature dependence of the rate constants for the direct reaction of alcohols with sulfuric acid, it appears that these reactions are kinetically infeasible for low temperature upper tropospheric sulfuric aerosols. For lower tropospheric SOA, it appears that the aerosol acidity is rarely high enough such that these reactions are likely to be responsible for the presence of sulfate esters in SOA.     

Persistence in children's reading behavior as a function of N length and attribution retraining.

In an investigation using 30 children (Grades 5-7) who were experiencing reading difficulties, procedures involving partial reinforcement and attribution retraining were assessed in terms of their relative effectiveness in developing reading persistence. Two levels of a partial reinforcement variable, termed N length (the number of successive failures prior to success), were factorially combined with the presence or absence of attribution retraining. A 5th condition received success-only training. These manipulations occurred in the context of a reading task presented on 3 successive days. A posttest measure of persistence revealed that the number of difficult sentences attempted by the Ss was increased jointly by both independent variables. However, Ss receiving success-only training or partial reinforcement with nonsuccessive failure (N lengths of 1), without the benefit of attribution retraining, did not show improvement from pretest to posttest. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On the formation of fibrous capsule and fluid space around machined and porous blood plasma clot coated titanium

Machined and machined submicron porous titanium, with and without a thin blood plasma coating (100 nm), were implanted for 7 or 28 days in subcutaneous pockets on the back of the rat. After explantation the specimens were analyzed by light microscopy with respect to thickness of the fibrous capsule, the fluid space width between implants and fibrous capsule, and formation of blood vessels. The results at 7 days indicate a thinnest fluid space for the plasma clot coated porous titanium surface, and the spaces vanished at the light microscopic level after 28 days outside all the analyzed surfaces. The thickness of the fibrous capsule increased outside the different surfaces at 7-28 days, and in this respect no significant differences were observed between the different surfaces at any time. Analysis of neovascularization showed that the number of vessels and proportion of vessels in the fibrous capsule increased with time at all surfaces, except machined Ti where the number instead decreased from 7 to 28 days. The average distance between the blood vessels and the fluid space increased with time for all types of surfaces. The results in the present study indicate that the healing process around titanium can be modulated by porosity and thin pre-prepared plasma coatings.     

Biogenic amines in selected foods of animal origin obtained from the Croatian retail market

ABSTRACT

This study aimed to investigate the presence of eight biogenic amines (BAs): tryptamine (TRP), phenylethylamine (PHE), putrescine (PUT), cadaverine (CAD), histamine (HIS), tyramine (TYR), spermidine (SPD) and spermine (SPM) in cheese, fish & fishery products and meat & meat products obtained from the Croatian retail market. A selective and robust method of high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with diode array detection (DAD) was applied for the determination of BAs in a total of 91 samples in accordance with the performance criteria outlined in the European legislation. A high inter- and intra-food group variability of the amounts of BAs was observed. In the analysed samples, the most represented amines were TYR, HIS, CAD and PUT. Based on the highest content of the most toxic BAs (HIS and TYR) and consequential food safety concerns, the studied food groups can be ranked in the following order: cheese (HIS up to 106.4 mg/kg; TYR up to 206.6 mg/kg), fish &fishery products (HIS up to 98.8 mg/kg; TYR up to 47.9 mg/kg), and meat & meat products (HIS up to 20.0 mg/kg; TYR up to 117.5 mg/kg). The total BA content was significantly higher (p < .05) in fermented in comparison with other food. The study aimed to contribute to the knowledge on BA toxicity and food quality, as well as to support the indispensable future studies of consumption data and exposure assessment, to the end of defining allowable BA concentrations in food.