Mechanical Properties and Fracture Toughness of α-Al2O3-Platelet-Reinforced Y-PSZ Composites at Room and High Temperatures

YPSZ/Al₂O₃-platelet composites were fabricated by conventional and tape-casting techniques followed by sintering and HIPing. The room-temperature fracture toughness increased, from 4.9 MPa·m^1/2 for YPSZ, to 7.9 MPa·m^1/2 (by the ISB method) for 25 mol% Al₂O₃ platelets with aspect ratio = 12. The room-temperature fiexural strength decreased 21% and 30% (from 935 MPa for YPSZ) for platelet contents of 25 vol% and 40 vol%, respectively. Al₂O₃ platelets improved the high-temperature strength (by 110% over YPSZ with 25 vol% platelets at 800°C and by 40% with 40 vol% platelets at 1300°C) and fracture toughness (by 90% at 800°C and 61% at 1300°C with 40 vol% platelets). An amorphous phase at the Al₂O₃-platelet/YPSZ interface limited mechanical property improvement at 1300°C. The influence of platelet alignment was examined by tape casting and laminating the composites. Platelet alignment improved the sintered density by >1% d _th , high-temperature strength by 11% at 800°C and 16% at 1300°C, and fracture toughness by 33% at 1300°C, over random platelet orientation.     

Eicosapentaenoic and arachidonic acid: Comparison of metabolism and activity in murine epidermal cells

The biological activity, including metabolism and modulation of ornithine decarboxylase activity and DNA synthesis, of arachidonic acid (AA) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) were compared in epidermal cells from SENCAR mice. Radiolabelled AA and EPA were found to be similarly incorporated into and released from membrane phospholipids of unstimulated cultures. However, when cells were stimulated with the tumor promoter 12-0-tetradecanoylphorbol-13-acetate (TPA), the release of AA was significantly higher than the release of EPA. The extent of metabolism of AA and EPA to prostaglandins was determined in both freeze-thawed cell preparations and in viable cultured cells. In the freeze-thawed preparations, use of AA as a substrate resulted in significantly more PGF than when EPA was used as the substrate. However, more PGE₃ was formed than PGE₂. PGD levels were the same for either fatty acid precursor. Prostaglandin production was also determined in viable cultured cells since other influences such as phospholipase A₂ activity can modify prostaglandin production. Control cultures prelabelled with either AA or EPA produced similar amounts of the respective PGF, PGE, and PGD. However, TPA-stimulated cultures produced significantly higher amounts of each prostaglandin in cultures prelabelled with AA compared to cells prelabelled with EPA. HETE or HEPE production was the same both for cultured cells prelabelled with AA or EPA and for homogenates from uncultured cells incubated directly with the radiolabelled fatty acids. TPA-induced ornithine decarboxylase (ODC) was significantly higher in AA-treated cultures compared to EPA-treated cultures. AA supports DNA synthesis to a greater extent than EPA, either alone or in the presence of TPA. These findings suggest that AA and EPA do not have equivalent biological activity in mouse epidermal cells.     

The strength of industrial cokes. 6. Further studies of the influence of coke breeze in a coal charge on tensile strength of coke

The objective of this investigation was to ascertain if there was any pattern in the dependence of the tensile strength of coke on the proportion and particle size of coke-breeze in an oven charge and to establish if it was possible to interpret the changes in tensile strength in terms of coke structural features. Using a small-scale oven in order to obtain the optimum in close control of the charge preparation and carbonization conditions, cokes were prepared from each of two coking coals blended with coke breeze. The tensile strength of these cokes was determined by the diametrical-compression test and some details of their porous nature were determined from density measurements, mercury porosimetry and optical microscopy. The results clearly demonstrate that the tensile strength of coke is, in general, systematically reduced with increasing breeze content of the oven charge, the more coarsely ground breeze leading to a greater reduction of the tensile strength at any level of breeze addition. But very finely ground breeze at relatively low levels of addition can lead to an improvement in the tensile strength. These changes correlate with variations in the apparent density and the total porosity and possibly also with the average pore size.     

Purification and properties of β-amylase produced by bacillus polymyxa

1,4-α-D -glucan maltohydrolase (β-amylase, EC.3.2.1.2.) produced by Bacillus polymyxa was isolated and purified. Some of its properties were examined and compared with those of a typical plant β-amylase. Hydrolysis of periodate oxidised amylose demonstrated an exo mechanism of substrate attack similar to that of sweet potato β-amylase. The effect of sulphydryl reagents on enzyme activity was similar to that reported for plant β-amylases. Consistent with the observation that the enzyme has an exo mechanism of action, it also failed to degrade Schardinger cyclodextrins. These latter compounds acted as inhibitors of the enzyme. The optimum temperature for activity was 37 °C. The enzyme was quite stable at temperatures up to and including 37 °C; 90% of the original activity remained after storage at 37 °C for 6 days. However, the stability decreased rapidly when exposed to temperatures above 37 °C; only 20% of the activity remained after 1 h at 45 °C. The hydrolase exhibited a rather sharp optimum at pH 6.8 for stability at 37 °C. However, the enzyme was quite stable in the pH range 6.4–7.2 at 20 °C but it was shown to be less stable in acidic conditions than the corresponding plant enzymes.     

Validation of the MEDFICTS dietary questionnaire: A clinical tool to assess adherence to American Heart Association dietary fat intake guidelines

Background  

Dietary assessment tools are often too long, difficult to quantify, expensive to process, and largely used for research purposes. A rapid and accurate assessment of dietary fat intake is critically important in clinical decision-making regarding dietary advice for coronary risk reduction. We assessed the validity of the MEDFICTS (MF) questionnaire, a brief instrument developed to assess fat intake according to the American Heart Association (AHA) dietary "steps".     

Seeded Growth from Twinned and Untwinned Abnormal Grains of Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3–35 mol% PbTiO3 in a Matrix Containing PbO Additions

The growth of abnormal grains of PMN–35PT containing Σ3 twin boundaries was compared with that of untwinned abnormal grains of PMN–35PT. It was thought that the twinned abnormal grains might have a growth advantage because of the presence of reentrant edges. The aforementioned types of grains were embedded in a PMN–35PT polycrystalline matrix with 3 vol% excess PbO, and grown by annealing in an oxygen atmosphere at 1150°C for varying times. It was found that abnormal grains containing Σ3 boundaries showed a comparable degree of growth to that of the untwinned grains. Furthermore, for the twinned seed crystals, the extent of growth was independent of whether there was any initial entrapped porosity within the abnormal grain.     

Fiber Single-Crystal Growth from the Melt for Optical Applications

The micro-pulling-down technique has been applied to produce undoped and 0.1% Nd³⁺-doped Y₃Al₅O₁₂ garnet single-crystal fibers with controlled diameter. The hot zone construction and fiber-pulling conditions have been optimized. As a result, growth of transparent and homogeneous fiber crystals has been achieved. The crystals have been grown under 10⁵ Pa (1 atm) of argon atmosphere, with the pulling rate varied in the range of 0.3–2.0 mm/min. One hundred percent of the starting melt has been normally transformed into a crystalline material, with an empty crucible ready for the next growth procedure. The as-produced fibers demonstrate promising optical properties.     

Adaptive wavelet transform for vibration signal modelling and application in fault diagnosis of water hydraulic motor

There has been an increasing application of water hydraulics in industries due to growing concern on the environmental, health and safety issues. The fault diagnosis of water hydraulic motor is important for improving water hydraulic system reliability and performance. In this paper, fault diagnosis of water hydraulic motor in water hydraulic system is investigated based on adaptive wavelet analysis. A novel method for modelling the vibration signal based on the adaptive wavelet transform (AWT) is proposed. The linear combination of wavelets is introduced as wavelet itself and adapted for the particular vibration signal, which goes beyond adapting parameters of a fixed-shape wavelet. The AWT procedure based on the parametric optimisation by genetic algorithm (GA) is developed. The model-based method by AWT is applied to extract the features in the fault diagnosis of the water hydraulic motor. This technique for de-noising the corrupted simulation signal shows that it can improve the signal-to-noise ratio of the vibration signal. The results of the experimental signal demonstrate the characteristic vibration signal details in fine resolution. The magnitude plots of the continuous wavelet transform (CWT) show the characteristic signal's energy in time and frequency domain which can be used as feature values for fault diagnosis of water hydraulic motor.     

Characterizing plasma mirrors near breakdown

Experiments dedicated to the characterization of plasma mirrors with a high energy, single shot short-pulse laser were performed at the 100 TW target area of the Z-Backlighter Facility at Sandia National Laboratories. A suite of beam diagnostics was used to characterize a high energy laser pulse with a large aperture through focus imaging setup. By varying the fluence on the plasma mirror around the plasma ignition threshold, critical performance parameters were determined and a more detailed understanding of the way in which a plasma mirror works could be deduced. It was found, that very subtle variations in the laser near field profile will have strong effects on the reflected pulse if the maximum fluence on the plasma mirror approaches the plasma ignition threshold.