Color preferences for different topics in connection to personal characteristics

Studies on color preferences are dependent on the topic and the relationships with personal characteristics, particularly personality, but these are seldom studied in one population. Therefore a questionnaire was collected from 1095 Dutch people asking for color preferences about different topics and relating them to personal characteristics. Color preferences regarding different topics show different patterns and significant differences were found between gender, age, education and personality such as being technical, being emotional or being a team player. Also, different colors were mentioned when asked for colors that stimulate to be quiet, energetic, and able to focus or creative. Probably, due to unconsciousness of contexts, many people had no color preference, a result that in the literature seldom is mentioned. Blue was the overall favorite color; however, most males chose for blue (25%) while most females had no color preference (18%). Black was the overall favorite color for clothing, mainly chosen by females (40%), while males primarily chose blue (27%). For building interiors subjects preferred white. For moods, subjects preferred white for being quiet or being able to focus, red for being energetic and had no color preference for being creative. It is concluded that color preferences are dependent upon the topic, and personal characteristics. The findings are important for architects, interior designers, fashion designers and product designers to have a basic idea of preferred colors for different objects by different types of people. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 40, 62–71, 2015     

Improving weld formability by a novel dual-rotation bobbin tool friction stir welding

A novel dual-rotation bobbin tool friction stir welding (DBT-FSW) was developed, in which the upper shoulder (US) and lower shoulder (LS) have different rotational speeds. This process was tried to weld 3.2 mm thick aluminum-lithium alloy sheets. The metallographic analysis and torque measurement were carried out to characterize the weld formability. Experimental results show that compared to conventional bobbin tool friction stir welding, the DBT-FSW has an excellent process stability, and can produce the defect-free joints in a wider range of welding parameters. These can be attributed to the significant improvement of material flow caused by the formation of a staggered layer structure and the unbalanced force between the US and LS during the DBT-FSW process.     

Metabolism of Storage Lipids and the Role of Lipid Droplets in the Yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe

Storage lipids, triacylglycerols (TAG), and steryl esters (SE), are predominant constituents of lipid droplets (LD) in fungi. In several yeast species, metabolism of TAG and SE is linked to various cellular processes, including cell division, sporulation, apoptosis, response to stress, and lipotoxicity. In addition, TAG are an important source for the generation of value-added lipids for industrial and biomedical applications. The fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe is a widely used unicellular eukaryotic model organism. It is a powerful tractable system used to study various aspects of eukaryotic cellular and molecular biology. However, the knowledge of S. pombe neutral lipids metabolism is quite limited. In this review, we summarize and discuss the current knowledge of the homeostasis of storage lipids and of the role of LD in the fission yeast S. pombe with the aim to stimulate research of lipid metabolism and its connection with other essential cellular processes. We also discuss the advantages and disadvantages of fission yeast in lipid biotechnology and recent achievements in the use of S. pombe in the biotechnological production of valuable lipid compounds.     

Medicine Meets Thermal Spray Technology: A Review of Patents

The patent literature concerning thermal spraying for biomedical applications is reviewed in this contribution. The patents were compiled from multiple databases search spanning the 2005-2018 period. For clarity and ease of reading, the results have been grouped into sections according to four individual material groups (apatites, titanium, oxide ceramics, other), with the secondary sorting criterion being related to the specific bioapplication areas (maxillofacial, orthopedic, methods). Lastly, the patents are grouped according to the selected thermal spray method within the individual subsections. In the paper, recent R&D trends in this field are further identified and briefly commented.     

Differences between oculomotor and perceptual artifacts for temporally limited head mounted displays

We used perceptual and oculomotor measures to understand the negative impacts of low (phantom array) and high (motion blur) duty cycles with a high‐speed, AR‐likehead‐mounted display prototype. We observed large intersubject variability for the detection of phantom array artifacts but a highly consistent and systematic effect on saccadic eye movement targeting during low duty cycle presentations. This adverse effect on saccade endpoints was also related to an increased error rate in a perceptual discrimination task, showing a direct effect of display duty cycle on the perceptual quality. For high duty cycles, the probability of detecting motion blur increased during head movements, and this effect was elevated at lower refresh rates. We did not find an impact of the temporal display characteristics on compensatory eye movements during head motion (e.g., VOR). Together, our results allow us to quantify the tradeoff of different negative spatiotemporal impacts of user movements and make subsequent recommendations for optimized temporal HMD parameters.     

Tribological behaviour of a 3Y-TZP/Ta ceramic-metal biocomposite against ultrahigh molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE)

This study aims to evaluate the tribological behaviour of 3Y-TZP/Ta (20 vol%) ceramic-metal composites and 3Y-TZP monolithic ceramic prepared by spark plasma sintering (SPS) against ultrahigh molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE). According to the results of pin (UHMWPE)-on-flat wear test under dry conditions, the UHMWPE – 3Y-TZP/Ta system exhibited lower volume loss and friction coefficient than the UHMWPE – monolithic ceramic combination due to the presence of an autolubricating layer that provides sufficient lubrication for reducing the friction. Owing to the lubrication of the liquid media, under wet conditions obtained using simulated body fluid (SBF), similar behaviour is observed in both cases. Additionally, the ceramic and biocomposite materials were subjected to a low temperature degradation (LTD) process (often referred to as “ageing”) to evaluate the changes in the tribological behaviour after this treatment. In this particular case, the wear properties of the UHMWPE-biocomposite system were found to be less influenced by ageing in contrast to the case of the UHMWPE-zirconia monolithic material. In addition to their exceptional mechanical performance, 3Y-TZP/Ta composites also showed high resistance to low temperature degradation and good tribological properties, making them promising candidates for biomedical applications, especially for orthopaedic implants.