BioFET sensor for detection of albumin in urine

Characterisation of a BioFET for detection of albumin in a mixture of human urine is presented. To avoid electrolyte effect of the urine, it was measured in PBS (phosphate buffer saline) at a fixed pH after albumin binding. The drain current was modulated by the albumin bound to the anti-albumin immobilised on the gate surface of the BioFET. The current variation ratio was likely to be proportional to the concentration of the albumin in the range 50-250 mg/1. The results show the feasibility of the BioFET as a urinary albumin sensor.     

Pressure infiltration of boron nitride preforms with molten aluminum

The infiltration of compacted cubic BN (cBN) with molten aluminum has been investigated as a potential route for a cheap and easy method of manufacturing cBN/metal composites. CBN compacts have been infiltrated with molten Al at a temperature between 670 and 800 °C and pressure of 15 MPa in vacuum. At these temperatures no pronounced interactions between hexagonal and cubic BN with Al was observed, allowing the complete infiltration of cBN with 12 μm mean grain size. After infiltration at 800 °C, the temperature was increased without pressure to convert aluminum into borides and AlN. The hardness of the resulting materials depends on the content of hexagonal, cubic BN and the rate of conversion of Al into borides and AlN. The infiltration height of less than 1 mm obtained from infiltrating the 3 μm cBN powder green compacts gave a hardness of 22.0 ± 0.6 GPa after heat treatment.     

Circulation rates of boiling liquids in a vertical tube

An experimental study of heat transfer to boiling liquids under natural convective flow has been carried out in a single tube vertical thermosiphon reboiler to investigate the effect of heat flux and submergence on circulation rates. The test liquids used were distilled water, various concentrations of propan-2-ol in water and their azeotrope. The test section was an electrically heated stainless steel tube of 25.56 mm i.d., 28.85 mm o.d. and 1900 mm long with twenty-one spot welded copper constantan thermocouples to measure the variations in wall temperature along its axis. The uniform heat fluxes in the range of 3.5–42.4 kW/m² were employed while inlet liquid sub-cooling varied from 0.2 to 30.7 °C. The liquid submergence levels were maintained in the range 30–100%. The typical experimental data has been graphically presented and discussed. An empirical correlation has been developed from the experimental data of the present study through regression analysis.     

A comparative study on the effect of VUV radiation in plasma SiOx-coated polyimide and polypropylene films

Wettability of polyimide (PI) and polypropylene (PP) films have been improved using SiO_x-like thin layers deposited from a mixture of hexamethyldisiloxane (HMDSO) and oxygen in a microwave distributed electron cyclotron resonance plasma reactor. The films wettability evolution behaviors were evaluated through the results of contact angle measurements, atomic force microscopy (AFM) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The plasma depositions of SiO_x thin layers in presence of VUV radiation induce a contact angle decrease to about 7° and 35° for PI and PP films, respectively. XPS data showed that such difference in wettability is attributed to the increase of hydrophilic group's proportion at the surface of coated PI films due to VUV irradiation. AFM images showed that the PI surface topography remains relatively smooth when coated in presence of VUV radiation. However, in the case of PP films, AFM images revealed the growth of irregular structure due to a substrate etching effect supported by VUV radiation. For polymers coated without VUV irradiation, the deconvolution of the C1s peaks showed a significant decrease of CO bonds for both PI and PP substrates.     

La doping effects on intergrowth Bi2WO6–Bi3TiNbO9 ferroelectrics

La doping effects on intergrowth Bi₂WO₆–Bi₃TiNbO₉ ferroelectric ceramics were studied by X-ray diffraction, electron probe microanalysis and dielectric spectroscopy. It was found that the La³⁺ distribution, ferroelectric phase transition and dielectric relaxation behavior are apparently affected by La doping. With increasing La³⁺ content, the site of dopant ion varies, the grain growth of Bi₅TiNbWO₁₅ is restrained, the Curie temperature is reduced and broadened. Furthermore, two dielectric relaxation loss peaks were observed both in temperature and frequency spectra. The calculated relaxation parameters revealed the oxygen vacancy related to the relaxation process.     

Observation of calcium aluminate inclusions at interfaces between Ca-treated,Al-killed steels and slags

The evolution of Al₂O₃-CaO inclusions on molten steel surfaces and at molten steel/slag interfaces was observed in-situ through a confocal scanning laser microscope (CSLM) equipped with a gold-image furnace. Depending on the slag chemistry, some of the initially liquid inclusions evolved into irregular Al₂O₃ or SiO₂-enriched inclusions during the separation across the interface. Inclusions were found to cluster at specific locations at the steel/slag interface. Unlike capillary-depression-driven clustering, which is observed on molten steel surfaces, a weak repulsive force opposes fluid-flow-driven clustering at the steel/slag interface. After clustering, the irregular solid inclusions were observed to agglomerate to form large aggregates. This article is based on a presentation given in the Mills Symposium entitled “Metals, Slags, Glasses: High Temperature Properties & Phenomena,” which took place at The Institute of Materials in London, England, on August 22–23, 2002.     

Theoretical Investigation of Time Suboptimal Control of Industrial Manipulators Along Specified Paths

A method for the time suboptimal control of an industrial manipulator from an initial position and orientation to a final position and orientation as it moves along a specified path is proposed. Nonlinear system equations that describe the manipulator motion are linearized at each time step along the path. A method which gives the control inputs (joint angular velocities) for time suboptimal control of the manipulator is developed. In the formulation, joint angular velocity and acceleration limitations are also taken into consideration. A six degree of freedom elbow type manipulator is used in numerical examples to verify the method developed.     

氧化铝厂渣浆泵机械密封的失效形式及改进措施

本文介绍了渣浆泵机械密封的失效形式,并根据长期现场工作经验,分析了机械密封泄漏的主要原因,据此提出了改进措施,通过对动静环密封面倒角,改变密封面尺寸及载荷系数后有效地解决了由于径向跳动过大而引起的密封面刮碰擦裂的失效问题。     

Inclusions of carbon in ingots of silicon carbide grown by the modified Lely method

The problem of the appearance of carbon inclusions in single-crystal silicon carbide ingots grown by the modified Lely method (the so-called graphitization of the ingot) is analyzed. It is shown that the process of graphitization of the ingot is not related to a deficit of silicon in the growth cell; in contrast, it is excess of silicon at the growth surface that inhibits the ingot growth rate and gives rise to intense corrosion of the graphite fittings.     

Audio Denoising by Time-Frequency Block Thresholding

Removing noise from audio signals requires a nondiagonal processing of time-frequency coefficients to avoid producing ldquomusical noise.rdquo State of the art algorithms perform a parameterized filtering of spectrogram coefficients with empirically fixed parameters. A block thresholding estimation procedure is introduced, which adjusts all parameters adaptively to signal property by minimizing a Stein estimation of the risk. Numerical experiments demonstrate the performance and robustness of this procedure through objective and subjective evaluations.