Flexural and Charpy impact behaviour of epoxy/glass fabric treated by nano-SiO2 and silane blend

A sizing formulation, containing compatible and incompatible silane coupling agents with epoxy resin in conjunction with nanoscale colloidal silica, was used to modify the surface of glass fabric. The modified glass fabric/epoxy resin composite panels were fabricated and characterised by flexural test, Charpy impact test and scanning electron microscope (SEM). By combining nano silica with silane blend in the fabric sizing, more energy was consumed under bending and impacting, which resulted in an improvement of the toughness in composites. The flexural strength, bending stain and Charpy impact strength of the epoxy composite/glass fabric treated with 1?wt-% nano silica and silane blend were ～42, ～22 and 35%, respectively, higher than those of silane blend coated glass fabric-reinforced composites (without nano silica). Furthermore, the change of the brittle fracture of the composite into ductile fracture was investigated by SEM micrographs. A possible toughening mechanism was also proposed.     

A Robust Peak-to-Average Power Ratio Reduction Scheme by Inserting Dummy Signals with Enhanced Partial Transmit Sequence in OFDM Systems

Peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) is one of the main drawbacks in orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems. High PAPR forces the power amplifier to back off in order to operate in its linear region, which degrades the power efficiency of the system. Several PAPR reduction techniques have been developed, but most of them have not considered both complexity and PAPR reduction. In this paper, a novel PAPR reduction scheme based on the insertion of dummy sequences to an enhanced partial transmit sequence is proposed. By applying this scheme the PAPR performance is enhanced compared to the conventional methods while the complexity is significantly reduced. Numerical analysis is carried out with OFDM signal and QPSK modulation.     

浅论商品房价格

本文阐述了在房地产市场管理中的核心问题是商品房价格；分析了住宅产品转变成住宅商品房及商品房的现状；提出了稳定和发展房地产市场，必须科学评估、合理定价，切实加强商品房价格管理。     

Use of ARC in screening for explosive properties

The use of a modified version of the accelerating rate calorimeter (ARC) as a screening method for the explosive properties of chemicals has been investigated. Definitive tests for classifying energetic chemicals for transportation are provided by UN Recommendations [United Nations, Recommendations on the Transport of Dangerous Goods, Manual of Tests and Criteria, third revised ed., 1999]. Recently, decomposition energy screening criteria were added to the recommendations, however, maximum rate of pressure rise in a closed vessel may provide a less conservative, more accurate screen. Pressure rate data for organic chemicals are compared to the UN test results. Preliminary screens are suggested to minimize the need for the larger scale, more expensive, and time-consuming UN-recommended testing. Results from this method are compared to those from published mini-autoclave data [M.W. Whitmore, G.P. Baker, J. Loss Prev. Process Ind. 12 (1999) 207-216]. Further work is planned to expand the range of chemical classes tested and to specify acceptable, conservative screening criteria.     

Nanoelectromechanical Chip (NELMEC) Combination of Nanoelectronics and Microfluidics to Diagnose Epithelial and Mesenchymal Circulating Tumor Cells from Leukocytes

An integrated nano‐electromechanical chip (NELMEC) has been developed for the label‐free distinguishing of both epithelial and mesenchymal circulating tumor cells (ECTCs and MCTCs, respectively) from white blood cells (WBCs). This nanoelectronic microfluidic chip fabricated by silicon micromachining can trap large single cells (>12 µm) at the opening of the analysis microchannel arrays. The nature of the captured cells is detected using silicon nanograss (SiNG) electrodes patterned at the entrance of the channels. There is an observable difference between the membrane capacitance of the ECTCs and MCTCs and that of WBCs (measured using SiNG electrodes), which is the key indication for our diagnosis. The NELMEC chip not only solves the problem of the size overlap between CTCs and WBCs but also detects MCTCs without the need for any markers or tagging processes, which has been an important problem in previously reported CTC detection systems. The great conductivity of the gold‐coated SiNG nanocontacts as well as their safe penetration into the membrane of captured cells, facilitate a precise and direct signal extraction to distinguish the type of captured cell. The results achieved from epithelial (MCF‐7) and mesenchymal (MDA‐MB231) breast cancer cells circulated in unprocessed blood suggest the significant applications for these diagnostic abilities of NELMEC.     

A computer-aided diagnosis system for malignant melanomas

The aim of this study is to provide an efficient way to segment the malignant melanoma images. This method first eliminates extra hair and scales using edge detection; afterward, it deduces a color image into an intensity image and approximately segments the image by intensity thresholding. Some morphological operations are used to focus on an image area where a melanoma boundary potentially exists and then used to localize the boundary in that area. The distributions of texture and a new feature known as AIBQ features in the next step provide a good discrimination of skin lesions to feature extraction. Finally, we rely on quantitative image analysis to measure a series of candidate attributes hoped to contain enough information to differentiate malignant from benign melanomas. The selected features are applied to a support vector machine to classify the melanomas as malignant or benign. By our approach, we obtained 95 % correct classification of malignant or benign melanoma on real melanoma images.     

Effect of vegetated-banks on local scour around a wing-wall abutment with circular edges

Failure of bridges due to local scour in the vicinity of bridge abutments is a common occurrence. In this study, experiments under two different channel conditions were conducted to assess the impacts of vegetation on channel banks on local scour around a wing-wall abutment with circular edges. Some experiments were conducted in channel with vegetation on channel banks, and other experiments in channel without vegetation on channel bank. The flow velocity and Reynolds stress distributions in scour holes around a wing-wall abutment with circular edges were compared under these 2 different channel conditions. Results reveal that the vegetated-banks can reduce the time for achieving the equilibrium condition from 17 h to 9 h. Also, vegetated-bank channels can result in a significant decrease in the maximum scour depth from 0.084 m（for bare channel bank） to 0.00032 m. Additionally, around the abutment, vegetated-banks play a significant role in diminishing the Reynolds stress（RS） near the bed and removing negative values in RS distribution by weakening unfavorable pressure gradient and down-flow in the upstream of abutment.     

Microwave-assisted encapsulation of citric acid using hydrocolloids

This study elucidates the capability of a novel technique for producing microcapsules at an enormously short time and low cost. This technique is based on the difference between dielectric constants of core and coat materials. Edible citric acid was mixed with various biomacromolecules at ratios of 1:5, 1:10, and 1:100. Each mixture was treated up to 600 s at various powers (120–1200 W) in a microwave oven. Subsequently, the microcapsules were separated by distinct sieves, and their apparent structure and quality were evaluated using binoculars, and photographs were taken for visual comparisons. Our observations showed that only five hydrocolloids were able to produce high-quality and efficient encapsulation [casein > inulin > carboxymethylcellulose (CMC) > low methoxyl (LM) pectin (9/5%) > sorbitol]. Moreover, the highest coating efficiency was seen at highest intensity (1200 W) at a mixing ratio of 1:10. Furthermore, the optimum treating time periods for those five efficient coating materials were about 400, 75, 400, 100, and 100 s.