Effect of conformational changes and differences of proteins on frictional properties of poly(vinyl alcohol) hydrogel

In this study, albumin or γ-globulin, both of which are included in natural synovial fluid, was used as an additive into lubricants to investigate the ability to reduce the friction for poly(vinyl alcohol) hydrogel in mixed lubrication. It was found from a measurement in circular dichroism that albumin contains a large amount of α-helix structure and γ-globulin contains a large amount of β-sheet structure. The lubricant containing only albumin showed low friction compared to the lubricant containing only γ-globulin. The effect of protein boundary film was clarified by changing lubricant. Albumin kept the friction low after changing from γ-globulin used at initial rubbing, but γ-globulin increased the friction after changing from albumin at initial rubbing. From a sliding distance of 600 m, albumin showed lower friction but γ-globulin showed higher friction. Therefore, in the case of friction decreasing, γ-globulin forms a tight adsorbed layer and subsequently albumin forms a layer with low shearing strength. Hence, it is important to apply the adsorption layer of γ-globulin at the bottom and make a layered structure composed of albumin and γ-globulin to reduce both friction and wear.     

Progress and prospects of the human–robot collaboration

Recent technological advances in hardware design of the robotic platforms enabled the implementation of various control modalities for improved interactions with humans and unstructured environments. An important application area for the integration of robots with such advanced interaction capabilities is human–robot collaboration. This aspect represents high socio-economic impacts and maintains the sense of purpose of the involved people, as the robots do not completely replace the humans from the work process. The research community’s recent surge of interest in this area has been devoted to the implementation of various methodologies to achieve intuitive and seamless human–robot-environment interactions by incorporating the collaborative partners’ superior capabilities, e.g. human’s cognitive and robot’s physical power generation capacity. In fact, the main purpose of this paper is to review the state-of-the-art on intermediate human–robot interfaces (bi-directional), robot control modalities, system stability, benchmarking and relevant use cases, and to extend views on the required future developments in the realm of human–robot collaboration.     

WO3/BiVO4 composite photoelectrode prepared by improved auto-combustion method for highly efficient water splitting

We report on the improvement in the water splitting efficiency of a WO₃/BiVO₄ composite photoelectrode by the application of an improved auto-combustion method to the preparation of porous BiVO₄ thin films. The unique feature of this preparation method is the addition of both NH₄NO₃, as a strong oxidizing agent, and an organic additive into BiVO₄ precursor solution. The local decomposition heat of the organic additive and oxidizing agent created a porous film with small, highly crystalline BiVO₄ particles. The photoelectrode has many advantages over existing ones, such as the high light-harvesting efficiency (LHE), a single BiVO₄ phase, the facile access of the holes to the photoelectrode/electrolyte interface, and the ease of water and oxygen diffusion. The maximum incident photon-to-current efficiency (IPCE) was estimated to be 64% (at 440 nm, 1.23 V vs. RHE) and the applied bias photon-tocurrent efficiency (ABPE) reached as high as 1.28%. This ABPE value is highest among all oxide semiconductor photoelectrodes reported previously, except for the case of a stacking photoelectrode system.     

Polymerized ionic liquids with guanidinium cations as host for gel polymer electrolytes in lithium metal batteries

Polymerized ionic liquids (PILs) having guanidinium cations with different counter‐anions, such as PF₆^? and N(CF₃SO₂)₂^? (TFSI^?), were synthesized by copolymerization of a guanidinium ionic liquid monomer with methyl acrylate followed by an anion exchange reaction. Furthermore, incorporating a guanidinium ionic liquid, LiTFSI salt and nano‐size SiO₂, a quaternary gel polymer electrolyte based on one of the PILs as the polymer host was prepared. The quaternary gel polymer electrolyte was chemically stable even at a higher temperature of 80 °C in contact with the lithium anode. In particular, the electrolyte exhibited high lithium ion conductivity, wide electrochemical stability window and good lithium stripping/plating performance. Li/LiFePO₄ batteries with the quaternary gel polymer electrolyte at 80 °C had capacities of 140 and 130 mA h g^?1 respectively at 0.1 and 0.2 C current rates. Copyright © 2011 Society of Chemical Industry     

Numerical computation of two-loop box diagrams with masses

A new approach is presented to evaluate multi-loop integrals, which appear in the calculation of cross-sections in high-energy physics. It relies on a fully numerical method and is applicable to a wide class of integrals with various mass configurations. As an example, the computation of two-loop planar and non-planar box diagrams is shown. The results are confirmed by comparisons with other techniques, including the reduction method, and by a consistency check using the dispersion relation.     

Impact of compression,physical aging,and freezing rate on the crystallization characteristics of an amorphous sugar matrix

Amorphous matrices made up of sugar molecules, are frequently used in food and pharmaceutical industries. A drawback to their use is that they are susceptible to collapse, as a result of water uptake and an increase in temperature and subsequently crystallize. Herein, the crystallization characteristics of amorphous sugar (sucrose and α-lactose) preparations were analyzed, with the purpose of obtaining knowledge that could lead to the prediction of how long the amorphous state is retained under various conditions. The impact of compression, physical aging and freezing rate on the induction period (t_ind) for crystallization were examined. Freeze-dried sugar samples were compressed at 74 or 443 MPa (5 min) and then rehumidified at specified RHs. Some freeze-dried sucrose samples were physically aged, and alternatively freeze-drying was conducted under different conditions. The isothermal crystallization of the prepared samples at different temperatures (T), the glass transition and the crystallization temperature (T_cry) were measured, using differential scanning calorimetry. The compression markedly decreased the t_ind, while significantly lowered the hygroscopicity. Physical aging and slower-freezing also shortened the t_ind. The t_ind was found to be correlated exclusively with (T_cry–T), regardless of rehumidification, compression, sugar type, physical aging and freezing rate in the freeze-drying process.     

Study on the fabrication of a SU-8 cantilever vertically-allocated in a closed fluidic microchannel

Microsystem Technologies - This paper describes the fabrication of a vertically-allocated SU-8 cantilever in a closed fluidic channel. The difficulties to fabricate the vertically-allocated SU-8...     

Phase transformation and interface segregation behavior in Si3N4 ceramics sintered with La2O3–Lu2O3 mixed additive

Microstructure and mechanical property of silicon nitride (Si₃N₄) ceramic are strongly dependent on the selection of sintering additives. When rare‐earth (RE) oxide is used as the sintering additive, segregation of RE ions at interface between Si₃N₄ grain and intergranular glassy film (IGF) is believed to play a critical role. Although the ionic radius of RE ion is known to be an empirical parameter to modify the mechanical property, the correlation between the segregated ions and their ionic radii is still under controversy. In order to address this issue, (i) rate of α‐β phase transformation and (ii) segregation behavior at the interface were studied for Si₃N₄ ceramics sintered using mixture of La₂O₃ and Lu₂O₃ as additives in this study. Specimens of Lu content 30% and higher exhibited lower activation energies for the α‐β phase transformation as compared with those of Lu content 20% and lower. In terms of the segregation behavior, La was preferably segregated at one site and Lu at the other site along β‐Si₃N₄/IGF interface in the specimens of Lu content 30% and higher. It is understood from these results that Lu segregation site should be more closely related with grain growth.