Maghnite‐H+, a solid catalyst for the cationic polymerization of α‐methylstyrene

The polymerization of α‐methylstyrene (AMS) catalyzed by Maghnite‐H⁺ (Mag‐H) was investigated. Mag‐H is a montmorillonite sheet silicate clay, exchanged with protons. It was found that the cationic polymerization of AMS is initiated by Mag‐H at ambient temperature in bulk and in solution. The effect of the amount of Mag‐H, the temperature, and the solvent was studied. The polymerization rate increased with increase in the temperature and the proportion of catalyst, and it was larger in nonpolar solvents. These results indicated the cationic nature of the polymerization. It may be suggested that the polymerization is initiated by proton addition to monomer from Mag‐H. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2008     

Coincidence Doppler broadening spectroscopy in polyvinyl chloride after doping with Al2O3

Coincidence Doppler broadening of annihilation radiation (CDBAR) and Vickers hardness techniques were performed to study pure Al₂O₃, pure polyvinyl chloride (PVC), and doped PVC with different concentrations of Al₂O₃ (10–50%). The CDBAR ratio curves with respect to pure PVC were presented and reflect the momentum distribution of all the samples. The peak around 14.5 ×10^?3 m_oC in the CDBAR ratio curves suggests a large contribution of positron annihilation with the Al₂O₃. There is a linear correlation between the height of this peak and the Al₂O₃ concentration. The S‐ and W‐parameters were extracted from the CDBAR spectra and increase with increasing the Al₂O₃ concentration showing discontinuity at 30% of Al₂O₃ concentration on PVC. The present data confirmed that there is no positronium formation in pure Al₂O₃ as a result of smaller S‐parameter. The Vickers hardness increases with increasing the Al₂O₃ concentration in PVC showing a linear dependence with two different slopes depend on the Al₂O₃ concentration range. A correlation between the Vickers hardness (macroscopic data) and the W‐parameter (microscopic data) was observed. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2008     

Novel thermally and mechanically stable hydrogel for enzyme immobilization of penicillin G acylase via covalent technique

κ‐Carrageenan hydrogel crosslinked with protonated polyethyleneimine (PEI⁺) and glutaraldehyde (GA) was prepared and evaluated as a novel biocatalytic support for covalent immobilization of penicillin G acylase (PGA). The method of modification of the carrageenan biopolymer is clearly illustrated using a schematic diagram and was verified by FTIR, elemental analysis, DSC, and INSTRON using the compression mode. Results showed that the gels' mechanical strength was greatly enhanced from 3.9 kg/cm² to 16.8 kg/cm² with an outstanding improvement in the gels thermal stability. It was proven that, the control gels were completely dissolved at 35°C, whereas the modified gels remained intact at 90°C. The DSC thermogram revealed a shift in the endothermic band of water from 62 to 93°C showing more gel‐crosslinking. FTIR revealed the presence of the new functionality, aldehydic carbonyl group, at 1710 cm^?1 for covalent PGA immobilization. PGA was successfully immobilized as a model industrial enzyme retaining 71% of its activity. The enzyme loading increased from 2.2 U/g (control gel) to 10 U/g using the covalent technique. The operational stability showed no loss of activity after 20 cycles. The present support could be a good candidate for the immobilization of industrial enzymes rich in amino groups, especially the thermophilic ones. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2008     

Free volume and permeabilities of O2 and H2 in Nafion membranes for polymer electrolyte fuel cells

The mechanism of gas permeation in Nafion membranes for polymer electrolyte fuel cells has been investigated from the viewpoint of free volume. Three different samples, a membrane with ionic exchange capacity (IEC) = 0.92 meq/g, and recast samples with IEC = 0.92 and 1.00 meq/g were used after drying. Free volume was quantified using the positron annihilation lifetime (PAL) technique and gas permeabilities were measured for O₂ and H₂ as functions of temperature and relative humidity. Good linear correlations between the logarithm of the permeabilities at different temperatures and reciprocal free volume indicate that gas permeation in dry Nafion is governed by the free volume. Nevertheless permeabilities are much smaller than the corresponding flexible chain polymer with a similar free volume size due to stiff chains of the perfluoroethylene backbone. In highly hydrated Nafion above 60% relative humidity, where the O₂ permeability varies oppositely to the free volume, gas permeation proved to be controlled by the gradual increase in overall flexibility of the Nafion–water system.     

Using Automated Negotiation for Grid Services

The popularity of grid services has widened their application to numerous domains and increased the utilization of computational resources. In order to create more incentives for the resources owners to lease their resources and prevent users from wasting the resources, the introduction of a market-oriented grid is inevitable. However, the issues for the negotiation between service provider and consumer over the supply and demand of resources can be complex, with highly interdependent issues. In this research, a simulated automated negotiation mechanism including a co-evolutionary mechanism and a modified game theory approach is proposed, to assist them in reaching an agreement over the conflicting issues. In the proposed architecture, the co-evolution process is able to reduce the multiple dimensional search space into a two-dimension search space and identify the appropriate negotiation strategies for the negotiating agents to form a payoff matrix which can be used for the game theory related stage of their interaction. The multiple stage negotiation process is introduced to improve the negotiation result. In this paper, an application which requires a large amount of computational resources to process the data generated from mobile devises is used to demonstrate that the proposed system is able to resolve the conflicts and obtain a valid solution.     

KINEMATIC VISCOSITY-TEMPERATURE BEHAVIOR OF HEAVY TBP-FRACTIONS (455°C+) OF ARABIAN CRUDE OILS

A generalized kinematic viscosity-temperature correlation for undefined liquid heavy petroleum fractions has been developed to represent the data for a wide range of temperature from 100°C to 200°C. The correlation is based on the experimental kinematic viscosity data of true boiling point fractions of four Arabian crude oils. The characterization property required for estimation is 50% boiling point. The proposed correlation fits the experimental data with an overall absolute error of 6.1%. Experimental measurements of kinematic viscosity of heavy true boiling point fractions of Arabian crude oils were also obtained in order to develop the proposed correlation.     

Molecular characterization of erythrocyte glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency in Al-Ain District, United Arab Emirates

Operational skills involved in controlling a motor vehicle were measured in two groups of very healthy elderly drivers and a young control group to test the hypothesis that there are age-related declines in operational performance that may influence driver safety. An actual behind-the-wheel, standardized road test was employed using a motor vehicle equipped with sensors to record speed, braking activity, and lane position, as well as direction and magnitude of front-wheel and eye-movement excursions. The data from these sensors were used as dependent measures of operational performance. Older drivers made fewer steering and eye-movement excursions and drifted across the center line more frequently than the young control group. Younger drivers drove significantly faster and executed more braking applications than did their older counterparts. The motor-vehicle operational performance of older healthy drivers was related to visual-spatial attentional declines and the useful field of vision associated with the normal aging process.     

Conical magnetic bearings with radial and thrust control

Conical magnetic bearings with radial and thrust (axial) control are discussed. First a model of the conical bearing is made in state variable form. Airgap flux, airgap displacement, and velocity are used as state variables. A control method based on recent developments in control theory is proposed. The method is called Q-parameterization theory and is used to design a stabilizing controller for the system which, without control, is unstable in nature. The controller parameters are chosen using console (a software tandem for interactive optimization-based design) so that all design requirements are satisfied. Digital simulation was used to verify the proposed control method. Transient responses, forced responses in all three directions (vertical, horizontal, and axial), and the interactions between them are obtained. The results obtained are satisfactory and suggest the robustness of the proposed technique     

Asymptotics of Largest Components in Combinatorial Structures

Given integers m and n, we study the probability that structures of size n have all components of size at most m. The results are given in term of a generalized Dickman function of n/m.