Influence of the Oil Phase on the Microencapsulation by Complex Coacervation

The influence of oil type on the process yield, efficiency of encapsulation, particle size and morphological aspects of coacervated microparticles was investigated. Firstly, several factors affecting microencapsulation of oils by complex coacervation were simultaneously examined. The results indicated that the process yield is mainly dependent on the velocity of homogenization, temperature and polymer ratio. Using optimum conditions for producing microparticles [pH 4.0, 14,000 rpm, 50 °C, gelatin:gum arabic (GE:GA) 1:1 and 2.5 % w/v], different core materials were tested: a vegetable oil (almond oil), an oil with higher hydrophilic lipophilic balance (vetiver essential oil) and a highly hydrophobic oil (mineral oil). The oil phase exerted an influence on microparticle formation, disturbing the complexation of polymers and modifying the core distribution within the particles. Some of the polymers were complexed when mineral oil was used, and the highest efficiency of encapsulation (91.8 %) was obtained with vetiver oil, followed by the almond (70.6 %) and mineral (38.0 %) oils. Particles produced with vetiver oil were larger (43.5 μm) than those produced with mineral oil (35.0 μm) and almond oil (19.2 μm), and the increase in the size is due to the encapsulation of many small droplets of emulsion, characterizing these particles as multinucleate ones.     

A novel method of making PVF porous foam without using the pore forming agent

Different with the conventional method of manufacturing poly(vinyl formal) (PVF) porous foam by using the pore‐forming agents such as wheat or potato starches, a novel method without using the pore‐forming agent is introduced in this article. Through the help of images taken by a scanning electron microscope, the formation process of the present PVF foam will be discussed in terms of the spinodal decomposition (SD) phase separation principle. Additionally, the effect of poly(vinyl alcohol) concentration and reaction temperature on the pore structure of the PVF foam will be investigated. Moreover, the water adsorption capacities of the PVF foams obtained by the present method will be studied in details through the analyses of pore‐size distribution, mechanical modulus, and thermal property. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2015 , 132, 41270.     

The Effects of Annealing Atmosphere on the Electrical Properties of MgNb2O6/ITO Heterostructures

The effects of annealing atmosphere (N₂, air and O₂) on the electrical properties of sol–gel‐derived MgNb₂O₆/ITO heterostructures are discussed in this work. All samples exhibited the amorphous phase and were highly transparent. The percentage of Nb⁴⁺ content increased when the films were annealed in the oxygen‐deficient conditions, which could lead to semiconducting films. In addition, the results show that the electrical properties of sol–gel‐derived MgNb₂O₆ thin films could be tuned based on the annealing atmosphere. Moreover, the conduction mechanisms of MgNb₂O₆/ITO heterostructures are also discussed in this study. The results show that MgNb₂O₆ thin films have potential for use in multifunctional optoelectronic applications, due to their flexible electrical properties and good transparency.     

Time‐space PGD for the rapid solution of 3D nonlinear parametrized problems in the many‐query context

This work deals with the question of the resolution of nonlinear problems for many different configurations in order to build a ‘virtual chart’ of solutions. The targeted problems are three‐dimensional structures driven by Chaboche‐type elastic‐viscoplastic constitutive laws. In this context, parametric analysis can lead to highly expensive computations when using a direct treatment. As an alternative, we present a technique based on the use of the time‐space proper generalized decomposition in the framework of the LATIN method. To speed up the calculations in the parametrized context, we use the fact that at each iteration of the LATIN method, an approximation over the entire time‐space domain is available. Then, a global reduced‐order basis is generated, reused and eventually enriched, by treating, one‐by‐one, all the various parameter sets. The novelty of the current paper is to develop a strategy that uses the reduced‐order basis for any new set of parameters as an initialization for the iterative procedure. The reduced‐order basis, which has been built for a set of parameters, is reused to build a first approximation of the solution for another set of parameters. An error indicator allows adding new functions to the basis only if necessary. The gain of this strategy for studying the influence of material or loading variability reaches the order of 25 in the industrial examples that are presented. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Effect of Active Packaging on Microbial Stability and Quality of Chinese Steamed Bread

The present study was conducted to evaluate the effect of active packaging [oxygen absorber (OA) or oxygen absorber combined with ethanol emitter (OA + EE)] on microbial stability and quality of Chinese steamed bread (CSB) stored at 25 °C. Air‐packaged CSB was taken as control. Microbiological, sensory, physical, thermal and mechanical changes were monitored as a function of treatment and storage time. On day 2 of storage total plate count was reduced by 3.1, 3.7 and 4.4 cfu/g by OA, OA + EE (1% v/v) and OA + EE (3% v/v), respectively (p < 0.05). Yeasts and moulds were inhibited during the entire storage period. No detrimental effects of OA + EE (1% v/v) were observed on organoleptic parameters, whereas OA + EE (3% v/v) gave a strong objectionable flavour and taste. Active packaging significantly (p < 0.05) delayed the increase of potential of hydrogen as compared to the control. No significant effect of active packaging was found on moisture content, water activity, colour and specific volume. An increase in the melting enthalpy of amylopectin crystallite was observed in all samples during storage. The stored CSB samples packaged with OA showed higher values of hardness compared to samples packaged with OA + EE (1% v/v), indicating the potential of ethanol as plasticizer of the protein network. The results indicate the potential application of OA and OA + EE (1% v/v) as an antimicrobial packaging system for CSB preservation. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Measurement of Helium Leakage Rates through Closures of Dangerous Goods Packagings for the Assessment of Potentially Explosive Mixtures in Freight Containers

The objective was to find out whether an explosive atmosphere can be created in a freight container by gaseous leakage flow of vapour‐air‐mixture through leaks in the closures of dangerous goods packagings filled with hazardous liquids. Because of high temperatures during intercontinental carriage, there is a gauge pressure in the free vapour phase inside the packagings which can cause a gaseous leakage flow. Two different methods were applied: Helium limit leakage rates for 23 quantitatively important hazardous liquids concerning their lower explosion limit (LEL) were calculated for a worst case transport scenario (Method 1). Helium leakage rates of five closure types of dangerous goods packagings with volumes of approximately 6 l were measured using the pressure technique by accumulation (Method 2). All types of closures of steel packagings were uncritical. The maximum measured leakage was 33% of the limit leakage rate. The leakage rates of screw closures of plastic jerricans can exceed the LEL if there are production‐related patterns such as non‐concentricity of the closures and flashes on the neck. Especially for plastic packagings it is important to minimize gaseous leakage flow, because an explosive atmosphere can also be reached by permeation of the individual filling substance or by a combination of both effects. For the assessment of potentially explosive mixtures in freight containers, both mass transfer mechanisms have to be taken into account. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Using Combined Bipolar Semantic Scales and Eye‐Tracking Metrics to Compare Consumer Perception of Real and Virtual Bottles

Three‐dimensional virtual representations of consumer products are expected to gain relevance in e‐commerce applications as low cost virtual reality headsets arrive on the market in the next years. However, there are a limited number of studies related to the perceptual evaluation of virtual products and their packaging where virtual and real (photographic) representations are compared. As part of an extensive exploration toward understanding product perception in virtual stores, this work presents a study with 38 participants in which consumer perceptions of a photographic and a virtual representation of a beer bottle are examined. Perceptual evaluation is assessed using two metrics: first, an evaluation was performed by applying a bipolar semantic scale based on four axes: novelty, resolution, style and emotion. Second, eye‐tracking metrics were employed to analyse participant gaze behaviour during the visualization of stimuli. Virtual bottles were modelled using a medium polygonal load (5 K polygons per bottle), and render quality was also medium to intentionally recreate the computing limitations of smartphone‐based virtual reality headsets. Results show that a medium render quality alters consumer perception and responses using semantic scales. Eye‐tracking analysis confirms that the orientation of the bottle and how it is presented also affect consumer perception. While some orientations result in similar eye‐tracking metrics, others show different results. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Estimating intravoxel fiber architecture using constrained compressed sensing combined with multitensor adaptive smoothing

In diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI), the accuracy of fiber tracking and analysis depends directly on that of intravoxel fiber architecture reconstruction. Several methods have been proposed that estimate intravoxel fiber architecture using low angular resolution acquisitions owing to their shorter acquisition time and relatively low b‐values. But these methods are highly sensitive to noise. We propose an approach to estimating intravoxel fiber architecture in low angular resolution dMRI. The method consists in using a constrained compressed sensing (CCS) method, also known as crossing fiber angular resolution of intravoxel architecture (CFARI) technique, in combination with multitensor adaptive smoothing in which a diffusion‐weighted (DW) image smoothing scheme is constructed according to the properties of the multitensor field estimated using CFARI. The results on synthetic, physical phantom and real brain DW images show that the proposed method is able to better resolve fiber architectures while correctly preserving image edge information, which provides a new tool for investigating the microstructures of biological tissues and for fiber tractography. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Imaging Syst Technol, 25, 285–296, 2015