Ethanol extraction of soybean oil

Extraction of soybean flakes with 90, 95, 98 and 100% ethanol resulted in more rapid lipid and less rapid non-lipid removal with the increasing ethanol concentrations. There was little difference in the quality of the oil produced by the different solvents. Protein content of the residual meal averaged 52.1%.     

Oxidation of oleanolic acid ofAvicennia officinalis leaves to oleanonic acid in the natural environment of Sunderban mangrove ecosystem

Oleanolic acid, a major component pentacyclic triterpene in the leaves ofAvicennia officinalis was found to be oxidized to oleanonic acid in the natural environment of Sunderban mangrove forest.Presented in part at the All India Symposium on Marine Plants, held on Oct. 30–Nov. 1,1983 at National Institute of Oceanography Dona Paula, Goa India.     

Temperature-dependent short-channel parameters of FinFETs

The remarkable development and continual proliferation of research in the nanotechnology field have led to improvement in the efficiency of elementary devices. To improve their performance, the parameters of such devices can be scaled down while optimizing their characteristics. However, this simultaneously results in degraded switching characteristics and the appearance of short-channel effects. Multigate-based fin-shaped field-effect transistors (FinFETs) represent a new option to address all these problems. However, thermal failure of FinFET devices under nominal operating conditions is an important issue in the design and implementation of high-speed semiconductor devices. It is also seen that bulk FinFETs exhibit better thermal performance compared with silicon-on-insulator FinFETs. In the work presented herein, various FinFET characteristics including the subthreshold swing, drain-induced barrier lowering, threshold voltage, and drain current were investigated as functions of temperature. The (effective) channel length is larger than the physical gate length (in off-state) due to the undoped underlap regions. This paper also discusses the effects of drain, source, and gate overlap.     

Human response to blast-induced vibration and air-overpressure: an Indian scenario

Ground vibration (V_max) and air-overpressure/noise (p) are some of the negative effects of blasting. The associated human annoyance and complaints are expected to show an increasing trend in the future as there is no economically viable alternative to blasting in mines in India.A study of the human response to blasting in four mining localities across India has shown that the response is not simply political, as frequently assumed. It has been found that irrespective of those questioned, a basic concern for the safety of property was the main response. There was a greater response from the middle-aged and middle-educated while fewer women than men responded. Assuming that a 100% negative response from the inhabitants will translate into complaints, a methodology is suggested to take account of the human response criteria when considering blasting within 400 m of habitations.     

Computational model of edge effects in graphene nanoribbon transistors

We present a semi-analytical model incorporating the effects of edge bond relaxation, the third nearest neighbor interactions, and edge scattering in graphene nanoribbon field-effect transistors (GNRFETs) with armchair-edge GNR (AGNR) channels. Unlike carbon nanotubes (CNTs) which do not have edges, the existence of edges in the AGNRs has a significant effect on the quantum capacitance and ballistic I-V characteristics of GNRFETs. For an AGNR with an index of m=3p, the band gap decreases and the ON current increases whereas for an AGNR with an index of m=3p+1, the quantum capacitance increases and the ON current decreases. The effect of edge scattering, which reduces the ON current, is also included in the model. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com     

Response of Multilayer Foundation System beneath Railway Track under Cyclic Loading

For an efficient and economical design of a railway track system, it is necessary to understand the behavior of each track component with special reference to ballast and subgrade, which play a pivotal role in distributing the large, cyclic wheel loads longitudinally, laterally, and vertically away from the wheel contact area on the rail surface to the underlying soil strata. This paper presents an analytical model of a track-ballast-subgrade system with different formation soils such as dense uniform sand, stiff clay, loose sand, and soft clay modeled by using a mass-spring dashpot system with two degrees of freedom. This represents the varying energy distribution through ballast and subgrade in the vertical direction. Results are presented in the form of time-displacement response profiles for both the ballast and subgrade layers. In addition, the magnification factors for displacements with variation in subgrade soils for cyclic loading frequencies are reported. It is observed that the results obtained from the present analysis follow the experimentally observed trends already available in the literature.     

Novel statistical method for data drift detection in satellite telemetry

Autonomy is becoming a prime requirement for satellite mission control operations. Data-driven methods like Machine Learning models are playing a key role in bringing in autonomy. Health keeping data from satellite telemetry is a key ingredient in these data-driven methods. In real-world satellite operations, the health-keeping telemetry data gradually drifts due to adverse space weather effects and wear and tear of electronic and mechanical components. The key question that arises is how to detect and quantify the data drift which is generally a gradual phenomenon. This paper discusses a novel statistical method for detecting data drift occurring in satellite telemetry. For the purpose of experimental work in this paper, an actual telemetry data set of the BUS CURRENT sensor which is part of the Electrical Power System of a Low Earth Orbit Satellite was considered. Data drift detection test was carried out using this sensor data using the developed novel statistical method and with Kolmogorov Smirnov test which is a probabilistic method. Both results are analysed and compared. Thereafter novel statical method was used to check its efficacy using a synthetic data set with induced drift.     

A high performance direct borohydride fuel cell employing cross-linked chitosan membrane

A cross-linked chitosan (CCS) membrane has been prepared by a solution casting method using sulfuric acid as cross-linking agent. The CCS membrane was used as the polymer electrolyte and separator in a direct borohydride fuel cell (DBFC). Ionic conductivity and borohydride crossover rate have been measured for the CCS membrane. The DBFC used in this study employed nickel-based composite as anode catalyst and Nafion^® as anode binder. The power performance of the CCS membrane-based DBFC was compared with a similar DBFC employing Nafion^® 212 (N212) membrane as electrolyte /separator. The CCS membrane-based DBFC exhibited better power performance as compared to N212 membrane-based DBFC. Encouraged by this result, chitosan chemical hydrogel (CCH) was prepared and used as binder for anode catalysts. A DBFC comprising CCS membrane and CCH as anode binder was studied and found to exhibit even better power performance at all temperatures in this study. A maximum peak power density of 450 mW cm⁻² was observed at 60 ?C for DBFC employing CCS membrane and CCH binder-based anode. The chitosan-based DBFC was operated continuously for 100 h and its performance stability was recorded.     

Effect of various nanofillers on thermal stability and degradation kinetics of polymer nanocomposites

Structure of nanofillers and their subsequent interaction with a polymer is very important in determining thermal stability of polymer nanocomposite. In this paper, we tried to correlate structure of various 0, 1 and 2 dimensional nanofillers with the thermal stability of hydrogenated nitrile butadiene rubber (HNBR) nanocomposites. Organically modified and unmodified layered silicates such as montmorillonite (Cloisite Na+, Cloisite 30B and Cloisite 15A), rod-like fibrous filler (sepiolite) and spherical nanoparticles (nanosilica) were chosen for this purpose. A significant improvement in thermal stability (obtained by thermogravimeric analysis and differential scanning calorimetry) was observed for silica-filled nanocomposites. However, the activation energy of the nanocomposites calculated by different kinetic methods (both non-isothermal and isothermal methods) was found to be significantly high for sepiolite, 30B and silica-filled nanocomposites. The results were explained with the help of structure of the nanofillers, their interaction with the elastomer and the subsequent dispersion, as measured by X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy. From these analyses it was concluded that organically modified montmorillonite, sepiolite and nanosilica increase the thermal stability of the nanocomposite to a great extent due to the interaction of the reactive groups on the surface of these fillers with the polymer and high thermal stability of these inorganic fillers. Finally, degradation mechanism of HNBR in presence of the nanofillers at severe operating temperatures was investigated with the help of FTIR spectroscopy.     

Effects of argon and oxygen flow rate on water vapor barrier properties of silicon oxide coatings deposited on polyethylene terephthalate by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition

Plasma polymer coatings were deposited from hexamethyldisiloxane on polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrates while varying the operating conditions, such as the Ar and O₂ flow rates, at a fixed radio frequency power of 300 W. The water vapor transmission rate (WVTR) of the untreated PET was 54.56 g/m²/day and was decreased after depositing the silicon oxide (SiO_x) coatings. The minimum WVTR, 0.47 g/m²/day, was observed at Ar and O₂ flow rates of 4 and 20 sccm, respectively, with a coating thickness of 415.44 nm. The intensity of the peaks for the Si-O-Si bending at 800-820 cm^− 1 and Si-O-Si stretching at 1000-1150 cm^− 1 varied depending on the Ar and O₂ flow rates. The contact angle of the SiO_x coated PET increased as the Ar flow rate was increased from 2 to 8 sccm at a fixed O₂ flow rate of 20 sccm. It decreased gradually as the oxygen flow rate increased from 12 to 28 sccm at a fixed Ar carrier gas flow rate. The examination by atomic force microscopy revealed a correlation of the SiO_x morphology and the water vapor barrier performance with the Ar and O₂ flow rates. The roughness of the deposited coatings increased when either the O₂ or Ar flow rate was increased.