Experimental Study of the Salt Effect in Vapor/Liquid Equilibria Using Headspace Gas Chromatography

The salt effect on vapor/liquid equilibrium for an ethanol/water system was studied at 70 °C using the Headspace Gas Chromatography technique. The azeotropic point of the system was eliminated in the presence of the salts studied. All the salts investigated in this work exhibited a salting out effect which followed the order of NH₄Cl > NaCl > CaCl₂ and which increased with increasing salt concentration. Good agreement with Furter's equation was observed for the experimental data with unsaturated NaCl salt. The salt effect parameter, determined from Furter's equation, was found to be a function of the liquid concentration.     

Multiscale Observation of the Fatigue‐Induced Damage Mechanisms in Carbon‐Black Filled Styrene‐Butadiene Rubber

Filled rubber materials exhibit a complex macroresponse characterized by stress softening, hysteresis, and dissipative heating when they are cyclically loaded. The relationship of these inelastic features to the microstructure changes is far from being fully established. This paper deals with the damage mechanisms in sulfur‐vulcanized styrene‐butadiene rubber (SBR) specimens in the diablo form reinforced with carbon‐black (CB) and zinc‐oxide (ZnO) fillers, and submitted to tension cyclic loading at room temperature. The microstructure alteration is characterized at different relevant scales and at different zones of the diabolo specimen by means of various technologies in the aim to report valuable insights about the mechanisms responsible for the macroresponse of this rubber‐filler material system. IR absorption spectra reveal that increasing filler content induces more interfacial interaction between CB and SBR chains. The environmental scanning electron microscopy (ESEM) observations show relevant altered morphologies of elastomeric chains with a predominant effect of both CB and ZnO fillers. A mesoscale observation of material density variation is presented using X‐ray computed tomography and the results are compared with those issued from ESEM.     

Application of integrated computational chemistry system to the design of inorganic membranes

Today inorganic membranes attract a lot of interest as a growing field. Main focus of those activities is on the development of membrane materials, which can offer high permselectivities with acceptable high permeances. The need for high permselectivity beyond those limited by Knudsen flow requires the estimation of the factors, which determine the permselectivity. Plausible theoretical models based on physical or chemical reasoning is desirable to guide systematic development efforts for designing next generation inorganic membranes. Here we reviewed our attempts to generate theoretical models based on the molecular dynamics method for this purpose. As a first attempt, simulation was performed at specific conditions where the Knudsen theory can be applied and can be reproduced well by our simulation methodology. Molecular dynamics simulation at 373 K of the permeation of iso- and n-butanes through ZSM-5 type silicalite membrane are presented. After 200 ps of simulation time the permeation of n-butane was observed whereas the permeation of iso-butane was not observed. The calculated permeability of n-butane, which is close to experimental data, is also presented. A study on the affinity membrane for the separation of CO₂ at high temperature is presented and the prospect of permselectivity of CO₂ is demonstrated.     

Transbronchial biopsy and bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia

The aim of the present study was to investigate the role of maternal smoking during pregnancy in the occurrence of the premature rupture of the membranes (PROM) and premature labor . Our study consisted of 1,133 women of which 283 (group A) had premature labor (gestation < or = 37 weeks), while 850 (group B) had term labor (gestation > 37 weeks). The two groups did not differ in their socioeconomic status and did not include women with serious complications during pregnancy. There were no apparent effects of smoking on the length of gestation. However, our results showed that smoking had a marked effect on preterm labor of less than 32 weeks; we also found a statistically significant correlation between PROM in premature deliveries and smoking during pregnancy, but no gradient was observed between the number of cigarettes smoked per day and the risk for PROM, in cases of premature labor. We conclude that smoking during pregnancy raises the risk of delivery before the 32nd week, as well as the PROM in premature deliveries, independently of the number of cigarettes smoked per day.     

Correction to: “Measuring the Speed of Data Exchange in Memory Cards Using Programmable Logic Integrated Circuits”

Measurement Techniques - The affiliation of the first author, E. V. Kostikova, is incorrect     

Effect of the Interfacial Disorder on the Magnetotransport Properties in Ni<Subscript>81</Subscript>Fe<Subscript>19</Subscript>/Ti<Subscript>10</Subscript><Emphasis Type="Italic">W</Emphasis><Subscript>90</Subscript> Multilayers

This work is a study of the interface structure effect on the magnetotransport properties in Ni₈₁Fe₁₉/Ti₁₀ W ₉₀ magnetic multilayer. The overall weakness showed by experimental magnetoresistance rate \(\text {MR}_{\exp }\) is probably due to a degradation of the interface quality caused by the apparition of a disordered phase NiFeW at the interface. Thus, we propose in this paper an extension to the Johnson-Camley semi classical model that takes in consideration the evolution of the interface structure, which makes it possible to reproduce quite faithfully the experimental results \(\text {MR}_{\exp } (t_{\text {NiFe}})\) for all ranges of magnetic layer thicknesses, confirming the important role of the interface structure on the electronic transport properties.     

A reduced reference video quality assessment of H.264 and mpeg2 codec based on sharpness metric

In this paper, we propose a new perceptually significant video quality metric for the H.264/Motion Picture Expert Group (MPEG)‐4 Advanced Video Coding (AVC) and MPEG2 standard. Our method operates in the spatial domain by using the Sobel filter. The proposed approach does not require a high computational complexity and can be suitable for real‐time evaluation. We evaluate the performance of the proposed method by using three Common Intermediate Format sequences at different compression rates. The comparison of the obtained results is made with some video quality models using “LIVE”, “IVP” and “IRCCyN/IVC 1080i” databases. The performance metrics, i.e. Pearson and Spearman correlation coefficients, indicate that the proposed method gives a good performance in H264 and MPEG2 codec distortions with the three databases comparing with other models.     

Structure Evolution and Thermal Decomposition of Supramolecular and Lamellar Hybrid Sulfates Templated by 4-Aminopyridinium

Journal of Inorganic and Organometallic Polymers and Materials - The aromatic diamine 4-aminopyridine was used for the synthesis of a series of supramolecular metal–organic sulfate salts. The...     

Computational modelling of static indentation-induced damage in glass

The present paper is focused on the numerical simulation of a glass plate subjected to static indentation by a spherical indenter. For this purpose, a combined approach of continuum damage mechanics (CDM) and fracture mechanics is performed. Results provided by an axisymmetric finite element model were compared with analytical solutions. A CDM based constitutive model with an anisotropic damage tensor was selected and implemented into a finite element code to study the damage of glass. The numerical results were analysed through the framework of the stress and damage distribution. Various regions with critical damage values were therefore predicted in good agreement with the experimental observations in the literature. In these regions, the directions of crack propagation, including both cracks initiating on the surface as well as in the bulk, were predicted using the strain energy density factor. Predicted directions were found in good agreement with those experimentally obtained in the literature results.