Sulfur containing polymers

Summary Copolymers containing -S-CO-S-and/or -O-CO-S-groups have been synthesized mainly by interfacial polycondensation.Different chemical structures were obtained by reacting 1,3-benzene dithiol (BDT) respectively with phosgene alone, phosgene and bisphenol-A (BPA), bischloroformate of BPA, BPA polycarbonate oligomers and by reacting phosgene with the products of BPA polycarbonate degraded with BDT. The chemical structures of the copolymers were investigated by IR, ¹H-NMR and ¹³C-NMR; molecular weights were determined by viscometry and vapor pressure osmometry. Although no attempt was made to find the optimum conditions for high molecular weight, some copolymers with fairly high mol. weight were obtained.     

Synchronization in complex networks of phase oscillators: A survey

The emergence of synchronization in a network of coupled oscillators is a fascinating subject of multidisciplinary research. This survey reviews the vast literature on the theory and the applications of complex oscillator networks. We focus on phase oscillator models that are widespread in real-world synchronization phenomena, that generalize the celebrated Kuramoto model, and that feature a rich phenomenology. We review the history and the countless applications of this model throughout science and engineering. We justify the importance of the widespread coupled oscillator model as a locally canonical model and describe some selected applications relevant to control scientists, including vehicle coordination, electric power networks, and clock synchronization. We introduce the reader to several synchronization notions and performance estimates. We propose analysis approaches to phase and frequency synchronization, phase balancing, pattern formation, and partial synchronization. We present the sharpest known results about synchronization in networks of homogeneous and heterogeneous oscillators, with complete or sparse interconnection topologies, and in finite-dimensional and infinite-dimensional settings. We conclude by summarizing the limitations of existing analysis methods and by highlighting some directions for future research.     

An analysis method for atomistic abrasion simulations featuring rough surfaces and multiple abrasive particles

We present a molecular dynamics (MD) model system to quantitatively study nanoscopic wear of rough surfaces under two-body and three-body contact conditions with multiple abrasive particles. We describe how to generate a surface with a pseudo-random Gaussian topography which is periodically replicable, and we discuss the constraints on the abrasive particles that lead to certain wear conditions. We propose a post-processing scheme which, based on advection velocity, dynamically identifies the atoms in the simulation as either part of a wear particle, the substrate, or the sheared zone in-between. This scheme is then justified from a crystallographic order point of view. We apply a distance-based contact zone identification scheme and outline a clustering algorithm which can associate each contact atom with the abrasive particle causing the respective contact zone. Finally, we show how the knowledge of each atom’s zone affiliation and a time-resolved evaluation of the substrate topography leads to a break-down of the asperity volume reduction into its components: the pit fill-up volume, the individual wear particles, the shear zone, and the sub-surface substrate compression. As an example, we analyze the time and pressure dependence of the wear volume contributions for two-body and three-body wear processes of a rough iron surface with rigid spherical and cubic abrasive particles.     

ECOC-DRF: Discriminative random fields based on error correcting output codes

We present ECOC-DRF, a framework where potential functions for Discriminative Random Fields are formulated as an ensemble of classifiers. We introduce the label trick, a technique to express transitions in the pairwise potential as meta-classes. This allows to independently learn any possible transition between labels without assuming any pre-defined model. The Error Correcting Output Codes matrix is used as ensemble framework for the combination of margin classifiers. We apply ECOC-DRF to a large set of classification problems, covering synthetic, natural and medical images for binary and multi-class cases, outperforming state-of-the art in almost all the experiments.     

Protein ultrafiltration: an experimental study

An experimental study was carried out on the ultrafiltration (UF) of protein-containing solutions under different conditions, as compared with a solution of a linear synthetic polymer. Three different fluidynamic regimes were investigated, namely, unstirred batch system, stirred batch system, and recirculating system. The results obtained substantially agree with the predictions of the gel polarization model. A significant effect of the electrolytes on the UF flux has been observed, which can be attributed to solute–solute interaction. The influence of different UF membranes has also been investigated.     

Robust event discovery from photo collections using Signature Image Bases (SIBs)

Analyzing personal photo albums for understanding the related events is an emerging trend. A reliable event recognition tool could suggest appropriate annotation of pictures, provide the context for single image classification and tagging, achieve automatic selection and summarization, ease organization and sharing of media among users. In this paper, a novel method for fast and reliable event-type classification of personal photo albums is presented. Differently from previous approaches, the proposed method does not process photos individually but as a whole, exploiting three main features, namely Saliency, Gist, and Time, to extract an event signature, which is characteristic for a specific event type. A highly challenging database containing more than 40.000 photos belonging to 19 diverse event-types was crawled from photo-sharing websites for the purpose of modeling and performance evaluation. Experimental results showed that the proposed approach meets superior classification accuracy with limited computational complexity.     

Regional Climate Simulations on EU-INDIA Grid Infrastructures: Methodologies and Performance

In this paper, we present a possible approach to use different Grid infrastructures across Europe and India for regional climate simulations and discuss in details the advantages and limitations in using them. The application taken into consideration is the Regional Climate Model RegCM4, which has been recently re-written for making it more efficient and easier to be fully exploited on any kind of computational infrastructure. We describe here the methods applied to port this package on the Grid infrastructures made available by the EU-IndiaGrid project. We also discuss different approaches, the way to run the model on both European and Indian infrastructures and our promising approach to deal with data management issues. Use of RegCM on Grid infrastructure has further been compared with that on HPC resources. The domain worked upon for these tests is the South-Asia CORDEX domain, which is of great importance for the Indian Summer Monsoon. Our final conclusion is that, for certain class of experiments, RegCM4 model can be efficiently and easily integrated on Grid infrastructures, by means of the procedures described in this paper.     

Peroxidase-catalyzed oxidation of β-carotene in HL-60 cells and in model systems: Involvement of phenoxyl radicals

Recent studies provide extensive evidence for the importance of carotenoids in protecting against oxidative stress associated with a number of diseases. In particular, reactions of carotenoids with phenoxyl radicals generated by peroxidasecatalyzed one-electron metabolism of phenolic compounds may represent an important antioxidant function of carotenoids. To further our understanding of the antioxidant mechanisms of carotenoids, we used in the present work two different phenolic compounds, phenol and a polar homologue of vitamin E (2,2,5,7,8-pentamethyl-6-hydroxychromane, PMC), as representatives of two different types of phenols to study reactions of their respective phenoxyl radicals with carotenoids in cells and in model systems. We found that phenoxyl radicals of PMC did not oxidize β-carotene in either HL-60 cells or in model systems with horseradish peroxidase (HRP)/H₂O₂. In contrast, the phenoxyl radicals generated from phenol (by native myeloperoxidase in HL-60 cells or HRP/H₂O₂ in model systems) effectively oxidized β-carotene and other carotenoids (canthaxanthin, lutein, lycopene). One-electron reduction of the phenoxyl radical by ascorbate (assayed by electron spin resonance-detectable formation of semidehydroascorbyl radicals) prevented HRP/H₂O₂-induced oxidation of β-carotene. PMC, but not phenol, protected β-carotene against oxidation induced by a lipid-soluble azo-initiator of peroxyl radicals. No adducts of peroxidase/phenol/H₂O₂-induced β-carotene oxidation intermediates with phenol were detected by high-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry analysis of the reaction mixture. Since carotenoids are essential constituents of the antioxidant defenses in cells and biological fluids, their depletion through the reaction with phenoxyl radicals formed from endogenous, nutritional and environmental phenolics, as well as phenolic drugs, may be an important factor in the development of oxidative stress.     

Experimental methods in chemical engineering: X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy‐XPS

X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) is a quantitative surface analysis technique used to identify the elemental composition, empirical formula, chemical state, and electronic state of an element. The kinetic energy of the electrons escaping from the material surface irradiated by an x‐ray beam produces a spectrum. XPS identifies chemical species and quantifies their content and the interactions between surface species. It is minimally destructive and is sensitive to a depth between 1–10nm. The elemental sensitivity is in the order of 0.1 atomic %. It requires ultra high vacuum ( Pa) in the analysis chamber and measurement time varies from minutes to hours per sample depending on the analyte. XPS dates back 50 years ago. New spectrometers, detectors, and variable size photon beams, reduce analysis time and increase spatial resolution. An XPS bibliometric map of the 10 000 articles indexed by Web of Science^[1] identifies five research clusters: (i) nanoparticles, thin films, and surfaces; (ii) catalysis, oxidation, reduction, stability, and oxides; (iii) nanocomposites, graphene, graphite, and electro‐chemistry; (iv) photocatalysis, water, visible light, and ; and (v) adsorption, aqueous solutions, and waste water.     

Evaluation of the salt leaching method for the production of ethylene propylene diene monomer rubber foams

The thermomechanical behavior of ethylene propylene diene monomer (EPDM) foams produced with the salt leaching method has been investigated and compared with the behavior of EPDM foams obtained from conventional blowing agents. Moreover, the salt-leaching process has been optimized to minimize salt residues and the influence of different parameters (such as average particle size and particle size distribution) has been investigated. Scanning electron microscopy and density measurements highlighted that salt-leaching leads to the formation of open-cell porosity with cell dimensions of around 60 to 80 μm, while foams obtained with the two traditional foaming agents lead to closed-cell porosity. Compression set values indicate that the behavior of the foams produced with salt leaching are more similar to the unfoamed rubber, characterized by higher elasticity and low residual deformation. Two theoretical models were successfully applied to the compression curves (Mooney-Rivlin and Exponential-Logarithmic) and they highlighted the effect of foaming on the properties of EPDM rubber and in particular the higher chain extensibility obtained through the salt leaching foaming method.