A Murine Oral‐Exposure Model for Nano‐ and Micro‐Particulates: Demonstrating Human Relevance with Food‐Grade Titanium Dioxide

Human exposure to persistent, nonbiological nanoparticles and microparticles via the oral route is continuous and large scale (10¹²–10¹³ particles per day per adult in Europe). Whether this matters or not is unknown but confirmed health risks with airborne particle exposure warns against complacency. Murine models of oral exposure will help to identify risk but, to date, lack validation or relevance to humans. This work addresses that gap. It reports i) on a murine diet, modified with differing concentrations of the common dietary particle, food grade titanium dioxide (fgTiO₂), an additive of polydisperse form that contains micro‐ and nano‐particles, ii) that these diets deliver particles to basal cells of intestinal lymphoid follicles, exactly as is reported as a “normal occurrence” in humans, iii) that confocal reflectance microscopy is the method of analytical choice to determine this, and iv) that food intake, weight gain, and Peyer's patch immune cell profiles, up to 18 weeks of feeding, do not differ between fgTiO₂‐fed groups or controls. These findings afford a human‐relevant and validated oral dosing protocol for fgTiO₂ risk assessment as well as provide a generalized platform for application to oral exposure studies with nano‐ and micro‐particles.     

A survey and classification of controller placement problem in SDN

Software defined networking emerges as a promising paradigm shift that decouples the control plane from the data plane. It has the ability to centrally monitor and control the network through softwarization, ie, controller. Deploying a single controller is inefficient to handle large network traffic; thereby, making multiple controllers are a necessity of current software defined networking in wide area networks. Placing multiple controllers in an optimum way, ie, controller placement is a vibrant research problem. Controller placement problem (CPP) is of twofold: the minimum number of controllers to be placed in a network and locations of these controllers. Numerous researchers in the last 5 years (2012 to November 2017) have proposed solutions for the CPP, which is an NP‐hard problem. In general, solutions are based on objective functions and their optimum solutions considering various factors (such as propagation latency between switches and controllers, and intercontrollers) and constraints (such as the capacity of controllers and switches). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt of state‐of‐the‐art review on CPP. This paper classifies the CPP, critically analyzes the existing solutions, and finds limitations and future scope existing, which will help potential researchers in this area to innovate new solutions for CPP lying on this information.     

Measurements of stratospheric aerosols with a combined elastic-Raman-backscatter lidar

Improvements made to the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Stratospheric Ozone Lidar system have extended its atmospheric-aerosol-measuring capabilities. The methods by which aerosol-scattering ratio, aerosol backscatter, and aerosol extinction are simultaneously derived from lidar data are reported, and results obtained during several intercomparison campaigns at worldwide locations are shown. The results track the evolution of the Mt. Pinatubo aerosol cloud from 1991 to 1994 and report wavelength-dependence information for aerosol backscatter between 308 and 351 nm. Two analysis techniques, a more common inversion method and a combined elastic-Raman-backscatter approach, are also compared.     

Microstructure evolution in nanocrystalline NiTi alloy produced by HPT

A slightly Ni-rich nano-NiTi alloy, deformed by high-pressure torsion (HPT) was investigated. By HPT, almost complete amorphization of initial B2 NiTi is obtained. Crystallization and microstructure evolution during isothermal treatment were investigated by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and transmission electron microscopy.The DSC signals observed during continuous heating experiments indicate an unusually large separation between the crystallization and the growth stages. A detailed analysis of the evolution of the enthalpy release upon annealing reveals reproducibly non-monotonous trends with annealing time that cannot be explained solely by growth of crystalline volume fractions. The size of nanocrystals increases dramatically after annealing for 5 h. The effective activation enthalpies for stress relaxation (along with crystallization) and grain growth were estimated at 115 and 289 kJ/mol, respectively. The results are discussed with respect to the intricate interdependencies between synthesis and thermal processing pathways and the evolution of the nanoscale microstructure.     

Quantitative analysis of microstructure refinement in ultrafine-grained strips of Al6063 fabricated using large strain extrusion machining

Abstract

In present research work, ultrafine-grained strips of Al-6063 alloy were fabricated using hybrid extrusion machining technique known as “large strain extrusion machining (LSEM).” Fabrication of strips was done using the customized HSS tools of different rake angles varying from 0° to 10° under different machining conditions. Microstructural and mechanical characterizations of these strips were done to ascertain the effect of different parameters on their properties. From the results of hardness measurement of strips, it was concluded that hardness of the strips increased by 34–97% of the base material as of the refinement of grain size occurred. Surface lay was improved by 30% with higher cutting velocity and rake angle. Crystallite size was found to decrease with increase in the rate of strain. The shear strain was increased as chip compression ratio increased and rake angle decreased. Fabrication ability of strips increased due to increase in strain hardening exponent and it may result in the large scope of their applications. Nano-hardness of the strips was found to be more than bulk alloy. These above said results showed that ultrafine strips fabricated using LSEM process can become a good choice for future material fabrication.     

Dynamic effects during sinter forging of axi-symmetric hollow disc preforms

The present paper reports an investigation on the dynamic effects during sinter forging of axi-symmetric hollow disc preforms at room temperature. The preforms have been prepared by compacting the copper metal powder within the closed-cavity circular compaction dies and experiments have been conducted on computer-controlled hydraulic press to investigate the effect of die velocity, i.e. dynamic effects on various deformation characteristics, e.g. flow of material, densification during dry and lubricated interfacial friction conditions, bulging and strains at preform-free surfaces and die loads. The theoretical analysis for die pressure distribution, average die load and bulged profile by ‘upper bound’ approach has been presented. The identification of critical sinter-forging characteristics and their interrelationships are the cornerstones of present study. The effect of die velocity along with other deformation characteristics on die load and inertia energy dissipation has been investigated critically using ‘design of experiment’ technique and the important interactions have been displayed graphically using ‘response surface methodology’ technique. The study on dynamic effects revealed that die velocity is the most critical factor during sinter-forging operations, especially at higher die speeds and hence, inertia energy must be considered during its analysis. The experimental and theoretical results have been found in close agreement with each other and it is expected that the work will be highly useful for the assessment of various deformation characteristics during processing of sintered materials.     

Effect of wood species on corrosion behavior of carbon steel and stainless steels in black liquors

Black liquors produced by pulping different wood species can have different corrosivity towards carbon steel equipment in pulp mills. Inorganic constituents of black liquor alone do not correlate well with the corrosivity of different black liquors. Organic constituents of the black liquor have significant effect on determining its corrosivity. However, understanding of the role of individual organic constituents or group of constituents of black liquors in overall black liquor corrosivity is generally lacking. The objective of this study was to determine the effect selected wood species on the corrosivity of their black liquors which contained similar inorganic constituents. The role of black liquor constituent, pyrocatechols, whose presence in the black liquor has been associated with an increase in corrosion of carbon steel, was also studied. Results from electrochemical tests point to the mechanisms by which the catechols may participate in the accelerated corrosion of carbon steels. This study demonstrates the role of organic constituents of the black liquor in determining its corrosivity.     

Durability of aminosilane-silica hybrid gas-barrier coatings on polymers

Aminosilane solutions with pH equal to 8 and to 11 were applied and cured on SiO₂-coated poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) films. The permeability of the silane-silica hybrid coating on PET was reduced twofold compared to that of the SiO₂/PET film, at solution concentrations as low as 1 wt.%, irrespective of the pH. This concentration level led to a dense silane monolayer crosslinked to the silica surface. The oxygen transport mechanisms in the hybrid coatings were determined based on the thermally activated rate theory. Permeation experiments were also performed under tensile loading, and the critical strain for loss of barrier performance was found to be improved by a factor of two, only in case of basic pH. The defect population and morphology of the hybrid coating subjected to hydrothermal aging were analyzed using a reactive ion etching method and atomic force microscopy, respectively. These experiments confirmed the defect healing action of the aminosilane at low concentrations in solution, through the formation of a densely crosslinked polysiloxane layer at the silane-silica interface for both pH8 and pH11. The influence of the silane treatment was emphasized in case of basic pH due to the dissolution of superficial oxide layers.     

Benzoylation of benzene to benzophenone over zeolite catalysts

The liquid phase benzoylation of benzene with benzoyl chloride (BOC) to benzophenone is catalyzed by various zeolites at 353 K. Zeolite H-beta is found to be more active than the other zeolites. The conversion of benzoyl chloride to benzophenone over H-beta increases significantly with increase in the reaction time, temperature, catalyst/BOC (wt/wt) and benzene/BOC (mole) ratios. The yield of benzophenone decreases with increase in SiO₂/Al₂O₃ ratio and isomorphous substitution of Al-by Ga- and Fe-in zeolite H-Al-beta in the following order: Al-> Ga-> Fe-H-beta suggesting that high density of acidic centers along with strong acid sites are required for the reaction.     

Effects of Postdeposition Treatments on the Mechanical Properties of a Chemical-Vapor-Deposited Silicon Carbide

The influence of different postdeposition treatments such as water quench and thermal heating in air, nitrogen, and vacuum on mechanical properties of chemical-vapor-deposited (CVD) silicon carbide was investigated. The results showed that these postdeposition treatments increased the flexural strength by as much as 60% but did not significantly change other properties such as hardness and fracture toughness. The strength increase was achieved by treatments performed in both the oxidizing and nonoxidizing environments. Compressive residual stresses in CVD SiC increased because of these treatments, but this increase was not large enough to explain fully the observed increase in the flexural strength. It is proposed that these thermal treatments led to strength increase via healing of surface machining flaws. Thermal treatments in nonoxodizing environments reduced or blunted the flaws through the rearrangement of atoms and restoration of damaged crystal structure in SiC, while in oxidizing environments, passive oxidation may have served as an additional flaw healing mechanism.