Sensors and Machine Learning Models to Prevent Cooktop Ignition and Ignore Normal Cooking

Fire Technology - Cooking equipment is involved in nearly half of home fires in the United States, with cooktop fires the leading cause of deaths and injuries in cooking-related fires. In this...     

Consideration of chiral optical fibres

Circular birefringence is a property of chiral materials. In this work, we consider the use of chiral materials in optical fibres to produce circularly birefringent optical fibres and in fibres where a contrast in circular birefringence contributes to forming the waveguide. (-)-menthyl methacrylate is also investigated as a possible material for the fabrication of such fibres.     

Elucidation and short-term forecasting of microcystin concentrations in Lake Suwa (Japan) by means of artificial neural networks and evolutionary algorithms

Non-supervised artificial neural networks (ANN) and hybrid evolutionary algorithms (EA) were applied to analyse and model 12 years of limnological time-series data of the shallow hypertrophic Lake Suwa in Japan. The results have improved understanding of relationships between changing microcystin concentrations, Microcystis species abundances and annual rainfall intensity. The data analysis by non-supervised ANN revealed that total Microcystis abundance and extra-cellular microcystin concentrations in typical dry years are much higher than those in typical wet years. It also showed that high microcystin concentrations in dry years coincided with the dominance of the toxic Microcystis viridis whilst in typical wet years non-toxic Microcystis ichthyoblabe were dominant. Hybrid EA were used to discover rule sets to explain and forecast the occurrence of high microcystin concentrations in relation to water quality and climate conditions. The results facilitated early warning by 3-days-ahead forecasting of microcystin concentrations based on limnological and meteorological input data, achieving an r(2)=0.74 for testing.     

Synthesis and ex-situ evaluation of quaternized polysulfone as an anion exchange ionomer for AEM technologies

Anion exchange ionomer (AEI) is a critical component used on anion exchange membrane fuel cell (AEMFC) and alkaline water electrolyzer (AWE). In this work, quaternized polysulfone with different functionalization degree were used as an ionomer to evaluate the performance in the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and hydrogen oxidation reaction (HOR), both implied in the operation of AEMFC and AWE. The synthesized ionomer exhibited a better performance in both reactions in comparison to the commercial AEI Aemion®. PSf-130 exhibited better performance, since IEC and surface area increases twice regarding the same parameters in the PSf-60. The PSf-130 conductivity increases three times regarding the value exhibited by PSf-60. Finally, the J_lim and J_k increases 67% and 100% for ORR. On the other hand, the same catalytic parameter increased 44% and 35% for HOR comparing both polysulfone-based ionomers. The Tafel slope values do not showed drastically changes for different ionomers indicating the same rate determining step (RDS) and the same mechanism in both reactions for all the ionomers.     

Activity of a melimine derived peptide Mel4 against Stenotrophomonas,Delftia, Elizabethkingia,Burkholderia and biocompatibility as a contact lens coating

Purpose

To determine the antimicrobial activity of the melimine derived peptide Mel4 against Delftia, Stenotrophomonas, Elizabethkingia, Burkholderia and to investigate biocompatibility of Mel4 as an antimicrobial coating on contact lenses in animals and humans.

Determination of nitrite and nitrate levels in meat and vegetable products by high performance liquid chromatography

A range of fresh and processed meat and vegetable products was analysed by h.p.l.c. for nitrite and nitrate contents. Satisfactory results were obtained for vegetable products and most meats, but some meat products were subject to matrix interference. Sucrose, sulphate and phosphate did not affect results. Added sodium chloride decreased retention time of nitrite and increased apparent levels of both nitrite and nitrate. Ascorbic and erythorbic acids decreased apparent nitrite levels and correspondingly increased apparent nitrate levels.     

Evaporation of Pure Droplets in the Convective Regime Under High Mass Flux

An analytical expression analogous to the D² law was introduced, based on a mass transfer consideration, to describe the evaporation of pure droplets in the convective regime based on the Ranz-Marshall-type correlation for the Sh number. Comparison was made to single droplet drying experiments of pure water. It was found that the effect of mass transfer coefficient depression is significant under the high mass flux condition from the droplet. An expression was obtained to approximate the total time required for complete evaporation of a pure droplet. This expression can be used as a quick computation tool for more fundamental studies on droplet evaporation under controlled ambient conditions.     

Fundamental mechanisms of bonding of glass fiber reinforced polymer reinforcement to concrete

Fundamental mechanisms of bonding between glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) bar and concrete are presented. Contributions from chemical bonding, bearing resistance, and frictional resistance to bond were delineated by measuring the following: the load corresponding to complete debonding of the bar, the load corresponding to onset of sliding and pullout of the bar along the entire embedment length, and the frictional load corresponding to frictional resistance to sliding. Research findings indicate that while chemical bonding was the main contributor to the interfacial bond strength, the other two mechanisms contributed to the pullout strength of the bar. Correlation between the bar’s surface geometry and the contributions from the three mechanisms are discussed.