Effect of storage temperature on phenolics stability in hawthorn (Crataegus pinnatifida var. major) fruits and a hawthorn drink

The stability of five major phenolics, namely (−)-epicatechin (EC), procyanidin B₂ (PC-B₂), chlorogenic acid (ChA), hyperoside (HP) and isoquercitrin (IQ), in hawthorn fruits and a canned hawthorn drink were evaluated during 6 months of storage in the dark at three different temperatures (4, 23 and 40 °C). HPLC with a diode-array detector was used to determine the contents of the individual compounds. The results showed that the studied phenolics in the hawthorn fruits and the drink were both stable at 4 °C and relatively unstable at 23 and 40 °C with varied extents of degradation. At room temperature (23 °C), marked degradations of EC and PC-B₂ were observed in both the fruits and the drink with around 50% and 30% decrease after a 6-month storage, respectively. A more significant decrease of the phenolics was observed at 40 °C, especially for EC and PC-B₂, which were almost completely degraded after a 6-month storage. HP, IQ and ChA were relatively stable at 23 °C, but unstable at 40 °C. Therefore, low-temperature storage is recommended for maintaining the quality and efficacy of hawthorn fruits and its preparations.     

Kinetics of AuSn4 migration in lead-free solders

The relatively fast diffusion of Au atoms in eutectic PbSn matrix is considered one of the contributing factors to the Au embrittlement problem. In this study, we further investigated the Au embrittlement problem in high-Sn solders. Experimentally, Sn3.5Ag (wt.%) spheres with 500-μm diameter were soldered over the Au/Ni soldering pads. It was found that some of the AuSn₄ needles that formed after reflow inside the solder migrated back to the solder/pad interface during thermal aging. However, the migration kinetics in high-Sn solders was slower compared to that in eutectic PbSn. The difference in migration kinetics of AuSn₄ in eutectic PbSn and SnAg was ascribed to the difference in the magnitudes of the Au flux and the Ni flux. In eutectic PbSn, the Au flux was much greater than that of the Ni flux, and the Au and Ni flux were in the same order of magnitude in eutectic SnAg. The relative magnitude of the Au and Ni flux changed in eutectic PbSn and SnAg because the homologous temperatures of PbSn and SnAg were different.     

Estimation of an Initial Condition of Sigma–Delta Modulators via Projection Onto Convex Sets

In this paper, an initial condition of strictly causal rational interpolative sigma-delta modulators (SDMs) is estimated based on quantizer output bit streams and an input signal. A set of initial conditions generating bounded trajectories is characterized. It is found that a set of initial conditions generating bounded trajectories but not necessarily corresponding to quantizer output bit streams is convex. Also, it is found that a set of initial conditions corresponding to quantizer output bit streams but not necessarily generating bounded trajectories is convex too. Moreover, it is found that an initial condition both corresponding to quantizer output bit streams and generating bounded trajectories is uniquely defined if the loop filter is unstable (Here, an unstable loop filter refers to that with at least one of its poles being strictly outside the unit circle). To estimate that unique initial condition, a projection onto convex set approach is employed. Numerical computer simulations show that the employed method can estimate the initial condition effectively     

Synthesis and characterization of a novel proton‐exchange membrane for fuel cells operating at high temperatures and low humidities

The synthesis of a p‐toluidine/formaldehyde (PTF) resin was performed, and the effects of the molar ratio of the individual monomers and the polymerization conditions on the structure of the PTF resin were studied. Fourier transform infrared and ¹³C‐NMR spectra were used to characterize the PTF. Wide‐angle X‐ray diffraction patterns revealed the crystalline structures of various PTFs. Polarized optical microscopy revealed that the molar ratio of the monomers had a strong effect on the crystalline morphologies. A longer polymerization time turned out a polymer with a higher intrinsic viscosity and molecular weight, which led to differences in the proton conductivity. All of the PTFs showed a higher proton conductivity than a commercial Nafion membrane at 90–100°C and 0% relative humidity. The proton conductivity of the PTF series could be improved by sulfonation with sulfuric acid and could be maintained after blending with polyurethane. Pure methanol could be used as a fuel source because of the insolubility and nonwetting properties of PTF in methanol to increase the output current density for a PTF membrane electrode assembly. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 2008     

A clustering approach for identifying and quantifying irregularities in interconnection networks

Support for arbitrary topologies has become more popular for system-area networks but very little has been done in trying to characterize their behavior and performance. Traditional parameters like diameter and bisection width are not sufficient for characterizing the irregularities that abound in such networks and fail to give much insight into throughput performance. A clustering approach for partitioning a network into clusters of richly-connected regions is proposed as a means of defining two performance-correlated characterization metrics: intercluster bandwidth index and intercluster link-cost index. The two characterization metrics are shown to have a strong correlation to saturation throughput when link and load distribution of a network is imbalanced. Simulation results also show that the clustering algorithm can be applied to a variety of network configurations and traffic scenarios, particularly irregular ones. With the proposed characterization metrics that correlate more strongly with performance, it is possible to classify networks into categories having similar performance.     

WARD: a transmission control protocol-friendly stateless active queue management scheme

In this article, the problem of providing a fair bandwidth allocation to the flows sharing a congested link in a router is investigated. Queue management, bandwidth share and congestion control are very important to both the robustness and fairness of the Internet. The buffer at the outgoing link is a simple FIFO, shared by packets belonging to the flows. A new transmission control protocol (TCP)-friendly router-based active queue management scheme, termed WARD, is proposed to approximate the fair queueing policy. WARD is a simple packet-dropping algorithm with a random mechanism which discriminates against flows that submit more packets per second than is allowed as their fair share. By doing this, it not only protects TCP connections from user datagram protocol flows, but also solves the problem of competing bandwidth among different TCP versions, such as TCP Vegas and TCP Reno. In addition, WARD works quite well for TCP flow isolation even with different round trip times. In other words, WARD improves the unfair bandwidth allocation properties. Furthermore, as it is stateless and easy to implement, WARD controls unresponsive or misbehaving flows with only a minimum overhead.     

New approach to enhance adhesions between carbon nanotube emitters and substrate by the combination of electrophoresis and successive electroplating

Complementary electroplating combined with electrophoresis enhanced the field emission characteristics of emitters by improving the adhesions between CNT emitters and substrate. The emitting current of the CNT emitters prepared by our combined method increased nine times higher than that of CNT emitters prepared by electrophoresis only, since electroplating improved the adhesion of CNT emitters. During the life-time measurement for 10 h, the emitting current of CNT emitters fabricated by electrophoresis only was drastically decreased to 13% of the initial current, while that prepared by the combination of electrophoresis and successive electroplating decreased to 64% of the initial current. We suggest that our method is a promising approach for the efficient fabrication of reliable CNT emitters.     

Development of a Profit-Based Air Cargo Loading Information System

In today's competitive logistics business environment, airfreight forwarders need to optimize every aspect of their logistics operations. However, forwarders still heavily rely on human brain and working experiences for calculating complex cargo packing and scheduling problems. Although recent research studies related to cargo packing and scheduling problems have resulted in the development of a number of advanced techniques of cargo planning, it can be seen that most of the research work is focused on the optimization of space in order to achieve the maximum possible amount of cargo to be packed in the minimum of space. After numerous site evaluation and end-user feedbacks, it is found that space optimization does not necessarily cause profit optimization, which is the ultimate aim of logistics providers. A study of contemporary research publications indicates that there are inadequate research studies related to profit-based optimization in cargo packing areas. This paper presents a profit-based air cargo loading information system (ACLIS) that embeds an innovative technology known as heuristics iterative reasoning technology (HIRT) that supports loading plan generation, focusing on maximization of the profit margin. In general, the proposed system is meant to maximize the profit in the airfreight forwarding business. It adopts an objective function governed by a list of constraints together with rule-based reasoning to provide expert advice to support the generation of appropriate loading plans