Microstructural Evolution of Gas-Pressure-Sintered Si3N4 with Yb2O3 as a Sintering Aid

Microstructural evolution of gas-pressure-sintered Si₃N₄ with Yb₂O₃ as a sintering aid was observed. Microstructures typical for in situ toughened Si₃N₄, i.e., large elongated grains randomly distributed in a fine matrix, were observed. However, the size of the elongated grains near the surface was much larger than that at the center, resulting in two distinct regions: an inner region and an outer region. The smaller the amount of Yb₂O₃ added, the larger the difference in the size of the elongated grains between the outer and inner regions. The difference between microstructures was diminished when 16 wt% Yb₂O₃ was added. The microstructural change with Yb₂O₃ content was attributed to the evaporation of Yb-containing liquid phase from the surface.     

A power-efficient vertical handover with MIH-based network scanning through consistency check

We propose an power-efficient scanning scheme considering the consistency of the Information Element (IE) for the Media Independent Handover (MIH) based Vertical Handover. Since the Green IT is one of the key issues of the science, we suggested the power saving scheme by extending the information and the event service of the MIH framework to reduce the number of full scanning. We proposed the criteria to select the update MT to quantify the power consumption alongside various network scanning methods. Since the frequent and multiple network scanning incurred by small mobile terminals (MT) is considerable, the scanning avoidance is essential for the framework we suggest. The MIH Information Service (MIIS) provides many usable factors and features for the scanning avoidance. However, because of the absence of the criteria to select the update node, these values are not actually usable. Therefore, we suggest an Energy Efficient Function, which tests the validity of MIIS values and makes a decision on whether to avoid the scanning or not.     

Hydrodynamic characteristics of a FCC regenerator

The hydrodynamic and gas mixing characteristics have been determined in a FCC regenerator (0.48 m I.D.x3.4 m high) with FCC particles. Solids holdup in the dense bed decreases with increasing gas velocity, but it increases in the freeboard region. The bubble/void fraction increases with an increase along the bed height at a given gas velocity and increases with increasing gas velocity at a constant bed height. Backmixed tracer gas at the wall region is higher than that at the center region of the bed. The gas backmixing coefficient decreases with increasing gas velocity.     

Blends of chlorinated isotactic polypropylene with poly(ethylene-co-vinyl acetate) I. Effect of component polymers composition on the blend miscibility

Chlorinated isotactic polypropylenes (CPP) having various chlorine contents were blended with poly(ethylene-co-vinyl acetate)s (EVA) having various vinyl acetate (VA) contents. The blends were made by casting films from dilute THF solutions and miscibility of the blends was identified by single glass transition temperature, which was confirmed by DSC and dynamic mechanical measurements. Based on the miscibility data from a large number of CPP/EVA combinations, a miscibility map was depicted where CO equivalent weight (CO-EQW) of EVA was plotted against chlorine equivalent weight (Cl-EQW) of CPP. Though an attractive interaction between CPP and EVA could be detected in all the miscible and immiscible blend pairs, miscibility of the CPP/EVA blends could solely be observed in a relatively narrow range of Cl-EQW ca. 65–100 and CO-EQW ca. 170–230.     

Effect of Twin-Plane Reentrant Edge on the Coarsening Behavior of Barium Titanate Grains

When BaTiO₃ ceramics were sintered at relatively low temperatures (≤1250°C), the grains with reentrant edges caused by a (111) double twin grew exclusively. As a result, a microstructure with a bimodal grain-size distribution composed of platelike large grains and fine matrix grains was obtained. In contrast, at the usual sintering temperature between 1250° and 1350°C, grains containing a (111) double twin did not exhibit any growth advantage. In this case, a coarse and uniform microstructure was obtained. When this coarse-grained specimen was further heat-treated at 1365°C, the grains possessing a double twin were observed to grow exclusively again. The results were explained in terms of a coarsening process controlled by two-dimensional nucleation.     

An Experimental Study of Fatigue Strength for Adhesively Bonded Tubular Single Lap Joints

In this paper, manufacturing technology of the tubular single lap adhesive joint was studied to obtain reliable and optimal joint quality. In addition, a surface preparation method and a bonding process for the joint were devised. The effect of the adhesive thickness and the adherend roughness on the fatigue strength of the joint was experimentally investigated. From experiments, it has been found that the fatigue strength of the joint increased as the adhesive thickness decreased and the optimal arithmetic surface roughness of the adherends was about 2 μm.     

Face detection based on skin color likelihood

We propose a face detection method based on skin color likelihood via a boosting algorithm which emphasizes skin color information while deemphasizing non-skin color information. A stochastic model is adapted to compute the similarity between a color region and the skin color. Both Haar-like features and Local Binary Pattern (LBP) features are utilized to build a cascaded classifier. The boosted classifier is implemented based on skin color emphasis to localize the face region from a color image. Based on our experiments, the proposed method shows good tolerance to face pose variation and complex background with significant improvements over classical boosting-based classifiers in terms of total error rate performance.     

Synthesis and characterization of poly(1,8-diethynylnaphthalene)

Summary The cyclopolymerization of 1,8-diethynylnaphthalene(DEN) and its copolymerization with diethyl dipropargylmalonate(DEDPM) were carried out by various transition metal catalysts. MoCl₅-based catalyst was found to be very effective and gave almost a quantitative polymer yield. The resulting dark-brown homopolymer(PDEN) was partially soluble in chloroform, tetrahydrofuran, and dimethyl sulfoxide, whereas copolymer (1:1) with number avaerage molecular weight of 2.1x10⁴ by GPC showed good solubility in those solvents. The structure of the polymers was analysed by IR, NMR, and UV-VIS spectroscopies. From the spectral and solubility data, it is proposed that cyclized products with the conjugated system are formed. Room temperature conductivities of the I₂-doped homo and copolymer were found to be about 7.5x10^-3 and 5.1x10^-3 S/cm, respectively.     

Adsorption and desorption characteristics of 2-methyl-4-chlorophenoxyacetic acid onto activated carbon

Adsorption and desorption characteristics of the 2-methyl-4-chlorophenoxyacetic acid (MCPA) from aqueous solution onto the activated carbon (GAC, F-400) were studied. Adsorption equilibrium capacities of the MCPA increased with decreasing pH and temperature of the solution. Adsorption equilibrium of the MCPA could be represented by the Sips equation. The internal diffusion coefficients were determined by comparing the experimental concentration decay curves with those predicted from surface diffusion model and pore diffusion model. The adsorption model based on the linear driving force approximation (LDFA) was used for simulating the adsorption behavior of the MCPA in a fixed bed. Over ninety five percent desorption of the MCPA could be obtained using distilled water.     

Monodisperse polymer/metal composite particles by electroless chemical deposition: Effect of surface functionality of polymer particles

Micron‐sized polymer particles were coated with layers of nickel compounds by plating electrolessly in the presence of aqueous solutions of nickel chloride, sodium hypophosphite, sodium citrate, and ammonium chloride at elevated temperature. The uniform functional polymer particle could be obtained by seeded polymerization. To investigate the effect of surface functionality on the conditions for nickel deposition, the polymer particle was functionalized with the thiol group. From morphological observation, it was found that the mode of nickel deposition was greatly dependent on the surface functionality of the polymer particle. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 87: 420–424, 2003