Climbing the walls [robots]

Presents two underactuated kinematic designs for miniature climbing robots. They use suction. The underactuation is to save weight.     

Supplement No XX to Kauffmann-White scheme (author's transl)

In that supplement are given the characters of new Salmonella serotypes recognized in 1976 by WHO collaborating Centre for reference and research on Salmonella. Nineteen belong to the sub-genus I, 10 to the sub-genus II, 11 to the sub-genus III. Biochemical and antigenic variants of already known serotypes are described.     

Aeration Characteristics of Ski Jump Jets

Scour downstream of ski jumps may be avoided by jet deflection to an area where the energy dissipation is accomplished. The main purpose of this experimental study was the analysis of the jet air entrainment downstream of a ski jump, both for pure water and preaerated approach flow conditions. A systematic variation of the Froude number and the flow depth in the approach flow channel resulted in a range of discharge characteristics, whereas the geometry of the ski jump was maintained for all tests. The air concentration profile was measured at different locations downstream from the ski jump to evaluate the: (1) jet air concentration distribution; (2) location of minimum air concentration along the mixture flow jet and development of the minimum and the cross-sectional average air concentrations; (3) jet trajectories; and (4) process of air entrainment characteristics and jet disintegration. The results demonstrate the significant effect of the approach flow Froude number, the approach flow depth, and of preaeration on jet disintegration.     

Direct observation of the NiTi martensitic phase transformation in nanoscale volumes

We report on quantitative in situ transmission electron microscopy nanocompression tests used to study the deformation behavior of NiTi pillars on the nanometer scale. By recording the diffraction patterns in real time we have obtained direct evidence that the stress-induced B2 to B19′ (austenite to martensite) transformation exists in NiTi even when the sample size is below 200 nm. Correlation of the appearance of the B19′ phase in the diffraction pattern with our quantitative data showed that the transformation starts at approximately 1 GPa. We found that the transformation occurred through a multi-step process, and that the reverse transformation did not occur due to extensive deformation of the B19′ phase. Our results have direct implications for the application of the shape memory effect in nanoscale NiTi devices.     

Hybrid force-velocity sliding mode control of a prosthetic hand

Four different methods of hand prosthesis control are developed and examined experimentally. Open-loop control is shown to offer the least sensitivity when manipulating objects. Force feedback substantially improves upon open-loop control. However, it is shown that the inclusion of velocity and/or position feedback in a hybrid force-velocity control scheme can further improve the functionality of hand prostheses. Experimental results indicate that the sliding mode controller with force, position, and velocity feedback is less prone to unwanted force overshoot when initially grasping objects than the other controllers.     

A Hybrid Dry and Aqueous Fractionation Method to Obtain Protein-Rich Fractions from Quinoa (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Chenopodium quinoa</Emphasis> Willd)

Combination of dry and aqueous fractionation is investigated to obtain protein-rich fractions from quinoa in a milder and more sustainable way compared to conventional wet fractionation. Dry fractionation of quinoa involved milling and subsequent air classification, generating a protein-enriched embryo fraction. Subsequently, this fraction was milled, suspended, and further fractionated by aqueous phase separation. The efficiency of aqueous phase separation could be improved by addition of NaCl (0.5 M). Finally, the top aqueous phase was decanted and ultrafiltered, resulting in a protein purity of 59.4 w/dw% for the 0.5 M NaCl-protein solution and a protein yield (gram protein obtained/gram protein in seed) of 62.0 %. Having used 98 % less water compared to conventional wet extraction, the hybrid dry and aqueous fractionation is a promising method for industry to create value from quinoa in a more economic and sustainable friendly way while minimizing the impact on quinoa’s native protein functionality.     

Origin and frequency of the serotypes of Salmonella received in the French national center during the years 1973--1976 (author's transl)

38,343 strains of Salmonella (34,138 isolated in Metropolitan France) were examined at the national Salmonella Centre (Pasteur Institute, Paris), during the years 1973 to 1976. The origins are scheduled in this report according to the serotypes classified in alphabetical order with O groups of Kauffmann-White schema. Incidence of II and IV subgenera is low. One serotype of the sub-genus III, S. arizonae 18 : z4, z32 : has appeared in poultry plants, specially in turkeys. The most frequent serotype remains S. typhi-murium, followed by S. wien (appeared in France in 1970), S. saint-paul the numbers of which increase. S. panama is at 4th place. S. isangi and S. ordonez, probably imported from West Africa are in expansion. 29 new serotypes, 5 of which from France, have been discovered.     

Loss of oil in hulling tung fruit in the field and at the mill

Summary Methods for analyzing commercial tung hulls for oil have been developed. Samples of tung hulls from mill and field hulling operations have been collected and analyzed. The loss of oil when the fruit are hulled was found to vary from 0.6% to 7.3% with an average loss of 2.7% based on the total amount of oil in the fruit. The difference in the loss of oil between grove and mill hulling was not significant. With a loss of 2.7% of the oil in hulling, a recovery of 87.9% oil on the hulled nuts would be equivalent to a recovery of 85.5% oil on the whole fruit.