Influence of heat treatment on microstructure and adhesion of Al2O3 fiber-reinforced electroless Ni–P coating on Al–Si casting alloy

Influence of heat treatment regime on microstructure, phase composition and adhesion of Al₂O₃ fiber-reinforced Ni–P electroless coating on an Al–10Si–0.3 Mg casting alloy is investigated in this work. The pre-treated substrate was plated using a bath containing nickel hypophosphite, nickel lactate and lactic acid. Al₂O₃ fibers pretreated with demineralised water were placed into the plating bath. Resulting Ni–P–Al₂O₃ coating thickness was about 12 μm. The coated samples were heat treated at 400–550 °C/1–8 h. LM, SEM, EDS and XRD were used to investigate phase transformations. Adhesion of coating was estimated using scratch test with an initial load of 8.80 N. It is found that annealing at high temperatures (450 °C and above) leads to the formation of hard intermetallic products (namely Al₃Ni and Al₃Ni₂ phases) at the substrate–coating interface. However, as determined by the light microscopy and by the scratch test, these phases reduce the coating adhesion (compared to coatings treated by the optimal annealing regime 400 °C/1 h). The analysis of scratch tracks proves that fiber reinforcement significantly reduces the coating scaling. However, due to the formed intermetallic sub-layers, partial coating delamination may occur on the samples annealed at 450 °C and above.     

Assessment of dietary and genetic factors influencing serum and adipose fatty acid composition in obese female identical twins

Fourteen pairs of obese female monozygotic twins were recruited for a study of genetic influences on serum and adipose fatty acid (FA) composition. Following 1 wk of inpatient stabilization, fasting serum and adipose tissue obtained by surgical excision were analyzed by thin-layer and gas chromatography. Intrapair resemblances (IPR) for individual FA were assessed by Spearman rank correlation and by analysis of variance and were found in serum cholesteryl esters (CE), triglycerides (TG), and adipose TG. With two exceptions (CE linoleate and adipose eicosapentaenoate), these IPR were limited to the nonessential FA. Palmitate had significant IPR in four lipid fractions; in serum CE and adipose TG palmitate was strongly correlated with multiple measures of adiposity. In contrast to other lipid fractions, serum phosphatidylcholine (PC) FA had 12 IPR, of which 6 were essential FA including arachidonate (r=0.76, P<0.0005), eicosapentaenoate (r=0.78, P<0.0005), and docosahexaenoate (r=0.86, P<0.0001). The PC IPR could not be explained by analysis of preadmission 7-d food records. After dividing the pairs into two groups differing and nondiffering according to fat intake of individuals in the pair, there was no evidence of a gene-environment interaction between fat intake and FA composition. The IPR for nonessential FA indicate that there is active genetic control of either food choices or postabsorptive metabolic processing. The high level of IPR in the PC fraction in contrast to the other lipid fractions suggests strong genetic influence over selection of specific FA for this membrane fraction independent of diet.     

Cyclic-Oxidation Resistance of Protective Silicide Layers on Titanium

Titanium was powder siliconized and gas nitrided, in order to improve its cyclic-oxidation resistance. Siliconizing was performed in a pure-silicon powder at temperatures in the range of 800–1100° C for 3–48 h. Gas nitriding was carried out in pure N₂ at 1100° C/12 h. Cyclic-oxidation experiments with the siliconized and nitrided samples were conducted in air at 850 and 950° C for up to 560 h. It was found that the siliconized layers grew according to the parabolic law with the activation energy for siliconizing E_S being 47.2 kJ mol^–1. Powder siliconizing at 900–1100° C/3 h produced multi-phase layers, in which Ti₅Si₃ silicide predominated The siliconizing temperature of 800° C/3 h appeared to be insufficient, because it led to a non-uniform surface layer with a slight protective effect. The nitrided layers were composed of titanium nitride TiN and -Ti(N) intestitial solid solution. Measurement of the oxidation kinetics revealed that the titanium siliconized at 900–1100° C/3 h oxidized much more slowly than pure Ti, Ti–6Al–4V alloy and nitrided titanium. Microstructural investigation revealed the complex sub-structure of the scales on the siliconized samples which was composed of rutile+silica, rutile and nitrogen-rich sub-layers. The mechanism of high-temperature cyclic oxidation of the siliconized and nitrided titanium is discussed.     

Structure,mechanical properties,corrosion behavior and cytotoxicity of biodegradable Mg–X (X = Sn,Ga, In) alloys

As-cast Mg–Sn, Mg–Ga and Mg–In alloys containing 1–7 wt.% of alloying elements were studied in this work. Structural and chemical analysis of the alloys was performed by using light and scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive spectrometry, x-ray diffraction, x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and glow discharge spectrometry. Mechanical properties were determined by Vickers hardness measurements and tensile testing. Corrosion behavior in a simulated physiological solution (9 g/l NaCl) was studied by immersion tests and potentiodynamic measurements. The cytotoxicity effect of the alloys on human osteosarcoma cells (U-2 OS) was determined by an indirect contact assay. Structural investigation revealed the dendritic morphology of the as-cast alloys with the presence of secondary eutectic phases in the Mg–Sn and Mg–Ga alloys. All the alloying elements showed hardening and strengthening effects on magnesium. This effect was the most pronounced in the case of Ga. All the alloying elements at low concentrations of approximately 1 wt.% were also shown to positively affect the corrosion resistance of Mg. But at higher concentrations of Ga and Sn the corrosion resistance worsened due to galvanic effects of secondary phases. Cytotoxicity tests indicated that Ga had the lowest toxicity, followed by Sn. The most severe toxicity was observed in the case of In.     

Economic contradictions of the waste-to-energy concept and emissions reduction plan (case study,Czech Republic)

According to the latest waste-to-energy concept, the corporate operators of urban heating systems (UHS) in European Union (EU) should replace fossil fuels by incineration of mixed municipal solid waste (MMSW, following 2008/98/EC Waste Framework Directive that implements mandatory waste separation system for at least paper, plastic, glass, and metal packaging since 31 of December 2014). However, there are indications that MMSW incineration will be counterproductive to the existing Directive on reducing national emissions of certain atmospheric pollutants. Material flow analysis for comparing the environmental impacts of the incineration of lignite, natural gas, and waste in UHS was carried out on a commercial scale. Results showed that replacing lignite by MMSW can lead to an increase in emissions of nitrogen oxides and other negative environmental impacts. However, it is proposed that co-combustion MMSW with natural gas could be a better alternative.     

An interactive framework for spatial joins: a statistical approach to data analysis in GIS

Many Geographic Information Systems (GIS) handle a large volume of geospatial data. Spatial joins over two or more geospatial datasets are very common operations in GIS for data analysis and decision support. However, evaluating spatial joins can be very time intensive due to the size of datasets. In this paper, we propose an interactive framework that provides faster approximate answers of spatial joins. The proposed framework utilizes two statistical methods: probabilistic join and sampling based join. The probabilistic join method provides speedup of two orders of magnitude with no correctness guarantee, while the sampling based method provides an order of magnitude improvement over the full indexing tree joins of datasets and also provides running confidence intervals. The framework allows users to trade-off speed versus bounded accuracy, hence it provides truly interactive data exploration. The two methods are evaluated empirically with real and synthetic datasets.     

An iterative algorithm learning the maximal margin classifier

A simple learning algorithm for maximal margin classifiers (also support vector machines with quadratic cost function) is proposed. We build our iterative algorithm on top of the Schlesinger-Kozinec algorithm (S-K-algorithm) from 1981 which finds a maximal margin hyperplane with a given precision for separable data. We suggest a generalization of the S-K-algorithm (i) to the non-linear case using kernel functions and (ii) for non-separable data. The requirement in memory storage is linear to the data. This property allows the proposed algorithm to be used for large training problems.The resulting algorithm is simple to implement and as the experiments showed competitive to the state-of-the-art algorithms. The implementation of the algorithm in Matlab is available. We tested the algorithm on the problem aiming at recognition poor quality numerals.     

Analysis of workflow schedulers in simulated distributed environments

The Journal of Supercomputing - Task graphs provide a simple way to describe scientific workflows (sets of tasks with dependencies) that can be executed on both HPC clusters and in the cloud. An...     

Alteration of arsenopyrite in soils under different vegetation covers

The weathering of arsenopyrite (FeAsS) has been monitored in soils using an in situ experimental approach. Arsenopyrite in nylon experimental bags was placed in individual horizons in soils in spruce (litter, horizons A, B, and C), beech (litter, horizons A, B, and C) and unforested (horizons A, B, and C) areas and left in contact with the soil for a period of 1 year. The individual areas on the ridge of the Krušné hory Mts., Czech Republic, had the same lithology, climatic and environmental conditions. Scorodite (FeAsO₄·2H₂O) was identified as a principal secondary mineral of arsenic (As) formed directly on the surface of the arsenopyrite. Scorodite was formed in all the areas in all soil horizons. The amount of scorodite formed decreased in the series beech, spruce and unforested areas. In forested areas, there was a larger amount of scorodite on arsenopyrites exposed in organic horizons (litter, A horizon). The greater rate of arsenopyrite alteration in organic horizons in the beech stand compared to spruce stand is probably a result of faster mineralization of organic material with resulting production of nitrate and better seepage conditions of soil in this area. Speciation of As determined using the sequential extraction technique demonstrated that As was bonded in the soils primarily in the residual fractions prior to the experiment. The As content in the mobile fractions increased in the organic horizon in the forested areas after the experiments.