Application of a Model for Quenching and Partitioning in Hot Stamping of High-Strength Steel

Metallurgical and Materials Transactions A - Application of quenching and partitioning process in hot stamping has proven to be an effective method to improve the plasticity of advanced...     

The impact of a novel educational curriculum for first-time DUI offenders on intermediate outcomes relevant to DUI recidivism

The Preventing Alcohol-Related Convictions (PARC) program is a novel educational curriculum for first-time DUI offenders, with the ultimate goal of reducing DUI recidivism. It differs from traditional DUI education and prevention programs in that it does not suggest to DUI offenders that they must abstain from alcohol entirely or control their drinking to prevent a future DUI; rather, it teaches students to prevent a future DUI by not driving their cars to drinking events. Thus, the emphasis of the curriculum is on controlling driving rather than controlling drinking to avoid future DUI convictions. The implementation of the program is ongoing throughout the state of Florida. The current randomized study focused on intermediate outcomes relevant for DUI recidivism; specifically, individuals' readiness for change regarding drinking and driving, and their endorsement of a PARC planning and action approach (controlling driving) versus a traditional approach (controlling drinking). The current research demonstrated that the PARC program is effective in moving participants toward more readiness for change and toward a strategy of planning ahead to avoid driving to any venue in which drinking may occur. Future research will assess the ultimate effect on DUI recidivism.     

Dividing the large glycoside hydrolase family 13 into subfamilies: towards improved functional annotations of alpha-amylase-related proteins

Family GH13, also known as the alpha-amylase family, is the largest sequence-based family of glycoside hydrolases and groups together a number of different enzyme activities and substrate specificities acting on alpha-glycosidic bonds. This polyspecificity results in the fact that the simple membership of this family cannot be used for the prediction of gene function based on sequence alone. In order to establish robust groups that show an improved correlation between sequence and enzymatic specificity, we have performed a large-scale analysis of 1691 family GH13 sequences by combining clustering, similarity search and phylogenetic methods. About 80% of the sequences could be reliably classified into 35 subfamilies. Most subfamilies appear monofunctional (i.e. contain enzymes with the same substrate and the same product). The close examination of the other, apparently polyspecific, subfamilies revealed that they actually group together enzymes with strongly related (or even sometimes virtually identical) activities. Overall our subfamily assignment allows to set the limits for genomic function prediction on this large family of biologically and industrially important enzymes.     

Thin chromium nitride PVD coatings on stainless steel for conductive component as bipolar plates of PEM fuel cells: Ex-situ and in-situ performances evaluation

In this paper, two types of chromium PVD coatings (100 nm) have been elaborated on 316L stainless steel (SS) by adjusting the nitrogen flow rate. The first coating is a mixture of Cr₂N and Cr, the second one is a single phase CrN. It is shown that the performances of the material are strongly dependant of the nature of the passive film formed on the chromium nitride layers due to the galvanic coupling between the coating and the substrate. The CrN coated SS shows very good corrosion resistance in simulated PEMFC media. The surface conductivity of the SS is also greatly improved and the CrN coated SS shows an interfacial contact resistance of 10 mΩ cm² at 140 N cm⁻². Five single cells of stainless steel bipolar plates coated with the CrN film were assembled for performance test. This 5 cell stack does not show any mean voltage degradation over 200 h dynamic cycling. Moreover, the performances of the CrN coated SS bipolar plates are very close to the Au-coated SS bipolar plates.     

DNA-controlled excitonic switches

Fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) is a promising means of enabling information processing in nanoscale devices, but dynamic control over exciton pathways is required. Here, we demonstrate the operation of two complementary switches consisting of diffusive FRET transmission lines in which exciton flow is controlled by DNA. Repeatable switching is accomplished by the removal or addition of fluorophores through toehold-mediated strand invasion. In principle, these switches can be networked to implement any Boolean function.     

Co-tunneling enhancement of the electrical response of nanoparticle networks

A co-tunneling charge-transfer process dominates the electrical properties of a nanometer-sized "slice" in a nanoparticle network, which results in universal scaling of the conductance with temperature and bias voltage, as well as enhanced spintronics properties. By designing two large (10 μm) electrodes with short (60 nm) separation, access is obtained to transport dominated by charge transfer involving "nanoslices" made of three nanoparticles only. Magnetic iron oxide nanoparticle networks exhibit a magnetoresistance ratio that is not reachable by tunneling or hopping processes, thereby illustrating how such a size-matched planar device with dominant co-tunneling charge-transfer process is optimal for realizing multifunctional devices with enhanced change of conductance under external stimulus.     

Biocompatibility of heparin-grafted hemodialysis membranes: impact on monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 circulating level and oxidative status

This prospective observational study aimed at evaluating efficacy and biocompatibility performances of the new heparin-coated Evodial dialyzers with/without systemic heparin reduction. After a 4-week wash-out period with reference polysulfone F70S dialyzers, 6 hemodialysis patients were sequentially dialyzed with Evodial, F70S, and Evodial dialyzers using 30% heparin reduction, each period of treatment was 4 weeks. Removal rates (RR) (urea, creatinine, and β2-microglobulin), dialysis dose, and instantaneous clearances (urea and creatinine) were measured as well as inflammatory (C-reactive protein, fibrinogen, interleukin 6, tumor necrosis factor α, and monocyte chemoattractant protein-1) and oxidative stress (OS) (superoxide anion, homocysteine, and isoprostanes) parameters at the end of each study period. Patients treated with Evodial or F70S dialyzers for 4 weeks presented comparable dialysis efficacy parameters including urea and creatinine RR, dialysis dose and instantaneous clearances. By contrast, a significantly lower but reasonably good β2-microglobulin RR was achieved with Evodial dialyzers. Regarding biocompatibility, no significant difference was observed with inflammation and OS except for postdialysis monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 which significantly decreased with Evodial dialyzers. Thirty percent heparinization reduction with Evodial dialyzers did not induce any change in inflammation but led to an improvement in OS as demonstrated by a decrease in postdialysis superoxide production and predialysis homocysteine and isoprostane. This bioactive dialyzer together with heparin dose reduction represents a good trade-off between efficacy and biocompatibility performance (improvement in OS with a weak decrease in efficacy) and its use is encouraging for hemodialysis patients not only in reducing OS but also in improving patient comorbid conditions due to lesser heparin side effects.     

Economic and environmental assessment on the energetic valorization of organic material for a municipality in Quebec, Canada

Waste-to-energy provides a solution to two problems: waste management and energy generation. An integrated anaerobic waste valorization process is an interesting option, but because of investments cost and low energy value in the province of Quebec, it is hard for a municipality to commit to that solution. This paper investigated the economic possibilities to manage organic material, organic fraction of municipal solid waste, and municipal wastewater sludge by anaerobic digestion for a 150,000 inhabitant municipality, with consideration to energy generation and greenhouse gas emission reduction. Using the biogas to co-generation solution brings a payback time on investment (PBT) of 3.7 years with electricity price at 0.10 $Cdn/kW h. The addition of manure from surrounding farms increases the biogas production by 37%, but increases the PBT to 6.8 years unless the leftover digestate can be used for agronomic valorization; then it becomes economically advantageous. The natural gas purchasing cost is too low to promote the enrichment of biogas into renewable natural gas. However, this scenario has the lowest energetic payback time (3.3 years) and reduces the most greenhouse gas emissions (4261 tCO₂eq/a).