Ozonation of CI Reactive Black 5 using rotating packed bed and stirred tank reactor

This study investigates the ozonation of CI Reactive Black 5 (RB5) by using the rotating packed bed (RPB) and completely stirred tank reactor (CSTR) as ozone contactors. The RPB, which provides high gravitational force by adjusting the rotational speed, was employed as a novel ozone contactor. The same ozone dosage was separately introduced into either the RPB or the CSTR for the investigation, while the experimental solution was continuously circulated within the apparatus consisting of the RPB and CSTR. The decolorization and mineralization efficiencies of RB5 in the course of ozonation are compared for these two methods. Moreover, the dissolved and off‐gas ozone concentrations were simultaneously monitored for the further analysis. As a result, the ozone mass transfer rate per unit volume of the RPB was significantly higher because of its higher mass transfer coefficient and gas–liquid concentration driving force. Furthermore, ozonation kinetics was found to be independent of the gravitational magnitude of an ozone gas–liquid contactor. Therefore, the results suggest employing RPBs as ozone‐contacting devices with the advantage of volume reduction. The experimental results, which can be used for further modeling of the ozonation process in the RPB, also show the requirement of correct design for the RPB. Consequently, the present study is useful for the understanding of practical application of RPBs. Copyright © 2004 Society of Chemical Industry     

Line balancing in a just-in-time production environment: balancing multiple U-lines

The introduction of multiple, independent production lines has helped many firms to increase their production flexibility, provide for redundancy when equipment breaks down, reduce idle time and labor costs, and achieve many other benefits. This paper introduces and formalizes the multiple U-line balancing problem. Optimal solution methodologies are provided for Type I (minimize the number of stations for a given cycle time), Type II (minimize the cycle time for a given number of stations), and cost-minimization line-balancing problems. A branch-and-bound algorithm is also developed for the situation in which equipment requirements are dependent on the line configuration and the task assignment to stations. Computational results indicate that the greatest benefit of exploiting multiple lines occurs for smaller cycle-time problems that require higher output.     

Reliability assessment for solders with a stress buffer layer using ball shear strength test and board-level finite element analysis

The stress buffer layer (SBL) is a widely applied improvement in many advanced packages used to release the stress concentration at solder joints. However, it has been generally found that the metal line adjacent to the SBL may suffer larger deformation and its reliability should be addressed. In this study, the panel level package (PLP) technology with solder on polymer (SOP) structure is selected as the testing sample to investigate the effect of SBL. The ball shear strength test is conducted first to investigate the reliability of metal trace in PLP. In addition, finite element (FE) analysis is applied to understand the actual thermo-mechanical behavior of PLP after its assembly. The package-level and board-level reliability assessments are compared, and the suggested layout of the redistribution layer on the SBL is provided herein.     

Effects and properties of poly(arylene ether benzonitrile)s of various molecular weights blended with sulfonated poly(ether ether ketone)

Poly(arylene ether benzonitrile) (PAEBN) was synthesized with 2,6‐dichlorobenzonitrile and biphenol. PAEBNs with various molecular weights (MWs), 1,640,000 and 185,000 g/mol, were synthesized by control of the stoichiometry of the monomers and were blended with sulfonated poly(ether ether ketone) (SPEEK). The effects of MW on the water uptake, swelling, methanol permeability, and proton conductivity of the SPEEK/PAEBN blend membranes were investigated. The molecular mobility of the SPEEK/PAEBN blends was also examined in this study. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2008     

ROI-based Watermarking Scheme for JPEG 2000

A new region of interest (ROI)-based watermarking method for JPEG 2000 is presented. The watermark is embedded into the host image based on the characteristics of the ROI to protect rights to the images. This scheme integrates the watermarking process with JPEG 2000 compression procedures. Experimental results have demonstrated that the proposed watermark technique successfully survives JPEG 2000 compression, progressive transmission, and principal attacks.     

Fullerene Derivatives Attenuate Bronchoconstriction Induced by Xanthine-Xanthine Oxidase

The intratracheal instillation of xanthine-xanthine oxidase caused a marked decrease in dynamic respiratory compliance, indicating airway constriction. The constriction was significantly attenuated by fullerenol-1, but not by other agents or receptor antagonists.     

Crack tip parameters and elastic-plastic fracture of metals

By using optical displacement-measuring techniques we obtain the crack tip fields in terms of crack tip strain, crack opening angle (COA) and crack tip opening angle (CTOA). Thin plates with different crack configurations made of six elastic-plastic materials with strain hardening exponent ranging from 3 to are studied. We find that the COA resistance curve assumes certain characteristics common to all the materials. The experimental results indicate that the critical value of COA may be used as a fracture toughness parameter for these materials.

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Résumé En utilisant une technique de mesure optique des déplacements, on obtient les champs régnant à l'estrémité d'une entaille, qui s'experiment par la déformation d'extrémité d'entaille, l'angle d'ouverture de la crique (COA et l'angle d'ouverture de la pointe de la crique (CTOA). On étudie des feuillards présentant différentes configurations de fissures et réalisés en six matériaux élasto-plastiques dont les modules d'écrouissage s'échelonnent de 3 à l'infini.On trouve que la courbe de résistance COA suppose certaines caractéristiques communes à tous les matériaux. Les résultats expérimentaux indiquent que la valeur critique du COA peut être utilisée comme paramètre de ténacité à la rupture pour les matériaux étudiés.

     

Properties of polycarbonate/acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene blends

To help make a good polymer blend by melt blending, the properties of polycarbonate (PC)/acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS) systems with various compositions have been investigated. As ABS is blended into PC to form a binary system, Brabender torque is reduced, a phenomenon that results in Improved processability of PC. With increasing ABS content, the mechanical properties of the blends such as tensile strength, modulus, hardness, and shrinkage decrease. However, with the variation of composition, Izod impact strength shows a maximum, while elongation at break exhibits a minimum. These phenomena are discussed with dynamic viscoelasticities and scanning electron microscopic morphological results. The value of ΔT_g(T_gβPC ? T_gβABS) is at its smallest when the ratio of PC to ABS is 90:10, However, the value rises with an increase in ABS because the butadiene content of the ABS hinders compatibility in the binary system. At the 90:10 composition, the damping height is optimal. In addition, the dispersed phase of the ABS is most ideal, absorbing the impact force and showing high impact strength. Composition ratios other than 90:10 present high damping as well as undesirable phase separation because of poor adhesion between two phases. As a result, the mechanical properties are reduced.     

Extending 3D Lucas–Kanade tracking with adaptive templates for head pose estimation

The Lucas–Kanade tracker (LKT) is a commonly used method to track target objects over 2D images. The key principle behind the object tracking of an LKT is to warp the object appearance so as to minimize the difference between the warped object’s appearance and a pre-stored template. Accordingly, the 2D pose of the tracked object in terms of translation, rotation, and scaling can be recovered from the warping. To extend the LKT for 3D pose estimation, a model-based 3D LKT assumes a 3D geometric model for the target object in the 3D space and tries to infer the 3D object motion by minimizing the difference between the projected 2D image of the 3D object and the pre-stored 2D image template. In this paper, we propose an extended model-based 3D LKT for estimating 3D head poses by tracking human heads on video sequences. In contrast to the original model-based 3D LKT, which uses a template with each pixel represented by a single intensity value, the proposed model-based 3D LKT exploits an adaptive template with each template pixel modeled by a continuously updated Gaussian distribution during head tracking. This probabilistic template modeling improves the tracker’s ability to handle temporal fluctuation of pixels caused by continuous environmental changes such as varying illumination and dynamic backgrounds. Due to the new probabilistic template modeling, we reformulate the head pose estimation as a maximum likelihood estimation problem, rather than the original difference minimization procedure. Based on the new formulation, an algorithm to estimate the best head pose is derived. The experimental results show that the proposed extended model-based 3D LKT achieves higher accuracy and reliability than the conventional one does. Particularly, the proposed LKT is very effective in handling varying illumination, which cannot be well handled in the original LKT.