Influence of melt stability on the crystallization of bis(4-aminophenoxy)benzene-oxydiphthalic anhydride based polyimides

Novel high performance semicrystalline polyimides, based on controlled molecular weight phthalic anhydride (PA) endcapped 1,4-bis(4-aminophenoxy)benzene (TPEQ diamine) and oxydiphthalic dianhydride (ODPA), were synthesized. They exhibited excellent thermal stability in nitrogen and air atmospheres as determined by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The glass transition temperatures (T_g) for these polymers ranged from 225°C for the 10,000 M_n (10K) polymer, to 238°C for the 30,000 (30K) M_n material. The observed melting temperatures for all the polymers were ∼420°C. The crystallization behavior of these polymers showed a strong molecular weight dependence, as illustrated by the observation that the 10K and 12.5K polymers crystallized with relative ease, whereas the 15K, 20K, and 30K polymers showed little or no ability to undergo thermal recrystallization. The thermal stability of these polymers above T_m was investigated by studying the effect of time and temperature in the melt on the cold crystallization and melting of these polymers. Increased time and temperature in the melt resulted in lower crystallinity because of melt state degradation, such as crosslinking and branching, as evidenced by an increase in melt viscosity, which was more prominent for the higher molecular weight polymers.     

The Evolutionary History of the Chymase Locus -a Locus Encoding Several of the Major Hematopoietic Serine Proteases

Several hematopoietic cells of the immune system store large amounts of proteases in cytoplasmic granules. The absolute majority of these proteases belong to the large family of chymotrypsin-related serine proteases. The chymase locus is one of four loci encoding these granule-associated serine proteases in mammals. The chymase locus encodes only four genes in primates, (1) the gene for a mast-cell-specific chymotryptic enzyme, the chymase; (2) a T-cell-expressed asp-ase, granzyme B; (3) a neutrophil-expressed chymotryptic enzyme, cathepsin G; and (4) a T-cell-expressed chymotryptic enzyme named granzyme H. Interestingly, this locus has experienced a number of quite dramatic expansions during mammalian evolution. This is illustrated by the very large number of functional protease genes found in the chymase locus of mice (15 genes) and rats (18 genes). A separate expansion has also occurred in ruminants, where we find a new class of protease genes, the duodenases, which are expressed in the intestinal region. In contrast, the opossum has only two functional genes in this locus, the mast cell (MC) chymase and granzyme B. This low number of genes may be the result of an inversion, which may have hindered unequal crossing over, a mechanism which may have been a major factor in the expansion within the rodent lineage. The chymase locus can be traced back to early tetrapods as genes that cluster with the mammalian genes in phylogenetic trees can be found in frogs, alligators and turtles, but appear to have been lost in birds. We here present the collected data concerning the evolution of this rapidly evolving locus, and how these changes in gene numbers and specificities may have affected the immune functions in the various tetrapod species.     

An Efficient,Stable and Reusable Palladium Nanocatalyst: Chemoselective Reduction of Aldehydes with Molecular Hydrogen in Water

Palladium nanoparticles (Pd‐BNP) stabilized by a binaphthyl‐backbone can be efficiently used for the chemoselective reduction of aldehydes in the presence of hydrogen at room temperature in water. The Pd‐BNP catalyst is easily recovered and reused for five catalytic cycles.

     

Effectiveness of sodium silicate as gangue depressants in iron ore slimes flotation

The recovery of iron from the screw classifier overflow slimes by direct flotation was studied.The relative effectiveness of sodium silicates with different silica-to-soda mole ratios as depressants for silica and silicate bearing minerals was investigated.Silica-to-soda mole ratio and silicate dosage were found to have significant effect on the separation efficiency.The results show that an increase of Fe content in the concentrate is observed with concomitant reduction in SiO2 and Al2O3 levels when a particular type of sodium silicate at a proper dosage is used.The concentrate of 58.89wt％ Fe,4.68wt％ SiO2,and 5.28wt％ Al2O3 with the weight recovery of 38.74％ and the metal recovery of 41.13％ can be obtained from the iron ore slimes with 54.44wt％ Fe,6.72wt％ SiO2,and 6.80wt％ Al2O3,when Na2SiO3 with a silica-to-soda mole ratio of 2.19 is used as a depressant at a feed rate of 0.2 kg/t.     

Pre-disaster investment decisions for strengthening a highway network

We address a pre-disaster planning problem that seeks to strengthen a highway network whose links are subject to random failures due to a disaster. Each link may be either operational or non-functional after the disaster. The link failure probabilities are assumed to be known a priori, and investment decreases the likelihood of failure. The planning problem seeks connectivity for first responders between various origin–destination (O–D) pairs and hence focuses on uncapacitated road conditions. The decision-maker's goal is to select the links to invest in under a limited budget with the objective of maximizing the post-disaster connectivity and minimizing traversal costs between the origin and destination nodes. The problem is modeled as a two-stage stochastic program in which the investment decisions in the first stage alter the survival probabilities of the corresponding links. We restructure the objective function into a monotonic non-increasing multilinear function and show that using the first order terms of this function leads to a knapsack problem whose solution is a local optimum to the original problem. Numerical experiments on real-world data related to strengthening Istanbul's urban highway system against earthquake risk illustrate the tractability of the method and provide practical insights for decision-makers.     

Behaviour of organised disturbances in fully developed turbulent channel flow

In our earlier work we have shown the relevance of stability theory in understanding the sustenance of turbulence in turbulent boundary layers. Here we adopt the same model to study the evolution of organised disturbances in turbulent channel flow. Since the dominant modes are wall modes we find that the stability characteristics in the two flows are nearly identical although the boundary conditions (at the edge of the boundary layer and at the centre of the channel) are different. Comparisons with the experiments of Hussain and Reynolds are also presented.     

Effects of DC testing on AC breakdown strength of XLPE insulatedcables subjected to laboratory accelerated aging

The results of a study performed on crosslinked polyethylene (XLPE) insulated cables tested in the laboratory under accelerated conditions are described. URD-type cables rated at 15 kV were aged at 60 Hz, 6 kV/mm, (150 V/mil) and load cycled daily to 90°C conductor, with water inside the pipe and outside of the samples, for periods of up to 3 years. DC testing was performed before and during the aging. An anticipated significant reduction in the AC breakdown strength is observed in control cables (not DC tested), from 44 kV/mm (1100 V/mil) for unaged cables, to 10 kV/mm (250 V/mil), for aged cables. However, there was no further reduction in the AC breakdown strength of cables subjected to DC testing as compared to those that are not tested with DC. It is concluded that AC breakdown strength is not an effective diagnostic tool for determining the effect of DC testing of URD cables aged under the conditions described