Adaptive refinement analysis using hybrid-stress transition elements

In this paper, 4-node to 7-node hybrid-stress transition elements are developed for automatic adaptive refinement analysis of plane elasticity problems. The displacement-based transition quadrilateral elements are first adopted and applied to refinement analysis using both full and reduced integration schemes. As the stress field over the displacement-based transition elements is not continuous, a more smooth stress pattern is desirable and could enhance the performance of the element. Indeed, continuous stress field of various orders can be easily introduced into a displacement-based element through a variational procedure based on the Hellinger–Reissner functional. Of the same kinematics and displacement pattern, the resulting hybrid-stress transition elements are more superior to the displacement-based elements in possessing a more continuous high quality stress field within the element. The hybrid-stress transition elements are tested with classical benchmark examples, and the results indicate that hybrid-stress transition elements are consistently more efficient than the displacement-based counterparts in adaptive refinement analysis. A more economical rank-deficient version of hybrid-stress transition elements is also available. While they are less expensive to evaluate, they enjoy a very similar convergence rate as the rank-sufficient hybrid-stress transition elements.     

Analyzing the physiological signature of anabolic steroids in cattle urine using pyrolysis/metastable atom bombardment mass spectrometry and pattern recognition

Pyrolysis coupled to metastable atom bombardment (MAB) and time-of-flight mass spectrometry (TOFMS) is used for generating mass spectra from bovine urine samples obtained from cattle treated with anabolic steroids. These spectra constitute fingerprints, which can be discriminated by multivariate statistical analysis. Four main conclusions can be drawn from this work: (i) The use of different metastable gases, such as Xe*, Kr*, or N2*, as an energy-tunable ionization beamline allows control of the internal energy and the dissociation processes of the produced odd electron molecular ions, thus giving rise to complementary mass spectra fingerprints. (ii) A variable transformation depending on the biofluid matrix suitably contracts the frequency distribution of the generated data for low m/z ratios holding information related to endogenous metabolites encountered in urine. (iii) Coupling variable selection to statistical pattern recognition methods results in low error rates (< 1%) for predicting MAB mass fingerprints, especially using lineardiscriminant analysis (LDA). (iv) LDA discriminates controls from treated animals and also correlates to quantitative physiological responses induced by anabolic steroids. This work shows that Py-MAB-TOFMS could be a suitable method for complementary monitoring anabolic use in sports, medicine, and cattle breeding, as well as monitoring many other long-lasting although weak physiological disruptions.     

Image restoration of compressed image using classified vector quantization

To reduce communication bandwidth or storage space, image compression is needed. However, the subjective quality of compressed images may be unacceptable and the improvement of quality for compressed images may be desirable. This paper extends and modifies classified vector quantization (CVQ) to improve the quality of compressed images. The process consists of two phases: the encoding phase and the decoding phase. The encoding procedure needs a codebook for the encoder, which transforms a compressed image to a set of codeword-indices. The decoding phase also requires a different codebook for the decoder, which enhances a compressed image from a set of codeword-indices. Using CVQ to improve a compressed image's quality is different from the existing algorithm, which cannot reconstruct the high frequency components for compressed images. The experimental results show that the image quality is improved dramatically. For images in the training set, the improvement of PSNR is about 3 dB. For images, which are outside the training set, the improvement of PSNR is about 0.57 dB, which is comparable to the existing method.     

Mitochondrial Delivery of Therapeutic Agents by Amphiphilic DNA Nanocarriers

The first example of mitochondrial delivery of the anticancer drug doxorubicin (Dox) is presented by lipid‐functionalized DNA nanocages (LNCs). Dox localized in mitochondria induces significant cytotoxicity and cellular apoptosis in MCF‐7 compared with Dox localized in lysosomes. These results suggest that LNC has the potential to be an outstanding tool in the treatment of specific organelle‐related diseases such as cancers.     

Probing a Device's Active Atoms

Materials science and device studies have, when implemented jointly as “operando” studies, better revealed the causal link between the properties of the device's materials and its operation, with applications ranging from gas sensing to information and energy technologies. Here, as a further step that maximizes this causal link, the paper focuses on the electronic properties of those atoms that drive a device's operation by using it to read out the materials property. It is demonstrated how this method can reveal insight into the operation of a macroscale, industrial‐grade microelectronic device on the atomic level. A magnetic tunnel junction's (MTJ's) current, which involves charge transport across different atomic species and interfaces, is measured while these atoms absorb soft X‐rays with synchrotron‐grade brilliance. X‐ray absorption is found to affect magnetotransport when the photon energy and linear polarization are tuned to excite Fe? O bonds parallel to the MTJ's interfaces. This explicit link between the device's spintronic performance and these Fe? O bonds, although predicted, challenges conventional wisdom on their detrimental spintronic impact. The technique opens interdisciplinary possibilities to directly probe the role of different atomic species on device operation, and shall considerably simplify the materials science iterations within device research.     

Effect of ageing on the morphology and creep and recovery of polymer-modified bitumens

Polymer additives are used to improve the properties of road bitumens including their oxidative resistance. However, their usage as anti-oxidative materials remains relatively unclear. This study aims to investigate the changes in the morphology and the rheological response of polymer modified bitumens used in road pavement construction caused by ageing. An elastomer (radial styrene butadiene styrene, SBS) and a plastomer (ethyl vinyl acetate, EVA) polymer were mixed with one base bitumen at three polymer concentrations. The bitumens were RTFO and PAV aged. The morphology of the bitumens was captured by fluorescence microscopy while the rheological properties were measured by means of the multiple stress creep and recovery (MSCR) test. The results show that the morphology of the SBS modified bitumen degrades with ageing as a function of polymer concentration and dispersion, with higher dispersion being more resistant. The morphology of the EVA modified bitumen has a low ageing susceptibility irrespective of polymer concentration. The MSCR response of EVA modified bitumens does not differ from that found for unmodified bitumen, where the hardening produces a decrease in the non-recoverable compliance. In the case of SBS modified bitumen, the degradation of the polymer backbone affects the bitumen hardening as much as the polymer phase dispersed and networked in the bitumen phase. Furthermore, in the case of the elastomer, the average percent recovery is in agreement with the variation of the morphology with ageing. Therefore, the use of the average percent recovery as a valuable rheological index of the integrity of the polymer network can be advocated.     

SmBa2Cu3O6.5 seed fabrication for seeded peritectic solidification of YBa2Cu3O7−δ

The availability of high quality SmBa2Cu3O6.5 seeds of known orientation is essential for the fabrication of a large grain YBa2Cu3O7– (YBCO) superconductor via a seeded peritectic solidification technique. The suitable seed must have a close lattice parameter match to YBCO and a relatively high melting temperature. We report a melt texturing process for the fabrication of SmBa2Cu3O7– (Sm-123) seeds using SrTiO3 to control grain nucleation. The physical and structural properties of the seeds were confirmed by differential thermal analysis (DTA), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Seeds prepared in this study were used to grow large single grain YBCO superconductors of up to 2 cm in diameter.     

Dynamics of an ultrasonic transducer used for wire bonding

The vibration displacement distributions along a transducer used in ultrasonic wire bonding were measured using a heterodyne interferometer, and many nodes and anti-nodes were found. A mechanical finite element method (FEM) was used to compute the resonant frequencies and vibration mode shapes. The displacement distributions of the dominant 2nd axial mode agreed well with the measured values. Undesirable nonaxial modes, including the higher order flexural and torsional modes, also were excited at frequencies very close to the working frequency (2nd axial mode) of the transducer. Hence, the measured displacements were the resultant of all the allowable modes being excited. However, the excitation of these nonaxial modes were small enough not to affect the formation of consistent and high quality wire bonds. Results of the present study were used to determine a suitable location for installing a piezoelectric sensor to monitor the bond quality.