Facile fabrication of polyethylene/silver nanoparticle nanocomposites with silver nanoparticles traps and holds early antibacterial effect

Antibacterial polyethylene (PE)/silver nanoparticle (AgNP) nanocomposites containing AgNPs at concentrations of 5 × 10^?5, 5 × 10^?4, and 5 × 10^?3 wt % were fabricated and tested. Transmission electron microscopy revealed an even dispersion of surface AgNPs in the PE/AgNP nanocomposites. No AgNP agglomeration was observed. The tensile strength, elongation at break, and Young's modulus of these PE/AgNP nanocomposites were similar to those of neat PE. Differential scanning calorimetry demonstrated that the PE/AgNP nanocomposites and neat PE had similar melting and crystallization temperatures of 126 ± 0.5 and 109 ± 0.6°C, respectively. The heats of fusion of the PE/AgNP nanocomposites containing AgNPs at concentrations of 5 × 10^?5 and 5 × 10^?4 and of 5 × 10^?3 wt % were lower than those of neat PE by 5 and 7%, respectively. These PE/AgNP nanocomposites were immersed in shaking liquid cultures of the potential pathogenic bacteria Escherichia coli, Bacillus subtilis, and Salmonella typhimurium in the lag phase. The results show that the growth rates of all of the tested bacteria were restricted effectively after 1.5, 3, and 6 h of cultivation, respectively. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2016 , 133, 43331.     

Puff pastry and trends in fat reduction: an update

Puff pastry is a popular nonleavened pastry product with unique textural properties. Puff pastry is processed from laminated dough, comprising alternating and discrete layers of dough and fat. Puff pastry quality can vary substantially depending on the raw material quality and production processes. The high fat content of commercial puff pastry usually containing significant amounts of saturated and trans fats, which are known to be associated with potential health risks, has led to increased demand for lower fat baked products. This review discusses the puff pastry production process and factors affecting puff pastry quality together with strategies to reduce total fat content and improving the fat composition in puff pastries.     

Green certificate markets,the risk of over-investment,and the role of long-term contracts

Several papers have recently analyzed the theory and implementation of renewable energy support schemes. The case for a renewable electricity standard (RES) in tandem with a tradeable green certificate (TGC) market has been largely based on efficiency considerations. Case study evidence is inconclusive, in part due to the short track record, but is not generally favorable. Here we reconsider the efficiency case, both static and dynamic, in light of special characteristics of renewable energy projects. We find that when exclusively high fixed-cost technologies comprise the eligible technology pool, the equilibrium form of contracting obviates the principal efficiency advantages claimed for certificate markets. When low fixed-cost technologies compete alongside high fixed-cost technologies in the certificate market, we show that it is likely that long-term contracts will disappear, and the technological choice will be inefficiently shifted away from the high fixed-cost technology. We consider evidence from three well-developed certificate schemes—in Britain, Sweden, and Texas—and find that it is broadly consistent with the theory here.     

EFFECT OF LOADING RATE AND TEMPERATURE ON DUCTILE-BRITTLE TRANSITION OF A CARBON STEEL

The dynamic fracture toughness of a mild steel has been studied at different loading rates andtemperatures.The material exhibits a transition from tough to brittle fracture with the chang-ing loading rate alone.Analysis of the fracture process by the theory of thermal activationsuggests that the fracture activation energy approximates to the bond energy of the{100}of aunit cell.The toughness can be resolved into two parts,J-(fd)=J_a+J_l,where J_a is the athermalpart,being independent on temperature and loading rate,whileJ_l=(K/K_o)~(1/n)exp(Q_f/nkT),which controls the fracture process is temperature and load-ing rate dependent.The transition of fracture mechanism caused by both temperature andloading rate is associated with the thermal movement of atoms.     

Determining Significant Classification Factors for Senior Learning: A Case Study of Thai Seniors and Social Media Skill Learning

The senior learns in order to have a better quality of life. The challenge of seniors in learning is their learning ability that deteriorates because of age. Suitable management for different types of seniors, so called personalized learning is required. Therefore, this study focuses on determining significant classification factors for classification of seniors which is an important component of personalized learning. In this study, the assumption of personal background and health issue can be used for classifying types of seniors. The decision tree is used for determining significant classification factors and constructing the model. The study is conducted with 75 seniors for social network skill learning. The classification results show that the significant classification factors affecting the classification model of senior learning are age, daily internet time spending, number of applications, memory problem, and education background. The model constructed by decision tree provides 93.33% classification accuracy. Also, the obtained factors are verified by testing with two machine learning methods including artificial neural network (ANN) and K-nearest neighbors (K-NN). The comparison results show that 5 factors provide high classification accuracy for both classifiers, which are 93.33% and 92.00% for ANN, and K-NN, respectively.

     

Influence of carboxylic acids on structural,optical, thermal,and electrical properties of ferroelectric glycine phosphite single crystals

Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Electronics - Glycine phosphite (GPI), a semi-organic nonlinear optical NLO material, has been synthesized at room temperature. Slow evaporation method...     

A novel approach for characterisation of ischaemic stroke lesion using histogram bin-based segmentation and gray level co-occurrence matrix features

Among the various brain diseases, stroke is the major cause of death worldwide, next to heart attack. This paper proposes an algorithm in predicting the ischaemic stroke lesion using midline sketching and histogram bin-based technique. The visible ischaemic stroke lesion region and the normal region of the same computed tomography image are segmented with the help of histogram bins and the features are extracted. The first- and second-order statistical features for both regions are analysed. The differences in the features are utilised to categorise the lesion and non-lesion region. The statistical t-test analysis-based observations with a confidence interval of 95% for each feature are tabulated. These observations indicate that among the nine features, as per the statistical analysis, six features provide the clear differentiation between normal and abnormal regions.     

Modified differential evolution algorithm for simple assembly line balancing with a limit on the number of machine types

This article proposes the differential evolution algorithm (DE) and the modified differential evolution algorithm (DE-C) to solve a simple assembly line balancing problem type 1 (SALBP-1) and SALBP-1 when the maximum number of machine types in a workstation is considered (SALBP-1M). The proposed algorithms are tested and compared with existing effective heuristics using various sets of test instances found in the literature. The computational results show that the proposed heuristics is one of the best methods, compared with the other approaches.     

Structural aspects of mesoporous AlPO4-5 (AFI) zeotype using microwave radiation and alumatrane precursor

A new route for preparation of mesoporous AlPO₄-5 (AFI) zeotype has been synthesized using alumatrane precursor, prepared from aluminum hydroxide and triisopropanolamine (TIS) by the oxide one pot synthesis (OOPS), via microwave technique using triethylamine (TEA) as a structure-directing agent. The influences of the reaction mixture composition, HF acid, water content and the crystallization temperature and time were investigated. The prepared materials were characterized using X-ray diffraction, SEM and BET. The results showed a mesoporous AlPO₄-5 zeotype having a uniform rod-like structure with surface area around 120–180 m²/g. The high crystallinity with narrow size distribution of crystals was obtained at a high amount of structure-directing agent (the mole ratio of TEA/Al₂O₃ = 3.5). The presence of fluorine ion retarded the nucleation and growth rate, leading to a bigger crystal size. The crystal of the AFI grew preferentially in the c-direction with the reaction time and the water content. The use of lower reaction temperature to obtain good crystalline material can be compensated by a longer reaction time.     

Study on mechanical behaviors of pneumatic artificial muscle

Nowadays, Pneumatic Artificial Muscle (PAM) has become one of the most widely-used fluid-power actuators which yields remarkable muscle-like properties such as high force to weight ratio, soft and flexible structure, minimal compressed-air consumption and low cost. To obtain optimum design and usage, it is necessary to understand mechanical behaviors of the PAM. In this study, the proposed models are experimentally derived to describe mechanical behaviors of the PAMs. The experimental results show a non-linear relationship between contraction as well as air pressure within the PAMs and a pulling force of the PAMs. Three different sizes of PAMs available in industry are studied for empirical modeling and simulation. The case studies are presented to verify close agreement on the simulated results to the experimental results when the PAMs perform under various loads.