Tuning of shear thickening behavior and elastic strength of polyvinylidene fluoride via doping of ZnO-graphene

ZnO rice like nonarchitects are grafted on the graphene carbon core via a rapid microwave synthesis route. The prepared grafted systems are characterized via XRD, SEM, RAMAN, and XPS to examined the structural and morphological parameters. Zinc oxide grafted graphene sheets (ZnO-G) are further doped in β-phase of polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) to prepare the polymer nanocomposites (PNCs) via mixed solvent approach (THF/DMF). β-phase confirmation of PVDF PNCs is done by FTIR studies. It is observed that ZnO-G filler enhances the β-phase content in the PNCs. Non-doped PVDF and PNCs are further studied for rheological behavior under the shear rate of 1–100 s⁻¹. Doping of ZnO-G dopant to the PVDF matrix changes its discontinuous shear thickening (DST) behavior to continues shear thickening behavior (CST). Hydrocluster formation and their interaction with the dopant could be the reason for this striking DST to CST behavioral change. Strain amplitude sweep (10⁻³% -10%) oscillatory test reveals that the PNCs shows extended linear viscoelastic region with high elastic modulus and lower viscous modulus. Effective shear thickening behavior and strong elastic strength of these PNCs present their candidature for various fields including mechanical and soft body armor applications.     

Tamquam alter idem: formal similarities in a subset of reports on anti-inflammatory compounds in the years 2008–2019

Scientometrics - A literature search on the in vitro testing of anti-inflammatory compounds of natural origin revealed a considerable number of studies adopting a similar template for data...     

La0.6Sr0.4Co0.2Fe0.8O3-δ nanofiber cathode for intermediate-temperature solid oxide fuel cells by water-based sol-gel electrospinning: Synthesis and electrochemical behaviour

Water-based sol-gel electrospinning is employed to manufacture perovskite oxide La_0.6Sr_0.4Co_0.2Fe_0.8O_3-δ (LSCF) nanofiber cathodes for intermediate-temperature solid oxide fuel cells. LSCF fibrous scaffolds are synthesized through electrospinning of a sol-gel solution employing water as the only solvent. Morphological characterizations demonstrate that the LSCF fibers have highly crystalline structure with uniform elemental distribution. After heat treatment, the average fiber diameter is 250 nm and the porosity of the nanofiber tissue is 37.5 %. The heat treated LSCF nanofibers are applied directly onto a Ce_0.9Gd_0.1O_1.95 (CGO) electrolyte disk to form a symmetrical cell. Electrochemical characterization is carried out through electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) in the temperature range 550?°C–950?°C, and reproducibility of the electrochemical performance for a series of cells is demonstrated. At 650?°C, the average measured polarization resistance R_p is 1.0 Ω cm². Measured performance decay is 1 % during the first 33?h of operation at 750?°C, followed by an additional 0.7 % over the subsequent 70?h.     

Extracellular Vesicles in CNS Developmental Disorders

The central nervous system (CNS) is the most complex structure in the body, consisting of multiple cell types with distinct morphology and function. Development of the neuronal circuit and its function rely on a continuous crosstalk between neurons and non-neural cells. It has been widely accepted that extracellular vesicles (EVs), mainly exosomes, are effective entities responsible for intercellular CNS communication. They contain membrane and cytoplasmic proteins, lipids, non-coding RNAs, microRNAs and mRNAs. Their cargo modulates gene and protein expression in recipient cells. Several lines of evidence indicate that EVs play a role in modifying signal transduction with subsequent physiological changes in neurogenesis, gliogenesis, synaptogenesis and network circuit formation and activity, as well as synaptic pruning and myelination. Several studies demonstrate that neural and non-neural EVs play an important role in physiological and pathological neurodevelopment. The present review discusses the role of EVs in various neurodevelopmental disorders and the prospects of using EVs as disease biomarkers and therapeutics.     

The impacts of a GTL plant on Brazil's oil products supply and refinery expansion

This paper assesses the impacts of a GTL plant on the expansion of Brazil's oil refining segment. The GTL plant (50,000 bpd) was sized to start up operations in 2015, producing diesel and naphtha through the indirect route (FT-synthesis). This plant will consume the non-associated natural gas production from the recent discoveries at the Santos Basin (around 419 Bm³), and the associated gas production from the Campos Basin. Both basins are located in the Southeast of Brazil, the most populated, rich and industrialized region of the country. Two different criteria for refinery expansion were simulated in order to meet oil product demand scenarios. Findings show that depending on the refinery expansion criteria considered GTL will play a fundamental hole to meet the oil product demand forecast to Brazil in the next 10 years.     

"What is in a word? No versus Yes differentially engage the lateral orbitofrontal cortex": Correction.

Reports an error in "What is in a word? No versus Yes differentially engage the lateral orbitofrontal cortex" by Nelly Alia-Klein, Rita Z. Goldstein, Dardo Tomasi, Lei Zhang, Stephanie Fagin-Jones, Frank Telang, Gene-Jack Wang, Joanna S. Fowler and Nora D. Volkow (Emotion, 2007[Aug], Vol 7[3], 649-659). The supplemental materials link should appear as follows: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/1528-3542.7.3.649.supp. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 2007-11660-018.) The words "No" and "Yes" are involved in conditioning to prohibit or encourage behavior, respectively. The authors, therefore, hypothesized that these words would be attributed to endogenous valence, activating neuronal circuits involved with valence and emotional control. Functional MRI (fMRI) at 4 Tesla was used to record regional brain activity while participants were exposed to emphatic vocalizations of the words. Results showed that No and Yes were associated with opposite brain-behavior responses; while No was negatively valenced, produced slower response times, and evoked a negative signal in the right lateral orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), Yes was positively valenced, produced faster response times, and evoked a positive signal in a contiguous region of the OFC. Attribution of negative valence to No and trait anger control were associated with increased responsivity of the OFC to No. Inasmuch as sensitivity to the prohibitive command No develops during childhood through interaction with primary caregivers as the first social objects, our findings may implicate the lateral OFC in the neurobiology of emotion regulation and subsequent social development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Balancing User Priorities for Sustainability versus Security

In these times of global change, many facility emphases are competing for limited resources. Competing factors include, but are not limited to, sustainable design or green buildings; security, hardening or force protection; accessibility; historic preservation; aesthetics; and functionality. Yet, unlimited resources are seldom, if ever, available to fulfill all of these competing requirements in private or public construction. The Georgia Institute of Technology designed a decision matrix to allow owners and planners to balance these competing requirements on a project-by-project basis and to document the rationale.     

A fuzzy clustering algorithm enhancing local model interpretability

In this work, simple modifications on the cost index of particular local-model fuzzy clustering algorithms are proposed in order to improve the readability of the resulting models. The final goal is simultaneously providing local linear models (reasonably close to the plant’s Jacobian) and clustering in the input space so that desirable characteristics (regarding final model accuracy, and convexity and smoothness of the cluster membership functions) are improved with respect to other proposals in literature. Some examples illustrate the proposed approach.     

Greater task difficulty amplifies the facilitatory effect of des-glycinamide arginine vasopressin on appetitively motivated learning.

39 3–6 mo old male Long-Evans rats were trained in a discrete-trial forward autoshaping paradigm to touch an extended lever to earn food pellets. Reinforcement was delivered either simultaneously with or 6 sec after lever retraction, which occurred either noncontingently after 15 sec or when the Ss touched the lever. Treatment with subcutaneous des-glycinamide arginine vasopressin (DGAVP [15 μg/kg]) 1 hr before sessions increased the rate of acquisition of the extended-lever-touch response and also facilitated development of intertrial (adjunctive) nose poking. The effects of the peptide were more robust in the more difficult delayed reinforcement task. Results are consistent with previous findings that DGAVP lacks the classical peripheral activity of vasopressin. In both experiments, peptide treatment was terminated before asymptotic levels of performance were attained; the continued facilitation of acquisition in treated groups suggests a specific enhancement of learning and/or enhanced memory retrieval. (22 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)