Synthesis of heterocyclic metal complexes and their evaluation as marine antifoulants

4-Amino-3-thio-1,24-triazolidine (L₁) and 4-amino-5-thio-1,3,4-thiadiazole (L_II) as well as their metal complexes of the general formulae ML_I·2H₂O and ML_IICl (M; Pb(II), Cd(II) and Zn(II)) were prepared. With Sn(II), we obtained Sn(L_I)₂·2H₂O and SnL_IICl, respectively. The structures of the compounds were identified through elemental analysis, and IR and UV spectra measurements, in addition to thermal analysis in case of the metal complexes. The antifouling properties of the compounds were tested by their incorporation into paint formulations which were applied to PVC substrates and tested in water from Alexandria western harbour. When the compounds were added at 17·5% by volume, the coated panels were fouled after 3 months of immersion. The addition of 6·7% by volume of tributyltin oxide to 15·8% of the prepared compounds in one formulation elevated the paint efficiency and prevented fouling for 11 months. Paint containing solely tributyltin oxide at the same concentration was inactive against algae.     

CAS-BUS: A Test Access Mechanism and a Toolbox Environment for Core-Based System Chip Testing

As System on a Chip (SoC) testing faces new challenges, some new test architectures must be developed. This paper describes a Test Access Mechanism (TAM) named CAS-BUS that solves some of the new problems the test industry has to deal with. This TAM is scalable, flexible and dynamically reconfigurable. The CAS-BUS architecture is compatible with the IEEE P1500 standard proposal in its current state of development, and is controlled by Boundary Scan features.This basic CAS-BUS architecture has been extended with two independent variants. The first extension has been designed in order to manage SoC made up with both wrapped cores and non wrapped cores with Boundray Scan features. The second deals with a test pin expansion method in order to solve the I/O bandwidth problem. The proposed solution is based on a new compression/decompression mechanism which provides significant results in case of non correlated test patterns processing. This solution avoids TAM performance degradation.These test architectures are based on the CAS-BUS TAM and allow trade-offs to optimize both test time and area overhead. A tool-box environment is provided, in order to automatically generate the needed component to build the chosen SoC test architecture.     

Facility layout problems: A survey

Layout problems are found in several types of manufacturing systems. Typically, layout problems are related to the location of facilities (e.g., machines, departments) in a plant. They are known to greatly impact the system performance. Most of these problems are NP hard. Numerous research works related to facility layout have been published. A few literature reviews exist, but they are not recent or are restricted to certain specific aspects of these problems. The literature analysis given here is recent and not restricted to specific considerations about layout design.

We suggest a general framework to analyze the literature and present existing works using such criteria as: the manufacturing system features, static/dynamic considerations, continual/discrete representation, problem formulation, and resolution approach. Several research directions are pointed out and discussed in our conclusion.     

Effect of functional group of ferrocene redox substance on the transport properties of newly designed ion exchange membrane prepared from polymer gel

A different newly designed cationic exchange polymer membrane and anionic exchange polymer membrane were introduced, and also the transport properties of these polymeric membranes were investigated in this study. The transport properties of these polymer membranes in contact with ferrocene redox derivatives were estimated by using electrochemical techniques such as cyclicvoltammetry, chronopotentiometry, and chronoamperometry techniques, respectively. The used ferrocene redox substances, which have different functional groups, were (Ferrocenylmethyl) trimethylamonium iodide, FcMA, Ferrocenedimethanol, FcDM, and Ferrocene carboxylic acid, FcCA. It indicated that the performance of a membrane depended on the content of polymer gel, anionic exchange polymer site (20 wt % and 50 wt %) or cationic polymer exchange site (20 wt % and 50 wt %), and the efficiency of the functional groups of cationic and anionic exchange polymer site as well. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2008     

Maghnite‐H+, a solid catalyst for the cationic polymerization of α‐methylstyrene

The polymerization of α‐methylstyrene (AMS) catalyzed by Maghnite‐H⁺ (Mag‐H) was investigated. Mag‐H is a montmorillonite sheet silicate clay, exchanged with protons. It was found that the cationic polymerization of AMS is initiated by Mag‐H at ambient temperature in bulk and in solution. The effect of the amount of Mag‐H, the temperature, and the solvent was studied. The polymerization rate increased with increase in the temperature and the proportion of catalyst, and it was larger in nonpolar solvents. These results indicated the cationic nature of the polymerization. It may be suggested that the polymerization is initiated by proton addition to monomer from Mag‐H. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2008     

Water and salt permeability of reinforcement polymer‐gel composite membrane

The charged mosaic polymer membrane (CMM) without reinforcement and the composite charged mosaic polymer membrane (CCMM) with reinforcement were investigated in terms of salt and water transport (permeability). The composite charged mosaic polymer membrane (CCMM) with reinforcement showed a unique transport behavior such as preferential material transport L_p and ω. Water permeability coefficient, L_p and salt permeability coefficient, ω were estimated by taking account of active layer thickness of composite polymer gel. The L_p and ω values of CCMM with reinforcement were larger than those of CMM without reinforcement. On the other hand, the reflection coefficient of CCMM, σ, showed negative value, which suggested preferential material transport to solvent transport. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2008     

Studies on the pulping of egyptian cotton linters by the nitric acid process

Egyptian cotton linters were pulped by the nitric acid process. In order to reduce the high ash and silica contents of the resulting pulps it was found necessary to apply hot refining with sodium hydroxide solution. Different conditions of concentration, temperature, and pressure in the refining step were investigated. Refining before and during bleaching were compared.     

Preparation of rechargeable lithium batteries with poly(methyl methacrylate) based gel polymer electrolyte by <Emphasis Type="Italic">in situ</Emphasis>γ-ray irradiation-induced polymerization

An admixture of commercial liquid electrolyte (LB302, 1 M solution of LiPF₆ in 1:1 EC/DEC) and methyl methacrylate (MMA) was enclosed in CR2032 cells. The assembled cells were then -ray-irradiated using configurations of half cells and full cells. Through this in situ irradiation polymerization process, we obtained rechargeable lithium ion cells with poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) based gel polymer electrolytes (GPE). Galvanostatic cycling, AC impedance spectroscopy, and cyclic voltammetry were employed to investigate the electrochemical properties of the cells and the gel polymer electrolyte. This PMMA-based gel polymer electrolyte was found to exhibit a high ionic conductivity (at least 10^–3 S cm^–1) at room temperature. Due to a significant increase in the charge transfer resistance between the GPE and the cathode, the cell impedance of a PMMA-based lithium ion cell is greater than that of a liquid-electrolyte-based cell. The discharge capacity of a LiNi_0.8Co_0.2O₂/GPE/graphite is approximately 145 mAh g^–1 for the first cycle and decreases to123 mAh g^–1 after 20 cycles. In addition, a large initial cell impedance (LICI) was observed in the irradiated positive half cell. In this paper, we propose a possible mechanism related to the detachment of the PMMA layer from the lithium electrode. This detachment of the PMMA layer from the lithium electrode has not been explicitly discussed previously.     

Hash key-based image encryption using crossover operator and chaos

This paper proposes a color image encryption scheme using one-time keys based on crossover operator, chaos and the Secure Hash Algorithm(SHA-2). The (SHA-2) is employed to generate a 256-bit hash value from both the plain-image and the secret hash keys to make the key stream change in each encryption process. The SHA-2 value is employed to generate three initial values of the chaotic system. The permutation-diffusion process is based on the crossover operator and XOR operator, respectively. Experimental results and security analysis show that the scheme can achieve good encryption result through only one round encryption process, the key space is large enough to resist against common attacks,so the scheme is reliable to be applied in image encryption and secure communication.