Formation of a dislocation structure of aluminum single crystals under the action of pressure and gravitational field on the melt

The distribution of dislocation density has been investigated experimentally in aluminum single crystals with various concentrations of copper impurity (～0.0002, 0.005, and 0.05 wt %) that were obtained upon the crystallization of the melt under the action of a pressure and the gravitational-field component directed along the surface of the crystallization front. It has been found that a strong nonuniformity in the dislocation distribution arises in cross sections of the crystals in the direction of the field and this nonuniformity increases with increasing gravitational-field component and decreasing in the impurity concentration and rate of crystallization of the melt. It has been found that the degree of nonuniformity of the dislocation distribution in the crystals substantially depends on the magnitude of pressure at which the crystallization of the melt is realized and reaches a maximum at a certain pressure that is “optimum” for given conditions of the process of phase transformation.     

Drying Behavior of Meat Samples at Various Fiber Directions and Air Conditions

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of meat fiber directions and air conditions on moisture and temperature developments, shrinkage, and effective diffusivity constants compared to homogenous minced meat samples. The lean meat with three fiber directions and minced meat samples were dried at temperatures of 48 and 70°C and air flow rates of 0.5, 1.0, and 1.7 m/s. The minced meat samples showed 1.0 ± 0.19 to 4.4 ± 0.03°C higher temperature values and 2.3 ± 0.004 to 6.2 ± 0.003% lower moisture losses than the lean meat samples in all fiber directions. The lowest temperatures were observed in lean meat with h ₁ (normal flow, normal drying) fiber direction. The highest moisture loss and diffusion coefficient were observed in lean meat with h ₂ (parallel flow, normal drying) and v (normal flow, parallel drying) fiber directions, which also possessed the shortest drying times (10.4 and 13.4 h, respectively). The estimated diffusion coefficient values ranged between 1.11 × 10^?9 and 5.54 × 10^?9. The results indicated that lean and minced meat samples differed in their drying behaviors in a tray dryer under the tested conditions with >90% reproducibility (or ≤10% coefficient of variation).     

Life-cycle data management of engineered-to-order components using radio frequency identification

Management of engineered-to-order (ETO) components and their related information is a challenging task due to the complexity of information and its flow. Different information items are generated, accessed and exchanged between different organizations and they must continually flow through design, production, construction, and operations and maintenance. Current manual and labor-intensive methods are inefficient; as a result, information is frequently incomplete, inaccurate or unavailable during the life-cycle of a facility. This paper provides a vision of intelligent components, which know their identities, locations and history, and communicate this information to their environments. It proposes streamlining information flow through supply chains by utilizing radio frequency identification (RFID) technology. To explore the technical feasibility of intelligent components, component-related information flow patterns in ETO supply chains were identified and analyzed. Requirements analysis and corresponding technology deployment and testing were performed for three types of ETO components through different life-cycle phases. These experiments demonstrated that it is technically feasible to have intelligent components in construction supply chains by using RFID technology; that status information can be collected automatically; and that maintenance information can be stored and retrieved during the service life of a facility.     

Rapid and slow pyrolysis of pistachio shell: effect of pyrolysis conditions on the product yields and characterization of the liquid product

This study reports the experimental results for the pyrolysis of pistachio shell under different conditions in a tubular reactor under a nitrogen flow. For the different conditions of pyrolysis temperature, nitrogen flow rate and heating rate, pyrolysis temperature of 773 K gave the highest bio-oil yield with a value of 27.7% when the heating rate and carrier gas flow rate were chosen as 300 K min⁻¹ and 100 cm³ min⁻¹, respectively. Column chromatography was applied to this bio-oil and its subfractions were characterized by elemental analysis, FT-IR and ¹H-NMR. Aliphatic subfraction was conducted to gas chromatography–mass spectroscopy for further characterization. The results for the characterization show that using pistachio shell as a renewable source to produce valuable liquid products is applicable via pyrolysis. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Mesoaxial complete syndactyly and synostosis with hypoplastic thumbs: an unusual combination or homozygous expression of syndactyly type I?

Syndactyly type I is an autosomal dominant condition with complete or partial webbing between the third and fourth fingers or the second and third toes or both. We report here a previously undescribed phenotype of severe mesoaxial syndactyly and synostosis in patients born to affected parents. The characteristic features of these severe cases are (1) complete syndactyly and synostosis of the third and fourth fingers; (2) severe bone reduction in the proximal phalanges of the same fingers; (3) hypoplasia of the thumbs and halluces; (4) aplasia/hypoplasia of the middle phalanges of the second and fifth fingers; and (5) complete or partial soft tissue syndactyly of the toes. We report on three offspring with this phenotype from two different branches of a syndactyly type I family, suggesting that they may be homozygous for this condition. SSCP and linkage analysis indicated that neither HOXD13 nor other relevant genes in the chromosome 2q31 region was responsible for this phenotype.     

Symbolic Regression Based Extreme Learning Machine Models for System Identification

Neural Processing Letters - Reproducible machine learning models with less number of parameters and fast optimization are preferred in embedded system design for the applications of artificial...     

Identification of metabolic correlates of mild cognitive impairment in Parkinson's disease using magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging and machine learning

Magnetic Resonance Materials in Physics, Biology and Medicine - To investigate metabolic changes of mild cognitive impairment in Parkinson’s disease (PD-MCI) using proton magnetic resonance...     

Formation of a Stepped Si(100) Surface and Its Effect on the Growth of Ge Islands

Semiconductors - The transition from a two-domain to one-domain surface on a Si(100) substrate is investigated. It is demonstrated using reflection high-energy electron diffraction that at a...     

Styrene polymerized in an oil-in-water microemulsion

Microemulsions of styrene dispersed in water using sodium dodecyl sulphate and pentanol and polystyrene, isolated after the polymerizations were carried out to completion, were studied by photon correlation spectroscopy and time-averaged intensity measurements. Microemulsions contained droplets 40.8 nm in diameter. It was found that the size distributions of polystyrene were bimodal. The results indicate that smaller droplets in a microemulsion provide an increased surface area which can complete with micelles in the capture of radicals. The bimodal nature of the products is evidence for two mechanisms of initiation and particle growth.