A Successful Implementation of Locating Passive Cooling Facilities: The Case of Northern Thailand

This paper reports the actual implementation of a location-allocation study, which is one aspect of the overall Passive Cooling (Thailand) Project conducted in Northern Thailand since 1985. The goal has been to generate decision supports for ‘optimal’ placements of cooling facilities and the assignment of sites to these facilities as part of the post-harvest handling-chain operation of agricultural products. The basic questions addressed in this work are the issues of how many facilities to set up and where to locate them for maximum utility. Our selected approach is to use discrete location-allocation modelling, as, among other reasons, the problem at hand has a most natural network setting. Direct methods as well as efficient heuristics are examined, and sample numerical results are reported as illustrations of the continual implementation.     

AN INEXPENSIVE STIRRING DEVICE FOR THE 'MERRY-GO-ROUND' PHOTOREACTOR FOR THE DETERMINATION OF REACTION QUANTUM YIELDS

A simple bar magnet is employed to effect stirring of the contents of reaction cells in a'merry-go-round'photoreactor.     

Rotational contour analysis of the electronic origin band in the emission spectrum of the orthoxylyl radical at 4683 Å

The rotational contour of the 4683 Å emission band of the o-xylyl radical was studied at high resolution. Calculations of the rotational contour of this hybrid band were made in the rigid rotor approximation for various sets of values of the excited state rotational constants and directions of the transition moment μ. Matching of computed and experimental rotational features showed that μ is oriented at +37° or ?37° with respect to the b inertial axis. The nature of the excited states of o-xylyl and the methyl-to-ring interaction are discussed with respect to these two possible assignments     

pH‐Sensitive Mechanical Properties of Elastin‐Based Hydrogels

Ionizable amino acids in protein‐based hydrogels can confer pH‐responsive behavior. Because elastin‐like polypeptides (ELPs) have an established sequence and can crosslink to form hydrogels, they are an ideal system for creating pH‐sensitive materials. This study examines different parameters that might affect pH‐sensitive behavior and characterizes the mechanical and physical properties between pH 3 and 11 of three ELP‐based crosslinked hydrogels. The first finding is that varying the amount of crosslinker affects the overall stiffness and resilience of the hydrogels but does not strongly affect water content, swelling ratio, or pH sensitivity. Second, the choice of two popular tag sequences, which vary in histidine and aspartic acid content, does not have a strong effect on pH‐sensitive properties. Last, selectively blocking lysine and tyrosine residues through acetylation significantly decreases the pH‐sensitive zeta potential. Acetylated hydrogels also demonstrate different behavior at low pH values with reduced swelling, reduced water content, and higher stiffness. Overall, this work demonstrates that ELP hydrogels with ionizable groups are promising materials for environmentally‐responsive applications such as drug delivery, tissue engineering, and microfluidics.     

Reversibly self-assembled pH-responsive PEG-p(CL-g-TMC) polymersomes

Polymersomes have gained much interest within the biomedical field as drug delivery systems due to their ability to transport and protect cargo from the harsh environment inside the body. For an improved drug efficacy, control over cargo release is however also an important factor to take into account. An often employed method is to incorporate pH sensitive groups in the vesicle membrane, which induce disassembly and content release when the particles have reached a target site in the body with the appropriate pH, such as the acidic microenvironment of tumor tissue or the endosome. In this paper, biodegradable poly(ethylene glycol)-poly(caprolactone-gradient-trimethylene carbonate)-based polymeric vesicles have been developed with disassembly features at mild acidic conditions. Modifying the polymer backbone with imidazole moieties results in vesicle disassembly upon protonation due to the lowered pH. Furthermore, upon increasing the pH efficient re-assembly into vesicles is observed due to the switchable amphiphilic nature of the polymer. When this re-assembly process is conducted in presence of cargo, enhanced encapsulation is achieved. Furthermore, the potency of the polymeric system for future biomedical applications such as adjuvant delivery is demonstrated.     

Structure of 9,10-di(9,9-dioctylfluorenyl)anthracene in the solid and in solution

A new example of magnetic nonequivalence of chemically equivalent atoms is identified from the proton and carbon resonance spectra of 9,10-di(9,9-dioctylfluorenyl)anthracene with the aid of its conformation in the crystalline state. Molecular modeling suggests that it has a similar conformation in solution.     

Electronic states of general mixed crystals

Up to now molecular-orbital calculations of the electronic states of linear mixed crystals have been concerned only with binary systems such as AB, AB₂, and A₂B₂. The purpose of the present treatment is to extend this work to crystals whose elementary cells contain any number of different atoms in any ordered sequence. The formulation of this general theory is based on the resolvent method. Although the approach enables the general properties of delocalized and localized states to be discussed, the more simple cases already solved in the literature can still be easily derived from the general equations. Furthermore, the classification of Tamm and Shockley states retains its significance, even when other kinds of states can occur and various transitions between the clear cut cases can exist. As in earlier investigations, the chemisorption states are related to surface states and have similar properties. The resolvent method is summarized in the Appendix and its connection with the partition technique is shown.     

Computed adsorptive-energy distribution in the monolayer (Caedmon)

A computer-based method is developed to perform the numerical analysis of the measured adsorption isotherm in order to determine the quantitative distribution of potential energies displayed by a solid substrate for a physically-adsorbed gas. The characteristic adsorptive energies of the basal planes of graphite and of boron nitride for argon and nitrogen are determined as examples of the use of the method. As more such values are put on record the method becomes suitable for the qualitative analysis of substrates.