Control of the morphology of nanostructured particles prepared by the spray drying of a nanoparticle sol

The control of the morphology of nanostructured particles prepared by the spray drying of nanoparticle sol was investigated experimentally and the results are qualitatively explained based on available theory. A theoretical analysis indicates that the structural stability of the droplet and the hydrodynamic effects during the drying process play important roles in controlling the morphology of the resulting particles. The size of the sol in the droplet, droplet size, viscosity of droplet, drying temperature, gas flow rate, and addition of surfactant are all crucial parameters that affect the morphology of particles. Experimentally, nanostructured silica particles were prepared from a nanosize silica sol under various preparation conditions. Doughnut-shaped particles can be produced when the droplet size is large, in conjunction with high temperature, high gas flow rate and in the presence of an added surfactant. Appropriate choice of the spray drying method permits control of the particle size and shape, ranging from spheres to ellipsoids as well as doughnut-shaped particles by varying the preparation conditions. The results open a new route to controlling the formation of a wide variety of nanostructured particles.     

Access to the 2,3-dihydropyridazin-3-one and as-triazino[3,4-a]phthalazine ring systems from 4-aryl-2-oxo-butanoic acids

A novel series of 2,3-dihydropyridazin-3-ones 15 were synthesized via condensation between hydrazines and 4-(p-chlorophenyl)-2-hydroxy-2-(2-oxo-2-substituted ethyl)butanoic acids 8 which in turn were prepared by the reaction of substituted benzylpyruvic acids 6 with methyl alkyl(aryl) ketones 7. Dehydration of 8b-d by a mixture of glacial acetic acid and hydrochloric acid afforded 4-(p-chorophenyl)-2-(substituted phenacyl)-2-butenoic acids 10. Condensation reaction of 10 with hydrazines gave type 15 compounds in good yields. Also, a new series of as-triazino[3,4-a]phthalazines 20 was obtained from the reaction of substituted benzylpyruvic acids 6 with hydralazine to give the hydralazones 19 which underwent dehydrative cyclization reaction with PPA to afford 20. Structure assignments are based on ¹H, ¹³C nmr and ir spectra.     

Thermal effects on glass As2Se3·As2Te3

The DTA trace of the chalcogenide glass As₂Se₃·As₂Te₃ shows a single glass transition at 142 °C, a single crystallization exotherm depending on the heating rate, and two melting endotherms, at 290 °C and 312 °C. The X-ray diffraction for a crystallized sample indicates the presence of two solid solution phases: Te in As₂Se₃ (rich in Se) and Se in As₂Te₃ (rich in Te), confirming that the single crystallization peak of the initially homogeneous phase (singleT _g ) represents two coincident peaks superimposed. The crystallization of the glass phase is also clearly manifested in the time-dependence of the electrical conductivity and microphotography.

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Zusammenfassung Die DTA-Kurve von chalcogenidem Glas As₂Se₃·As₂Te₃ läßt eine Glastransformation bei 142 °C, eine von der Aufheizgeschwindigkeit abhängige exotherme Kristallisation und zwei endotherme Schmelzvorgänge bei 290 und 312 °C erkennen. Röntgendiffraktometrie der kristallisierten Probe zeigt das Vorliegen von zwei Phasen fester Lösungen:Te in As₂Se₃ (reich an Se) und Se in As₂Te₃ (reich an Te). Das steht in Übereinstimmung damit, daß der Kristallisationspeak der ursprünglich homogenen Phase (einT _g -Wert) zwei sich überlagernde Peaks repräsentiert. Die Kristallisation der Glasphase ist klar an der Zeitabhängigkeit der elektrischen Leitfähigkeit und durch Mikrophotographie zu erkennen.

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As₂Se₃·As₂Te₃ 142 °, 290 312 dg. : As₂Se₃ ( ) Se As₂Te₃ ( ), , ( _g ), . .

     

Preventive maintenance scheduling of multi-cogeneration plants using integer programming

Maintenance scheduling of cogeneration plants, which produce both electric power and desalinated water, is a typical complex process with long-term operations and planning problems. The plants' maintenance scheduling process has to determine the appropriate schedule for preventive maintenance, while satisfying all the system constraints and maintaining adequate system availability. It is an optimization problem and the maintenance and system constraints include the crew constraint, maintenance window constraint and time limitation constraint. In this paper, an integer linear-programming model, which has been developed, is described which schedules the preventive maintenance tasks in a multi-cogeneration plant. Results of a test example of such a plant situated in Kuwait are presented to show the applicability of the approach.     

Surfactant influence on rivulet droplet flow in minitubes and capillaries and its downstream evolution

During our investigations of two-phase flow in long hydrophobic minitubes and capillaries, we have observed transformation of the main rivulet into different new hydrodynamic modes with the use of different kinds of surfactants. The destabilization of rivulet flow at air velocities <80 m/s occurs primarily due to the strong branching off of sub-rivulets from the main rivulet during the downstream flow in the tube. The addition of some surfactants of not-so-high surface activity was found to increase the frequency of sub-rivulet formation and to suppress the Rayleigh and sinuous instabilities of the formed sub-rivulets. Such instabilities result in subsequent fragmentation of the sub-rivulets and in the formation of linear or sinuous arrays of sub-rivulet fragments (SRFs), which later transform into random arrays of SRFs. In the downstream flow, SRFs further transform into large sliding cornered droplets and linear droplet arrays (LDAs), a phenomenon which agrees with recent theories. At higher surface activity, suppression of the Rayleigh instability of sub-rivulets with surfactants becomes significant, which prevents sub-rivulet fragmentation, and only the rivulet and sub-rivulets can be visualized in the tube. At the highest surface activity, the bottom rivulet transforms rapidly into an annular liquid film. The surfactant influence on the behavior of the rivulets in minitubes is incomparably stronger than the classic example of the known surfactant stabilizing influence on a free jet. The evolution of a rivulet in the downstream flow inside a long minitube includes the following sequence of hydrodynamic modes/patterns: i) single rivulet; ii) rivulet and sub-rivulets; and iii) rivulet, sub-rivulets, sub-rivulet fragments, cornered droplets, linear droplet arrays, linear arrays of sub-rivulet fragments and annular film. The formation of these many different hydrodynamic patterns downstream is in drastic contrast with the known characteristics of two-phase flow, which demonstrates one mode for the entire tube length. Recent achievements in fluid mechanics regarding the stability of sliding thin films and in wetting dynamics have allowed us to interpret many of our findings. However, the most important phenomenon of the surfactant influence on sub-rivulet formation remains poorly understood. To achieve further progress in this new area, an interdisciplinary approach based on the use of methods of two-phase flow, wetting dynamics and interfacial rheology will be necessary.     

Repair-replace strategies for two-dimensional warranty policies

For repairable items sold with free replacement warranty, the actions available to the manufacturer to rectify failures under warranty are to

1. (1) repair the failed item or

2. (2) replace it with a new one.

A proper repair-replace strategy can reduce the expected cost of servicing the warranty. In this paper, we study repair-replace strategies for items sold with a two-dimensional free replacement warranty.     

Beyond the Capture of Circulating Tumor Cells: Next‐Generation Devices and Materials

Over the last decade, significant progress has been made towards the development of approaches that enable the capture of rare circulating tumor cells (CTCs) from the blood of cancer patients, a critical capability for noninvasive tumor profiling. These advances have leveraged new insights in materials chemistry and microfluidics and allowed the capture and enumeration of CTCs with unprecedented sensitivity. However, it has become increasingly clear that simply capturing and counting tumor cells launched into the bloodstream may not provide the information needed to advance our understanding of the biology of these rare cells, or to allow us to better exploit them in medicine. A variety of advances have now emerged demonstrating that more information can be extracted from CTCs with next‐generation devices and materials featuring tailored physical and chemical properties. In this Minireview, the last ten years of work in this area will be discussed, with an emphasis on the groundbreaking work of the last five years, during which the focus has moved beyond the simple capture of CTCs and gravitated towards approaches that enable in‐depth analysis.     

Last time buy decisions for products sold under warranty

Manufacturers supplying products under warranty need a strategy to deal with failures during the warranty period: repair the product or replace it by a new one, depending on e.g. age and/or usage of the failed product. An (implicit) assumption in virtually all models is that new products to replace the failed ones are immediately available at given replacement costs. Because of the short life cycles of many products, manufacturing may be discontinued before the end of the warranty period. At that point in time, the supplier has to decide how many products to put on the shelf to replace failed products under warranty that will be returned from the field (the last time buy decision). This is a trade-off between product availability for replacement and costs of product obsolescence. In this paper, we consider the joint optimization of repair-replacement decisions and the last time buy quantity for products sold under warranty. We develop approximations to estimate the total relevant costs and service levels for this problem, and show that we can easily find near-optimal last time buy quantities using a numerical search. Comparison to discrete event simulation results shows an excellent performance of our methods.     

Potential‐Responsive Surfaces for Manipulation of Cell Adhesion,Release, and Differentiation

In living systems, interfacial molecular interactions control many biological processes. New stimuli‐responsive strategies are desired to provide versatile model systems that can regulate cell behavior in vitro. Described here are potential‐responsive surfaces that control cell adhesion and release as well as stem cell differentiation. Cell adhesion can be modulated dynamically by applying negative and positive potentials to surfaces functionalized with tailored monolayers. This process alters cell morphology and ultimately controls behavior and the fate of the cells. Cells can be detached from the electrode surface as intact clusters with different geometries using electrochemical potentials. Importantly, morphological changes during adhesion guide stem cell differentiation. The higher accessibility of the peptide under a positive applied potential causes phenotypic changes in the cells that are hallmarks of osteogenesis, whereas lower accessibility of the peptide promoted by negative potentials leads to adipogenesis.     

Synthesis,characterisation and dosimetric evaluation of MgB4O7 glass as thermoluminescent dosimeter

This study presumably reports the dosimetric properties of MgB₄O₇ glass system. A series of MgB₄O₇ glass samples with nominal compositions XMgO-(100-X) B₂O₃, with X?=?35, 40 and 45?mol% was successfully synthesied using conventional melt quenching method. The presence of broad humps and absence of any sharp peak in typical X-ray diffraction patterns confirm the amorphous nature of the synthesised glass samples. Good glass forming ability, 0.55, of the mixture resulting in a glass with excellent glass stability, 1.4, was observed. Thermoluminescence glow curve was observed to be simple with a single well defined dosimetric peak around 200°C. The dose response was found to be linear from 6?µGy to 0.5?kGy when irradiated to Cs-137 gamma rays. Considerably satisfying thermoluminescent (TL) characteristics suggests that the MgB₄O₇ glass could be recommended as a TL dosimeter.