Mechanical polishing as an improved surface treatment for platinum screen-printed electrodes

The viability of mechanical polishing as a surface pre-treatment method for commercially available platinum screen-printed electrodes (SPEs) was investigated and compared to a range of other pre-treatment methods (UV-Ozone treatment, soaking in N,N-dimethylformamide, soaking and anodizing in aqueous NaOH solution, and ultrasonication in tetrahydrofuran). Conventional electrochemical activation of platinum SPEs in 0.5 M H2SO4 solution was ineffective for the removal of contaminants found to be passivating the screen-printed surfaces. However, mechanical polishing showed a significant improvement in hydrogen adsorption and in electrochemically active surface areas (probed by two different redox couples) due to the effective removal of surface contaminants. Results are also presented that suggest that SPEs are highly susceptible to degradation by strong acidic or caustic solutions, and could potentially lead to instability in long-term applications due to continual etching of the binding materials. The ability of SPEs to be polished effectively extends the reusability of these traditionally "single-use" devices

How Does Citizen Science "Do" Governance? Reflections from the DITOs Project

Citizen science (CS) is increasingly becoming a focal point for public policy to provide data for decision-making and to widen access to science. Yet beyond these two understandings, CS engages with political processes in a number of other ways. To develop a more nuanced understanding of governance in relation to CS, this paper brings together theoretical analysis by social science researchers and reflections from CS practice. It draws on concepts from Science and Technology Studies and political sciences as well as examples from the "Doing-It-Together Science" (DITOs) project. The paper develops a heuristic of how CS feeds into, is affected by, forms part of, and exercises governance. These four governance modes are (1) Source of information for policy-making, (2) object of research policy, (3) policy instrument, and (4) socio-technical governance. Our analysis suggests that these four dimensions represent different conceptions of how science and technology governance takes place that have not yet been articulated in the CS literature. By reflecting on the DITOs project, the paper shows how this heuristic can enrich CS. Benefits include project organisers better communicating their work and impacts. In its conclusion, the paper argues that focusing on the complexity of governance relations opens up new ways of doing CS regarding engagement methodologies and evaluation. The paper recommends foregrounding the broad range of governance impacts of CS and reflecting on them in cooperation between researchers and practitioners

Gap width modification on fully screen-printed coplanar Zn|MnO2 batteries

Fully printed primary zinc-manganese dioxide (Zn|MnO2) batteries in coplanar configuration were fabricated by sequential screen printing. While electrode dimensions and transferred active masses were kept at constant levels, electrode separating gaps were incrementally enlarged from 1 mm to 5 mm. Calendering of solely zinc anodes increased interparticle contact of active material within the electrodes while the porosity of manganese dioxide based electrodes was maintained by non-calendering. Chronopotentiometry revealed areal capacities for coplanar batteries up to 2.8 mAh cm−2. Galvanostatic electrochemical impedance spectroscopy measurements and short circuit measurements were used to comprehensively characterise the effect of gap width extension on bulk electrolyte resistance and charge transfer resistance values. Linear relationships between nominal gap widths, short circuit currents and internal resistances were evidenced, but showed only minor impact on actual discharge capacities. The findings contradict previous assumptions to minimise gap widths of printed coplanar batteries to a sub-millimetre range in order to retain useful discharge capacities. The results presented in this study may facilitate process transfer of printed batteries to an industrial environment

The effect of electrode calendering on the performance of fully printed Zn∣MnO2 batteries

Primary zinc–carbon batteries with a coplanar battery architecture were prepared by screen printing. Prior to battery activation by printing of an acidic zinc chloride electrolyte, printed zinc and manganese dioxide electrodes were compacted by calendering. Material densification of the electodes resulted in electrode layer thickness reduction on both sides, modified micropore surface area and volume on the cathode side. Galvanostatic impedance measurements and chronopotentiometry were used to characterise fabricated batteries with the individually prepared electrode configurations. While calendering of both electrodes of the batteries showed adverse effects by an increase of internal resistances and a reduction of discharge capacities, exclusive calendering of the zinc anode increased the active material utilisation by electrochemical cell reaction and thus the discharge efficiency of the battery

Microsoft Word - 515

ABSTRACT In order to study the effect of drought stress on morphologic traits, yield and yield components of 9 new hybrids of corn (Zea maize L.), an experiment was conducted in a Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replications under drought stress and normal irrigation based on 80 and 50 % allowing water depletion, respectively at Khorasan-Razavi Agriculture Research Center, Mashhad, Iran on June 10, 2011. The results of analyze variance showed that under normal irrigation and drought condition, there was a significant difference (p<0.01) between the hybrids. Mean comparison of hybrids revealed that in normal irrigation H6 and in drought stress H8 hybrid had the maximum grain yield (12.85 and 6.75 ton/ha, respectively). Under normal irrigation and water shortage, plant height and kernel no/row had the highest positive phenotypic correlation with kernel yield. In drought condition, grain yield was decreased due to the reduction cumulative effects in yield components.

Studies to Evaluate Achievement of Freshwater Inflow Standards and Ecological Response Final Report

Report on freshwater inflow standards and ecological responses on the Colorado and Lavaca Rivers and Matagorda and Lavaca Bays

Sustainable furniture panel composites from forestry and food industry by-products in Australia

This paper presents results of research into polypropylene based wood plastic composites reinforced with food industry and forestry by-products, identified as being particularly abundant in Australia but underutilised, viz. macadamia shells, pine cones and eucalyptus capsules. The present study considers and explores the suitability of these materials for high-moisture environment furniture panel applications. Results are presented for the relevant physical and mechanical properties and are compared with a conventional wood plastic composite utilising radiata pine as the filler.The water absorption and swelling were generally lower in the forestry and food industry by-product composites than in the conventional radiata pine composite with the best results being obtained for the macadamia nut shell composite. The mechanical properties were however poorer than those of the conventional wood plastic composite. Nonetheless, it is considered that the forestry and food industry byproduct composites do provide a viable material and have the potential to become a sustainable replacement option for high-humidity environment furniture panel composites. This would provide much better utilisation of these currently undervalued agricultural waste resources

MedNorm: A Corpus and Embeddings for Cross-terminology Medical Concept Normalisation

MedNorm is a corpus of 27,979 textual descriptions simultaneously mapped to both MedDRA and SNOMED-CT, sourced from five publicly available datasets across biomedical and social media domains. The cross-terminology medical concept embeddings are 64-dimensional vectors for UMLS, MedDRA and SNOMED-CT concepts that are able to capture semantic similarities between concepts from different medical terminologies. For more details see paper entitled "MedNorm: A Corpus and Embeddings for Cross-terminology Medical Concept Normalisation