Surface Nano-structured Coating for Improved Performance of Axial Piston Pumps

The work starts from the consideration that most of the power losses in a hydraulic pump is due to frictional losses made by the relative motion between moving parts. This fact is particularly true at low operating velocities, when the hydraulic lift effect must be able to maintain a minimum clearance in meatus to limit the volumetric losses. The potential of structured coatings at nanoscale, with super-hydrophobic and oleophobic characteristics, has never been exploited before in an industrial application. The work studies the potential application of nano-coating on piston slippers surface in a real industrial case. The aim is to develop a new industrial solution to increase the energetic efficiency of hydraulic pump used in earthmoving machines. The proposed solution is investigated using a dedicated test bench, designed to reproduce real working conditions of the pump. The results showa reduction of friction coefficient while changing working pressure and rotation velocity

Adaptation of extremely halotolerant black yeast Hortaea werneckii to increased osmolarity: a molecular perspective at a glance

Halophilic adaptations have been studied almost exclusively on prokaryotic microorganisms. Discovery of the black yeast Hortaea werneckii as the dominant fungal species in hypersaline waters enabled the introduction of a new model organism to study the mechanisms of salt tolerance in eukaryotes. Its strategies of cellular osmotic adaptations on the physiological and molecular level revealed novel, intricate mechanisms to combat fluctuating salinity. H. werneckii is an extremely halotolerant eukaryotic microorganism and thus a promising source of transgenes for osmotolerance improvement of industrially important yeasts, as well as in crops

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

AN ATTEMPT TO IMAGE ORGANIC MOLECULES WITH FIM

Des molécules de phtalocyanine d'un métal ont été formées sur la surface propre d'une pointe par la réaction d'une vapeur d'octacyanobenzène avec le métal de la pointe dans la chambre du microscope ionique. Des images avec de l'hydrogène ont été obtenues montrant la structure moléculaire de la phtalocyanine. Les images de quelques molécules agregées parallèlement ont été aussi obtenues.Metal octacyanophthalocyanine molecules have been formed directly on a clean tip surfaces by in situ reaction of tip materials (Ni and Fe) with ambient tetracyanobenzene vapor. FIM images with hydrogen which clearly show the molecular structure have been successfully obtained. Images of molecular clusters have also been obtained in which several molecules piled parallel

AN FIM STUDY ON THE INITIAL STAGE OF THE SURFACE REACTION OF TUNGSTEN WITH n-OCTANOL UNDER AN APPLIED DC VOLTAGE

The surface reaction of tungsten with n-octanol under a pulse with a height of about +10V, a risetime of 10nsec, and a width of several seconds, which gives rise to interesting FI images of the central (110) plane split into two parts across the [001] zone line or into more than two parts, has been studied in order to reveal the reaction process from the initial stage to the final splitting by 1) decreasing the pulse width to shorten the reaction time and by 2) adding benzene to n-octanol to mitigate the activity of the latter. In the initial stage no damage was observed on the (110) plane but small shallow basins were observed near poles. As the reaction proceeded, they became larger and extended toward the center of the (110) plane. It has been concluded that the reaction starts in areas around poles and proceeds to widen the corroded areas and finally links them on the (110) plane to split it

VAPOR-DEPOSITION AND MIGRATION OF IRON ON TUNGSTEN TIPS

Field ion microscopic observation was carried out on iron films vapor-deposited onto a tungsten tip from the direction normal to the tip axis. Two kinds of experiments were performed : (i) iron was deposited onto a tip kept at cryogenic temperatures and then heated up to the temperatures 450-750K and (ii) iron was deposited onto a tip at the same temperatures as in (i). The area of the deposited iron images was less than a half of the tip cap in the case (i) and more than a half in the case (ii), probably owing to the momentum carried by the deposited iron atoms

FIM OBSERVATION ON THE REACTION OF METALS ( W, Mo ) WITH n-OCTANOL UNDER AN APPLIED VOLTAGE

Il a été montré que l'alcool n-octylique réagissait électrochimiquement non seulement avec le W mais encore avec le Mo en divisant la face (110) en quatre parties entre les lignes de zone [001] et [1[MATH]0]. Une étude détaillée des images consécutives d'évaporation de champs a démontré qu' il y avai t une fosse profonde faite à la face (110), la face la plus stable chimiquement des métaux c.c.c.An electrochemical reaction in n-octanol which splits the central (110) plane into four parts across the [001] and [1[MATH]0] zone lines has been shown to occur not only to W but also to Mo. A detailed study of the sequential images of field evaporation have revealed that there is a deep pit made on the (110) plane, chemically the most stable plane of b.c.c. metals