Investigation into the use of metal oxides for catalysed epoxy resin decomposition

An investigation into catalysed thermal decomposition of epoxy resin was carried out with the goal to improve the commercial viability of glass fibre reinforced plastic recycling. A variety of metal oxides were examined to find their ability at reducing current limitations associated with thermal recycling methods such as high operating temperatures and exposure time to such environments. Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) was utilised to determine the effect of copper (II) oxide (CuO), titanium (IV) oxide (TiO2) and cerium (IV) oxide (CeO2) on epoxy degradation. CuO and CeO2 provided a reduction in second stage degradation onset temperature of around 60°C under a nonisothermal heating rate of 10°C/min; however, TiO2 exhibited no such ability. Under isothermal heating conditions, at a temperature of 500°C, all metal oxides provided a reduction in full epoxy decomposition time. CuO yielded the fastest epoxy degradation, reducing it by 12 minutes compared to epoxy alone. The epoxy first and second degradation stage activation energies were found through a kinetic study; with and without the addition of the metal oxides. It was observed that CuO transformed the epoxy degradation into a one stage process at heating rates of 30°C/min and above. CeO2 lowered the second stage activation energy however TiO2 caused an increase in both cases. The reduction in epoxy thermal decomposition temperature and time presented by CeO2 and CuO is believed to be sufficient justification for further investigation. Future work will focus on how the improvement in recycling conditions can translate into recovered glass fibre strength retention

CMAG: IoT Baby Monitor

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, also known as SIDS, is the leading cause of mortality in infants from one month to one year of age. We propose a video-based baby monitoring system with Internet of Things (IoT) capabilities to help shorten the response time of SIDS cases. Using a video amplification technique developed at MIT dubbed “Eulerian Magnification” to amplify subtle movements we can compare pixel color differences in frames for breathing detection in a recorded video of a baby. In the event that abnormal movement is detected from the baby an alarm will be generated to notify the parents or guardians

Concealed Carry Legislation and Firearm-Related Deaths in the United States: Possible Causes and Ramifications

Background: Previous research has shown that there is not an association between the legislation of constitutional carry and firearm deaths, but rather it is predominantly associated with socioeconomic status and location. On the national scale, the factors that most significantly affected firearm related deaths, firearm homicides, and firearm suicides were partisan lean, urbanization, and poverty rate over these three categories. Concealed carry legislation was not significantly associated with deaths. Objective: We are looking at whether the passage of constitutional carry laws have impacts on the rates of firearm-related deaths or violent crime across states. Important variables we are considering include the aforementioned rates of death and crime as well as potential confounding variables such as socioeconomic status, high school completion and unemployment rate. Methods: Data was collected from County Health Rankings published for 2016 and 2022. Results: When looking at correlations of factors such as median household income, completion of high school, and unemployment rate, all correlations were found to be significant. Discussion: While these factors were found to be significant, they were not able to fully explain firearm fatalities in states that have enacted constitutional carry laws. Conclusion: Our findings support the hypothesis that states that enacted constitutional carry (CC) laws experienced higher rates of firearm-related mortality compared to those without such laws

Investigation of catalyzed thermal recycling for glass fiber-reinforced epoxy using fluidized bed process

An investigation of the effect of metal catalysts on thermal recycling of glass fiber-reinforced epoxy was carried out within a fluidized bed system. CuO nanopowder was integrated with epoxy to assess its ability in reducing the epoxy thermal stability and in turn reducing the typical temperatures required thermal recycling for epoxy composites. It was found that the CuO was able to significantly accelerate the thermal degradation of the selected epoxy. The CuO loading of 5 wt% of epoxy provided the largest reduction in thermal stability and activation energy of the second stage of decomposition. It was also demonstrated that the addition of CuO did not negatively affect epoxy mechanical properties or curing and in fact increased the epoxy glass transition temperature. When applied to glass fiber-epoxy (GF-epoxy) recycling within the fluidized bed process, glass fibers were recycled at just 400°C with a yield of up to 59%. POLYM. COMPOS., 40:3510–3519, 2019

Quantitative Susceptibility Mapping: Contrast Mechanisms and Clinical Applications.

Quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) is a recently developed MRI technique for quantifying the spatial distribution of magnetic susceptibility within biological tissues. It first uses the frequency shift in the MRI signal to map the magnetic field profile within the tissue. The resulting field map is then used to determine the spatial distribution of the underlying magnetic susceptibility by solving an inverse problem. The solution is achieved by deconvolving the field map with a dipole field, under the assumption that the magnetic field is a result of the superposition of the dipole fields generated by all voxels and that each voxel has its unique magnetic susceptibility. QSM provides improved contrast to noise ratio for certain tissues and structures compared to its magnitude counterpart. More importantly, magnetic susceptibility is a direct reflection of the molecular composition and cellular architecture of the tissue. Consequently, by quantifying magnetic susceptibility, QSM is becoming a quantitative imaging approach for characterizing normal and pathological tissue properties. This article reviews the mechanism generating susceptibility contrast within tissues and some associated applications