684 research outputs found
Internet-based Framework to Support Integration of Customer in the Design of Customizable Products
A necessary element to design and produce customer-centric products is the integration of customers in the design process. Challenges faced during customer integration into the design process include generating models of the customized product, performing analysis of these to determine feasibility, and optimizing to increase the performance. These tasks have to be performed relatively quickly, if not in real time, to provide feedback to the customer. The focus of this article is to present a framework that utilizes CAD, finite element analysis (FEA), and optimization to integrate the customer into the design process via the Internet for delivering user customized products. The design analysis, evaluation, and optimization need to be automated and enhanced to enable operation over the Internet. A product family CAD/FEA template has been developed to perform analysis, along with a general formulation to optimize the customized product. The CAD/FEA template generalizes the geometry building and analysis of each configuration developed using a product platform approach. The proposed setup is demonstrated through the use of a bicycle frame family. In this study, the focus is on the application of optimization and FEA to facilitate the design of customer-centric products.Yeshttps://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/manuscript-submission-guideline
Pharmacists and telemedicine: an innovative model fulfilling Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
The lack of access to safe medicines and quality healthcare services in peri-urban and rural areas is a major challenge driving a health system to innovate new models of care. This commentary will discuss the implementation and impact of the âGuddi bajiâ tele-pharmacy model, a project piloted by doctHERs, one of Pakistanâs leading telemedicine organizations. This innovative model has described the reintegration of women into the workforce by leveraging technology to improve the level of primary health care services and contributes to safe medication practice in a remote area. Our intervention proposed the deployment of technology-enabled, female frontline health workers known as the Guddi baji (meaning The Good Sister) in a rural village. They serve as an âaccess point to health careâ that is linked to a remotely located health care professional; a licensed doctor or a pharmacist within this model
Photodecomposition properties of brominated flame retardants (BFRs)
This study investigates the geometric and electronic properties of selected BFRs in their ground (S0) and first singlet excited (S1) states deploying methods of the density functional theory (DFT) and the time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT). We estimate the effect of the S0 â S1 transition on the elongations of the CâBr bond, identify the frontier molecular orbitals involved in the excitation process and compute partial atomic charges for the most photoreactive bromine atoms. The bromine atom attached to an ortho position in HBB (with regard to CâC bond; 2,2Êč,4,4Êč,6,6Êč-hexabromobiphenyl), TBBA (with respect to the hydroxyl group; 2,2Êč,6,6Êč-tetrabromobisphenol A), HBDE and BTBPE (in reference to CâO linkage; 2,2Êč,4,4Êč,6,6Êč-hexabromodiphenylether and 1,2-bis(2,4,6-tribromophenoxy)ethane, respectively) bears the highest positive atomic charge. This suggests that, these positions undergo reductive debromination reactions to produce lower brominated molecules. Debromination reactions ensue primarily in the aromatic compounds substituted with the highest number of bromine atoms owing to the largest stretching of the CâBr bond in the first excited state. The analysis of the frontier molecular orbitals indicates that, excitations of BFRs proceed via ÏâÏ*, or ÏâÏ* or nâÏ* electronic transitions. The orbital analysis reveals that, the HOMO-LUMO energy gap (EHâL) for all investigated bromine-substituted aromatic molecules falls lower (1.85â4.91 eV) than for their non-brominated analogues (3.39â8.07 eV), in both aqueous and gaseous media. The excitation energies correlate with the EHâL values. The excitation energies and EHâL values display a linear negative correlation with the number of bromine atoms attached to the molecule. Spectral analysis of the gaseous-phase systems reveals that, the highly brominated aromatics endure lower excitation energies and exhibit red shifts of their absorption bands in comparison to their lower brominated congeners. We attained a satisfactory agreement between the experimentally measured absorption peak (λmax) and the theoretically predicted oscillator strength (λmax) for the UVâVis spectra. This study further confirms that, halogenated aromatics only absorb light in the UV spectral region and that effective photodegradation of these pollutants requires the presence of photocatalysts.This study has been supported by the Australian Research Council (ARC), and grants of computing time from the National Computational Infrastructure (NCI), Australia as well as the Pawsey Supercomputing Centre. A.S. and K.S. thanks Murdoch University, Australia, for a postgraduate research scholarship
Super-reflection of light from a random amplifying medium with disorder in the complex refractive index : Statistics of fluctuations
The probability distribution of the reflection coefficient for light
reflected from a one-dimensional random amplifying medium with {\it
cross-correlated} spatial disorder in the real and the imaginary parts of the
refractive index is derived using the method of invariant imbedding. The
statistics of fluctuations have been obtained for both the correlated telegraph
noise and the Gaussian white-noise models for the disorder. In both cases, an
enhanced backscattering (super-reflection with reflection coefficient greater
than unity) results because of coherent feedback due to Anderson localization
and coherent amplification in the medium. The results show that the effect of
randomness in the imaginary part of the refractive index on localization and
super-reflection is qualitatively different.Comment: RevTex 6 pages, 3 figures in ps file
Measurement of a reaction-diffusion crossover in exciton-exciton recombination inside carbon nanotubes using femtosecond optical absorption
Exciton-exciton recombination in isolated semiconducting single-walled carbon
nanotubes was studied using femtosecond transient absorption. Under sufficient
excitation to saturate the optical absorption, we observed an abrupt transition
between reaction- and diffusion- limited kinetics, arising from reactions
between incoherent localized excitons with a finite probability of ~ 0.2 per
encounter. This represents the first experimental observation of a crossover
between classical and critical kinetics in a 1D coalescing random walk, which
is a paradigm for the study of non- equilibrium systems.Comment: Accepted for Physical Review Letters. Title changed, and "exciton
fusion" replaced by "exciton-exciton recombination". Present address of Prof
Tom Brown added. 12 pages plus 3 figure
Effect of Pulsing Treatments for Enhancing Shelf-Life of Cut Asiatic Lilium cv. Elite
Studies were conducted on cut Asiatic Lilium cv. Elite to assess the effectiveness of various floral preservatives as pulsing treatments for delaying senescence and prolonging vase life. Uniform spikes of lilium at bud colour break stage were brought to the laboratory in the morning and placed in 8 different pulsing solutions consisting of sucrose (Suc) 5%, aluminium sulphate (AS) 400 ppm, silver thio-sulphate (STS) 2.0 mM and citric acid (CA) 1000 ppm alone and in combination with sucrose. Distilled water without any chemical served as the control. Among individual treatments, STS 2.0 mM maintained better water relations and flower quality compared to others. STS also showed superiority over other treatments when combined with Suc 5% by providing largest flower size (16.74 cm) with maximum vase life (17.29 days) owing to most-favourable water relations parameters
A Novel Derivatization Ultraviolet Spectrophotometric Method for the Determination of Amlodipine Besylate Using Benzoyl Chloride
The present research work aims to develop a novel ultraviolet UV spectrophotometric method for the determination of Amlodipine Besylate using Benzoyl Chloride as a derivatizing agent, which is simple, rapid, sensitive, selective, and accurate method for the spectrophotometric determination of Amlodipine Besylate in powder form. Synthesis is based upon the Schotten Baumann Reaction. In this method, derivatization of aliphatic amine group of Amlodipine Besylate carried out with benzoyl chloride and aqueous sodium hydroxide (NaOH).The λmax was found to be 237 and 226nm for assay of Amlodipine Besylate and synthesised product respectively. The linearity was found in concentration range of 1-10 Όg/ml. The correlation coefficient (r2)was found 0.9985. The regression equation, intercept (a) and slope (b) was found as Y=0.0762x - 0.0077, 0.0077 and 0.0762 respectively. Method was developed and validated as per ICH guidelines for linearity, accuracy, precision, LOD, LOQ, interday and intraday. The LOD and LOQ for estimation of Amlodipine besylate were found as 0.2367, 0.7178 respectively. Recovery of Amlodipine besylate was found to be 93.30%.The proposed method is found to be simple, rapid, selective and highly sensitive than most of the Spectrophotometric methods available in literature.
Keywords: Derivatization, Ultraviolet spectrophotometry, Amlodipine besylate, Validation, Synthesis
Estimating Cost Savings when Implementing a Product Platform Approach
Many market forces are driving companies to improve their targeting of increasingly small market niches. To accomplish this efficiently, products are organized into product families that typically share common platforms. To reorganize the current product offerings or new products into a product family, using a platform approach, requires estimating the savings for such a modification. One of the problems encountered in estimating development and design cost is the lack of availability of hard information during the initial design phases. The purpose of this paper is to estimate the design and development cost, when moving towards a platform approach, using simple models. The activity based product family cost models are developed from existing single product design activities, which are modified and extended to reflect activities related to development of product platform and subsequent product family members supported by the platform. Uncertainty related to cost associated with activities are included in the model, which is solved using Monte Carlo simulation. The approach is demonstrated using a hard disk drive spindle motor platform development for a family of hard disks.Yeshttps://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/manuscript-submission-guideline
Evaluating the antidiabetic and antioxidant properties of 5- benzyl-1,3,4-oxadiazole-2-thiol
Purpose: To evaluate 5-Benzyl-1,3,4-oxadiazole-2-thiol (OXPA) for antidiabetic and antioxidant properties.
Methods: Antidiabetic activity was evaluated using three in vitro models, glucose uptake by yeast cells, alpha amylase inhibition assay and hemoglobin glycosylation inhibition assays. Antioxidant potential was determined by DPPH radical scavenging, reducing power and lipid peroxidation assays.
Results: OXPA showed antidiabetic activity in all the three models. The activity of the compound was comparable with that of metronidazole in glucose uptake by yeast cells, but the alpha amylase inhibition activity of the compound was slightly lower than that of acarbose, whereas the hemoglobin glycosylation inhibition activity of the compound was higher than that of vitamin E. DPPH free radical and hydrogen peroxide scavenging activity of the compound was comparable with that of vitamin C. In reducing power assay, the activity of the compound was lower than that of vitamin C (p > 0.05).
Conclusion: The results of antidiabetic and antioxidant activity indicate that OXPA may be a drugcandidate for treating both diabetes and its associated oxidative stress
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