Study on Multi-Point Stretch Forming Process for Double Curved Surface

Multi-Point Stretch Forming (MPSF) process is suitable for flexible manufacturing, and it has several advantages including that it could be applied to various forming such as sheet metal forming, single curved surface forming and double curved one. In this study, a systematic numerical simulation was carried out for atypical double curved surface forming using the multiple die stretch forming process. In this simulation, urethane pads were defined based on hyper-elastic material model as a cushion for the smooth forming surface. The deformation behaviour on elastic recovery was also investigated to consider the exact result after the last forming process, and then the experiment was also carried out to confirm the formability of this forming process. By comparing the simulation and experiment results, the suitability of the multiple die stretch forming process for the atypical double curved surface was verified. Consequently, it is confirmed that the multi-point stretch forming process has the capability and feasibility of being used to manufacture the double curved surfaces of sheet metal

Does a Data Breach Harm Industry Peers?: Evidence from the U.S Retail Industry

The impacts of data breaches have received much attention from information systems researchers; however, most studies have focused on breached firms. The organizational crisis literature suggests that negative perceptions from an organizational crisis can spread to others in the same industry, and this negative crisis spillover can cause significant losses to them. This study examines whether and how a data breach affects firm values of non-breached firms using the event study. We find that a data breach that occurs due to an industry-wide problem is likely to decrease the shareholder value of industry peers. Also, it has been shown that the data breach risk contagion effect is stronger for industry peers that have visibly disclosed data breach risks in their 10-K report before the data breach events. This study advances our knowledge of the impacts of data breaches by providing empirical evidence for the negative spillover effects of data breaches

Pretreatment of cellulosic waste sawdust into reducing sugars using mercerization and etherification

Pretreatment of sawdust using a combination of sodium hydroxide (NaOH) and monochloroacetic acid (MCA) was investigated for the formation of reducing sugars. Optimum conditions for the pretreatment process were determined by the amount of reducing sugars formed during the enzymatic hydrolysis of the pretreated substrate. It was found that mercerization by NaOH played an important role in increasing the degree of substitution (DS) and that the maximum solubility was achieved during the etherification by MCA. A maximum amount of 34.2% lignin was removed in the process. As the DS of the substrate was increased, the efficiency of the hydrolysis process increased, leading to the higher yield of reducing sugars. The optimum operating conditions for the pretreatment process were determined to be 75 oC at 90 rpm for 4 hours (2 hours for mercerization plus 2 hours for etherification). Under these operating conditions, with 1% (w/v) NaOH and 2% (w/w) MCA loading, a maximum DS of 0.2 and a solubility of 10.3% was attained. At 75 oC and after 48 hours of the hydrolysis process, cellulases from Aspergillus niger resulted in the production of 2.88 g/L of glucose with a yield of 62.72% reducing sugars. X-ray diffraction (XRD) revealed reduced crystallinity of the sawdust and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) showed distortion of the structure after pretreatment

Clinical Utility of Quantitative Parameters of Salivary Gland Scintigraphy for Diagnosing Burning Mouth Syndrome

Burning mouth syndrome (BMS) is a chronic disorder characterized by a burning sensation in the oral cavity, often accompanied by xerostomia, with no relevant clinical or laboratory findings. This study aimed to investigate diagnostic values of quantitative parameters of salivary gland scintigraphy for BMS in patients with xerostomia. A total of 164 patients who underwent salivary gland scintigraphy for the workup of xerostomia were retrospectively reviewed. All patients were classified into patient groups with primary BMS, secondary BMS, and non-specific xerostomia. From salivary gland scintigraphy, 22 quantitative parameters were calculated and their diagnostic values were assessed based on the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) values. Among salivary gland scintigraphy parameters, uptake speed in the left submandibular gland showed the highest AUC value (0.647) for detecting BMS and pre-stimulatory oral activity showed the highest AUC value (0.710) for detecting primary BMS. A salivary gland scintigraphy scoring system based on these two parameters further enhanced the diagnostic ability, demonstrating AUC values of 0.731 for BMS and 0.782 for primary BMS. These results suggest a potential diagnostic value of the quantitative parameters of salivary gland scintigraphy for detecting BMS in patients with xerostomia

Design of SnO2 Electron Transport Layer in Perovskite Solar Cells to Achieve 2000 h Stability Under 1 Sun Illumination and 85 °C

Abstract In order to realize both efficient and stable perovskite solar cells, designing electron transport layer (ETL) is of crucial importance to withstand constant light illumination and thermal stress while maintaining high charge extractability. Herein, commonly used SnO2 nanoparticle‐based ETL for perovskite solar cells is modified by ionic‐salt ammonium chloride (NH4Cl) and tin chloride dihydrate (SnCl2∙2H2O) as additives, which is easily fabricated by simple one‐step spin coating of single precursor solution. With the presence of these dual additives at the ETL, the crystallinity of the upper perovskite layer is clearly enhanced. Defect analyses on the devices suggest that these modifications can effectively passivate trap sites that reside within the ETL and at the perovskite interfaces with the carrier‐transport layers. As a result, the modified SnO2 ETL results in an improvement of device stability under thermal or light stress condition, maintaining over 80% of its initial efficiency after ≈2000 h storage under elevated temperature (85 °C) and after ≈2400 h of operation under 1 sun illumination