The state of research on the characteristics at the interface in polymer nanocomposites is reviewed. Special emphasis is placed on the recent advances in the fundamental relationship between interfacial characteristics and nanocomposite properties.

In this paper we study the existence of positive solutions of the equationwhere ϕ : R → R is an increasing homeomorphism and homomorphism and ϕ(0) = 0, subject to linear mixed boundary conditions by a simple application of a fixed point index theorem in cones.

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This paper addresses the issues related to the rapid production of hydrogen from methane steam reforming by means of process intensification. Methane steam reforming coupled with catalytic combustion in thermally integrated microchannel reactors for the production of hydrogen was investigated numerically. The effect of the catalyst, flow arrangement, and reactor dimension was assessed to optimize the design of the system. The thermal interaction between reforming and combustion was investigated for the purpose of the rapid production of hydrogen. The importance of thermal management was discussed in detail, and a theoretical analysis was made on the transport phenomena during each of the reforming and combustion processes. The results indicated that the design of a thermally integrated system operated at millisecond contact times is feasible. The design benefits from the miniaturization of the reactors, but the improvement in catalyst performance is also required to ensure the rapid production of hydrogen, especially for the reforming process. The efficiency of heat exchange can be greatly improved by decreasing the gap distance. The flow rates should be well designed on both sides of the reactor to meet the requirements of both materials and combustion stability. The flow arrangement plays a vital role in the operation of the thermally integrated reactor, and the design in a parallel-flow heat exchanger is preferred to optimize the distribution of energy in the system. The catalyst loading is an important design parameter to optimize reactor performance and must be carefully designed. Finally, engineering maps were constructed to design thermally integrated devices with desired power, and operating windows were also determined.

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A total of 83 shellfish samples from two local retail sources (A and B) yielded 38 samples positive for the presence of Vibrio parahaemolyticus based on 3 tube MPN enrichments and isolation from thiosulfate-citrate-bile salts-sucrose agar (TCBS) and biochemical tests. The 38 positive samples yielded 133 biochemically presumptive isolates of V. parahaemolyticus. Among these 133 presumptive isolates, 104 were confirmed by the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), which yielded more reliable identification results than the biochemical tests. The 38 biochemically presumptive samples yielded 29 samples that were confirmed by PCR to be positive for the presence of V. parahaemolyticus. RAPD analysis with three random primers was performed to examine the genetic diversity of 64 strains among the PCR confirmed V. parahaemolyticus isolates from both retail sources. 52 of 56 composite RAPD types consisted of single strains, indicating that most of the V. parahaemolyticus isolates were genetically quite heterogeneous. No strains representing the same RAPD type occurred in both retail outlets, implying that contamination of the shellfish by V. parahaemolyticus from the 2 retail sources was from different environmental locals and shellfish harvesting areas. Eight genomic clusters were generated at the 25% similarity level in a 194 S. Lu et al.dendrogram based on RAPD profiles. With few exception, isolates with close genetic relationships grouping into an individual cluster tended to be derived from the same retail source.

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