Fabrication of biodegradable magnesium matrix composite with ultrafine grains and high strength by adding TiC nanoparticles to Mg-1.12Ca-0.84Zn-0.23Mn (at.%) alloy.

Mg-1.12Ca-0.84Zn-0.23Mn (at.%) alloy was reinforced by TiC nanoparticles. After extrusion ultra-fine grains of ∼0.4 µm were caused by Zener pinning effect of nano-sized particles including fine precipitated MgZn2 phases, α-Mn particles and TiC nanoparticles. Yield strength of 423.6 MPa along with ultimate tensile strength of 436.8 MPa could meet biomedical application.

The Comparison in the Microstructure and Mechanical Properties between AZ91 Alloy and Nano-SiCp/AZ91 Composite Processed by Multi-Pass Forging Under Varying Passes and Temperatures.

In this study, both AZ91 alloy and nano-SiCp/AZ91 composite were subjected to multi-pass forging under varying passes and temperatures. The microstructure and mechanical properties of the alloy were compared with its composite. After six passes of multi-pass forging at a constant temperature of 400 ℃, complete recrystallization occurred in both the AZ91 alloy and composite. The decrease of temperature and the increase of passes for the multi-pass forging led to further refinement of dynamic recrystallized grains and dynamic precipitation of second phases. The grain size of the nano-SiCp/AZ91 composite was smaller than that of the AZ91 alloy under the same multi-pass forging condition, which indicated that the addition of SiC nanoparticles were beneficial to grain refinement by pinning the grain boundaries. The texture intensity for the 12 passes of multi-pass forging with varying temperatures was increased compared with that after nine passes. The ultimate tensile strength is slightly decreased while the yield strength was increased unobviously for the AZ91 alloy with the decrease of temperature and the increase of the passes for the multi-pass forging. Under the same condition of multi-pass forging, the yield strength of the composite was higher than that of the AZ91 alloy due to the Orowan strengthening effect and grain refinement strengthening resulting from externally applied SiC nanoparticles and internally precipitated second phases. By comparing the microstructure and mechanical properties between the AZ91 alloy and nano-SiCp/AZ91 composite, the strength-toughness properties of the composites at room temperature were affected by the matrix grain size, texture evolution, SiC nanoparticles distribution and the precipitated second phases.

A novel speech-processing strategy incorporating tonal information for cochlear implants.

Good performance in cochlear implant users depends in large part on the ability of a speech processor to effectively decompose speech signals into multiple channels of narrow-band electrical pulses for stimulation of the auditory nerve. Speech processors that extract only envelopes of the narrow-band signals (e.g., the continuous interleaved sampling (CIS) processor) may not provide sufficient information to encode the tonal cues in languages such as Chinese. To improve the performance in cochlear implant users who speak tonal language, we proposed and developed a novel speech-processing strategy, which extracted both the envelopes of the narrow-band signals and the fundamental frequency (F0) of the speech signal, and used them to modulate both the amplitude and the frequency of the electrical pulses delivered to stimulation electrodes. We developed an algorithm to extract the fundatmental frequency and identified the general patterns of pitch variations of four typical tones in Chinese speech. The effectiveness of the extraction algorithm was verified with an artificial neural network that recognized the tonal patterns from the extracted F0 information. We then compared the novel strategy with the envelope-extraction CIS strategy in human subjects with normal hearing. The novel strategy produced significant improvement in perception of Chinese tones, phrases, and sentences. This novel processor with dynamic modulation of both frequency and amplitude is encouraging for the design of a cochlear implant device for sensorineurally deaf patients who speak tonal languages.