Novel bio-based amine curing agents for epoxy resins: the way towards fully bio-based composite materials

Epoxy resins are widely used in many applications, such as paints, adhesives and matrices for composites materials, since they present the possibility to be easily and conveniently tailored in order to display a unique combination of characteristics. In literature, various examples of bio-based epoxy resins produced from a wide range of renewable sources can be found. Nevertheless, the toxicity and safety of curing agents have not been deeply investigated and it was observed that all of them still present some environmental drawback. Therefore, the development of new environmentally friendly fully bio-based epoxy systems is of great importance for designing green and sustainable materials. In this context, the present project aims at further exploring the possibility of using bio-based compounds as curing agents for epoxy resin precursors. A preliminary evaluation of several amine-based compounds demonstrated the feasibility of using Adenine as epoxy resin hardener. In order to better understand the crosslinking mechanism, the reaction of Adenine with the mono-epoxy compound Glycidyl 2-methylphenyl ether (G2MPE), was study by 1H-NMR analysis. Then Adenine was investigated as hardener of Diglycidil ether of bisphenol A (DGEBA), which is the simplest epoxy resin based on bisphenol A, in order to determine the best hardener/resin stoichiometric ratio, and evaluate the crosslinking kinetics and conversion and the final mechanical properties of the cured resin. Then, Adenine was tested as hardener of commercial epoxy resins, in particular the infusion resin Elan-tron® EC 157 (Elantas), the impregnation resin EPON™ Resin 828 (Hexion) and the bio-based resin SUPER SAP® CLR (Entropyresins). Such systems were used for the production of composites materials reinforced with chopped recycled carbon fibers and natural fibers (flax and jute). The thermo-mechanical properties of these materials have been studied in comparison with those ones of composites obtained with the same thermosetting resin reinforced with chopped virgin carbon fibers.

Investigating interpreter-mediated interaction in the Chinese bilingual courtroom: Analysis based on a multimodal corpus

This research project is based on the Multimodal Corpus of Chinese Court Interpreting (MUCCCI [mutʃɪ]), a small-scale multimodal corpus on the basis of eight authentic court hearings with Chinese-English interpreting in Mainland China. The corpus has approximately 92,500 word tokens in total. Besides the transcription of linguistic and para-linguistic features, utilizing the facial expression classification rules suggested by Black and Yacoob (1995), MUCCCI also includes approximately 1,200 annotations of facial expressions linked to the six basic types of human emotions, namely, anger, disgust, happiness, surprise, sadness, and fear (Black & Yacoob, 1995). This thesis is an example of conducting qualitative analysis on interpreter-mediated courtroom interactions through a multimodal corpus. In particular, miscommunication events (MEs) and the reasons behind them were investigated in detail. During the analysis, although queries were conducted based on non-verbal annotations when searching for MEs, both verbal and non-verbal features were considered indispensable parts contributing to the entire context. This thesis also includes a detailed description of the compilation process of MUCCCI utilizing ELAN, from data collection to transcription, POS tagging and non-verbal annotation. The research aims at assessing the possibility and feasibility of conducting qualitative analysis through a multimodal corpus of court interpreting. The concept of integrating both verbal and non-verbal features to contribute to the entire context is emphasized. The qualitative analysis focusing on MEs can provide an inspiration for improving court interpreters’ performances. All the constraints and difficulties presented can be regarded as a reference for similar research in the future.