Conducting block copolymers. Towards a polymer pn- junction

Summary The synthesis of polyphenylacetylene (1), polypentafluorophenylacetylene (2) and the block copolymer of 1 and 2 polyphenylacetylene-polypentafluorophenylacetylene (3) using a Rhodium catalysed living polymerisation reaction is presented. Photoelectron spectroscopy of thin films of the individual polymers using 50eV photons from a synchrotron allowed for the determination of the position of the the electronic energy levels, ionisation potentials and the vacuum level shift which indicated that the block copolymer organises at the gold substrate surface such that the fluorinated part of the copolymer extends towards the air interface. Pulse radiolysis time resolved microwave conductivity (PR-TRMC) allowed for the determination of the minimum carrier mobilities and the carrier lifetimes. The sum of carrier mobilities, _min, were respectively 5.2·10^–7, 6.3·10^–7 and 3.2·10^–7m² V^–1 s^–1 and the first half life, _1/2, was 2.0, 1.5 and 1.0 s in 1, 2 and 3. The study shows that it is possible to make conducting block copolymers by the rhodium catalysed polymerisation of arylacetylenes with different electronic energies that organises at the surface giving rise to electronic properties that approach analogy to the traditional inorganic semiconductor pn-junctions.     

Applying rotary jet heads for mixing and mass transfer in a forced recirculation tank reactor system

An approximation to an ideally mixed tank reactor can be obtained by vigorous stirring with mechanical mixers. For an aerated reactor the gas dispersion contributes to the mixing process. Mixing can also be achieved by recirculation of a portion of the liquid through either an internal or an external loop.In this study, we determine mixing times in water and CMC solutions and oxygen mass transfer coefficients in water for a tank reactor system where a small fraction of the total liquid volume is rapidly circulated through an external loop and injected through the nozzles of rotary jet heads at 1-9 bar gauge pressure into the bulk liquid. Liquid feed can be added to the bulk volume or it may be injected into the pressurized recirculation loop. Gas is always fed to the recirculation loop, and the heat of reaction is removed in a plate-type heat exchanger inserted in the recirculation loop. The system has a very simple design with no internal baffles or heat exchange area, and between batches the rotary jet heads are used for cleaning in place.Mixing time decreases and mass transfer increases with increasing circulation flow rate. For nozzle diameters between 5.5 and and with one or two rotary jet heads, it is shown that a remarkable saving in power input for a fixed mixing time or mass transfer coefficient can be obtained by using a large nozzle diameter and two rather than one rotary jet heads.At the experimental conditions of the study the system is scaleable by simple formulas, and the power input to achieve a certain mixing time is proportional to the bulk liquid volume.     

All Structured Programs Have Small Tree Width and Good Register Allocation

The register allocation problem for an imperative program is often modeled as the coloring problem of the interference graph of the control-flow graph of the program. The interference graph of a flow graphGis the intersection graph of some connected subgraphs ofG. These connected subgraphs represent the lives, or life times, of variables, so the coloring problem models that two variables with overlapping life times should be in different registers. For general programs with unrestricted gotos, the interference graph can be any graph, and hence we cannot in general color within a factorO(n) from optimality unless NP=P. It is shown that if a graph has tree widthk, we can efficiently color any intersection graph of connected subgraphs within a factor (k/2+1) from optimality. Moreover, it is shown that structured (≡goto-free) programs, including, for example, short circuit evaluations and multiple exits from loops, have tree width at most 6. Thus, for every structured program, we can do register allocation efficiently within a factor 4 from optimality, regardless of how many registers are needed. The bounded tree decomposition may be derived directly from the parsing of a structured program, and it implies that the many techniques for bounded tree width may now be applied in compiler optimization, solving problems in linear time that are NP-hard, or even P-space hard, for general graphs.     

Distribution of chloramphenicol to tissues,plasma and urine in pigs after oral intake of low doses

Toxic effects of chloramphenicol in humans caused the ban for its use in food-producing animals in the EU. A minimum required performance level (MRPL) was specified for chloramphenicol at 0.3 μg kg^–1 for various matrices, including urine. In 2012, residues of chloramphenicol were found in pig urine and muscle without signs of illegal use. Regarding its natural occurrence in straw, it was hypothesised that this might be the source, straw being compulsory for use as bedding material for pigs in Sweden. Therefore, we investigated if low daily doses of chloramphenicol (4, 40 and 400 μg/pig) given orally during 14 days could result in residues in pig tissues and urine. A dose-related increase of residues was found in muscle, plasma, kidney and urine (showing the highest levels), but no chloramphenicol was found in the liver. At the lowest dose, residues were below the MRPL in all tissues except in the urine. However, in the middle dose, residues were above the MRPL in all tissues except muscle, and at the highest dose in all matrices. This study proves that exposure of pigs to chloramphenicol in doses occurring naturally in straw could result in residues above the MRPL in plasma, kidney and especially urine.     

Roll‐to‐Roll Printed Silver Nanowire Semitransparent Electrodes for Fully Ambient Solution‐Processed Tandem Polymer Solar Cells

Silver nanowires (AgNWs) and zinc oxide (ZnO) are deposited on flexible substrates using fast roll‐to‐roll (R2R) processing. The AgNW film on polyethylene terephthalate (PET) shows >80% uniform optical transmission in the range of 550–900 nm. This electrode is compared to the previously reported and currently widely produced indium‐tin‐oxide (ITO) replacement comprising polyethylene terephthalate (PET)|silver grid|poly(3,4‐ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS)|ZnO known as Flextrode. The AgNW/ZnO electrode shows higher transmission than Flextrode above 490 nm in the electromagnetic spectrum reaching up to 40% increased transmission at 750 nm in comparison to Flextrode. The functionality of AgNW electrodes is demonstrated in single and tandem polymer solar cells and compared with parallel devices on traditional Flextrode. All layers, apart from the semitransparent electrodes which are large‐scale R2R produced, are fabricated in ambient conditions on a laboratory roll‐coater using printing and coating methods which are directly transferrable to large‐scale R2R processing upon availability of materials. In a single cell structure, Flextrode is preferable with active layers based on poly‐3‐hexylthiophene(P3HT):phenyl‐C61‐butyric acid methylester (PCBM) and donor polymers of similar absorption characteristics while AgNW/ZnO electrodes are more compatible with low band gap polymer‐based single cells. In tandem devices, AgNW/ZnO is more preferable resulting in up to 80% improvement in PCE compared to parallel devices on Flextrode.     

Unmixing of Hyperspectral Images using Bayesian Non-negative Matrix Factorization with Volume Prior

Hyperspectral imaging can be used in assessing the quality of foods by decomposing the image into constituents such as protein, starch, and water. Observed data can be considered a mixture of underlying characteristic spectra (endmembers), and estimating the constituents and their abundances requires efficient algorithms for spectral unmixing. We present a Bayesian spectral unmixing algorithm employing a volume constraint and propose an inference procedure based on Gibbs sampling. We evaluate the method on synthetic and real hyperspectral data of wheat kernels. Results show that our method perform as good or better than existing volume constrained methods. Further, our method gives credible intervals for the endmembers and abundances, which allows us to asses the confidence of the results.     

Changes during growth in anatomical and chemical composition and in-vitro degradability of lucerne

Lucerne (alfalfa) was harvested at different stages of maturity and the plants classified according to a phenological scale. The main class was separated into anatomical parts and analysed for content of extractives and crude protein and in-vitro degradability. Whole crop samples were also analysed for polysaccharide residues, Klason lignin and in-vitro degradability of crude protein and polysaccharide residues. The composition of the plant changed during maturation with an increase of the stem fraction from 18.5% to 50.7% of dry matter and a corresponding decrease in the leaf fraction from 72.9% to 18.4% of dry matter. The leaf fraction changed least in content of extractives and crude protein and in-vitro degradability while in the stems all these paramaters decreased radically. Chemical analysis of residues after incubation with rumen liquor in vitro of whole crop samples revealed that the degradability of crude protein declined from about 90% to about 80% and of non-starch polysaccharides from about 90% to about 60% during maturation. Xylose was the least degradable polysaccharide residue at all harvests. Xylose residues also showed the greatest decrease in degradability during growth. A comparison showed that stage of development and harvest date were of practically equal value as predictor of crude protein content in lucerne.