ENVIRONMENTAL TOBACCO SMOKE REMOVAL CAPABILITY OF ACTIVATED CARBON

Removal of gaseous and vapor constituents of environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) by activated carbons in a packed bed arrangement was studied under dynamic conditions and was compared with that by silica gel and molecular sieve 13X. ETS is a mixture of sidestream smoke and exhaled mainstream smoke, and it consists of various organic and inorganic compounds, trace heavy metals, and particulate matters. Due to the complex nature of ETS-air mixture, its removal from indoors is a challenging task. For experimentation in a laboratory, the ETS was produced from a specially designed smoking apparatus that simulated the puffng of a cigarette by a person. Air containing ETS was passed through a bed containing about 25 grams of activated carbon at room temperature. The flow rate of air-ETS mixture through the bed was 4000 cm3/min. The relative humidity of the air was 50% and contained about 35 to 40 ppm of hydrocarbons as measured as methane-equivalent. The number of particles in the inlet air stream were in the range of 30,000 to 35,000 particles/cm3. About 60% of hydrocarbons present in ETS were removed at these operating conditions for a period of about 70 hours. Based on 15 adsorption and regeneration cycles, it was noted that the carbon bed did not loose its capacity for ETS significantly as indicated by the BET surface area and water adsorption data. At the beginning of an adsorption cycle, the carbon bed captured a significant number of particles. However, the bed rapidly lost its particle capture effciency as the experiment progressed. The number of particles in the outlet air stream was found to be the same as that of the inlet stream within five minutes.     

Wiener models of direction-dependent dynamic systems

Analysis of systems with direction-dependent dynamics is currently limited to cases in which the dynamics in the two directions of the output are first order; results for such systems have been published for both pseudo-random maximum-length binary (MLB) and inverse-repeat maximum-length binary (IR-MLB) inputs. These relatively limited analytical results make it useful to examine alternative ways of modelling such systems and in this paper, Wiener models are considered for this purpose. Methods for optimising the Wiener model parameters by matching the system and model cross-correlation functions, outputs, and discrete Fourier transforms of the outputs are considered, and the results are compared. These methods are also applied to a first-order direction-dependent system with a maximum-length ternary (MLT) input, for which no analytical results are currently available, and to a second-order system with an IR-MLB input.     

Characterization of charge trapping in submicrometer NMOSFET's bygate capacitance measurements

Trapping of net positive charge at low gate stress voltage, and of net negative charge at high gate stress voltage, is observed through changes in the gate-to-drain capacitance of the stressed junction. These observations can be explained in terms of electron trapping, hole trapping, and generation of acceptor-like interface states located in the upper half of the bandgap. Channel shortening is also observed and found to exhibit a logarithmic time dependence     

A fracture test using concentrically loaded square plates

A fracture test is described in which square plates are supported near their corners and loaded concentrically. The maximum tensile stress occurs on the loading circle but appreciable tensile stresses exist at the mid-point of the plate edges. To minimize premature fracture here, due to edge damage in the plate, it is desirable to reduce the ratio edge stress: maximum stress in the plate. This can be achieved by moving the points of support inwards from the plate corners to the plate centre. A justification is presented for positioning the supports on a circle of diameterd _s whered _s/2a=0.85 and 2a is the length of the side of the plate. Loading diametersd ₁ of valuesd ₁/2a=0.25 andd ₁2a=0.075 are recommended. If the plates are thin conditions can be geometrically non-linear at the fracture load. In these circumstances membrane stresses develop in addition to the pure bending of the linear regime. Calculation of the relation between the load and the stresses in the plate must then be carried out, for example by the finite element method, for the specific conditions given in the test. However, this paper demonstrates that there is a useful range of conditions under which geometrical linearity persists up to the point of fracture. Under these circumstances it is shown that it is possible to generalize the relationship between the applied load at fracture and the plate stress distribution. This permits the fracture stress to be determined from the fracture load. The procedure for doing this is set out. It is also shown how, from the fracture load of the plate, the loading geometry and the elastic constants of the material can be established if it is permissible to use the linear solution to analyse the test. It is felt that this procedure might be helpful where there is no access to either finite element packages or to finite element expertise. The finite element packages used in the work now described in this paper are ABAQUS and LUSAS.     

Calibration of bistatic polarimetric radar systems

A calibration technique for laboratory type polarimetric, bistatic instrumentation radars is presented. It describes the errors induced by the standard radiation transfer approach (I-SRT) in a way similar to that for the monostatic case. A 12-term error correction and absolute polarimetric calibration is performed with two external reference targets. Only the polarimetric bistatic reference of the first target must be theoretically determined. The scattering reference of the second target is determined by a measurement during the calibration process (single reference calibration). The simulation of a third cross-polarization measurement is performed by an antenna rotation and a remeasurement of the second target. Thus all data are gained for the determination of the error terms and measurements of unknown objects can be full polarimetrically calibrated. The procedures are shown for an adapted dihedral corner reflector. Misalignment errors are discussed     

Morphology of thin anatase coatings prepared from alkoxide solutions containing organic polymer,affecting the photocatalytic decomposition of aqueous acetic acid

Porous anatase coatings were prepared from alkoxide solutions containing organic polymer by a dip-coating technique. The morphology of the coatings, such as pore size, pore distribution and thickness, was controlled. The effects of the morphology of the porous anatase coatings on the photocatalytic activity for the photocatalytic decomposition of aqueous acetic acid were examined.     

A 1.5-V full-swing BiCMOS logic circuit

A BiCMOS logic circuit applicable to sub-2-V digital circuits has been developed. A transiently saturated full-swing BiCMOS (TS-FS-BiCMOS) logic circuit operates twice as fast as CMOS at 1.5-V supply. A newly developed transient-saturation technique, with which bipolar transistors saturate only during switching periods, is the key to sub-2-V operation because a high-speed full-swing operation is achieved to remove the voltage loss due to the base-emitter turn-on voltage. Both small load dependence and small fan-in dependence of gate delay time are attained with this technique. A two-input gate fabricated with 0.3-μm BiCMOS technology verifies the performance advantage of TS-FS-BiCMOS over other BiCMOS circuits and CMOS at sub 2-V supply     

Determination of three dimensional in situ stress from core discing based on analysis of principal tensile stress

To determine all of the components of in situ stress from core discing, both the directions and magnitudes of the principal in situ stresses must be determined for a disc of a given thickness. In this study, we analyzed the direction and magnitude of tensile stress below an HQ core stub for 11 core lengths using stress conditions under which core discing is likely to occur. First, based on an analysis of the direction of tensile stress below the core stub, we propose a method for determining directions of in situ stress from the height distribution at the periphery of the end surface of a disc. This method can be used with a disc of any thickness. Next, based on an analysis of the magnitude of tensile stress in the central part of a core, we propose a linear criterion for core discing, which can be applied to a core of any length. This criterion was in good agreement with an empirical formula obtained previously in laboratory experiments. By combining information on the direction of in situ stress and the linear criterion for core discing, we propose a method for determining all of the components of in situ stress from core discing under the assumption that vertical stress is given by the overburden stress. Finally, these methods were applied to discs obtained from a field where hydraulic fracturing was performed to measure horizontal stresses. The results showed that the azimuths of the principal stresses estimated from core discing were consistent with those of the principal horizontal stresses determined by hydraulic fracturing and that while the magnitudes of the principal horizontal stresses estimated from core discing showed a large scatter, they were similar to those determined by hydraulic fracturing.     

Metadata's role in a scientific archive

Computational and laboratory experiments generate masses of data that must be stored reliably, with minimal effort on each researcher's part, and must be retrievable for decades. The storage environment must also work seamlessly across scientific disciplines and capture all of a file system's features in a semantically-based catalog that provides Boolean, keyword, and tree-based data access. The authors describe a metadata-based archive for scientific data that provides flexible archive storage for very large data sets. The system uses metadata to organize and manage the data without imposing predefined metadata formats on scientists.     

Hydrogen absorption by Pd-coated ZrNi prepared by using Barrel-Sputtering System

To improve the durability of hydrogen storage materials against surface poisoning by impurity gases, effectiveness of Pd-coating layer prepared by using a Barrel-Sputtering System was examined for ZrNi powder. The effectiveness of Pd-coating was evaluated by activation temperature, at which Pd/ZrNi poisoned by air could be activated to absorb hydrogen. Characterization of Pd-coated ZrNi (denoted as Pd/ZrNi) by scanning electron microscopy, electron probe microanalysis and X-ray diffraction showed that a uniform Pd-coating layer was formed with the barrel-sputtering system. It was found that the poisoned Pd/ZrNi sample could be activated even at 423 K to absorb hydrogen at room temperature. This exhibits remarkable contrast to bare ZrNi, which could be only activated appreciably above 1073 K. It is concluded that the Pd-coating by barrel sputtering is quite effective to avoid the effect of surface poisoning of powdery hydrogen storage materials. However, the activation at excessively high temperature resulted in the loss of high activity to absorb hydrogen. It was concluded that this phenomenon was associated with reactions between Pd and ZrNi to form PdZr and other byproducts.