Elimination of organic matter present in wastewaters from the cork industry by membrane filtration

BACKGROUND: The first stage of the cork industrial process generates great volumes of wastewater with moderate to high organic pollutant content that must be purified using different procedures, such as filtration by membranes. RESULTS: The tangential filtration of these wastewaters was studied using two different laboratory equipments. In the first one, three ultrafiltration (UF) membranes were tested, with molecular weight cut‐off (MWCO) 100 kDa and 30 kDa, and two operating modes were used: total recycling of permeate and retentate streams, and in continuous mode, without recycling both streams. In the total recycling UF experiments, the influence of the operating variables on the permeate flux was first established. The effectiveness of the different membranes was determined by evaluating the rejection coefficients for several parameters that measure the global pollutant content of the effluent. The values found for these rejection coefficients were in the following order: ellagic acid and color > absorbance at 254 nm > tannic content > COD (chemical oxygen demand). In the continuous mode experiments, the fouling mechanism for each membrane was established by fitting the experimental data to various filtration fouling models given in the literature. The operating mode in the second equipment was batch concentration, and additional experiments were carried out with an UF membrane (2 kDa), and with a NF membrane (with MWCO in the range 150–300 Da). CONCLUSIONS: The three operating modes tested provided different rejection levels of organic matter; among them, the most effective procedure tested was batch concentration mode using a NF membrane. Copyright © 2007 Society of Chemical Industry     

Accurate estimation of environment parameters from ultrasonic data

This paper describes a robust and accurate ultrasonic sensing system for a mobile robot. The system continuously updates a local map of the environment in which obstacles are represented by straight lines or points in a robot centered coordinate frame. The presented algorithms use a Kalman filter for the reduction of the noise in the ultrasonic data and use a systematical error correction (‘bundle correction’) to reduce the uncertainty in obstacle direction. Experiments are carried out in simulation and with a real mobile robot system. Results show that the accuracy with which line parameters can be estimated is in the order of 1 degree for the orientation and about 2 cm for the position. The effect of the bundle correction is significant and maximal when the robot approaches walls under a small angle.     

New chemical structural features of coal. The structure of coal products

The object of this paper is to demonstrate the usefulness of the transalkylation reaction for determining chemical structural features of products derived from coal. For example, the method is applied to derivatized coals, coals modified by thermolysis, and materials physically or chemically separated from coals. Data are presented for the pyridine soluble and insoluble parts of two coals, an O-methylated coal, a Birch reduced coal, a solvent refined coal, and a coke. Similarities and differences in chemical make-up of these materials are discussed.     

XV. Yeast sequencing reports. Isolation and DNA sequence of the STE13 gene encoding dipeptidyl aminopeptidase

We have isolated a mutant which exhibits partial constitutivity for a -specific gene expression in α cells. The wild-type gene was cloned and demonstrated to be allelic to the STE13 gene, which encodes the dipeptidyl aminopeptidase involved in processing of the α-factor prepropheromone. Thus, the mating defect of the ste13 mutations in α cells may result both from the production of incompletely processed α-factor and from the increased expression of a -specific genes. The STE13 open reading frame of 931 amino acids contains a putative membrane-spanning segment near its amino terminus and is 31% identical to a second yeast dipeptidyl aminopeptidase (DAP2). A null mutant of STE13 has been constructed: it is viable and sporulation-proficient. The sequence has been deposited in the GenBank data library under Accession Number L21944.     

Preparation,Properties and Applications of the Hybrid Organic/Inorganic Nanocomposite Based on Nanoporous Carbon Matrix

Journal of Inorganic and Organometallic Polymers and Materials - Nanoporous carbon matrix was prepared by the sol–gel process from pyrogallol-formaldehyde (PF) mixtures in water using picric...     

Compositional reasoning using intervals and time reversal

Interval Temporal Logic (ITL) is an established formalism for reasoning about time periods. We investigate some simple kinds of ITL formulas which have application to compositional reasoning and furthermore are closed under conjunction and the conventional temporal operator known both as “box” and “always”. Such closures help us modularly construct formulas from simple building blocks in a way which preserves useful compositional properties. The most important class considered here is called the 2-to-1 formulas. They offer an attractive framework for analysing sequential composition in ITL and provide the formal basis for most of the subsequent presentation. A key contribution of this work concerns a useful and apparently new and quite elementary mathematical theorem that 2-to-1 formulas are closed under “box”. We also use a natural form of time symmetry with 2-to-1 formulas. This extends known facts about such formulas by looking at them in reverse. An important example involves showing that 2-to-1 formulas are also closed under a variant of “box” for prefix subintervals rather than suffix ones. We then apply the compositional formulas obtained with time symmetry to analyse concurrent behaviour involving mutual exclusion in both Peterson’s algorithm and a new and more abstract one. At present, our study of mutual exclusion mainly serves as a kind of experimental “proof of concept” and research tool to develop and illustrate some of the logical framework’s promising features. We also discuss how time symmetry sometimes assists in reducing reasoning in ITL to conventional linear-time temporal logic.     

一种基于并联机构的航天器姿态模拟装置的设计开发

航天器发射升空前进行地面测试和试验是航天器研制过程中的重要环节。文中针对一种基于并联机构的姿态模拟装置的设计开发,从位置分析、速度分析和虚拟样机的建造和仿真分析等方面对3UPS-PU并联机构进行研究,完成姿态模拟装置的设计,为航天器装配、试验和测试设备的设计提供一种新的思路。     

L-Ascorbic acid in nonenzymatic reactions

The influence of the water content, molar ratio, time and temperature on the formation of nondialysable melanoidins produced by the interaction ofl-ascorbic acid and glycine has been studied. The isolated polymers have been characterized by spectrum analysis and fractionated using gel chromatography. The rate constants of the reaction for temperatures of 90°C, 100°C and 110°C have been calculated and are (0.84±0.29) x 10^?5 x s^?1, (1.33±0.14) x 10^?5 x s^?1 and (5.30±0.37) x 10^?5 x s^?1 respectively. The activation energy of the reaction has been determined to be 106.07±32.47 kJ/mol.