Spouted bed drying of cork stoppers

The spouted bed is commonly used to dry granular particles as it displays some special characteristics which render it capable of performing cyclic operations, with particles that are very difficult to fluidize under a different type of bed.Information on the characteristic drying rates of cork stoppers is still very limited in the technical and scientific literature, and until now no published data was found on the spouted bed drying of cork stoppers.The characterization of the drying performance of Port wine cork stoppers was carried out in a laboratory scale spouted bed. Characteristic drying curves were determined with 29 mm × 21 mm cork stoppers under several operating conditions. Values for the effective diffusivity were obtained in the range of 1.36 × 10⁻⁹ to 4.44 × 10⁻⁹ m²/s, with the temperature dependence represented by an Arrhenius-type relationship. The activation energy obtained was 28.72 kJ/mol.     

Anodic oxidation of mecoprop herbicide at lead dioxide

The electrochemical oxidation of an aqueous solution containing mecoprop (2-(2-methyl-4-chlorophenoxy)propionic acid) has been studied at PbO₂ anodes by cyclic voltammetry and bulk electrolysis. The influence of current density, hydrodynamic conditions, temperature and pH on the degradation rate and current efficiency is reported. The results obtained show that the use of PbO₂ leads to total mineralization of mecoprop due to the production of oxidant hydroxyl radical electrogenerated from water discharge. The current efficiency for the electro-oxidation of mecoprop is enhanced by low current density, high recycle flow-rates and high temperature. In contrast, the pH effect was not significant. It has also been observed that mecoprop decay kinetics follows a pseudo-first-order reaction and the rate constant increases with rising current density.     

Development of calibration models for quality control in the production of ethylene/propylene copolymers by FTIR spectroscopy,multivariate statistical tools,and artificial neural networks

Principal component regression (PCR), partial least squares (PLS), StepWise ordinary least squares regression (OLS), and back‐propagation artificial neural network (BP‐ANN) are applied here for the determination of the propylene concentration of a set of 83 production samples of ethylene–propylene copolymers from their infrared spectra. The set of available samples was split into (a) a training set, for models calculation; (b) a test set, for selecting the correct number of latent variables in PCR and PLS and the end point of the training phase of BP‐ANN; (c) a production set, for evaluating the predictive ability of the models. The predictive ability of the models is thus evaluated by genuine predictions. The model obtained by StepWise OLS turned out to be the best one, both in fitting and prediction. The study of the breakdown number of samples to be included in the training set showed that at least 52 experiments are necessary to build a reliable and predictive calibration model. It can be concluded that FTIR spectroscopy and OLS can be properly employed for monitoring the synthesis or the final product of ethylene–propylene copolymers, by predicting the concentration of propylene directly along the process line. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2008     

Evaluating reactivity to ecological momentary assessment during smoking cessation.

Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) consists of assessing phenomena in real time in the natural environment. EMA allows for more fine-grained analyses of addictive behavior and minimizes threats to internal validity, such as recall biases and errors. However, because of the intensive monitoring involved in EMA, measurement reactivity is a concern. To test whether EMA with palmtop personal computers induces reactivity, the authors compared smoking-related outcomes between smokers using EMA and those not using EMA during a quit attempt. The use of no-EMA control groups has been rare in reactivity investigations to date. The EMA protocol included event-contingent assessments (smoking episodes, urge episodes) and random assessments. Outcomes included biologically confirmed abstinence and self-report measures of withdrawal, self-efficacy, motivation, affect, and temptations. Participants were smokers motivated to quit (N = 96). They were randomized to 1 of 3 groups: EMA for the week preceding a planned quit date, EMA for the week following the quit date, and no EMA. Abstinence rates did not differ between the groups at Day 7 or at Day 28 postcessation. For the 20 subscales assessed at each of 3 assessment times, there were significant differences between participants with and without EMA experience for 3 subscales at the 1st of 3 assessment times, and significant differences for 3 different subscales at the 3rd assessment time. These differences suggest some reactivity to EMA, although the inconsistent pattern across time indicates that further research is needed to definitively conclude that EMA induces reactivity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Performance evaluation of a biotrickling filter degrading mixtures of hydrophobic and hydrophilic compounds

The removal of a mixture of painting solvents from waste air using a biofiltration process was evaluated in this project. The pollutants removed included hydrophobic (aromatic hydrocarbons) and hydrophilic (water soluble ketones and esters) compounds. A trickle bed reactor with a defined immobilized mixed culture on polyethylene Pall rings was utilized in this biodegradation study. The removal efficiencies (RE) of the individual groups of pollutants during loading experiments were determined. An increase of the aromatic hydrocarbons loading resulted in a drop of their RE_AROM with no effect on the RE value of ketones. The overloading of ketones caused a rapid drop in RE_AROM and a small drop in RE_KET. To achieve a restoration of the biocatalyst degradation properties after the increase in loading, an addition of phosphate to the aqueous medium was implemented which successfully restored the removal efficiency.     

Aerobic degradation by white‐rot fungi of trichloroethylene (TCE) and mixtures of TCE and perchloroethylene (PCE)

BACKGROUND: Trichloroethylene (TCE) and perchloroethylene (PCE) are considered among the most important groundwater pollutants around the world. These compounds are usually found together in polluted environments but little is known about the ability of microorganisms to simultaneously degrade TCE and PCE. RESULTS: Data showed that several species of white‐rot fungi, including Trametes versicolor, Ganoderma lucidum, and Irpex lacteus, degrade substantial levels of TCE in pure culture. T. versicolor was chosen for further study since it degraded higher levels of TCE than the other organisms. Initial glucose concentration and reoxygenation of samples increased the amount of TCE dechlorination, but no significant difference in percentage TCE degradation was observed. T. versicolor was able to degrade 34.1 and 47.7% of PCE and TCE added as mixtures (containing 5 and 10 mg L⁻¹, respectively). CONCLUSIONS: The degradation ability of TCE was extended to other species of white‐rot fungi. Percentage degradation as well as chloride release from mixtures of TCE and PCE showed that T. versicolor degrades mixtures of TCE and PCE almost as well as its ability to degrade individually added TCE or PCE. The results suggest the potential promise of T. versicolor for bioremediation of TCE and PCE in the environment. Copyright © 2008 Society of Chemical Industry     

Kinetic modelling of textural changes in ready-to-eat breakfast cereals during soaking in semi-skimmed milk

Summary Ready‐to‐eat breakfast cereals immersed in milk undergo undesirable changes in texture because of sudden moisture uptake. The textural changes are ascribable to a plasticizing effect of water, which modifies the mechanical strength of products by softening the starch/protein matrix. In this work, some textural parameters of different cereal flakes were derived from the force–displacement curves monitored during 300 s of immersion in milk. Hardness loss, deformability increment and changes in the force–displacement curve profile were calculated and plotted against soaking time. The application of a sugar coating process to a model cereal flake increased the initial product hardness and improved the preservation of the textural parameters during immersion. The Peleg model closely fitted the experimental data, with regression coefficients from 0.967 to 0.999.     

"The association between emotional upset and cardiac arrhythmia during daily life": Correction to Carels et al. (2003).

Reports an error in the original article by R. A. Carels et al (Journal of Consulting & Clinical Psychology, 2003[Jun], Vol 71[3], 613-618). On page 615, Lines 18, 20, 22, of Table 1, the data in the rows that read "Tachycardia in min per hr," "Repetitive PVCs per hr," and "PVCs per hr" are incorrectly reported in the n and % columns. They should have been reported in the M and SD columns. The corrected table is provided. (The following abstract of this article originally appeared in record 2003-00756-023.) Ventricular arrhythmia exhibits considerable within-subject variability that cannot be attributed to clinical status alone. This investigation examined the extent to which cardiac arrhythmia was associated with psychological and physical factors assessed during the hour preceding arrhythmic or nonarrhythmic activity. Approximately twice hourly, 46 patients randomly completed a diary assessing mood and physical symptoms during 24-hr electrocardiographic monitoring. Greater negative emotion was associated with increased arrhythmia. Additionally, greater negative emotion was significantly associated with increased arrhythmia among participants in a low left ventricular ejection fraction group (LVEF). However, this relationship between negative emotion and arrhythmia was not... (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Shear mode coupling and tilted grain growth of A1N thin films in BAW resonators.

Polycrystalline A1N thin films were deposited by RF reactive magnetron sputtering on Pt(111)/Ti electrode films. The substrates were tilted by an angle ranging from 40 degrees to 70 degrees with respect to the target normal. A low deposition temperature and a high sputter gas pressure were found ideal for tilted growth. The resulting grain tilt angle amounts to about half the substrate tilt angle. For coupling evaluation, 5 GHz solidly mounted resonator structures have been realized. The tilted grain A1N films exhibited a permittivity in the 9.5-10.5 range and loss tangent of 0.3%. Two shear modes as well as the longitudinal mode could be clearly identified. The coupling coefficient k2(eff) of the fundamental thickness shear mode (TS0) was found to be about 0.5%, which is compatible with a c-axis tilt of about 6 degrees.