BASF NanoSelect? Technology: Innovative Supported Pd- and Pt-based Catalysts for Selective Hydrogenation Reactions

An innovative BASF catalyst manufacturing technology (NanoSelect?) is introduced which allows production of heterogeneous catalysts with excellent control over metal crystallite sizes. NanoSelect? technology enabled the development of Pd catalysts which are lead-free Lindlar catalyst replacements in alkyne-to-cis-alkene hydrogenations. NanoSelect? Pt catalysts showed excellent chemoselectivity in substituted nitro-arene hydrogenation reactions without build-up of hydroxylamine intermediates. All NanoSelect? produced catalysts show markedly higher activity per gram of metal leading to ten-fold less use of precious metal.     

PLLA/Flax Mat/Balsa Bio-Sandwich—Environmental Impact and Simplified Life Cycle Analysis

In the present paper the environmental impact of biocomposites and bio-sandwich materials production are evaluated, using simplified Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) following the procedure recommended in the ISO 14044 standard. The materials are dimensioned and evaluated by comparing with reference materials, glass mat reinforced unsatured polyester and glass mat/unsatured polyester/balsa sandwich. The results indicate that bio-sandwich materials are very attractive in terms environmental impact. However further improvements in biocomposite and bio-sandwich mechanical strength are necessary if they are to be used in transport application compared to glass/polyester and glass/polyester/balsa sandwich.     

Quantitative biology of single neurons

The building blocks of complex biological systems are single cells. Fundamental insights gained from single-cell analysis promise to provide the framework for understanding normal biological systems development as well as the limits on systems/cellular ability to respond to disease. The interplay of cells to create functional systems is not well understood. Until recently, the study of single cells has concentrated primarily on morphological and physiological characterization. With the application of new highly sensitive molecular and genomic technologies, the quantitative biochemistry of single cells is now accessible.     

To boldly go: an occam-π mission to engineer emergence

Future systems will be too complex to design and implement explicitly. Instead, we will have to learn to engineer complex behaviours indirectly: through the discovery and application of local rules of behaviour, applied to simple process components, from which desired behaviours predictably emerge through dynamic interactions between massive numbers of instances. This paper describes a process-oriented architecture for fine-grained concurrent systems that enables experiments with such indirect engineering. Examples are presented showing the differing complex behaviours that can arise from minor (non-linear) adjustments to low-level parameters, the difficulties in suppressing the emergence of unwanted (bad) behaviour, the unexpected relationships between apparently unrelated physical phenomena (shown up by their separate emergence from the same primordial process swamp) and the ability to explore and engineer completely new physics (such as force fields) by their emergence from low-level process interactions whose mechanisms can only be imagined, but not built, at the current time.     

A participatory process for the design of housing for a First Nations Community

First Nation (Indigenous) on-reserve housing in Canada is in crisis due to severe shortages, high reported instances of mould contamination, overcrowding and structural deficiencies. The Kitamaat reserve of the Haisla First Nation provides one example. The intent of the study reported here was to engage with the Haisla to develop a culturally appropriate, environmentally responsive and energy-efficient housing type that the Haisla could implement in the future. This work was undertaken by Marceau-Evans-Johnson Architects in collaboration with researchers at the University of Victoria. In this article, the circumstances leading to the present housing crisis are reviewed, the consultative design process with the Haisla and its outcomes are described, and the concept design solution which was co-developed for future housing is presented.     

Accommodation of China’s Industrial Heritage in Urban Conservation Practices (Ⅱ)

In recent years, the conservation of industrial heritage in China has gained increasing attention within the broader context of urban conservation practices. For both policy-makers and scholars, accommodating this industrial heritage will emerge as a pertinent issue for consideration as a growing number of industrial architectural legacies dating from the Republican and Maoist eras come under (re)development pressures. This paper thus traces the development of industrial heritage conservation practices in China and discusses several dilemmas intrinsic to this type of conservation, including issues of authenticity, representativeness, and distinction. Based on comparative case studies from China and other international precedents, this paper also seeks to illustrate the different approaches that could be pursued while still attaining a balance between competing interests and claims.     

The effect of gravity on R410A condensing flow in horizontal circular tubes

Heat transfer characteristics of R410A condensation in horizontal tubes with the inner diameter of 3.78?mm under normal and reduced gravity are investigated numerically. The results indicate that the heat transfer coefficients increase with increasing gravitational accelerations at a lower mass flux, whereas their differences under varying gravity are insignificant at a higher mass flux. The liquid film thickness decreases with increasing gravity at the top part of the tube, whereas the average liquid film thickness is nearly the same under different gravity accelerations at the same vapor quality and mass flux. The local heat transfer coefficients increase with increasing gravity at the top of the tube and decrease with increasing gravity at the bottom. The proportion of the thin liquid film region is important for the overall heat transfer coefficients for the condensing flow. A vortex with its core lying at the bottom of the tube is observed under normal gravity because of the combined effect of gravity and the mass sink at the liquid–vapor interface, whereas the stream traces point to the liquid–vapor interfaces under zero gravity. The mass transfer rate under zero gravity is much lower than that of normal gravity.     

Comparison of the performance of a reduced-order dynamic PLS soft sensor with different updating schemes for digester control

In this work, the previously developed reduced-order dynamic PLS (RO-DPLS) soft sensor is extended to its adaptive version to address frequent process changes in a pulp digester. The properties of four model update schemes and the corresponding data scaling methods are investigated through one simulated case study and two industrial case studies of Kamyr digesters. Our findings obtained through extensive experiments are presented, which are expected to provide useful information and some guidance to practitioners. Finally, the effectiveness of the recursive RO-DPLS soft sensor is demonstrated through a digester closed-loop control case study, which shows that the closed-loop control performance can be significantly improved if the soft sensor prediction is fed back to a PID controller.