Adhesion Effects of Intermediate Layers on the Densification of Ceramic Powders

In the ceramic technology the first step to produce sintered bodies is the manufacturing of powders which then are densified. The adhesion mechanisms between the single particles and the agglomerates produced from them determine the densification process. Starting from theoretical considerations adhesion mechanisms, such as solid bridge formation, adhesive bonding and glide-promoting effects, are discussed in principle. Subsequently, the effects of surface-active substances on the densification behaviour of clay-ceramics and oxide-ceramic bodies are discussed. Further, the evaluation of the action of additives to the powder mixtures on the microstructure of the compacts, such as porsity and texture, leads to a compaction equation which describes the transition from the powder pile to a densified green body.     

Polymerization Catalysis in Liquid Propylene: High Activities and Molecular Weights in Propylene/CO Copolymerization Reactions

Summary: The dicationic [(dppp)Pd(NCCH₃)₂](BF₄)₂ catalyst (dppp = 1,3‐bis(diphenylphosphino)propane) was applied in a liquid monomer, two phase process for the CO/propene copolymerization reaction. For the first time it was possible to synthesize propene/CO copolymers with an activity up to 7 500 g/(mol · h) and molecular weights of 500 000 g/mol. Activities up to 40 000 g/(mol · h) could be obtained with the use of the unsymmetric catalyst [(CF₃‐dppp)Pd(NCCH₃)](BF₄)₂ (CF₃‐dppp = 1‐diphenylphosphino‐3‐bis[3,5‐di(trifluormethyl)phenyl]phosphinopropane) in homogeneous liquid propene solution.

Granules found after copolymerization.     

Surface-state electrons on a hydrogen film. 1. Annealing of the film

We have investigated the surface of thin films (thickness 2 µm) of solid H₂ between 1.5 and 4.2 K by measuring the ac conductivity of surface-state electrons (SSE). The films were prepared on a glass substrate by quench condensation at 1.5 K and were therefore initially strongly disordered. In fact the surface of the virgin films before any heat treatment was so rough that no current due to SSE could be observed. Annealing the films decreased the surface roughness and gave rise to a thermal-activation-type temperature dependence of the SSE conductivity. By proper heat treatment up to 8 K the activation energy could be reduced to 10k _B.On leave from the Hyogo University of Teacher Education, Shimokume 942-1, Yashiro, 673-14, Japan.     

A New Research Infrastructure for Investigating Flow Hydraulics and Process Equipment at Critical Fluid Properties

An optimized equipment design for natural gas processing and liquefaction plants becomes increasingly difficult with changing process conditions: Particularly low values of surface tension create rising challenges on the design of phase separators and column internals. The TERESA test rig at HZDR was designed to allow the investigation of multiphase thermohydraulics and phase separator performance under critical fluid properties in industrial dimensions. A versatile pipe test section is available in DN200 and equipment internals may be tested in a sectional DN300/DN500 test separator. The applied test fluid shows a high vapor-liquid density difference between 1470 and 940 kg m⁻³, viscosity as low as 0.12 mm²s⁻¹, and surface tension down to 1.3 mN m⁻¹. Volumetric liquid and vapor flow rates may be varied up to 9 and 530 m³h⁻¹ in the test rig, respectively.     

Online Bi-Objective Scheduling for IaaS Clouds Ensuring Quality of Service

This paper focuses on a bi-objective experimental evaluation of online scheduling in the Infrastructure as a Service model of Cloud computing regarding income and power consumption objectives. In this model, customers have the choice between different service levels. Each service level is associated with a price per unit of job execution time, and a slack factor that determines the maximal time span to deliver the requested amount of computing resources. The system, via the scheduling algorithms, is responsible to guarantee the corresponding quality of service for all accepted jobs. Since we do not consider any optimistic scheduling approach, a job cannot be accepted if its service guarantee will not be observed assuming that all accepted jobs receive the requested resources. In this article, we analyze several scheduling algorithms with different cloud configurations and workloads, considering the maximization of the provider income and minimization of the total power consumption of a schedule. We distinguish algorithms depending on the type and amount of information they require: knowledge free, energy-aware, and speed-aware. First, to provide effective guidance in choosing a good strategy, we present a joint analysis of two conflicting goals based on the degradation in performance. The study addresses the behavior of each strategy under each metric. We assess the performance of different scheduling algorithms by determining a set of non-dominated solutions that approximate the Pareto optimal set. We use a set coverage metric to compare the scheduling algorithms in terms of Pareto dominance. We claim that a rather simple scheduling approach can provide the best energy and income trade-offs. This scheduling algorithm performs well in different scenarios with a variety of workloads and cloud configurations.     

Are My Neighbours Ageing Yet? Local Dimensions of Demographic Change in German Cities

Among the highly developed countries, demographic ageing is particularly advanced in Germany. Accentuated by migration, there is great regional variation in the progress of demographic change. Within urban areas, residential neighbourhoods differ considerably in their demographic composition and perspectives. Based on municipal data, this paper examines regional variability in the diversity and pace of neighbourhood-level ageing. Focusing on the Rhine-Ruhr conurbation in North Rhine-Westphalia, the analysis outlines at what pace ageing proceeds in a variety of neighbourhoods, which attract no constant influx of working-age migrants. After decades of suburbanisation, in the period from 1998 to 2008 regional migration concentrated on the central districts of large cities. More profoundly in the most prosperous cities growing in population than in other cities, childless working-age adults separate from other age groups and family types in selected central city quarters. The findings suggest that spatial differentials in ageing are likely to affect future location decisions and, thereby, regional and local prosperity.     

Versioning XML-based office documents

The ability to reliably merge independent updates of a document is a crucial prerequisite to efficient collaboration in office work. However, merge support for common office document standards like OpenDocument or OfficeOpenXML is still in its infancy. In this paper, we present a consistent versioning model for XML documents in general including merge support. This is achieved by using context-aware fingerprints that identify edit operations and allow for a conflict detection. We show how to extract tracked changes from office documents and map them on our delta model. Experimental results indicate that our fingerprinting technique is efficient and reliable.     

Support vector classification of proteomic profile spectra based on feature extraction with the bi-orthogonal discrete wavelet transform

Automatic classification of high-resolution mass spectrometry data has increasing potential to support physicians in diagnosis of diseases like cancer. The proteomic data exhibit variations among different disease states. A precise and reliable classification of mass spectra is essential for a successful diagnosis and treatment. The underlying process to obtain such reliable classification results is a crucial point. In this paper such a method is explained and a corresponding semi automatic parameterization procedure is derived. Thereby a simple straightforward classification procedure to assign mass spectra to a particular disease state is derived. The method is based on an initial preprocessing stage of the whole set of spectra followed by the bi-orthogonal discrete wavelet transform (DWT) for feature extraction. The approximation coefficients calculated from the scaling function exhibit a high peak pattern matching property and feature a denoising of the spectrum. The discriminating coefficients, selected by the Kolmogorov–Smirnov test are finally used as features for training and testing a support vector machine with both a linear and a radial basis kernel. For comparison the peak areas obtained with the it ClinProt-System ¹ [33] were analyzed using the same support vector machines. The introduced approach was evaluated on clinical MALDI-MS data sets with two classes each originating from cancer studies. The cross validated error rates using the wavelet coefficients where better than those obtained from the peak areas².