Potential of diffuse scatterer interferometry for monitoring CO2 storage sites in European contexts (land cover types)

This article proposes to test the feasibility of long-term surface deformation monitoring based on synthetic aperture radar (SAR) interferometry on carbon dioxide (CO₂) storage sites with land cover representative of potential European injection sites (agricultural or forests with minimum built-up land cover). Because no operational injection site is currently active in Europe, a SAR data set (based on EnviSAT–ASAR spaceborne data) is simulated by combining SAR scenes acquired over a potential future European injection site with deformation measurements from SAR analysis carried out on the In-Salah (Algeria) CO₂ injection demonstrator site. The study shows that under such conditions, both persistent scatterer interferometry (PSI) and diffuse scatterer (DS) interferometry appear insufficient to provide a sufficiently dense measurement network to characterize surface deformation correctly. Alternative solutions, to be investigated in further studies, include the use of data archives with shorter acquisition time spans (e.g. Sentinel-1 data when available) or installation of corner reflectors. The cost of the latter mixed space/ground solution must be evaluated with respect to conventional ground-based measurement methods in the proposed context.     

Multi-month memory effects on early summer vegetative activity in semi-arid South Africa and their spatial heterogeneity

In semi-arid African regions (annual rainfall between 200 and 600 mm), variability of vegetative activity is mainly due to the rainfall of the current rainy season. In most of South Africa, the rainy season occurs from October to March. On average, vegetative activity lags rainfall by 1 to 2 months. The interannual variability in early summer (December to September) normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) depends primarily on precipitation at the beginning (October to November) of the rainy season. However, once this primary control is removed, the residual interannual variability in NDVI highlights a double memory effect: a 1-year effect, referred to as Mem₁, and a 7- to 10-month effect, referred to as Mem₂. This article aims at better describing the influence of soil and vegetation characteristics on these two memory effects. The data sets used in this study are as follows: (1) a 19-year NDVI time series from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellites, (2) rainfall records from a network of 1160 rain-gauge stations compiled by the Water Research Commission (WRC), (3) vegetation types from Global Land Cover (GLC) 2000 and (4) soil characteristics from the soil and terrain database for Southern Africa (SOTERSAF). Results indicate that among 20–30% of NDVI variance that is not explained by the concurrent rainfall, one-third is explained by the two memory effects. Mem₁ is found to have maximum effect in the northwest of our study domain, near the Botswana boundary, in the South Kalahari. Associated conditions are open grasslands growing on Arenosols. Mem₁ is less important in the southeast, particularly in open grassland with shrubs growing on Cambisols. Thus, Mem₁ mainly depends on soil texture. Mem₂ is more widespread and its influence is the greatest in the centre, the south and the east of our domain. It is related to rainfall from January to April, which controls, beyond the intervening dry season, the interannual variations of NDVI (December to September) at the beginning of the next rainy season. Through these new findings, this article emphasizes again the high potential of remote-sensing techniques to monitor and understand the dynamics of semi-arid environments.     

Shape-based Invariant Texture Indexing

This paper introduces a new texture analysis scheme, which is invariant to local geometric and radiometric changes. The proposed methodology relies on the topographic map of images, obtained from the connected components of level sets. This morphological tool, providing a multi-scale and contrast-invariant representation of images, is shown to be well suited to texture analysis. We first make use of invariant moments to extract geometrical information from the topographic map. This yields features that are invariant to local similarities or local affine transformations. These features are invariant to any local contrast change. We then relax this invariance by computing additional features that are invariant to local affine contrast changes and investigate the resulting analysis scheme by performing classification and retrieval experiments on three texture databases. The obtained experimental results outperform the current state of the art in locally invariant texture analysis.     

Experimental investigation of water droplet–air flow interaction in a non-reacting PEM fuel cell channel

It has been well documented that water production in PEM fuel cells occurs in discrete locations, resulting in the formation and growth of discrete droplets on the gas diffusion layer (GDL) surface within the gas flow channels (GFCs). This research uses a simulated fuel cell GFC with three transparent walls in conjunction with a high speed fluorescence photometry system to capture videos of dynamically deforming droplets. Such videos clearly show that the droplets undergo oscillatory deformation patterns. Although many authors have previously investigated the air flow induced droplet detachment, none of them have studied these oscillatory modes. The novelty of this work is to process and analyze the recorded videos to gather information on the droplets induced oscillation. Plots are formulated to indicate the dominant horizontal and vertical deformation frequency components over the range of sizes of droplets from formation to detachment. The system is also used to characterize droplet detachment size at a variety of channel air velocities. A simplified model to explain the droplet oscillation mechanism is provided as well.     

Application of iterative dynamic programming to optimal control of a distiltation column

Iterative Dynamic Programming (IDP) is proven to be a useful technique for solving constrained dynamic optimisation problems. A high purity binary distillation column model has been chosen to investigate some of the IDP properties as well as its applicability. The investigated problems cover transitions from one steady state to another with the minimization of a quadratic cost function with associated terminal constraints.     

CuII Pyrazolyl-Benzimidazole Dinuclear Complexes with Remarkable Antioxidant Activity

Three dinuclear coordination complexes generated from 1-n-butyl-2-((5-methyl-1H-pyrazole-3-yl)methyl)-1H-benzimidazole ( L ), have been synthesized and characterized spectroscopically and structurally by single crystal X-ray diffraction analysis. Reaction with iron(II) chloride and then copper(II) nitrate led to a co-crystal containing 78 % of [Cu(NO₃)(μ-Cl)( L’ )]₂ ( C₁ ) and 22 % of [Cu(NO₃)(μ-NO₃)( L’ )]₂ ( C₂ ), where L was oxidized to a new ligand L^’ . A mechanism is provided. Reaction with copper chloride led to the dinuclear complex [Cu(Cl)(μ-Cl)( L) ]₂ ( C₃ ). The presence of N−H⋅⋅⋅O and C−H⋅⋅⋅O intermolecular interactions in the crystal structure of C₁ and C₂ , and C−H⋅⋅⋅N and C−H⋅⋅⋅Cl hydrogen bonding in the crystal structure of C₃ led to supramolecular structures that were confirmed by Hirshfeld surface analysis. The ligands and their complexes were tested for free radical scavenging activity and ferric reducing antioxidant power. The complex C₁ / C₂ shows remarkable antioxidant activities as compared to the ligand L and reference compounds.     

Extended study on the influence of z-value(s) of single and multicomponent time-temperature integrators on the accuracy of quantitative thermal process assessment

The possibilities and limitations of single- and multicomponent time-temperature integrators (TTIs) for evaluating the impact of thermal processes on a target food attribute with a Ztarget value different from the zTTI value(s) of the TTI is far from sufficiently documented. In this study, several thousand time-temperature profiles were generated by heat transfer simulations based on a wide range of product and process thermal parameters and considering a Ztarget value of 10 degrees C and a reference temperature of 121.1 degrees C, both currently used to assess the safety of food sterilization processes. These simulations included 15 different Ztarget=10 degrees CF121.1 degrees C values in the range 3 to 60 min. The integration of the time-temperature profiles with ZTTI values of 5.5 to 20.5 degrees C in steps of 1 degrees C allowed generation of a large database containing for each combination of product and process parameters the correction factor to apply to the process value FmultiTTI, which was derived from a single- or multicomponent TTI, to obtain the target process value 10 degrees CF121.1 degrees C. The table and the graph results clearly demonstrated that multicomponent TTIs with z-values close to 10 degrees C can be used as an extremely efficient approach when a single-component TTI with a z-value of 10 degrees C is not available. In particular, a two-component TTI with z1 and z2 values respectively above and below the Ztarget value (10 degrees C in this study) would be the best option for the development of a TTI to assess the safety of sterilized foods. Whatever process and product parameters are used, such a TTI allows proper evaluation of the process value 10 degrees CF121.1 degrees C.     

Bioactivity behaviour of biodegradable material comprising bioactive glass

Biocomposite of bioactive glass (BG) with chitosan polymer (CH) is prepared by freeze-drying technique. Obtained material is investigated by using several physico-chemical methods. The XRD and FTIR show the interface bonding interactions between glass and polymer. The specific surface and porosity of biocomposite were determined. In vitro assays were employed to evaluate the effect of chitosan addition on the glass by studying the chemical reactivity and bioactivity of the BG and BG/CH biocomposite after soaking in a simulated body fluid (SBF). The obtained results show the formation of a bioactive hydroxycarbonate apatite (HCA) layer and highlight the bioactivity and the kinetics of chemical reactivity of bioactive glass, particularly after association with chitosan. The BG/CH biocomposite has excellent ability to form an apatite layer. Inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES) highlights the negative effect of chitosan on the silicon release toward the SBF of bioactive glass when in vitro assays.