Coking kinetics of a Cr2O3/Al2O3 catalyst during 1-butene dehydrogenation: Effect of H2 partial pressure

The influence has been studied of the partial pressure of hydrogen (0–30 kPa) upon the coking rate of a Cr₂O₃/Al₂O₃ commercial catalyst during 1-butene dehydrogenation. Coke deposition has been analysed using a monolayer-multilayer reversible coke growth model (MMRC model). This model provides good fits to the experimental data, within the range of partial pressure of H₂ studied, and allows us to estimate the main kinetic parameters involved in the coking-deactivation process. The results obtained reveal a dual effect of hydrogen: competition against 1-butene for the active sites and the removal of coke precursors from the catalyst surface. Bom effects diminish the coking rate as the H₂ partial pressure is increased.     

The anodic oxidation of thiocyanate ion dissolved as KSCN in dimethylsulphoxide

The anodic oxidation of SCN⁻ ion dissolved as KSCN in dimethylsulphoxide, on platinum electrodes, was investigated at ca 25, 60 and 160°C by means of various non-stationary electrochemical techniques. At low temperatures one anodic and two main cathodic processes were found. The anodic oxidation of SCN⁻ ion yields as primary product the SCN radical, which readily produces (SCN)₂. The latter can be in part reduced back to SCN⁻ ion, because it reacts in part yielding solvated hydrogen ions which cause the second cathodic reaction. In the region of 60°C, no (SCN)₂ cathodic current is observed. In the region of 160°C the only reaction is SCN⁻ ion oxidation and the primary product polymerizes to (SCN)_x, which forms a film on the electrode, causing passivation.

On the basis of kinetic data obtained for the different reactions, a mechanism for the anodic oxidation of the SCN⁻ ion and for the passivating film formation is suggested. The second process only partly fits the Müller model for the electrochemical growth of insoluble layers.     

Chemical Composition Determination at the Bottom Region of a Recovery Boiler Furnace by Direct Minimization of Gibbs Free Energy

An optimization strategy has been applied to describe the chemical composition at the furnace bottom in the Kraft recovery boiler of a pulp production process. The concentrations of each involved chemical species were calculated through an optimization approach, minimizing the Gibbs free energy of the system. Various systems were proposed and tested, assuming different chemical species and phases number. Because serious initialization problems were found at this stage for some of the proposed systems, an optimization heuristic method (PSO) was used for the first approach to the problem. Once the appropriate phases number and chemical species in the system were determined, the initialization problems disappeared and the use of a deterministic optimization method (SQP) became viable. The proposed approach has shown to be satisfactory to reproduce industrial data and also data reported in the open scientific literature.     

Optimizing content placement in a peer-assisted VoD architecture

Recently, a new peer-assisted architecture to build content delivery systems has been presented. This architecture is based on the use of the storage capacity of end-users’ set-top boxes (STBs), connected in a peer-to-peer (P2P) manner in order to help the content servers in the delivery process. In these systems, the contents are usually split into a set of smaller pieces, called sub-streams, which are randomly injected at the STBs. The present paper is focused on Video on Demand (VoD) streaming and it is assumed that the STB-based content delivery system is deployed over the global Internet, where the clients are distributed over different ISP networks. In this scenario, three different strategies are studied for increasing the percentage of data uploaded by peers, in order to offload the content servers as much as possible. First of all, a new mechanism is presented which determines which sub-stream has to be placed at which STB by a Non-Linear Programming (NLP) formulation. A different strategy for reducing the content server load is to take advantage of the available bandwidth in the different ISP networks. In this sense, two new mechanisms for forwarding the VoD requests to different ISP networks are presented. Finally, the present paper also shows that in some situations the available uplink bandwidth is associated with STBs that do not have the required sub-streams. Regarding this concern, a new mechanism has been designed that dynamically re-allocates some streams, which are being transmitted from specific STBs, to different STBs, in order to find the necessary resources to start new streaming sessions.     

Efficient wavelet-based ECG processing for single-lead FHR extraction

This paper describes a novel model for fetal heart rate (FHR) monitoring from single-lead mother?s abdomen ECG (AECG) measurements. This novel method is divided in two stages: the first step consists on a one-step wavelet-based preprocessing for simultaneous baseline and high-frequency noise suppression, while the second stage efficiently detects fetal QRS complexes allowing FHR monitoring. The presented structure has been simplified as much as possible, in order to reduce computational cost and thus enable possible custom hardware implementations. Moreover, the proposed scheme and its fixed-point modeling have been tested using real abdominal ECG signals, which allow the validation of the presented approach and provide high accuracy.     

蓝牙和IEEE802.11无线局域网共存问题探析

使用WiFi(Wireless Fidelity)IEEE 802.11b/g协议的无线局域网(WLAN)技术已经成为PC和笔记本电脑的标准而正在快速扩散到PDA(Personal Digital Assistant)和其它便携式设备。与此同时,蓝牙作为耳机,麦克风连到各种个样的无线设备的串口线的替代品已经越来越普遍。这两种无线协议都工作于2.40至2.48GHzISM(工业,科学和医疗)射频带。WiFi使用12个带宽为22MHz重叠的频道其中一个,而蓝在带宽为79MHz范围跳频[3]。因此,无论WiFi正在使用哪个频道两个系统间会存在互相干扰和共存的问题导致数据吞吐量的降低。实现IEEE802.11 WLAN协议的设使用FEC(Foward Error Correction)纠错技术来减轻于其它无线网的干扰。在该文中,我们将对RS(Reed Solomon)编码与BS(Binary Convolutional)编码使用于解决WLAN于BT共存问题的相对有效性进行一个调查并作出结论。     

Proteolytic and lipolytic activities of mould strains isolated from Spanish dry fermented sausages

Proteolytic and lipolytic activities of ninePenicillium strain and oneMucor strain previously isolated from Spanish dry fermented sausages have been studied.P. camemberti STCC 2267 andAspergillus oryzae ATCC 9362 were also used. Myofibrillar and sarcoplasmic proteins as well as fat extracted from pork meat and -naphthyl acetate, -naphthyl caprilate and -naphthyl laurate were used as substrates. Mould strains were grown in an enrichment medium prepared at pH 5.5 and 7.0 and malt extract broth. Strains were incubated at 18°C and 22°C. Myofibrillar proteins and -naphthyl caprilate were the most hydrolysed substrates. The greater enzymatic activities were observed at a pH 7.0 and 22°C. However, five mould strains showed considerable enzymatic activities under conditions similar to those used for ripening dry fermented sausages. These strains can be assayed as potential starter cultures for industrial sausage production.     

Fractional-Fourier-transform calculation through the fast-Fourier-transform algorithm

A method for the calculation of the fractional Fourier transform (FRT) by means of the fast Fourier transform (FFT) algorithm is presented. The process involves mainly two FFT's in cascade; thus the process has the same complexity as this algorithm. The method is valid for fractional orders varying from -1 to 1. Scaling factors for the FRT and Fresnel diffraction when calculated through the FFT are discussed.     

Microstructural aspects of hypervelocity impact cratering and jetting in copper

Light and transmission electron microscopy techniques have been applied in observations of hypervelocity impact craters in two different copper targets: a 38 m grain size mill-processed target, and a 763 m grain size annealed target, the smaller grained target being impacted with a 1100 aluminium sphere and the larger grained target being impacted with a soda-lime glass sphere, at velocities near 6 km s^–1. Both target craters exhibited dynamic recrystallization near the crater wall. The jetting associated with these two craters was very different. Considerably more plastic flow and a larger rim characterized the larger grained target. No significant melt-related phenomena were observed either near the crater wall or in the jetted rim for either crater. Consequently, the principal features of crater formation involve extreme plastic flow in the solid state. Microbands were observed to occur profusely in a zone below the smaller grained mill-processed target crater while more profuse and extremely long, unidirectional bundles of microbands (which were coincident with traces of {1 1 1} planes) occurred below the annealed larger grained target crater. These observations attest to the dominant and unique role played by deformation microbands in cratering in copper, because essentially no deformation twins were observed in either target.     

Endoscopic sclerotherapy is useful in Dieulafoy''s disease

1.5% Capsaicin (Cap) or Vehicle was respectively used to treat the right or left sciatic nerve in 20 Sprague-Dawley rats. On the seventh day, the 20 rats were at random divided into electroacupuncture (EA) group and non-EA group, the spinal cord corresponding to the afferent segments of sciatic nerve was taken out for observing the changes of acetylcholinesterase (AChE) activity and [3H]-quinuelidinylbenzylate (QNB) binding sites in the spinal dorsal horn (SDH). The results were as follows: (1) EA "Huantiao" could enhance AChE activity in the SDH and decrease [3H]-QNB binding sites; (2) Cap treating sciatice nerve could weaken AChE activity in the SDH and merease [3H]-QNB binding sites; (3) Cap treatment could inhibit or partially inhibit the actions of EA as above. The results indicated that ACh participated in the primary afferent of acupuncture information and might exist in Cap-sensitive neurons.