Book reviews

Public Housing: Current Trends and Future Developments. edited by David Clapham and John English London: doom Helm, 1987.174pp. £22.50 cloth.

Shelter, Settlement and Development. edited by Lloyd Rodwin, Foreword by Dr Arcot Ramachandran, London: Allen & Unwin, 1987. 476 + xviipp. £30.

Building Communities the Co‐operative Way. by Johnston Birchall, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1988 223pp. £14.95.

The Weller Way. The Story of the Welter Street"s Housing Co‐operative. by Alan McDonald, London: Faber and Faber 1987 222pp. £2.95.

The Property Owing Democracy. edited by John Doling, Janet Ford and Bruce Stafford: Gower, 1988. 259pp. £25.     

Using artificial fluorescent particles as tracers of livestock wastes within an agricultural catchment

Evidence for the movement of agricultural slurry and associated pollutants into surface waters is often anecdotal, particularly with relation to its ‘particulate’ components which receive less attention than ‘bio-available’ soluble phases. To assess the extent of movement of slurry particles artificial fluorescent particles were mixed with slurry and applied to a field sub-catchment within a headwater catchment. Particles were 2-60 μm in diameter and two different densities, 2.7 and 1.2 g cm^-3 representing ‘inorganic’ and ‘organic’ material. Water samples from the field and catchment outlet were collected during two storm events following slurry application and analysed for particle and suspended sediment concentrations (SSC). SSC from the field and catchment outlet always formed clockwise hysteresis loops indicating sediment exhaustion and particles of the two densities were always found to be positively correlated. Particles from the field formed clockwise hysteresis loops during the first discharge event after slurry application, but anti-clockwise hysteresis loops during the second monitored event which indicated a depletion of readily mobilisable particles. Particles from the catchment outlet always formed anticlockwise hysteresis loops. Particle size became finer spatially, between field and catchment outlet, and temporally, between successive storm events. The results indicate that slurry particles may be readily transported within catchments but that different areas may contribute to pollutant loads long after the main peak in SSC has passed. The density of the particles did not appear to have any effect on particle transport however the size of the particles may play a more important role in the 2-60 μm range.     

Thermodynamic analysis of the data on the solubility of nitrogen in gamma iron at a high pressure

An equation is proposed for an isotherm of the solubility of gaseous nitrogen in γ iron at a high gas pressure. This equation takes into account the partial volume of nitrogen in austenite. This equation is used to analyze the experimental data on the solubility of nitrogen in γ iron at a nitrogen pressure of up to 348 MPa and to estimate the experimental value of the Wagner interaction parameter in austenite at a temperature of 1273 K (? _N ^N = 6.3 ± 1.0). This value is compared to the theoretical value (? _N ^N = 9.0) that corresponds to the interaction potential between nitrogen atoms in austenite that was determined earlier using Mössbauer spectroscopy. The possible causes of the discrepancy between the experimental and calculated values of parameter ? _N ^N are discussed.     

Physicochemical laws of the atmospheric sulfuric acid leaching of the copper—nickel concentrates from the beneficiation of disseminated ores

A physicochemical substantiation is performed for the organization of a combined flotation hydrometallurgical technology for the processing of the copper??nickel concentrates from the beneficiation of disseminated ores. This technology is used instead of the traditional pyrometallurgical technology providing the production of a sulfide concentrate with a total nickel, copper, and cobalt content of 14.64% for the through extraction of (wt %) 92.2 Ni, 74.0 Cu, 95.3 Co, 91.9 Pt, 95.9 Pd, and 96 Rh to the concentrate.     

Hardness of single-crystal CVD diamond and phase transformations in it on indentation

Hardness of single-crystal CVD diamond placed into a shell of a diamond composite thermostable material produced at high pressures and temperatures as well as structural variations in diamond during indentation have been studied.     

An ensemble of filters and classifiers for microarray data classification

In this paper a new framework for feature selection consisting of an ensemble of filters and classifiers is described. Five filters, based on different metrics, were employed. Each filter selects a different subset of features which is used to train and to test a specific classifier. The outputs of these five classifiers are combined by simple voting. In this study three well-known classifiers were employed for the classification task: C4.5, naive-Bayes and IB1. The rationale of the ensemble is to reduce the variability of the features selected by filters in different classification domains. Its adequacy was demonstrated by employing 10 microarray data sets.     

A calibration system for microwave radiometers based on a modulator–calibrator

A system for automatic internal calibration of millimeter-range radiometers is described. This system is based on an electrically controlled modulator–calibrator, which is a compact solid-state device that combines the functions of a modulator and a source of stable noise calibration signals. Stability of the calibration levels is provided by thermostatting the modulator–calibrator case and stabilization of the control currents. The calibration and data-collection process is governed by software using a special digital module and a personal computer.