The Knoevenagel reaction in electrochemically activated solvents

The electrochemical activation of organic solvents HS (CH₃CN, CH₃CH₂CN, DMF, DMSO) containing Et₄NPF₆ as supporting electrolyte (i.e. their electrolysis under galvanostatic control) allows to induce in these solutions, in the absence of any catalyst, the Knoevenagel condensation between CH-acid CH₂(CN)₂ (1) and carbonylic substrates 2a-e. Reaction products 3a-e were isolated in good yields 97-48%. The progress of the Knoevenagel condensation is affected by Q (number of Faradays per mol of 1 supplied to the electrodes) and, moderately, by the nature of the solvents. The rates of the single steps were compared by elementary voltammetric analysis.     

On the identification of rheological properties of cement suspensions: Rheometry,Computational Fluid Dynamics modeling and field test measurements

Cementitious composites with customized rheologies are becoming increasingly popular throughout a wide variety of civil engineering applications. Assessing their fundamental rheological properties is crucial for the success of a particular application. Their measurement is not a trivial task and typically requires dedicated and expensive equipment. These equipment may not be compatible with field applications and not even available in every laboratory. Correlations between fundamental rheological properties and field test measurements have been assessed, as for the yield stress versus the slump flow diameter. As for the plastic viscosity, different attempts have been made, with flow time parameters measured from different tests. This work provides further evidence to the aforementioned correlations, with reference to a broad range of cement pastes and mortars formulated from SCCs, as well as employing a tool for Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modeling developed by the authors.     

Sampling Errors in the Estimation of Peak Wind-Induced Internal Forces in Low-Rise Structures

Peak values in time histories of wind effects may be obtained by using the entire information inherent in the time series of the wind effect, a method entailing the estimation of the probability distribution of the peak through the application of the classical Rice procedure extended for non-Gaussian time histories. We present estimates of the sampling errors inherent in this method. These are needed for structural reliability calculations and for decisions on the requisite length of wind tunnel pressure records, especially for database-assisted design. If based on the analysis of 1-h-long records generated by Monte Carlo simulation, typical sampling errors in the estimation of peaks of time histories corresponding to windstorms of 1-h duration are about 5%. If based on 30- or 20-min records, they are about 1.5 times or twice as large, respectively. Consideration of the sampling errors in reliability calculations entails an estimated increase in the requisite safety margins with respect to wind loading of roughly 2, 3, and 5% if 1-h, 30-min, or 20-min records are used, respectively.     

Labeling source code with information retrieval methods: an empirical study

To support program comprehension, software artifacts can be labeled—for example within software visualization tools—with a set of representative words, hereby referred to as labels. Such labels can be obtained using various approaches, including Information Retrieval (IR) methods or other simple heuristics. They provide a bird-eye’s view of the source code, allowing developers to look over software components fast and make more informed decisions on which parts of the source code they need to analyze in detail. However, few empirical studies have been conducted to verify whether the extracted labels make sense to software developers. This paper investigates (i) to what extent various IR techniques and other simple heuristics overlap with (and differ from) labeling performed by humans; (ii) what kinds of source code terms do humans use when labeling software artifacts; and (iii) what factors—in particular what characteristics of the artifacts to be labeled—influence the performance of automatic labeling techniques. We conducted two experiments in which we asked a group of students (38 in total) to label 20 classes from two Java software systems, JHotDraw and eXVantage. Then, we analyzed to what extent the words identified with an automated technique—including Vector Space Models, Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI), latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA), as well as customized heuristics extracting words from specific source code elements—overlap with those identified by humans. Results indicate that, in most cases, simpler automatic labeling techniques—based on the use of words extracted from class and method names as well as from class comments—better reflect human-based labeling. Indeed, clustering-based approaches (LSI and LDA) are more worthwhile to be used for source code artifacts having a high verbosity, as well as for artifacts requiring more effort to be manually labeled. The obtained results help to define guidelines on how to build effective automatic labeling techniques, and provide some insights on the actual usefulness of automatic labeling techniques during program comprehension tasks.     

Friable rock embedding in methyl methacrylate for thin-sectioning in geological preparations

In most cases, technical problems prevent the production of good geological thin-slabs from friable rocks such as muds, sands or decomposed granites. Usual impregnation methods using Araldite or epoxies lead to incompletely impregnated blocks. Furthermore the excessive heat occurring during polymerization alters the micromorphology of heat sensitive minerals. Methyl methacrylate (MMA) is a widely used plastic for bone embedding. We have developed a new procedure using vacuum infiltration with MMA in a cold environment. Wafers from friable rocks are easily obtained and can be processed in the same way as those of firm and coherent rocks, without grain loss nor mineral heat alterations.     

Behaviour Factor of code-designed steel moment-resisting frames

Current seismic codes are based on force-controlled design or capacity design, using the base shear concept. The most important parameter in this approach is the response modification factor, also called behaviour factor, which is used to design the structure at the ultimate limit state by taking into account its capacity to dissipate energy by means of plastic deformations. In this paper overstrength, redundancy and ductility response modification factors of steel moment resisting frames are evaluated. In order to cover a wide range of structural characteristics, 12 steel moment-resisting frames (6 regular and 6 irregular in elevation) have been designed and analysed. Both static pushover analyses and nonlinear incremental dynamic analyses have been performed. The investigation focuses on the effects of some parameters influencing the responsemodification factor, including the regularity, the number of spans and the number of storeys. As a conclusion, a local ductility criterion has been proposed to improve the provisions given in the Italian seismic code.     

PLUMED 2: New feathers for an old bird

Enhancing sampling and analyzing simulations are central issues in molecular simulation. Recently, we introduced PLUMED, an open-source plug-in that provides some of the most popular molecular dynamics (MD) codes with implementations of a variety of different enhanced sampling algorithms and collective variables (CVs). The rapid changes in this field, in particular new directions in enhanced sampling and dimensionality reduction together with new hardware, require a code that is more flexible and more efficient. We therefore present PLUMED 2 here—a complete rewrite of the code in an object-oriented programming language (C++). This new version introduces greater flexibility and greater modularity, which both extends its core capabilities and makes it far easier to add new methods and CVs. It also has a simpler interface with the MD engines and provides a single software library containing both tools and core facilities. Ultimately, the new code better serves the ever-growing community of users and contributors in coping with the new challenges arising in the field.     

Carcass characteristics,meat quality and nutritional value of horsemeat: A review

Meat has exerted a crucial role in human evolution and is an important component of a healthy and well balanced diet due to its nutritional richness. The aim of the present review was to shed light on the nutritional composition of horsemeat and their benefits for human health. One of the reasons for such interest was the occurrence, in Europe several years ago, of dioxin, Bovine Encephalopathy and foot-and-mouth disease problems in farm animals. Therefore, consumers began to look for alternative red meats from other non-traditional species. There is no carcass classification system on horses designated to meat consumption. It would be advisable to standardize the equine meat market to reduce variations that may reflect differences in meat quality. The nutritional composition of horsemeat by comparison with pork, beef or poultry is characterized by low levels of fat and cholesterol (about 20% less), relatively high concentrations of n− 3 fatty acids and heme iron indicating that its consumption may be beneficial for health. Therefore, horsemeat may supplement the meat market with good quality products, although as in other dietary components moderation is advisable.     

H2/air alkaline membrane fuel cell performance and durability, using novel ionomer and non-platinum group metal cathode catalyst

The development of H₂/air alkaline membrane fuel cells (AMFCs) enables the use of non-platinum group metal (PGM) catalysts which are intrinsically stable and have an activity similar to platinum in alkaline media for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). As opposed to PEMFCs, the research and development of these types of catalysts for AMFC has had little attention and even less has been given to the development of alkaline membranes and ionomers. Acta S.p.A. has developed recently new non-PGM ORR catalysts with activity higher than Pt in alkaline media. More importantly, a new anionic ionomer derived from cheap starting materials with optimum performance has been produced. In this paper we demonstrate the use of this new ionomer in H₂/air AMFCs showing the first polarization and durability data, with current densities higher than those recently reported in the literature. Furthermore, we report the effect of CO₂ on AMFC performance, showing the possibility of use of such alkaline devices not only in outer-space applications, but also with atmospheric air for large scale devices.     

A simplified approach for modelling the bacterial growth/no growth boundary

A simplified growth/no growth (G/NG) model, conceptually derived from the Gamma model and making direct and explicit use of growth limits of bacteria through a normalization constant (η), was proposed. The η value, which quantifies the product of the cardinal optimal distances for growth probability, is a species-independent constant. This is of importance when experimental data is missing or insufficient. The simplified G/NG model was developed including the effect of temperature, pH and water activity, and was expanded incorporating the preservative effects. As a practical application, the model was investigated for its ability to describe published data. The successful validation of the simplified G/NG model is discussed in regard to its potential applicability as a first estimate method for the development of safe food products.