Towards new indicators for the prediction of solid waste anaerobic digestion properties.

The biochemical composition can be seen as a good indicator of both the biodegradability and the methane potential of a given waste. The work presented here is an attempt to elaborate a typology of wastes and to compare it to the anaerobic degradation characteristics. The first data indicate that there is a link between the ligno-cellulosic content of the waste and the biodegradability. When dealing with application to anaerobic digestion processes, having a tool to predict the ability of the waste to be degraded could be of the greatest interest for preventing failures, estimating biogas production, methane content, or for the management of co-digestion processes.     

Financial Analysis and Marketing Strategy

A combination of concept (the product portfolio and the product life cycle) and empirical research (the PIMS study) can aid in clarifying the key issues involved in the selection of a firm's core strategies. Strategy control is multistage: periodic re-evaluation of strategy alternatives by use of the marketing audit; an analytical framework for control of chosen strategies by breaking down components and reporting their performance variances; and 'marketing segment' analysis for control of the detailed marketing plan.?     

Filled Fibrous Sorbents Modified with Transition Metal Ferro- and Ferricyanides for Recovery of Americium and Rare-Earth Metals

Filled fibrous sorbents modified with transition metal ferro- and ferricyanides capable to recover americium(III) and rare-earth metals(III) from nitric acid solutions were prepared. The most complete and rapid recovery is attained on complex-forming and cation-exchange sorbents (as filled fibrous materials) saturated with nickel ions. The sorbents are characterized by good kinetic properties and can be used for recovery of the above metals.     

Design Techniques of CMOS Ultra-Wide-Band Amplifiers for Multistandard Communications

This paper presents design techniques of CMOS ultra-wide-band (UWB) amplifiers for multistandard communications. The goal of this paper is to propose a compact, simple, and robust topology for UWB low-noise amplifiers, which yet consumes a relatively low power. To achieve this goal, a common-gate amplifier topology with a local feedback is employed. The first amplifier uses a simple inductive peaking technique for bandwidth extension, while the second design utilizes a two-stage approach with an added gain control feature. Both amplifiers achieve a flat bandwidth of more than 6 GHz and a gain of higher than 10 dB with supply voltages of 1.8-2.5 V. Designs with different metal thicknesses are compared. The advantage of using thick-metal inductors in UWB applications depends on the chosen topology.     

Optical orientation of holes in strained nanostructures

A theory describing the optical orientation and Hanle effect for holes in quantum wells or quantum dots based on cubic semiconductors is developed. It is demonstrated that the presence of internal or external strain in quantum-confinement heterostructures leads to the dependence of the Hanle effect on the orientation of the magnetic field with respect to the heterostructure growth axis.     

Efficient digitization of compound analog signals

The problems related to digitization of sonar compound analog sounding signals reflected from a target are considered. With the use of mathematical simulation, it is shown that, in the case of the most efficient Kotel’nikov digitization, errors occur that impede correct correlation signal processing. This difficulty can be overcome via a reduction of the sampling interval by a factor of 2 to 4 relative to the interval proposed by Kotel’nikov.     

AlGaN-based quantum-well heterostructures for deep ultraviolet light-emitting diodes grown by submonolayer discrete plasma-assisted molecular-beam epitaxy

Features of plasma-assisted molecular-beam epitaxy of AlGaN compounds at relatively low temperatures of the substrate (no higher than 740°C) and various stoichiometric conditions for growth of the nitrogen- and metal-enriched layers are studied. Discrete submonolayer epitaxy for formation of quantum wells and n-type blocking layers without varying the fluxes of components was used for the first time in the case of molecular- beam epitaxy with plasma activation of nitrogen for the nanostructures with the Al _x Ga_{1 ? x} N/Al _y Ga_{1 ? y} N quantum wells. Structural and optical properties of the Al _x Ga_{1 ? x} N layers in the entire range of compositions (x = 0–1) and nanostructures based on these layers are studied; these studies indicate that there is photoluminescence at room temperature with minimum wavelength of 230 nm. Based on the analysis of the photoluminescence spectra for bulk layers and nanoheterostructures and their temperature dependences, it is concluded that there are localized states in quantum wells. Using the metal-enriched layers grown on the c-Al₂O₃ substrates, heterostructures for light-emitting diodes with Al _x Ga_{1 ? x} N/Al _y Ga_{1 ? y} N quantum wells (x = 0.4–0.5, y = x + 0.15) were obtained and demonstrated electroluminescence in the ultraviolet region of the spectrum at the wavelength of 320 nm.     

Electrochemical mass transfer between an impinging jet and a rotating disk in a confined system

This paper presents the mass transfer results from an impinging liquid jet to a rotating disk. The mass transfer coefficients were measured using the electrochemical limiting diffusion current technique (ELDCT). Rotational Reynolds number (Re_r) in the range of 3.4 × 10⁴–1.2 × 10⁵, jet Reynolds number (Re_j) 1.7 × 10⁴–5.3 × 10⁴ and non-dimensional jet-to-disk spacing (H/d) 2–8 were taken into consideration as parameters. It was found that the jet impingement resulted in a substantial enhancement in the mass transfer compared to the case of the rotating disk without jet.     

Optical properties of doped bismuth telluride crystals in the region of plasma effects

The optical properties of bismuth telluride crystals doped with donor-and acceptor-type impurities are studied. The fact that energy corresponding to the resonance frequency of plasma oscillations of free charge carriers (plasmons) approaches the band-gap energy is detected in the infrared spectral region, where the main elementary excitations in the electronic system of these materials are observed. The mentioned approach of energies varies the intensity of electron-plasmon interaction, which affects the recombination processes in the materials widely used for the fabrication of thermoelectric energy converters.