Influence of Surface Finishing on the Oxidation Behaviour of VPS MCrAlY Coatings

CoNiCrAlY coatings were produced by means of the vacuum plasma spraying (VPS) process onto CMSX-4 single crystal nickel superalloy disk substrates. As-sprayed samples were annealed at high temperatures in low vacuum. Three kinds of finishing processes were carried out, producing three types of samples: as-sprayed, mechanically smoothed by grinding, ground and PVD coated by using aluminum targets in an oxygen atmosphere. Samples were tested under isothermal conditions, in air, at 1000 °C, and up to 5000 h. Morphological, microstructural and compositional analyses were performed on the coated samples in order to assess the high temperature oxidation behavior provided by the three different surface finishing processes. Several differences were observed: grinding operations decrease the oxidation resistance, whereas the PVD process can increase the performances over longer time with respect of the as-sprayed samples.     

Natural radionuclides in the rocks of the Valle del Cervo Pluton in Piedmont

Monitoring of the gamma radiation in Valle del Cervo Pluton was performed by determining U and Th contents in the main rock types cropping out over the entire area and pertaining to the granitic complex, syenitic complex and monzonitic complex. In particular, syenitic rocks were largely used as building and ornamental materials (e.g. Sienite della Balma). All the samples are fresh and do not present joints or fractures filled with U minerals. In the crushed samples the activity of uranium varies from 346 to 764 Bq/kg. Concentration of thorium varies from 202 to 478 Bq/kg. For all the analysed rocks uranium activity is higher than thorium one. The lowest value of radioactive concentration is referred to rocks of the granitic complex. The most active rocks are syenites. The data confirm the high activities of Valle del Cervo rock types, strongly connected with high K content of the source magma (geochemical signature); on the contrary, the activity seems to be not related to the location of the samples.     

Second order nonlinear optical networks with excellent poling stability from a new trifunctional thiophene based chromophore

Two new trifunctional thiophene based dyes suited for crosslinking were synthesised from the same structural core, i.e. 4-[[5-[(4-nitrophenyl)azo]-2-thienyl]azo]benzenamine. Crystal structure and second order nonlinear optical properties were determined on a related difunctional dye that can be considered as a representative and simplified model of the trifunctional compounds, determining on it the μβ value of 4950 × 10^?48 esu (6111 × 10^?80 C² m⁴ V^?2).The presence of three acrylic or hydroxyl functional groups in the dyes allowed to incorporate the chromophoric fragment into two different kinds of crosslinked materials possessing “frozen” long-lasting dipole order. The traditional guest-host approach used for one of them was exceeded by covalently anchoring the chromophore to a functionalised polymer in a three-dimensional unique network. In this way a promising NLO active material was obtained. The value of the d₃₃ coefficient (determined by SHG measurement using the Maker fringe technique) was 11 pm/V for the poled/crosslinked film. Very good thermal and temporal stability of the chromophore poling-induced dipole alignment was attained.     

Transmission Electron Microscopy and UV–vis–IR Spectroscopy Analysis of the Diameter Sorting of Carbon Nanotubes by Gradient Density Ultracentrifugation

Diameter separation of single‐walled carbon nanotubes is achieved via the density gradient ultracentrifugation process. Statistical analysis of the separated samples is performed using high‐resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM). The evolution of the diameter distribution with respect to the gradient density is extracted by analyzing hundreds of HRTEM images, and the results are found to be consistent with those estimated by UV–vis–IR spectroscopy. The efficiency of the separation process can be quantitatively characterized by the standard deviation of the diameter distribution, which is determined from the TEM analyses. This particular study indicated that for electric arc nanotubes dispersed in sodium cholate, diameter sorting is more efficient in the upper part of the gradient.     

HRV scaling exponent identifies postinfarction patients who might benefit from prophylactic treatment with amiodarone

Analysing the Holter recordings collected at baseline during the European Myocardial Infarction Amiodarone Trial (EMIAT), we evaluate the possibility of using alpha, the slope of the power spectrum of heart rate variability signals (HRV) in the vicinity of f = 0, for postinfarction risk stratification. We found no relevant difference in the values of alpha for the placebo population. On the contrary, in the amiodarone arm, the distinction in the survival rates of those with high or low alpha-values was highly significant. Moreover, high risk patients with respect to alpha (higher values) did not seem to benefit from amiodarone. The results suggest that alpha might convey physiologic information that is different than what is expressed by other HRV characteristics, such as the triangular index. When combining high risk patients in term of triangular index (<20) and low risk patients with respect to alpha (相似文献   

Study of the regenerator constituting material influence on a gamma type Stirling engine

A gamma Stirling engine with compressed air as working fluid was investigated. This engine operates at a maximum charge pressure of 10 bar, runs at a maximum rotation speed of 600 rpm and can provide 500 W of brake power on the shaft. The engine is equipped with several pressure sensors and thermocouples. This experimental study concentrates on the regenerator constituting material (porous medium). Four different materials were investigated: stainless steel, copper, aluminum and Monel 400. The obtained experimental results provide guidance to Stirling engine enhancement and selection of the appropriate regenerator material. As a conclusion, the regenerator has an important role to enhance the heat exchange and to improve Stirling engine performance, which closely depends on its constituting material.     

Least adaptive optimal search with unreliable tests

We consider the basic problem of searching for an unknown m-bit number by asking the minimum possible number of yes–no questions, when up to a finite number e of the answers may be erroneous. In case the (i+1)th question is adaptively asked after receiving the answer to the ith question, the problem was posed by Ulam and Rényi and is strictly related to Berlekamp's theory of error correcting communication with noiseless feedback. Conversely, in the fully non-adaptive model when all questions are asked before knowing any answer, the problem amounts to finding a shortest e-error correcting code. Let q_e(m) be the smallest integer q satisfying Berlekamp’s bound . Then at least q_e(m) questions are necessary, in the adaptive, as well as in the non-adaptive model. In the fully adaptive case, optimal searching strategies using exactly q_e(m) questions always exist up to finitely many exceptional m's. At the opposite non-adaptive case, searching strategies with exactly q_e(m) questions—or equivalently, e-error correcting codes with 2^m codewords of length q_e(m)—are rather the exception, already for e=2, and are generally not known to exist for e>2. In this paper, for each e>1 and all sufficiently large m, we exhibit searching strategies that use a first batch of m non-adaptive questions and then, only depending on the answers to these m questions, a second batch of q_e(m)−m non-adaptive questions. These strategies are automatically optimal. Since even in the fully adaptive case, q_e(m)−1 questions do not suffice to find the unknown number, and q_e(m) questions generally do not suffice in the non-adaptive case, the results of our paper provide e fault tolerant searching strategies with minimum adaptiveness and minimum number of tests.     

Reactive systems, (semi-)saturated semantics and coalgebras on presheaves

The semantics of process calculi has traditionally been specified by labelled transition systems (ltss), but, with the development of name calculi, it turned out that reaction rules (i.e., unlabelled transition rules) are often more natural. This leads to the question of how behavioral equivalences (bisimilarity, trace equivalence, etc.) defined for lts can be transferred to unlabelled transition systems. Recently, in order to answer this question, several proposals have been made with the aim of automatically deriving an lts from reaction rules in such a way that the resulting equivalences are congruences. Furthermore, these equivalences should agree with the standard semantics, whenever one exists.In this paper, we propose saturated semantics, based on a weaker notion of observation and orthogonal to all the previous proposals, and we demonstrate the appropriateness of our semantics by means of two examples: logic programming and open Petri nets. We also show that saturated semantics can be efficiently characterized through the so called semi-saturated games. Finally, we provide coalgebraic models relying on presheaves.