Home Dissolution: What Happens After Separation?

Building a home and creating a family are highly interconnected processes. So what happens to the home when people separate or divorce? This paper addresses this question using both a quantitative and a qualitative approach. Based on an extensive database with socio-economic background data of 42 000 separated Danish couples in 2002, the housing careers of both partners were followed to see how the housing situation of different types of people was affected by the separation. In the qualitative approach, nine interviews with couples who had parted shed light on the emotions and practical problems of dissolving a home: how to decide who should stay? Who should move? What was it like to stay alone in, or to leave, the matrimonial home?     

Two-tier relaxed heaps

We introduce a data structure which provides efficient heap operations with respect to the number of element comparisons performed. Let n denote the size of the heap being manipulated. Our data structure guarantees the worst-case cost of O(1) for finding the minimum, inserting an element, extracting an (unspecified) element, and replacing an element with a smaller element; and the worst-case cost of O(lg n) with at most lg n + 3 lg lg n + O(1) element comparisons for deleting an element. We thereby improve the comparison complexity of heap operations known for run-relaxed heaps and other worst-case efficient heaps. Furthermore, our data structure supports melding of two heaps of size m and n at the worst-case cost of O(min {lg m, lg n}). A preliminary version of this paper [8] was presented at the 17th International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation held in Kolkata in December 2006. Partially supported by the Danish Natural Science Research Council under contracts 21-02-0501 (project Practical data structures and algorithms) and 272-05-0272 (project Generic programming—algorithms and tools).     

移动和便携式电视系统的新纪元

在科技日新月异的今天,电视广播系统由模拟向数字的变迁已成为现实。预计在未来两年中,35％的电视将会以数字形式接收。除了家庭用的传统电视接收机外,消费者也期待便携式和移动电视接收机。移动电视接收的典型应用是车载电视,而便携式接收的典型应用是     

Polymeric thin films of controlled complex refractive index formedby the electrostatic self-assembled monolayer process

This letter reports a method, the electrostatic self-assembled monolayer process, for the synthesis of multilayer thin-film materials with controlled complex refractive index. By incorporating appropriate precursor molecules in each monolayer and organizing the physical order of the multiple monolayers through the material, it is possible to achieve designed complex refractive index properties. In this work, the real part of the refractive index of materials formed by this process was controlled from 1.424 to 1.615, and the imaginary part was controlled from 0.00001 to 0.035, both at a wavelength of 550 nm. To our knowledge, this is the first time that experimental measurements of self-assembled thin films are presented to demonstrate that this method is useful for the design and synthesis of thin films of controllable refractive index     

Elimination of beta-blockers in sewage treatment plants

beta-Blockers are used to treat high blood pressure as well as patients recovering from heart attacks. In several studies, they were detected in surface water, thus indicating incomplete degradability of these substances in sewage treatment plants (STPs). In this study, we determined the sorption coefficients (K(D)) and degradation rates of the four beta-blockers sotalol, atenolol, metoprolol and propranolol in sludge from an STP operating with municipal wastewater. The sorption coefficients (K(D), standard deviations in brackets) were determined as 0.04(+/-0.035), 0.04(+/-0.033), 0.00(+/-0.023) and 0.32(+/-0.058) Lg(-1)(COD), and the pseudo-first-order degradation rate constants were estimated to be 0.29(+/-0.02), 0.69(+/-0.05), 0.58(+/-0.05) and 0.39(+/-0.07) Ld(-1)g(-1)(COD) for sotalol, atenolol, metoprolol and propranolol, respectively. These values translate into a typical elimination in STPs (sludge concentrations of 4g(COD)L(-1) and a hydraulic retention time of 6h) of 25%, 37%, 44% and 50% for sotalol, propranolol, metoprolol and atenolol, respectively. These results are also confirmed by measurements in two municipal STPs for atenolol, sotalol and propranolol. The estimated eliminations are slightly too high for metoprolol.     

Non-destructive evaluations of water uptake in epoxy coating

A commercial epoxy coating was studied on steel panels and as free films to investigate water uptake using non-destructive techniques (gravimetric analysis, Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy [EIS], Attenuated Total Reflection-Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy [ATR-FTIR], and Scanning Acoustic Microscopy [SAM]) after immersion in 3.5 wt% NaCl solution. In epoxy free films, water uptake showed rapid absorption initially, slowing down due to the counteracting process between water uptake and leachable content. Later, a mass decrease indicated leaching dominance. On coated steel, EIS revealed rapid water absorption within 72 h, followed by slower uptake up to 336 h. The continuous increase in water content resulted from observed coating layer swelling, confirmed by SAM. ATR-FTIR analysis indicated hydrogen bonding of most absorbed water molecules to the epoxy matrix. By combining non-destructive techniques, water uptake mechanisms into the epoxy coating film were proposed.