Structure and composition of guanidine acrylate, guanidine methacrylate, their homopolymers, and copolymers with diallyldimethylammonium chloride

Structures and compositions of the monomers guanidine acrylate and guanidine methacrylate, their homopolymers, and copolymers with diallyldimethylammonium chloride enriched in acrylate comonomer units were determined. It was shown that ampholytic copolymers, owing to their ionic nature, contained comonomeric guanidine acrylate or methacrylate units and diallyldimethylammonium chloride units, as well as the acrylate comonomer with the diallyl counterion and polymeric acrylate and diallyl ion pairs. It follows from IR and ¹H NMR data that guanidine methacrylate has the same structure (with two hydrogen bonds) in the solid state and in solutions. Guanidine acrylate structures in the solid state and in dimethylsulfoxide are identical and analogous to guanidine methacrylate structure in this solvent. In water, the guanidine acrylate structure has another type of hydrogen bonding (with one hydrogen bond, where the proton is shifted toward the guanidine group). These features of hydrogen bonding of guanidine acrylate and guanidine methacrylate are also retained in their homopolymers and copolymers with diallyldimethylammonium chloride. It was shown that the thermal stability of the copolymers was higher than that of their homopolymers, confirming the formation of intramolecular ion pairs of oppositely charged units of ampholytic copolymers. Moreover, the thermal stability of guanidine methacrylate-diallyldimethylammonium chloride copolymers is higher than that of guanidine acrylate-diallyldimethylammonium chloride copolymers.     

Experimental Electronuclear Setup at the Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Physics

The purpose and current construction status, at the Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Physics, of an experimental electronuclear setup, combining a pulsed proton linear accelerator (36 MeV, 0.5 mA) and a subcritical blanket thermal-power assembly 100 kW, are discussed. The main equipment is already available or is being built in industry. The setup can be used to investigate the dynamics of the interaction of a linac–driver and a subcritical reactor and problems concerning the accelerator–driver and the target–blanket assembly. The proton beams and neutron fluxes will be used for applied purposes. In the future it will be possible to increase substantially the current and energy of the proton beam.     

Surface tension as a controlled variable in mechanical dishwashing

Using a continuous, in-line, nondestructive technique based on the maximum bubble pressure method, the surface tension of the wash water in a mechanical dishwashing machine has been monitored. This technique has enabled surface tension to be used as a controlled variable, providing feedback to regulate the amount of surfactant added. Assuming the mechanical force of the water spray is adequate to remove bound soil from the dish surface, the food soil may be titrated against surfactant, providing an indirect indication as to when the dishes are clean. This technique also could be applied to a recirculated wash solution for in-place cleaning.     

Improvement in hydrolytic procedure for GLC determination of non-indolyl glucosinolates in rapeseed as isothiocyanates

Some methods determine the non-indolyl glucosinolates content in rapeseed as their hydrolysates: the isothiocyanates and the oxazolidinethiones. These methods in their present form underestimate the amount of the glucosinolates content. In this investigation, a modified method was developed to give a better quantitative estimate, indicating a glucosinolate level five times that obtained by a typical existing method.     

Modeling and assimilation of root zone soil moisture using remote sensing observations in Walnut Gulch Watershed during SMEX04

Soil moisture status in the root zone is an important component of the water cycle at all spatial scales (e.g., point, field, catchment, watershed, and region). In this study, the spatio-temporal evolution of root zone soil moisture of the Walnut Gulch Experimental Watershed (WGEW) in Arizona was investigated during the Soil Moisture Experiment 2004 (SMEX04). Root zone soil moisture was estimated via assimilation of aircraft-based remotely sensed surface soil moisture into a distributed Soil-Water-Atmosphere-Plant (SWAP) model. An ensemble square root filter (EnSRF) based on a Kalman filtering scheme was used for assimilating the aircraft-based soil moisture observations at a spatial resolution of 800 m × 800 m. The SWAP model inputs were derived from the SSURGO soil database, LAI (Leaf Area Index) data from SMEX04 database, and data from meteorological stations/rain gauges at the WGEW. Model predictions are presented in terms of temporal evolution of soil moisture probability density function at various depths across the WGEW. The assimilation of the remotely sensed surface soil moisture observations had limited influence on the profile soil moisture. More specifically, root zone soil moisture depended mostly on the soil type. Modeled soil moisture profile estimates were compared to field measurements made periodically during the experiment at the ground based soil moisture stations in the watershed. Comparisons showed that the ground-based soil moisture observations at various depths were within ± 1 standard deviation of the modeled profile soil moisture. Density plots of root zone soil moisture at various depths in the WGEW exhibited multi-modal variations due to the uneven distribution of precipitation and the heterogeneity of soil types and soil layers across the watershed.     

Anfangsvorgänge bei Lichtenbergschen Figuren

Zusammenfassung Aufnahmen von Lichtenbergschen Figuren mit kurzen Spannungsstößen zeigen, daß bisher bekanntgewordene Bilder solcher Entladungsfiguren bereits ein verhältnismäßig weit vorgeschrittenes Stadium darstellen. Es gelingt mittels kurzer Stöße erste lawinenartige Anfänge der Figuren festzuhalten und einiges über Vorgänge im Anfangsstadium herauszulesen. Die negative Figur beginnt lawinenförmig an bevorzugten Stellen der Kathode. Bei nebeneinander entstandenen Lawinen ist sehr gut die gegenseitige Abstoßung infolge gleicher Ladung zu beobachten. Die Entladung hat einen geschichteten Aufbau. Die positiven Figuren bilden sich später aus. Es sprechen jedoch bisher keinerlei Anzeichen für ein Hinwachsen der Fäden zur Anode. Die Kanäle verjüngen sich zur Anode hin und selbst bei kurzen Stoßzeiten endet kein einziger vor der Anode. Auch die Art der gegenseitigen Abstoßung der positiven Fäden spricht mehr für ein Vorwachsen von der Anode aus. Aus den Farbaufnahmen ergibt sich für die filmschwärzende Strahlung eine Wellenlänge unter 450 m.     

Adaptive user modelling in intelligent telephone and email assistants

With the burgeoning complexity and capabilities of modern information appliances and services, user modelling is becoming an increasingly important research area. Simple user profiles already personalise many software products and consumer goods such as digital TV recorders and mobile phones. A user model should be easy to initialise, and it must adapt in the light of interaction with the user. In many cases, a large amount of training data is needed to generate a user model, and adaptation is equivalent to retraining the system. This paper briefly outlines the user modelling problem and work done at BTexact on an intelligent personal assistant (IPA) which incorporates a user profile. We go on to describe FILUM, a more flexible method of user modelling, and show its application to the telephone assistant and email assistant components of the IPA, with tests to illustrate its usefulness.     

Alphorn: a remote procedure call environment for fault-tolerant,heterogeneous, distributed systems

Alphorn, a software environment for programming distributed computer systems, is described. Programs running on different computers, possibly of different types and running different operating systems, communicate in a client-server relationship by means of remote procedure calls. This efficient construct structures programs neatly. The paper covers distributed process control, Alphorn's object-based programming style, remote procedure calls, the service interface language, configuration, runtime and debugging, and fault tolerance support