Comparison of gas chromatographic volatile profiling methods for assessing the flavour quality of kenyan black teas

A comparison is made of the various ratios used to quantify black tea aroma such as: ratio of sum of gas chromatographic peak areas of compounds eluting before linalool (3,7-dimethyl-1,6-Octadien-3-ol) to those eluting after linalool (Wickremasinghe-Yamanishi ratio); gas chromatographic peak areas of compounds imparting sweet flowery aroma (Group II volatile flavour compounds) to those imparting green grassy aroma (Group I volatile flavour compounds), Owuor's flavour index; ratio of the sum of gas chromatographic peak area of the terpenoids to non-terpenoids, i.e. Mahanta ratio; and gas chromatographic peak area of linalool to E-2-hexena1, i.e. Yamanishi-Botheju ratio. The Wickremasinghe-Yamanishi ratio and Owuor's flavour index showed a significant relationship, the Mahanta ratio showed a significant but poor relationship, and the Yamanishi-Botheju ratio had no relationship with the tasters evaluation of Kenyan clonal CTC black teas. Similar results were obtained from orthodox black teas manufactured from different varieties.     

Experiments on Marine Wastewater Diffusers with Multiport Rosettes

The dispersion capabilities of two types of marine wastewater diffusers, one with risers containing eight radial ports (rosette) and the other with the ports uniformly distributed, were directly compared in laboratory experiments for three scenarios: stationary and flowing unstratified, and flowing stratified. Tracer concentration fields were measured with a three-dimensional laser-induced fluorescence system. The dispersion capabilities, particularly dilution, of the two diffuser types were similar. The primary differences occurred with no current where the rosette diffuser plumes were bent inwards, causing a dynamic interaction. This resulted in a small reduction in near field dilution, an increase in the spreading layer thickness, and a decrease of the near field length. These differences were virtually eliminated by a flowing current when the eight individual plumes from a rosette first merged with themselves and then with those from neighboring risers to become laterally quite uniform at the end of the near field. The major near field characteristics were primarily determined by the buoyancy flux per unit length. Temporal concentration fluctuations were high close to the diffuser and then decreased and leveled off near the end of the near field where the discharge-induced turbulence collapses. The fluctuations do not go to zero, however, owing to remnants of previous fluctuations.     

Dressing plasmons in particle-in-cavity architectures

Placing metallic nanoparticles inside cavities, rather than in dimers, greatly improves their plasmonic response. Such particle-in-cavity (PIC) hybrid architectures are shown to produce extremely strong field enhancement at the particle-cavity junctions, arising from the cascaded focusing of large optical cross sections into small gaps. These simply constructed PIC structures produce the strongest field enhancement for coupled nanoparticles, up to 90% stronger than for a dimer. The coupling is found to follow a universal power law with particle-surface separation, both for field enhancements and resonant wavelength shifts. Significantly enhanced Raman signals are experimentally observed for molecules adsorbed in such PIC structures, in quantitive agreement with theoretical calculations. PIC architectures may have important implications in many applications, such as reliable single molecule sensing and light harvesting in plasmonic photovoltaic devices.