Gamma-irradiation-induced Ag/SiO2 composite films and their optical absorption properties

Small Ag particles or clusters dispersed mesoporous SiO₂ composite films were prepared by a new method: First the matrix SiO₂ films were prepared by sol-gel process combined with the dip-coating technique, then they were soaked in AgNO₃ solutions followed by irradiation of γ-ray at room temperature and in ambient pressure. The structures of these films were examined by X-ray diffraction (XRD), high-resolution transmission electron microscope (HRTEM), and optical absorption spectroscopy. It has been shown that the Ag particles grown within the porous SiO₂ films are very small, and they are isolated and dispersed from each other with very narrow size distributions. With increasing the soaking concentration and an additional annealing, an opposite peakshift effect of the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) was observed in the optical absorption measurements.     

Anthocyanin composition of the red wine Babić affected by maceration treatment

Identification of anthocyanins in the wine made of the Croatian autochthonous grape variety of Babić (Vitis vinifera L.) was carried out and their profile was determined by means of high-performance liquid chromatography with diode array and mass spectrometric detection. Dependence of anthocyanins content and profile on maceration treatment conditions was investigated. Statistically significant differences of anthocyanins concentration in wines Babić produced by various maceration treatments were confirmed by the use of multivariate analysis of variances. The investigation results indicated that the maceration temperature exerts higher influence on anthocyanins concentration than the duration of maceration. In addition, on the basis of anthocyanin composition and using different multivariate statistical analyses, differentiation of wines Babić according to maceration treatments was procured.     

Relation between encoder and syndrome former variables and symbol reliability estimation using a syndrome trellis

We derive a linear correspondence between the variables of an encoder and those of a corresponding syndrome former. Using the derived correspondence, we show that the log-likelihood ratio of an information bit conditioned on a received sequence can be equally calculated using the syndrome trellis. It is shown that the proposed method also applies to recursive systematic convolutional codes which are typical constituent codes for turbo codes. Moreover, we show that soft-in syndrome decoding considering a priori probabilities of information bits is possible in the same way as for Viterbi decoding based on the code trellis. Hence, the proposed method can be applied to iterative decoding such as turbo decoding. We also show that the proposed method is effective for high-rate codes by making use of trellis modification.     

Modeling of Material Deformation Kinetics in the Prefracture Zone

Based on the concept of complete stress–strain diagrams, we propose a new model describing the law of stress distribution in the prefracture zone in plastic materials in view of the type of the stressed state.     

Investigation into polishing process of CVD diamond films

A new technique used for polishing chemical vapor deposition (CVD) diamond films has been investigated, by which rough polishing of the CVD diamond films can be achieved efficiently. A CVD diamond film is coated with a thin layer of electrically conductive material in advance, and then electro-discharge machining (EDM) is used to machine the coated surface. As a result, peaks on the surface of the diamond film are removed rapidly. During machining, graphitization of diamond enables the EDM process to continue. The single pulse discharge shows that the material of the coated layer evidently affects removal behavior of the CVD diamond films. Compared with the machining of ordinary metal materials, the process of EDM CVD diamond films possesses a quite different characteristic. The removal mechanism of the CVD diamond films is discussed.     

A study of the effects of collector and environment parameters on the performance of a solar powered solid adsorption refrigerator

Based on the heat and mass transfer model validated by experiment, the performance of the plate solar ice-maker is analyzed systemically with the opinion of two-type characteristic parameters, which includes parametric effects of adsorbent bed of solar ice-maker and outer parameters referring to circumstance. A large number of simulations were undertaken to test the performance of the refrigerator for various collector design parameters and environmental parameters. These works are beneficial to further study the optimization design of a solar cooling system.     

Duodenal erosions and ulcers in patients with pancreatobiliary obstruction

The authors compared in a controlled clinical study two groups of patients after a first renal transplantation treated by triple drug immunosuppressive therapy. In a group of 31 patients the triple combination comprised Sandimmune Neoral. In the control group there were 30 patients who received Sandimmune. No differences were found between the two groups as regards the effectiveness of this treatment and the authors did not confirm a lower incidence of rejections described in patients treated with Sandimmune Neoral. They confirmed, however, a lower interindividual variability of Cy-A levels assessed specifically in patients treated with Sandimmune Neoral.