Catalytic Synthesis of Chemicals from Coal

While the oil and gas needed for the production of chemicals in the United States is only a small percentage of the total oil and gas consumed, the manufacture and use of chemicals from these hydrocarbons has a tremendous impact on the economy of the country. A study by A. D. Little, Inc. [1] in 1973 showed that the impact of a 15% decline in production of organic chemicals could result via a “multiplier” effect in a loss of over 1,700,000 jobs and a $65 to 70 billion loss in the production value of goods. One need only look around to see how pervasive and ubiquitous chemicals from petroleum products are in everyday life; our clothes, our food (fertilizers), all sorts of polymers, plastics, drugs and medicinal, tires, tubing, building materials, automobile interiors-the list is long and verge important to the economic health and growth of the country.     

Noninvasive predictors of sudden cardiac death in men with coronary heart disease. Predictive value of maximal stress testing

In a follow-up study of 1,852 men with coronary heart disease, 195 deaths occurred within the first 3 years (33 +/- 13 months [mean +/- standard deviation]). Analysis of these cases indicated that the risk of sudden cardiac death in ambulatory men with clinical manifestations of coronary heart disease may be readily estimated from noninvasive clinical and exercise criteria. The important predictors are indexes of the severity of coronary heart disease and impairment of peak left ventricular function demonstrated with symptom-limited maximal exercise. The advantages of these predictors are that they may be elicited on the initial study as well as on follow-up noninvasive examinations of ambulatory patients. The appearance of nonelectrocardiographic predictors in serial examinations may provide an indication for invasive studies and be a more important finding than the ischemic S-T reponse to exertion.     

Nucleation and growth of sputtered and evaporated trigonal selenium films

Critical nucleation temperature experiments, scanning electron microscopy and light microscopy were used to study the nucleation and growth of trigonal Se films deposited by evaporation and sputtering on both gold and anodized aluminum substrates. The major nucleation and growth processes were shown to be the condensation of Se₂ molecules followed by their polymerization into Se_n chains, where n can be very large. In sputtering, these chains have a higher surface mobility, due in part to their higher residual kinetic energy, and thus they can form large trigonal Se crystallites. The high incident kinetic energies also allow the Se to break through the surface contamination of the substrate. This is important since the Se chain mobility should also be dependent on the surface free energy and on the nucleation site density of the substrate. Very adherent large-grained trigonal Se films were grown by sputtering on Au substrates. It was shown that nucleation sites for the large trigonal Se crystallites were not created by the incident flux but are inherent on the substrate. The high energy incident flux did, however, increase nucleation probability for the initial Se₂ condensation. For sputtering on anodized aluminum substrates the combination of low surface energy and high nucleation site density decreased chain mobility and thus prevented formation of large crystallites.     

Studies in approximation methods—I: Splines and control via discrete dynamic programming

A novel approach is suggested for alleviating the curse of dimensionality in discrete dynamic programming as applied to optimal control problems. By using multidimensional B-splines to approximate the overall minimum objective and optimal control function, a significant reduction of computer storage is made. The ease and accuracy of this approach is demonstrated on a two-dimensional control problem. Extensions of this procedure are also proposed that result in increased accuracy.     

Kinetics for unidirectional endwise chain depolymerizations. Experiments with amylose in aqueous alkaline solutions

A kinetic model for the unidirectional endwise chain-propagated depolymerization of a linear polymer is described in terms of three pseudo-first-order rate constants: k₁ for the unzipping itself; k₂ for termination through the formation of stable endgroups; and k₃ for termination through complete degradation of polymer chains. It is shown that the calculated zip length, ν = k₁/(k₂ + k₃), will decrease as the initial substrate D.P. is reduced. For the dimer, a maximum value of ν = 1 is expected. During the anaerobic degradation of potato amylose in aqueous alkaline solutions, k₁ decreases and k₂ increases in value as the initial amylose concentration is raised. As a result, quantitative depolymerization occurs at low substrate concentrations, while at raised starch levels an alkali-stable residue is formed. It is proposed that intermolecular association between polymer chains causes these kinetic differences. For amylose, the constants k₁, k₂, and k₃ are approximately related by the ratio 1000:1:1 or 1000:0:1; and for the homologous disaccharide, the ratio is 10:1:10. The relevance of these findings to the kinetics of cellulose decomposition in aqueous alkali is discussed.     

Castration, circumcision, and anti-Semitism.

In this study, the authors look at whether circumcision is a relevant variable in anti-Semitism as measured in a contemporary male gentile population. The 52-item A-S scale described by Levinson and Sanford was administered to 381 students drawn from various psychology courses at Princeton and Rutgers Universities. The subjects (Ss) included in this study are 142 gentile male undergraduates selected from the larger population and divided into two matched groups of 71 each. No reliable differences in attitude were found between circumcised and uncircumcised subjects. These findings indicate the relative unimportance of circumcision as an isolated factor in anti-Semitism. The implications for the relationships involving circumcision, castration, and anti-Semitism are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)