Effect of the use of mineral filler on the properties of concrete

Engineers of the concrete technology are increasingly concerned with the material passing through a sieve of the size under 0.149 mm. Materials called very fine aggregate or mineral filler may affect the performance of concrete in an either positive or a negative way. Discussions on aggregate containing very fine material are vitally important. Washing the aggregate residue has been the sole way to solve this matter to date. This is mainly based on the debatable opinion that materials of this kind are regarded as clay material. The goal of the study was to determine how the content of mineral filler might affect properties of concrete. Two types of aggregates with different amounts of cement and mineral filler were used. Basically, mineral filler replaced sand. The effect of applying different amounts of mineral filler on concrete was then determined. The addition of 7-10% of mineral filler to fine aggregate (0-2 mm) was found to considerably improve the properties of concrete.     

新型海藻糖酶抑制剂的合成及生物活性

本文合成了未见文献报道的七个化合物,其结构均得到核磁共振、红外光谱、质谱和元素分析的确证,并测试了其海藻糖酶抑制活性,生测结果表明此类化合物显示了一定的抑制作用。     

Abnormal behavior detection using dominant sets

Smart surveillance systems are increasingly being used to detect potentially dangerous situations. To do so, the common and easier way is to model normal human behaviors and consider as abnormal any new strange behavior in the scene. In this article, Dominant Sets is adapted to model most frequent behaviors and to detect any unknown event to trigger an alarm. It is proved that after an unsupervised training, Dominant Sets can robustly detect abnormal behaviors. The method is tested in several different cases and compared to other usual clusterization methods such as KNN, mixture of Gaussians or Fuzzy \(K\) -Means to confirm its robustness and performance. The overall performance of abnormal behavior detection based on Dominant Sets is better, being the error ratio at least \(1.5\) points lower than the others.     

Energieinformatik

Due to the increasing importance of producing and consuming energy more sustainably, Energy Informatics (EI) has evolved into a thriving research area within the CS/IS community. The article attempts to characterize this young and highly dynamic field of research by describing current EI research topics and methods and provides an outlook of how the field might evolve in the future. It is shown that two general research questions have received the most attention so far and are likely to dominate the EI research agenda in the coming years: How to leverage information and communication technology (ICT) to (1) improve energy efficiency, and (2) to integrate decentralized renewable energy sources into the power grid. Selected EI streams are reviewed, highlighting how the respective research questions are broken down into specific research projects and how EI researchers have made contributions based on their individual academic background.     

Dissecting the protocol and network traffic of the OnLive cloud gaming platform

Cloud gaming is a new paradigm that is envisaged to play a pivotal role in the video game industry in forthcoming years. Cloud gaming, or gaming on demand, is a type of online gaming that allows on-demand streaming of game content onto non-specialised devices (e.g. PC, smart TV, etc.). This approach requires no downloads or game installation because the actual game is executed on the game company’s server and is streamed directly to the client. Nonetheless, this revolutionary approach significantly affects the network load generated by online games. As cloud gaming presents new challenges for both network engineers and the research community, both groups need to be fully conversant with these new cloud gaming platforms. The purpose of this paper is to investigate OnLive, one of the most popular cloud gaming platforms. Our key contributions are: (a) a review of the state-of-the-art of cloud gaming; (b) reverse engineering of the OnLive protocol; and (c) a synthetic traffic model for OnLive.     

Effects of poly(acrylic acid) and poly(ethylene oxide) adsorption on the stability of alumina suspension

The effect of adsorbed polymer on the stability of alumina suspension was investigated. Poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO), poly(acrylic acid) (PAA) and similar kinds of polymer salts were used as a dispersant. The amount of polymer adsorbed on alumina surface and the suspension stability was measured. The pH, molecular weight, and concentration were considered as experimental parameters. PEO shows low affinity on the alumina surface while PAA has high affinity. In the case of PAA adsorption, the surface charge change by polymer adsorption influences suspension stability strongly, but not in the case of PEO adsorption. In simultaneous adsorption of PEO and PAA, the PAA concentration was fixed and PEO concentration was varied. The stability of suspension increased with increasing PEO concentration, and this is partly due to the steric stabilization by adsorption of PAA-PEO complex or adsorption of PEO through pre-adsorbed PAA and the depletion effect of non-adsorbed polymer. Suspension adsorbing sodium salts of PAA and poly(methacrylic acid) (PMA) each showed similar stability. But, when the PEO and these kinds of salts were added together to the suspension, the one with PAA sodium salt could keep a higher stability even with lower molecular weights of PEO compared with suspension with PMA sodium salt.     

Inheritance Of Resistance To Mammalian Herbivores and Of Plant Defensive Chemistry In A <Emphasis Type="Italic">Eucalyptus</Emphasis> Species

Hybridization in plants provides an opportunity to investigate the patterns of inheritance of hybrid resistance to herbivores, and of the plant mechanisms conferring this resistance such as plant secondary metabolites. We investigated how inter-race differences in resistance of Eucalyptus globulus to a generalist mammalian herbivore, Trichosurus vulpecula, are inherited in their F₁ hybrids. We assessed browsing damage of three-year-old trees in a common environment field trial on four hybrid types of known progeny. The progency were artificial intra-race crosses and reciprocal inter-race F₁ hybrids of two geographically distinct populations (races) of E. globulus; north-eastern Tasmania and south-eastern Tasmania. Populations of trees from north-eastern Tasmania are relatively susceptible to browsing by T. vulpecula, while populations from south-eastern Tasmania are more resistant. We assessed the preferences of these trees in a series of paired feeding trials with captive animals to test the field trial results and also investigated the patterns of inheritance of plant secondary metabolites. Our results demonstrated that the phenotypic expression of resistance of the inter-race F₁ hybrids supported the additive pattern of inheritance, as these hybrids were intermediate in resistance compared to the pure parental hybrids. The expression of plant secondary metabolites in the F₁ hybrids varied among groups of individual compounds. The most common pattern supported was dominance towards one of the parental types. Together, condensed tannins and essential oils appeared to explain the observed patterns of resistance among the four hybrid types. While both chemical groups were inherited in a dominant manner in the inter-race F₁ hybrids, the direction of dominance was opposite. Their combined concentration, however, was inherited in an additive manner, consistent with the phenotypic differences in browsing.     

Application of combined coagulation-ultrafiltration membrane process for water treatment

The objectives of this research are to identify the membrane fouling potential due to different fractions of NOM and correlate the physicochemical properties of NOM and membranes with the adsorption of humic substances on membrane and investigate the mechanism of coagulation affecting UF, and find the optimum conditions of the combined of coagulation with UF membrane filtration for NOM removal. For Nakdong river water, the humic acid fraction was the most reactive precursor fraction for the formation of the ratio of THMFP/DOC (STHMFP) and TOXFP/DOC (STOXFP). The result of adsorption kinetics tests showed that hydrophobic organics adsorbed much more quickly than hydrophilic organics on both membranes. Thus, hydrophobic compounds exhibited a preferential adsorption onto membrane. In case of the effect of membrane properties on the adsorption of organic fractions, the adsorption ratio (C₁/C_e) was greater for the hydrophobic membrane than for the hydrophilic membrane regardless of the kind of organic fractions. For combined coagulation with membrane process, flux reduction rate showed lower than the UF process alone. Also, the rate of flux decline for the hydrophobic membrane was considerably greater than for the hydrophilic membrane. Applying the coagulation process before membrane filtration showed not only reduced membrane fouling, but also improved removal of dissolved organic materials that might otherwise not be removed by the membrane. That is, during the mixing period, substantial changes in particle size distribution occurred under rapid and slow mixing conditions due to the simultaneous formation of microflocs and NOM precipitates. Therefore, combined pretreatment using coagulation (both rapid mixing and slow mixing) improved not only dissolved organic removal efficiency but also DBP (Disinfection By-Product) precursor's removal efficiency.     

Structural analysis of Aleksinac oil shale kerogen by high-resolution solid-state C n.m.r. spectroscopy

A sample of kerogen from Aleksinac oil shale was examined by high-resolution solid-state ¹³C n.m.r. spectroscopy. The presence and relative proportions of kerogen structural units were estimated using a combination of NQS and T_1C methods with a peak-synthesis technique applied to the ¹³C CP—MAS spectrum. Relaxation parameters from these experiments were used to estimate differences in relative ‘mobility’ of various structural units. The kerogen was found to be highly aliphatic and to contain 79% long-chain aliphatic plus alicyclic structures, as well as 9% aromatic structures. These findings are in good agreement with the characterization of the same kerogen from its oxidation products.     

Nitrous Oxide Emissions from New Zealand Agriculture – key Sources and Mitigation Strategies

In most countries, nitrous oxide (N₂O) emissions typically contribute less than 10% of the CO₂ equivalent greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In New Zealand, however, this gas contributes 17% of the nation’s total GHG emissions due to the dominance of the agricultural sector. New Zealand’s target under the Kyoto Protocol is to reduce GHG emissions to 1990 levels. Currently total GHG emissions are 17% above 1990 levels. The single largest source of N₂O emission in New Zealand is animal excreta deposited during grazing (80% of agricultural N₂O emissions), while N fertilizer use currently contributes only 14% of agricultural emissions. Nitrogen fertilizer use has, however, increased 4-fold since 1990. Mitigation strategies for reducing N₂O emissions in New Zealand focus on (i) reducing the amount of N excreted to pasture, e.g. through diet manipulation; (ii) increasing the N use efficiency of excreta or fertilizer, e.g. through grazing management or use of nitrification inhibitors; or (iii) avoiding soil conditions that favour denitrification e.g. improving drainage and reducing soil compaction. Current estimates suggest that, if fully implemented, these individual measures can reduce agricultural N₂O emissions by 7–20%. The highest reduction potentials are obtained from measures that reduce the amount of excreta N, or increase the N use efficiency of excreta or fertilizer. However, New Zealand’s currently used N₂O inventory methodology will require refinement to ensure that a reduction in N₂O emissions achieved through implementation of any of these mitigation strategies can be fully accounted for. Furthermore, as many of these mitigation strategies also affect other greenhouse gas emissions or other environmental losses, it is crucial that both the economic and total environmental impacts of N₂O mitigation strategies are evaluated at a farm system’s level.