Purity of Aluminum Hydroxide Derived from Triethylaluminum

Aluminum hydroxide obtained by hydrolysis of triethylaluminum is free of uranium and thorium at detection limits of 1 to 9 parts per billion (ppb). Other impurities commonly associated with aluminum oxides are present at low levels (Fe, ∼ 1 ppm; Si, 3 to 6 ppm). When the organoaluminum is intentionally contaminated with an iron salt, purity is restored by a simple distillation.     

Simulated autohydrolysis of aspen milled wood lignin in the presence of aromatic additives: Structural modifications

In a previous article the authors have described changes in molecular weight which occur when aspen milled wood lignin is subjecte to autocatalyzed hydrolysis (autohydrolysis) in the presence of three aromatic additives: 2-naphthol, resorcinol, and p-hydroxybenzoic acid. In the present work, the reactions of these additives have been studied from the viewpoint of their effect on the structure of the lignin. The use of milled wood lignin instead of aspen wood served to distinguish those reactions between the additives and the lignin, without involving the other wood components. The reaction products have been charactrized by elemental analysis and UV and IR spectroscopy. It was concluded that keto groups, generated on the lignin side-chain during autohydrolysis, condense with the additives, which become incorporated into the lignin. This occurs most probably through an aromatic eletrophilic substitution reaction. While 2-naphthol condensed primarily with the β-keto carbonyl groups, resorcinol attacked also the α-keto carbonyl groups. When p-hydroxybenzoic acid was the additive, its incorporation was accompanied by an increase in lignin carboxylic acid groups.     

Explicit finite difference scheme for nonlinear convective problems

An explicit finite difference scheme is proposed for nonlinear convective problems. The procedure is applied to a nonlinear convective diffusion problem with a nonlinear boundary condition. It is shown that the nonlinear boundary condition may be treated directly without linearization which has to be carried out in the implicit method to avoid a nonlinear system of algebraic equations. The explicit procedure is more direct and less cumbersome than the implicit procedure and the answers are in excellent agreement with those of the implicit method.     

Direct Measurement of Transformation Zone Strains in Toughened Zirconia

Residual strains responsible for crack tip shielding have been measured within transformation zones surrounding cracks in Mg-PSZ. Two techniques were used for strain measurement: moiré interferometry and high-resolution image matching. Both methods provide maps of differential in-plane displacements within the specimen surface intersected by the crack, the latter method with the higher resolution. The results are compared with finite-element analysis to assess surface relaxation effects, and the measured strains are used to evaluate the crack tip shielding stress intensity factor. Calculations based on the assumption that the unconstrained transformation strain is hydrostatic dilatation yielded results that were significantly smaller than the measured toughness increases.     

Federating Policy-Driven Autonomous Systems: Interaction Specification and Management Patterns

Ubiquitous systems and applications involve interactions between multiple autonomous entities—for example, robots in a mobile ad-hoc network collaborating to achieve a goal, communications between teams of emergency workers involved in disaster relief operations or interactions between patients’ and healthcare workers’ mobile devices. We have previously proposed the Self-Managed Cell (SMC) as an architectural pattern for managing autonomous ubiquitous systems that comprise both hardware and software components and that implement policy-based adaptation strategies. We have also shown how basic management interactions between autonomous SMCs can be realised through exchanges of notifications and policies, to effectively program management and context-aware adaptations. We present here how autonomous SMCs can be composed and federated into complex structures through the systematic composition of interaction patterns. By composing simpler abstractions as building blocks of more complex interactions it is possible to leverage commonalities across the structural, control and communication views to manage a broad variety of composite autonomous systems including peer-to-peer collaborations, federations and aggregations with varying degrees of devolution of control. Although the approach is more broadly applicable, we focus on systems where declarative policies are used to specify adaptation and on context-aware ubiquitous systems that present some degree of autonomy in the physical world, such as body sensor networks and autonomous vehicles. Finally, we present a formalisation of our model that allows a rigorous verification of the properties satisfied by the SMC interactions before policies are deployed in physical devices.     

基于WebGIS的城市供水管网系统的设计与实现

介绍了基于WebGIS的城市供水管网信息系统的体系结构、功能组成以及供水管网建模技术.城市供水管网系统主要包括管网建模、查询统计、爆管事故分析、运行状态监控、漏损分析、系统维护等六个方面.城市供水管网建模是进行城市供水系统规划、设计、分析与优化调度的重要支撑技术,充分发挥WebGIS的分布式与可视化地理空间信息分析的优势,结合城市供水管网的管理需求,将WebGIS技术应用到城市供水管网的建模中.该系统可为城市供水部门的高效管理提供决策依据.     

A comparison of symptoms used by mothers and nurses to identify an infant with colic

In this survey research a comparison was made between symptoms used by mothers and nurses which led them to think the baby might be "colicky." Two questionnaires, one for mothers and one for nurses, were used to collect the data. The mothers most frequently selected passes gas rectally, clenches fists, draws-up legs, cries late afternoon and evening, holds body straight, and wants to be held. The nurses selected mother states baby is inconsolable, cries more than 4 hours in 24, draws up legs and wants to feed but won't. Parents believed the colic to be related to a variety of factors; these included baby's eating behaviour, maternal anxiety, baby's and mother's diets, and baby's stress. Ten parents reported pain and screaming as symptoms of colic.     

Glycosylation patterns of membrane proteins of the jellyfish Cyanea capillata

Integral and membrane-associated proteins extracted from neuron-enriched perirhopalial tissue of the jellyfish Cyanea capillata were probed with a panel of lectins that recognize sugar epitopes of varying complexity. Of the 13 lectins tested, only concanavalin A, jacalin lectin and tomato lectin stained distinct bands on Western blots, indicating the presence of repeating alpha-1,6-mannoses, terminal Gal-alpha-1,6-GalNAc and repeating beta-1,4-linked GlcNAc, respectively. In whole-mounted perirhopalial tissue, jacalin lectin stained several cell types, including neurons, muscle, cilia and mucus strands. Tomato lectin stained secretory cells intensely, and neurons in a punctate fashion. Concanavalin A stained cytoplasmic epitopes in both ecto- and endodermal cells, and ectodermal secretory cells and the mucus strands emanating from them. With the exception of tomato lectin's sugar epitope, the other sugar epitopes identified in this study are "non-complex". This study suggests that while glycosylation of integral and membrane-associated proteins occurs in Cyanea, the sugars post-translationally linked to these proteins tend to be simple.     

Arginine 206 of the C5a receptor is critical for ligand recognition and receptor activation by C-terminal hexapeptide analogs

C5a is a 74-amino-acid glycoprotein whose receptor is a member of the rhodopsin superfamily. While antagonists have been generated to many of these receptors, similar efforts directed at family members whose natural ligands are proteins have met with little success. The recent development of hexapeptide analogs of C5a has allowed us to begin elucidation of the molecular events that lead to activation by combining a structure/activity study of the ligand with receptor mutagenesis. Removal of the hexapeptide's C-terminal arginine reduces affinity by 100-fold and eliminates the ability of the ligand to activate the receptor. Both the guanidino side chain and the free carboxyl of the arginine participate in the interaction. The guanidino group makes the energy-yielding contact with the receptor, while the free carboxylate negates "electrostatic" interference with Arg-206 of the receptor. It is the apparent movement Arg-206 induced by this set of interactions that is responsible for activation, since conversion of Arg-206 to alanine eliminates the agonist activity of the hexapeptides. Surprisingly, activation is a nearly energy-neutral event and may reflect the binding process rather than the final resting site of the ligand.     

Hownot to demarcate cognitive science and folk psychology: A response to Pickering and Chater

Pickering and Chater (P&C) maintain that folk psychology and cognitive science should neither compete nor cooperate. Each is an independent enterprise, with a distinct subject matter and characteristic modes of explanation. P&C's case depends upon their characterizations of cognitive science and folk psychology. We question the basis for their characterizations, challenge both the coherence and the individual adequacy of their contrasts between the two, and show that they waver in their views about the scope of each. We conclude that P&C do not so muchdiscover ascreate the gap they find between folk psychology and cognitive science. It is an artifact of their implausible and unmotivated attempt to demarcate the two areas, and of the excessively narrow accounts they give of each.