Ceramics and ceramic matrix composites for heat exchangers in advanced thermal systems—A review

In air-conditioning and energy-recovery applications, heat exchangers are very important to the overall efficiency, cost, and size of the system. Current heat exchanger designs rely heavily on fin-and-tube or plate heat exchanger designs, often constructed using copper and aluminum. Recent developments in material science—in particular, advances in ceramics and ceramic matrix composites—open opportunities for new heat exchanger designs. Some research directed toward using these materials for heat exchangers in other applications has been reported; however, there has not been a comprehensive study of the use of these emerging materials in both conventional HVAC&R systems and emerging energy technologies. This review reports the current state-of-the-art of ceramic materials for use in a variety of heat transfer systems.     

The prototype high-resolution Fly''s Eye cosmic ray detector

The High-Resolution Fly's Eye (HiRes) is an observatory for the highest energy cosmic rays. It detects the nitrogen fluorescence light induced by the passage of giant cosmic ray extensive air showers through the atmosphere. A two-site prototype of the observatory was operated from September 1994 to November 1996. In this paper we describe the components of that detector, and the procedures used to calibrate the detector and characterise the atmosphere. Data collected by the HiRes prototype are being used for physics studies, including an analysis of the cosmic ray mass composition in the energy range from 10¹⁷ to 10¹⁸ eV.     

Inactivation of Salmonella serovars in liquid whole egg by heat following irradiation treatments

Salmonella is a frequent contaminant on eggs and is responsible for foodborne illnesses in humans. Ionizing radiation and thermal processing can be used to inactivate Salmonella in liquid whole egg, but when restricted to doses that do not affect egg quality, these technologies are only partially effective in reducing Salmonella populations. In this study, the effect of ionizing radiation in combination with thermal treatment on the survival of Salmonella serovars was investigated. Of the six Salmonella serovars tested, Salmonella Senftenberg was the most resistant to radiation (Dgamma = 0.65 kGy) and heat (D(55 degrees C) = 11.31 min, z = 4.9 degrees C). Irradiation followed by thermal treatment at 55 or 57 degrees C improved the pasteurization process. Radiation doses as low as 0.1 kGy prior to thermal treatments synergistically reduced the D(55 degrees C) and D(57 degrees C) of Salmonella Senftenberg 3.6- and 2.5-fold, respectively. The D(55 degrees C) and D(57 degrees C) of Salmonella Typhimurium were reduced 2- and 1.4-fold and those of Salmonella Enteritidis were reduced 2- and 1.6-fold, respectively. Irradiation prior to thermal treatment would enable the reduction of heat treatment times by 86 and 30% at 55 and 57 degrees C, respectively, and would inactivate 9 log units of Salmonella serovars.     

Further Investigations into Rigidity-Activity Relationships in BisQAC Amphiphilic Antiseptics

Thirty-six biscationic quaternary ammonium compounds were efficiently synthesized in one step to examine the effect of molecular geometry of two-carbon linkers on antimicrobial activity. The synthesized compounds showed strong antimicrobial activity against a panel of both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria, including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). While the linker geometry showed only a modest correlation with antimicrobial activity, several of the synthesized bisQACs are promising potential antiseptics due to good antimicrobial activity (MIC≤2 μM) and their higher therapeutic indices compared to previously reported QACs.     

Auditory habituation in young and older adults: The verbal transformation effect.

In 3 experiments, auditory massed repetition was used to examine age-related differences in habituation by means of the verbal transformation paradigm. Participants heard 10 words (5 high frequency and 5 low frequency), each presented 180 times, and they reported perceived changes in the repeated words (verbal transformations). In these experiments, older adults reported fewer illusory percepts than young adults. Older adults' loss of auditory acuity and slowing of processing, stimulus degradation (in young adults), and instructions biasing the report of these illusory percepts did not account for the fewer illusory percepts reported by the older adults. These findings suggest that older adults' reduced susceptibility to habituation arises from centrally located declines in the transmission of information within the word recognition pathway. The discussion focuses on the implications that these age-related declines may have on word identification during on-line speech perception. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

SF与JSP：JavaEE5的新特性——专访Ed Burns与Jan Luehe

Ed BurnS是JSR252．Java Server Faces1.2联合规范的制订人，而Jan Luehe则是JSR245、Java Server Pages2．1的领军者。Artima的记者Frank Sommers于2006年4月14日对两位进行了专访，并在随后的E-mail交流中，讨论了Java EE 5中包含的新的JSF和JSP特性。Burns和Luehe详细讲解了JSP和JSF通用表达式语言Ajax．以及注释在依赖注入中的作用。     

Effect of citric acid on the radiation resistance of Listeria monocytogenes and frankfurter quality factors

Listeria monocytogenes is a common contaminant of ready-to-eat meat products, including frankfurters. Ionizing (gamma) radiation can eliminate L. monocytogenes from frankfurters. Citric acid (CA) is an antioxidant synergist and anti-microbial agent that can be applied to the surfaces of cured meat products prior to packaging. The effect of CA on the radiation resistance of L. monocytogenes that was surface-inoculated onto frankfurters was determined. The D(10) values, the radiation doses required to inactivate 90% of viable L. monocytogenes, were 0.61, 0.60, 0.54, and 0.53 kGy, on frankfurters dipped in 0, 1, 5 or 10% CA solution, respectively. CA, although an antioxidant synergist, did not increase antioxidant activity (AA) on frankfurter surfaces as determined by the ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) assay. Lipid oxidation, as determined by the Thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) assay, was not affected by CA or ionizing radiation. Color of frankfurters, determined by Hunter L, a, b, indicated that ionizing radiation induced a small, but visually imperceptible, loss of redness (a-value). Frankfurter firmness, as measured by maximum shear force, was not affected by ionizing radiation or CA. CA enhanced the lethality of ionizing radiation without negatively impacting frankfurter color, lipid oxidation, firmness, or antioxidant activity.     

2-Dodecylcyclobutanone does not induce mutations in the Salmonella mutagenicity test or intrachromosomal recombination in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Treatment of foods, such as red meat and poultry, that contain palmitic acid with ionizing radiation leads to the formation of 2-dodecylcyclobutanone (2-DCB), a compound found only in irradiated foods. In this study, the Salmonella mutagenicity test and the yeast DEL assay were used to evaluate the genotoxic potential of 2-DCB. Salmonella Typhimurium tester strains TA98, TA100, TA1535, and TA1537 were exposed to 0, 0.125, 0.25, 0.5, and 1 mg per well of 2-DCB, with and without exogenous metabolic activation (5% S9 fraction), using the microtiter plate-based Miniscreen version of the test. 2-DCB did not induce mutations in the Salmonella mutagenicity test. When Saccharomyces cerevisiae strain RS112, which contains a nonfunctional duplication of the his3 gene that can be induced to form a functional HIS3+ gene by intrachromosomal recombination, was exposed to 0.63, 1.25, 2.5, or 5.0 mg/ml of 2-DCB, no increase in the rate of intrachromosomal (DEL) recombination was observed. The absence of genotoxicity observed in this study using purified 2-DCB agrees with the lack of genotoxic and teratogenic activity observed in previously conducted multigeneration feeding studies of laboratory animals (rats, mice, guinea pigs, and rabbits) that used radiation-sterilized poultry that contained 2-DCB as a unique radiolytic product.     

A Geometric Approach to Improving Active Packet Loss Measurement

Measurement and estimation of packet loss characteristics are challenging due to the relatively rare occurrence and typically short duration of packet loss episodes. While active probe tools are commonly used to measure packet loss on end-to-end paths, there has been little analysis of the accuracy of these tools or their impact on the network. The objective of our study is to understand how to measure packet loss episodes accurately with end-to-end probes. We begin by testing the capability of standard Poisson-modulated end-to-end measurements of loss in a controlled laboratory environment using IP routers and commodity end hosts. Our tests show that loss characteristics reported from such Poisson-modulated probe tools can be quite inaccurate over a range of traffic conditions. Motivated by these observations, we introduce a new algorithm for packet loss measurement that is designed to overcome the deficiencies in standard Poisson-based tools. Specifically, our method entails probe experiments that follow a geometric distribution to 1) enable an explicit trade-off between accuracy and impact on the network, and 2) enable more accurate measurements than standard Poisson probing at the same rate. We evaluate the capabilities of our methodology experimentally by developing and implementing a prototype tool, called BADABING. The experiments demonstrate the trade-offs between impact on the network and measurement accuracy. We show that BADABING reports loss characteristics far more accurately than traditional loss measurement tools.