Nancy Joy Kerr (1933-2001).

Reports the death of Nancy Joy Kerr (1933-2001). The authors discuss her contributions to rehabilitation psychology as well as her various personal and professional accomplishments. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Design and demonstration of an experimental membrane reactor set-up for oxidative coupling of methane

In this experimental research, the performance of the oxidative coupling of methane (OCM) reactions in a porous packed bed membrane reactor was investigated. A commercially available porous alpha-alumina membrane was modified to obtain the characteristics needed for a stable and catalytically inert OCM membrane reactor. The silica-sol impregnation–calcination method and a new silicon oxycarbide (SiOC) coating-calcination approach were applied to modify the membrane. The characteristics of the resulted membrane and its typical performance as OCM membrane reactor are reported.     

Recent developments in BIPM voltage standard comparisons

The Bureau International des Poids et Measures (BIPM) carries out a number of comparisons of dc voltage standards with National Metrology Institutes (NMIs). These take the form of on-site comparisons of Josephson standards or bilateral comparisons using traveling standards based on Zener diodes. This paper describes some of the new procedures used in both types of comparison and presents some results of five recent BIPM key comparisons     

Application and modelling of hybrid stereolithography injection mould tooling

The use of stereolithography (SL) to make injection moulding tools has been shown previously to be an efficient way of producing rapid tools for simple geometries, aiming at small lot sizes with an acceptable degree of accuracy. This paper highlights the unexplored potential of using SL inserts in hybrid tools using practical experiments and FEA mould filling models. The practical experiments reveal problems incurred by uneven flow as a result of differential thermal conductivity between dissimilar mould materials in a hybrid tool. The FEA flow models confirm that this uneven flow would be anticipated when using finite element analysis (FEA) software. A further FEA stress analysis predicts that catastrophic mould failure will be expected under some conditions and these reflect the results found in the practical experiments. The use of a homogeneous SL tool eliminates the issues caused by uneven mould filling but results in thermal distortion of the female mould. Ultimately, a SL tool backfilled with low melt point alloy provides a solution that eliminates the problems of uneven filling and thermal distortion.     

Multi‐Objective Optimization in Distillation Unit: A Case Study

Increasing social pressure and strict legislations have resulted in changing the approach of traditional design practices to incorporate multiple objectives in the design of process plants. Distillation is one of the major operations in the chemical process industry that is widely used for purifying products or recovering solvents or separation of valuable reactants from waste stream. In this paper, a procedure for multi‐objective optimization is discussed with the help of a distillation unit from hydrocarbon recovery plant of a distillate fraction process. The procedure developed here consists of four stages and is based on current design tools. The aim is to support decisions during design phase and optimize the process variables in order to generate a process with improved economics along with satisfaction of environmental objectives. Total potential environment impact and total annualized cost are used as indicator for environmental and economic objectives, respectively.     

Uniform colour spaces based on the DIN99 colour‐difference formula

Several colour‐difference formulas such as CMC, CIE94, and CIEDE2000 have been developed by modifying CIELAB. These formulas give much better fits for experimental data based on small colour differences than does CIELAB. None of these has an associated uniform colour space (UCS). The need for a UCS is demonstrated by the widespread use of the a*b* diagram despite the lack of uniformity. This article describes the development of formulas, with the same basic structure as the DIN99 formula, that predict the experimental data sets better than do the CMC and CIE94 colour‐difference formulas and only slightly worse than CIEDE2000 (which was optimized on the experimental data). However, these formulas all have an associated UCS. The spaces are similar in form to L*a*b*. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 27, 282–290, 2002; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/col.10066     

The stability of children's physical activity as measured by accelerometry and self-report

The Computer Science Application (CSA) accelerometer uses integrated circuitry and memory to provide a continuous recording of minute-by-minute movement counts. It has been previously validated as an objective monitor of children's physical activity in field and laboratory settings. Our purpose was to derive accelerometry summary variables reflective of different physical activity intensity levels, evaluate the stability of these summary variables, and define the number of days needed to adequately measure usual physical activity. A secondary study purpose was to compare three self-report questionnaires to accelerometry. Thirty children (7-15 yr) wore accelerometers for 12 h.d-1 for 6 d. Daily summary variables of average movement count (total physical activity) and daily frequency of sedentary through vigorous activity were constructed. Intraclass correlation coefficients (R) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were used to analyze the data. Accelerometry stability using 1 monitored day to represent usual physical activity was R = 0.42-0.47. When 6 d were used, stability increased to R = 0.81-0.84. Acceptable intraclass correlations and CI were achieved with 4 d of monitoring (R = 0.75-0.78, CI = 0.60-0.88). The self-report questionnaires were poorly to moderately correlated to accelerometry variables (r = -0.03-0.51). Data indicate that in field settings: 1) accelerometry can be used to assess the intensity of children's activity and 2) 4 or more days of activity monitoring are needed to achieve satisfactory reliability.