Learn to Design Attractive Web Sites

A review of The Principles of Beautiful Web Design by Jason Beaird. The book aims to cover the demand to build Web sites by targeting designers who want to learn how to make Web sites look more attractive.     

Semantic Web Mining: State of the art and future directions

Semantic Web Mining aims at combining the two fast-developing research areas Semantic Web and Web Mining. This survey analyzes the convergence of trends from both areas: More and more researchers are working on improving the results of Web Mining by exploiting semantic structures in the Web, and they make use of Web Mining techniques for building the Semantic Web. Last but not least, these techniques can be used for mining the Semantic Web itself.The Semantic Web is the second-generation WWW, enriched by machine-processable information which supports the user in his tasks. Given the enormous size even of today’s Web, it is impossible to manually enrich all of these resources. Therefore, automated schemes for learning the relevant information are increasingly being used. Web Mining aims at discovering insights about the meaning of Web resources and their usage. Given the primarily syntactical nature of the data being mined, the discovery of meaning is impossible based on these data only. Therefore, formalizations of the semantics of Web sites and navigation behavior are becoming more and more common. Furthermore, mining the Semantic Web itself is another upcoming application. We argue that the two areas Web Mining and Semantic Web need each other to fulfill their goals, but that the full potential of this convergence is not yet realized. This paper gives an overview of where the two areas meet today, and sketches ways of how a closer integration could be profitable.     

CAMS dirigiert die eGK

Die elektronische Gesundheitskarte (eGK) bietet viele neue M?glichkeiten für eine vernetzte, effiziente Gesundheitsversorgung. Komplexe ≫Card and Application Management Systeme≪ (CAMS) gew?hrleisten im Hintergrund Funktionsf?higkeit und Sicherheit — von der Ausgabe der Karte bis zu ihrer Erneuerung.     

A modern hardware setup for real-time turbulence measurements in two-phase flows

A modern concept of cost-effective digital signal processing hardware for measuring and analysing data from experiments investigating turbulent two-phase flows is presented. Using an array processor together with an appropriate analog-to-digital converter, conventional turbulence characteristics such as turbulence spectra, correlation functions, turbulence intensities and — scales can be evaluated in real time.     

,,Ehrende Auszeichnung“ oder ,,Aufforderung zur Leistung eines Geldbeitrages“?

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many prominent German and Austrian scientists declined the election as a member of the Kaiserliche Leopoldinisch-Carolinische Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher (in short: Leopoldina) because they were not willing to pay the entrance and membership fees of about one fifth of the monthly salary of a full professor. Many of theses candidates simply did not answer to the president’s notification of being elected. Some of them came up with ,,various reasons not to be discussed”, or referred to their individual financial situation.The physicist Heinrich Hertz, who had become famous by the discovery of electromagnetic waves in the late 1880ies, was the only elected candidate who protested bluntly against what he considered as an unworthy procedure. Although it would not have been a much of a burden for him to afford the requested entrance and membership fees, he refused to adhere to an association whose statues combined the award of an academic distinction with the obligation of financial support. In two letters addressed to Leopoldina President Carl Hermann Knoblauch,Hertz gave his reasons for declining his election to the academy. In the present article, Hertz’s letters to Knoblauch are fully published for the first time.      

Electrostatic destabilization of water-in-crude oil emulsions: Application to a real case and evaluation of the Aibel VIEC technology

In the current study, the Aibel Vessel Internal Electrostatic Coalescer (VIEC) technology was tested for a real case scenario encountered in the production train of a UK oil field. Depressurized samples were collected both upstream and downstream of the first stage separator. The separation performance was discussed with respect to water cut and droplet size distribution of the emulsions, and the effect of chemical treatment. Issues with respect to representative sampling and testing have been discussed. The application of an external AC electrical field has been shown to significantly enhance the separation of the aqueous phase from tight emulsions, both when it was used alone and in combination with a commercial demulsifier. By using the VIEC technology, the time for separation could be reduced from 8 min to 2 min and the overall BS&W in the emulsions was improved from 45% or 60% to a residual water content of 5-20%. Destabilization of a 45% water-in-oil emulsion by electrical and chemical treatment (20/40 ppm) produced oil in the 2-7% BS&W range whereas the corresponding tests without applying an electrostatic field led to a BS&W greater than 25%. The achieved results strongly suggest that the VIEC technology can resolve the stable emulsion bands encountered in the Schiehallion train and add flexibility or increased production rate to the process. The results also suggest the importance of further studies on the destabilization performances achieved by electrostatic means.