The novel low temperature synthesis of nanocrystalline MgAl2O4 spinel using “gel” precursors

Nanocrystalline MgA1₂O₄ was synthesized by pyrolysis of the homogeneous spinel precursor, Mg(C₄H₅O₂)₂·(H₂O):Al₂(OH)₃(C₃H₃O₂)₃·(H₂O)₂:NH₄(C₃H₃O₂)·(H₂O). The spinel precursor gel is composed of a mixture of magnesium and aluminum acrylate salts dissolved in an ammonium acrylate gel. The reaction of acrylic acid with magnesium hydroxide in water produced magnesium methacrylate, and a similar reaction of basic aluminum acetate produced the aluminum salt of acrylic acid. The reaction of acrylic acid with ammonium hydroxide produced the ammonium acrylate gel. Ammonium acrylate gel was found to absorb many times its own weight of water. Although similar properties have been identified in PMMA and in the polymer of sodium acrylate, only the ammonium acrylate gel exists as an unpolymerized monomer. The spinel precursor gel is a pre-ceramic material that yields an amorphous oxide phase at 425°C that begins to crystallize to the MgAl₂O₄ spinel at 600°C and is fully crysta1line at 1030°C with a uniform particle size of 7-100 nm. The spinel precursor gel and the nanocrystalline MgA1₂O₄ spinel were characterized by XRD and TEM.     

Purest ever example-based machine translation: Detailed presentation and assessment

We have designed, implemented and assessed an EBMT system that can be dubbed the “purest ever built”: it strictly does not make any use of variables, templates or patterns, does not have any explicit transfer component, and does not require any preprocessing or training of the aligned examples. It uses only a specific operation, proportional analogy, that implicitly neutralizes divergences between languages and captures lexical and syntactic variations along the paradigmatic and syntagmatic axes without explicitly decomposing sentences into fragments. Exactly the same genuine implementation of such a core engine was evaluated on different tasks and language pairs. To begin with, we compared our system on two tasks of a previous MT evaluation campaign to rank it among other current state-of-the-art systems. Then, we illustrated the “universality” of our system by participating in a recent MT evaluation campaign, with exactly the same core engine, for a wide variety of language pairs. Finally, we studied the influence of extra data like dictionaries and paraphrases on the system performance.     

Relaxation processes in a glassy polymer containing methanol molecules

The interaction of small guest molecules with the molecular degrees of freedom of a glassy polymer matrix is investigated, i.e. (i) the dynamics of these guest molecules and (ii) their effect on the secondary ‘β’ and main ‘’ relaxations of the host polymeric matrix. The system considered here is the glassy poly(methyl metacrylate) modified by introduction and desorption of methanol. The dynamics of the system is observed by means of low-frequency mechanical and wide band dielectric spectroscopies. The presence of small molecules in the PMMA glassy matrix induces several effects, namely (i) a strong relaxation peak develops at low temperature (near 120 K at 1 Hz and called _m in the following), (ii) the strength of the β relaxation is increased while the temperature of the maximum shifts towards the low temperatures, (iii) a sharp peak appears superimposed on the β peak, and finally (iv) the relaxation shifts towards the low temperatures. Dielectric and mechanical spectroscopies results are in agreement and make it possible to capture the dynamical behavior in a wide frequency range (eight decades). The experimental results are explained on the basis of physical concepts recently introduced in the physics of glassy matter: cooperativity and nanoheterogeneity. In particular, the low-temperature relaxation process _m is attributed to cooperative motions in methanol clusters which form in the nanoheterogeneous polymeric matrix, in agreement with small angle X-rays scattering and low-frequency Raman scattering observations recently reported.     

A new method of measuring and presenting the membrane fouling potential

The silt density index (SDI) and modified fouling index (MFI) characterisation methods are well known for the evaluation of membrane fouling potential of dispersed particulate matter (suspended solids, colloids) in a feed. The SDI and MFI methods, however, reduce the overall and very complex fouling phenomena into a one number value, on which the interpretation of the fouling potential of the feed is based. Considering such a one number characteristic, a significant amount of information from the fouling measurement (data) is lost. In this paper a concept is introduced in order to preserve such information and supplement the existing indexes. The proposed method measures, processes and presents data in a specific format. To illustrate the concept, some results are shown from measurements on three types of feed. Future systematic research will also include the measurement on some model feeds with, for example, well characterised dispersions for comparison purposes. However, based on the contents of this paper, a discussion on the method could be initiated.     

Band gap opening and charge modulation in AlGaAs lateral structures obtained by organized epitaxy

Quantum wires superlattices have been grown on GaAs vicinal surfaces. Their electrical resistance anisotropy, their low-field magnetoresistance (for current flow perpendicular to the wires) and, in the magnetic quantum limit, the van Hove singularities of the Landau bands, and the very sudden enhancement of the spin splitting above a critical field, all demonstrate unambiguously that a strong low-disordered periodic lateral potential modulation can be achieved as a result of significant atomic ordering by the steps.     

Two-year-olds' search strategies and visual tracking in a hidden displacement task.

Children younger than 3 years have difficulty with search tasks that involve hidden displacement. Partial visual information was provided about a ball's path as it moved toward a hiding place. Children (2.0 and 2.5 years old) saw a ball rolling down a ramp placed behind a transparent screen with 4 opaque doors. A wall, placed on the ramp and directly behind 1 of the doors, protruded above the screen and stopped the ball. Children were asked to find the ball. The transparency of the screen permitted visual tracking of the ball between the doors, but its final resting place was obscured. Both age groups were equally proficient at tracking the ball as it rolled behind the screen, but the 2.5-year-olds were more likely to reach to the correct door. Looking behavior was related to errors in the younger group in that tracking that stopped short or continued past the correct door was associated with incorrect choices. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Identification of xanthurenic acid as the putative inducer of malaria development in the mosquito

Malaria is transmitted from vertebrate host to mosquito vector by mature sexual blood-living stages called gametocytes. Within seconds of ingestion into the mosquito bloodmeal, gametocytes undergo gametogenesis. Induction requires the simultaneous exposure to at least two stimuli in vitro: a drop in bloodmeal temperature to 5 degrees C below that of the vertebrate host, and a rise in pH from 7.4 to 8.0-8.2. In vivo the mosquito bloodmeal has a pH of between 7.5 and 7.6. It is thought that in vivo the second inducer is an unknown mosquito-derived gametocyte-activating factor. Here we show that this factor is xanthurenic acid. We also show that low concentrations of xanthurenic acid can act together with pH to induce gametogenesis in vitro. Structurally related compounds are at least ninefold less effective at inducing gametogenesis in vitro. In Drosophila mutants with lesions in the kynurenine pathway of tryptophan metabolism (of which xanthurenic acid is a side product), no alternative active compound was detected in crude insect homogenates. These data could form the basis of the rational development of new methods of interrupting the transmission of malaria using drugs or new refractory mosquito genotypes to block parasite gametogenesis.     

Pronunciation prediction with Default&Refine

The Default&Refine algorithm is a new rule-based learning algorithm that was developed as an accurate and efficient pronunciation prediction mechanism for speech processing systems. The algorithm exhibits a number of attractive properties including rapid generalisation from small training sets, good asymptotic accuracy, robustness to noise in the training data, and the production of compact rule sets. We describe the Default&Refine algorithm in detail and demonstrate its performance on two benchmarked pronunciation databases (the English OALD and Flemish FONILEX pronunciation dictionaries) as well as a newly-developed Afrikaans pronunciation dictionary. We find that the algorithm learns more efficiently (achieves higher accuracy on smaller data sets) than any of the alternative pronunciation prediction algorithms considered. In addition, we demonstrate the ability of the algorithm to generate an arbitrarily small rule set in such a way that the trade-off between rule set size and accuracy is well controlled. A conceptual comparison with alternative algorithms (including Dynamically Expanding Context, Transformation-Based Learning and Pronunciation by Analogy) clarifies the competitive performance obtained with Default&Refine.     

Pore microgeometry analysis in low-resistivity sandstone reservoirs

The objective of this work is to analyse the pore microgeometry and its effect on petrophysical properties in six low-resistivity sandstone reservoirs by combining a 2D quantitative petrographic image analysis (PIA) and 3D petrophysical tools. The classic petrophysical tools enable the measurement of different classic reservoir properties such as specific surface area, average pore diameter, pore size distribution, macroporosity and microporosity, capillary pressure versus saturation, pore chamber–pore throat diameter ratio, electrical properties and permeability. The petrographic image analysis quantifies pore microgeometry in more than four orders of magnitude, from submicron to millimeter scale. Chloritic low-resistivity sandstones show dual porosity structure defined as chloritic texture. The pore microgeometrical parameters measured by petrographic image analysis allow one to model different reservoir properties such as capillary pressure, permeability and electrical behaviour. The results obtained in these models show that pore microgeometry plays an important role in the physical properties of low-resistivity sandstone reservoirs.     

PROTEIN PRECIPITATION DURING WORT BOILING: QUALITY ASPECTS OF DIMINISHED WORT BOILING TIMES OF BREWS PREPARED FROM PROANTHOCYANIDIN-FREE OR REGULAR RAW MATERIALS

When using proanthocyanidin-free materials for the production of beer, a reduction of the wort boiling time can be considered. In worts prepared with regular malt and tannin-free hop extract there is a continuous precipitation of the malt flavanoids while in brews prepared from proanthocyanidin-free malt and regular hops there is a simultaneous extraction and removal of the hop flavanoids leading to constant levels of these hop flavanoids. The results also show that the level of Kjeldahl nitrogen in worts boiled with hops will be the same as that in worts boiled with n-hexane tannin-free hop extracts. These results and the fact that more protein precipitates in brews containing no malt or hop proanthocyanidins suggest that, unlike what is the case during the development of beer haze, polyphenols are not necessary for an effective protein precipitation during wort boiling.