Silicon temperature measurement by infrared absorption. Fundamentalprocesses and doping effects

The fundamental absorption mechanisms in silicon at 1.30 and 1.55 μm have been investigated in the temperature range of 500-800°C. For lightly doped wafers in this temperature range, the absorption at 1.55 μm is by free carriers. and that at 1.30 μm is predominantly by bandgap absorption. The effect of heavy substrate doping on infrared absorption at an elevated temperature has also been studied, and it was found that doping has little effect below levels of 7×10¹⁷ cm^-3. Above that level, the temperature dependence of free carrier absorption strongly affects the transmission as a function of temperature. The knowledge of the fundamental absorption processes is then used to predict the ultimate temperature ranges over which the technique will be useful     

Migration of single-stranded DNA in polyacrylamide gels during electrophoresis

By using fluorescence recovery after photobleaching (FRAP) and electric birefringence, the migration of single-stranded DNA in polyacrylamide gels and orientation as a response to an electric pulse were investigated. Electrophoretic mobility is in good agreement with the model of biased reptation including fluctuations. The determination of the electrophoretic mobility in solution, mu0, allows an estimation of the gel pore diameter seen by the molecule. As previously observed for double-stranded DNA, the electric birefringence results from two processes: the alignment of the molecule along the electric field and the elongation of the primitive path in the gel, for long single-stranded DNA (>2000 bases). The combination of results obtained with the two techniques allows us to propose experimental conditions to improve the separation of single-stranded DNA with pulsed field techniques.     

Biodegradability of nonionic surfactants: Screening test for predicting rate and ultimate biodegradation

Environmental water quality evaluations of raw materials in consumer products occupy a position of critical importance in many industries throughout the world. The rapid growth and diversity of the household detergent market requires continuous consideration of new materials needed to meet the demands of new, improved and modified products. As household cleaning products are normally disposed of as a component of domestic sewage, surface active compounds, including nonionic surfactants, would reach surface waters only as a part of a sewage effluent and would be subject to the same degree of biological treatment as the balance of the waste. For this reason, evaluations of such new materials include an environmental assessment in which biodegradability testing of organic materials is an important first step. Biodegradability characteristics of nonionic surfactants, as a class, are generally more difficult to ascertain because of wide structural diversity and a usual lack of functional groups. Such determinations usually involve intricate and laborious test methods which necessitate development of analytical techniques for each degradation product of a given material. A method has been developed, modified and used in our laboratory, that provides, after reasonable opportunity for biological acclimation, a measure of the rate and degree of ultimate biodegradation (conversion to CO₂ and H₂O). This method, which uses simple equipment, has been used to assess the biodegradability of a wide variety of nonionic surfactants, without necessitating the development of specific analytical methods for each surfactant under consideration. Additionally, this method can be adapted to measure degradation under conditions of anaerobiosis or low temperature.     

Steering molecular organization and host-guest interactions using two-dimensional nanoporous coordination systems

Metal-organic coordination networks (MOCNs) have attracted wide interest because they provide a novel route towards porous materials that may find applications in molecular recognition, catalysis, gas storage and separation. The so-called rational design principle-synthesis of materials with predictable structures and properties-has been explored using appropriate organic molecular linkers connecting to metal nodes to control pore size and functionality of open coordination networks. Here we demonstrate the fabrication of surface-supported MOCNs comprising tailored pore sizes and chemical functionality by the modular assembly of polytopic organic carboxylate linker molecules and iron atoms on a Cu(100) surface under ultra-high-vacuum conditions. These arrays provide versatile templates for the handling and organization of functional species at the nanoscale, as is demonstrated by their use to accommodate C(60) guest molecules. Temperature-controlled studies reveal, at the single-molecule level, how pore size and chemical functionality determine the host-guest interactions.     

Application of mid-infrared spectroscopy: measuring hydrogen peroxide concentrations in bleaching baths

The presented work applies mid-infrared attenuated total reflection (ATR) spectroscopy to the measurment of hydrogen peroxide in aqueous matrices. The performance of different ATR crystals mounted in flow cells was investigated in the presence of aqueous hydrogen peroxide solutions. Quantitative determination has been achieved by evaluation of specific OH stretching and deformation vibrations with linear correlation between peak areas or peak heights and hydrogen peroxide concentration in the range of 1-10% (weight in water). Important aspects such as chemical stability of the waveguide material and influences of pH and ionic strength on the performance are discussed. Feasibility for the investigation of real world samples is demonstrated by measuring industrial bleaching solutions with known concentrations of hydrogen peroxide fitting well with calibration graphs established with neat hydrogen peroxide solutions. The presented sensor system is capable of determining hydrogen peroxide within complex matrices and clearly corroborates the potential of providing an in situ measurement concept for on-line hydrogen peroxide detection.     

Classification accuracy is not enough

We argue that an evaluation of system behavior at the level of the music is required to usefully address the fundamental problems of music genre recognition (MGR), and indeed other tasks of music information retrieval, such as autotagging. A recent review of works in MGR since 1995 shows that most (82 %) measure the capacity of a system to recognize genre by its classification accuracy. After reviewing evaluation in MGR, we show that neither classification accuracy, nor recall and precision, nor confusion tables, necessarily reflect the capacity of a system to recognize genre in musical signals. Hence, such figures of merit cannot be used to reliably rank, promote or discount the genre recognition performance of MGR systems if genre recognition (rather than identification by irrelevant confounding factors) is the objective. This motivates the development of a richer experimental toolbox for evaluating any system designed to intelligently extract information from music signals.     

Monitoring post-tsunami vegetation recovery in Phang-Nga province,Thailand, based on IKONOS imagery and field investigations – a contribution to the analysis of tsunami vulnerability of coastal ecosystems

A major tsunami in December 2004 devastated the coastal ecosystems along the Andaman Sea coast of Thailand. Since intact coastal ecosystems provide many important services for local communities at the Andaman Sea, it is crucial to investigate to what extent (in terms of percentage area and speed) the affected ecosystems were capable of recovering after the tsunami. Field measurements and multi-date IKONOS imagery were used to estimate the recovery and succession patterns of coastal vegetation types in the Phang-Nga province of Thailand, three years after the tsunami. Thus, this study contributes to a holistic understanding of the ecological vulnerability of the coastal area to tsunamis. A zone-based change detection approach is applied by comparing two change detection techniques: the first method involves the calculation of a recovery rate based on multi-temporal TNDVI (transformed normalized difference vegetation index) images (TNDVI approach), whereas the second approach is a combined approach of the change vector analysis (CVA). Although these two methods provide different types of information (quantitative for the TNDVI approach, qualitative for the CVA), they are comparable in terms of results and accuracies. The results reveal that recovery processes vary based on the type of the ecosystem and, furthermore, are strongly influenced by human activities. Grasslands, coconut plantations and the mixed vegetation cover could recover faster than the mangroves and casuarina forests. Among the forest ecosystems, recovery rates of casuarina forests were higher than for mangroves, but the recovery area was smaller. This study also discusses the potential and some limitations and inaccuracies of applying high-resolution optical imagery for assessing vegetation recovery at a local scale.     

Preliminary results for SeaWiFS vicarious calibration coefficients in the Baltic Sea

The technique of vicarious calibration is used in connection with an atmospheric correction to improve the Sea viewing Wide Field of view Sensor (SeaWiFS) normalized water-leaving radiance by the first determination of mean vicarious calibration coefficients from in situ measurements in the Baltic Sea. A necessary adjustment of the SeaWiFS pre-flight calibration slope was found to be +3.5%, +0.3%, ?1.7%, ?0.4%, +0.8% and ?1.3% for the first six SeaWiFS channels. The derived mean vicarious calibration coefficients are higher than the coefficients in the standard SeaWiFS Data Analysis System (SeaDAS) software but with similar shape and good agreement with other research results. The coefficients were used to obtain better normalized water-leaving radiance from SeaWiFS measurements in the Baltic Sea. The deviations of calculated to measured radiances in the open Baltic Sea are between 3% and 47% in the channels 412 to 670?nm, with the trend of higher deviations in the blue channels. The objective of radiance determination in all SeaWiFS channels with a maximum uncertainty of 5% in clear water regions is probably not reachable in the turbid water of the Baltic Sea.     

Principles of Branching Morphology and Anatomy in Arborescent Monocotyledons and Columnar Cacti as Concept Generators for Branched Fiber‐Reinforced Composites

The branching of arborescent (tree‐like) monocotyledonous plants of the genus Dracaena or of columnar cacti differ considerably from that observed in other dicotyledonous or gymnosperm trees. The investigated ramifications exhibit distinctive morphological and anatomical features. In arborescent monocotyledons the side branches are attached to the main stem by a fiber‐reinforced tissue newly formed during secondary growth, clasping the main stem and finally resulting in a “flange‐mounted” structure. In the case of columnar cacti the most obvious feature is the pronounced constriction at the attachment point of the branches that is also mirrored in the lignified vascular tissue. One might argue that these characteristic morphological and anatomical features in regions exposed to high mechanical stresses represent structural weaknesses. However, the outer shape and the inner structures of the ramifications cause considerable stability and structural integrity of the stem‐branch connection under static and dynamic loading. Our results allow concluding that load‐adaptation in ramified plant structures is a result of a combination of optimization in outer shape and fiber arrangement within the ramifications. Numerical methods simulating the mechanical behavior based on data obtained from the studied plants support this assumption. A deeper understanding of the outer shape of the connection between shoot and branch as well as of the arrangement of the lignified vascular tissues in the branching region, may contribute toward alternative concepts for branched technical light‐weight‐structures. In particular for braided fiber‐reinforced composites this biomimetic approach might help to keep the demand on the available design space as small as possible.