Language-related issues for NMT and PBMT for English–German and English–Serbian

This work presents an extensive comparison of language-related problems for neural machine translation (NMT) and phrase-based machine translation (PBMT) for German-to-English, English-to-German and English-to-Serbian. The explored issues are related both to the characteristics of the languages as well as to the (machine) translation process and, although related, go beyond typical translation error classes. It is shown that the main advantage of the NMT approach consists of better generating verb forms, avoiding verb omissions, as well as better handling of English noun collocations and negation. It is also shown that the main obstacles for the NMT system are prepositions, translation of English (source) ambiguous words and generating English (target) continuous and perfect tenses. In addition, preliminary experiments show that a number of issues are complementary, i.e., not occurring in the same segments and/or in the same form. This means that a combination or hybridisation of the NMT and PBMT approaches is a promising direction for improving both types of systems.     

Atrazine in groundwater of Vojvodina Province

The objective of this study was to investigate concentrations of atrazine (2-chloro-4-ethylamino-6-isopropylamino-1,3,5-triazine), deethylatrazine (DEA) (2-amino-4-chloro-6-isopropylamino-1,3,5-triazine), deisopropylatrazine (DIA) (2-amino-4-chloro-6-ethylamino-1,3,5-triazine) and deethyldeisopropylatrazine (DEIA) (6-chloro-2,4-diamino-1,3,5-triazine) in groundwaters of Vojvodina Province. A study was conducted during April 2001. Some 110 samples of groundwater were taken from near surface aquifers. The water samples were first passed through a disk containing solid matrix coated with a chemically bonded C-18 organic phase. The disk was then eluted with supercritical carbon dioxide to remove compounds from the sorbent. Finally the extract was injected into capillary gas chromatograph. Average concentrations were 0.198 μg L⁻¹ for atrazine, 0.116 μg L⁻¹ for DEA, 0.043 μg L⁻¹ for DIA and 0.077 μg L⁻¹ for DEIA.     

Masonry elements with chases: Behaviour under compression

Accommodating electrical wiring and similar installations in masonry construction often necessitates the cutting of chases in masonry. In order to investigate the influence of chases on masonry behaviour compression load tests were performed on three series of unreinforced masonry elements with chases. Three different types of chase (horizontal, vertical and inclined) were cut into the masonry elements. After placing the ducts several different types of infill were applied to fill the chases. The compressive load was applied in a deformation-controlled manner up to the failure of the specimen. A considerable reduction in the masonry compressive strength was observed. The test results are discussed in detail and recommendations for practical application are given. In addition, a simple analytical truss model for predictions of failure load is proposed and discussed.     

Evaluation of the impact of internal partitions on energy conservation for residential buildings in Serbia

In Serbia, around 50% of energy is used in built environment and most of it for 6-month heating in residential buildings. Because of actual international efforts to protect environment, energy conservation in heating in residential buildings is an issue of permanent research interest. In this paper, we tried to determine how type of partitions inside a residential building influences energy consumption and demand for houses in cold climate and consequently energy conservation. For a typical house in Serbia, by using software HTB2, it was evaluated how its heating depends on six applied types of partitions. It was found that (1) the house with glass-wool partitions would have the minimum yearly heat consumption, (2) the house with masonry partitions would require heaters of minimum size, (3) the house with siporex partitions would require the lowest investment in partitions and heaters, and (4) the house with glass-wool partitions would yield the highest net savings during the life cycle of the house.     

Improved health after intervention in a school with moisture problems

In a school with floor moisture problems, the personnel had complaints consistent with the sick-building syndrome (SBS). Interventive measures including the laying of a ventilated floor were undertaken to eliminate the emissions. To examine if the intervention resulted in positive health effects, 34 personnel and 336 pupils were interviewed just before the intervention and also 7 months after. Also were interviewed 21 personnel and 224 pupils at an adjacent school serving as a control. Compared with the control school, the problem school showed more complaints, more general symptoms and more symptoms from the eyes, airways and skin, both among the personnel and the pupils. In the post-intervention examinations, the excess of symptoms among the personnel had almost disappeared. Among the pupils, the frequency of eye irritation was reduced but a general improvement of the other symptoms was not as obvious. However, after adjustment for a recent common cold, atopy and stress among the pupils, only one symptom ("stuffy nose") remained significantly elevated. In conclusion, the intervention was followed by positive health effects, supporting the hypothesis that emissions from building material had contributed to the excess of symptoms. A recent common cold was highly related to the symptoms and should be considered in future SBS studies.     

Original article: Supercritical CO2 extraction of soybean oil: process optimisation and triacylglycerol composition

Supercritical CO₂ extraction of soybean oil was performed. Response surface methodology was applied to evaluate the effects of pressure, temperature and extraction time on soybean oil yield. The analysis of variance showed that pressure and extraction time followed by the quadratic term of pressure and interaction between pressure and time had the significant effect on the oil yield. The maximum extraction yield (6.59/100 g soybeans) at constant CO₂ flow rate of 1.629 L per min was achieved at 50 °C, 300 bar and 4 h. The experimental values agreed well with those predicted by regression model. One‐stage diffusion model was successfully applied for modelling the kinetics of soybean oil. The main triacylglycerols of soybean oil were trilinolein, dilinoleoolein, dilinoleopalmitin and linoleooleopalmitin. Soybean oil extracted by supercritical CO₂ had higher levels of linoleic and linolenic acids and lower levels of palmitic and stearic acids compared to oil extracted by organic solvent.