Criteria and methodology for the evaluation of conservation interventions on treated porous stone susceptible to salt decay

Susceptibility of stone to salt decay is directly related to its microstructural and mechanical characteristics. In the present work, a porous stone from a quarry in Cyprus was examined. Samples of this stone were consolidated and protected with certain conservation materials. The modification of microstructural characteristics of the stone was evaluated by mercury intrusion porosimetry, while its mechanical characteristics were measured by compressive and bending strength tests. From these data, the susceptibility of Cyprus stone to salt (NaCl) decay was estimated. The values of crystallization pressure of NaCl were calculated and compared to the experimentally measured compressive and tensile strength of the stone, in order to examine the probability of stone disruption due to salt crystallization. The development of the phenomenon after coarse pores’ filling with crystals, i.e. crystallization of salts in capillaries or mechanical failure of the stone, was determined by thermodynamic analysis. Additionally, artificial weathering tests of marine salt spray were performed for the evaluation of stone’s durability after the conservation. The treated stone proved to be resistant to salt decay, as it presented ameliorated microstructural and mechanical characteristics, concerning decay due to soluble salt crystallization. The most possible thermodynamic scenario was small pores repletion with crystals, avoiding mechanical failure of the stone.     

Towards a consolidated model for a collaborative courseware authoring system

Abstract In an effort to reduce the expensive resource requirements in courseware production and to allow effective management of, and communication and collaboration between authors, a model is needed to harmonize the diverse theoretical backgrounds such a process requires. To this end we look at five abstract models which where chosen for their apparent appropriateness within the general area of collaborative authoring and reuse of multimedia courseware. These models consist of a functional model of hypertext, an infrastructure model for an open collaborative authoring system, two object-oriented communication models, and a courseware production model. We attempt a consolidation of these models and ultimately make several conclusions, which are exposed during a conceptual harmonisation. The principal conclusion is that a hypermedia logical model is not by itself adequate to support collaboration and reuse. Our modeling conclusions have driven the design of a system which will be implemented and tested.     

Pheromone specificity inEriocrania semipurpurella (Stephens) andE. sangii (Wood) (Lepidoptera: Eriocraniidae) based on chirality of semiochemicals

The fifth abdominal segment of femaleEriocrania semipurpurella (Stephens) andE. sangii (Wood) contains a pair of exocrine glands. Hexane extracts of this segment were prepared from both species and analyzed by gas chromatography with simultaneous flame ionization and electroantennographic detection (EAD). For both species, the EAD active peaks were identified as nonan-2-one, (Z)-6-nonen-2-one, and (Z)-6-nonen-2-ol by means of mass spectrometry and comparison of retention indices with those of synthetic standards. Enantiomeric separation of chiral alcohols from the female extracts was achieved by gas chromatographic analysis on a cyclodextrin column. InE. semipurpurella, a mixture of (2S,6Z)-nonen-2-ol and (2R,6Z)-nonen-2-ol (2: I) was found, whereas inE. sangii (2S,6Z)-nonen-2-ol was the predominant enantiomer and only traces of theR enantiomer were indicated by the antennal response. In field tests, a blend of the three compounds was not attractive to conspecific males. A subtractive assay showed that the alcohol in various enantiomeric mixtures was the only attractive compound, whereas addition of (Z)-6-nonen-2-one to the alcohol completely inhibited the attraction of both species. A trapping experiment including a wide range of ratios between theR andS enantiomers showed that baits containing 95–100% of theS enantiomer were attractive to maleE. sangii, whereas males ofE. semipurpurella were attracted to all tested ratios of the enantiomers. However, the response profiles of maleE. semipurpurella differed between populations from southern Sweden, south Finland, and the Kola Peninsula in Russia. In south Sweden males were maximally attracted to a racemic mixture of the alcohols. At the Kola PeninsulaE. semipurpurella was attracted to baits containing 95–100% of theR enantiomer. In south Finland all tested ratios between 0 and 100%R enantiomer trappedE. semipurpurella, but the trap catches appeared to be bimodally distributed with peaks around 15 and 70%R enantiomer. The trapping results suggest the existence of pheromone races or sibling species among the specimens identified asE. semipurpurella.Dedicated to Prof. H. J. Bestmann on the occasion of his 70th birthday.     

Synthesis of amphiphilic (meth)acrylates with oligo(ethylene glycol) and (or) oligo(propylene glycol) blocks by the esterification of (meth)acrylic acid

Thermoresponsive PEG-based (PEG stands polyethylene glycol) polymers are unique for use in medicine because of their low toxicity, good biocompatibility and biodegradability, but usually more hydrophobic and more toxic comonomers are used to adjust lower critical solution temperature (LCST). A convenient way to overcome this problem and to finely tune LCST is to use alkoxy oligo(ethylene glycol)- or alkoxy oligo(propylene glycol) (meth)acrylates as starting comonomers. Here we report on the conditions for the simple and affordable synthesis of methoxy oligo(propylene glycol) (meth)acrylate- and methoxy oligo(propylene glycol)-block-oligo(ethylene glycol) (meth)acrylate-based macromonomers with high yields (80%–98.7%) by the acid-catalyzed esterification of (meth)acrylic acid with alkoxy oligo(alkylene glycols) containing oligo(ethylene glycol) (OEG) and/or oligo(propylene glycol) (OPG) blocks. p-Toluene sulphonic acid (pTSA), alkyl(C₁₂–C₁₄)benzene sulfonic acid (ABSA) and H₂SO₄ were used as catalysts. It has been shown that pTSA and ABSA are practically the same in catalytic activity and are superior to sulfuric acid. The reaction orders with respect to catalyst was found to be close to 1 in all cases. It has been shown that the reaction is actually insensitive to the lengths of OEG and OPG blocks, as well as to the structure of the terminal alkyl group, while the esterification of acrylic acid (AA) proceeds much faster compared to methacrylic acid (MAA) one under the same conditions. The influence of temperature on the equilibrium conversions of alcohols was determined, which were found to be 89%–93% for the esterification of AA and 61%–86% for MAA in the temperature range of 60–120°C. A further increase in conversion was achieved by introducing an azeotropic agent (toluene), its optimal concentration was found to be 10%–15%.     

Monitoring the curing processes of epoxy oligomers with partially substituted polyethoxymetallosiloxanes by IR spectroscopy and thermomechanical analysis

In this work, the curing of «ED-20» epoxy resin with partially siloxy-substituted aluminum, iron, and zirconium siloxanes that we obtained previously was studied. The initial content of a metallosiloxane in the compositions was 5–50 wt% with respect to the resin. In all the cases, thermal curing was used to obtain a series of samples in the form of solid homogeneous materials. The fact of the epoxy ring opening in the resin was confirmed by IR spectroscopy. The catalytic properties of the metal atom in a metallosiloxane were found to affect the curing process. The samples demonstrate rather a high resistance to thermooxidative destruction, and in most cases, their glass transition temperatures are lower than those obtained upon standard curing of «ED-20» resin with triethylenetetramine. Partially siloxy-substituted metalloalkoxysiloxanes can be efficient agents for curing and formation of a hybrid material based on epoxy resins.     

MILLING PERFORMANCE OF COATED INSERTS WITH VARIABLE COATING THICKNESS ON THEIR RAKE AND FLANK

During the Physical Vapour Deposition of coatings, the orientation of cemented carbides insert surfaces to the plasma flux direction affects the occurring film thickness distribution on the rake and flank, which in turn might influence the wear propagation in cutting processes. In the present paper the cutting performance in milling of PVD coated cemented carbides inserts with variable film thickness on the rake and flank is introduced and with the aid of FEM-supported calculations explained. The investigation results revealed that a thicker film on the tool rake in comparison to the existing one on the flank and moreover a thick and uniformly deposited film in the cutting wedge region significantly enhances the cutting performance in milling.     

Thickness control in structural optimization via a level set method

In the context of structural optimization via a level-set method we propose a framework to handle geometric constraints related to a notion of local thickness. The local thickness is calculated using the signed distance function to the shape. We formulate global constraints using integral functionals and compute their shape derivatives. We discuss different strategies and possible approximations to handle the geometric constraints. We implement our approach in two and three space dimensions for a model of linearized elasticity. As can be expected, the resulting optimized shapes are strongly dependent on the initial guesses and on the specific treatment of the constraints since, in particular, some topological changes may be prevented by those constraints.     

Rollout sampling approximate policy iteration

Several researchers have recently investigated the connection between reinforcement learning and classification. We are motivated by proposals of approximate policy iteration schemes without value functions, which focus on policy representation using classifiers and address policy learning as a supervised learning problem. This paper proposes variants of an improved policy iteration scheme which addresses the core sampling problem in evaluating a policy through simulation as a multi-armed bandit machine. The resulting algorithm offers comparable performance to the previous algorithm achieved, however, with significantly less computational effort. An order of magnitude improvement is demonstrated experimentally in two standard reinforcement learning domains: inverted pendulum and mountain-car.     

On the correspondence from Bayesian log-linear modelling to logistic regression modelling with <Emphasis Type="Italic">g</Emphasis>-priors

Consider a set of categorical variables where at least one of them is binary. The log-linear model that describes the counts in the resulting contingency table implies a specific logistic regression model, with the binary variable as the outcome. Within the Bayesian framework, the g-prior and mixtures of g-priors are commonly assigned to the parameters of a generalized linear model. We prove that assigning a g-prior (or a mixture of g-priors) to the parameters of a certain log-linear model designates a g-prior (or a mixture of g-priors) on the parameters of the corresponding logistic regression. By deriving an asymptotic result, and with numerical illustrations, we demonstrate that when a g-prior is adopted, this correspondence extends to the posterior distribution of the model parameters. Thus, it is valid to translate inferences from fitting a log-linear model to inferences within the logistic regression framework, with regard to the presence of main effects and interaction terms.