High Pressure Conductivity and Photoconductivity of Polyveratrole

Summary Electropolymerization of o-(CH₃O)₂C₆H₄ (Veratrole) in dry acetonitrile/tetrabutylammonium tetrafluoroborate at platinum electrode, yields a green polymeric conducting solid. As the pressure is increased, the material becomes more conductive, but sharp changes towards lower conductivity occur at 4.2 and 6.2 metric tons pressure, probably due to phase transitions. The photoconductivity shows an exponential increase as temperature is increased, but it shows reversible changes at 200 K, 225 K and 250 K during slow warming, also attributable to phase transitions. Photoconductivity of Polyveratrole increases with the radiation frequency, being higher under blue light than under red of infrared radiation and there is a linear increase of photoconductivity with radiation density. Conductivity transients show that the conductivity increases exponentially with time to the saturation point within few minutes, and it also decreases exponentially when the light is turned off and the circuit is open. This behaviour can be explained by formation and encounter of electron and hole as current carriers. A preliminary study indicates a piezoelectric effect for the material. absorption spectroscopy allowed the measurements of the material band gap.     

Effects of storage time and chemical preservatives on the total volatile basic nitrogen content in chilean mackerel (Trachurus murphy) prior to fish meal production

Total volatile basic nitrogen (TVB-N) as a measure of protein degradation and total microbial counts or stored raw mackerel (Trachurus murphy), which had been treated with chemical preservatives, were compared with the TVB-N and microbial counts of untreated fish. In unpreserved fish, decomposition of fish protein was rapid. Treatment of mackerel with acetic (1000-5000 μg kg^?1), which was the most effective of the parameters studied, approximately halved the rate of increase in TVB-N compared with the untreated samples. Changes in the total microbial counts presented a similar trend.     

Silver deposition on silicon and glassy carbon. A comparative study in cyanide medium

Nucleation and growth during Ag deposition on n-Si (111) have been studied and compared with results obtained on glassy carbon (GC). The initial stages of metal deposition from a cyanide electrolyte (pH 14) were investigated using conventional electrochemical techniques combined with AFM and SEM. Relevant kinetic parameters were obtained from the analysis of current transients on the basis of existing models for electrochemical nucleation and diffusion controlled growth. On n-Si a clear change in the Ag deposition mechanism from progressive (E=−0.80 V vs. standard hydrogen electrode, SHE) to instantaneous (E=−0.90 V vs. SHE) nucleation is observed, while on GC an intermediate behaviour is found at both potentials. A strong dependence of the nucleation site density N₀ with potential E was observed on both Si and GC, being this effect particularly important in the case of the semiconductor. Therefore, the driving force for Ag nucleation (supersaturation) on Si was varied both by changing the electrode potential E at c_AgCN=constant and the concentration c_AgCN at E=constant. On silicon, the critical silver nucleus was found to be composed by one atom within the studied potential range. The stability of the Ag clusters in the cyanide electrolyte was found to be strongly influenced by the presence of oxygen. Studies of the solid state n-Si/Ag contact indicate an ideal Schottky behaviour and the formation of a high quality junction.     

Coreference resolution: an empirical study based on SemEval-2010 shared Task 1

This paper presents an empirical evaluation of coreference resolution that covers several interrelated dimensions. The main goal is to complete the comparative analysis from the SemEval-2010 task on Coreference Resolution in Multiple Languages. To do so, the study restricts the number of languages and systems involved, but extends and deepens the analysis of the system outputs, including a more qualitative discussion. The paper compares three automatic coreference resolution systems for three languages (English, Catalan and Spanish) in four evaluation settings, and using four evaluation measures. Given that our main goal is not to provide a comparison between resolution algorithms, these are merely used as tools to shed light on the different conditions under which coreference resolution is evaluated. Although the dimensions are strongly interdependent, making it very difficult to extract general principles, the study reveals a series of interesting issues in relation to coreference resolution: the portability of systems across languages, the influence of the type and quality of input annotations, and the behavior of the scoring measures.     

Criticality Analysis for Maintenance Purposes: A Study for Complex In‐service Engineering Assets

The purpose of this paper is to establish a basis for a criticality analysis, considered here as a prerequisite, a first required step to review the current maintenance programs, of complex in‐service engineering assets. Review is understood as a reality check, a testing of whether the current maintenance activities are well aligned to actual business objectives and needs. This paper describes an efficient and rational working process and a model resulting in a hierarchy of assets, based on risk analysis and cost–benefit principles, which will be ranked according to their importance for the business to meet specific goals. Starting from a multicriteria analysis, the proposed model converts relevant criteria impacting equipment criticality into a single score presenting the criticality level. Although detailed implementation of techniques like Root Cause Failure Analysis and Reliability Centered Maintenance will be recommended for further optimization of the maintenance activities, the reasons why criticality analysis deserves the attention of engineers and maintenance and reliability managers are precisely explained here. A case study is presented to help the reader understand the process and to operationalize the model. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Analysis of interferograms with a spatial radial carrier or closed fringes and its holographic analogy

It is well known that an interferogram can be demodulated to find the wave-front shape if a linear carrier is introduced. We show that it can also be demodulated if it has many closed fringes or a circular carrier appears. A basic assumption is that the carrier fringes are of a bandwidth adequate to contain the wave-front distortion. This phase determination, called here demodulation, is made in the space domain, as opposed to demodulation in Fourier space, but the low-pass filter characteristics must be properly chosen. For academic purposes a holographic analogy of this demodulation process is also presented, which shows that the common technique of multiplying by a sine function and a cosine function is equivalent to holographically reconstructing with a tilted-flat wave front. Alternatively, a defocused (spherical) wave front can be used as a reference to perform the reconstruction or demodulation of some closed-fringe interferograms.     

A CSP model for simple non-reversible and parallel repair plans

This work presents a constraint satisfaction problem (CSP) model for the planning and scheduling of disassembly and assembly tasks when repairing or substituting faulty parts. The problem involves not only the ordering of assembly and disassembly tasks, but also the selection of them from a set of alternatives. The goal of the plan is the minimization of the total repairing time, and the model considers, apart from the durations and resources used for the assembly and disassembly tasks, the necessary delays due to the change of configuration in the machines, and to the transportation of intermediate subassemblies between different machines. The problem considers that sub-assemblies that do not contain the faulty part are nor further disassembled, but allows non-reversible and parallel repair plans. The set of all feasible repair plans are represented by an extended And/Or graph. This extended representation embodies all of the constraints of the problem, such as temporal and resource constraints and those related to the selection of tasks for obtaining a correct plan.     

On Bézier surfaces in three-dimensional Minkowski space

In this paper, we study Bézier surfaces in three-dimensional Minkowski space. In particular, we focus on timelike and spacelike cases for Bézier surfaces. We also deal with the Plateau–Bézier problem in , obtaining conditions over the control net to be extremal of the Dirichlet function for both timelike and spacelike Bézier surfaces. Moreover, we provide interesting examples showing the behavior of the Plateau–Bézier problem in and illustrating the relationship between it and the corresponding Plateau–Bézier problem in the Euclidean space R³.