Pyrolysis of model compounds on spent oil shales, minerals and charcoal: Implications for shale oil composition

Aliphatic compounds (alkanes, alkenes, alkanoic acids, ketones, alcohols and amines) were passed through beds of spent oil shales (Condor brown, Condor carbonaceous, Julia Creek), minerals (quartz, calcite, K-feldspar, pyrite, kaolinite) and charcoal at temperatures of 300–600 °C and the products were analysed by g.c.m.s. All the materials catalysed isomerization, aromatization and cracking to varying degrees: non-clay minerals < kaolinite ≈ spent oil shales < charcoal. Products included branched alkanes, isomeric alkenes, nitriles, ketones and alkyl-substituted benzenes, naphthalenes, pyridines, phenols, thiophenes and pyrroles. These compounds occur in shale oils and may be derived from secondary reactions of aliphatic products arising from kerogen cracking.     

Technical solutions for the 3G long-term evolution

Work has started in the 3GPP to define a long-term evolution for 3G, sometimes referred to as super-3G, which will stretch the performance of 3G technology, thereby meeting user expectations in a 10-year perspective and beyond. The fundamental targets of this evolution - to further reduce user and operator costs and to improve service provisioning - will be met through improved coverage and system capacity as well as increased data rates and reduced latency. This article presents promising technologies to fulfil these targets, including OFDM, multi-antenna solutions, evolved QoS and link layer concepts, and an evolved architecture. Furthermore, the results of a performance evaluation are presented, indicating that the requirements can indeed be reached using the proposed technologies.     

Estimating the stability of N clocks with correlations

Estimation of an atomic clock's frequency stability, separate from its reference, is often done using a three-cornered hat procedure. A major requirement for the success of this method is that clocks be uncorrelated. If this requirement is not satisfied, the three-cornered hat procedure can lead to misleading or even negative variance estimates. Others have considered this problem and developed an analysis that allows for the possibility of cross correlation between clocks. We have extended and applied these ideas to obtain mathematically consistent frequency stability estimates on atomic clock data from the U.S. Naval Observatory. In addition, we derived an expression for the clock weights that produce a minimum variance combination of clocks in the presence of correlations.     

Multidimensional spectral factorization and unilateral autoregressive models

In this paper we present a procedure for the spectral factorization of multidimensional spectral density functions. We develop and use properties of the multidimensional spectrum as a basis for the procedure. The resulting factors, like those of Wiener's one-dimensional factorization, are stable and realizable (i.e., recursible). We describe a numerical algorithm for performing the factorization and indicate its use in obtaining unilateral representations of multidimensional random fields.     

Simultaneously MoSi2 and SiC-reinforced α-SiAlON composites

Abstracts are not published in this journal     

Computer Processing of Radiographic Images with the Finite Fourier Transform

This paper considers the optimal design and implementation of two-dimensional, nonrecursive digital filters for use in the processing of radiographic images. A stochastic system model is used for the image-forming process, and the filter is designed to a mean-square error criterion. Both the design algorithm and filter realization are mechanized by using a Fast Fourier Transform code, thereby ensuring the computational efficiency of the method.     

Deceived and distorted: Game outcome retrospectively determines the reported time of action.

Previous work suggested the association between intentionality and the reported time of action was exclusive, with intentionality as the primary facilitator to the mental time compression between the reported time of action and its effect (Haggard, Clark, & Kalogeras, 2002). In three experiments, we examined whether mental time compression could also be observed in an unintended action. Participants performed an externally cued key press task that elicited one of two possible tones. The reported time of action shifted closer to the tone when the tone was used to indicate the winner of a race (Exp.2) compared to when the tone was meaningless and did not indicate winning (Exp.1). This suggests that reported time of an unintended action could shift toward the effect in some contexts. Furthermore, the results from Exp.2 and Exp.3 (tones were substituted with verbal feedback) showed that a presumed winning action was judged to occur earlier whereas a presumed losing action was judged to be later. These findings therefore support the view that the reported time of action is reconstructed from known temporal information rather than determined by intentionality. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Error bars for three-cornered hats

Abstract-The three-cornered hat is a procedure for extracting the stabilities of three clocks when the only available data is the time or frequency differences between the clocks. To our knowledge, there has been no method of determining a confidence interval for such a stability estimate. In this paper, we present a method for determining the number of degrees of freedom of the estimate, which allows the assignment of a confidence interval to a three-cornered hat stability estimate. We also investigate using the total variance and biases involved.     

Antibody mimics based on human fibronectin type three domain engineered for thermostability and high-affinity binding to vascular endothelial growth factor receptor two

The tenth human fibronectin type three domain ((10)Fn3) is a small (10 kDa), extremely stable and soluble protein with an immunoglobulin-like fold, but without cysteine residues. Selections from (10)Fn3-based libraries of proteins with randomized loops have yielded high-affinity, target-specific antibody mimics. However, little is known about the biophysical properties of such antibody mimics, which will determine their suitability for in vitro and medical applications. We characterized target binding and biophysical properties of two related (10)Fn3-based antibody mimics that bind vascular endothelial growth factor receptor two (VEGF-R2). The first antibody mimic, which has a dissociation constant (K(d)) of 13 nM, is highly stable [melting temperature (T(m))=62 degrees C] and soluble, whereas the second, which binds VEGF-R2 with 40 x higher affinity, is less stable (T(m) < 40 degrees C) and relatively insoluble. We used our understanding of these two (10)Fn3 derivatives and of wild-type (10)Fn3 structure to engineer the next generation of antibody mimics, which have an improved combination of high affinity (K(d)=0.59 nM), stability (T(m)=53 degrees C) and solubility. Our findings illustrate that (10)Fn3-based antibody mimics can be engineered for favorable biophysical properties even when 20% of the wild-type (10)Fn3 sequence is mutated in order to satisfy target-binding requirements.     

Analysis on the control principle of the active DC filter in theLindome converter station of the Konti-Skan HVDC link

The control principle of a hybrid passive-active DC filter installed in the Lindome HVDC converter station is analyzed in this paper. The controller of the active filter includes two basic functions: an integrator and a compensator. The main advantage of the Lindome controller is its simple structure for implementation in a digital signal processor (DSP). The drawbacks of this controller are its long response time, low stability margin and the filtering of an unnecessary number of frequencies. An alternative control strategy using a number of notch filters has been investigated. The notch filters can be tuned to those frequencies that need to be damped. This controller gives a much shorter system response time and improved stability margin