Site Alteration Effects from Rocket Exhaust Impingement During a Simulated Viking Mars Landing. Part 2: Chemical and Biological Site Alteration

Chemical and biological alteration of a Mars landing site was investigated experimentally and analytically. The experimental testing was conducted using a specially designed multiple nozzle configuration consisting of 18 small bell nozzles. The chemical test results indicate that an engine using standard hydrazine fuel will contaminate the landing site with ammonia (50-500ppm), nitrogen (5-50ppm), aniline (0.01-0.5ppm), hydrogen cyanide (0.01-0.5ppm), and water. A purified fuel, with impurities (mostly aniline) reduced by a factor of 50-100, limits the amount of hydrogen cyanide and aniline to below detectable limits for the Viking science investigations and leaves the amounts of ammonia, nitrogen, and water in the soil unchanged. The large amounts of ammonia trapped in the soil will make interpretation of the organic analysis investigation results more difficult. The biological tests indicate that the combined effects of plume gases, surface heating, surface erosion, and gas composition resulting from the retrorockets will not interfere with the Viking biology investigation

Hydrothermal stability of Ru/SiO2-C: A promising catalyst for biomass processing through liquid-phase reactions

In this work, structural and morphological properties of SiO2-C composite material to be used as support for catalysts in the conversion of biomass-derived oxygenated hydrocarbons, such as glycerol, were investigated in liquid water under various temperatures conditions. The results show that this material does not lose surface area, and the hot liquid water does not generate changes in the structure. Neither change in relative concentrations of oxygen functional groups nor in Si/C ratio due to hydrothermal treatment was revealed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis. Raman analysis showed that the material is made of a disordered graphitic structure in an amorphous silica matrix, which remains stable after hydrothermal treatment. Results of the hydrogenolysis of glycerol using a Ru/SiO2-C catalyst indicate that the support gives more stability to the active phase than a Ru/SiO2 consisting of commercial silica

Telic features in the semantics of English nominal compounds

The paper presents the results of research on the semantic combinability of constituents of English nominal compounds. In the present study we proceed from the assumption that the generation of a compound occurs due to the actualization of some parts of the meaning of its constituents which are not always given explicitly in the surface grammar. In the course of the research conceptual analysis of the compounds has been done for the purpose of finding out the cases of profiling implicit information about the denoted objects that specifies their telic roles (their functions, the ways they may typically act or be affected, the purposes they may have in performing an act, and so on). The study results allow the argument that the system of nominal compounds has a set of principles and regularities in profiling telic features in the semantics of their constituents. The principles that have been determined in the course of the study find their description in the paper we [email protected] V. Tur is a PhD student at Minsk State Linguistic University. His research interests include compositional semantics and the meanings of English noun-noun compounds.Minsk State Linguistic University2162

Qualities, objects, sorts, and other treasures : gold digging in English and Arabic

In the present monograph, we will deal with questions of lexical typology in the nominal domain. By the term "lexical typology in the nominal domain", we refer to crosslinguistic regularities in the interaction between (a) those areas of the lexicon whose elements are capable of being used in the construction of "referring phrases" or "terms" and (b) the grammatical patterns in which these elements are involved. In the traditional analyses of a language such as English, such phrases are called "nominal phrases". In the study of the lexical aspects of the relevant domain, however, we will not confine ourselves to the investigation of "nouns" and "pronouns" but intend to take into consideration all those parts of speech which systematically alternate with nouns, either as heads or as modifiers of nominal phrases. In particular, this holds true for adjectives both in English and in other Standard European Languages. It is well known that adjectives are often difficult to distinguish from nouns, or that elements with an overt adjectival marker are used interchangeably with nouns, especially in particular semantic fields such as those denoting MATERIALS or NATlONALlTIES. That is, throughout this work the expression "lexical typology in the nominal domain" should not be interpreted as "a typology of nouns", but, rather, as the cross-linguistic investigation of lexical areas constitutive for "referring phrases" irrespective of how the parts-of-speech system in a specific language is defined

Effective retrieval and new indexing method for case based reasoning: Application in chemical process design

In this paper we try to improve the retrieval step for case based reasoning for preliminary design. This improvement deals with three major parts of our CBR system. First, in the preliminary design step, some uncertainties like imprecise or unknown values remain in the description of the problem, because they need a deeper analysis to be withdrawn. To deal with this issue, the faced problem description is soften with the fuzzy sets theory. Features are described with a central value, a percentage of imprecision and a relation with respect to the central value. These additional data allow us to build a domain of possible values for each attributes. With this representation, the calculation of the similarity function is impacted, thus the characteristic function is used to calculate the local similarity between two features. Second, we focus our attention on the main goal of the retrieve step in CBR to find relevant cases for adaptation. In this second part, we discuss the assumption of similarity to find the more appropriated case. We put in highlight that in some situations this classical similarity must be improved with further knowledge to facilitate case adaptation. To avoid failure during the adaptation step, we implement a method that couples similarity measurement with adaptability one, in order to approximate the cases utility more accurately. The latter gives deeper information for the reusing of cases. In a last part, we present a generic indexing technique for the base, and a new algorithm for the research of relevant cases in the memory. The sphere indexing algorithm is a domain independent index that has performances equivalent to the decision tree ones. But its main strength is that it puts the current problem in the center of the research area avoiding boundaries issues. All these points are discussed and exemplified through the preliminary design of a chemical engineering unit operation

Characterization of aerosol associated with enhanced small particle number concentrations in a suburban forested environment

Two elevated particle number/mass growth events associated with Aitken‐mode particles were observed during a sampling campaign (13–29 September 2004) at the Duke University Free‐Air CO2 Enrichment facility, a forested field site located in suburban central North Carolina. Aerosol growth rates between 1.2 and 4.9 nm hr−1 were observed, resulting in net increases in geometric mean diameter of 21 and 37 nm during events. Growth was dominated by addition of oxidized organic compounds. Campaign‐average aerosol mass concentrations measured by an Aerodyne quadrupole aerosol mass spectrometer (Q‐AMS) were 1.9 ± 1.6 (σ), 1.6 ± 1.9, 0.1 ± 0.1, and 0.4 ± 0.4 μg m−3 for organic mass (OM), sulfate, nitrate, and ammonium, respectively. These values represent 47%, 40%, 3%, and 10%, respectively, of the measured submicron aerosol mass. Based on Q‐AMS spectra, OM was apportioned to hydrocarbon‐like organic aerosol (HOA, likely representing primary organic aerosol) and two types of oxidized organic aerosol (OOA‐1 and OOA‐2), which constituted on average 6%, 58%, and 36%, respectively, of the apportioned OM. OOA‐1 probably represents aged, regional secondary organic aerosol (SOA), while OOA‐2 likely reflects less aged SOA. Organic aerosol characteristics associated with the events are compared to the campaign averages. Particularly in one event, the contribution of OOA‐2 to overall OM levels was enhanced, indicating the likelihood of less aged SOA formation. Statistical analyses investigate the relationships between HOA, OOA‐1, OOA‐2, other aerosol components, gas‐phase species, and meteorological data during the campaign and individual events. No single variable clearly controls the occurrence of a particle growth event

The patterns and determinants of price setting in the Belgian industry

This paper documents the patterns and determinants of price setting in the Belgian industry. We analyse the micro data underlying the Producer Price Index (PPI) over the period from February 2001 to January 2005. On average only one out of four prices changes in a typical month, whereas the absolute size of a price change amounts to 6%. The frequencies of price adjustment are particularly heterogeneous across sectors, which is determined by heterogeneity in the market and cost structure. We find no signs of downward nominal rigidity. A joint analysis of sizes and frequencies of price adjustment across time shows that price setting is characterised by both time- and state-dependent pricing. About 38% of the exported goods are a¤ected by pricing-to-market. JEL Classification: D40, E31nominal price rigidity, pricing-to-market, producer price setting, staggering, state-dependent pricing, time-dependent pricing

Constructing a price deflator for R&D: calculating the price of knowledge investments as a residual

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The patterns and determinants of price setting in the Belgian industry

This paper documents the patterns and determinants of price setting in the Belgian industry. We analyse the micro data underlying the Producer Price Index (PPI) over the period from February 2001 to January 2005. On average only one out of four prices changes in a typical month, whereas the absolute size of a price change amounts to 6 p.c. The frequencies of price adjustment are particularly heterogeneous across sectors, which is determined by heterogeneity in the market and cost structure. We find no signs of downward nominal rigidity. A joint analysis of sizes and frequencies of price adjustment across time shows that price setting is characterised by both time and state-dependent pricing. About 38 p.c. of the exported goods are affected by pricing-to-market.producer price setting, nominal price rigidity, pricing-to-market, time-dependent pricing, state-dependent pricing, staggering