Grain refinement of DC cast magnesium alloys with intensive melt shearing

A new direct chill (DC) casting process, melt conditioned DC (MC-DC) process, has been developed for the production of high quality billets/slabs of light alloys by application of intensive melt shearing through a rotor-stator high shear device during the DC casting process. The rotor-stator high shear device provides intensive melt shearing to disperse the naturally occurring oxide films, and other inclusions, while creating a microscopic flow pattern to homogenize the temperature and composition fields in the sump. In this paper, we report the grain refining effect of intensive melt shearing in the MC-DC casting processing. Experimental results on DC casting of Mg-alloys with and without intensive melt shearing have demonstrated that the MC-DC casting process can produce magnesium alloy billets with significantly refined microstructure. Such grain refinement in the MC-DC casting process can be attributed to enhanced heterogeneous nucleation by dispersed naturally occurring oxide particles, increased nuclei survival rate in uniform temperature and compositional fields in the sump, and potential contribution from dendrite arm fragmentation

Public vs private administration of rural health insurance schemes: a comparative study in Zhejiang of China.

: Since 2003, China has experimented in some of the country's counties with the private administration of the New Cooperative Medical Scheme (NCMS), a publicly subsidized health insurance scheme for rural populations. Our study compared the effectiveness and efficiency of private vs public administration in four counties in one of China's most affluent provinces in the initial stage of the NCMS's implementation. The study was undertaken in Ningbo city of Zhejiang province. Out of 10 counties in Ningbo, two counties with private administration for the NCMS (Beilun and Ninghai) were compared with two others counties with public administration (Zhenhai and Fenghua), using the following indicators: (1) proportion of enrollees who were compensated for inpatient care; (2) average reimbursement-expense ratio per episode of inpatient care; (3) overall administration cost; (4) enrollee satisfaction. Data from 2004 to 2006 were collected from the local health authorities, hospitals and the contracted insurance companies, supplemented by a randomized household questionnaire survey covering 176 households and 479 household members. In our sample counties, private administration of the NCMS neither reduced transaction costs, nor improved the benefits of enrollees. Enrollees covered by the publicly administered NCMS were more likely to be satisfied with the insurance scheme than those covered by the privately administered NCMS. Experience in the selected counties suggests that private administration of the NCMS did not deliver the hoped-for results. We conclude that caution needs to be exercised in extending private administration of the NCMS

The Nature of Quantum Hall States near the Charge Neutral Dirac Point in Graphene

We investigate the quantum Hall (QH) states near the charge neutral Dirac point of a high mobility graphene sample in high magnetic fields. We find that the QH states at filling factors $\nu=\pm1$ depend only on the perpendicular component of the field with respect to the graphene plane, indicating them to be not spin-related. A non-linear magnetic field dependence of the activation energy gap at filling factor $\nu=1$ suggests a many-body origin. We therefore propose that the $\nu=0$ and $\pm1$ states arise from the lifting of the spin and sub-lattice degeneracy of the $n=0$ LL, respectively.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev. Let

Free Radical-scavenging Activity and Anthocyanin Profiles of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot Wines from Four Wine Grapegrowing Regions in China

The present study focused on the free radical-scavenging activity and anthocyanin profiles of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot wines produced from four different regions in China. The anthocyanin profiles in all wine samples were analysed by HPLC-MS/MS, while the free radical-scavenging activity was estimated by the DPPH assay. The results show that the contents of phenolic subclasses and the levels of antioxidant activity in all wine samples varied greatly among cultivars and environmental factors of vine growth, and these values were the most prominent in Yuquanling regional wines. As the main components in anthocyanins, the percentages of malvidin-3-O-glucoside and its derivatives showed differences within grape cultivars in the different regional wines; these monomeric anthocyanins (not present simultaneously in the four regional wines studied within grape cultivars) had concentrations below 10 mg Mv/L. The significant correlation was obtained between DPPH-scavenging ability and the total phenolic, flavonoid and anthocyanin content. It can be concluded that this information could be used as a biochemical marker for the authenticity of the single-cultivar red wines that were produced from the four regions above

Assessing China's Provincial Electricity Spot Market Pilot Operations: Lessons from the Guangdong Province

Targeting on improving the efficiency of power generation, China announced its plan to reform the electricity wholesale market. A focal point of the wholesale market reform is to introduce a stable and reliable electricity spot market. Using Guangdong's spot market pilot operations as a case study, this article becomes the first which uses ex-post market data to assess the efficacy of China's electricity spot market. To investigate the stability of the spot market, we estimate the relationship between prices and demand. We find the electricity supply curve to be non-linear and convex, suggesting the needs to invest more thermal capacity to stabilise the spot market prices (SMPs). To investigate the reliability of the spot market, we first estimate the market distortion caused by a price floor on the SMPs, and then examine whether local market power exists. The price floor on the SMPs resulted in a welfare transfer from consumers to producers, the monetary value of which equals to 1.3% of the tradable value of the day-ahead market. We also find evidence of local market power in the east of Guangdong, suggesting the necessity of investing more power lines connecting the west to the east. Finally, policy implications are provided