1,896 research outputs found
Nickel catalysts for internal reforming in molten carbonate fuel cells
Natural gas may be used instead of hydrogen as fuel for the molten carbonate fuel cell (MCFC) by steam reforming the natural gas inside the MCFC, using a nickel catalyst (internal reforming). The severe conditions inside the MCFC, however, require that the catalyst has a very high stability. In order to find suitable types of nickel catalysts and to obtain more knowledge about the deactivation mechanism(s) occurring during internal reforming, a series of nickel catalysts was prepared and subjected to stability tests at 973 K in an atmosphere containing steam and lithium and potassium hydroxide vapours. All the catalysts prepared showed a significant growth of the nickel crystallites during the test, especially one based on ¿-Al2O3 and a coprecipitated Ni/Al2O3 sample having a very high nickel content. However, this growth of nickel crystallites only partially explained the very strong deactivation observed in most cases. Only a coprecipitated nickel/alumina catalyst with high alumina content and a deposition-precipitation catalyst showed satisfactory residual activities. Addition of magnesium or lanthanum oxide to a coprecipitated nickel/alumina catalyst decreased the stability.\ud
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Adsorption and retention of the alkali was the most important factor determining the stability of a catalyst in an atmosphere containing alkali hydroxides. This is because the catalyst bed may remain active if a small part of the catalyst bed retains all the alkali
Boundary element methods in elastography: a first explorative study
http://spiedigitallibrary.aip.org/dbt/dbt.jsp?KEY=PSISDG&Volume=6511&Issue=1&bproc=symp&scode=MI07
to find paper and front matter etc.Next to Magnet Resonance Elastography and Ultrasound Elastography, Digital Image Elasto-Tomography (DIET) is a new imaging-technique, using only motion data available on the boundary, to reconstruct mechanical material parameters, i.e. the interior sti.ness of a domain, in order to diagnose tissue related disease such as breast cancer. Where classically Finite Element Methods have been employed to solve this inverse problem, this paper explores a new approach to the reconstruction of mechanical material properties of tissue and tissue defects by the use of Boundary Element Methods (BEM). Using the Boundary Integral Equations for Linear Elasticity in two dimensions within a Conjugate Gradients based inverse solver, material properties of healthy and malicious tissue could be determined from displacement data on the boundary. First simulation results are presented
Initial-State Interactions in the Unpolarized Drell-Yan Process
We show that initial-state interactions contribute to the
distribution in unpolarized Drell-Yan lepton pair production and , without suppression. The asymmetry is expressed as a
product of chiral-odd distributions , where the quark-transversity function
is the transverse momentum dependent, light-cone
momentum distribution of transversely polarized quarks in an {\it unpolarized}
proton. We compute this (naive) -odd and chiral-odd distribution function
and the resulting asymmetry explicitly in a quark-scalar diquark
model for the proton with initial-state gluon interaction. In this model the
function equals the -odd (chiral-even) Sivers
effect function . This suggests that the
single-spin asymmetries in the SIDIS and the Drell-Yan process are closely
related to the asymmetry of the unpolarized Drell-Yan process,
since all can arise from the same underlying mechanism. This provides new
insight regarding the role of quark and gluon orbital angular momentum as well
as that of initial- and final-state gluon exchange interactions in hard QCD
processes.Comment: 22 pages, 6 figure
A static-regridding method for two-dimensional parabolic partial differential equations
Restenosis, reocclusion and adverse cardiovascular events after successful balloon angioplasty of occluded versus nonoccluded coronary arteries: Results from the multicenter american research trial with cilazapril after angioplasty to prevent transluminal coronary obstruction and restenosis (MARCATOR)
OBJECTIVES: This study sought to compare the frequency of restenosis, reocclusion and adverse cardiovascular events after angioplasty of occluded versus nonoccluded coronary arteries.
BACKGROUND: Angioplasty of chronically occluded coronary arteries is believed to be associated with a higher frequency of restenosis and reocclusion than angioplasty of subtotal stenoses. Whether this leads to adverse cardiovascular events is unknown.
METHODS: The Multicenter American Research Trial With Cilazapril After Angioplasty to Prevent Restenosis (MARCATOR) was a placebo-controlled trial with angiographic follow-up to determine the effect of the angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor cilazapril on the frequency of restenosis. In this trial, restenosis was defined as 1) angiographic reduction of minimal lumen diameter > or = 0.72 mm between angioplasty and the follow-up visit; and 2) > 50% diameter stenosis on the follow-up angiogram. We identified
Euclidean Distances, soft and spectral Clustering on Weighted Graphs
We define a class of Euclidean distances on weighted graphs, enabling to
perform thermodynamic soft graph clustering. The class can be constructed form
the "raw coordinates" encountered in spectral clustering, and can be extended
by means of higher-dimensional embeddings (Schoenberg transformations).
Geographical flow data, properly conditioned, illustrate the procedure as well
as visualization aspects.Comment: accepted for presentation (and further publication) at the ECML PKDD
2010 conferenc
Benefit of abciximab in patients with refractory unstable angina in relation to serum troponin T levels.
BACKGROUND: In patients with refractory unstable angina, the platelet
glycoprotein IIb/IIIa-receptor antibody abciximab reduces the incidence of
cardiac events before and during coronary angioplasty. We investigated
whether serum troponin T levels identify patients most likely to benefit
from therapy with this drug. METHODS: Among 1265 patients with unstable
angina who were enrolled in the c7E3 Fab Antiplatelet Therapy in Unstable
Refractory Angina (CAPTURE) trial, serum samples drawn at the time of
randomization to abciximab or placebo were available from 890 patients; we
used these samples for the determination of troponin T and creatine kinase
MB levels. Patients with postinfarction angina were not included. RESULTS:
Serum troponin T levels at the time of study entry were elevated (above
0.1 ng per milliliter) in 275 patients (30.9 percent). Among patients
receiving placebo, the risk of death or nonfatal myocardial infarction was
related to troponin T levels. The six-month cumulative event rate was 23.9
percent among patients with elevated troponin T levels, as compared with
7.5 percent among patients without elevated troponin T levels (P<0.001).
Among patients treated with abciximab, the respective six-month event
rates were 9.5 percent for patients with elevated troponin T levels and
9.4 percent for those without elevated levels. As compared with placebo,
the relative risk of death or nonfatal myocardial infarction associated
with treatment with abciximab in patients with elevated troponin T levels
was 0.32 (95 percent confidence interval, 0.14 to 0.62; P=0.002). The
lower event rates in patients receiving abciximab were attributable to a
reduction in the rate of myocardial infarction (odds ratio, 0.23; 95
percent confidence interval, 0.12 to 0.49; P<0.001). In patients without
elevated troponin T levels, there was no benefit of treatment with respect
to the relative risk of death or myocardial infarction at six months (odds
ratio, 1.26; 95 percent confidence interval, 0.74 to 2.31; P=0.47).
CONCLUSIONS: The serum troponin T level, which is considered to be a
surrogate marker for thrombus formation, identifies a high-risk subgroup
of patients with refractory unstable angina suitable for coronary
angioplasty who will particul
Application of chloroplast phylogenomics to resolve species relationships within the plant genus Amaranthus
Amaranthus species are an emerging and promising nutritious traditional vegetable food source. Morphological plasticity and poorly resolved dendrograms have led to the need for well resolved species phylogenies. We hypothesized that whole chloroplast phylogenomics would result in more reliable differentiation between closely related amaranth species. The aims of the study were therefore: to construct a fully assembled, annotated chloroplast genome sequence of Amaranthus tricolor; to characterize Amaranthus accessions phylogenetically by comparing barcoding genes (matK, rbcL, ITS) with whole chloroplast sequencing; and to use whole chloroplast phylogenomics to resolve deeper phylogenetic relationships. We generated a complete A. tricolor chloroplast sequence of 150,027 bp. The three barcoding genes revealed poor inter- and intra-species resolution with low bootstrap support. Whole chloroplast phylogenomics of 59 Amaranthus accessions increased the number of parsimoniously informative sites from 92 to 481 compared to the barcoding genes, allowing improved separation of amaranth species. Our results support previous findings that two geographically independent domestication events of Amaranthus hybridus likely gave rise to several species within the Hybridus complex, namely Amaranthus dubius, Amaranthus quitensis, Amaranthus caudatus, Amaranthus cruentus and Amaranthus hypochondriacus. Poor resolution of species within the Hybridus complex supports the recent and ongoing domestication within the complex, and highlights the limitation of chloroplast data for resolving recent evolution. The weedy Amaranthus retroflexus and Amaranthus powellii was found to share a common ancestor with the Hybridus complex. Leafy amaranth, Amaranthus tricolor, Amaranthus blitum, Amaranthus viridis and Amaranthus graecizans formed a stable sister lineage to the aforementioned species across the phylogenetic trees. This study demonstrates the power of next-generation sequencing data and reference-based assemblies to resolve phylogenies, and also facilitated the identification of unknown Amaranthus accessions from a local genebank. The informative phylogeny of the Amaranthus genus will aid in selecting accessions for breeding advanced genotypes to satisfy global food demand.The Department of Science and Technology of South Africa, the National Research Foundation and the Professional Development Program of the Agricultural Research Council (ARC) in South Africa.https://link.springer.com/journal/2392019-04-01hj2018Forestry and Agricultural Biotechnology Institute (FABI)GeneticsPlant Production and Soil Scienc
Global QCD Analysis and the CTEQ Parton Distributions
The CTEQ program for the determination of parton distributions through a
global QCD analysis of data for various hard scattering processes is fully
described. A new set of distributions, CTEQ3, incorporating several new types
of data is reported and compared to the two previous sets of CTEQ
distributions. Comparison with current data is discussed in some detail. The
remaining uncertainties in the parton distributions and methods to further
reduce them are assessed. Comparisons with the results of other global analyses
are also presented.Comment: (Change in Latex style only: 2up style removed since many don't have
it.) 35 pages, 23 figures separately submitted as uuencoded compressed
ps-file; Michigan State Report # MSU-HEP/41024 and CTEQ 40
Constraints on Three-Neutrino Mixing from Atmospheric and Reactor Data
Observations of atmospheric neutrinos are usually analyzed using the
simplifying approximation that either or
two-flavor mixing is relevant. Here we
instead consider the data using the simplifying approximation that only one
neutrino mass scale is relevant. This approximation is the minimal three-flavor
notation that includes the two relevant two-flavor approximations. The
constraints in the parameter space orthogonal to the usual, two-flavor analyses
are studied.Comment: 15 pages, preprint IUHET-26
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