Design study for Thermal Infrared Multispectral Scanner (TIMS)

The feasibility of dividing the 8-12 micrometer thermal infrared wavelength region into six spectral bands by an airborne line scanner system was investigated. By combining an existing scanner design with a 6 band spectrometer, a system for the remote sensing of Earth resources was developed. The elements in the spectrometer include an off axis reflective collimator, a reflective diffraction grating, a triplet germanium imaging lens, a photoconductive mercury cadmium telluride sensor array, and the mechanical assembly to hold these parts and maintain their optical alignment across a broad temperature range. The existing scanner design was modified to accept the new spectrometer and two field filling thermal reference sources

The influence of acetaldehyde and water on the determination of 14C in wine alcohol

Der Einfluß von Acetaldehyd und Wasser auf die 14C-Bestimmung bei WeinalkoholDie Bestimmung von 14C im Äthanol von Wein wird nicht signifikant beeinflußt, wenn die Destillation sorgfältig durchgeführt wird und der Wasser- und Aldehydgehalt 10 % (v/v) bzw. 0,5 % (v/v) nicht übersteigt

The 14C content of the ethanol of South African wines ior the years 1925-1975

It has been shown that, due to atmospheric conditions, South African natural wines are lower in 14C content than their northern hemisphere counterparts for the periods of active nuclear explosion tests. On this basis it is incorrect to apply northern hemisphere 14C data to wines of the southern hemisphere.Der 14C-Gehalt des Äthanols südafrikanischer Weine der Jahrgänge 1925-1975Es konnte gezeigt werden, daß südafrikanische Naturweine infolge der atmosphärischen Bedingungen einen niedrigeren 14C-Gehalt besitzen, als ihn Vergleichsweine von der nördlichen Erdhalbkugel aus der Zeit der Kernwaffenversuche aufweisen. Es ist somit nicht gerechtfertigt, die 14C-Werte der Nordhemisphäre bei Weinen der südlichen Erdhalbkugel anzuwenden

The characteristics of insoluble softwood substrates affect fungal morphology, secretome composition, and hydrolytic efficiency of enzymes produced by Trichoderma reesei

Background: On-site enzyme production using Trichoderma reesei can improve yields and lower the overall cost of lignocellulose saccharification by exploiting the fungal gene regulatory mechanism that enables it to continuously adapt enzyme secretion to the substrate used for cultivation. To harness this, the interrelation between substrate characteristics and fungal response must be understood. However, fungal morphology or gene expression studies often lack structural and chemical substrate characterization. Here, T. reesei QM6a was cultivated on three softwood substrates: northern bleached softwood Kraft pulp (NBSK) and lodgepole pine pretreated either by dilute-acid-catalyzed steam pretreatment (LP-STEX) or mild alkaline oxidation (LP-ALKOX). With different pretreatments of similar starting materials, we presented the fungus with systematically modified substrates. This allowed the elucidation of substrate-induced changes in the fungal response and the testing of the secreted enzymes’ hydrolytic strength towards the same substrates. Results: Enzyme activity time courses correlated with hemicellulose content and cellulose accessibility. Specifically, increased amounts of side-chain-cleaving hemicellulolytic enzymes in the protein produced on the complex substrates (LP-STEX; LP-ALKOX) was observed by secretome analysis. Confocal laser scanning micrographs showed that fungal micromorphology responded to changes in cellulose accessibility and initial culture viscosity. The latter was caused by surface charge and fiber dimensions, and likely restricted mass transfer, resulting in morphologies of fungi in stress. Supplementing a basic cellulolytic enzyme mixture with concentrated T. reesei supernatant improved saccharification efficiencies of the three substrates, where cellulose, xylan, and mannan conversion was increased by up to 27, 45, and 2800%, respectively. The improvement was most pronounced for proteins produced on LP-STEX and LP-ALKOX on those same substrates, and in the best case, efficiencies reached those of a state-of-the-art commercial enzyme preparation. Conclusion: Cultivation of T. reesei on LP-STEX and LP-ALKOX produced a protein mixture that increased the hydrolytic strength of a basic cellulase mixture to state-of-the-art performance on softwood substrates. This suggests that the fungal adaptation mechanism can be exploited to achieve enhanced performance in enzymatic hydrolysis without a priori knowledge of specific substrate requirements

Testing Consumer Rationality using Perfect Graphs and Oriented Discs

Given a consumer data-set, the axioms of revealed preference proffer a binary test for rational behaviour. A natural (non-binary) measure of the degree of rationality exhibited by the consumer is the minimum number of data points whose removal induces a rationalisable data-set.We study the computational complexity of the resultant consumer rationality problem in this paper. This problem is, in the worst case, equivalent (in terms of approximation) to the directed feedback vertex set problem. Our main result is to obtain an exact threshold on the number of commodities that separates easy cases and hard cases. Specifically, for two-commodity markets the consumer rationality problem is polynomial time solvable; we prove this via a reduction to the vertex cover problem on perfect graphs. For three-commodity markets, however, the problem is NP-complete; we prove thisusing a reduction from planar 3-SAT that is based upon oriented-disc drawings

Is mindfulness Buddhist? (and why it matters).

Modern exponents of mindfulness meditation promote the therapeutic effects of "bare attention"--a sort of non-judgmental, non-discursive attending to the moment-to-moment flow of consciousness. This approach to Buddhist meditation can be traced to Burmese Buddhist reform movements of the first half of the 20th century, and is arguably at odds with more traditional Theravāda Buddhist doctrine and meditative practices. But the cultivation of present-centered awareness is not without precedent in Buddhist history; similar innovations arose in medieval Chinese Zen (Chan) and Tibetan Dzogchen. These movements have several things in common. In each case the reforms were, in part, attempts to render Buddhist practice and insight accessible to laypersons unfamiliar with Buddhist philosophy and/or unwilling to adopt a renunciatory lifestyle. In addition, these movements all promised astonishingly quick results. And finally, the innovations in practice were met with suspicion and criticism from traditional Buddhist quarters. Those interested in the therapeutic effects of mindfulness and bare attention are often not aware of the existence, much less the content, of the controversies surrounding these practices in Asian Buddhist history

Are we on the same page? Knowledge boundaries and transactive memory system development in cross-functional teams

One of the key challenges that organizations face when trying to integrate knowledge across different functions is the need to overcome knowledge boundaries between team members. In cross-functional teams, these boundaries, associated with different knowledge backgrounds of people from various disciplines, create communication problems, necessitating team members to engage in complex cognitive processes when integrating knowledge toward a joint outcome. This research investigates the impact of syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic knowledge boundaries on a team’s ability to develop a transactive memory system (TMS)—a collective memory system for knowledge coordination in groups. Results from our survey show that syntactic and pragmatic knowledge boundaries negatively affect TMS development. These findings extend TMS theory beyond the information-processing view, which treats knowledge as an object that can be stored and retrieved, to the interpretive and practice-based views of knowledge, which recognize that knowledge (in particular specialized knowledge) is localized, situated, and embedded in practice

Unchanged muscle fiber conduction velocity relates to mild acidosis during exhaustive bicycling

Muscle fiber conduction velocity (MFCV) has often been shown to decrease during standardized fatiguing isometric contractions. However, several studies have indicated that the MFCV may remain constant during fatiguing dynamic exercise. It was investigated if these observations can be related to the absence of a large decrease in pH and if MFCV can be considered as a good indicator of acidosis, also during dynamic bicycle exercise. High-density surface electromyography (HDsEMG) was combined with read-outs of muscle energetics recorded by in vivo 31P magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS). Measurements were performed during serial exhausting bouts of bicycle exercise at three different workloads. The HDsEMG recordings revealed a small and incoherent variation of MFCV during all high-intensity exercise bouts. 31P MRS spectra revealed a moderate decrease in pH at the end of exercise (~0.3 units down to 6.8) and a rapid ancillary drop to pH 6.5 during recovery 30 s post-exercise. This additional degree of acidification caused a significant decrease in MFCV during cycling immediately after the rest period. From the data a significant correlation between MFCV and [H+] ([H+] = 10−pH) was calculated (p < 0.001, Pearson’s R = −0.87). Our results confirmed the previous observations of MFCV remaining constant during fatiguing dynamic exercise. A constant MFCV is in line with a low degree of acidification, considering the presence of a correlation between pH and MFCV after further increasing acidification