Glass Furnace Combustion and Melting Research Facility.

The need for a Combustion and Melting Research Facility focused on the solution of glass manufacturing problems common to all segments of the glass industry was given high priority in the earliest version of the Glass Industry Technology Roadmap (Eisenhauer et al., 1997). Visteon Glass Systems and, later, PPG Industries proposed to meet this requirement, in partnership with the DOE/OIT Glass Program and Sandia National Laboratories, by designing and building a research furnace equipped with state-of-the-art diagnostics in the DOE Combustion Research Facility located at the Sandia site in Livermore, CA. Input on the configuration and objectives of the facility was sought from the entire industry by a variety of routes: (1) through a survey distributed to industry leaders by GMIC, (2) by conducting an open workshop following the OIT Glass Industry Project Review in September 1999, (3) from discussions with numerous glass engineers, scientists, and executives, and (4) during visits to glass manufacturing plants and research centers. The recommendations from industry were that the melting tank be made large enough to reproduce the essential processes and features of industrial furnaces yet flexible enough to be operated in as many as possible of the configurations found in industry as well as in ways never before attempted in practice. Realization of these objectives, while still providing access to the glass bath and combustion space for optical diagnostics and measurements using conventional probes, was the principal challenge in the development of the tank furnace design. The present report describes a facility having the requirements identified as important by members of the glass industry and equipped to do the work that the industry recommended should be the focus of research. The intent is that the laboratory would be available to U.S. glass manufacturers for collaboration with Sandia scientists and engineers on both precompetitive basic research and the solution of proprietary glass production problems. As a consequence of the substantial increase in scale and scope of the initial furnace concept in response to industry recommendations, constraints on funding of industrial programs by DOE, and reorientation of the Department's priorities, the OIT Glass Program is unable to provide the support for construction of such a facility. However, it is the present investigators' hope that a group of industry partners will emerge to carry the project forward, taking advantage of the detailed furnace design presented in this report. The engineering, including complete construction drawings, bill of materials, and equipment specifications, is complete. The project is ready to begin construction as soon as the quotations are updated. The design of the research melter closely follows the most advanced industrial practice, firing by natural gas with oxygen. The melting area is 13 ft x 6 ft, with a glass depth of 3 ft and an average height in the combustion space of 3 ft. The maximum pull rate is 25 tons/day, ranging from 100% batch to 100% cullet, continuously fed, with variable batch composition, particle size distribution, and raft configuration. The tank is equipped with bubblers to control glass circulation. The furnace can be fired in three modes: (1) using a single large burner mounted on the front wall, (2) by six burners in a staggered/opposed arrangement, three in each breast wall, and (3) by down-fired burners mounted in the crown in any combination with the front wall or breast-wall-mounted burners. Horizontal slots are provided between the tank blocks and tuck stones and between the breast wall and skewback blocks, running the entire length of the furnace on both sides, to permit access to the combustion space and the surface of the glass for optical measurements and sampling probes. Vertical slots in the breast walls provide additional access for measurements and sampling. The furnace and tank are to be fully instrumented with standard measuring equipment, such as flow meters, thermocouples, continuous gas composition analyzers, optical pyrometers, and a video camera. The output from the instruments is to be continuously recorded and simultaneously made available to other researchers via the Internet. A unique aspect of the research facility would be its access to the expertise in optical measurements in flames and high temperature reacting flows residing in the Sandia Combustion Research Facility. Development of new techniques for monitoring and control of glass melting would be a major focus of the work. The lab would be equipped with conventional and laser light sources and detectors for optical measurements of gas temperature, velocity, and gaseous species and, using new techniques to be developed in the Research Facility itself, glass temperature and glass composition

Quartet Sampling distinguishes lack of support from conflicting support in the green plant tree of life

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/143738/1/ajb21016-sup-0009-AppendixS9.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/143738/2/ajb21016.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/143738/3/ajb21016-sup-0004-AppendixS4.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/143738/4/ajb21016-sup-0001-AppendixS1.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/143738/5/ajb21016-sup-0002-AppendixS2.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/143738/6/ajb21016_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/143738/7/ajb21016-sup-0005-AppendixS5.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/143738/8/ajb21016-sup-0006-AppendixS6.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/143738/9/ajb21016-sup-0008-AppendixS8.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/143738/10/ajb21016-sup-0003-AppendixS3.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/143738/11/ajb21016-sup-0007-AppendixS7.pd

Influence of mitochondrial genome rearrangement on cucumber leaf carbon and nitrogen metabolism

The MSC16 cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) mitochondrial mutant was used to study the effect of mitochondrial dysfunction and disturbed subcellular redox state on leaf day/night carbon and nitrogen metabolism. We have shown that the mitochondrial dysfunction in MSC16 plants had no effect on photosynthetic CO2 assimilation, but the concentration of soluble carbohydrates and starch was higher in leaves of MSC16 plants. Impaired mitochondrial respiratory chain activity was associated with the perturbation of mitochondrial TCA cycle manifested, e.g., by lowered decarboxylation rate. Mitochondrial dysfunction in MSC16 plants had different influence on leaf cell metabolism under dark or light conditions. In the dark, when the main mitochondrial function is the energy production, the altered activity of TCA cycle in mutated plants was connected with the accumulation of pyruvate and TCA cycle intermediates (citrate and 2-OG). In the light, when TCA activity is needed for synthesis of carbon skeletons required as the acceptors for NH4+ assimilation, the concentration of pyruvate and TCA intermediates was tightly coupled with nitrate metabolism. Enhanced incorporation of ammonium group into amino acids structures in mutated plants has resulted in decreased concentration of organic acids and accumulation of Glu

SOIL TEMPERATURE IN MAIZE CROPS AS FUNCTION OF SOIL TILLAGE SYSTEMS

Abstract The objective of this study was to evaluate differences in soil temperature in maize cropped in no-tillage and conventional tillage systems. A field experiment was conducted in Eldorado do Sul, Brazil (30°05'S; 51°39'W), during the cropping season of 2002/03, in a subtropical climate. The maize was sown in rows spaced of 0.75 m, with a population of 65000 plant ha -1 . Around 5 t/ha of dry matter of a winter mixture composed by Avena strigosa + Vicia sativa were added to the soil. The temperature was monitored at different soil layers in the root zone. At the beginning of plant growth the highest soil temperatures occurred in the conventional system in all soil layers. Differences among daily averages reached to 5°C in maximum and 2°C in minimum temperatures, at 2.5 cm depth. After 30 days from plant emergence the highest temperatures occurred in the no-tillage system, which was related to the interception of solar radiation by leaves. However, variations among the cropping systems decreased as the plants covered the soil surface. The daily trend of the soil thermal regime was similar for both the tillage systems. A crescent delaying on maximum and minimum temperatures when increasing the soil depth was observed