A Battle of Taste and Environmental Convictions for Ecolabeled Seafood: A Choice Experiment

This paper describes a choice experiment addressing preferences for ecolabeled seafood, in which the experimental design allows for choices among various fresh seafood products. The primary emphasis is the potential trade-off between taste (i.e., a favored species) and the presence of an ecolabel, when multiple seafood products are available.Consumer/Household Economics,

High Velocity Burner Rig Oxidation and Thermal Fatigue Behavior of Si3N4- and SiC Base Ceramics to 1370 Deg C

One SiC material and three Si3N4 materials including hot-pressed Si3N4 as a baseline were exposed in a Mach-1-gas-velocity burner rig simulating a turbine engine environment. Criteria for the materials selection were: potential for gas-turbine usage, near-net-shape fabricability and commercial/domestic availability. Cyclic exposures of test vanes up to 250 cycles (50 hr at temperature) were at leading-edge temperatures to 1370 C. Materials and batches were compared as to weight change, surface change, fluorescent penetrant inspection, and thermal fatigue behavior. Hot-pressed Si3N4 survived the test to 1370 C with slight weight losses. Two types of reaction-sintered Si3N4 displayed high weight gains and considerable weight-change variability, with one material exhibiting superior thermal fatigue behavior. A siliconized SiC showed slight weight gains, but considerable batch variability in thermal fatigue

The effect of very low-calorie diets on renal and hepatic outcomes : a systematic review

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

XMM-Newton observations of PSr B1259-63 near the 2004 periastron passage

PSR B1259-63 is in a highly eccentric 3.4 year orbit with a Be star and crosses the Be star disc twice per orbit, just prior to and just after periastron. Unpulsed radio, X-ray and gamma-ray emission observed from the binary system is thought to be due to the collision of pulsar wind with the wind of Be star. We present here the results of new XMM-Newton observations of the PSR B1259-63 system during the beginning of 2004 as the pulsar approached the disc of Be star.We combine these results with earlier unpublished X-ray data from BeppoSAX and XMM-Newton as well as with ASCA data. The detailed X-ray lightcurve of the system shows that the pulsar passes (twice per orbit) through a well-defined gaussian-profile disk with the half-opening angle (projected on the pulsar orbit plane) ~18.5 deg. The intersection of the disk middle plane with the pulsar orbital plane is inclined at ~70 deg to the major axis of the pulsar orbit. Comparing the X-ray lightcurve to the TeV lightcurve of the system we find that the increase of the TeV flux some 10--100 days after the periastron passage is unambiguously related to the disk passage. At the moment of entrance to the disk the X-ray photon index hardens from 1.8 up to 1.2 before returning to the steeper value 1.5. Such behaviour is not easily accounted for by the model in which the X-ray emission is synchrotron emission from the shocked pulsar wind. We argue that the observed hardening of the X-ray spectrum is due to the inverse Compton or bremsstrahlung emission from 10-100 MeV electrons responsible for the radio synchrotron emission.Comment: 9 pages, accepted to MNRA

Preparation of monotectic alloys having a controlled microstructure by directional solidification under dopant-induced interface breakdown

Monotectic alloys having aligned spherical particles of rods of the minor component dispersed in a matrix of the major component are prepared by forming a melt containing predetermined amounts of the major and minor components of a chosen monotectic system, providing in the melt a dopant capable of breaking down the liquid solid interface for the chosen alloy, and directionally solidfying the melt at a selected temperature gradient and a selected rate of movement of the liquid-solid interface (growth rate). Shaping of the minor component into spheres or rods and the spacing between them are controlled by the amount of dopant and the temperature gradient and growth rate values. Specific alloy systems include Al Bi, Al Pb and Zn Bi, using a transition element such as iron

Fixed boundary conditions analysis of the 3d Gonihedric Ising model with κ=0\kappa=0

The Gonihedric Ising model is a particular case of the class of models defined by Savvidy and Wegner intended as discrete versions of string theories on cubic lattices. In this paper we perform a high statistics analysis of the phase transition exhibited by the 3d Gonihedric Ising model with $k=0$ in the light of a set of recently stated scaling laws applicable to first order phase transitions with fixed boundary conditions. Even though qualitative evidence was presented in a previous paper to support the existence of a first order phase transition at $k=0$, only now are we capable of pinpointing the transition inverse temperature at $\beta_c = 0.54757(63)$ and of checking the scaling of standard observables.Comment: 14 pages, 5 tables, 2 figures, uses elsart.cls packag

Performance of rocket nozzle materials with several solid propellants

Erosion resistance and thermal stress cracking tests of rocket nozzle materials with solid propellant