Perceived Problems and Prospects on Acceptability of Industrial Waste Sludge As An Alternative Component for Bricks Making

This paper shows the perceived problems that the manufacturers might encounter in producing bricks using industrial waste sludge as an alternative component. These include the mechanical, thermal, and physical problems. The above-mentioned issues are directly and/ or indirectly affect the acceptability of the bricks in the said manufacturing companies. And each owners or prospects have different view on those factors, whether it is acceptable or not in their standard. Those issues will lead to the conservative way of producing bricks using industrial waste sludge as an alternative component that will be used in home construction, as in wall decoration, roofing, and even flooring. For its approach, the research used descriptive research methods including document analysis as well as statistical analysis of all the data gathered. For the population of the study, the research used random sampling technique in identifying the respondents of the study. These respondents are engineers, managers and experts in the production and selling of commercial bricks

Inclusive Decays of Heavy Quarkonium to Light Particles

We derive the imaginary part of the potential NRQCD Hamiltonian up to order 1/m^4, when the typical momentum transfer between the heavy quarks is of the order of Lambda_{QCD} or greater, and the binding energy E much smaller than Lambda_{QCD}. We use this result to calculate the inclusive decay widths into light hadrons, photons and lepton pairs, up to O(mv^3 x (Lambda_{QCD}^2/m^2,E/m)) and O(mv^5) times a short-distance coefficient, for S- and P-wave heavy quarkonium states, respectively. We achieve a large reduction in the number of unknown non-perturbative parameters and, therefore, we obtain new model-independent QCD predictions. All the NRQCD matrix elements relevant to that order are expressed in terms of the wave functions at the origin and six universal non-perturbative parameters. The wave-function dependence factorizes and drops out in the ratio of hadronic and electromagnetic decay widths. The universal non-perturbative parameters are expressed in terms of gluonic field-strength correlators, which may be fixed by experimental data or, alternatively, by lattice simulations. Our expressions are expected to hold for most of the charmonium and bottomonium states below threshold. The calculations and methodology are explained in detail so that the evaluation of higher order NRQCD matrix elements in this framework should be straightforward. An example is provided.Comment: 61 pages, 9 figures. Minor change

Heavy Quarkonium Physics from Effective Field Theories

I review recent progress in heavy quarkonium physics from an effective field theory perspective. In this unifying framework, I discuss advances in perturbative calculations for low-lying quarkonium observables and in lattice calculations for high-lying ones, and progress and lasting puzzles in quarkonium production.Comment: Plenary talk at the 4th International Conference on Quarks and Nuclear Physics (QNP06), 5-10 June 2006, Madrid, Spain; 6 pages, 1 figure, EPJ styl

Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics and Stochastic Dynamics of a Bistable Catalytic Surface Reaction

Catalytic surface reaction networks exhibit nonlinear dissipative phenomena, such as bistability. Macroscopic rate law descriptions predict that the reaction system resides on one of the two steady-state branches of the bistable region for an indefinite period of time. However, the smaller the catalytic surface, the greater the influence of coverage fluctuations, given that their amplitude normally scales as the square root of the system size. Thus, one can observe fluctuation-induced transitions between the steady-states. In this work, a model for the bistable catalytic CO oxidation on small surfaces is studied. After a brief introduction of the average stochastic modelling framework and its corresponding deterministic limit, we discuss the non-equilibrium conditions necessary for bistability. The entropy production rate, an important thermodynamic quantity measuring dissipation in a system, is compared across the two approaches. We conclude that, in our catalytic model, the most favorable non-equilibrium steady state is not necessary the state with the maximum or minimum entropy production rate

Experimental design and analysis of a gyroelastic beam

Division of Higher Technical Education of MexicoPublished versio

Electrochemical behaviour of gamma hydroxybutyric acid at a platinum electrode in acidic medium

The electrooxidation of Gamma Hydroxybutyric Acid (GHB) on a polycrystalline platinum electrode is studied by cyclic voltammetry in acidic medium. Two oxidation peaks, A and B, are obtained in the positive scan within the potential range of the double layer region and of the platinum oxide region, respectively. In the negative going potential sweep an inverted oxidation peak with an onset partially overlapping with the tail of the cathodic peak for the reduction of the platinum oxide formed during the anodic scan is obtained (peak C). This inverted peak can be observed at a potential close to +0.2 V (vs Ag/AgCl at pH 2) and separated 0.4 and 0.8 V from the two other oxidation peaks obtained during the anodic scan and in such conditions that the surface is particularly activated to favour this electrochemical process. The response obtained in the electronic current for the different peaks when GHB concentration and scan rate were changed to allows inferring that these are the result of a potential dependent mechanism. The behaviour observed is according with the oxidation of the alcohol group to the corresponding aldehyde and carboxylic acid (succinic acid) as main products

The scalar gluonium correlator: large-beta_0 and beyond

The investigation of the scalar gluonium correlator is interesting because it carries the quantum numbers of the vacuum and the relevant hadronic current is related to the anomalous trace of the QCD energy-momentum tensor in the chiral limit. After reviewing the purely perturbative corrections known up to next-next-to-leading order, the behaviour of the correlator is studied to all orders by means of the large-beta_0 approximation. Similar to the QCD Adler function, the large-order behaviour is governed by the leading ultraviolet renormalon pole. The structure of infrared renormalon poles, being related to the operator product expansion are also discussed, as well as a low-energy theorem for the correlator that provides a relation to the renormalisation group invariant gluon condensate, and the vacuum matrix element of the trace of the QCD energy-momentum tensor.Comment: 14 pages, references added, discussion of IR renormalon pole at u=3 extended, similar version to appear in JHE

Synergistic and antagonistic effects of mixing monospecific soils on plant-soil feedbacks

Plant science

Electrochemically Exfoliated High-Quality 2H-MoS₂ for Multiflake Thin Film Flexible Biosensors

2D molybdenum disulfide (MoS₂) gives a new inspiration for the field of nanoelectronics, photovoltaics, and sensorics. However, the most common processing technology, e.g., liquid‐phase based scalable exfoliation used for device fabrication, leads to the number of shortcomings that impede their large area production and integration. Major challenges are associated with the small size and low concentration of MoS₂ flakes, as well as insufficient control over their physical properties, e.g., internal heterogeneity of the metallic and semiconducting phases. Here it is demonstrated that large semiconducting MoS₂ sheets (with dimensions up to 50 µm) can be obtained by a facile cathodic exfoliation approach in nonaqueous electrolyte. The synthetic process avoids surface oxidation thus preserving the MoS₂ sheets with intact crystalline structure. It is further demonstrated at the proof‐of‐concept level, a solution‐processed large area (60 × 60 µm) flexible Ebola biosensor, based on a MoS₂ thin film (6 µm thickness) fabricated via restacking of the multiple flakes on the polyimide substrate. The experimental results reveal a low detection limit (in femtomolar–picomolar range) of the fabricated sensor devices. The presented exfoliation method opens up new opportunities for fabrication of large arrays of multifunctional biomedical devices based on novel 2D materials