Synthesis diamond films from low pressure chemical vapor deposition

Experiments were performed on the deposition of both diamond crystals and films from hydrogen and methane gas mixtures on silicon and polymer substrates by various plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition techniques (PECVD) . Microwave, arc, and dc plasmas to assist the deposition of the diamond metastable phase of carbon were used. Discussed in the following thesis are the plasma configurations used together with experimental parameters such as gas composition, flow rate, chamber pressure, and power. The crystallinity of the films, which can be controlled and changed from polycrystalline to amorphous, was ascertained by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) . Other characterization techniques employed were profilometry to indicate uniformity, depth profiles and growth rates, and Raman spectroscopy which depicted chemical structure

Addressing Technology Uncertainties in Power Plants with Post-Combustion Capture

AbstractRisks associated with technology, market and regulatory uncertainties for First-Of-A-Kind fossil power generation with CCS can be mitigated through innovative engineering approaches that will allow solvent developments occurring during the early stage of the deployment of post-combustion CO2 capture to be subsequently incorporated into the next generation of CCS plants. Power plants capable of improving their economic performance will benefit financially from being able to upgrade their solvent technology. One of the most important requirements for upgradeability is for the base power plant to be able to operate with any level of steam extraction and also with any level of electricity output up to the maximum rating without capture. This requirement will also confer operational flexibility and so is likely to be implemented in practice on new plants or on any integrated CCS retrofit project

What absent switch costs and mixing costs during bilingual language comprehension can tell us about language control.

Epub 2019 Mar 28.In the current study, we set out to investigate language control, which is the process that minimizes cross-language interference, during bilingual language comprehension. According to current theories of bilingual language comprehension, language-switch costs, which are a marker for reactive language control, should be observed. However, a closer look at the literature shows that this is not always the case. Furthermore, little to no evidence for language-mixing costs, which are a marker for proactive language control, has been observed in the bilingual language comprehension literature. This is in line with current theories of bilingual language comprehension, as they do not explicitly account for proactive language control. In the current study, we further investigated these two markers of language control and found no evidence for comprehension-based language-switch costs in six experiments, even though other types of switch costs were observed with the exact same setup (i.e., task-switch costs, stimulus modality-switch costs, and production-based language-switch costs). Furthermore, only one out of three experiments showed comprehension-based language-mixing costs, providing the first tentative evidence for proactive language control during bilingual language comprehension. The implications of the absence and occurrence of these costs are discussed in terms of processing speed and parallel language activation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 706128. This research was also supported by grants ANR-11-LABX-0036 (BLRI), ANR-16-CONV-0002 (ILCB), and ANR-11-IDEX-0001-02 from the French National Research Council (ANR)

Ester Boserup: naturaleza y cultura en los procesos de desarrollo

El par de opuestos “naturaleza”/”cultura” es parte de las coordenadas fundamentales para la orientación social, e importantes en muchos campos de las ciencias. A partir del uso que los autores hacen de estos conceptos se puede inferir su posición general y el trasfondo de sus argumentos, con la condición de mirar cuidadosamente el contexto, ya que las nociones tienen muchas interpretaciones posibles. Esta nota se ocupa de la economista Ester Boserup (1910-1999) quien se hizo conocida en la comunidad científi ca a partir de su libro The Conditions of Agricultural Growth y otros importantes estudios. Aquí muestro cómo ella trabajó con el concepto de “naturaleza” desde el comienzo, y cómo mucho más tardíamente, dentro de un contexto nuevo, descubrió el valor general de la “cultura”

Theology, News and Notes - Vol. 28, No. 02

Theology News & Notes was a theological journal published by Fuller Theological Seminary from 1954 through 2014.https://digitalcommons.fuller.edu/tnn/1074/thumbnail.jp

The relation between productivity and species diversity in temperate-arctic marine ecosystems

Energy variables, such as evapotranspiration, temperature, and productivity explain significant variation in the diversity of many groups of terrestrial plants and animals at local to global scales. Although the ocean represents the largest continuous habitat on earth with a vast spectrum of primary productivity and species richness, little is known about how productivity influences species diversity in marine systems. To search for general relationships between productivity and species richness in the ocean, we analyzed data from three different benthic marine ecosystems (epifaunal communities on subtidal rock walls, on navigation buoys in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and Canadian Arctic macrobenthos) across local to continental spatial scales (1000 km) using a standardized proxy for productivity, satellite-derived chlorophyll a. Theoretically, the form of the function between productivity and species richness is either monotonically increasing or decreasing, or curvilinear (hump- or U-shaped). We found three negative linear and three hump-shaped relationships between chlorophyll a and species richness out of 10 independent comparisons. Scale dependence was suggested by more prevalent diversity-productivity relationships at smaller (local, landscape) than larger (regional, continental) spatial scales. Differences in the form of the functions were more closely allied with community type than with scale, as negative linear functions were restricted to sessile epifauna while hump-shaped functions occurred in Arctic macrobenthos (mixed epifauna, infauna). In two of the data sets, (St. Lawrence epifauna and Arctic macrobenthos) significant effects of chlorophyll a co-varied with the effects of salinity, suggesting that environmental stress as well as productivity influences diversity in these marine systems. The co-varying effect of salinity may commonly arise in broad-scale studies of productivity and diversity in marine ecosystems when attempting to sample the largest range of productivity, often encompassing a coastal-oceanic gradient

Financing new power plants ‘CCS Ready’ in China–A case study of Shenzhen city

AbstractWe evaluate the benefits of a ‘CCS Ready Hub’ approach, a regional ‘CCS Ready’ strategy, which not only includes a number of new coal-fired power plants but also integrates other existing stationary CO2 emissions sources, potential storage sites and potential transportation opportunities into an overarching simulation model. A dynamic top-down simulation model was built based on economic decision criteria and option pricing theory. The model inputs and assumptions build on spatial sampling and analysis using a geographic information system (GIS) approach, engineering assessment of local projects and outputs of a CCS retrofitting investment evaluation through cost cash flow modelling. A case study of Shenzhen city in the Pearl River Delta area in Guangdong in southern China is presented, based on engineering and cost assessment studies and stakeholder consultations and building on existing geological surveys and infrastructure plans. The simulation results show that financing ‘CCS Ready’ at regional planning level rather than only at the design stage of the individual plant (or project) is preferred since it reduces the overall cost of building integrated CCS systems. On the other hand, we found the value of considering existing stationary CO2 emissions sources in CCS ready design. Therefore, we recommended that making new plants CCS ready or planning a CCS ready hub should consider existing large emissions sources when possible