Carbonization of coal pitch with additives

The ability of organic and inorganic additives (polyethylene terephthalate, titanium dioxide, finely disperse carbon, petroleum bitumen) to reduce the carcinogenic impact of coal-pitch carbonization is studied. Additives may reduce the quantity of pitch sublimates and their content of carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Some additives are able to reduce the benz[a]pyrene content in the exhaust gases, but its complete elimination is impossible, since benz[a]pyrene is a natural product of the high-temperature pyrolysis of organic materials. For this reason, additions of petroleum products to coal pitch cannot reduce the benz[a]pyrene emissions in the exhaust gases. © 2013 Allerton Press, Inc

Reducing the carcinogenic impact of pitch processing

Diverse opinions exist regarding the properties of benz[a]pyrene and other polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in coal pitch and their carcinogenic impact. Current concepts regarding chemical carcinogenesis and the development of occupational sickness are outlined. Information is presented relating to the reduction in the carcinogenic impact of coal pitch and its processing products. It is shown that the content of benz[a]pyrene and other polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in coal pitch, its sublimates, and atmospheric emissions may be reduced by means of various additives. However, it is probably impossible to eliminate benz[a]pyrene emission completely, since it is an unavoidable product of the high-temperature pyrolysis of organic materials. © 2013 Allerton Press, Inc

Differential constraints for the Kaup -- Broer system as a reduction of the 1D Toda lattice

It is shown that some special reduction of infinite 1D Toda lattice gives differential constraints compatible with the Kaup -- Broer system. A family of the travelling wave solutions of the Kaup -- Broer system and its higher version is constructed.Comment: LaTeX, uses IOP styl

Using Machine Vision to Improve the Efficiency of Lumber Mills

This work provides rationale for the implementation of a machine vision-based approach for promoting timber processing efficiency. With efforts to combat the climate change, criteria for the success of wood industries shifted. Now, they need to ensure economic efficiency while taking the reduction in carbon intensity into account. This may be achieved in either of two ways, through the improvement of energy efficiency in production and by minimizing waste. So far, the traditional methods for the improvement of timber processing efficiency became obsolete. Hence, using advances in electronic engineering and machine vision may be viewed as a promising step. © Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd

Invariant Sets and Explicit Solutions to a Third-Order Model for the Shearless Stratified Turbulent Flow

We study dynamics of the shearless stratified turbulent flows. Using the method of differential constraints we find a class of explicit solutions to the problem under consideration and establish that the differential constraint obtained coincides with the well-known Zeman--Lumley model for stratified flows.Comment: arxiv version is already officia

Coherent Evolution of Bouncing Bose-Einstein Condensates

We investigate the evolution of Bose-Einstein condensates falling under gravity and bouncing off a mirror formed by a far-detuned sheet of light. After reflection, the atomic density profile develops splitting and interference structures which depend on the drop height, on the strength of the light sheet, as well as on the initial mean field energy and size of the condensate. We compare experimental results with simulations of the Gross-Pitaevski equation. A comparison with the behaviour of bouncing thermal clouds allows to identify quantum features specific for condensates.Comment: 4 page

Air-guided photonic-crystal-fiber pulse-compression delivery of multimegawatt femtosecond laser output for nonlinear-optical imaging and neurosurgery

Cataloged from PDF version of article.Large-core hollow photonic- crystal fibers (PCFs) are shown to enable a fiber-format air-guided delivery of ultrashort infrared laser pulses for neurosurgery and nonlinear-optical imaging. With an appropriate dispersion precompensation, an anomalously dispersive 15-mu m-core hollow PCF compresses 510-fs, 1070-nm light pulses to a pulse width of about 110 fs, providing a peak power in excess of 5 MW. The compressed PCF output is employed to induce a local photodisruption of corpus callosum tissues in mouse brain and is used to generate the third harmonic in brain tissues, which is captured by the PCF and delivered to a detector through the PCF cladding. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics

Understanding the proton's spin structure

We discuss the tremendous progress that has been towards an understanding of how the spin of the proton is distributed on its quark and gluon constituents. This is a problem that began in earnest twenty years ago with the discovery of the proton ``spin crisis'' by the European Muon Collaboration. The discoveries prompted by that original work have given us unprecedented insight into the amount of spin carried by polarized gluons and the orbital angular momentum of the quarks.Comment: Review article for J. Phys. G, 1 figure, 22 page

The Atmospheric Chemistry Suite (ACS) of Three Spectrometers for the ExoMars 2016 Trace Gas Orbiter

The Atmospheric Chemistry Suite (ACS) package is an element of the Russian contribution to the ESA-Roscosmos ExoMars 2016 Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) mission. ACS consists of three separate infrared spectrometers, sharing common mechanical, electrical, and thermal interfaces. This ensemble of spectrometers has been designed and developed in response to the Trace Gas Orbiter mission objectives that specifically address the requirement of high sensitivity instruments to enable the unambiguous detection of trace gases of potential geophysical or biological interest. For this reason, ACS embarks a set of instruments achieving simultaneously very high accuracy (ppt level), very high resolving power (>10,000) and large spectral coverage (0.7 to 17 μm—the visible to thermal infrared range). The near-infrared (NIR) channel is a versatile spectrometer covering the 0.7–1.6 μm spectral range with a resolving power of ∼20,000. NIR employs the combination of an echelle grating with an AOTF (Acousto-Optical Tunable Filter) as diffraction order selector. This channel will be mainly operated in solar occultation and nadir, and can also perform limb observations. The scientific goals of NIR are the measurements of water vapor, aerosols, and dayside or night side airglows. The mid-infrared (MIR) channel is a cross-dispersion echelle instrument dedicated to solar occultation measurements in the 2.2–4.4 μm range. MIR achieves a resolving power of >50,000. It has been designed to accomplish the most sensitive measurements ever of the trace gases present in the Martian atmosphere. The thermal-infrared channel (TIRVIM) is a 2-inch double pendulum Fourier-transform spectrometer encompassing the spectral range of 1.7–17 μm with apodized resolution varying from 0.2 to 1.3 cm−1. TIRVIM is primarily dedicated to profiling temperature from the surface up to ∼60 km and to monitor aerosol abundance in nadir. TIRVIM also has a limb and solar occultation capability. The technical concept of the instrument, its accommodation on the spacecraft, the optical designs as well as some of the calibrations, and the expected performances for its three channels are described