A simple optimized foam generator and a study on peculiar aspects concerning foams and foamed concrete

This paper presents a study on peculiar aspects influencing foams and foamed concrete properties, starting from the foam generation up to the compressive strength of the lightweight and ultra-lightweight cementitious material. In particular, after a brief introduction on foam stability, this research work shows a simple and inexpensive foam generator used to produce the commonly used foams in concrete. The significant influence of the air pressure value, of nature and concentration of the foaming agents on density as well as the percentage drainages of the foams produced are therefore discussed. The results show that foams generated with the protein foaming agent have more suitable characteristics to produce foamed concrete, thanks to the significantly longer lifetime compared to foams produced with the synthetic foaming agent. The latter are characterized by very high drainage values even after a few minutes from their generation. Foams are then used to make lightweight (target dry density equal to 600 kg/m3 and 800 kg/m3) and ultra-lightweight (target dry density of 400 kg/m3) foamed concretes that show interesting results in terms of stability also when foams with high drainages are employed. The study provides explications of the differences between the compressive strength of lightweight foamed concrete obtained with foams generated using protein and synthetic foaming agents. Then, the significant influence of the increase in concentration of protein foaming agent on the compressive strength of ultra-lightweight foamed concretes is presented

A transferable prediction model of molecular adsorption on metals based on adsorbate and substrate properties

Surface adsorption is one of the fundamental processes in numerous fields, including catalysis, the environment, energy and medicine. The development of an adsorption model which provides an effective prediction of binding energy in minutes has been a long term goal in surface and interface science. The solution has been elusive as identifying the intrinsic determinants of the adsorption energy for various compositions, structures and environments is non-trivial. We introduce a new and flexible model for predicting adsorption energies to metal substrates. The model is based on easily computed, intrinsic properties of the substrate and adsorbate, which are the same for all the considered systems. It is parameterised using machine learning based on first-principles calculations of probe molecules (e.g., H2O, CO2, O2, N2) adsorbed to a range of pure metal substrates. The model predicts the computed dissociative adsorption energy to metal surfaces with a correlation coefficient of 0.93 and a mean absolute error of 0.77 eV for the large database of molecular adsorption energies provided by Catalysis-Hub.org which have a range of 15 eV. As the model is based on pre-computed quantities it provides near-instantaneous estimates of adsorption energies and it is sufficiently accurate to eliminate around 90% of candidates in screening study of new adsorbates. The model, therefore, significantly enhances current efforts to identify new molecular coatings in many applied research fields

BRST Formulation of 4-Monopoles

A supersymmetric gauge invariant action is constructed over any 4-dimensional Riemannian manifold describing Witten's theory of 4-monopoles. The topological supersymmetric algebra closes off-shell. The multiplets include the auxiliary fields and the Wess-Zumino fields in an unusual way, arising naturally from BRST gauge fixing. A new canonical approach over Riemann manifolds is followed, using a Morse function as an euclidean time and taking into account the BRST boundary conditions that come from the BFV formulation. This allows a construction of the effective action starting from gauge principles.Comment: 18 pages, Amste

On the Interacting Chiral Gauge Field Theory in D=6 and the Off-Shell Equivalence of Dual Born-Infeld-Like Actions

A canonical action describing the interaction of chiral gauge fields in D=6 Minkowski space-time is constructed. In a particular partial gauge fixing it reduces to the action found by Perry and Schwarz. The additional gauge symmetries are used to show the off-shell equivalence of the dimensional reduction to D=5 Minkowski space-time of the chiral gauge field canonical action and the Born-Infeld canonical action describing an interacting D=5 Abelian vector field. Its extension to improve the on-shell equivalence arguments of dual D-brane actions to off-shell ones is discussed.Comment: 18 page

Caratterizzazione di antenna a 22 GHz presso il laboratorio microonde dell’ISCTI

Il Laboratorio Microonde dell’Istituto Superiore delle Comunicazioni e delle Tecnologie dell’Informazione esegue misurazioni su apparati e componenti operanti fino alle frequenze delle onde millimetriche. Il campo delle applicazioni comprende anche la caratterizzazione di alcuni parametri delle antenne ed in questo articolo vengono esposti i risultati ottenuti su di un’antenna paraboloidica offset destinata ad uno spettrometro per il monitoraggio del vapor d’acqua nella media atmosfera in sviluppo presso i laboratori dell’Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia di Roma

N=2 Super-Born-Infeld from Partially Broken N=3 Supersymmetry in d=4

We employ the non-linear realization techniques to relate the N=1 chiral, and the N=2 vector multiplets to the Goldstone spin 1/2 superfield arising from partial supersymmetry breaking of N=2 and N=3 respectively. In both cases, we obtain a family of non-linear transformation laws realizing an extra supersymmetry. In the N=2 case, we find an invariant action which is the low energy limit of the supersymmetric Born-Infeld theory expected to describe a D3-brane in six dimensions.Comment: 15 pages, no figures, RevTeX4, new comments and references added, some equations corrected, discussion at end of sec. 3 change

Laser-generated plasmas by graphene nanoplatelets embedded into polyethylene

AbstractGraphene micrometric particles have been embedded into polyethylene at different concentrations by using chemical–physical processes. The synthesized material was characterized in terms of mechanical and optical properties, and Raman spectroscopy. Obtained targets were irradiated by using a Nd:YAG laser at intensities of the order of 1010 W/cm2 to generate non-equilibrium plasma expanding in vacuum. The laser–matter interaction produces charge separation effects with consequent acceleration of protons and carbon ions. Plasma was characterized using time-of-flight measurements of the accelerated ions. Applications of the produced targets in order to generate carbon and proton ion beams from laser-generated plasma are presented and discussed

Super Five Brane Hamiltonian and the Chiral Degrees of Freedom

We construct the Hamiltonian of the super five brane in terms of its physical degrees of freedom. It does not depend on the inverse of the induced metric. Consequently, some singular configurations are physically admissible, implying an interpretation of the theory as a multiparticle one. The symmetries of the theory are analyzed from the canonical point of view in terms of the first and second class constraints. In particular it is shown how the chiral sector may be canonically reduced to its physical degrees of freedom.Comment: 16 pages, typos correcte

On Non Commutative G2 structure

Using an algebraic orbifold method, we present non-commutative aspects of $G_2$ structure of seven dimensional real manifolds. We first develop and solve the non commutativity parameter constraint equations defining $G_2$ manifold algebras. We show that there are eight possible solutions for this extended structure, one of which corresponds to the commutative case. Then we obtain a matrix representation solving such algebras using combinatorial arguments. An application to matrix model of M-theory is discussed.Comment: 16 pages, Latex. Typos corrected, minor changes. Version to appear in J. Phys.A: Math.Gen.(2005

Altering the properties of graphene on Cu(111) by intercalation of potassium bromide

The catalytic growth on transition metal surfaces provides a clean and controllable route to obtain defect-free, monocrystalline graphene. However, graphene's optical and electronic properties are diminished by the interaction with the metal substrate. One way to overcome this obstacle is the intercalation of atoms and molecules decoupling the graphene and restoring its electronic structure. We applied noncontact atomic force microscopy to study the structural and electric properties of graphene on clean Cu(111) and after the adsorption of KBr or NaCl. By means of Kelvin probe force microscopy, a change in graphene's work function has been observed after the deposition of KBr, indicating a changed graphene-substrate interaction. Further measurements of single-electron charging events as well as X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy confirmed an electronic decoupling of the graphene islands by KBr intercalation. The results have been compared with density functional theory calculations, supporting our experimental findings