Clathrate ices -- recent results

Abstract The last five years have seen an increasing interest in clathrate ices as a result of the discovery of extensive deposits of natural gas hydrates in permafrost regions. Twenty-six new clathrate hydrates have been identified, mainly by NMR, including a tetragonal hydrate of dimethyl ether. N-butane and neopentane have been found to be enclathrated in natural gas hydrates, the former as a gauche conformer. As a result of their high symmetries, encaged neopentane, CF4, SF6, and SeF6 exhibit a Resing apparent-phase-change effect in the temperature range of NMR line narrowing. There is increasing evidence that reorientational jumps of water molecules are more frequent than translational jumps in clathrate ices. This is certainly so for ethylene oxide-d4 and tetrahydrofuran-d8 hydrates for which two regions of proton line narrowing and two T 1ρ minima have been observed. The reorientational motions of most guest molecules in structure II hydrates only become isotropic on a time scale long enough to permit the cage configurations to be averaged to 4 3m symmetry by reorientation of the water molecules. The orientations of the water molecules remain disordered to the lowest temperatures

Less than 50% sublattice polarization in an insulating S=3/2 kagome' antiferromagnet at low T

We have found weak long range antiferromagnetic order in the quasi-two-dimensional insulating oxide $KCr_3(OD)_6(SO_4)_2$ which contains Cr$^{3+}$ S=3/2 ions on a kagom\'{e} lattice. In a sample with $\approx$ 76% occupancy of the chromium sites the ordered moment is 1.1(3)$\mu_B$ per chromium ion which is only one third of the N\'{e}el value $g\mu_BS=3\mu_B$. The magnetic unit cell equals the chemical unit cell, a situation which is favored by inter-plane interactions. Gapless quantum spin-fluctuations ($\Delta/k_B >$T_N$= 1.6K are the dominant contribution to the spin correlation function,$S(Q,\omega)$ in the ordered phase.Comment: 18 pages, RevTex/Latex, with 6 figure

Habitat-related birdsong divergence: a multi-level study on the influence of territory density and ambient noise in European blackbirds

Song plays an important role in avian communication and acoustic variation is important at both the individual and population level. Habitat-related variation between populations in particular can reflect adaptations to the environment accumulated over generations, but this may not always be the case. In this study, we test whether variation between individuals matches local conditions with respect to noise level and territory density to examine whether short-term flexibility could contribute to song divergence at the population level. We conducted a case study on an urban and forest population of the European blackbird and show divergence at the population level (i.e. across habitats) in blackbird song, anthropogenic noise level and territory density. Unlike in several other species, we found a lack of any correlation at the individual level (i.e. across individuals) between song features and ambient noise. This suggests species-specific causal explanations for noise-dependent song differentiation which are likely associated with variation in song-copying behaviour or feedback constraints related to variable singing styles. On the other hand, we found that at the level of individual territories, temporal features, but not spectral ones, are correlated to territory density and seasonality. This suggests that short-term individual variation can indeed contribute to habitat-dependent divergence at the population level. As this may undermine the potential role for song as a population marker, we conclude that more investigations on individual song flexibility are required for a better understanding of the impact of population-level song divergence on hybridisation and speciation

Anthropogenic noise is associated with changes in acoustic but not visual signals in red-winged blackbirds

Some birds in noisy areas produce songs with higher frequency and/or amplitude and altered timing compared to individuals in quiet areas. These changes may function to increase the efficacy of acoustic signals by reducing masking by noise. We collected audio recordings of red-winged blackbirds and measured noise levels. We found that males in noisier places produced songs with fewer syllables and slower repeat rate of elements in some components (rattles). Birds may also improve the efficacy of communication in noise by increasing usage of other signaling modalities. Red-winged blackbirds also perform a visual display in different intensities while singing. We also tested whether this species performs the visual display in different intensities according to current noise levels, and predicted that if the efficacy of songs is impaired in noisy places, males would compensate by performing a more intense visual display. For this, we also collected visual recordings from the same males from which we obtained acoustic recordings. We found no association between acoustic noise and the intensity of the visual display; thus, our results do not support the idea that males are using the visual display as a backup signal to communicate under acoustic noise. We discuss some possible explanations of this negative finding and for the observed noise-related changes in song length and rattle rate in the context of communication under noise

Recovery of organics from aqueous effluents using refinery coke

A process is described whereby residual bitumen, waste solvent and toluene insoluble organic materials are recovered from oil sand tailings by using a refinery coke as a nucleating agent, thus improving the settling rate of the tailings and the drying rate of the resulting sediment. Tailings studied unclude primary and final stage tailings and settling pond sludges from the hot water process oil sand extraction plants. The analysis given for the sediment, aqueous and organic phases resulting on treatment indicate that the organic content of the final effluent is reduced by a factor of between 4 and 16. The process described should be adaptable to any tailings containing residual bitumen waste solvent and other hydrophobic material.Peer reviewed: YesNRC publication: Ye

Recovery of heavy metal minerals from oil sands and oil sand tailings by oil phase agglomeration

Peer reviewed: YesNRC publication: Ye

Beneficiation of heavy metal minerals from oil sands and oil sand tailings by oil phase agglomeration

Peer reviewed: YesNRC publication: Ye

Micro\u2011encapsulation with cyclodextrins by spherical agglomeration

NRC publication: Ye