A cost-effective chemical approach to retaining and regenerating the strength of thermally recycled glass fibre

The purpose of this research study was to investigate the efficacy of alkaline treatments on restoring mechanical strength of thermally damaged glass fibres for potential reuse as reinforcement material. Here, E-glass fibres were heat treated in a furnace at 450 °C for 25 minutes in order to simulate the harsh thermal conditions required for the recycling of glass fibre thermosetting composites. Following heat conditioning, fibres were treated with three different alkaline solutions: sodium hydroxide (NaOH), potassium hydroxide (KOH) and lithium hydroxide (LiOH). Results showed little effect of LiOH solution, however both NaOH and KOH were proved to be successful in regenerating strength of fibres heat treated at 450 °C. It is believed these alkaline treatments might improve fibre strength by etching away surface defects. Factors such as concentration of alkali and treatment time were investigated in order to find optimum conditions for strength regeneration

Status of COLDDIAG: A Cold Vacuum Chamber for Diagnostics

One of the still open issues for the development of superconducting insertion devices is the understanding of the beam heat load. With the aim of measuring the beam heat load to a cold bore and the hope to gain a deeper understanding in the beam heat load mechanisms, a cold vacuum chamber for diagnostics is under construction. The following diagnostics will be implemented: i) retarding field analyzers to measure the electron energy and flux, ii) temperature sensors to measure the total heat load, iii) pressure gauges, iv) and mass spectrometers to measure the gas content. The inner vacuum chamber will be removable in order to test different geometries and materials. This will allow the installation of the cryostat in different synchrotron light sources. COLDDIAG will be built to fit in a short straight section at ANKA. A first installation at the synchrotron light source Diamond is foreseen in June 2011. Here we describe the technical design report of this device and the planned measurements with beam.Comment: Presented at First International Particle Accelerator Conference, IPAC'10, Kyoto, Japan, from 23 to 28 May 201

Estado de micorrización de árboles truferos en función de su carácter productivo y su edad. Primeros resultados del Subproyecto 1 del Plan de Desarrollo Integral de la Truficultura de Teruel

La truficultura es una actividad con clara dimensión forestal, entre otras razones porque las especies implicadas, tanto el hongo como su árbol simbionte, son de gran valor silvícola. Además, la truficultura y la selvicultura trufera son prácticas que contribuyen a la recuperación de masas forestales y zonas potencialmente boscosas, con el valor añadido de la obtención de las trufas, de modo, en la mayor parte de las ocasiones, totalmente ecológico. El Plan Específico para Teruel (PET) integra varias actuaciones promovidas por el Gobierno Español entre las que se encuentra la ejecución de un Proyecto de Investigación denominado “Desarrollo Integral de la Truficultura de Teruel”, financiado por INIA, en el que se pretende apoyar al sector trufero turolense mediante el conocimiento y la mejora de sus técnicas de cultivo, producción y comercialización. La presente comunicación resume los primeros resultados obtenidos en uno de los 7 subproyectos que lo integran y que afecta al estudio del cortejo micorrícico de los árboles de las plantaciones, productoras o no, y su relación con la producción. La composición micorrícica de los árboles truferos es un factor esencial para realizar predicciones sobre la producción futura. Tanto la ausencia de micorrizas de trufa negra como la detección de otras, capaces de desplazar a la primera de las raíces de los árboles, puede permitir el diagnóstico precoz de fracasos de plantaciones y por lo tanto el ahorro de muchos años de cuidados a la espera de las primeras recolecciones. Para el estudio, se han seleccionado 3 grupos de plantaciones por edad, con 2 localizaciones distintas. Se está desarrollando un inventario periódico de las micorrizas presentes en un total de 48 árboles. Se propone una clasificación de las mismas en función de su capacidad para comprometer la producción de trufa negra, factor que se ha determinado en base al carácter productor o no productor de cada árbol

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping Project: Rapid CIV Broad Absorption Line Variability

We report the discovery of rapid variations of a high-velocity CIV broad absorption line trough in the quasar SDSS J141007.74+541203.3. This object was intensively observed in 2014 as a part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping Project, during which 32 epochs of spectroscopy were obtained with the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey spectrograph. We observe significant (>4sigma) variability in the equivalent width of the broad (~4000 km/s wide) CIV trough on rest-frame timescales as short as 1.20 days (~29 hours), the shortest broad absorption line variability timescale yet reported. The equivalent width varied by ~10% on these short timescales, and by about a factor of two over the duration of the campaign. We evaluate several potential causes of the variability, concluding that the most likely cause is a rapid response to changes in the incident ionizing continuum. If the outflow is at a radius where the recombination rate is higher than the ionization rate, the timescale of variability places a lower limit on the density of the absorbing gas of n_e > 3.9 x 10^5 cm^-3. The broad absorption line variability characteristics of this quasar are consistent with those observed in previous studies of quasars, indicating that such short-term variability may in fact be common and thus can be used to learn about outflow characteristics and contributions to quasar/host-galaxy feedback scenarios.Comment: 15 pages, 14 figures. Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journa

Harmonic Analysis of Boolean Networks: Determinative Power and Perturbations

Consider a large Boolean network with a feed forward structure. Given a probability distribution on the inputs, can one find, possibly small, collections of input nodes that determine the states of most other nodes in the network? To answer this question, a notion that quantifies the determinative power of an input over the states of the nodes in the network is needed. We argue that the mutual information (MI) between a given subset of the inputs X = {X_1, ..., X_n} of some node i and its associated function f_i(X) quantifies the determinative power of this set of inputs over node i. We compare the determinative power of a set of inputs to the sensitivity to perturbations to these inputs, and find that, maybe surprisingly, an input that has large sensitivity to perturbations does not necessarily have large determinative power. However, for unate functions, which play an important role in genetic regulatory networks, we find a direct relation between MI and sensitivity to perturbations. As an application of our results, we analyze the large-scale regulatory network of Escherichia coli. We identify the most determinative nodes and show that a small subset of those reduces the overall uncertainty of the network state significantly. Furthermore, the network is found to be tolerant to perturbations of its inputs

Qualitative modelling and analysis of regulations in multi-cellular systems using Petri nets and topological collections

In this paper, we aim at modelling and analyzing the regulation processes in multi-cellular biological systems, in particular tissues. The modelling framework is based on interconnected logical regulatory networks a la Rene Thomas equipped with information about their spatial relationships. The semantics of such models is expressed through colored Petri nets to implement regulation rules, combined with topological collections to implement the spatial information. Some constraints are put on the the representation of spatial information in order to preserve the possibility of an enumerative and exhaustive state space exploration. This paper presents the modelling framework, its semantics, as well as a prototype implementation that allowed preliminary experimentation on some applications.Comment: In Proceedings MeCBIC 2010, arXiv:1011.005