PEO/CHCl3: Crystallinity of the polymer and vapor pressure of the solvent - Equilibrium and non-equilibrium phenomena -

Vapor pressures were measured for the system chloroform/polyethylene oxide (peo, weight average molar mass = 1000 kg/mol) at 25 degrees centigrade as a function of the weight fraction w of the polymer by means of a combination of head space sampling and gas chromatography. The establishment of thermodynamic equilibria was assisted by employing thin polymer films. The degrees of crystallinity alpha of the pure peo and of the solid polymer contained in the mixtures were determined via dsc. An analogous degree of polymer insolubility, beta, was calculated from the vapor pressures measured in this composition range. The experiments demonstrate that both quantities and their concentration dependence are markedly affected by the particular mode of film preparation. These non-equilibrium phenomena are discussed in terms of frozen local and temporal equilibria, where differences between alpha and beta are attributed to the occlusion of amorphous material within crystalline domains. Equilibrium information was obtained from two sources, namely from the vapor pressures in the absence of crystalline material (gas/liquid) and from the saturation concentration of peo (liquid/solid). The thermodynamic consistency of these data is demonstrated using a new approach that enables the modeling of composition dependent interaction parameters by means of two adjustable parameters only

DAIRY FARM DECISIONS ON HOW TO PROCEED IN THE FACE OF TB

By early 2000, the number of commercial livestock herds in Michigan with bovine tuberculosis (TB) had increased to the point that policy makers were considering alternative ways to enable farmers to continue production with access to markets while eliminating TB and protecting the public's health. If at least one animal on a farm is found to have TB, a farmer currently has two choices about the future assuming the goal is to stay in the livestock business. Alternative one is depopulation; all animals are removed to a state facility, slaughtered, and tested. A new herd may be purchased after a state supervised clean up and waiting period is completed; this may take one year. Alternative two is test and remove; a recurring series of testing is initiated, but only individual reactor or suspect animals are removed for slaughter and further testing. In both alternatives, regulations allow indemnity payments to be made to the owner by the state and federal governments. This paper analyzes the financial impact of each alternative on two dairy benchmark farms. One has 75 milk cows, the other 150. Monthly cash flow projections for two years were made using FINFLO. A base projection was compared to the above alternatives assuming constant herd size (except for the impact of TB) and constant price levels. The main goal was to illustrate how a farmer might analyze the alternatives if faced with TB infected animals. The 75 cow farm started with $8,309 of cash on January 1, 2000. The base projections resulted in cash of$34,230 by December 31, 2001. Ending cash after two years for depopulation or test and remove were $16,095 and$15,801, respectively. The 75 cow farm started with a net worth of $624,940 on January 1, 2000. The base projection increased net worth by$66,542 over the two years. For depopulation or test and remove, the change in net worth by the end of 2001 was $-15,345 and$48,256, respectively. The 150 cow farm started with $30,659 of cash on January 1, 2000. The base projections resulted in cash of$40,437 by December 31, 2001. Ending cash after two years for depopulation or test and remove were $2,972 and$13,290, respectively. The 150 cow farm started with a net worth of $1,122,940 on January 1, 2000. The base projection increased net worth by$31,765 over the two years. For depopulation or test and remove, the change in net worth by the end of 2001 was $-95,904 and$-1,925, respectively. Benchmark model farms will not exactly fit any particular farm. Each owner faced with TB should make their own projections using their unique situation and timing of cash flows. Once an alternative is adopted, monthly financial comparison sheets can be helpful in managing the transition to TB free status.Livestock Production/Industries,

Kaon production and propagation at intermediate relativistic energies

We systematically study $K^+$ observables in nucleus-nucleus collisions at 1-2 A GeV within the Boltzmann-Uehling-Uhlenbeck (BUU) transport model. We compare our calculations with the KaoS data on the kaon multiplicities and spectra. In addition, the kaon collective flow is computed and compared with the FOPI and KaoS data. We show, that the elliptic kaon flow measured recently by the KaoS Collaboration is best described by using the Brown-Rho parametrization of the kaon potential ($U_K(\rho_0) \simeq 30$ MeV).Comment: 21 pages, 3 tables, 17 figures; references added; version accepted in PR

Non-Locality of Experimental Qutrit Pairs

The insight due to John Bell that the joint behavior of individually measured entangled quantum systems cannot be explained by shared information remains a mystery to this day. We describe an experiment, and its analysis, displaying non-locality of entangled qutrit pairs. The non-locality of such systems, as compared to qubit pairs, is of particular interest since it potentially opens the door for tests of bipartite non-local behavior independent of probabilistic Bell inequalities, but of deterministic nature

Thin-film GaAs photovoltaic solar energy cells Final report

Thin film gallium arsenide photovoltaic solar cell