Influence of the Pressure on the Product Distribution in the Oxidative Dehydrogenation of Propane over a Ga2O3/MoO3 Catalyst

The yields and selectivities in both the catalyzed and non-catalyzed oxidative dehydrogenation of propane were found to increase with increasing pressure. The results showed that the maximum yields of valuable ODH products could be obtained by adjusting only reactants' partial pressure, while keeping their ratio constant

An effective interface tracking method for simulating the extrudate swell phenomenon

The extrudate swell, i.e., the geometrical modifications that take place when the flowing material leaves the confined flow inside a channel and moves freely without the restrictions that are promoted by the walls, is a relevant phenomenon in several polymer processing techniques. For instance, in profile extrusion, the extrudate cross-section is subjected to a number of distortions that are motivated by the swell, which are very difficult to anticipate, especially for complex geometries. As happens in many industrial processes, numerical modelling might provide useful information to support design tasks, i.e., to allow for identifying the best strategy to compensate the changes promoted by the extrudate swell. This study reports the development of an improved interface tracking algorithm that employs the least-squares volume-to-point interpolation method for the grid movement. The formulation is enriched further with the consistent second-order time-accurate non-iterative Pressure-Implicit with Splitting of Operators (PISO) algorithm, which allows for efficiently simulating free-surface flows. The accuracy and robustness of the proposed solver is illustrated through the simulation of the steady planar and asymmetric extrudate swell flows of Newtonian fluids. The role of inertia on the extrudate swell is studied, and the results that are obtained with the newly improved solver show good agreement with reference data that are found in the scientific literatureSearch-ON2 (NORTE-07-0162-FEDER-000086) the HPC infrastructure of UMinho under NSRF through ERDF; and FCT I.P. through the Advanced Computing Project CPCA/A00/6057/2020 using the Minho Advanced Computing Center (MACC

The Cut & Enhance method : selecting clusters of galaxies from the SDSS commissioning data

We describe an automated method, the Cut & Enhance method (CE) for detecting clusters of galaxies in multi-color optical imaging surveys. This method uses simple color cuts, combined with a density enhancement algorithm, to up-weight pairs of galaxies that are close in both angular separation and color. The method is semi-parametric since it uses minimal assumptions about cluster properties in order to minimize possible biases. No assumptions are made about the shape of clusters, their radial profile or their luminosity function. The method is successful in finding systems ranging from poor to rich clusters of galaxies, of both regular and irregular shape. We determine the selection function of the CE method via extensive Monte Carlo simulations which use both the real, observed background of galaxies and a randomized background of galaxies. We use position shuffled and color shuffled data to perform the false positive test. We have also visually checked all the clusters detected by the CE method. We apply the CE method to the 350 deg^2 of the SDSS (Sloan Digital Sky Survey) commissioning data and construct a SDSS CE galaxy cluster catalog with an estimated redshift and richness for each cluster. The CE method is compared with other cluster selection methods used on SDSS data such as the Matched Filter (Postman et al. 1996, Kim et al. 2001), maxBCG technique (Annis et al. 2001) and Voronoi Tessellation (Kim et al. 2001). The CE method can be adopted for cluster selection in any multi-color imaging surveys.Comment: 62 pages, 32 figures, Accepted for publication in the Astronomical Journal, "the CE galaxy cluster catalog can be downloaded from, http://astrophysics.phys.cmu.edu/~tomo/ce/

Whole-genome sequence of the first sequence type 27 Brucella ceti strain isolated from European waters

ABSTRACT Brucella spp. that cause marine brucellosis are becoming more important, as the disease appears to be more widespread than originally thought. Here, we report a whole and annotated genome sequence of Brucella ceti CRO350, a sequence type 27 strain isolated from a bottlenose dolphin carcass found in the Croatian part of the northern Adriatic Sea. </jats:p

Assessing the free surface tracking approach to simulate extrudate swell

The extrudate swell, the geometrical modifications that take place when the flowing material leaves the confined flow inside a channel and moves freely without the restrictions promoted by the walls, is a relevant phenomenon in several polymer processing techniques. For instance, in profile extrusion, the extrudate cross-section suffers a number of distortions motivated by swell, which are very difficult to anticipate, especially for complex geometries. As happens in many industrial processes, numerical modelling might provide useful information to support design tasks, enabling to identify the best strategy to compensate the changes promoted by the extrudate swell. There are different ways to model free-surface flows, which can be grouped in Interface Tracking (IT) and Interface Capturing (IC) approaches. When dealing with steady state processes, which is the case of profile extrusion, IT is usually the best alternative, since it does not present the problems related to interface diffusion inherent to the IC approaches. OpenFOAM comprises a solver to simulate free-surface flows following an IT approach, which was proposed by Tukovic & Jasak (2008) and Tukovic et al., (2012). This work aims to assess the capability of that solver to simulate the extrudate swell process in profile extrusion, by using the interfaceTrackingFvMesh and interTrackMeshMotion libraries available in OpenFOAM-v1912 to track the free surface movement with a dynamic mesh motion. For this purpose, the data provided by Mitsoulis et al., (2012) on simulation of the extrudate swell of a Newtonian fluid at different Reynolds number flows is considered as the reference for validation.The authors would like to acknowledge the funding by FEDER funds through the COMPETE 2020 Programme and National Funds through FCT - Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology under the projects UIDB/05256/2020 and UIDP/05256/2020, TSSiPRO - Technologies for Sustainable and Smart Innovative Products (NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000015) and FAMEST - Footwear, Advanced Materials, Equipment’s and Software Technologies (POCI-01-0247-FEDER-024529). The authors also acknowledge the support of the computational clusters Search-ON2 (NORTE-07-0162-FEDER-000086) and Minho Advanced Computing Center (MACC)

Spectroscopy of Quasar Candidates from SDSS Commissioning Data

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey has obtained images in five broad-band colors for several hundred square degrees. We present color-color diagrams for stellar objects, and demonstrate that quasars are easily distinguished from stars by their distinctive colors. Follow-up spectroscopy in less than ten nights of telescope time has yielded 22 new quasars, 9 of them at $z> 3.65$, and one with $z = 4.75$, the second highest-redshift quasar yet known. Roughly 80% of the high-redshift quasar candidates selected by color indeed turn out to be high-redshift quasars.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, to appear in the proceedings of "After the Dark Ages: When Galaxies were Young (the Universe at 2<z<5)", 9th Annual October Astrophysics Conference in Marylan

Ispitivanje genetske povezanosti osobina mlečnosti i plodnosti prvotelki simentalske rase

Investigation of the production capacity of cattle for the purpose of increase of milk and milk fat production, as well as number of calves, greatly depends on phenotypic and genetic variability, heritability and correlation between desired traits, and on production level in the population. This research included 3.461 first calving cows of Simmental breed under control and reared on farms of individual agricultural producers on the territory of Republic of Serbia. Genetic correlations were calculated using equation of mixed model which included the effect of bull-sire, breeding region, year and season of calving: Yijklm = μ + Bi + Rj + Gk + Sl + eijklm. Coefficients of genetic correlation between service period and milk traits were following: duration of lactation 0,239, milk yield 0,089, percentage of milk fat 0,095, quantity of milk fat 0,105 and yield of 4%FCM 0,099. Correlation between service period and age at calving was 0,535. Genetic correlation between age at calving and milk traits was following: duration of lactation 0,245, production of milk 0,003, percentage of milk fat 0,531, quantity of milk fat 0,082 and production of 4%FCM 0,050.Ispitivanje proizvodnih kapaciteta goveda u cilju povećanja proizvodnje mleka, mlečne masti i broja teladi, u velikoj meri zavisi od fenotipske i genetske varijabilnosti, heritabiliteta i povezanosti poželjnih osobina, kao i nivoa proizvodnje u populaciji. Ovim istraživanjem je obuhvaćena 3.461 kontrolisana prvotelka simentalske rase na imanjima individualnih poljoprivrednih proizvođača na području Republike Srbije. Genetske korelacije izračunate su jednačinom mešovitog modela koja uključuje uticaj bika-oca, odgajivačkog područja odnosno regiona, godine i sezone teljenja: Yijklm = μ + Bi + Rj + Gk + Sl + eijklm. Koeficijenti genetske povezanosti između servis perioda i osobina mlečnosti su sledeći: trajanje laktacije 0,239, prinos mleka 0,089, procenat mlečne masti 0,095, količina mlečne masti 0,105 i prinos 4%MKM 0,099. Povezanost servis perioda i uzrasta pri telenju iznosila je 0,535. Genetska povezanost uzrasta pri telenju sa osobinama mlečnosti iznosila je: trajanje laktacije 0,245, proizvodnja mleka 0,003, procenat mlečne masti 0,531, količina mlečne masti 0,082 i proizvodnja 4%MKM 0,050

The Angular Clustering of Galaxy Pairs

We identify close pairs of galaxies from 278 deg^2 of Sloan Digital Sky Survey commissioning imaging data. The pairs are drawn from a sample of 330,041 galaxies with 18 < r^* < 20. We determine the angular correlation function of galaxy pairs, and find it to be stronger than the correlation function of single galaxies by a factor of 2.9 +/- 0.4. The two correlation functions have the same logarithmic slope of 0.77. We invert Limber's equation to estimate the three-dimensional correlation functions; we find clustering lengths of r_0= 4.2 +/- 0.4 h^{-1} Mpc for galaxies and 7.8 +/- 0.7 h^{-1} Mpc for galaxy pairs. These results agree well with the global richness dependence of the correlation functions of galaxy systems.Comment: 12 pages. ApJ, in pres