The application of electrochemical impedance spectroscopy for characterizing the degradation of Ni(OH)2/NiOOH electrodes

The use of wide-band electrochemical impedance spectroscopy is described for characterizing the degradation of porous Ni(OH)2/NiOOH electrodes in concentrated KOH electrolyte solutions. The impedance spectra are interpreted in terms of a finite electrical transmission line and the changes in the components of the electrical analog are followed as a function of cycle number. The degradation of the capacity of rolled and bonded Ni(OH)2/NiOOH electrodes is caused by rupture of ohmic contacts within the active mass and by restructuring which results in a decrease in the number of active pores

Mass killings and detection of impacts

Highly energetic bolide impacts occur and their flux is known. For larger bodies the energy release is greater than for any other short-term global phenomenon. Such impacts produce or release a large variety of shock induced changes including major atmospheric, sedimentologic, seismic and volcanic events. These events must necessarily leave a variety of records in the stratigraphic column, including mass killings resulting in major changes in population density and reduction or extinction of many taxonomic groups, followed by characteristic patterns of faunal and flora replacement. Of these effects, mass killings, marked by large-scale loss of biomass, are the most easily detected evidence in the field but must be manifest on a near-global scale. Such mass killings that appear to be approximately synchronous and involve disappearance of biomass at a bedding plane in many sedimentologically independent sections globally suggest a common cause and probable synchroneity. Mass killings identify an horizon which may be examined for evidence of cause. Geochemical markers may be ephemeral and absence may not be significant. There appears to be no reason why ongoing phenomena such as climate and sea-level changes are primary causes of anomolous episodic events

Predicting the steady state thickness of passive films in order to prevent degradations of implant

Some implants have approximately a lifetime of 15 years. The femoral stem, for example, should be made of 316L/316LN stainless steel. Fretting corrosion, friction under small displacements, should occur during human gait, due to repeated loadings and un-loadings, between stainless steel and bone for instance. Some experimental investigations of fretting corrosion have been practiced. As well known, metallic alloys and especially stainless steels are covered with a passive film that prevents from the corrosion and degradation. This passive layer of few nanometers, at ambient temperature, is the key of our civilization according to some authors. This work is dedicated to predict the passive layer thicknesses of stainless steel under fretting corrosion with a specific emphasis on the role of proteins. The model is based on the Point Defect Model (micro scale) and an update of the model on the friction process (micro-macro scale). Genetic algorithm was used for finding solution of the problem. The major results are, as expected from experimental results, albumin prevents from degradation at the lowest concentration of chlorides; an incubation time is necessary for degrading the passive film; under fretting corrosion and high concentration of chlorides the passive behavior is annihilated

Investigating the Relationship between Environment and Active Galactic Nuclei activity at High Redshift

This thesis presents an investigation into the relationship between large-scale structure environment and Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) activity at high redshift. To accomplish this, the environments of AGN are studied from two complementary perspectives. Firstly, various observations of a specific large-scale structure at z = 2.3 are used to assess the level of AGN activity in relation to the field. The main result of this study is that both the emission-line and X-ray selected AGN populations are significantly enhanced; X-ray detected Lyman Alpha Emitters (LAEs), however, are not found to be significantly enhanced. The host galaxy properties of z ~ 1 X-ray sources are then derived and studied in detail. Confirming previous results, X-ray sources are found in optically luminous (MB ~< −20.5mag), massive (log(M∗/ M⊙) ≥ 10.5) red and blue hosts. A larger fraction of red/green hosts harbour obscured (log(NH) ≥ 22) AGN than blue, with the most obscured sources (log(NH) ≥ 23.5) also being more frequently found in red/green host galaxies than blue. The second approach used the 3rd-nearest neighbour measure to study the environment of X-ray hosts at z ~ 1, accounting for their optical colour, luminosity and stellar mass. A main new and important result is that X-ray hosts are found in regions of enhanced density compared to optical galaxies of equivalent mass, which is not due to the observed colour-density relation at z ~ 1. The enhancement is found to be most significant at the reddest colours, brightest luminosities, and highest stellar masses. The results from this thesis show that the dense environments probed in this work generally promote AGN activity. This is probably not due to major mergers, but could be due to an increased probability of minor mergers/interactions and/or milder environmental processes triggering nuclear activity. Alternatively, perhaps there is some other galaxy property (e.g., residing in higher mass haloes) which is conducive to AGN activity

Studies on Pitting Corrosion of Al-Cu-Li Alloys Part III: Passivation Kinetics of AA2098-T851 Based on the Point Defect Model.

In this paper, the passivation kinetics of AA2098-T851 was investigated by a fundamental theoretical interpretation of experimental results based on the mixed potential model (MPM). The steady state passive layer formed on the AA2098-T851 in NaHCO3 solution in a CO2 atmosphere upon potentiostatic stepping in the anodic direction followed by stepping in the opposite direction was explored. Potentials were selected in a way that both anodic passive dissolution of the metal and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) occur, thereby requiring the MPM for interpretation. Optimization of the MPM on the experimental electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) data measured after each potentiostatic step revealed the important role of the migration of Al interstitials in determining the kinetics of passive layer formation and dissolution. More importantly, it is shown that the inequalities of the kinetics of formation and dissolution of the passive layer as observed in opposite potential stepping directions lead to the irreversibility of the passivation process. Finally, by considering the Butler-Volmer (B-V) equation for the cathodic reaction (HER) in the MPM, and assuming the quantum mechanical tunneling of the charge carriers across the barrier layer of the passive film, it was shown that the HER was primarily controlled by the slow electrochemical discharge of protons at the barrier layer/solution (outer layer) interface

Studies on Pitting Corrosion of Al-Cu-Li Alloys Part II: Breakdown Potential and Pit Initiation.

Prediction of the accumulated pitting corrosion damage in aluminum-lithium (Al-Li) is of great importance due to the wide application of these alloys in the aerospace industry. The Point Defect Model (PDM) is arguably one of the most well-developed techniques for evaluating the electrochemical behavior of passive metals. In this paper, the passivity breakdown and pitting corrosion performance of AA 2098-T851 was investigated using the PDM with the potentiodynamic polarization (PDP) technique in NaCl solutions at different scan rates, Cl- concentrations and pH. Both the PDM predictions and experiments reveal linear relationships between the critical breakdown potential (Ec) of the alloy and various independent variables, such as aCl- and pH. Optimization of the PDM of the near-normally distributed Ec as measured in at least 20 replicate experiments under each set of conditions, allowing for the estimation of some of the critical parameters on barrier layer generation and dissolution, such as the critical areal concentration of condensed cation vacancies (ξ) at the metal/barrier layer interface and the mean diffusivity of the cation vacancy in the barrier layer (D). With these values obtained-using PDM optimization-in one set of conditions, the Ec distribution can be predicted for any other set of conditions (combinations of aCl-, pH and T). The PDM predictions and experimental observations in this work are in close agreement

Social Justice in Outdoor Experiential Education: A Literature Analysis of K-12 Outdoor Education Programs in the United States

Historically, the field of outdoor experiential education (OEE) has been exclusionary and has primarily served white middle- and upper-middle class male populations. Scholars have called for research on how to address issues of social justice in the field for decades, and leaders are finally making steps toward becoming more inclusive. Through a secondary analysis of empirical studies on OEE, this paper examines how the field has modified its focus towards minority populations in K-12 OEE programs in the United States and provides recommendations for practitioners of OEE. There is evidence of an increase in studies on how OEE is perceived by minorities and how its impacts have affected different communities over the last 40 years. The understanding of attitudes and perceptions of OEE has changed with the introduction of new concepts regarding health and wellbeing tied to outdoor experiences as well as social justice

Crisis in the Wilderness

All experiential education programs involve the potential for students to experience a crisis far from the secure environment of campus and home. Students engaging in these programs are therefore required to carry medical and travel insurance and to complete the waiver of liability forms particular to their college or university. Even as they gather this documentation, honors directors sending students to or leading such programs hold their breath and hope that they will never need to use the emergency contact information. This has been our collective hope during the past four years that we have offered Partners in the Parks (PITP) experiential learning adventures. As University of Alaska Fairbanks physics professor and honors director Channon Price—coordinator of the latest expedition—gathered the documents, he was keenly aware that the remote Alaskan wilderness of Denali National Park and Preserve would be a difficult environment in which to manage a student crisis

Galactic spheroid structure from subluminous stars

Galactic halo subdwarfs and white dwarfs are locally very scarce and many of their character­istics are hence poorly understood. As the most common members of the spheroid, however, they are crucial to the understanding of our own and other galaxies, able to yield key informa­tion about the shape, formation, chemical history and dark matter of the spheroid, as well as providing clues about the processes of stellar evolution.Wide-field photographic data spanning observations taken over long time baselines, such as those available from the SuperCOSMOS Sky Survey (SSS), are unparalleled in their ability to identify large numbers of these dwarf spheroid stars through their large space motions. How­ever, the “Achilles Heel” of photographic astronomy in studies such as this is poor photometry: a problem which can now be circumvented - whilst retaining the astrometric information of the photographic data - with the advent of large-scale, deep CCD surveys with accurate photometry such as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). In this thesis I show that the combination of these two types of dataset brings vast numbers of locally-rare dwarf spheroid stars into the observa­tional reach of astronomers, yielding reliable samples many times larger than have previously been available solely from photographic data.Using SSS data coupled with the SDSS archive I identify a sample of ~2600 candidate subdwarfs through strict selection criteria. This forms one of the largest and most reliable samples of subdwarfs known, and enables accurate determination of luminosity functions along many different lines of sight. I derive the subdwarf luminosity function with unprecedented accuracy to M y £ 12.5, finding good agreement with recent local estimates but discrepancy with results for the more distant spheroid. This provides further evidence that the inner and outer parts of the stellar halo cannot be described by a single density distribution. I also use the data to show that the form of the inner spheroid density profile within distances of 2.5 kpc is closely matched by a power law with an index of a = —3.15 ± 0.3. Whilst this study is unable to provide further constraints on Galactic structure at present, development of these methods and results have the potential to yield much more information on the formation and evolution of the Galaxy

CTRLP: Smallpress Poetry Publication in the Digital Age

Over the last decade there has been a sea change in poetry publication. Small presses that once were typically letterpress and offset productions have shifted to digital print, print-on-demand, and electronic publication. One aspect of this shift is the increase in self-publishing. Not only do major publishing houses comb self-published works to purchase rights, but self-publishing in its own right has become an accepted mode detached from the old concept of vanity publication