18,754 research outputs found
Cost reduction in bio-diesel production.
End of Project ReportAs part of a programme to assess bio-diesel production from low-cost
materials, the availability of waste oils and fats in Ireland and the EU
was assessed, and the behaviour of their esters in vehicles was
measured. The utilisation of beef tallow from BSE risk organisms
was given special attention.
Esterification of high-FFA tallow required the use of excess methanol
and base catalyst. Acidification, followed by glycerol separation and
secondary acid-catalysed esterification, brought ester yields up to
acceptable levels. The high melting point of the ester restricted its
use in vehicles to low proportions in mixes with mineral diesel.
Fuels made up from low-cost esters behaved well in vehicle trials,
even where there was a high level of dilution of the engine oil. The
only problems arose from inadequate low-temperature properties and
from suspended solids in the tallow ester.
Within the EU, there are sufficient waste oils and fats available to
greatly increase bio-diesel production. In Ireland, there is sufficient
for a small production unit
Consumer preference for exterior egg shell characteristics
This publication is a report on Department of Agricultural Economics Research Project 382. 'The Relation of Egg Quality Criteria to Consumer Acceptability of Eggs'--P. [2].Digitized 2007 AES.Includes bibliographical references (page 32)
Evaluation of Gaucho Seed Treatment and Soil Insecticides for Management of the Red Imported Fire Ant on Seedling Grain Sorghum During 1994-1996 (Research Report #101)
Seed treatments have been used in Louisiana and Texas to prevent red imported fire ant damage in grain sorghum. Seed-protecting insecticides often repel or kill red imported fire ants. This publication includes information on current research in Louisiana that is focused on developing insecticide use strategies to manage the red imported fire ant in grain sorghum.https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/agcenter_researchreports/1020/thumbnail.jp
Darth Fader: Using wavelets to obtain accurate redshifts of spectra at very low signal-to-noise
We present the DARTH FADER algorithm, a new wavelet-based method for
estimating redshifts of galaxy spectra in spectral surveys that is particularly
adept in the very low SNR regime. We use a standard cross-correlation method to
estimate the redshifts of galaxies, using a template set built using a PCA
analysis on a set of simulated, noise-free spectra. Darth Fader employs wavelet
filtering to both estimate the continuum & to extract prominent line features
in each galaxy spectrum. A simple selection criterion based on the number of
features present in the spectrum is then used to clean the catalogue: galaxies
with fewer than six total features are removed as we are unlikely to obtain a
reliable redshift estimate. Applying our wavelet-based cleaning algorithm to a
simulated testing set, we successfully build a clean catalogue including
extremely low signal-to-noise data (SNR=2.0), for which we are able to obtain a
5.1% catastrophic failure rate in the redshift estimates (compared with 34.5%
prior to cleaning). We also show that for a catalogue with uniformly mixed SNRs
between 1.0 & 20.0, with realistic pixel-dependent noise, it is possible to
obtain redshifts with a catastrophic failure rate of 3.3% after cleaning (as
compared to 22.7% before cleaning). Whilst we do not test this algorithm
exhaustively on real data, we present a proof of concept of the applicability
of this method to real data, showing that the wavelet filtering techniques
perform well when applied to some typical spectra from the SDSS archive. The
Darth Fader algorithm provides a robust method for extracting spectral features
from very noisy spectra. The resulting clean catalogue gives an extremely low
rate of catastrophic failures, even when the spectra have a very low SNR. For
very large sky surveys, this technique may offer a significant boost in the
number of faint galaxies with accurately determined redshifts.Comment: 22 pages, 15 figures. Accepted for publication in Astronomy &
Astrophysic
The Need for Continued Development of Ricin Countermeasures
Ricin toxin, an extremely potent and heat-stable toxin produced from the bean of the ubiquitous Ricinus communis (castor bean plant), has been categorized by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as a category B biothreat agent that is moderately easy to disseminate. Ricin has the potential to be used as an agent of biological warfare and bioterrorism. Therefore, there is a critical need for continued development of ricin countermeasures. A safe and effective prophylactic vaccine against ricin that was FDA approved for “at risk” individuals would be an important first step in assuring the availability of medical countermeasures against ricin
Intrinsic and Rashba Spin-orbit Interactions in Graphene Sheets
Starting from a microscopic tight-binding model and using second order
perturbation theory, we derive explicit expressions for the intrinsic and
Rashba spin-orbit interaction induced gaps in the Dirac-like low-energy band
structure of an isolated graphene sheet. The Rashba interaction parameter is
first order in the atomic carbon spin-orbit coupling strength and first
order in the external electric field perpendicular to the graphene plane,
whereas the intrinsic spin-orbit interaction which survives at E=0 is second
order in . The spin-orbit terms in the low-energy effective Hamiltonian
have the form proposed recently by Kane and Mele. \textit{Ab initio} electronic
structure calculations were performed as a partial check on the validity of the
tight-binding model.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures; typos corrected, references update
Omnidirectional Sensory and Motor Volumes in Electric Fish
Active sensing organisms, such as bats, dolphins, and weakly electric fish, generate a 3-D space for active sensation by emitting self-generated energy into the environment. For a weakly electric fish, we demonstrate that the electrosensory space for prey detection has an unusual, omnidirectional shape. We compare this sensory volume with the animal's motor volume—the volume swept out by the body over selected time intervals and over the time it takes to come to a stop from typical hunting velocities. We find that the motor volume has a similar omnidirectional shape, which can be attributed to the fish's backward-swimming capabilities and body dynamics. We assessed the electrosensory space for prey detection by analyzing simulated changes in spiking activity of primary electrosensory afferents during empirically measured and synthetic prey capture trials. The animal's motor volume was reconstructed from video recordings of body motion during prey capture behavior. Our results suggest that in weakly electric fish, there is a close connection between the shape of the sensory and motor volumes. We consider three general spatial relationships between 3-D sensory and motor volumes in active and passive-sensing animals, and we examine hypotheses about these relationships in the context of the volumes we quantify for weakly electric fish. We propose that the ratio of the sensory volume to the motor volume provides insight into behavioral control strategies across all animals
Meteorological factors in Earth-satellite propagation
Using the COMSTAR D/4 28.56 GHz beacon as a source, a differential gain experiment was performed by connecting a 5-meter paraboloidal antenna and a 0.6-meter paraboloidal antenna alternately to the same receiver. Substantial differential gain changes were observed during some, but not all, rain events. A site-diversity experiment was implemented which consists of two 28.56 GHz radiometers separated by 9 km. The look-angle corresponds to that of the D/4 beacon, and data were obtained with one radiometer during several weeks of concurrent beacon operation to verify the system calibration. A theoretical study of the effect of scattering from a nonuniform rain distribution along the path is under way to aid in interpreting the results of this experiment. An improved empirical site diversity-gain model was derived from data in the literature relating to 34 diversity experiments. Work on the experiment control and data acquisition system is continuing with a view toward future experiments
Preliminary Results from the Caltech Core-Collapse Project (CCCP)
We present preliminary results from the Caltech Core-Collapse Project (CCCP),
a large observational program focused on the study of core-collapse SNe.
Uniform, high-quality NIR and optical photometry and multi-epoch optical
spectroscopy have been obtained using the 200'' Hale and robotic 60''
telescopes at Palomar, for a sample of 50 nearby core-collapse SNe. The
combination of both well-sampled optical light curves and multi-epoch
spectroscopy will enable spectroscopically and photometrically based subtype
definitions to be disentangled from each other. Multi-epoch spectroscopy is
crucial to identify transition events that evolve among subtypes with time. The
CCCP SN sample includes every core-collapse SN discovered between July 2004 and
September 2005 that was visible from Palomar, found shortly (< 30 days) after
explosion (based on available pre-explosion photometry), and closer than ~120
Mpc. This complete sample allows, for the first time, a study of core-collapse
SNe as a population, rather than as individual events. Here, we present the
full CCCP SN sample and show exemplary data collected. We analyze available
data for the first ~1/3 of the sample and determine the subtypes of 13 SNe II
based on both light curve shapes and spectroscopy. We discuss the relative SN
II subtype fractions in the context of associating SN subtypes with specific
progenitor stars.Comment: To appear in the proceedings of the meeting "The Multicoloured
Landscape of Compact Objects and their Explosive Origins", Cefalu, Italy,
June 2006, to be published by AIP, Eds. L. Burderi et a
- …