Search results for "INTERFACE"
showing 10 items of 2139 documents
The biogeochemical cycle of mercury in the Augusta Bay
2014
Mercurial, the metaphor for volatile unpredictable behavior, aptly reflects the complexities of one of the most insidiously interesting and scientifically challenging biogeochemical cycles at the Earth’s surface. At the base of this toxic metal cycle there is the conversion between the different Hg chemical species, in which the balance between the reduced and oxidized forms depends primary on redox system conditions. The potential risks of human exposure to Hg, especially in the form of monomethylmercury (MMHg), particularly prenatally, and the potential deleterious ecological consequences from localized to global scale Hg pollution, have given much impetus to mercury studies and regulator…
Superior Fischer-Tropsch performance of uniform cobalt nanoparticles deposited into mesoporous SiC
2020
Electrochemically-derived well-crystalline mesoporous silicon carbide (pSiC) was used as a host for cobalt nanoparticles to demonstrate superior catalytic performance during the CO hydrogenation according to Fischer-Tropsch. Colloidal Co nanoparticles (9 ± 0.4 nm) were prepared independently using colloidal recipes before incorporating them into pSiC and, for comparison purposes, into commercially available silica (Davisil) as well as foam-like MCF-17 supports. The Co/pSiC catalyst demonstrated the highest (per unit mass) catalytic activity of 117 µmol.g(CO)-1.g-1(Co).s-1 at 220 °C which was larger by about one order of magnitude as compared to both silica supported cobalt catalysts. Furthe…
A FE-Meshless Multiscale Approach for Masonry Materials
2015
Abstract A FE-Meshless multiscale computational strategy for the analysis of running bond masonry is presented. The Meshless Method (MM) is adopted to solve the boundary value problem (BVP) at the mesoscopic level. The representative unit cell is composed by the aggregate and the surrounding joints, the former assumed to behave elastically while the latter are simulated as non-associated elastic-plastic zero-thickness interfaces with a softening response. Macroscopic localization of plastic bands is obtained performing a spectral analysis of the tangent stiffness matrix. Localized plastic bands are embedded into the quadrature points area of the macroscopic finite elements.
The MoSGrid Science Gateway – A Complete Solution for Molecular Simulations
2014
The MoSGrid portal offers an approach to carry out high-quality molecular simulations on distributed compute infrastructures to scientists with all kinds of background and experience levels. A user-friendly Web interface guarantees the ease-of-use of modern chemical simulation applications well established in the field. The usage of well-defined workflows annotated with metadata largely improves the reproducibility of simulations in the sense of good lab practice. The MoSGrid science gateway supports applications in the domains quantum chemistry (QC), molecular dynamics (MD), and docking. This paper presents the open-source MoSGrid architecture as well as lessons learned from its design.
Effects of Metal-Organic Chemical Vapour Deposition grown seed layer on the fabrication of well aligned ZnO nanorods by Chemical Bath Deposition
2011
Well aligned, long and uniform ZnO nanorods have been reproducibly fabricated adopting a two-steps Metal-Organic Chemical Vapour Deposition (MOCVD) and Chemical Bath Deposition (CBD) fabrication approaches. Thin (<100 nm) ZnO buffer layers have been seeded on silicon substrates by MOCVD and ZnO layers have been subsequently grown, in form of well textured nanorods, using CBD. It has been found that the structure and thickness of the seed layer strongly influence the final morphology and the crystal texturing of ZnO nanorods as well as the CBD growth rate. There is, in addition, a strong correlation between morphologies of CBD grown ZnO nanorods and those of the seed layer underneath. Thus, …
Electro-optical spectroscopy on aggregated chromophore systems in Langmuir-Blodgett films
1992
Linear and quadratic Stark spectra were measured on LB films that contained a hydrophobically substituted cyanine chromophore in binary mixtures with arachidic acid. The external field was applied normal or parallel to the film surface on samples with different internal symmetry. It was found that the orientation of the symmetry axis of the dye molecule is close to the surface normal. A significant number of molecules, 5–10%, are flipped head-to-tail from the main orientation. Parallel to the film surface, large polarizability changes on electronic excitation, Δα ∼ 1000 A3, were observed that reflect electron delocalization over aggregates. At low dye concentrations, large internal electric…
Mixed silane self assembled monolayers and their in situ modification
1998
Mixed self assembled silane monolayers were prepared by coadsorption of Br and methyl terminated trichlorosilanes. By subsequent in situ modification the Br groups were converted into amino groups which can be used to tether polyglutamates to the surface. Here we describe the characterization of the monolayers by means of contact angle measurements and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Both methods clearly indicate that the Br terminated silane is preferentially adsorbed from the solution. Following the in situ modification by XPS a yield of approximately 80% was determined for the substitution of the bromine by azide, whereas the yield for subsequent reduction to the amine is close t…
Scaling carbon fluxes from eddy covariance sites to globe: synthesis and evaluation of the FLUXCOM approach
2020
FLUXNET comprises globally distributed eddy-covariance-based estimates of carbon fluxes between the biosphere and the atmosphere. Since eddy covariance flux towers have a relatively small footprint and are distributed unevenly across the world, upscaling the observations is necessary to obtain global-scale estimates of biosphere–atmosphere exchange. Based on cross-consistency checks with atmospheric inversions, sun-induced fluorescence (SIF) and dynamic global vegetation models (DGVMs), here we provide a systematic assessment of the latest upscaling efforts for gross primary production (GPP) and net ecosystem exchange (NEE) of the FLUXCOM initiative, where different machine learning methods…
Nation-wide study of the occurrence of Listeria monocytogenes in French soils using culture-based and molecular detection methods
2013
Identifiant HAL : hal-01120618; International audience; Soil is a potential reservoir of human pathogens and a possible source of contamination of animals, crops and water. In order to study the distribution of Listeria monocytogenes in French soils, a real-time PCR TaqMan assay targeting the phosphoribosylpyrophosphate synthetase (prs) gene of L. monocytogenes was developed for the specific detection and quantification of this bacterium within a collection of 1315 soil DNAs originated from the French Soil Quality Monitoring Network. The prs real-time PCR TaqMan assay was specific for L. monocytogenes and could quantify accurately down to 104L. monocytogenes per gram of dry soil. Among the …
A voice-activated key for the Apple Macintosh computer
1989
An interface circuit to connect a microphone to an Apple Macintosh computer is described. The Apple Macintosh mouse port is used as the input port, and the microphone activation simulates a mouse press.