Search results for "Processes"
showing 10 items of 3831 documents
Hydrothermal Synthesis of Ionic Liquid [Bmim]OH-Modified TiO2 Nanoparticles with Enhanced Photocatalytic Activity under Visible Light
2010
TiO(2) nanocomposites modified with the ionic liquid [Bmim]OH are synthesized by a hydrothermal procedure. X-ray diffraction, Zeta-potential measurement, TEM, thermogravimetric analysis, photoluminescence, UV/Vis, FTIR, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy are used to characterize the TiO(2) nanocomposites. The TiO(2) nanocomposites consist of pure anatase particles of about 10 nm. The modification of [Bmim]OH on the surface of the TiO(2) particles extends the TiO(2) absorption edge to the visible-light region. The electrochemical redox potentials indicated that the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) and lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) of [Bmim]OH match well with the valen…
Titania Photocatalysts for Selective Oxidations in Water
2011
Heterogeneous photocatalysis by polycrystalline semiconductor oxides is an unconventional technology that has been mainly applied for the degradation of organic and inorganic pollutants in both the vapor and liquid phase. The application of photocatalysis in synthetic routes has also been researched in recent years, demonstrating its viability as an alternative route in organic chemistry. This work illustrates the main findings in the application of heterogeneous photocatalysis to the oxidation of organic compounds dissolved in water, free of any organic co-solvent. Two main aspects of the oxidative process have been studied: the first one is the partial oxidation of various mono-substitute…
Adaptive response of osteoblasts grown on a titanium surface: morphology, cell proliferation and stress protein synthesis.
2005
Titanium is one of the most widely used biomaterials in orthopaedic, dental and trauma surgery. Superficial adhesion and cell proliferation represent the first steps of cell-biomaterial interactions. The efficacy of this early phase influences the subsequent ability to differentiate, and hence the knowledge of these cell activities is important for studying and improving the biocompatibility of biomaterials. The aim of this study was to test the adaptive ability of osteoblastic cells grown on titanium surfaces, including morphologic, proliferative and adaptative aspects.
Continental weathering and climatic changes inferred from clay mineralogy and paired carbon isotopes across the early to middle Toarcian in the Paris…
2014
Abstract Lower Toarcian strata (Lower Jurassic) have been extensively studied with a view to understanding the oceanographic, climatic and biological processes that drove the Earth's system into an Oceanic Anoxic Event (OAE). For this time period, the evolution of the European marine seaways is now relatively well constrained owing to multiple geochemical studies, but investigations regarding climatic trends in the continental realm remain sparse. In the present study, we test the clay mineralogy as a continental climate-sensitive proxy in the well-documented Sancerre core (southern Paris Basin). We compare variations in the kaolinite content with p CO 2 fluctuations (derived from paired ca…
Predicting gully occurrence at watershed scale: Comparing topographic indices and multivariate statistical models
2020
In this study, the ability of five topographic indices to predict the gully trajectories observed in two adjacent watersheds located in Sicily (Italy) was evaluated. Two of these indices, named MSPI and MTWI, as far as we know, have never been employed to this aim. They were obtained by multiplying the stream power index (SPI) and the topographic wetness index (TWI), respectively, by the convergence index (CI). The predictive ability of the topographic indices was measured by using both cut-off independent (AUC: area under the receiver operating characteristic curve) and dependent statistics (Cohen's kappa index κ, sensitivity, specificity). These statistics were calculated also for 100 MAR…
A GIS-based approach for gully erosion susceptibility modelling: a test in Sicily, Italy
2013
The aim of this study is to analyze the susceptibility conditions to gully erosion phenomena in the Magazzolo River basin and to test a method that allows for driving the factors selection. The study area is one of the largest (225 km2) watershed of southern Sicily and it is mostly characterized by gentle slopes carved into clayey and evaporitic sediments, except for the northern sector where carbonatic rocks give rise to steep slopes. In order to obtain a quantitative evaluation of gully erosion susceptibility, statistical relationships between the spatial distributions of gullies affecting the area and a set of twelve environmental variables were analyzed. Stereoscopic analysis of aerial …
Application of the group method of data handling (GMDH) approach for landslide susceptibility zonation using readily available spatial covariates
2022
Abstract Landslide susceptibility (LS) mapping is an essential tool for landslide risk assessment. This study aimed to provide a new approach with better performance for landslide mapping and adopting readily available variables. In addition, it investigates the capability of a state-of-the-art model developed using the group method of data handling (GMDH) to spatially model LS. Furthermore, hybridized models of GMDH were developed using different metaheuristic algorithms. The study area was the Bonghwa region of South Korea, for which an accurate landslide inventory dataset is available. We considered a total of 13 spatial covariates (altitude, slope, aspect, topographic wetness index, val…
Gis-analysis to assess landslide susceptibility in a fluvial basin of NW Sicily (Italy).
2008
Abstract Landslide hazard assessment, effected by means of geostatistical methods, is based on the analysis of the relationships between landslides and the spatial distributions of some instability factors. Frequently such analyses are based on landslide inventories in which each record represents the entire unstable area and is managed as a single instability landform. In this research, landslide susceptibility is evaluated through the study of a variety of instability landforms: landslides, scarps and areas uphill from crown . The instability factors selected were: bedrock lithology, steepness, topographic wetness index and stream power index. The instability landform densities computed f…
Lévy flights in confining potentials.
2009
We analyze confining mechanisms for L\'{e}vy flights. When they evolve in suitable external potentials their variance may exist and show signatures of a superdiffusive transport. Two classes of stochastic jump - type processes are considered: those driven by Langevin equation with L\'{e}vy noise and those, named by us topological L\'{e}vy processes (occurring in systems with topological complexity like folded polymers or complex networks and generically in inhomogeneous media), whose Langevin representation is unknown and possibly nonexistent. Our major finding is that both above classes of processes stay in affinity and may share common stationary (eventually asymptotic) probability densit…
Plant diversity effects on the water balance of an experimental grassland
2014
In the literature, contrasting effects of plant species richness on the soil water balance are reported. Our objective was to assess the effects of plant species and functional richness and functional identity on soil water contents and water fluxes in the experimental grassland of the Jena Experiment. The Jena Experiment comprises 86 plots on which plant species richness (0, 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, and 60) and functional group composition (zero to four functional groups: legumes, grasses, tall herbs, and small herbs) were manipulated in a factorial design. We recorded meteorological data and soil water contents of the 0·0–0·3 and 0·3–0·7 m soil layers and calculated actual evapotranspiration (ETa)…