Wills' mineral processing technology: an introduction to the practical aspects of ore treatment and mineral recovery

"Wills' Mineral Processing Technology" provides practising engineers and students of mineral processing, metallurgy and mining with a review of all of the common ore-processing techniques utilized in modern processing installations. Now in its Seventh Edition, this renowned book is a standard reference for the mineral processing industry. Chapters deal with each of the major processing techniques, and coverage includes the latest technical developments in the processing of increasingly complex refractory ores, new equipment and process routes. This new edition has been prepared by the prestigious J K Minerals Research Centre of Australia, which contributes its world-class expertise and ensures that this will continue to be the book of choice for professionals and students in this field. This latest edition highlights the developments and the challenges facing the mineral processor, particularly with regard to the environmental problems posed in improving the efficiency of the existing processes and also in dealing with the waste created. The work is fully indexed and referenced. -The classic mineral processing text, revised and updated by a prestigious new team -Provides a clear exposition of the principles and practice of mineral processing, with examples taken from practice -Covers the latest technological developments and highlights the challenges facing the mineral processor -New sections on environmental problems, improving the efficiency of existing processes and dealing with waste.

Design of MIMO testbed with an FPGA board for fast signal processing

This paper describes the design of a Multiple Input Multiple Output testbed for assessing various MIMO transmission schemes in rich scattering indoor environments. In the undertaken design, a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) board is used for fast processing of Intermediate Frequency signals. At the present stage, the testbed performance is assessed when the channel emulator between transmitter and receiver modules is introduced. Here, the results are presented for the case when a 2x2 Alamouti scheme for space time coding/decoding at transmitter and receiver is used. Various programming details of the FPGA board along with the obtained simulation results are reported

Fourier-domain optical coherence tomography: optimization of signal-to-noise ratio in full space

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is an emerging coherence-domain technique capable of in vivo imaging of sub-surface structures at millimeter-scale depth. Its steady progress over the last decade has been galvanized by a breakthrough detection concept, termed spectral-domain OCT, which has resulted in a dramatic improvement of the OCT signal-to-noise ratio of 150 times demonstrated for weakly scattering objects at video-frame-rates. As we have realized, however, an important OCT sub-system remains sub-optimal: the sample arm traditionally operates serially, i.e. in flying-spot mode. To realize the full-field image acquisition, a Fourier holography system illuminated with a swept-source is employed instead of a Michelson interferometer commonly used in OCT. The proposed technique, termed Fourier-domain OCT, offers a new leap in signal-to-noise ratio improvement, as compared to flying-spot OCT systems, and represents the main thrust of this paper. Fourier-domain OCT is described, and its basic theoretical aspects, including the reconstruction algorithm, are discussed. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

In vitro and in silico analysis of signal peptides from the human blood fluke, Schistosoma mansoni

Proteins secreted by and anchored on the surfaces of parasites are in intimate contact with host tissues. The transcriptome of infective cercariae of the blood fluke, Schistosoma mansoni, was screened using signal sequence trap to isolate cDNAs encoding predicted proteins with an N-terminal signal peptide. Twenty cDNA fragments were identified, most of which contained predicted signal peptides or transmembrane regions, including a novel putative seven-transmembrane receptor and a membrane-associated mitogen-activated protein kinase. The developmental expression pattern within different life-cycle stages ranged from ubiquitous to a transcript that was highly upregulated in the cercaria. A bioinformatics-based comparison of 100 signal peptides from each of schistosomes, humans, a parasitic nematode and Escherichia coli showed that differences in the sequence composition of signal peptides, notably the residues flanking the predicted cleavage site, might account for the negative bias exhibited in the processing of schistosome signal peptides in mammalian cells. (c) 2005 Federation of European Microbiological Societies. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Aspects of SAF smelting of ferrochrome

This paper provides a review of the chemical reactions occurring in the submerged arc processing of chromite ores. The excavations of industrial furnaces have shown that the charge, as it descends through the furnace, passes through a number of distinct reaction zones. Each zone is characterised by differing process conditions and reaction products. The phase equilibria, reaction steps and mechanisms occurring as the charge progresses through the furnace are examined, and the potential influences of these factors on the process outcomes are discussed.