Textural Characterization of Micro- and Mesoporous Carbons Using Combined Gas Adsorption and n-Nonane Preadsorption

Porous carbon and carbide materials with different structures were characterized using adsorption of nitrogen at 77.4 K before and after preadsorption of n-nonane. The selective blocking of the microporosity with n-nonane shows that ordered mesoporous silicon carbide material (OM-SiC) is almost exclusively mesoporous whereas the ordered mesoporous carbon CMK-3 contains a significant amount of micropores (25%). The insertion of micropores into OM-SiC using selective extraction of silicon by hot chlorine gas leads to the formation of ordered mesoporous carbide-derived carbon (OM-CDC) with a hierarchical pore structure and significantly higher micropore volume as compared to CMK-3, whereas a CDC material from a nonporous precursor is exclusively microporous. Volumes of narrow micropores, calculated by adsorption of carbon dioxide at 273 K, are in linear correlation with the volumes blocked by n-nonane. Argon adsorption measurements at 87.3 K allow for precise and reliable calculation of the pore size distribution of the materials using density functional theory (DFT) methods.

Evaluating the Effectiveness of Post Fire Emergency Rehabilitation Treatments on Soil Degradation and Erosion Control in Semi-Arid Mediterranean Areas of the Spanish South East

In this study, we seeded a native plant species and applied a mulch of chopped wood originating from the same burned area to avoid the establishment of invasive species. We evaluated four treatments: (1) seeding, (2) mulch, (3) seeding and mulch, and (4) control. Our objective was to increase plant recovery and to minimize the soil erosion and degradation. The study was conducted in Alicante, Spain in Torremanzanas forest of the semi-arid Mediterranean bioclimatic area after the wildfire of November, 2002. During three years of monitoring, we find that combined treatment: seeding and mulch increased the post fire plant recovery 20% approximately more than the rest of treatments and the control plots. We also found that seven months after treating mulch and seeding and mulch treatments presented a gain of soil: +5.18 to + 5.24 mm while the seeding treatment and control plots presented soil loss rates of: −0.48 to −0.49 mm. In addition, mulch treatment significantly decreased soil compaction to the half, and increased the infiltration capacity to 40 ml.mn−1 more than in plots without mulch, as well as increased the soil respiration to the double compared with no mulch plots. Work in progress confirms the positive effect of chopped wood as mulching treatment with or without seeding on the soil protection against soil erosion, and the amelioration of bio-physical properties after wildfires in the Mediterranean semi-arid burned areas.

Estudio de fiabilidad y viabilidad de la Web 2.0 y la Web semántica para enriquecer lexicones en el dominio farmacológico

Los actuales sistemas de Reconocimiento de Entidades en el dominio farmacológico, necesarios como apoyo para el personal sanitario en el proceso de prescripción de un tratamiento farmacológico, sufren limitaciones relacionadas con la falta de cobertura de las bases de datos oficiales. Parece por tanto necesario analizar la fiabilidad de los recursos actuales existentes, tanto en la Web Semántica como en la Web 2.0, y determinar si es o no viable utilizar dichos recursos como fuentes de información complementarias que permitan generar y/o enriquecer lexicones empleados por sistemas de Reconocimiento de Entidades. Por ello, en este trabajo se analizan las principales fuentes de información relativas al dominio farmacológico disponibles en Internet. Este análisis permite concluir que existe información fiable y que dicha información permitiría enriquecer los lexicones existentes con sinónimos y otras variaciones léxicas o incluso con información histórica no recogida ni mantenida en las bases de datos oficiales.