Metallic Fluence Monitors and J-value standards

Utilizing the neutron-irradiation parameter J is one of the major uncertainties in 40Ar/39Ar dating. The associated error of the individual J-value for a sample of unknown age depends on the accuracy of the age of the geological standards, the fast-neutron fluence distribution in the reactor and the distances between standards and samples during irradiation. While it is generally assumed that rotating irradiation evens out radial neutron fluence gradients, we observed axial and radial variations of the J-values in sample irradiations in the rotating channels of two reactors. To quantify them, we included three-dimensionally distributed metallic fast- (Ni) and thermal- (Co) neutron fluence monitors in three irradiations and geological age standards in three more. Two irradiations were carried out under Cd-shielding in the FRG1 reactor in Geesthacht, Germany, and four without Cd-shielding in the LVR-15 reactor in Rez, Czech Republic. The 58Ni(nf,p)58Co activation reaction and ?-spectrometry of the 811 keV peak associated with the subsequent decay of 58Co to 58Fe allow to calculate the fast-neutron fluence. The fast-neutron fluences at known positions in the irradiation container correlate with the J-values determined by mass-spectrometric 40Ar/39Ar measurements of the geological age standards. Ra-dial neutron fluence gradients are up to 1.8 %/cm in FRG1 and up to 2.2 %/cm in LVR-15; the corre-sponding axial gradients are up to 5.9 and 2.1 %/cm. We conclude that sample rotation might not al-ways suffice to meet the needs of high-precision dating and gradient monitoring can be crucial.

Estimating the effect of chemical safety standards on firm performance in Malaysia and Vietnam

This paper uses firm-level data to examine the impact of chemical safety regulations imposed by importing countries such as RoHS and REACH on the production costs and export performance of firms in Malaysia and Vietnam. We find that in addition to the initial setup costs for compliance, EU RoHS and REACH implementation causes firms to incur additional variable production costs by requiring additional labor and capital expenditures of around 12% of the variable costs, respectively. We also find that compliance with RoHS and REACH significantly increases the probability of export. Furthermore, we find that compliance with EU RoHS and REACH helps firms to penetrate into a greater variety of countries. Also, we find that multinational enterprises and firms participating in global value chains generally exhibit better export performance and their costs rise less steeply.

Is there any premium for unobservable quality? : a hedonic price analysis of the Malagasy rice market

This paper examines if consumers pay a premium for unobservable quality in the absence of quality standards and/or quality grading systems and, if so, how they assess that unobservable quality, using a rice retail market in Madagascar as an example. In Madagascar, the lack of quality standards and/or grading systems for rice makes is considered to be one of the causes of the rice market's spatial disintegration. Thus, quality standards and grading systems will be necessary to increase the market's efficiency. We hypothesize that consumers and retailers use product origin and rice name as observable indictors of unobservable quality and test the hypothesis using hedonic price regressions. We find that the interaction terms of product origin and rice name significantly affect the price after controlling for both observable quality and spatial and temporal price variation, but that the contribution of product origin and rice name to rice price variation is smaller than spatial and temporal factors. We thus conclude that consumers pay a premium for unobservable quality throughout Madagascar. This finding implies that quality standards and/or grading systems will work in the Malagasy market and that improving market infrastructure such as roads and storage will make them even more effective.

Standards and specifications to manage accessibility issues in e-learning

Despite the acknowledged need of providing a personalized and adaptive learning process for all, current learning management systems do not properly cover personalization and accessibility issues and they are still struggling to support the reusability requirements coming from the pervasive usage of standards. There is a lack of frameworks for providing layered-based infrastructure covering the interoperability required to manage the whole range of standards, applications and services needed to meet accessibility and adaptations needs of lifelong learning services.

A new approach for publishing workflows: abstractions, standards, and linked data

In recent years, a variety of systems have been developed that export the workflows used to analyze data and make them part of published articles. We argue that the workflows that are published in current approaches are dependent on the specific codes used for execution, the specific workflow system used, and the specific workflow catalogs where they are published. In this paper, we describe a new approach that addresses these shortcomings and makes workflows more reusable through: 1) the use of abstract workflows to complement executable workflows to make them reusable when the execution environment is different, 2) the publication of both abstract and executable workflows using standards such as the Open Provenance Model that can be imported by other workflow systems, 3) the publication of workflows as Linked Data that results in open web accessible workflow repositories. We illustrate this approach using a complex workflow that we re-created from an influential publication that describes the generation of 'drugomes'.

Visual grading of large cross section structural timber of Pinus sylvestris L. according to UNE 56544:2007 standard

Large cross section structural timber have been used in many structures over long periods of time and still make up an important part of the market due to its mechanical properties. Furthermore, it is frequent its employment in new construction site. It involves the need for a visual grading standard for timber used in construction according to the quality assessment. The material has to satisfy the requirements according to the currently regulations. UNE 56544 is the Spanish visual grading standard for coniferous structural timber. The 2007 version defined a new visual grade in the standard for large section termed Structural Large Timber (MEG). This research checks the new visual grading and consists of 116 structural size specimens of sawn coniferous timber of Scotch pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) from Segovia, Spain. The pieces had a cross section of 150 by 200 mm. They were visually graded according to UNE 56544:2007. Also, mechanical properties have been obtained according to standard EN 408. The results show very low output with an excessive percentage of rejected pieces (33%). The main reasons for the rejection of pieces are fissures and twist

Aeronautical Metadata Profile based on Geographic International Standards

The aeronautical information plays an essential rolein air safety, chief objective of the aeronautical industry. Community policies and projects are being currently developed for the adequate management of a single European air space. To make this possible, an appropriate information management and a set of tools that allow sharing and exchanging this information, ensuring its interoperability and integrity, are necessary. This paper presents the development and implementation of a metadata profile for description of the aeronautical information based on international regulations and recommendations applied within the geographic scope. The elements taken into account for its development are described, as well as the implementation process and the results obtained.

Models for the prediction of handling damage in citrus and peaches grading lines, related to their physical properties.

Fruit damage during harvesting and handling is a standing problem, particularly for susceptible fruits like peaches and apricots. The resulting mechanical damage is a combination of fruit properties and damage inflicting effects due to procedures and to the equipment. Nine packing lines in the region of Murcia (SE Spain) have been tested with the aid of two different-size electronic fruits IS-100. Probabilities of impacts above three preset thresholds (50 g's, 100 g's and 150 g's) were calculated for each transfer point. Interaction fruit-packing line tests have been also performed in order to study the real incidence of packing lines on natural produce: apricots (1 variety), peaches (3 v.), lemons (1 v.) and oranges (3 v.). Bruises of handled and not handled samples of fruits were compared.

Bruise Simulation in Peach Grading Lines as a tool for designing Improvement Strategies.

The Physical Properties Laboratory (LPF) has been working on the improvement of fruit and vegetable grading lines since 1992'. The experience shows that the improvement of grading lines for decreasing mechanical damages has to be approached from two viewpoints: 1) machinery aggressiveness, and 2) fruit susceptibility. Machinery aggressiveness can be characterized as impact probability for different impact intensities assessed by means of electronic fruits (IS-100) 2,5 . On the other hand, bruise susceptibility can be determined using different laboratory tests. A recent study from LPF4 shows that damage may arise differently in pome and in stone fruits, since: a) pome fruits are mainly stress-susceptible, while stone fruits appear to be more deformation-susceptible, and b) bruise size may be a good predictor for bruise susceptibility in pome fruits while for stone fruits bruise probability is the most relevant characteristic of bruise susceptibility. Also, this study indicates the feasibility of predicting bruise probability using several mechanical and load characterization parameters. Despite the efforts to establish damage thresholds in peachess, no simulation models are currently available for predicting bruise occurrence in grading lines.

Programming assignments automatic grading: review of tools and implementations

Automatic grading of programming assignments is an important topic in academic research. It aims at improving the level of feedback given to students and optimizing the professor time. Several researches have reported the development of software tools to support this process. Then, it is helpfulto get a quickly and good sight about their key features. This paper reviews an ample set of tools forautomatic grading of programming assignments. They are divided in those most important mature tools, which have remarkable features; and those built recently, with new features. The review includes the definition and description of key features e.g. supported languages, used technology, infrastructure, etc. The two kinds of tools allow making a temporal comparative analysis. This analysis infrastructure, etc. The two kinds of tools allow making a temporal comparative analysis. This analysis shows good improvements in this research field, these include security, more language support, plagiarism detection, etc. On the other hand, the lack of a grading model for assignments is identified as an important gap in the reviewed tools. Thus, a characterization of evaluation metrics to grade programming assignments is provided as first step to get a model. Finally new paths in this research field are proposed.

Quality grading of cork stoppers based on porosity, density and elasticity.

An objective control method for grading cork stoppers is presented using a cork stopper quality index based on porosity, density and elasticity, these being the properties which have the greatest influence on the closure capacity of the stopper. The elasticity of the cork stopper is measured through the relaxation ratio, which is defined by the relationship between the relaxation force exerted by the cork in the bottleneck and the compressive force exerted by a caliper to fit the stopper in the bottle. The relaxation ratio, defined in this way, represents the part of the compression force which is applied to the stopper on insertion and which is recovered in the form of the relaxation force to achieve closure. The calculation of the relaxation ratio involves the measurement of the relaxation force of the fitted stopper. This force has been measured rigorously and precisely using a device developed in the Cork Laboratory at the INIA-CIFOR and which is presented for the first time in this paper.

Impact of standards in European open data catalogues: a multilingual perspective of DCAT

Within the European Union, member states are setting up official data catalogues as entry points to access PSI (Public Sector Information). In this context, it is important to describe the metadata of these data portals, i.e., of data catalogs, and allow for interoperability among them. To tackle these issues, the Government Linked Data Working Group developed DCAT (Data Catalog Vocabulary), an RDF vocabulary for describing the metadata of data catalogs. This topic report analyzes the current use of the DCAT vocabulary in several European data catalogs and proposes some recommendations to deal with an inconsistent use of the metadata across countries. The enrichment of such metadata vocabularies with multilingual descriptions, as well as an account for cultural divergences, is seen as a necessary step to guarantee interoperability and ensure wider adoption.