Analisi e sviluppo di uno strumento di verifica di consistenza a supporto della metodologia SODA

Scopo di questa tesi è analizzare e sviluppare la parte preposta al controllo dell’integrità dei dati (Check&SODA), facente parte di un nuovo plugin per piattaforma Eclipse che supporti il progettista durante le attività di progettazione con SODA, tramite una componente grafica Graph&SODA.

Bagasse Fractionation by the Soda Process

The soda process was the first chemical pulping method and was patented in 1845. Soda pulping led to kraft pulping, which involves the combined use of sodium hydroxide and sodium sulfide. Today, kraft pulping dominates the chemical pulping industry. However, about 10% of the total chemical pulp produced in the world is made using non-wood material, such as bagasse and wheat straw. The soda process is the preferred method of chemical pulping of non-wood materials, because it is considered to be economically viable on a small scale and for bagasse is compatible with sugarcane processing. With recent developments, the soda process can be designed to produce minimal effluent discharge and the fouling of evaporators by silica precipitation. The aim of this work is to produce bagasse fibres suitable for papermaking and allied applications and to produce sulfur-free lignin for use in specialty applications. A preliminary economic analysis of the soda process for producing commodity silica, lignin and pulp for papermaking is presented.

Chemical and thermal properties of fractionated bagasse soda lignin

A major challenge of the 21st century will be to generate transportation fuels using feedstocks such as lignocellulosic waste materials as a substitute for existing fossil and nuclear fuels. The advantages of lignocellulosics as a feedstock material are that they are abundant, sustainable and carbon-neutral. To improve the economics of producing liquid transportation fuels from lignocellulosic biomass, the development of value-added products from lignin, a major component of lignocellulosics, is necessary. Lignins produced from black liquor through the fractionation of sugarcane bagasse with soda and organic solvents have been characterised by physical, chemical and thermal means. The soda lignin fractions have different physico-chemical and thermal properties from one another. Some of these properties have been compared to bagasse lignin extracted with aqueous ethanol.

Total Solar Eclipse in North Queensland 14 Nov 2012

This article is a brief introduction to the total solar eclipse Wed 14 November 2012 in north Queensland that will be seen in a narrow strip of land just 140 km wide in the vicinity of Cairns.

Changes in the Activities of two membrane-bound enzymes during solar eclipse on February 16, 1980

ON Saturday February 16, 1980 total solar eclipse Occurred for a period of 2-3 min in a belt of 135 km during the eclipse from 14'17 to 17'00 hrs across peninsular India. The city of Bangalore, being just outside this belt, had witnessed 92% eclipse for about 2. 1/2 min at the peak period of 15.44 hr at which time a temperature drop of 2' C and a considerable dimness of the light were experienced. In view of the interest in our laboratory on biochemical adaptation under conditions of environmental stress, we designed an experiment to study the possible changes in enzyme activities during the solar eclipse on February 16, 1980.

Intensity Oscillation in the Corona as Observed during the Total Solar Eclipse of 29 March 2006

We obtained the images of the eastern part of the solar corona in the Fe xiv 530.3 nm (green) and Fe x 637.4 nm (red) coronal emission lines during the total solar eclipse of 29 March 2006 at Manavgat, Antalya, Turkey. The images were obtained using a 35 cm Meade telescope equipped with a Peltier-cooled 2k x 2k CCD and 0.3 nm pass-band interference filters at the rates of 2.95 s (exposure times of 100 ms) and 2.0 s (exposure times of 300 ms) in the Fe xiv and Fe x emission lines,respectively. The analysis of the data indicates intensity variations at some locations with period of strongest power around 27 s for the green line and 20 s for the red line. These results confirm earlier findings of variations in the continuum intensity with periods in the range of 5 to 56 s by Singh et al. (Solar Phys. 170, 235, 1997). The wavelet analysis has been used to identify significant intensity oscillations at all pixels within our field of view. Significant oscillations with high probability estimates were detected for some locations only. These locations seem to follow the boundary of an active region and in the neighborhood, rather than within the loops themselves. These intensity oscillations may be caused by fast magneto-sonic waves in the solar corona and partly account for heating of the plasma in the corona.

Spectroscopic Observation of Oscillations in the Corona During the Total Solar Eclipse of 22 July 2009

We performed high resolution spectroscopy of the solar corona during the total solar eclipse of 22 July 2009 in two emission lines: the green line at 5303 due to Fe xiv and the red line at 6374 due to Fe x, simultaneously from Anji (latitude 30A degrees 28.1' N; longitude 119A degrees 35.4' E; elevation 890 m), China. A two-mirror coelostat with 100 cm focal length lens produced a 9.2 mm image of the Sun. The spectrograph using 140 cm focal length lens in Littrow mode and a grating with 600 lines per millimeter blazed at 2 mu m provided a dispersion of 30 m and 43 m per pixel in the fourth order around the green line and third order around the red line, respectively. Two Peltier cooled 1k x 1k CCD cameras, with a pixel size of 13 mu m square and 14-bit readout at 10 MHz operated in frame transfer mode, were used to obtain the time sequence spectra in two emission lines simultaneously. The duration of totality was 341 s, but we could get spectra for 270 s after a trial exposure at an interval of 5 s. We report here on the detection of intensity, velocity, and line width oscillations with periodicity in the range of 25 -50 s. These oscillations can be interpreted in terms of the presence of fast magnetoacoustic waves or torsional Alfv,n waves. The intensity ratios of green to red emission lines indicate the temperature of the corona to be 1.65 MK in the equatorial region and 1.40 MK in the polar region, relatively higher than the expected temperature during the low activity period. The width variation of the emission lines in different coronal structures suggests different physical conditions in different structures.

Effect of January 15, 2010 annular solar eclipse on meteorological parameters over Goa, India

Atmospheric perturbations due to the annular solar eclipse were monitored to understand its influence on the meteorological parameters from surface to the lower stratosphere. A strong inversion at 13 km and an abnormal warming in the upper troposphere were noticed on the eclipse day. A decrease in tropopause height associated with increase in temperature caused anomalous warming. Considerable attenuation of incoming solar radiation resulted in abrupt increase of air temperature during the next 24 h followed by sharp decrease in relative humidity. The time lag is attributed to the distance from the totality and the response time between tropopause and surface layer. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

An experimental set-up for carbon isotopic analysis of atmospheric CO2 and an example of ecosystem response during solar eclipse 2010

We present here, an experimental set-up developed for the first time in India for the determination of mixing ratio and carbon isotopic ratio of air-CO2. The set-up includes traps for collection and extraction of CO2 from air samples using cryogenic procedures, followed by the measurement of CO2 mixing ratio using an MKS Baratron gauge and analysis of isotopic ratios using the dual inlet peripheral of a high sensitivity isotope ratio mass spectrometer (IRMS) MAT 253. The internal reproducibility (precision) for the PC measurement is established based on repeat analyses of CO2 +/- 0.03 parts per thousand. The set-up is calibrated with international carbonate and air-CO2 standards. An in-house air-CO2 mixture, `OASIS AIRMIX' is prepared mixing CO2 from a high purity cylinder with O-2 and N-2 and an aliquot of this mixture is routinely analyzed together with the air samples. The external reproducibility for the measurement of the CO2 mixing ratio and carbon isotopic ratios are +/- 7 (n = 169) mu mol.mol(-1) and +/- 0.05 (n = 169) parts per thousand based on the mean of the difference between two aliquots of reference air mixture analyzed during daily operation carried out during November 2009-December 2011. The correction due to the isobaric interference of N2O on air-CO2 samples is determined separately by analyzing mixture of CO2 (of known isotopic composition) and N2O in varying proportions. A +0.2 parts per thousand correction in the delta C-13 value for a N2O concentration of 329 ppb is determined. As an application, we present results from an experiment conducted during solar eclipse of 2010. The isotopic ratio in CO2 and the carbon dioxide mixing ratio in the air samples collected during the event are different from neighbouring samples, suggesting the role of atmospheric inversion in trapping the emitted CO2 from the urban atmosphere during the eclipse.

Comparison of ZnO films deposited on indium tin oxide and soda lime glass under identical conditions

ZnO films have been grown via a vapour phase transport (VPT) on soda lime glass (SLG) and indium-tin oxide (ITO) coated glass. ZnO film on ITO had traces of Zn and C which gives them a dark appearance while that appears yellowish-white on SLG. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy studies confirm the traces of C in the form of C-O. The photoluminescence studies reveal a prominent green luminescence band for ZnO film on ITO. (C) 2013 Author(s).

Direct correlation between non-random distribution of cations and ion transport mechanism in soda-lime silicate glasses

We report a direct correlation between dissimilar ion pair formation and alkali ion transport in soda-lime silicate glasses established via broad band conductivity spectroscopy and local structural probe techniques. The combined Raman and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy techniques on these glasses reveal the coexistence of different anionic species and the prevalence of Na+-Ca2+ dissimilar pairs as well as their distributions. The spectroscopic results further confirm the formation of dissimilar pairs atomistically, where it increases with increasing alkaline-earth oxide content These results, are the manifestation of local structural changes in the silicate network with composition which give rise to different environments into which the alkali ions hop. The Na+ ion mobility varies inversely with dissimilar pair formation, i.e. it decreases with increase of non-random formation of dissimilar pairs. Remarkably, we found that increased degree of non-randomness leads to temperature dependent variation in number density of sodium ions. Furthermore, the present study provides the strong link between the dynamics of the alkali ions and different sites associated with it in soda-lime silicate glasses. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.