Evaluation ofwaste perlite fines in the production of construction materials

The use of supplementary cementitious materials (SCM) is a well established practice worldwide in the manufacture of Portland cement (PC)-based construction materials. While utilisation of industrial by-products has been successful, the potential of mining wastes is yet to receive adequate attention in the context of construction materials. In an expanded form perlite, which is a naturally occurring, hydrated volcanic siliceous glass, is an ideal material as a lightweight aggregate for use in a wide range of construction materials including concrete. The mining and processing of the grades of perlite required for the production of lightweight aggregate results in the creation of a fine grained waste which currently has no economic value. This paper reports preliminary data on the utilisation of waste perlite fines as a SCM in calcium silicate-based construction material and discusses the potential of this mining waste to reduce the environmental impact of the production of conventional cement-based construction materials.     

On the structure of stationary sets

We isolate several classes of stationary sets of [k]ωand investigate implications among them. Under a large cardinal assumption, we prove a structure theorem for stationary sets.     

Dupin hypersurfaces with four principal Curvatures,II

If M is an isoparametric hypersurface in a sphere S ⁿ with four distinct principal curvatures, then the principal curvatures κ₁, . . . , κ₄ can be ordered so that their multiplicities satisfy m ₁ = m ₂ and m ₃ = m ₄, and the cross-ratio r of the principal curvatures (the Lie curvature) equals −1. In this paper, we prove that if M is an irreducible connected proper Dupin hypersurface in R ⁿ (or S ⁿ ) with four distinct principal curvatures with multiplicities m ₁ = m ₂ ≥ 1 and m ₃ = m ₄ = 1, and constant Lie curvature r = −1, then M is equivalent by Lie sphere transformation to an isoparametric hypersurface in a sphere. This result remains true if the assumption of irreducibility is replaced by compactness and r is merely assumed to be constant.      

Buchbesprechungen

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Neutrino astronomy: Present and future

I briefly review the present and future status of the burgeoning field of neutrino astronomy. I outline the astrophysics and particle physics goals, design, and performance of the various current and proposed neutrino telescopes. Also described are present results and future expectations.     

Growth of Lévy trees

We construct random locally compact real trees called Lévy trees that are the genealogical trees associated with continuous-state branching processes. More precisely, we define a growing family of discrete Galton–Watson trees with i.i.d. exponential branch lengths that is consistent under Bernoulli percolation on leaves; we define the Lévy tree as the limit of this growing family with respect to the Gromov–Hausdorff topology on metric spaces. This elementary approach notably includes supercritical trees and does not make use of the height process introduced by Le Gall and Le Jan to code the genealogy of (sub)critical continuous-state branching processes. We construct the mass measure of Lévy trees and we give a decomposition along the ancestral subtree of a Poisson sampling directed by the mass measure. T. Duquesne is supported by NSF Grants DMS-0203066 and DMS-0405779. M. Winkel is supported by Aon and the Institute of Actuaries, EPSRC Grant GR/T26368/01, le département de mathématique de l’Université d’Orsay and NSF Grant DMS-0405779.     

Asymmetry in the Multiprotein Systems of Molecular Biology

Signaling in living systems needs to achieve high specificity, to be reversible, and to achieve high signal to noise. Signaling mediated by multiprotein systems has evolved that avoids the requirement for high-affinity binary complexes that would be difficult to reverse and which, in the overcrowded cell, would lead to excessive noise in the system. Symmetrical structures are only occasionally formed. When they are, it is principally to colocate components, for example, the tyrosyl kinases of growth factors, where dimers form. Symmetry is, however, often broken, presumably to create more sensitivity and specificity in the signaling system by assembling other components, into higher-order multiprotein systems. The binding of a single heparin to two 1:1 FGF:FGFR complexes is an example, as is the binding of a single ligase to the Xrcc4 dimer, perhaps so creating a further DNA-binding site.     

Palladium-catalyzed α-arylation of ketones on solid support: scope and limitations

The palladium-catalyzed α-arylation of ketones on solid support is described. Using modified Buchwald-Hartwig reaction conditions, the coupling of immobilized 4-bromobenzamide with various aromatic, heteroaromatic, and aliphatic ketones was investigated. Subsequent cleavage from the resin provided the desired α-aryl ketones almost in moderate to high yields and good to excellent purities. The scope and limitations of this protocol will be discussed.