MODELING HARVEST SCHEDULING IN MULTIFUNCTIONAL PLANNING OF FORESTS FOR LONGTERM WATER YIELD OPTIMIZATION

In this study, wood production and hydrologic functions of forests were accommodated within a planning procedure for separate working circles (areas dedicated to certain forest functions) that were delineated according to an Ecosystem‐Based Functional Planning approach. Mixed integer goal programming was used as the optimization technique. The timing and scheduling of a maintenance cutting (partial harvest) was the decision variable in the modeling effort, and an original formulation was developed as a multiobjective planning procedure. Four sample planning strategies were developed and model outputs were evaluated according to these strategies. Spatial characteristics of stands were considered, and used to prohibit the regeneration of adjacent stands during the same time period. Because of the positive relationship between qualified water production and standing timber volume in the forest, the model attempts to maximize qualified water production levels by increasing standing volume stocks in the forest through the delay of regeneration activities.     

Effect of chemical modification on oligomerization capacity of alumina support for Pd-Al<Subscript>2</Subscript>O<Subscript>3</Subscript> catalyst

Effect of modification with an alkali metal on the acid properties of alumina supports and on the oligomerization capacity and working stability of Pd-Al₂O₃ catalysts was studied.     

Pd (II)‐catalyzed vinyl addition polymerization of novel functionalized norbornene bearing dimethyl carboxylate groups

Three novel functionalized polynorbornenes (PNB) with pendant dimethyl carboxylate group (carboxylates—acetate, propionate, and butyrate) are synthesized as a vinyl‐type with a palladium (II) catalyst in high yield. The effects of size of substitutents, molar ratio of monomer to catalyst, solvent polarity, reaction time, and temperature on the polymerization of exo‐norbornene dimethyl propionate were systematically investigated. The low molar ratio and temperature, as well as high polarity of solvent, and long reaction time, are favorable for the enhancement of the monomer conversion, especially, the solvent have an obvious effect on the catalyst activity. The resulting poly(cis‐norbornene‐exo‐2,3‐dimethyl carboxylates) (PNB‐dimethyl carboxylates) show good solubility in common organic solvent and high thermal stability up to 360 °C. The glass transition temperature was detected by DMA at 331, 324, and 318 °C for acetate, propionate, and butyrate, respectively. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 45: 3391–3399, 2007     

Theoretical study on the electronic,structural, properties and reactivity of a series of mono-, di-, tri- and tetrachlorothiophenes as well as corresponding radical cation forms as monomers for conducting polymers

In this paper, electrical and structural properties of mono-, di-, tri- and tetrachlorothiophenes and their radical cations have been studied using the density functional theory and B3LYP method with 6-311++G** basis set. The effects of the number and position of the substituent of chlorine atoms on the properties of the thiophene ring for all chlorothiophenes and their radical cations have been studied. Vibrational frequencies, nuclear chemical shielding constants, spin-density distribution, size and direction of dipole moment vector, ionization potential, electric polarizabilities and NICS values of these compounds have been calculated as well. The analysis of these data showed that double bonds in 3-chlorothiophene are more delocalized and it is the best possible candidate monomer among all chlorothiophenes for the synthesis of corresponding conducting polymers with modified characteristics.     

Synthesis and cytotoxicity of 28-carboxymethoxy lupane triterpenoids.Preference of 28-O-acylation over 28-O-alkylation of betulm by ethyl bromoacetate

28-Carboxymethoxy lupane tritepenoids 3 and 4 were synthesized by alkylation of betulin with the THP protected 2- hydroxyethyl iodide followed by oxidation and reduction.Direct reaction of betulin(5) or betulone(10) with ethyl bromoacetate led to 28-O-acylation,instead of 28-O-alkylation.The targeted compounds 3 and 4 were not cytotoxic at the highest concentration tested(75μmol/L),suggesting that elongation of the chain length at the 28-position in both betulinic acid(1) and betulonic acid(2) was detrim...     

SELF-SIMILAR CRACK EXPANSION METHOD FOR THE STRESS INTENSITY FACTOR ANALYSIS

The Self-Similar Crack Expansion (SSCE) method is proposed to evaluate stress intensi-ty factors at crack tips, whereby stress intensity factors of a crack can be determined by the crackopening displacement over the crack, not just by the local displacement around the crack tip. The crackexpansion rate is estimated by taking advantage of the crack self-similarity. Therefore, the accuracy ofthe calculation is improved. The singular integrals on crack tip elements are also analyzed and are pre-cisely evaluated in terms of a special integral analysis. Combination of these two techniques greatly in-creases the accuracy in estimating the stress distribution around the crack tip. A variety of two-dimen-sional cracks, such as subsurface cracks, edge cracks, and their interactions are calculated in terms ofthe self-similar expansion rate. Solutions are satisfied with errors less than 0.5% as compared with theanalytical solutions. Based on the calculations of the crack interactions, a theory for crack interactionsis proposed such that for a group of aligned cracks the summation of the square of SIFs at the right tipsof cracks is always equal to that at the left tips of cracks. This theory was proved by the mehtod ofSelf-Similar Crack Expansion in this paper.     

EFFECT OF COMPOSITION AND PROCESSING CONDITION ON MICROSTRUCTURAL PROPERTIES AND DURABILITY OF FLUOROPOLYMER/ACRYLIC BLENDS

Fluoropolymer blends have been widely used as binders for exterior coatings because of their excellent resistance to ultra-violet (UV) radiation as well as to many corrosive chemical agents.It is known that the fluorinated component usually has a lower glass transition temperature and easily crystallizes in the final structure depending upon the blend composition and sample annealing condition.We investigated the effect of blend composition and annealing process (slow and fast cooling) on the surface mor...     

Design and study of a high-current 5-cell superconducting rf cavity

The Advanced Photon Source （APS） at Argonne National Laboratory is considering the development of a superconducting linac-based fourth-generation hard X-ray source to meet future scientific needs of the hard X-ray user community. This work specifically focuses on the design of an optimized 5-cell superconducting radio-frequency structure well suited for a high-energy, high-beam-current energy recovery linac. The cavity design parameters are based on the APS storage ring nominal 7 GeV and 100 mA beam operation. A high-current 5-cell cw superconducting cavity operating at 1.4 GHz has been designed. In order to achieve a high current, the accelerating cavity shape has been optimized and large end-cell beam pipes have been adopted. The beam break-up threshold of the cavity has been estimated using the code TDBBU, which predicts a high threshold beam current for a 7 GeV energy recovery linac model. A copper prototype cavity has been fabricated that uses half-cell modules, initially assembled by clamping the cells together.     

DFT study on a fullerene doped with Si and N

DFT calculations are applied for some stable C₆₀, C₅₉Si, and C₅₉N hetero fullerenes. Sn and Ge atoms are doped at the same position of C₆₀. Computations are carried out at the B3LYP/cc pVDZ levels. In this work the effects of the heteroatoms, Si and N, on the structural properties of the fullerene have been studied. The structure, energetic and relative stabilities of the compounds were compared and analyzed with each other. In addition, vibrations spectra of proposed stable neutral species, as well as the infrared intensities are calculated. From the data obtained from calculation, we found that there is strong correlation between the stability of pure C₆₀ fullerene molecule and the numbers of different C-C bonds.