Controlled Formation of β-Si3N4 on Native Oxidized Silicon Wafers in Ammonia Flow

Crystallography Reports - The formation of β-Si3N4 for subsequent growth of AlGaN and GaN heterostructures of silicon wafers has been studied. It is established that the native oxide layer...     

Assessment of Noise Exposure of Sawmill Workers in Southwest,Nigeria

Economic wood processing employs the use of industrial machines for cutting, shaping, milling, and sawing timber, thereby leading to the generation of high levels of noise. Published data from empirical studies have categorized noise as an environmental hazard of global significance. Furthermore, noise exposure limits for different industries and all the industrial machines available has not been formally established as it presently exists in developed nations around the world. Therefore, this study assessed the daily exposure of sawmills workers to noise in Southwestern Nigeria. Reconnaissance surveys were first carried out in Osun, Oyo, Ondo, Ekiti, Lagos, and Ogun States to select sawmills that were fully operational and fit for the study. Two fully functional sawmills in two cities of each State were eventually selected for data collection, making a total of 24 sawmills, while the Circular Machines (CM), Planer Machines (PM), and Band-saw Machines (BM) were the machines in each sawmill considered. Two machines each of CM, PM, and BM were considered in each sawmill, making a total of forty-eight (48) machines each of CM, PM, and BM. Sound data were collected between 7 am and 7 pm each day for six days (between Monday and Saturday) using Extech 407732 sound level meter and all stabilized measurements were taken three times at different intervals. The data collected were in three different periods: Machine No-work Period (NP_m), Machine Idle Period (IP_m), and Machine Working Period (WP_m). A two–way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was carried out at P < 0.05 to determine whether there is a significant difference in the sound level average before and after the break, for both the idle and working periods of the three machines considered. This was also done to determine whether there is a significant difference between the sound level average of the results collected during idle and working periods of the three machines. Noise Pollution Levels (L_np) ranged from 83.20 dB (PM) to 107.65 (BM) and 93.42 (CM and PM) – 116.00 (BM) respectively, while IP_m also gave the least noise pollution level of 95.79 dB and WP_m gave the highest level of 102.88 dB. The results revealed that all the machines’ L_np values in the working period are more than the 90 dB acceptable limit the recommendation value of 90 dB while 89.6% of CMs, 75% of PMs, and 89.6% of BM had their L_np above 90 dB in the idle period respectively. The minimum and the maximum noise dose levels for IP_m, WP_m and overall are 0.09 (BM) and 2.37 (CM), 0.50 (CM), and 4.77 (PM) and 0.69 (BM) and 6.64 (PM) respectively. The study found out that the fundamental contributing factors to the high noise levels in sawmills are poor machine maintenance, use of old and obsolete machines, poor housekeeping strategy, limited space, workers’ negligence, lack of PPE, and lack of occupational safety training. The study recommends that proper workplace practices such as use of personal protective equipment, new and modern machines, training, and occupational safety programmes be implemented in the considered sawmills.     

Effect of Mechanical Stress on the Splitting of Spin Sublevels in 4H-SiC

JETP Letters - The effect of static mechanical strain on the splitting of spin sublevels of color centers based on spin 3/2 silicon vacancies in silicon carbide at room temperature has been shown....     

Structural Specific Features of Solid Solutions NdxGd1 – xCr3(BO3)4

Optics and Spectroscopy - Optical investigations of crystals of solid solutions NdxGd1&nbsp;–&nbsp;xCr3(BO3)4, 0.01 ≤ x ≤ 1, have been performed. Absorption spectra in the...     

Role of Conformational Changes of Hexameric Bacterial Uridine Phosphorylases in Substrate Binding

Crystallography Reports - Crystals of mutants of uridine phosphorylase from Shewanella oneidensis MR-1 at the active-site threonine residue were obtained, and the three-dimensional structures of...     

USING EIGENMODULI AND EIGENSTATES TO EVALUATE THE POSSIBILITY OF MARTENSITIC PHASE TRANSFORMATIONS

Journal of Applied Mechanics and Technical Physics - The possibility of phase transitions (martensitic transformations) in&nbsp;shape-memory alloys is evaluated using the concept of eigenmoduli...     

On the Theory of Acoustic Scanning of Damage to Underground Pipelines

Acoustical Physics - The paper studies the evolution of a pulsed signal initiated by the pushing of a cylindrical piston and propagating through a stationary fluid filling a buried pipeline with an...     

Raman Scattering Study of Natural and Synthetic Compounds Containing Polyene Chains

Doklady Physics - The dependence of Raman spectra of the molecules containing polyene chains on the conjugation length, structure of side and end groups, and isomer type is analyzed theoretically.     

Fundamental Groups of Graphs of Cyclic Subgroup Separable and Weakly Potent Groups

We give a characterization of the cyclic subgroup separability and weak potency of the fundamental group of a graph of polycyclic-by-finite groups and free-by-finite groups amalgamating edge subgroups of the form × D,where h has infinite order and D is finite.