Pretreatment technology for the beneficial biological reuse of municipal sewage sludges

Applied Biochemistry and Biotechnology - Modern municipal sewage waste treatment plants use conventional mechanical and biological processes to reclaim waste waters. This process has the overall...     

Anaerobic bioconversion of municipal solid wastes

Applied Biochemistry and Biotechnology - The anaerobic bioconversion of municipal solid wastes (MSW) produces both a valuable fuel product (methane) and a residue useful as a soil amendment. The...     

Search for scalar top quark production in p&pmacr; collisions at sqrt

We have searched for direct production of scalar top quarks at the Collider Detector at Fermilab in 88 pb(-1) of p&pmacr; collisions at sqrt[s] = 1.8 TeV. We assume the scalar top quark decays into either a bottom quark and a chargino or a bottom quark, a lepton, and a scalar neutrino. The event signature for both decay scenarios is a lepton, missing transverse energy, and at least two b-quark jets. For a chargino mass of 90 GeV/c(2) and scalar neutrino masses of at least 40 GeV/c(2), we find no evidence for scalar top production and present upper limits on the production cross section in both decay scenarios.     

Dijet production by double pomeron exchange at the fermilab tevatron

We report the first observation of dijet events with a double Pomeron exchange topology produced in &pmacr;p collisions at sqrt[s] = 1800 GeV. The events are characterized by a leading antiproton, two jets in the central pseudorapidity region, and a large rapidity gap on the outgoing proton side. We present results on jet kinematics and production rates, compare them with corresponding results from single diffractive and inclusive dijet production, and test factorization.     

Some unusual features of the electrochemistry of silver in aqueous base

Multilayer oxide films were grown on silver in base by repetitive potential cycling; however, the type of oxide obtained, as assessed on the basis of its reduction behaviour, was dependent on the lower limit of the oxide growth cycles. Using limits of 1.03–2.60 V (RHE) the oxide film produced was assumed to be predominantly Ag₂O; reduction of the latter yielded a cathodic peak at ca. 0.8 V and a surface layer of silver microparticles of diameter ranging from ca. 100 to 227 nm which, although relatively stable, were prone to rapid, extensive reoxidation. Altering the oxide growth limits to 0.7–2.60 V resulted in the growth of a different type of oxide deposit which is assumed to be AgOH; reduction of the latter occurred in a negative sweep in a random manner, i.e. in the form of cathodic spikes extending to potentials as low as ca. –0.5 V. Both types of silver oxide species are assumed to be involved in premonolayer oxidation and electrocatalysis at silver in base and the nature of the former process is discussed in some detail. Electronic Publication     

Isolation and characterization of human placental chorionic villar extracellular matrix

The cell-free extracellular matrix of human placental chorionic villi has been prepared by a procedure employing extraction of the terminal villar fragments with the detergents Triton X-100 and sodium deoxycholate. The isolated human placental extracellular matrix retains an intact, but collapsed, histoarchitecture, as observed by scanning and transmission electron microscopy. It remains intact, in large part because of the presence of continuous sheets of villar basement membranes and associated interstitial collagen fibers and scattered patches of fibrin. The staining charcteristics and chemical composition of the isolated human placental extracellular matrlix are similar to those reported for basement membranes in several tissues and indicate the presence of collagen-like and glycoprotein components in this preparation. Gel electrophoresis of urea-SDS-mercaptoethanol extracts of the matrix showed that it consists of several polypeptide components of various molecuar weights, some of which are associated into high molecular weight complexes by disulfide bonds.     

Compositionally asymmetrical multiquantum wells: “Pseudo-molecules” for giant optical nonlinearities in the infrared (9–11 μm)

Intersubband transitions in quantum well have extremely large oscillator strengths and induce strong nonlinear effects in structures where inversion symmetry is broken, realized by growing AlGaAs quantum wells with asymmetrical A1 gradients. These compositionally asymmetrical multiquantum wells may thus be viewed as giant “quasimolecules” optimized for optimal nonlinearities in the mid infrared. Optical rectification as well as second harmonic generation have been measured in those structures using a continuous CO₂ laser. At 10.6 μm the nonlinear coefficients are more than 3 orders of magnitude higher in these samples than for bulk GaAs (i.e. χ₀⁽²⁾ = 5.3 × 10⁻⁶m/V, χ_2ω⁽²⁾ = 7.2 × 10⁻⁷ m/V) and are in good agreement with theoretical predictions. We present more complex “pseudo-molecules” involving weakly coupled quantum wells. The optical rectification effects in these devices are so large χ₀⁽²⁾ = 1.6 × 10⁻³ m/V) that application to infrared detection may be envisioned.