Mechanisms determining the salience of coloration in echoed sound: influence of interaural time and level differences

This study investigates whether the salience of the pitch associated with a single reflection of a broadband sound, such as noise, is determined by the monaural information mediated by the stimuli at the two ears, or by the relative locations of the primary sound and the reflection. Pitch strength was measured as a function of the reflection delay and the lateral displacement between the primary sound and the reflection. Thereby, lateral displacement was produced by means of interaural time differences (ITDs) in experiment 1 and interaural level differences (ILDs) in experiment 3. The results from both experiments are in accordance with the assumption that the strength of the pitch associated with a reflection is based on a central average of the internal representations of the stimuli at the two ears. This notion was corroborated by experiment 2, which showed that the results from experiment 1 could be mimicked by simply adding the stimuli from the two ears and presenting the merged stimulus identically to both ears.     

Calibration and evaluation of optical systems for full-field strain measurement

The design and testing of a reference material for the calibration of optical systems for strain measurement is described, together with the design and testing of a standardized test material that allows the evaluation and assessment of fitness for purpose of the most sophisticated optical system for strain measurement. A classification system for the steps in the measurement process is also proposed and allows the development of a unified approach to diagnostic testing of components or sub-systems in an optical system for strain measurement based on any optical technique. The results described arise from a European study known as SPOTS whose objectives were to begin to fill the gap caused by a lack of standards.     

Experiment and modelling of birefringent flows using commercial CFD code

It is well-known that certain fluids are birefringent and when flows are viewed in polarised light interference fringes are observed. The fringes are caused by a phase shift in the light passing through the fluid and are proportional to the integral of the maximum shear strains in the fluid. In order to understand what is happening within the three dimensional flow and overcome the difficulties due to this integration, additional computational or experimental information is needed.

In this work, a commercially available computer code (Fluent) is used for the first time to model the flows. The flow data are then exported to a spreadsheet where the shear rates are integrated across the field and then banded for graphical output. The results from this are then compared to results generated from birefringent flow experiments and the agreement is found to be good since the modelled fringes show the same patterns as those in the experiment. This novel use of computational and experimental techniques together will allow quantitative analysis of three-dimensional flows in the future.

Currently, there are still a lot of empirical variables involved in fitting the computational fringes to the experiment, but the results of this preliminary study show that this is a promising approach to this type of problem.     

Pillared layered structures versus zeolites as sorbents and catalysts. Part 8. Catalytic destruction of some chloro- and chlorofluoro-hydrocarbons in alumina-pillared clays

Summary Pillared clays have been monitored for catalytic destruction of halocarbons. In comparison with HZSM-5 zeolites, the catalysts tested give higher chlorohydrocarbons destruction with polymers formation. Fluorochlorohydro-carbons are destroyed as well.     

Formation of Heterocyclic and Polycyclic Compounds from Amino Alcohols and Dialdehydes

Amino alcohols typically react with aldehydes to produce oxazolidines. It was hypothesized that the condensation of several commercially available amino alcohols with dialdehydes would produce a series of bicyclic oxazolidines containing two secondary amines. However, there were remarkable differences in the type of products formed depending on the structure of the dicarbonyl compounds and the reaction conditions. When linear aliphatic dialdehydes such as glyoxal were used, the expected bis‐oxazolidines were not produced; instead, polycyclic structures or oxazines were formed. However, when cyclic dialdehydes such as 1,3/1,4 cyclohexane dicarboxaldehyde were used, they resulted in products bearing the desired oxazolidine moieties.