An Analytic Solution for the Frontal Flow Period in 1D Counter-Current Spontaneous Imbibition into Fractured Porous Media Including Gravity and Wettability Effects

Including gravity and wettability effects, a full analytical solution for the frontal flow period for 1D counter-current spontaneous imbibition of a wetting phase into a porous medium saturated initially with non-wetting phase at initial wetting phase saturation is presented. The analytical solution applicable for liquid–liquid and liquid–gas systems is essentially valid for the cases when the gravity forces are relatively large and before the wetting phase front hits the no-flow boundary in the capillary-dominated regime. The new analytical solution free of any arbitrary parameters can also be utilized for predicting non-wetting phase recovery by spontaneous imbibition. In addition, a new dimensionless time equation for predicting dimensionless distances travelled by the wetting phase front versus dimensionless time is presented. Dimensionless distance travelled by the waterfront versus time was calculated varying the non-wetting phase viscosity between 1 and 100 mPas. The new dimensionless time expression was able to perfectly scale all these calculated dimensionless distance versus time responses into one single curve confirming the ability for the new scaling equation to properly account for variations in non-wetting phase viscosities. The dimensionless stabilization time, defined as the time at which the capillary forces are balanced by the gravity forces, was calculated to be approximately 0.6. The full analytical solution was finally used to derive a new transfer function with application to dual-porosity simulation.     

Human and climate impact on ¹⁵N natural abundance of plants and soils in high-mountain ecosystems: a short review and two examples from the Eastern Pamirs and Mt. Kilimanjaro

Population pressure increasingly endangers high-mountain ecosystems such as the pastures in the Eastern Pamirs and the mountain forests on Mt. Kilimanjaro. At the same time, these ecosystems constitute the economic basis for millions of people living there. In our study, we, therefore, aimed at characterising the land-use effects on soil degradation and N-cycling by determining the natural abundance of (15)N. A short review displays that δ(15)N of plant-soil systems may often serve as an integrated indicator of N-cycles with more positive δ(15)N values pointing towards N-losses. Results for the high-mountain pastures in the Eastern Pamirs show that intensively grazed pastures are significantly enriched in (15)N compared to the less-exploited pastures by 3.5 ‰, on average. This can be attributed to soil organic matter degradation, volatile nitrogen losses, nitrogen leaching and a general opening of the N-cycle. Similarly, the intensively degraded savanna soils, the cultivated soils and the soils under disturbed forests on the foothill of Mt. Kilimanjaro reveal very positive δ(15)N values around 6.5 ‰. In contrast, the undisturbed forest soils in the montane zone are more depleted in (15)N, indicating that here the N-cycle is relatively closed. However, significantly higher δ(15)N values characterise the upper montane forest zone at the transition to the subalpine zone. We suggest that this reflects N-losses by the recently monitored and climate change and antropogenically induced increasing fire frequency pushing the upper montane rainforest boundary rapidly downhill. Overall, we conclude that the analysis of the (15)N natural abundance in high-mountain ecosystems is a purposeful tool for detecting land-use- or climate change-induced soil degradation and N-cycle opening.     

Human and climate impact on 15N natural abundance of plants and soils in high-mountain ecosystems: a short review and two examples from the Eastern Pamirs and Mt. Kilimanjaro

Population pressure increasingly endangers high-mountain ecosystems such as the pastures in the Eastern Pamirs and the mountain forests on Mt. Kilimanjaro. At the same time, these ecosystems constitute the economic basis for millions of people living there. In our study, we, therefore, aimed at characterising the land-use effects on soil degradation and N-cycling by determining the natural abundance of ¹⁵N. A short review displays that δ¹⁵N of plant–soil systems may often serve as an integrated indicator of N-cycles with more positive δ¹⁵N values pointing towards N-losses. Results for the high-mountain pastures in the Eastern Pamirs show that intensively grazed pastures are significantly enriched in ¹⁵N compared to the less-exploited pastures by 3.5 ‰, on average. This can be attributed to soil organic matter degradation, volatile nitrogen losses, nitrogen leaching and a general opening of the N-cycle. Similarly, the intensively degraded savanna soils, the cultivated soils and the soils under disturbed forests on the foothill of Mt. Kilimanjaro reveal very positive δ¹⁵N values around 6.5 ‰. In contrast, the undisturbed forest soils in the montane zone are more depleted in ¹⁵N, indicating that here the N-cycle is relatively closed. However, significantly higher δ¹⁵N values characterise the upper montane forest zone at the transition to the subalpine zone. We suggest that this reflects N-losses by the recently monitored and climate change and antropogenically induced increasing fire frequency pushing the upper montane rainforest boundary rapidly downhill. Overall, we conclude that the analysis of the ¹⁵N natural abundance in high-mountain ecosystems is a purposeful tool for detecting land-use- or climate change-induced soil degradation and N-cycle opening.     

Theoretical study on cooperative interplay between anion–π and chalcogen-bonding interactions

The mutual influence between anion–π and chalcogen bond interactions is studied by ab initio calculations at the MP2/6-311++G^** level of theory. These effects are analysed in detail in terms of the structural, energetic, charge-transfer and electron density properties of the complexes. Interesting cooperativity effects are found when anion–π and chalcogen-bonding interactions coexist in the same complex. The effect of anion–π on the properties of chalcogen bonding is larger than that of chalcogen bonding on the properties of anion–π. The cooperative mechanism is analysed in terms of the electrostatic potentials, orbital interaction and electron density analysis.     

Study pulsating electrospray of non-Newtonian and thixotropic sodium alginate solution

The main objective of investigation was to study the effect of pulsating electrospray of high viscous and non-Newtonian sodium alginate on mono-dispersity of droplets. In the jet mode, employing the pulsating DC electric field at a critical frequency led to narrow size distribution of beads, produced from the droplets. Above the critical frequency, the size of beads was distributed over a wider range. The relationship between the dimensionless group representing diameter and the groups including: Weber, Reynolds, Electric Field and Frequency numbers was modeled according to genetic algorithm. The experimental results were found in good agreement with the model.     

Outage Analysis of Mixed Dual-Hop RF-FSO Communication System Over Fading Channels with Pointing Errors

Wireless Personal Communications - In this paper, we consider a mixed dual-hop RF-FSO communication system, where RF link is subjected to Rice fading, while FSO link experience double generalized...     

Preparation and characterization of Ca-modified Co/Al2O3 and its catalytic application in the one-pot synthesis of 4H-pyrans

Research on Chemical Intermediates - In this research, Co/Ca–Al2O3 composite as a heterogeneous nanocatalyst was synthesized by the co-precipitation method. The effect of Ca addition on the...     

Approximate Outage Analysis of Land Mobile Satellite Systems in Lognormally Shadowed Rician Channels

Among the proposed models for land mobile satellite (LMS) channels, the shadowed Rice model proposed originally by Loo, has found wide applications in different frequency bands. In Loo’s model, it is assumed that the received signal is affected by nonselective Rice fading with lognormal shadowing on the direct component only, while the diffuse scattered component has constant average power level. The resulting composite probability density function (PDF) includes an infinite-range integral and is not available in closed-form, thereby making the performance evaluation of LMS communication links in these channels cumbersome. To bypass this problem, in this paper an approximation method is developed which makes it possible to describe the envelope PDF as a sum of weighted Rice’s PDFs. Therefore, in contrast with Loo’s PDF, the proposed method leads to an easy-to-use, closed-form approximate expression for the PDF and also for the most statistical characteristics, such as cumulative distribution function and moments of the signal envelop in shadowed Rice channels. Based on the derived expressions, the performance analysis of a single receiver operating over lognormally shadowed Rice channel is investigated in terms of the outage probability. Numerically evaluated results show the good accuracy of the proposed approximation method.     

Oxygen plasma-treated gold nanoparticle-based field-effect devices as transducer structures for bio-chemical sensing

EIS (electrolyte-insulator-semiconductor) sensors based on the functionalization of uncoated gold nanoparticles supported on a Si/SiO₂ structure are presented. Oxygen plasma etching at moderate power (<200 W) provides a convenient and efficient way to remove organic capping agents from the gold nanoparticles without significant damage. Higher power intensities destroy the linkage between the SiO₂ and the gold nanoparticles, and some of the gold nanoparticles are removed from the surface. The flat-band potential shift, i.e. the pH dependence of the gold-coated EIS sensors is similar (33 mV/pH) to the uncoated EIS pH-sensor. Lead, penicillin and glucose sensors were prepared by immobilization of β-cyclodextrin, penicillinase and glucose oxidase by various immobilization techniques.