Interpreting early land management through compound specific stable isotope analyses of archaeological soils

Compound specific stable isotope analyses of managed soils using isotope ratio mass spectrometry have been undertaken as a means of determining early land use practices. delta (15)N amino acid signals demonstrate differences between manured grassland, unmanured grassland and continuous cereal cultivation under long-term experimental land use control conditions, with delta (15)N in hydrophobic amino acids providing the most distinctive signals. Analysis of early modern/medieval and of Bronze age anthropogenic soils from Orkney demonstrates that such signals are retained in archaeological contexts. delta (13)C analyses of n- alkanoic acid components of the fossil, Bronze Age, anthropogenic soils suggest a major terrestrial input to these soils, with uniform composition of formation materials. Surficial soils demonstrate the assimilation of isotopically lighter carbon, providing a means of assessing the mobility of the n- alkanoic acids within soils and sediments. Copyright 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Vortex lattice transitions in YNi2B2C

We have performed extensive small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) diffraction studies of the vortex lattice in single crystal YNi₂B₂C for B‖c. High-resolution SANS, combined with a field-oscillation vortex lattice preparation technique, allows us to separate Bragg scattered intensities from two orthogonal domains and accurately determine the unit cell angle, β. The data suggest that upon increasing field there is a finite transition width where both low- and high-field distorted hexagonal vortex lattice phases, mutually rotated by 45°, coexist. The smooth variation of diffracted intensity from each phase through the transition corresponds to a redistribution of populations between the two types of domains.     

Centred TVD schemes for hyperbolic conservation laws

New first- and high-order centred methods for conservation lawsare presented. Convenient TVD conditions for constructing centredTVD schemes are then formulated and some useful results areproved. Two families of centred TVD schemes are constructedand extended to nonlinear systems. Some numerical results arealso presented.     

Minimum stable convergence criteria for Stochastic Diffusion Search

An analysis of Stochastic Diffusion Search (SDS), a novel and efficient optimisation and search algorithm, is presented, resulting in a derivation of the minimum acceptable match resulting in a stable convergence within a noisy search space. The applicability of SDS can therefore be assessed for a given problem.     

Historical and current machine intelligence

In this article, we provide an initial insight into the study of MI and what it means for a machine to be intelligent. We discuss how MI has progressed to date and consider future scenarios in a realistic and logical way as much as possible. To do this, we unravel one of the major stumbling blocks to the study of MI, which is the field that has become widely known as "artificial intelligence" (AI)     

Vacuum moulding of a superplastic in two dimensions

A mathematical model is proposed for the process of vacuum superplasticforming. The model exploits the fact that in most industrialapplications the sheet aspect ratio (thickness/sheet width)is small. After an initial consideration of some of the moregeneral properties and the literature of superplastic materials,the elastic/plastic deformation of an internally-inflated thin-walledcylinder is examined. Plates of arbitrary geometry are thenconsidered. A quasisteady model in which the sheet moves througha sequence of steady states is developed. Some simplified closed-formsolutions are examined, but for general cases a system of nonlinearpartial differential equations must be solved numerically. Anefficient and accurate semi-explicit numerical scheme is proposedand a simplified stability analysis is presented; the methodis then used to compute properties of superplastic vacuum mouldedsheets in a number of practically motivated cases.     

The true potential energy curves for different states of SiO and SiS molecules

The true potential energy curves forX ¹ Σ ⁺, a³ π _r,A ¹ π,e ³ Σ ⁻,E ¹ Σ ⁺,c ³ π _i states of astrophysically important molecule SiO, whose spectra were observed in the sunspots, have been constructed using the method of Lakshman and Rao. Dissociation energy and ionization potential have been estimated as 65,350 cm⁻¹ and 92,854 cm⁻¹ respectively and found to be in good agreement with the values cited in literature. The true potential energy curves forX ¹ Σ ⁺,D ¹ π andE ¹ Σ ⁺ states of SiS molecule have been constructed by the same method and its dissociation energy in the ground state has been estimated using Hulburt-Hirschfelder potential function as 54,765 cm⁻¹ in good agreement with 53,250.9 cm⁻¹ given by Herzberg.     

Cationic crosslinking of solid dgeba resins with ytterbium(III) trifluoromethanesulfonate as initiator

Solid bisphenol-A epoxy resin of medium molecular mass was cured using a Lewis acid initiator (ytterbium(III) trifluoromethanesulfonate) in three different proportions (0.5, 1 and 2 phr). A kinetic study was performed in a differential scanning calorimeter. The complete kinetic triplet was determined (activation energy, pre-exponential factor, and integral function of the degree of conversion) for each system. A kinetic analysis was performed with an integral isoconversional procedure (free model), and the kinetic model was determined both with the Coats-Redfern method (the obtained isoconversional value being accepted as the effective activation energy) and through the compensation effect. All the systems followed the same isothermal curing model simulated from non-isothermal ones. The growth-of-nuclei Avrami kinetic model A_3/2 has been proposed as the polymerization kinetic model. The addition of initiator accelerated the reaction especially when 2 phr was added. 0.5 and 1 phr showed very few kinetic differences between them.