1,720,959 research outputs found

    Surface tension of aqueous solutions of water-soluble organic and inorganic compounds

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    Surface tension of pure and mixed aqueous solutions of both inorganic and organic species that are relevant in atmospheric droplets has been studied in a laboratory investigation. Following the Gibbsian theory of surfaces experimental data have been fitted by the Szyszkowski equation. As a function of the carbon-chain length trends in the maximum surface excess Gamma(max) and the inverse surface activity beta have been clearly identified for pure aqueous solutions of homologous series of n-alcohols and mono-carboxylic acids, while these parameters oscillate for the homologous series of di-carboxylic acids. For mixed aqueous solutions of water-soluble organic and inorganic compounds, e.g. cis-pinonic acid and sodium chloride, a further decrease in surface tension has been observed, which can be interpreted as an interaction between the inorganic and organic solutes and an enrichment of the surface-active organic compound in the surface layer. Taking this effect into account surface-tension data of real atmospheric samples become more plausible, especially when also slightly soluble or water-insoluble organic compounds having a high surface activity at low concentrations are considered. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

    "Fir trees" in standing ultrasonic field How acoustic cold gas cases function

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    Cold-gas traps enable the trapping of cold as well as heavy gases and aerosols in strong stationary ultrasonic fields. The effect can be explained by standard acoustic principles and it can be used to adjust temperatures down to -100 degrees C in the pressure nodes of a stationary ultrasonic field. In this investigation the cold-gas traps have been generated by using a very powerful acoustic levitator. The cold-gas traps have been improved, e.g., to study the formation and growth of ice and snow flakes from primary ice aerosol as well as freezing and melting processes of single and contact-less levitated water drops. High-speed monitoring (VIS, IR) of the first-stage freezing process of levitated water droplets is reported

    Chemical analysis of acoustically levitated drops by Raman spectroscopy

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    An experimental apparatus combining Raman spectroscopy with acoustic levitation, Raman acoustic levitation spectroscopy (RALS), is investigated in the field of physical and chemical analytics. Whereas acoustic levitation enables the contactless handling of microsized samples, Raman spectroscopy offers the advantage of a noninvasive method without complex sample preparation. After carrying out some systematic tests to probe the sensitivity of the technique to drop size, shape, and position, RALS has been successfully applied in monitoring sample dilution and preconcentration, evaporation, crystallization, an acid-base reaction, and analytes in a surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy colloidal suspension

    Raman acoustic levitation spectroscopy of red blood cells and Plasmodium falciparum trophozoites

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    Methods to probe the molecular structure of living cells are of paramount importance in understanding drug interactions and environmental influences in these complex dynamical systems. The coupling of an acoustic levitation device with a micro-Raman spectrometer provides a direct molecular probe of cellular chemistry in a containerless environment minimizing signal attenuation and eliminating the affects of adhesion to walls and interfaces. We show that the Raman acoustic levitation spectroscopic (RALS) approach can be used to monitor the heme dynamics of a levitated 5 µL suspension of red blood cells and to detect hemozoin in malaria infected cells. The spectra obtained have an excellent signal-to-noise ratio and demonstrate for the first time the utility of the technique as a diagnostic and monitoring tool for minute sample volumes of living animal cells

    Observation of a transition in the water-nanoparticle formation process at 167K

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    Rapid-scan Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy of the vapor/solid formation process of water nanoparticles in the 180-140 K temperature range at thermal-equilibrium conditions is reported. At 167 K a transition in the formation process was observed: the particle volume quintuples and the particle formation time triples within a temperature interval of +/- 0.4 K caused by the temperature control. The authors interpret this behavior by an abrupt change in the nucleation rate of the H2O monomers in He buffer gas kept at 167 K and 200 mbar. A size and shape analysis of the particles during the formation process was carried out by application of the discrete dipole approximation method which delivers excellent accordance between experimental and calculated mid-IR spectra. Compared to other compact shapes (cube, prolate ellipsoid, and hexagonal prism) the ideal spherical shape fits the experimental spectra best. A distinct change in shape by particle conversion or agglomeration could be excluded to be involved in the formation process. As a possible explanation of the observed phenomenon, a transition from vapor/liquid/solid to vapor/solid nucleation with decreasing temperature is considered which was recently theoretically predicted by van Dongen and co-workers [J. Chem. Phys. 117, 5647 (2002); private communication; J. Chem. Phys. 120, 6314 (2004)]. (c) 2007 American Institute of Physics

    Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis

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    The present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed

    Variations on the Author

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    “Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship

    Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis

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    We provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis

    Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts

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    We conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more sophisticated methods
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