aluminium matrix composites (amcs) materials are continuously displacing traditional engineering materials because of their advantages of high stiffness and strength over homogeneous material formulations. properties of amcs can be tailored to the demands of different industrial applications by suitable combinations of matrix, reinforcement and processing route. presently, several grades of amc...

toxicology, as a multidisciplinary field, provides career opportunities for graduates with medical, or veterinarian, pharmacological, pharmaceutical, biological, microbiological, molecular biological, chemical, biochemical, and genetic backgrounds. today, however, specialists with a university degree in toxicology or a postgraduate training in toxicology have a clear advantage. postgraduate dip...

Although the application of ultrasonic energy to produce or to enhance a wide variety of processes have been explored since about the middle of the 20th century, only a reduced number of ultrasonic processes have been established at industrial level. However, during the last ten years the interest in ultrasonic processing has revived particularly in industrial sectors where the ultrasonic techn...

The great potential of lipases is known since 1930 when the work of J. B. S. Haldane was published. After eighty-five years of studies and developments, are lipases still important biocatalysts? For answering this question the present work investigated the technological development of four important industrial sectors where lipases are applied: production of detergent formulations; organic synt...

Xylanases are a group of depolymerizing enzymes often used for the hydrolysis of xylan (present in hemicellulose) to monomeric sugars and comprise endo-xylanases (EC 3.2.1.8) and beta-xylosidases (EC 3.2.1.37). They often act in synergy with other enzymes for complete hydrolysis of hemicellulose. Xylanases find several industrial applications, for example in food and feed industries, paper and ...

Public opinion is formed both by long-term developments and--at the other extreme--by single unanticipated events. This suggests that readers of opinion survey findings should note field interviewing dates and further determine what the news media have been reporting about relevant developments and events. Personal health and the cost of health care are high on the public's agenda; this is an i...

The objective of this study was to identify chemical components that could distinguish chemical mixtures in oil sands process-affected water (OSPW) that had potentially migrated to groundwater in the oil sands development area of northern Alberta, Canada. In the first part of the study, OSPW samples from two different tailings ponds and a broad range of natural groundwater samples were assessed...

The Intelligent Process Control Architecture (IPCA) a control architecture for dynamic processes which is rooted in the Generic Task approach to knowledgebased systems. The first generation of IPCA has been completed, and experimentally proved in the testbed domain of microwave processing of polymer composite materials. The next generation of IPCA is now being designed, and will incorporate mor...