The objective of this research was to investigate physicochemical and biochemical characteristics of fieldsprouted grain sorghum and its fermentation performance in ethanol production. Five field-sprouted grain sorghum varieties, which received abnormally high rainfall during harvest, were used in this study. Enzyme activities, microstructure, flour pasting properties, kernel hardness, kernel w...

Soils are particulate materials. Grain size determines the balance between particle-level forces (skeletal, weight, van der Walls attraction, double layer repulsion, capillary and viscous drag Figure 1). Grain size distribution establishes the range of possible particle packing configurations. And, particle shape (i.e., sphericity, angularity and roughness) defines particle interactions, such a...

Superplastic structural ceramics (Y-TZP, A1203, Si3N4, and their composites) that can withstand biaxial stretching to large strains have been developed recently. Microstructural design of these ceramics first requires an ultrafine grain size that is stable against coarsening during sintering and deformation. A low sintering temperature is a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for achievi...

There have been a number of studies in recent years relating to the mechanisms of grain refinement, poisoning and fade of Al-Ti-B refiners. In addition there have been several new grain refining products introduced for the foundry sector, such as TiBAlloy and Strobloy, for which studies have also been performed, albeit in a more limited way. The new generation of grain refiners have a number of...

The characteristics of the reversal processes of magnetic arrays fabricated by ion-irradiation of Co/Pt multilayers with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy are reported. Magnetic patterns with periodicities from 1 lm to 100 nm were patterned. A correlation between the pattern size, magnetic reversal and grain size is presented. 2003 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rig...

The structure evolution characteristics of NdF3 thin films has been analysed concerning texture and grain morphology. The structure could be classified according to the structure zone models, and the growth mode could be related to zone T and zone II. Contamination of the films by residual gases was found to inhibit the migration of grain boundaries and therefore, zone II does not appear even a...

A total of 206 wheat and 200 barley farmers were interviewed in northeastern Syria to understand farmer perceptions and practice relating to modern varieties, seed sources and seed quality. Wheat farmers had better awareness and grew modern varieties (87%), applied fertilizers (99.5%), herbicides (93%), seed treatment (90%) or insecticides (41%). In contrast barley growers had low awareness (36...

Abstract Volcanologists frequently use grain size distributions (GSDs) in tephra layers to infer eruption parameters. However, for long-past eruptions, the accuracy of reconstruction depends upon correspondence between initial deposit and preserved layer on which inferences are based. We ask: how closely does GSD a decades-old resemble from it originated? addressed this question with study prod...

abstract bottom intake is one of the most appropriate systems for diverting discharge in steep rivers. bottom intake with porous media is a new system of diverting discharge which can be replaced by bottom rack intakes. to investigate the hydraulic flow characteristics on diverted discharge of this intake, an experimental model was designed in which the inflow, diverted discharge and remained f...