Vol. 46 No. 2 (2014)

Gravity gradiometry measurement allows imaging of anomalous sources in more detail than conventional gravity data. The availability of this new technique is limited to airborne gravity surveys using very specific instrumentation. In principle, the gravity gradients can be calculated from the vertical component of the gravity commonly measured in a ground-based gravity survey. We present a calculation of the full tensor gradient (FTG) of the gravity employing the Fourier transformation. The calculation was applied to synthetic data associated with a simple block model and also with a more…

Microwave irradiation is an alternative method of starch hydrolysis that offers a rapid process. The aim of this research was to improve microwave-assisted hydrolysis of cassava pulp by using oxalic acid as a catalyst. Suspension of cassava pulp in 0.5% oxalic acid (1 g/20 mL) was subjected to microwave irradiation at 140-230 °C for 5 minutes, with 4 minutes of pre-heating. One gram of fractured activated carbon made of coconut shell was added into a number of suspensions that were subjected to the same conditions of microwave irradiation. The soluble fraction of the hydrolysates was analyzed…

A special condition of Scherk-Schwarz and S^1/Z2 orbifold breaking brings about both a weakly-coupled SU(6) baby Higgs and a strongly-coupled will-be simplest little Higgs scalar in the near-brane of SU(3) x SU(3)x U(1). The latter produces SU(3) VEVs and simplest little-like Higgs after triplet-triplet splitting and, under quadratic-based and non-quadratic-based Coleman-Weinberg potential, the simplest little-like Higgs yields exotic Higgses, scalar-pair and 3-scalar Higgses in the so-called one-by-one and collective breakings. A generalized non-quadratic-based Coleman-Weinberg potential…

The rupture processes of two sequentialearthquakes have been inverted from teleseismic data. The first event released a total seismic moment of 7.9×1018 Nm (Mw 6.5) and the slip distribution shows three asperities, 1.5 m at the shallowside, 0.7 m at the rightsouth-east deep side and 0.5 m atthe north-west deep side. The second event had one asperity with 1.7 m slip and released a seismic moment of 7.5×1018 Nm (Mw 6.5). In both cases, maximum slip occurred above the hypocenter which was responsible for the surface displacement pattern.

Several papers have reported various technical aspects of lignocellulosic bioethanol production. Recalcitrance to saccharification is a major limitation for conversion of lignocellulosic biomass to ethanol. The biological process for converting lignocellulose to fuel ethanol includes delignification in order to liberate cellulose and hemicelluloses, depolymerization of carbohydrate polymers to produce free sugars, and sugar fermentation to produce ethanol. Access of plant cell wall polysaccharides to chemical, enzymatic and microbial digestion is limited by many factors, including the…

Particleboard achieves its overall performance characteristics during hot pressing process. As this process is influenced by several factors, particularly temperature and pressure, it is very important to understand the behavior of both. This study investigates the effects of furnish materials on temperature and vapor pressure behavior inside particleboard mat panels during hot pressing. Strand type particles from hinoki and ring-flaker recycled wood particles were used as furnish for laboratory-scale particleboard panels with a target density of 0.76 g/cm³. Mat panels with a moisture content…

At present, air pollution is a major problem in the upper northern region of Thailand. Air pollutants have an effect on human health, the economy and the traveling industry. The severity of this problem clearly appears every year during the dry season, from February to April. In particular it becomes very serious in March, especially in Chiang Mai province where smoke haze is a major issue. This study looked into related data from 2005-2010 covering eight principal parameters: PM10 (particulate matter with a diameter smaller than 10 micrometer), CO (carbon monoxide), NO2 (nitrogen dioxide),…