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A stagnation-point flow reactor was used to study the catalytic activity of platinum (Pt), palladium (Pd), tin dioxide (SnO2), and 90% SnO2–10% Pt (by mass) to premixed propane and air reactants at atmospheric pressure. The Pt and Pd catalysts served as the baseline by which to compare catalyst performance. The stagnation surface temperature was controlled to maintain constant temperatures using an electric heater in order to eliminate heat transfer effects on catalyst performance. The activity of each catalyst was evaluated for catalyst stagnation surface temperatures ranging from 300 °C to 800 °C. Three fuel–air equivalence-ratio conditions were studied (= 0.67, 1.0 and 1.5). The CO2, CO, O2, and C3H8in the exhaust gases were measured to quantify the activity of each catalyst. The effect of heat released by surface reaction was quantified by the heater power required to stabilize the stagnation plane at the prescribed temperature. The catalysts, excluding 100% SnO2, exhibited comparable trends with respect to propane oxidation as a function of stagnation-plane temperature. While 100% SnO2showed no catalytic activity at any conditions, the 90% SnO2–10% Pt catalyst showed significant activity to propane oxidation. The lowest catalyst activation temperature of the experiments (Tsurface= 250 °C) was observed for the 90% SnO2–10% Pt catalyst for = 1.5. The results demonstrate potential of Pt/SnO2as a fuel oxidation catalyst.

Prototyping is a valuable technique to help software engineers explore the design space while gaining insight on the dynamics of the system. In this paper, we describe a method for rapidly building prototypes of large multi-agent systems using logic programming. Our method advocates the use of a description of all permitted interactions among the components of the system, that is, the protocol, as the starting specification. The protocol is represented in a way that allows us to automatically check for desirable properties of the system to be built. We then employ the same specification to synthesise agents that will correctly follow the protocol. These synthesised agents are simple logic programs that engineers can further customise into more sophisticated software. Our choice of agents as logic programs allows us to provide semi-automatic support for the customisation activity. In our method, a prototype is a protocol with a set of synthesised and customised agents. Executing the prototype amounts to having these agents enactthe protocol. We have implemented and described a distributed platform to simulate prototypes.

The opinions of a number of recognised world experts on foot‐and‐mouth disease (FMD) were sought in order to answer key questions relating to the importation of the disease into European countries from countries outside Europe. In addition, their opinions were sought on where in Europe a primary outbreak of FMD was most likely to occur and the number of outbreaks likely to occur within European countries in the next five years. The Balkans group of countries was considered to be the most likely group within Europe to have a primary outbreak of FMD and also most likely to have the highest number of primary outbreaks. Turkey was considered to be the country outside Europe which was most likely to be the source of an outbreak within Europe as a whole, and the illegal importation of livestock was considered to be the most likely route of introduction of FMD into Europe. Results specific to the Islands group of countries, which included the UK and Ireland, suggested that this group was likely to have a mean of one primary outbreak of FMD in the five years from September 2000, and that the importation of foodstuffs by people entering those countries from Turkey was the most likely source of an outbreak.

A quantitative risk assessment model investigating the risk of human infection with campylobacter from the consumption of chicken meat/products is currently being formulated. Here such an approach is used to evaluate the probability that a random bird, selected at slaughter from Great Britain's national poultry flock, will be campylobacter-positive. This is determined from the probability that a flock chosen at random contains at least one colonized bird and the within-flock prevalence of such a flock at slaughter. The model indicates that the probability bird chosen at random being campylobacter-positive at slaughter is 0·53. This probability value has associated uncertainty, the 5th percentile being 0·51 and the 95th percentile 0·55. The model predicts that delaying the age at first exposure to campylobacter can have a significant impact on reducing the probability of a bird being campylobacter-positive at slaughter. However, implementation of current biosecurity methods makes this difficult to achieve.

On May 30, 1996, a sick Daubenton's bat (Myotis daubentonii) was recovered from the cellar of a public house in Newhaven, East Sussex. Its condition deteriorated rapidly, and it was euthanased and examined. Positive results, establishing the presence of a rabies or rabies‐related virus in its brain, were obtained from the fluorescent antibody test, the rabies tissue culture isolation test, and a hemi‐nested reversetranscription PCR. The complete sequence of the nucleoprotein gene was determined and a phylogenetic analysis, based on the 470 nucleotide bases of the amino terminus of the nucleoprotein, established the genotype of the virus as European bat lyssavirus 2. Bat rabies had not previously been recorded in the UK but does occur in mainland Europe. A study of the back‐trajectories of the wind on May 29 and 30, established that the infected bat possibly came from near the Franco‐Swiss border.

Abstract: The current work describes the development of a non-intrusive optical method for the quantitative determination of water heights along a hydraulic jump in shooting water flows on a water table. The technique involves optically superimposing a series of alternating dark and clear fringes on the water flow. It is proposed that the fringe deviations seen under a hydraulic jump can be simulated using a series of optical prisms oriented along the direction of the hydraulic jump. The height of each prism gives the local maximum water height at the fringe location. Three types of theoretical prism configurations (isosceles flat-topped prism, scalene flat-topped prism and rounded-topped prism models) have been studied for two flow systems: shooting flow around a wedge and around a cylinder. Equations relating the physical characteristics of the deviated fringes to the height of the theoretical prism and hence the local water height are presented. The variation in water height along a hydraulic jump for flow around a wedge obtained using the optical technique has been compared with heights obtained using a depth gauge. The results were in good agreement for the range of Froude numbers studied (Fr=1.9−3.6). The rounded-topped prism model led to the best agreement with the physical measurements, within 11% throughout the range of conditions studied. The uncertainty associated with the water height determination using the optical technique is ±10%.

The technology of intelligent agents and multi-agent systems is expected to alter radically the way in which complex, distributed, open systems are conceptualised and implemented. The paper considers the problem of building a multi-agent system as a software engineering enterprise. Three issues are focused on: how agents might be specified; how these specifications might be refined or otherwise transformed into efficient implementations; and how implemented agents and multi-agent systems might subsequently be verified, to show that they are correct with respect to their specifications. These issues are discussed with reference to a number of case studies. The paper concludes by setting out some issues and open problems for future research.

Cytogenetic findings on a family with ataxia telangiectasia (A-T) in which three of four sibs were affected are described. The affected individuals had approximately twice the level of spontaneous chromosome breakage of a normla control, while the parents and the normal sib had no significant increase. Lymphocytes from all three A-T homozygotes showed specific stable chromosomal rearrangements involving chromosomes 7 and 14. All of these abnormalities involved breakage at the usual four sites associated with A-T (7p14, 7q35, 14q12, and 14q32). Two rearrangements detected in the eldest and most severely affected patient were clones, one of which [t(14;14)(p11;q12)] is not commonly found in A-T cells. No chromosomal rearrangements were encountered in lymphocytes from the control, the parents, or the normal sib. Lymphocytes from the A-T patients also were found to be 7–11 times more sensitive to the induction of chromatid aberrations by X-irradiation than control cells. Lymphocytes from the parents and normal sib showed a moderately increased frequency of X-ray induced aberrations compared with that of the control.

The authors describe software agents which are probably the fastest growing area of information technology. They detail how they are being used for applications as diverse as personalised information management, electronic commerce, interface design, computer games and the management of complex commercial and industrial processes.

Combustion synthesis has led to many advances in materials science, in part via the synthesis of powders consisting of particles of nanometer dimensions. Particle morphology is a key concern regarding the powders produced, but also of comparable importance is particle composition. Electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) and energy-filtering imaging (EFI) can be used to interrogate the gas-phase combustion synthesis environment for elemental particle composition information. Once established, this diagnostic approach can be used to address control of particle composition and other issues associated with particle formation and growth in flames. The evolution of the particle morphology in a laboratory scale combustion synthesis facility can be examined by passing TEM grids directly through the combustion synthesis flame at various heights above the burner surface, as shown in Fig. la. For the current work, SiOx particle samples are obtained from a SilL/^/FL/Ar flame using a rapid probe insertion technique.