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In this article, five kinds of soybean oil-based polyols (polyol-E, polyol-P, polyol-I, polyol-B, and polyol-M) were prepared by ring-opening the epoxy groups in epoxidized soybean oil (ESO) with ethyl alcohol, 1-pentanol, isoamyl alcohol, p-tert-butylphenol, and 4-methoxyphenol in the presence of tetrafluoroboric acid as the catalyst. The SOPs were characterized by FTIR, 1H NMR, GPC, viscosity, and hydroxyl numbers. Compared with ESO, the retention time of SOPs is shortened, indicating that the molecular weight of SOPs is increased. The structure of different monomers can significantly affect the hydroxyl numbers of SOPs. Due to the large steric hindrance of isoamyl alcohol, p-hydroxyanisole, and p-tert-butylphenol, SOPs prepared by these three monomers often undergo further dehydration to ether reactions, which consumes the hydroxyl of polyols, thus forming dimers and multimers; therefore, the hydroxyl numbers are much lower than polyol-E and polyol-P. The viscosity of polyol-E and polyol-P is much lower than that of polyol-I, polyol-B, and polyol-M. A longer distance between the molecules and the smaller intermolecular force makes the SOPs dehydrate to ether again. This generates dimer or polymers and makes the viscosity of these SOPs larger, and the molecular weight greatly increases.

An analytical study of the painted folding doors at Herlev Hospital in Denmark has been performed in connection with the creation of new doors. The hospital which construction was completed in 1976 is one of the first polychrome hospitals in the world. The building has achieved international awareness not only as a piece of architecture but also as an artwork being the largest artistic decoration of a public space in Denmark. Besides the decoration of the walls and interior which colour scheme was designed by the Danish artist Poul Gernes, the hospital foyer includes 65 individual paintings and two painted folding doors, which were executed by Poul Gernes. The folding doors are the original doors from 1976 and have never been restored. The paint used for the decoration of the folding doors were analysed by micro-Raman spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy–energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, micro-Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and pyrolysis–gas chromatography–mass spectrometry. The results showed, that the variant colours were created by the use of a limited number of pigments and consist of a mixture of inorganic pigments and synthetic organic pigments. The detected pigments were chrome yellow, chrome orange/chrome red, PY3, PR3, PR122, PB15, and PV23. Titanium white (rutile) was found in all paint and preparatory layers, and it was used as both a whitening agent in mixtures with other pigment and a filler material in the paint. The study also shows how the decorations were created and it hence relates to other studies of wall paintings from that period giving useful information for future restoration issues about the possible pigments and binder used.

International audience; We present an algorithm that progressively generates canonical irredun-dant Sums Of Products (SOPs) for completely-and incompletely-specified Boolean functions using a satisfiability (SAT) solver. The progressive generation allows for real time monitoring and early termination, as well as for generation of partial SOPs for incremental applications. On the other hand, canonicity brings independence of the original representation and often yields smaller and more regular SOPs that lead to smaller circuits after algebraic factoring. Also, canonicity is key in applications such as constraint solving and random assignment generation, which traditionally rely on methods based on Binary Decision Diagram (BDD). However, in contrast with BDDs, our algorithm can relax canonicity to improve speed and scalability. In general, our method is more scalable for benchmarks with many structurally isomor-phic outputs. It also improves the quality of results up to 10%, in terms of the SOP size, compared to a state-of-the-art BDD-based method. Experiments with global circuit restructuring using SAT-based SOPs show that area-delay product can be improved up to 27%, compared to global restructuring using BDD-based SOPs.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the adsorption properties of locally available lignocelluloses biomaterials as biosorbents for the removal of copper ions from aqueous solution. Materials are generated from juice production (apricot stones) and from the corn milling process (corn cob). Such solid wastes have little or no economic value and very often present a disposal problem. Using batch adsorption techniques the effects of initial Cu(II) ions concentration (Ci), amount of biomass (m) and volume of metal solution (V), on biosorption efficiency and capacity were studied for both materials, without any pre-treatments. The optimal parameters for both biosorbents were selected depending on a highest sorption capability of biosorbent, in removal of Cu(II). Experimental data were compared with second order polynomial regression models (SOPs) and artificial neural networks (ANNs). SOPs showed acceptable coefficients of determination (0.842 - 0.997), while ANNs performed high prediction accuracy (0.980-0.986) in comparison to experimental results. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. TR 31003, TR 31055]

International audience; Within OCTAVIUS EU FP7 SP1 subproject, a work package has been dedicated to the promotion of guidelines for the measurement of regulated pollutants (SO2, NOx, aldehydes, CO, CO2, etc) and nitrogenous compounds (amines, nitrosamines, amides, etc) in the three matrices generated by CO2 capture processes using amine based solvents i.e atmospheric emissions, wash water liquid wastes and circulating solvent. Processes of post combustion CO2 capture using amine based solvents are indeed likely to generate, and emit, not only common pollutants, but also nitrogenous compounds whose effects on environment and human health may not be negligible. It is of primary importance to be able to measure those compounds using a reliable and accurate methodology. The guidelines have been delivered under the form of standard operating procedures (SOPs) which consist in recommendation in terms of sampling methods, samples storage, sample preparation and analyses. They are based on a review of existing standards, international literature and feedback from Octavius partners involved in such measurements, as well as evaluation tests performed on site and round robins on analytical methods.