Bentonites are candidate materials for encapsulation of radioactive waste. The cation exchange capacity (CEC) has proved to be one of the most sensitive parameters for detecting changes of mineral properties such as swelling capacity and illitization in alteration experiments. Whether measured differences in CEC values of bentonite buffer samples before and after an experiment are (1) actual differences caused by clay structural changes such as illitization or (2) simply data scatter due to the different methods used by international research teams is an open question. The aim of this study was to measure the CEC of clay samples in five different laboratories using the same method and to evaluate the precision of the values measured. The Cu-trien method and four reference materials of the Alternative Buffer Material (ABM) test project in Äspö, Sweden, were chosen for this interlaboratory study. The precision of the Cu-trien method, which uses visible spectroscopy, was very good with a standard deviation of ±0.7–2.1 meq/100 g for CECs that ranged from 11 to 87 meq/100 g. For the same CEC range, analysis of Cu-trien index cations using inductively coupled plasma (mass spectrometry) and atomic absorption spectroscopy were less precise with a standard deviation of ±2.8–3.9 meq/100 g. Based on the measured precision, greater measured differences in Cu-trien CEC and exchangeable cation values of bentonite buffer samples, before and after an experiment, might be actual differences. Great care must be taken when interpreting measured CEC differences, and analytical characterization of any structural changes may be needed. Compared with results from the ‘International Soil-Analytical Exchange’ (iSE) program for soils, most absolute concentrations were much larger for the clays studied; however, for the two parameters exchangeable Ca2+ and CEC the range was similar to the iSE ring test and, most importantly, the precision was comparable. Future studies should discuss the accuracy of CEC and exchangeable cation values and compare them to alternative CEC methods in which care is taken to prevent dissolution of soluble minerals, such as calcite and gypsum.

Bentonites are candidate materials for encapsulation of radioactive waste. The cation exchange capacity (CEC) has proven to be one of the most sensitive parameters for detecting changes in mineral properties in bentonite-alteration experiments. An interlaboratory study of CECs and exchangeable cations for three reference bentonite buffer materials that were used in the Alternative Buffer Material test (ABM) project in Äspö, Sweden, was conducted to create a suitable database. The present study focused on CEC accuracy and compared CEC methods where care was taken to prevent dissolution of soluble minerals such as calcite and gypsum. The overall quality of the CEC and exchangeable cation values measured using non-Cu-trien CEC methods were good, with CECs of 74–91±0.5–3.3 meq/100 g and exchangeable cation values of 22–61±1.2–3.9 meq/100 g Na+, 7–23±0.8–1.5 meq/100 g Mg2+, and 19–39±0.8–1.6 meq/ 100 g Ca2+. The precision was comparable to the standard Cu-trien method even for exchangeable Ca2+, although the laboratories used different solution/solid ratios and reaction-time parameters for Cu-trien which affect carbonate dissolution. The MX80 and Dep.CAN bentonite exchangeable Ca2+ values were more accurate than standard-Cu-trien values. Using the optimized methods of this study, MX80 and Dep.CAN exchangeable Ca2+ values averaged 20.2±1.6 and 38.8±1.4 meq/100 g which amounts to ~70% of the inflated Cu-trien values. A more complex analysis of the CEC data using different methods, anion analyses, and mineralogical analysis is necessary to obtain plausible and accurate CEC values. Even with a more complicated analytical procedure, the CEC and exchangeable cation values were still not accurate enough because of excess anions. Chloride, sulfate, and dolomite might have increased the exchangeable Na+, Mg2+, and Ca2+ values.

Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands have different historical patterns of industrialization, but developed similar patterns of industrial coordination and cooperation. Theories accounting for industrial relations systems (economic structure, power resources, and party/electoral systems) have difficulty accounting for the similarities among these cases. Therefore, we explore the historical depictions of labor appearing in literature to evaluate whether cross-national distinctions in cultural conceptions of labor have some correspondence to distinctions between coordinated and liberal industrial relations systems. We hypothesize that historical literary depictions of labor are associated with the evolution of industrial systems, and apply computational text analyses to large corpora of literary texts. We find that countries (Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands) with coordinated, corporatist industrial relations in the 20th century share similar cultural constructions about labor relations dating back to at least 1770. Literary depictions found in modern coordinated/corporatist countries are significantly different from those found in Britain, a country with liberal/pluralist industrial relations systems. The research has significance for our understanding of the role of culture in the evolution of modern political economies.

We prove versions of various classical results on specialisation of fundamental groups in the context of log schemes in the sense of Fontaine and Illusie, generalising earlier results of Hoshi, Lepage and Orgogozo. The key technical result relates the category of finite Kummer étale covers of an fs log scheme over a complete Noetherian local ring to the Kummer étale coverings of its reduction.

Throughout pre-industrial Europe, the manorial estate was an important institution in the rural economy. Related literature communicates the widespread view that the estates insured their tenants against uncertainties, for example, in times of economic hardship. By distributing grain or accepting deferment of rents, the manors helped to alleviate hunger in times of scarcity. If this insurance was indeed effective, then manorial tenants should have experienced less fluctuation in income or food availability than other peasants. However, there has not been much empirical confirmation that the pre-industrial estates were effective in providing this kind of insurance. This study uses the impact of grain prices on demographic outcomes as a measure of the efficiency of the manorial system in protecting its inhabitants against economic stress. Looking at four hundred parishes in Sweden (1749-1859), the manorial estate seems to have been able to insure its inhabitants against risks of economic stress, but the protective effect was imperfect and only visible in the short term.

We prove the Nagata compactification theorem for any separated map of finite type between quasi-compact and quasi-separated algebraic spaces, generalizing earlier results of Raoult. Along the way we also prove (and use) absolute noetherian approximation for such algebraic spaces, generalizing earlier results in the case of schemes.

Dans toute l’Europe préindustrielle, le domaine manorial était une institution importante de l’économie rurale. Il est une vue largement répandue dans les textes publiés sur le sujet selon laquelle le propriétaire du domaine garantissait les paysans locataires contre les imprévus, par exemple dans les temps de difficulté économique. En distribuant des céréales, ou en acceptant de déférer le paiement de la rente, les seigneurs des domaines aidaient à réduire les effets de la faim dans les périodes de pénurie. Si cette forme d’assurance s’était avérée efficace, alors les paysans locataires des domaines auraient dû subir des fluctuations moins importantes que les autres paysans dans leur revenu ou leur alimentation. On ne rencontre que peu de confirmations empiriques du fait que les domaines de l’ère préindustrielle eussent de fait fourni une assurance de ce type. Cet article utilise l’impact du prix des céréales sur la démographie pour mesurer l’efficacité du système manorial à protéger ses sujets contre le stress économique. En examinant 400 paroisses de Suède (1749-1849), on peut constater que le domaine manorial pouvait certes assurer ses habitants contre les risques de stress économique, mais que l’effet de protection était finalement très imparfait et observable uniquement dans le court terme.

A polypyrrole (PPy) nanocellulose composite was shown to cycle well over 3000 cycles in 2.0 M NaCl electrolyte when used as the active material for both electrodes in an energy storage device. SEM micrographs show a highly porous nature of the conductive paper material and electrochemical charge-discharge measurements, as well as external electrode potential monitoring, confirm the good cycling behavior of the material.

Type 2 diabetes is associated with a higher cardiovascular risk and there has been a growing interest in using dietary intervention to improve lipid profile and glucose control. The present work aims at analysing the effects of the enrichment of a normal diet with β-glucan (3·5 g/d) in free-living type 2 diabetic subjects for 2 months, using a palatable soup. This trial was a parallel, placebo-controlled, double-blinded randomised study performed in fifty-three type 2 diabetic subjects. During a 3-week run-in period, subjects daily consumed a ready meal control soup (without β-glucan). For the following 8 weeks, subjects were randomly assigned to consume daily either a control soup or a β-glucan soup. Changes in lipid profile (total cholesterol (TC), HDL- and LDL-cholesterol (HDLc and LDLc), apo B and TAG) and in glucose control (HbA1c and fasting glucose) were measured. There was no significant alteration in lipid profile in the two groups (TC, HDLc, LDLc and apo B). TAG decreased significantly in the β-glucan group compared with the control group ( − 0·12 (sd 0·38) v. 0·12 (sd 0·44) mmol/l, P = 0·03). HbA1c and fasting glucose were not reduced in any group. A single daily ingestion of 3·5 g β-glucan, as required by official dietary recommendations, for 8 weeks did not change the lipid profile and HbA1c in type 2 diabetic subjects. To improve the metabolic profile of type 2 diabetic subjects in the long term, the quantity, the food vectors and the tolerability of β-glucan products may be re-evaluated.

We describe an equivalence between the notion of balanced twisted curve introduced by Abramovich and Vistoli, and a new notion of log twisted curve, which is a nodal curve equipped with some logarithmic data in the sense of Fontaine and Illusie. As applications of this equivalence, we construct a universal balanced twisted curve, prove that a balanced twisted curve over a general base scheme admits étale locally on the base a finite flat cover by a scheme, and also give a new construction of the moduli space of stable maps into a Deligne–Mumford stack and a new proof that it is bounded.

The following list covers some old measurements not included in previous lists and most of the samples measured at the Uppsala C14 laboratory since the last list (R., 1969, v. 11, p. 515–544); samples utilized for determining the increase of the C14/C12 ratio due to explosion of nuclear devices are omitted.

The following list covers samples measured since the last list of atmospheric samples (Radiocarbon, 1967, v. 9, p. 471–476) was written, to determine the increase of the C14/C12 ratio due to explosion of nuclear devices.