Beröring och begränsning

Touch and Restriction: On the Human-Animal Interface Climate crisis and mass extinction show the need to reshape our understanding of human culture in relation to non-human lifeforms. The article considers touch as a point where the border between humans and other species may be renegotiated. Three supplementary modes of human thought, which combine explanation, speculation, and imagination, are interrogated in terms of how they each deal with the tactility of cross-species interaction: philosophy, mythical representations in literature and art, and documentary film. Interface is used as a common concept for how bodies remain distinct from each other while also being able to connect with each other. First, I present how the interface is conceptualized in general by philosophers like Derrida, Nancy and Harman, and between humans and animals in particulars by thinkers like Wood and Michaux. Then, I relate the discussion to how two mythical motifs, focusing on instances of erotic touch across species lines, have been represented in literature and visual art: Leda and the swan, and Pasiphaë and the bull. Finally, I move on to two documentary films: Robinson Devor’s Zoo (2007) and Nikolaus Geyrhalter’s Unser täglich Brot (2005). The idea of zoosexual intercourse is contrasted to the distanced violence of the industrial keeping of animals. I suggest how touch show the possibility of a cross-species communion otherwise negated by late-modern industrial capitalism.

The effect of the catalytic layer composition on the hydrogen permeability of assymetric tantalum-based membranes

The paper offers the measuring results for hydrogen permeability of the membranes made of 40 μm thick tantalum foil covered with a metallic film with different thicknesses on one side. The measurements were performed when the membranes were in contact with a commercial argon and hydrogen gases mixed at the ratio of 1/5 at an overpressure of 500 kPa and at 580-585°C. It is shown that films of Mo, Re, W, Cu, Co, and Ni metals deposited on the tantalum membrane surface from the side facing a hydrogen-containing gas mixture increase its hydrogen permeability. The effect degree of these metals increases in the specified row from left to right. The effect on the hydrogen permeability of tantalum membranes, comparable to and superior to the deposition of a Pd film, exerts the deposition of Cu, Co, and Ni films. It is explained by the high hydrogen permeability level of these metals and the catalytic activity of their surface that results in intense hydrogen dissociation. The value of the hydrogen permeability of the membranes naturally increases with a thickness decrease of metallic films, however, it is obvious that this behavior is not linear. The hydrogen permeability of membranes with Cu, Co, and Ni films decreases over time, that is explained by the oxygen segregation at the Ta membrane/film interface, as well as by the processes on the membrane surface in contact with the gas mixture. The nature of these processes should be studies since the lower oxides of these metals are reduced by hydrogen at this temperature.

Characterization of Dark-Colored Nanoporous Anodic Films on Zinc

In this study, zinc is anodized at different voltages in 0.1 mol·dm−3 KOH electrolyte to form nanoporous anodic films. Dark-colored anodic films are formed at anodizing voltages ≤6 V, whereas colorless anodic films are developed at voltages ≥7 V. The anodic films formed at all voltages consist of crystalline ZnO, which was identified by X-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy. The Raman spectra of the dark-colored anodic films show the enhanced intensity of the LO phonon mode due to electric-field-induced Raman scattering, which may be associated with the presence of metallic Zn nanoparticles in the anodic films. Scanning electron micrographs and transmission electron micrographs of the cross-section of the dark-colored anodized zinc reveal the formation of two-layer porous anodic films with a highly rough metal/film interface. In contrast, nanoporous anodic films of uniform thickness with a relatively flat metal/film interface are formed for the colorless anodized zinc. The transmission electron microscopy (TEM)/energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) analysis suggested the presence of zinc nanoparticles in the dark-colored anodic films. The non-uniform anodizing and the formation of metal-nanoparticle-dispersed porous anodic films cause the formation of dark-colored anodic films on zinc.