Clean Window Research Articles

Domesticating the Nineteenth-Century American City

In 1916, Mary Beard, the historian and progressive activist, advanced the thesis that women shared an equal role with men in directing the great social forces that determined the quality of life in cities. In a compendium ofWoman's Work in Municipalities, she demonstrated that every action supported by women's clubs and groups, ranging from improved wages and working conditions to vice control, was a part of an effort to make the city a viable environment for carrying on family life. In describing the process that led women to take an active role in sanitation reform Mary Beard wrote:Woman's historic function having been along the line of cleanliness, her instinct when she looks forth from her own clean windows is toward public cleanliness. Her indoor battle has been against the dirt that blew in from outside, against the dust and ashes of the streets, and the particles of germladen matter carried in from neglected refuse piles. Ultimately she begins to take an interest in that portion of municipal dusting and sweeping assigned to men; namely street cleaning.

Heat-pipe-oven reactor (HPOR): I. A new device for flame studies; photon yields in the reaction of Na with CCl4 and N2O

A new device based on the heat-pipe oven has been demonstrated to have a unique capability for studying reactions of metal atoms with oxidizers. This device allows spherical diffusion flame studies under known, uniform, and easily adjustable, metal atom concentration. low gas pumping rate, clean window operation, and minimized problems of reactive solid disposal. The reactor was used for the study of chemiluminescence of the reactions of sodium vapors with CCl4, with N2O, and with both CCl4 and N2O. The emission from these reactions in the range 2000–9000 Å was identified to be from various excited atomic levels of sodium and from excited C2, mostly in the Swan bands. Even though the emission was very intense, especially in the case of Na+N2O+CCl4 (photon yields of about 10%), it was found that the Na excited-state populations had a Boltzmann distribution corresponding to an electron temperature of 2260 °K. This suggests that the emission of sodium radiation from both the Na+CCl4 and Na+CCl4+N2O flames results from V→E transfer from vibrational reservoir states. In the former case, the excitation mechanism must involve energy pooling of C2‡ with either C(1D) or Na(3p) atoms, while in the latter case, CO‡ contributes as well. Sodium resonance radiation from the Na+N2O flame is believed to result from secondary reactions of oxygen atoms.