Changes in content of microbially available phosphorus,assimilable organic carbon and microbial growth potential during drinking water treatment processes

There are regions where microbial growth in drinking water is limited by phosphorus instead of organic carbon. In phosphorus limited waters small changes in phosphorus concentration significantly affect microbial growth. We studied how water treatment processes in waterworks affect the availability of microbial nutrients and microbial growth potential in drinking water. The nutrients studied were assimilable organic carbon (AOCpotential) and microbially available phosphorus (MAP) which both were quantified by bioassays. Chemical coagulation, commonly used in surfacewater works, effectively removed AOCpotential and MAP. In contrast to activated carbon filtration, ozonation increased the concentrations of AOCpotential and MAP, and also microbial growth potential. In most of the drinking waters, microbial growth was limited by phosphorus, and microbial growth potential correlated with the MAP concentration. Microbial growth potential was lowest in drinking waters produced from surface waters with efficient treatment technique and highest in less treated ground waters.     

The use of (green field) biomass pretreatment liquor for fermentative butanol production and the catalytic oxidation of biobutanol

In this study, pretreatment liquor of acid-stored green and yellowish barley silage was used for fermentative acetone–butanol–ethanol (ABE) production. Further, the catalytic oxidation of biobutanol over Pt catalysts was studied to investigate the behaviour of butanol as a fuel in the combustion engine. After the hydrothermal treatment of green and yellowish barley silage followed by enzymatic hydrolysis, approximately 88% and 100% of the available sugars were recovered, respectively. Batch fermentations of pretreatment barley silage liquor, supplemented with gelatinised barley grain, showed good fermentability with total ABE concentrations of 9.0 g/L and 10.9 g/L. Butanol yields of 0.20, 0.17 and ABE yields of 0.28, 0.26 (g/g monosaccharide) were obtained, respectively. In catalytic activity measurements, the conversion of biobutanol became appreciable in the 120–140 °C range, whereas conversions greater than 95% were obtained over 200 °C. Selectivities were also high, although formation of by-products, such as butyraldehyde, was observed.     

SymbolChat: A flexible picture-based communication platform for users with intellectual disabilities

Persons with intellectual disabilities benefit from participating in the modern information society, especially the World Wide Web, social media and Internet-mediated communication services. Although several computer-based prototypes and commercial systems have been introduced for accessible in-person communication, currently few applications and services exist to support synchronous remote communication for this user group. We introduce SymbolChat, a software platform that supports the creation of multimodal communication applications utilizing picture-based instant messaging. End users and their support personnel can customize the input and output features of the application based on their individual needs and abilities. The interaction is based on touchscreen input and speech output using speech synthesis technology. The SymbolChat platform was developed together with the prospective end users and practitioners in the field of special needs care.We evaluated the prototype application in a field study with nine users with varying degrees of intellectual and other disabilities. The results clearly indicate that the participants were able to express themselves in spontaneous communication using a large-scale picture-based vocabulary (around 2000 symbols) even without prior training in the use of symbols. This finding was supported in the constructive feedback gathered from professionals working in the area. We also successfully applied methodology from other settings, such as child-computer interaction to evaluate interaction in this challenging context.Overall, the results show that social inclusion for people with intellectual disabilities can be improved with customizable communication tools. The implemented communication platform forms a solid basis for further improvements and new communication services. In addition, we found that users with motor impairments would greatly benefit from alternative input and output methods for symbol browsing and selection.     

Measurement of Particulate Carbon in Atmospheric Aerosol in Helsinki

By means of a simple optical apparatus the levels and variations of concentrations of elemental carbon in particles were measured. Additionally, relations between variations of elemental carbon, lead, sulfate, total suspended particle, and nitrate concentrations were studied. Calibration was performed on real samples analyzed by a wet chemical method.     

UPM芬欧汇川开发生物燃料转型趋向低碳经济

欧洲是全球提出低碳理念发展最早的地区,其在低碳经济的理论研究、取得成果以及研发投入等方面,也一直处于世界的前端.为迎接全球低碳时代的来临,欧盟按照欧盟委员会2007年确立的能源和碳减排目标:到2020年欧盟的温室气体排放应减少20%(如果条件合适将提高到30%),可再生能源比例达到20%,同时将能源利用效率提高20%,交通运输业生物燃料的使用达到10%.     

Simulation of non-condensable gas flow in two-fluid model of APROS – Description of the model, validation and application

In Loviisa VVER-440 type nuclear power plant the nitrogen used to pressurize hydro-accumulators and other passive safety systems is gradually dissolved to the accumulator water during the long period of normal plant operation. If a primary circuit leakage takes place, the accumulator water is injected into the primary circuit, where lower pressure is prevailing and as a consequence the dissolved nitrogen is released from the liquid phase to gas phase. It is also possible that after the liquid has run out of the accumulator the gaseous nitrogen may flow into the primary system and may thus disturb the circulation in the primary circuit. It is important that the system codes that are used in safety analysis work are capable to simulate flows of non-condensable gases and that they can take into account the release of the dissolved gases. In this paper the non-condensable gas model of the APROS two-fluid safety analysis system code is described. The model has been validated using one experiment carried out in the PACTEL VVER-440 test facility, where the release of the nitrogen dissolved in the accumulator water has been studied. The model has been used to analyze the primary–secondary leakage (PRISE) in the Loviisa nuclear power plant. In this leakage incident the dissolved nitrogen from the accumulator was assumed to flow into the primary circuit of the plant.     

Hippocampal theta-band activity and trace eyeblink conditioning in rabbits.

The authors examined the relationship between hippocampal theta activity and trace eyeblink conditioning. Hippocampal electrophysiological local field potentials were recorded before, during, and after conditioning or explicitly unpaired training sessions in adult male New Zealand White rabbits. As expected, a high relative power of theta activity (theta ratio) in the hippocampus predicted faster acquisition of the conditioned response during trace conditioning but, contrary to previous results obtained using the delay paradigm, only in the initial stage of learning. The presentation of the conditioned stimulus overall elicited an increase in the hippocampal theta ratio. The theta ratio decreased in the unpaired group as a function of training, remained high throughout conditioning in the fast learners, and rapidly increased in the slow learners initially showing a low theta ratio. Our results indicate a reciprocal connection between the hippocampal oscillatory activity and associative learning. The hippocampal theta ratio seems to reflect changes and differences in the subjects’ alertness and responsiveness to external stimuli, which affect the rate of learning and are, in turn, affected by both conditioning and unpaired training. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Copolymerization of carbon monoxide with exo‐methylenecycloalkane and dienes: synthesis of functionalized aliphatic polyketones

Synthesis of functional aliphatic polyketones was achieved by co‐ and terpolymerization of the strained exo‐methylenecycloalkane, methylenecyclopropane (MCP), and also the dienes 1,5‐hexadiene, 1,7‐octadiene and 1,6‐heptadien‐4‐ol, with carbon monoxide and propene, using the dicationic palladium(II) phosphine complex [Pd(dppp) (NCCH₃)₂](BF₄)₂ (I) (dppp is 1,3‐bis(diphenyl‐phosphino)propane) as the catalyst precursor. The resulting MCP/CO copolymer contains both ring‐opened and cyclic microstructures. Ring‐opening copolymerization yields exo‐methylene functionalized polyketone. In contrast to hexadiene/carbon monoxide copolymer (Hx/CO), no ring structures were observed in the alternating octadiene/carbon monoxide (Oc/CO) and heptadien‐4‐ol/carbon monoxide (Hp‐ol/CO) copolymers. The remaining double bonds were left intact to yield polymers with olefinic functionalities in the side chains. © 2001 Society of Chemical Industry     

Using computational fluid dynamics to modify a waste-heat boiler design

This article describes the use of a general-purpose computational-fluid-dynamics code for improving and optimizing waste-heat boilers in the Outokumpu flash smelting process. The codes offer opportunities to study the transport phenomena for fluid and particulate flow and heat and mass transfer. The simulation includes gas- and dust-flow behaviors and gas cooling by convection and radiation. The results were used in the boiler modification for increased capacity and higher cooling efficiency. The modified boiler, with its unique design, has been in use at Outokumpu’s Harjavalta copper smelter since June 1995 with excellent performance. For more information, contact Y. Yang, Delft University of Technology, Raw Materials Technology/Applied Earth Sciences, Mijnbouwstraat 120, Delft, 2628 RX, Netherlands; telephone 31-15-278-2542; fax 31-15-278-2836; e-mail Y.Yang@ta.tudelft.nl.     

Programmable SiGe BiCMOS low-pass filter for a multicarrier WCDMA base-station receiver

SiGe BiCMOS low-pass filter for a multicarrier WCDMA base-station receiver is described in this paper. The 4th-order Chebyshev filter with a 0.1-dB passband ripple is designed to drive a high-resolution A/D converter. The −3-dB frequency of the implemented filter can be programmed to four different bandwidths: 2.5, 5, 7.5, and 10 MHz depending on the number of received WCDMA channels. The filter achieves +9.7-dBV in-band IIP3, +20-dBV out-of-band IIP3, and 8.5-nV/√Hz input-referred noise density with 10-MHz bandwidth. The circuit uses a 2.5 V supply and has been fabricated in a 0.25-μm SiGe BiCMOS process.