Removal of cadmium from aqueous solutions using clinoptilolite: influence of pretreatment and regeneration

In this study, Cd removal from aqueous solutions via clinoptilolite was investigated in terms of the effect of pretreatment and regeneration. Four different chemicals (NaCl, KCl, CaCl₂ and HCl) were tested for this purpose. Samples treated by a total of 20 bed volume (BV) of 1 M NaCl solution prepared in tap water with no pH adjustment were found to perform satisfactorily. Five exhaustion and regeneration cycles were then carried out, revealing an increasing Cd removal capacity, coupled with constant Cd elution efficiency in progressing cycles. Furthermore, the change of pH and the presence of exchangeable (Na, K, Ca and Mg) and framework cations (Si and Al) in the aqueous phase were investigated. Subsequently, these were discussed in terms of progressive conversion of clinoptilolite to its homoionic Na-form, and the presence of different Cd removal mechanisms in the system. This study emphasizes the potential of clinoptilolite to be a part of sustainable wastewater treatment technologies, enabling the recovery of both the sorbent and the metal, via demonstration of effective Cd removal and clinoptilolite recovery, besides successful concentration of metal in the regenerant solution.     

Dynamically adaptive real-time disparity estimation hardware using iterative refinement

The computational complexity of disparity estimation algorithms and the need of large size and bandwidth for the external and internal memory make the real-time processing of disparity estimation challenging, especially for High Resolution (HR) images. This paper proposes a hardware-oriented adaptive window size disparity estimation (AWDE) algorithm and its real-time reconfigurable hardware implementation that targets HR video with high quality disparity results. Moreover, an enhanced version of the AWDE implementation that uses iterative refinement (AWDE-IR) is presented. The AWDE and AWDE-IR algorithms dynamically adapt the window size considering the local texture of the image to increase the disparity estimation quality. The proposed reconfigurable hardware architectures of the AWDE and AWDE-IR algorithms enable handling 60 frames per second on a Virtex-5 FPGA at a 1024×768 XGA video resolution for a 128 pixel disparity range.     

Lack of an association between single nucleotide polymorphisms in the bovine leptin gene and intramuscular fat in Bos taurus cattle

Leptin contributes to the regulation of adiposity and metabolism, and single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the leptin gene have been associated with intramuscular fat (IMF) levels in beef. Our objectives were to estimate the frequency of four SNPs in the leptin gene in nine purebred cattle (n = 430), to test for linkage disequilibrium and infer haplotypes, and to determine if individual genotypes or estimated haplotypes were associated with IMF values in crossbred cattle (n = 244). The four SNP loci were found to be in linkage disequilibrium and thus, the frequencies of each of the 16 possible haplotypes were inferred by maximum likelihood. No significant association between any individual SNP and haplotype was found with the divergent IMF values. Our results suggest that these SNPs are not influential on the divergent IMF levels in the crossbred population tested.     

Dispersion of Axisymmetric Longtudinal Waves in a Pre-Strained Imperfectly Bonded Bi-Layered Hollow Cylinder

This paper studies the dispersion of the axisymmetric longitudinal wave propagation in the pre-strained hollow cylinder consisting of two-layers under the shear-spring type imperfectness of the contact conditions between these layers. The investigations are made within the framework of the piecewise homogeneous body model by utilizing the 3D linearized theory of elastic waves in elastic bodies with initial stresses. It is assumed that the layers of the cylinder are made from compressible hyper-elastic materials and their elasticity relations are given through the harmonic potential. The degree of the mentioned imperfectness is estimated by the shear-spring parameter. Numerical results on the influence of this parameter on the behavior of the dispersion curves related to the fundamental mode are presented and discussed. It is established that the considered type imperfectness of the contact conditions causes two branches of the dispersion curve related to the fundamental mode to appear: the first disappears, but the second approaches the dispersion curve obtained for the perfect interface case by decreasing the shear-spring parameter.     

Effect of pre-setting pressure applied to mechanical behaviours of reactive powder concrete during setting phase

In this study, mixing rates, fiber content and pre-setting pressure of reactive powder concrete (RPC) were examined. Mixing ratios were determined by different mixing techniques in literature using material characteristics via computer software. The samples were prepared according to these mixing ratios. The fresh (plastic) concrete samples were filled in a specified mould. Six different (0, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 MPa) pre-setting pressure were applied. It is observed that application of pre-setting pressure increased compressive strength of the samples about twice.     

Electrolytic pickling of duplex stainless steel

Pickling of duplex stainless steels has proved to be much more difficult than that of standard austenitic grades. Electrolytic pre‐pickling is shown to be a key process towards facilitating the pickling process for material annealed both in the production‐line and in laboratory experiments. The mechanism for the neutral electrolytic process on duplex 2205 and austenitic 316 steels has been examined and the oxide scale found to become thinner as a function of electrolytic pickling time. Spallation or peeling of the oxide induced by gas evolution did not play a decisive role. A maximum of about 20% of the current supplied to the oxidised steel surface goes to dissolution reactions whereas about 80% of the current was consumed in oxygen gas production. This makes the current utilisation very poor, particularly against the background of reports that in indirect electrolytic pickling only about 30% of the total current, supplied to the process, actually goes into the strip. A parametric study was therefore carried out to determine whether adjustment of process variables could improve the current utilisation.     

Physiological response to firefighting activities of various work cycles using extended duration and prototype SCBA

Firefighters’ self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) protects the respiratory system during firefighting but increases the physiological burden. Extended duration SCBA (>30 min) have increased air supply, potentially increasing the duration of firefighting work cycles. To examine the effects of SCBA configuration and work cycle (length and rest), 30 firefighters completed seven trials using different SCBA and one or two bouts of simulated firefighting following work cycles common in the United States. Heart rate, core temperature, oxygen consumption, work output and self-reported perceptions were recorded during all activities. Varying SCBA resulted in few differences in these parameters. However, during a second bout, work output significantly declined while heart rates and core temperatures were elevated relative to a single bout. Thirty seven per cent of the subjects were unable to complete the second bout in at least one of the two-bout conditions. These firefighters had lower fitness and higher body mass than those who completed all assigned tasks.

Practitioner Summary: The effects of extended duration SCBA and work/rest cycles on physiological parameters and work output have not been examined. Cylinder size had minimal effects, but extended work cycles with no rest resulted in increased physiological strain and decreased work output. This effect was more pronounced in firefighters with lower fitness.     

Detection and classification of vehicles from omnidirectional videos using multiple silhouettes

To detect and classify vehicles in omnidirectional videos, we propose an approach based on the shape (silhouette) of the moving object obtained by background subtraction. Different from other shape-based classification techniques, we exploit the information available in multiple frames of the video. We investigated two different approaches for this purpose. One is combining silhouettes extracted from a sequence of frames to create an average silhouette, the other is making individual decisions for all frames and use consensus of these decisions. Using multiple frames eliminates most of the wrong decisions which are caused by a poorly extracted silhouette from a single video frame. The vehicle types we classify are motorcycle, car (sedan) and van (minibus). The features extracted from the silhouettes are convexity, elongation, rectangularity and Hu moments. We applied two separate methods of classification. First one is a flowchart-based method that we developed and the second is K-nearest neighbour classification. 60% of the samples in the dataset are used for training. To ensure randomization in the experiments, threefold cross-validation is applied. The results indicate that using multiple silhouettes increases the classification performance.