Bioavailability and Toxicity of Metal Nutrients during Anaerobic Digestion

This paper investigates the effect of chelating agents on the bioavailability of Fe and Cu during anaerobic digestion. The results on metal speciation and methane production in anaerobic serum bottles showed that biomass was able to grow in the presence of citrate 1?mM and nitrilotriacetic acid (NTA) 1?mM, suggesting that the binding sites at the cell surface competed efficiently for the metals with the chelating agents added. The presence of free ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid 1?mM inhibited methanogenesis, and this seemed to be related to a loss in metal uptake capacity. Although the addition of soluble microbial products (SMP) did not change metal distribution in anaerobic systems, it caused an increase in the rate of methane production, and it is believed that direct uptake of Cu-SMP complexes was responsible for this increase. The best protection against Cu toxicity occurred when stoichiometric amounts of NTA, which should complex and solubilize most of the Cu, was added, and it is likely that NTA prevented lethal concentrations of Cu from being adsorbed onto the cell and hence internalized.     

Structural Response of Nuclear Containment Shield Buildings with Construction Openings

Steam generator replacement at nuclear power plants requires large construction openings in nuclear containment structures. This study examines the effects of such openings placed in a 61?cm (2?ft) thick dome of a shield building. The dome is cast in two layers, and the limiting cases of the two layers acting as one and the lower layer carrying the entire load are considered. Without openings, the stresses due to dead load in the structure are very low when compared to the material strength. With openings, the loads are easily redistributed around the opening, and the maximum stresses for the conservative case are between three and four and one-half times larger than in the original structure with no openings. The extent of the affected area around the holes is relatively small. Smooth corners in the openings are necessary to avoid high local stress concentrations.     

Pervasive 2007: It's about the User

Pervasive computing is as much about the user as it is about the technology. So, the Fifth International Conference on Pervasive Computing emphasized desirability rather than just feasibility. Featured themes included user benefits, human-computer interaction, group and social interactions, context awareness, finding and positioning people and objects, and personal privacy.     

Creating a Student Centered Learning Environment at the University of Denver

A team of faculty members at the University of Denver changed the learning environment in key courses in the Department of Engineering from predominately teacher centered to student centered. Through this funded project new grading methods were implemented, classrooms were renovated and wired with studio layouts to facilitate learning, the Engineering Circuits Laboratory was rewired and instrumented for automated data acquisition and reporting, and two new pedagogical approaches were developed. At the onset of the project, six goals were established related to student learning. The introduction of industry standard hardware and software provided students with unprecedented hands‐on experience and project related activities stimulated faculty innovations in other current and future courses. Assessment results indicate that the new grading system improved the clarity of expectations for students before assignments were given resulting in increased reported motivation for learning in many courses. Even though course GPAs did not always reflect higher achievement on graded work, faculty members firmly believe that deeper understanding was achieved because more complex material was assimilated.     

The incompatibility of knowledge regimes: consequences of the material world for cross-domain work

In this paper, we argue that successful integration of knowledge across work domains in the short-term can mask the generation of long-term consequences. We explore a setting, the introduction of environmental considerations into semiconductor manufacturing, where the eventual adoption of common measurement artifacts and associated practices enabled knowledge integration, but failed to address significant underlying consequences. Drawing from observational, interview, and archival data we develop an understanding of the work practices of the Tech and EnviroTech groups as structured by the material world and broader collective conventions. We introduce the concept of knowledge regime to outline the differences in knowledge across these work domains. More specifically, we find that differences in the causal specificity and developmental time horizon of knowledge and the measurement artifacts that result contribute to the relative power of one knowledge regime over another. Understanding these sources of incompatibility provides insight into the design requirements of information systems as boundary objects for knowledge integration, but also specifies the potential limits to any design effort.     

Culture and region revisited

People in different regions of the world live under different cultural and religious orders and derive various practical ethics from them. Some of these moral and religious principles are clearly more favorable for economic development than others. Yet such ethnological differences are regrettably absent from our prevailing theories of regional economic development. In this paper, culture is defined as a system of relatively slow processes of change — known as cultural arenas. A complex interface exists between these slower processes and the relatively faster ones (known as games). In attempting to assess the development prospects of any region, a key point to grasp is that this cultural interface may be self-organizing. Its future trajectory will therefore be uncertain. To the extent that the proposed system of slow processes may be construed as a region's cultural base, they may control the nature and achievable pace of that region's development.An earlier version of this paper was presented at a Conference onThe Economics of the Cities of Art, held in Venice from 13–15 May 1991.     

Homophobia and psychoanalysis: A reply to Roughton.

Replies to R. E. Roughton's (see record 1994-27310-001) response to D. K. Flaks's (see record 1993-23357-001) article on homophobia and the psychologists's role in psychoanalytic training institutes. Flaks commends attempts by the American Psychoanalytic Association to combat homophobia within the organization but notes potential problems that might limit its success. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Superconducting control for surge currents

Systems designed to use superconductors to limit fault currents in power grids are undergoing testing. The authors describe superconducting fault current limiters (SCFCL) which may be categorised into resistive or shielded core types. The features and operation of each type of device are outlined. Both the shielded-core and resistive types of SCFCL use the same amount of superconductor material to achieve a given limitation behavior. This is because the rated power per volume of conductor is determined by the product of fault-induced field and critical current, which is the same for both devices, assuming the same type of superconducting material is employed. The shielded-core limiter works only with AC currents and is much larger and heavier than the resistive SCFCL. While there is only one large program left in the low-temperature type of SCFCL, more than 10 major projects are under way worldwide on the high-temperature type of device. The main reason is the lower HTS cooling cost     

Virus load as a marker of disease progression in HIV-infected children

The relationship of virus load to clinical disease progression in HIV-infected children remains to be elucidated. In this study, HIV-1 proviral DNA load was determined in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) by the quantitative competitive DNA polymerase chain reaction assay (QC-PCR) in 47 HIV-infected children subdivided by age (group I, < or = 2 years; group II, > or = 5 years), who were further categorized to include 12 rapid progressors (RP, age < or = 2 years, Centers for Disease Control [CDC] defined clinical category C and/or immune category 3, or death before age 2 years) and slow progressors (SP, age > or = 5 years, excluding CDC categories C and/or immune category 3). Significantly higher mean proviral copies/10(3) PBMCs were detected in group I versus group II (75.4 +/- 104.3 and 13.0 +/- 17.8 respectively, p < 0.0001) and in RP (158.0 +/- 118.2) as compared to either SP (11.8 +/- 18.8, p < 0.0001) or other age-matched infected children (20.3 +/- 38.8, p < 0.0001). Thus HIV-infected children appear to have a higher cell-associated virus load early in life, especially in association with rapid disease progression.