Robustness of an aerobic metabolically vinyl chloride degrading bacterial enrichment culture

Degradation of the lower chlorinated ethenes is crucial to the application of natural attenuation or in situ bioremediation on chlorinated ethene contaminated sites. Recently, within mixtures of several chloroethenes as they can occur in contaminated groundwater inhibiting effects on aerobic chloroethene degradation have been shown. The current study demonstrated that metabolic vinyl chloride (VC) degradation by an enrichment culture originating from groundwater was not affected by an equimolar concentration (50 μM) of cis-1,2-dichloroethene (cDCE). Only cDCE concentrations at a ratio of 2.4:1 (initial cDCE to VC concentration) caused minor inhibition of VC degradation. Furthermore, the degradation of VC was not affected by the presence of trans-1,2-dichloroethene (tDCE), 1,1-dichloroethene (1,1-DCE), trichloroethene (TCE), and tetrachloroethene (PCE) in equimolar concentrations (50 μM). Only cDCE and tDCE were cometabolically degraded in small amounts. The VC-degrading culture demonstrated a broad pH tolerance from 5 to 9 with an optimum between 6 and 7. Results also showed that the culture could degrade VC concentrations up to 1,800 μM (110 mg/L).     

Fast online graph clustering via Erd?s-Rényi mixture

In the context of graph clustering, we consider the problem of simultaneously estimating both the partition of the graph nodes and the parameters of an underlying mixture of affiliation networks. In numerous applications the rapid increase of data size over time makes classical clustering algorithms too slow because of the high computational cost. In such situations online clustering algorithms are an efficient alternative to classical batch algorithms. We present an original online algorithm for graph clustering based on a Erd?s-Rényi graph mixture. The relevance of the algorithm is illustrated, using both simulated and real data sets. The real data set is a network extracted from the French political blogosphere and presents an interesting community organization.     

Validation of GOES and MODIS active fire detection products using ASTER and ETM+ data

In this study we implemented a comprehensive analysis to validate the MODIS and GOES satellite active fire detection products (MOD14 and WFABBA, respectively) and characterize their major sources of omission and commission errors which have important implications for a large community of fire data users. Our analyses were primarily based on the use of 30 m resolution ASTER and ETM+ imagery as our validation data. We found that at the 50% true positive detection probability mark, WFABBA requires four times more active fire area than is necessary for MOD14 to achieve the same probability of detection, despite the 16× factor separating the nominal spatial resolutions of the two products. Approximately 75% and 95% of all fires sampled were omitted by the MOD14 and WFABBA instantaneous products, respectively; whereas an omission error of 38% was obtained for WFABBA when considering the 30-minute interval of the GOES data. Commission errors for MOD14 and WFABBA were found to be similar and highly dependent on the vegetation conditions of the areas imaged, with the larger commission errors (approximately 35%) estimated over regions of active deforestation. Nonetheless, the vast majority (> 80%) of the commission errors were indeed associated with recent burning activity where scars could be visually confirmed in the higher resolution data. Differences in thermal dynamics of vegetated and non-vegetated areas were found to produce a reduction of approximately 50% in the commission errors estimated towards the hours of maximum fire activity (i.e., early-afternoon hours) which coincided with the MODIS/Aqua overpass. Lastly, we demonstrate the potential use of temporal metrics applied to the mid-infrared bands of MODIS and GOES data to reduce the commission errors found with the validation analyses.     

Hierarchical control of multiple resources in distributed real-time and embedded systems

Real-time and embedded systems have traditionally been designed for closed environments where operating conditions, input workloads, and resource availability are known a priori, and are subject to little or no change at runtime. There is increasing demand, however, for adaptive capabilities in distributed real-time and embedded (DRE) systems that execute in open environments where system operational conditions, input workload, and resource availability cannot be characterized accurately a priori. A challenging problem faced by researchers and developers of such systems is devising effective adaptive resource management strategies that can meet end-to-end quality of service (QoS) requirements of applications. To address key resource management challenges of open DRE systems, this paper presents the Hierarchical Distributed Resource-management Architecture (HiDRA), which provides adaptive resource management using control techniques that adapt to workload fluctuations and resource availability for both bandwidth and processor utilization simultaneously. This paper presents three contributions to research in adaptive resource management for DRE systems. First, we describe the structure and functionality of HiDRA. Second, we present an analytical model of HiDRA that formalizes its control-theoretic behavior and presents analytical assurance of system performance. Third, we evaluate the performance of HiDRA via experiments on a representative DRE system that performs real-time distributed target tracking. Our analytical and empirical results indicate that HiDRA yields predictable, stable, and efficient system performance, even in the face of changing workload and resource availability.     

Combined macro- and microrheometer for use with Langmuir monolayers

A Langmuir monolayer trough that is equipped for simultaneous microrheology and standard rheology measurements has been constructed. The central elements are the trough itself with a full range of optical tools accessing the air-water interface from below the trough and a portable knife-edge torsion pendulum that can access the interface from above. The ability to simultaneously measure the mechanical response of Langmuir monolayers on very different length scales is an important step for our understanding of the mechanical response of two-dimensional viscoelastic networks.     

Effect of pressure on three catalytic partial oxidation reactions at millisecond contact times

The effects of pressure on reactant conversion and product selectivities in three catalytic oxidation systems have been examined at pressures between 1 and > 5 atm. Reaction was sustained autothermally near adiabatic operating conditions at temperatures of 1000°C with residence times over the noble metal catalysts between 10^–4 and 10^–2 s. The three systems investigated were (1) HCN synthesis over Pt-10% Rh gauze catalysts, (2) methane oxidation to synthesis gas (CO and H₂) over rhodium-coated monoliths, and (3) ethane conversion to ethylene over platinum-coated monoliths. We find that selectivities in all three reactions do not change dramatically with approximately a five-fold increase in pressure. This strongly suggests that free radical homogeneous chain reactions are not significant in these processes and that they can be operated reliably above atmospheric pressure. For the synthesis of HCN over Pt-10% Rh gauzes, the selectivity to HCN can be maintained above 0.75 at pressures up to 5.5 atm. Selectivities to synthesis gas (CO and H₂) from a methane-air mixture over a Rh-coated foam monolith at pressures up to 5.5 atm were maintained above 0.90. Over a Pt-coated foam monolith, the selectivity to ethylene from ethane-air and ethane-O₂ mixtures was independent of pressure up to 6.5 atm and conversion rose slightly although it was necessary to maintain constant velocity and residence time over the catalyst to avoid carbon formation.This research was supported by DOE under Grant No. DE-FG02-88ER13878.