Limits of High Recovery Inland Desalination: Closed-Circuit Reverse Osmosis – a Viable Option?

Cost-efficient operation of inland brackish water reverse osmosis (BWRO) demands a high recovery. As recovery of BWRO is often limited to scaling, antiscalants (AS) are applied, whose environmental impact is disputed. In this paper, different systems (conventional single- and two-stage plug flow RO (PFRO) and closed-circuit RO (CCRO)) were simulated in various configurations (AS dosing, ion exchange (IEX) pretreatment, elements per vessel) to determine the recovery limiting factor for a hard feed. The novel proposed IEX-CCRO reached the highest recovery without AS dosing. PFRO configurations had lower recoveries, mainly due to hydraulic limitations. Utilizing RO brine reduced both the water demand and salts necessary for IEX regeneration.     

Investigation of microstructure-property relantionships of magnesia-hercynite refractory composites by a refined digital image correlation technique

Industrial magnesia-spinel bricks destined for thermal shock applications often show more flexibility and improved crack growth resistance. Components from the spinel structure group are usually added to promote microcracking coming from thermal expansion mismatch. This leads to the development of toughening mechanisms that are very effective in improving the crack propagation resistance.Magnesia-hercynite composites were investigated in order to highlight their fracture process, with regard to their microstructure, by using Digital Image Correlation (DIC). The direct measurement of displacement fields between digital images of the reference state and the deformed one has provided valuable information on material deformation during loading. The aim of this work was to investigate the fracture behaviour of refractories through the coupling of the Wedge Splitting Test (WST) and DIC. By using a refined DIC process transformation taking into account a discontinuity of displacement, called 2P-DIC, a more effective characterisation of the fracture behaviour was achieved.     

Technology report: Work product retrieval systems in today's law offices

Contemporary law offices use many different technologies for storing and retrieving documents produced in the course of legal work. This article examines two approaches in detail: document management, as exemplified by SoftSolutions, and electronic publishing, as exemplified by Folio VIEWS. Some other approaches are reviewed, and the pragmatics, politics, economics, and legalities of legal work product retrieval are discussed.     

Numerical modeling of the propagation of an adiabatic shear band

The critical phenomena determining the propagation of an adiabatic shear band occur at its extremity. The stress and strain distributions at the tip of a shear band are calculated as a function of applied shear strain using the finite element method for an elasto-plastic material. Three assumptions simplify the calculations considerably: (a) the mechanical response of the material follows an adiabatic stress-strain curve; (b) the material within the shear band has zero shear strength; (c) the body is taken to be in equilibrium. The distribution of stresses and strains in the adiabatically-deformed material is compared to that of a quasi-statically deformed material. While the stress-strain curve for an isothermally deformed material is monotonic with continuous work-hardening, the adiabatic work-hardening curve reaches a plateau followed by work-softening (due to thermal softening). The stress and strain fields for both cases are nearly identical, except in the region directly in front of the shear band. In the adiabatically-deformed material a thin region (~5 μm) with large strains and lowered stresses is produced. This region, in which accelerated deformation takes place as the applied shear deformation increases, is absent in the isothermally-deformed material. The formation of this instability region, ahead of the shear band, is considered to be the mechanism for the propagation of an adiabatic shear band.     

Expert system driven software

Using large finite element analysis codes for heat transfer computations and for stresses and displacements under thermal loads computations is not always very simple because of the complexity of the problems and the number of domains involved. Often faulty results from computations are being used until an expert discovers that something was wrong in the simulation. As a result of recent advances in Artificial Intelligence techniques, solutions to these problems are now possible by making use of Knowledge Based Systems in which expertise in several domains can easily be introduced. In this paper, we present an application of knowledge based systems for a finite element analysis code in Heat Transfer. The system is fairly general, and we think that application to any well structured numerical code should be straightforward.     

Relation mère-enfant qualité des interactions fraternelles chez des enfants d'age préscolaire.

Assessed the degree to which the quality of the affective mother–child relationship is linked to the quality of interactions among siblings of preschool age. 44 intact families, with 2 children of which at least one was of preschool age, participated. Two evaluation methods were used: observation of relationships between siblings in semi-structured play situations at home, and a Q-sort questionnaire on the quality of the mother–child relationship. To a certain degree, there was a link between the quality of the relationship children had with their mothers and the quality of that they had with their siblings. Results indicate that the 2 kinds of intrafamilial relationships must be viewed differently for younger and older children and suggest that the relationship with the mother can contribute to the interior self- representation that could help children assert their position and play a role among siblings. (English abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Accidents in obstructive sleep apnea patients treated with nasal continuous positive airway pressure: a prospective study. The Working Group ANTADIR, Paris and CRESGE, Lille, France. Association Nationale de Traitement à Domicile des Insuffisants Respiratoires

Many studies have shown a relationship between obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and accidents, but to our knowledge, none have investigated prospectively the effects of treatment with nasal continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP). CPAP was proposed to 973 patients, of whom 893 patients actually underwent CPAP. These patients were consecutively invited to enter a prospective follow-up study including a questionnaire before treatment and after 6 and 12 months of treatment; 547 patients completed the study (153 left the study, and only partial data were available for 193). The baseline questionnaire included questions concerning accidents in the previous 12 months, asking whether patients had had an accident and, if so, whether they felt that the accident(s) were related to sleepiness, and whether the patients felt that they had had near-miss accidents due to sleepiness. The questionnaires at 6 and 12 months included the same questions referring to the previous 6 months; the accidents reported on each follow-up questionnaire were cumulated and compared with the accidents during the 1-year period before treatment. The number of patients having an accident decreased with treatment for real accidents (from 60 to 36; p<0.01), as well as for near-miss accidents (from 151 to 32; p<0.01). The average number of accidents per patient also decreased, for real accidents (from 1.6+/-1.3 to 1.1+/-0.3; p<0.01) and for near-miss accidents (from 4.5+/-6.5 to 1.8+/-1.4; p<0.01). The cost, in terms of days in hospital related to accidents, decreased from 885 to 84 days. With caution due to the absence of a control group, it is suggested that treatment with CPAP decreases the number of accidents occurring in OSA patients. This result may have important implications in the evaluation of the cost/benefit ratio when treating OSA patients.     

The complete sequence of a 6794 bp segment located on the right arm of chromosome II of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Finding of a putative dUTPase in a yeast

The DNA sequence of a 6794 bp fragment located at about 100 kb from the right telomere of chromosome II from Saccharomyces cerevisiae has been determined. Sequence analysis reveals five open reading frames. One is the ARO4 gene encoding the 3-deoxy-D -arabinoheptulosonate 7-phosphate synthase. Another presents strong homology with the S5 ribosomal protein from bacteria. The open reading frame YBR1705 shows significant homology with dUTPase, suggesting for the first time the existence of such an enzyme in S. cerevisiae.     

Comparison of Three in Situ Surface Soil Moisture Measurements And Application to C-Band Scatterometer Calibration

C-band scatterometers can be used to measure the surface soil moisture. This technique does not directly give the water content and a signal calibration is necessary. This is done by comparing the scatterometer signal (expressed as a scattering cross section per unit area) to gravimetric samples. The gravimetric sample calibration takes a lot of time and people, hence it is not adapted to airborne or satellite remote-sensing measurements. In this paper, new automatic equipment based on the measurement of the real part of the complex permittivity of moist soil is presented. The results of a one-month experiment show that this technique is well adapted to the automatic monitoring of soil moisture in general. In particular, it can be used for the calibration of microwave remote-sensing equipment.