Fate of trace element haps when applying mercury control technologies

During the past several years, and particularly since the Clean Air Mercury Rule (CAMR) was promulgated in June of 2005, the electric utility industry, product vendors, and the research community have been working diligently to develop and test Hg control strategies for a variety of coal types and plant configurations. Some of these strategies include sorbent injection and chemical additives designed to increase mercury capture efficiency in particulate control devices. These strategies have the potential to impact the fate of other inorganic hazardous air pollutants (HAPs), which typically include As, Be, Cd, Cr, Co, Mn, Ni, Pb, Se, and Sb. To evaluate this impact, flue gas samples using EPA Method 29, along with representative coal and ash samples, were collected during recent pilot-scale and field test projects that were evaluating Hg control technologies. These test programs included a range of fuel types with varying trace element concentrations, along with different combustion systems and particulate control devices. The results show that the majority of the trace element HAPs are associated with the particulate matter in the flue gas, except for Se. However, for five of the six projects, Se partitioning was shifted to the particulate phase and total emissions reduced when Hg control technologies were applied.     

A comparison between the effects of day and night cropping on gemsbok (Oryx gazella) meat quality

This study compares the effects of day- and night cropping on the quality of gemsbok meat. Day-cropped animals had higher behavioural scores and cortisol levels (behavioural score: 3.5 ± 0.423; cortisol: 136.88 ± 2.731 nmol/L) than night-cropped animals (behavioural score: 2.1 ± 0.378; cortisol: 64.1 ± 1.633 nmol/L) while night-cropped animals had a higher mean pH_u (5.54 ± 0.013) than day-cropped animals (5.49 ± 0.014). The exponential decay model, y = a + b^−ct, fitted to the pH data indicated a difference in constant a only (day = 5.45 ± 0.006; night = 5.51 ± 0.006). Night-cropped animals produced meat that was darker in colour. The results indicate that day cropping may have elicited more ante-mortem stress although this did not necessarily affect the meat quality adversely, however due to the limitation of sample size, the data may be skewed by outliers and should thus be interpreted with caution.     

Detection of hydrogen peroxide at mesoporous platinum microelectrodes

Mesoporous (H(I)-ePt) platinum microelectrodes electrodeposited from the hexagonal (H(I)) lyotropic liquid crystalline phase are shown to be excellent amperometric sensors for the detection of hydrogen peroxide over a wide range of concentrations. Good reproducibility, high precision, and accuracy of measurements are demonstrated. Mesoporous microelectrodes retain the high rates of mass transport typical of conventional microelectrodes, and their high real surface area greatly enhances their catalytic activity. This unique combination of properties overcomes the limitations of previous amperometric hydrogen peroxide sensors and yields outstanding qualitative and quantitative results.     

Mission Impossible? Planning and Preparing for Crisis1

Crisis management logic suggests that planning and preparing for crisis should be a vital part of institutional and policy toolkits. This paper explores the difficulties in translating this ideal into practice. It focuses on four key difficulties. First, crises and disasters are low probability events but they place large demands on resources and have to compete against front‐line service provision. Second, contingency planning requires ordering and coherence of possible threats, yet crisis is not amenable to being packaged in such a predictable way. Third, planning for crisis requires integration and synergy across institutional networks, yet the modern world is characterised by fragmentation across public, private and voluntary sectors. Fourth, robust planning requires active preparation through training and exercises, but such costly activities often produced a level of symbolic readiness which does not reflect operational realities. Finally the paper reflects on whether crisis preparedness is a ‘mission impossible’, even in the post‐9/11 period when contingency planning seems to be an issue of high political salience.     

Small-Strain Behavior of Granular Soils. II: Seismic Response Analyses and Model Evaluation

Using the recorded response at two vertical array sites, the SimSoil model presented in the companion paper is evaluated. The SimSoil model, which describes the small strain nonlinear behavior of granular materials, is implemented as a material model in AMPLE2000, a nonlinear, one-dimensional site response analysis code. Shear wave velocity profiles and laboratory test data available for both the La Cienega site, which was instrumented over 250?m, and the Lotung site, which was instrumented over 47?m, were used to determine SimSoil model parameters. Predictions from AMPLE2000 are compared with the measured response at several elevations for earthquakes that resulted in both nonlinear and nearly linear soil behavior. Using the available laboratory data and known input motions, the predictions of the response at these sites matched the recorded response well for varied magnitudes of shaking with a single set of parameters for each site.     

On a game in directed graphs

Inspired by recent algorithms for electing a leader in a distributed system, we study the following game in a directed graph: each vertex selects one of its outgoing arcs (if any) and eliminates the other endpoint of this arc; the remaining vertices play on until no arcs remain. We call a directed graph lethal if the game must end with all vertices eliminated and mortal if it is possible that the game ends with all vertices eliminated. We show that lethal graphs are precisely collections of vertex-disjoint cycles, and that the problem of deciding whether or not a given directed graph is mortal is NP-complete (and hence it is likely that no “nice” characterization of mortal graphs exists).     

A Study of Structure, Electric and Magnetic Properties of the New Layered Cobalt Oxides Sr2Y1-x Ca x Co2O7-z

The crystal structure of Sr ₂ Y _0.8 Ca _0.2 Co ₂ O ₆ is orthorhombic below 270 K (Immm, a = 3.84029(7) Å, b = 3.80691(6) Å and c = 19.4980(3) Å at 20 K), transformed from tetragonal (I4/mmm, a = 3.82765(6) Å and c = 19.5795(3) Å) at 295 K. The crystal structure distortion is accompanied by an anomalous temperature dependence of the degree of buckling of the CoO ₂ plane and is correlated with the development of anisotropic antiferromagnetic ordering of magnetic moments (2.93(2) _B per Co at 20 K). A magnetically glassy state below about 35 K and variable range hopping conduction below about 64 K for were found by magnetic susceptibility and electrical resistivity measurements.     

Predicting the effect of proteolysis on ruminal crude protein degradation of legume and grass silages using near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy

Two studies were conducted to assess whether routine applications of near infrared reflectance spectroscopy could predict the effects of silage proteolysis on ruminal crude protein (CP) degradation of legume and grass silages. A preliminary study was conducted to assess the effect of laboratory drying method on ruminal CP degradation of silages. Thirty legume and grass silages were freeze-, oven-, or microwave-dried and incubated in situ in the ventral rumen of three ruminally cannulated cows for 24 h. Freeze-drying was considered least likely to alter ruminal CP degradation of the silages; therefore, oven- and microwave-drying were compared using first-order regression with freeze-drying. Oven-drying for 48 h at 55 degrees C compared favorably (R2 = 0.84) with freeze-drying. Microwave-drying resulted in a large bias (2.84 g/10(-1) kg of CP) and was poorly related (R2 = 0.48) to freeze-drying. In a second study, alfalfa and timothy were cut at three maturities and allowed to wilt for 0, 10, 24, 32, 48, and 54 h. Forages were ensiled in triplicate cylindrical mini silos and allowed to ferment for 120 d. After fermentation, silages were oven-dried, ground, and scanned on a near-infrared reflectance spectrophotometer. Duplicate, dried, 2-mm ground silage samples were incubated in the ventral rumen of three ruminally cannulated cows for 24 h. Forage species, maturity, and wilting time significantly affected 24-h ruminal CP degradation of the silages. Near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy accurately predicted (R2 = 0.91) 24-h ruminal CP degradation of silages. Data suggest near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy can accurately assess the effects of forage species, maturity, and wilting time (proteolysis) on 24-h ruminal CP degradation of legume and grass silages.     

Practitioner development: From trained technicians to reflective practitioners

The EPSRC funded Rethinking Project Management Network produced several insights into new directions for project management theory and practise, highlighting gaps between current theory and practise in several areas. This paper reviews the discussions around project management practitioner development that arose out of this rethinking process where project management is seen as growing from a predominantly technical skill-set to a broader practise of reflectively managing the things needed to provide a successful project outcome. In particular, the paper identifies and addresses the challenges of developing competent project managers in a world exhibiting increasingly complex project challenges, and when skilled resources at all levels are often increasingly scarce. We provide examples of practical and academic initiatives that are designed to address these challenges: internal assessment and development programs, reflective practice thesis, and distance-based critical management MBA. We conclude by speculating on some of the further challenges in developing reflective practitioners that have yet to be resolved.     

Event-related potentials elicited by automatic targets: A dual-task analysis.

Investigated the role of limited capacity processes in the detection of automatic targets in a dual-task paradigm using both behavioral and event-related potential (ERP) measures. Six right-handed undergraduates served as Ss. An automatic detection task was paired with another concurrent discrimination while the relative importance of each task was systematically varied. The resulting performance operating characteristic showed that both the speed and accuracy of automatic detection responses were affected by the allocation of attention. Reductions in the accuracy of each task were accompanied by reductions in the amplitude of a late-positive component of the ERP (P300). The latency of the P300 component elicited by automatic targets was increased in dual-task conditions. A comparison of behavioral and ERP measures suggested the involvement of 2 separate limited-capacity processes in automatic detection: one concerned with the formation of an episodic representation of target occurrence and the other with the execution of rapid motor responses. (35 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)