Nitrogen mineralization of sewage sludge and composted poultry manure applied to willow in a greenhouse experiment

Nitrogen requirements for production of intensively cultured willow for use as a bioenergy crop coupled with the need for safe disposal of nutrient rich organic wastes provide an opportunity to reduce costs associated with bioenergy plantations. In order to minimize N leaching from sites treated with organic wastes, knowledge of the rate of N mineralization is needed. The objective of this study was to assess N mineralization rates of four organic residuals in a controlled greenhouse environment: composted poultry manure, composted sewage sludge, and anaerobically digested sewage sludge from two different municipalities. Thirty-six weeks after application, disappearance of the mass initially applied ranged from 20% to 50%. Gross nitrogen mineralization rate (N mass released expressed as a percentage of initially applied N) ranged from 12% to 57%. Non-composted treatments released greater amounts of nitrogen than composted treatments. Within composted treatments, net N release was estimated as 325 kgNha⁻¹ for poultry manure and 86 kgNha⁻¹ for sewage sludge. Syracuse and New York City sewage sludges, with 57% and 30% gross N release rates respectively, provided approximately 360 and 240 kg plant available Nha⁻¹, respectively. These estimates of N release suggest that the application rates could be halved and that sufficient N would be provided to meet crop needs and reduce leaching losses.     

La CLAve to increase psychosis literacy of Spanish-speaking community residents and family caregivers.

The authors developed and tested a 35-min psychoeducational program with the goal of increasing Spanish-speaking persons’ literacy of psychosis. The program uses popular cultural icons derived from music, art, and videos, as well as a mnemonic device—La CLAve (The Clue)—to increase (a) knowledge of psychosis, (b) efficacy beliefs that one can identify psychosis in others, (c) attributions to mental illness, and (d) professional help-seeking. Assessments were conducted before and after administering the program to both community residents (n = 57) and family caregivers of persons with schizophrenia (n = 38). For community residents, the authors observed increases across the 4 domains of symptom knowledge, efficacy beliefs, illness attributions, and recommended help-seeking. For caregivers, increases were observed in symptom knowledge and efficacy beliefs. La CLAve is a conceptually informed psychoeducational tool with a developing empirical base aimed at helping Spanish-speaking Latinos with serious mental illness obtain care in a timely manner. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Utilization of Ultrasonic Measurements for Determining the Variations in Microstructure of Thermally Degraded 2205 Duplex Stainless Steel

The aim of this study is to investigate the changes in attenuation of longitudinal waves and velocity of shear wave modes for assessing variations in the microstructure of thermally degraded 2205 duplex stainless steel samples that were aged isothermally at 700°C and 900°C for different time intervals. The evaluation of material microstructural changes such as phase transformation and second phase precipitation which are related to material properties is of primary importance to ensure quality of components. This paper presents evidence that indicate that the attenuation coefficient of the longitudinal mode is sensitive to gradual microstructural changes produced by the aging treatments. The gradual changes in microstructure are associated with reduction of impact properties. On the other hand, for samples aged at 700°C, the velocity of the fast mode of shear wave show changes at high aging times and does not show changes at early aging times were the materials properties are already degraded.     

Cryogenic probe 13C NMR spectroscopy of urine for metabonomic studies

Cryogenic probe technology can significantly compensate for the inherently low sensitivity of natural abundance 13C NMR spectroscopy. This now permits its routine use in NMR spectroscopy of biofluids, such as urine or plasma, with acquisition times that enable a high throughput of samples. Metabonomic studies often generate numerous samples in order to characterize fully the time-dependent biochemical response to stimuli, but until now, they have been largely conducted using 1H NMR spectroscopy because of its high sensitivity and hence efficient data acquisition. Here, we demonstrate that information-rich 13C NMR spectra of rat urine can be obtained using appropriately short acquisition times suitable for biochemical samples when using a cryogenic probe. Furthermore, these data were amenable to automated pattern recognition analysis, which produced a profile of the metabolic response to the model hepatotoxin hydrazine that was consistent with earlier studies. Thus, a new source of detailed and complementary information is available to metabonomics using cryogenic probe 13C NMR spectroscopy.     

A speed and accuracy test of backpropagation and RBF neural networks for small-signal models of active devices

Backpropagation networks are compared to radial basis function (RBF) networks when it comes to small signal modeling RF/microwave active devices. The modeled device is a 4×50 μm gate width, 0.25 μm gate length gallium arsenide (GaAs) Metal semiconductor field-effect transistor (MESFET). It is the authors’ intent to prove that RBF networks provide much better performance than backpropagation when it comes to this type of modeling. First, two separate backpropagation networks are created to determine the best training algorithm in terms of convergence speed. Then, the backpropagation network, using its best training algorithm, is compared to the RBF network in terms of speed and accuracy. Simulation results are presented in tables and figures for better understanding. All tests and simulations for the backpropagation and RBF networks are done using Matlab's Neural Network Toolbox.     

Design of robust gain-scheduled PI controllers for nonlinear processes

Gain-scheduling has proven to be a successful design methodology in many engineering applications. However, in the absence of a sound theoretical analysis, these designs come with no guarantees of robust stability, performance or even nominal stability of the overall gain-scheduled deign.This paper presents such an analysis for one type of nonlinear gain-scheduled control system based on the process input for nonlinear chemical processes. A methodology is also proposed for the design and optimization of the robust gain-scheduled PI controller. Conditions which guarantee robust stability and performance are formulated as a finite set of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) and hence, the resulting problem is numerically tractable. Issues of modeling error and input-saturation are explicitly incorporated into the analysis. A simulation study of a nonlinear continuous stirred tank reactor (CSTR) process indicates that this approach can produce efficient sub-optimal robust gain-scheduled controllers.     

Phase reconstruction from undersampled intensity patterns

We demonstrate the uniqueness and convergence of phase recovery from high-spatial-frequency and undersampled intensity data. Furthermore, this is accomplished without the ambiguities that arise in phase unwrapping and without the need to employ a priori information. The method incorporates the technique of line integration of the phase gradient to find the first approximation to the phase and the algorithm of synthetic interferograms to find the unknown phase with high accuracy. The method may be used with any experimental method that at a certain data processing step obtains generalized sine and cosine intensity functions.     

Solutions to Industrial Engineering problems using integrated software environments

The development of word processing systems and the spreadsheet environment marked the beginning of the professional computing movement. For the first time, programs were available that were both highly functional and highly usable, even by non-computer people. The next group of “hot” programs in the business market were “integrated” packages providing a combination of word processing, spreadsheet, database, graphics, and telecommunications. Unfortunately, these integrated packages have not displaced such single purpose programs as Lotus 1-2-3, dBase and WordPerfect as the dominant forces in desktop computing. Integrated packages are generally perceived as complex, cumbersome, and difficult to master. An important point to note, however, is that high proficiency is not necessary; successful users of commercial software seldom know or use more that 40% of a programs functionality.

This paper addresses the use of integrated software packages to solve Industrial Engineering problems. More specifically, examples are presented demonstrating the use of Ashton Tate's Framework II to solve production and operations management problems. Sample applications include forecasting, after tax economic analysis, and data storage and retrieval, demonstrating the advantages of linking word processing, spreadsheets, and databases.     

Comparison of linear and rotationally shearing interferometric layouts for extrasolar planet detection from space

We use the point spread function and the modulation transfer function (MTF) as two figures-of-merit to evaluate the performance of the multiaperture interferometric configurations for the detection of a faint planet in the vicinity of its bright star. We design nonredundant interferometric layouts that provide satisfactory coverage of the spatial frequencies of interest. We propose a design incorporating a rotating, rotationally shearing interferometer in a gravity-free environment and compare its performance with the Earth-based, fixed, linear configurations. The side peak of its MTF may be centered on the coordinate associated with a likely planet spatial frequency, resulting in planet signal enhancement and isolation.