Prevention of volatile fatty acids production and limitation of odours from winery wastewaters by denitrification

The effect of the addition of nitrate to winery wastewaters to control the formation of VFA in order to prevent odours during storage and treatment was studied in batch bioreactors at different NO(3)/chemical oxygen demand (COD) ratios and at full scale in natural evaporation ponds (2 x 7000 m(2)) by measuring olfactory intensity. In the absence of nitrate, butyric acid (2304 mgL(-1)), acetic acid (1633 mgL(-1)), propionic acid (1558 mgL(-1)), caproic acid (499 mgL(-1)) and valeric acid (298 mgL(-1)) were produced from reconstituted winery wastewater. For a ratio of NO(3)/COD=0.4 gg(-1), caproic and valeric acids were not formed. The production of butyric and propionic acids was reduced by 93.3% and 72.5%, respectively, at a ratio of NO(3)/COD=0.8, and by 97.4% and 100% at a ratio of NO(3)/COD=1.2 gg(-1). Nitrate delayed and decreased butyric acid formation in relation to the oxidoreduction potential. Studies in ponds showed that the addition of concentrated calcium nitrate (NITCAL) to winery wastewaters (3526 m(3)) in a ratio of NO(3)/COD=0.8 inhibited VFA production, with COD elimination (94%) and total nitrate degradation, and no final nitrite accumulation. On the contrary, in ponds not treated with nitrate, malodorous VFA (from propionic to heptano?c acids) represented up to 60% of the COD. Olfactory intensity measurements in relation to the butanol scale of VFA solutions and the ponds revealed the pervasive role of VFA in the odour of the untreated pond as well as the clear decrease in the intensity and not unpleasant odour of the winery wastewater pond enriched in nitrates. The results obtained at full scale underscored the feasibility and safety of the calcium nitrate treatment as opposed to concentrated nitric acid.     

A case of behavioral heterosis in mice: Quantitative and qualitative aspects of performance in a water-escape task.

1,404 mice from 2 inbred strains (BALB/c and C57BL/6), F?, F?, and backcrosses were subjected to 4 trials in a water-escape task and a swimming test. Detailed analysis of Ss' behavior in these situations showed that the "F? hybrid vigor" affected behavioral characters not directly related to physical vigor but of potential adaptive value. Their superiority was mainly due to more frequent adoption of an efficient behavioral tactic (direct or edge escape paths toward the exit) and more rapid progress with experience in this respect than other generations exhibited. Results show that heterosis is not limited to physical vigor but may extend to behavioral and even psychological characters. (19 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

5G meets satellite: Non-terrestrial network architecture and 3GPP

With 3GPP Release-17, global 5G standards now support non-terrestrial mobile networks comprising radio access network, terminals, and core network. This enables multi-vendor interoperability as well as interoperability with 3GPP-compliant 5G systems. This paper describes the key features enabling the NG-RAN architecture defined for 5G to support non-terrestrial networks. Starting from a general overview of NG-RAN and of the new paradigms of NTN, we introduce the NTN functionality in NG-RAN specifications with respect to feeder link switchover, cell handling, terminal registration, and OAM aspects. We also discuss different scenarios combining satellite access with 3GPP-defined core networks. We also describe some further enhancements expected to be seen in the next 3GPP release (Rel-18). We believe current and upcoming 3GPP work for NTN represents a solid basis on which 5G satellite networks can be built in the upcoming future.     

Preserving the autocovariance of texture tilings using importance sampling

By-example aperiodic tilings are popular texture synthesis techniques that allow a fast, on-the-fly generation of unbounded and non-periodic textures with an appearance matching an arbitrary input sample called the “exemplar”. But by relying on uniform random sampling, these algorithms fail to preserve the autocovariance function, resulting in correlations that do not match the ones in the exemplar. The output can then be perceived as excessively random. In this work, we present a new method which can well preserve the autocovariance function of the exemplar. It consists in fetching contents with an importance sampler taking the explicit autocovariance function as the probability density function (pdf) of the sampler. Our method can be controlled for increasing or decreasing the randomness aspect of the texture. Besides significantly improving synthesis quality for classes of textures characterized by pronounced autocovariance functions, we moreover propose a real-time tiling and blending scheme that permits the generation of high-quality textures faster than former algorithms with minimal downsides by reducing the number of texture fetches.