Use of electrochemical oxidation process as post-treatment for the effluents of a UASB reactor treating cellulose pulp mill wastewater.

The main purpose of this study was to evaluate the performance of the electrochemical oxidation process as a post-treatment for the effluents of a bench-scale UASB reactor treating simulated wastewater from an unbleached pulp plant. The oxidation process was performed using a single compartment cell with two plates as electrodes. The anode was made of Ti/Ru0.3Ti0.7O2 and the cathode of stainless steel. The following variables were evaluated: current density (75, 150 and 225 mA cm(-2)) and recirculation flow rate in the electrochemical cell (0.22, 0.45 and 0.90 L h(-1)). The increase in current density from 75 to 225 mA cm(-2) did not increased the color removal efficiency for the tested flow rates, 0.22, 0.45 and 0.90 L h(-1), however the energy consumption increased significantly. The results indicated the technical feasibility of the electrochemical treatment as post-treatment for UASB reactors treating wastewaters from pulp and paper plants.     

A case study of regional catchment water quality modelling to identify pollution control requirements.

There are four ecologically important river catchments that contain candidate Special Areas of Conservation (cSACs) under the Habitats Directive in the Lake District National Park located in the North of England. These are the rivers Ehen, Kent, Derwent and Eden. For each cSAC, there are defined ecological criteria that include water quality targets to protect the designated species. Stretches of the riverine cSACs in each catchment are failing to meet these and other water quality targets. The Environment Agency commissioned a study of each catchment to provide the underpinning scientific knowledge to allow it to deliver its statutory obligations under the Habitats Directive. SIMCAT river water quality models were produced and used to predict the water quality impacts resulting from a number of water quality planning scenarios aimed at achieving full compliance with the Habitats Directive and other national and EEC water quality targets. The results indicated that further controls on effluent discharges will allow the majority of targets to be met but other sources of pollution will also need to be controlled. The outcome of the study also recognised that water quality improvements alone will not necessarily produce the required improvement to the ecological interest features in each cSAC.     

Disc filtration for separation of flocs from a moving bed bio-film reactor.

A Discfilter with 10 and 18 microm filter openings, respectively, was placed in parallel to a flotation plant for separation of biological flocs from a post-denitrifying Kaldnes Moving Bed Process, the last treatment step at the municipal wastewater treatment plant at Sj?unda, Malm?, Sweden. The effluent concentrations from the 10 and 18 microm filter were 2-5 and 2-8 mg SS L(-1), respectively, which is comparable to, or better than, the flotation plant. Comparison with experiences from activated sludge plants shows that the Discfilter works especially well after the Kaldnes process. Particle size distribution (PSD) studies show that particles larger than the filter openings of 10 and 18 microm are separated with approximately 90% efficiency, whereas most of the smaller particles pass the filter. This fact indicates that the major particle separation mechanism is physical blocking. These findings point to the possibility of improving the prediction of the separation efficiency by combining measurements of turbidity and suspended solids with particle size analysis.     

Markov analysis of qualitative dynamics1

Common sense sometimes predicts events to be likely or unlikely rather than merely possible. We extend methods of qualitative reasoning to predict the relative likelihoods of possible qualitative behaviors by viewing the dynamics of a system as a Markov chain over its transition graph. This involves adding qualitative or quantitative estimates of transition probabilities to each of the transitions and applying the standard theory of Markov chains to distinguish persistent states from transient states and to calculate recurrence times, settling times, and probabilities for ending up in each state. Much of the analysis depends solely on qualitative estimates of transition probabilities, which follow directly from theoretical considerations and which lead to qualitative predictions about entire classes of systems. Quantitative estimates for specific systems are derived empirically and lead to qualitative and quantitative conclusions, most of which are insensitive to small perturbations in the estimated transition probabilities. The algorithms are straightforward and efficient.     

An intrinsic observer for a class of Lagrangian systems

We propose a new design method of asymptotic observers for a class of nonlinear mechanical systems: Lagrangian systems with configuration (position) measurements. Our main contribution is to introduce a state (position and velocity) observer that is invariant under any changes of the configuration coordinates. The observer dynamics equations, as the Euler-Lagrange equations, are intrinsic. The design method uses the Riemannian structure defined by the kinetic energy on the configuration manifold. The local convergence is proved by showing that the Jacobian of the observer dynamics is negative definite (contraction) for a particular metric defined on the state-space, a metric derived from the kinetic energy and the observer gains. From a practical point of view, such intrinsic observers can be approximated, when the estimated configuration is close to the true one, by an explicit set of differential equations involving the Riemannian curvature tensor. These equations can be automatically generated via symbolic differentiations of the metric and potential up to order two. Numerical simulations for the ball and beam system, an example where the scalar curvature is always negative, show the effectiveness of such approximation when the measured positions are noisy or include high frequency neglected dynamics.     

An exploratory study of adolescent's perceptions of the Web

Abstract The purpose of this exploratory study was to investigate the influence of two individual characteristics (Web experience and academic focus) of adolescents on the Web perception, using off-line questionnaires (a Lickert response scale) constituted on the basis of a series of interviews. Questions concerned: perceptions about the nature of information found in the Web; 'strategies' of access to the interesting Internet sites and the reliability of different information resources (libraries, television, Web, etc.). Results lead to the assumption that adolescents with high Web experience became more critical, less confident and less enthusiastic than adolescents with low Web experience and that, in some dimensions, perceptions of literature students are different to those of science students. Even if some interesting results were obtained, further research is needed to explore users' perceptions related to individuals' characteristics and to determine the generalisability of the influences identified in this exploratory study.