Wastewater reclamation through a combination of natural systems (infiltration-percolation and constructed wetlands): a solution for small communities.

The decision on technologies used for reclaiming wastewater appears as important as a consequence of the implications on the economic, environmental and health conditions of societies. The problem arises when deciding how to deal with wastewater in small communities, because the costs of implementing and operating small, intensive wastewater treatment plants are unacceptable and can lead to financing and operation problems. Extensive treatment systems can be a good solution, where space is available. This paper presents the combination of two soft technologies (infiltration-percolation and constructed wetlands) to treat and reclaim wastewater. The obtained results show that the infiltration-percolation effluent presents a quality enough to be reused for irrigation of industrial crops, nurseries, fodder, cereals and oleaginous seeds, ornamental flower production; industrial cooling; impoundments, water bodies, and streams for recreational use in which the public's contact with the water is not permitted; and irrigation of forested areas, landscape areas and restricted access areas. Moreover, the combination of infiltration-percolation and constructed wetlands increases the list of final reclamation to the following: irrigation of pasture for milk or meat animals, crops for canning industry, crops not raw-consumed, fruit trees except by sprinkling, aquaculture; and aquifer recharge by localised percolation through the soil.     

Effect of Methionine Supplementation on Nitrogen Balance in Infants Fed a Low-Cost Soy-Oats Formula

A nitrogen balance study, comparing a low-cost soy-oats infant formula with and without supplemental methionine, was carried out with infants of ages 3 - 26 months at a single equivalent level of nitrogen intake (approximately 850 mg/kg/day). Nitrogen retention was found to be unaffected by methionine supplementation. Com- parison of data obtained in this study with previous research re- vealed that a critical value for intake of total L-sulfur amino acids apparently exists in infants 3 - 26 months of age, below which methionine supplementation will increase nitrogen retention, but above which it will not. This value appears to coincide with that of 49 mg/kg/day recommended for infants by the FNB.     

Influence of weld misalignment and weld metal overmatch on the prediction of fracture in pipeline girth welds

$\text{J-}\text{integral}$ estimates using elastic-plastic finite element calculations, are shown to compare well with experimental results from single edge-notch bend (SENB) specimens made of X483 grade line pipe steel.The influence of weld misalignment and weld metal overmatch on fracture of cracked girth welds is predicted, also using elastic-plastic finite element calculations. Weld metal overmatch reduces plastic strain levels in the weld and appears beneficial in reducing $\text{J-}\text{integral}$ magnitudes. Predicted values of $\text{J-}\text{integral}$ are shown to increase with weld misalignment. However, $\text{J-}\text{integral}$ magnitudes near the critical value for crack growth initiation were only attained after considerable plastic straining at or near limit load. This result suggests that limit load calculations may be more appropriate for prediction of failure of cracked girth welds than conventional fracture techniques.     

Application-Specific Instruction-Set Processor for Retinex-Like Image and Video Processing

This brief presents an application-specific instruction-set processor (ASIP) for real-time Retinex image and video filtering. Design optimizations are addressed at algorithmic and architectural levels, the latter including a dedicated memory structure, an adapted pipeline, bypasses, a custom address generator and special looping structures. Synthesized in CMOS technology, the ASIP stands for its better energy-flexibility tradeoff versus reference ASIC and digital signal processing Retinex implementations.     

Microstructure of Selected Binary Food Powder Mixtures

Binary mixtures of sugar, citric acid, malic acid, soy protein and starch, after exposure to various relative humidities, were analyzed by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). It is shown that depending on interparticle surfaceaffinity, concentration and relative humidity, the mixtures could be random, partially random, ordered or partially ordered. The type of bridging, between the aggregated particles depended on their chemical species and the availability of surface moisture.     

Automated fluorimetry in quality control of pasteurized and ultra-high temperature-treated starch soup

Automated monitoring of the microbiological quality of heat-processed foods by the resazurin reduction test was applied to microtitration plate incubator-fluorimeter technology. The appearance and disappearance of the fluorescing peak of resorufin was monitored on microtitration trays. Pasteurized or ultra-high temperature-treated starch-based soup was used as the model food system. Bacillus subtilis spores (ultra-high temperature treatment) and vegetative cells of Enterococcus faecalis (pasteurization) were inoculated into the soup before the heat treatment at levels which resulted in some survival. The timing of appearance of maximum fluorescence correlated with the number of bacteria in pre-incubated samples. Automated resazurin-reduction fluorimetry was compared with conventional plating, turbidometry and microcolony count by the direct epifluorescent filter technique. The results of the resazurin test correlated well with those of all the other methods tested. Fluorimetry had the advantage that the results could be read within 1–5h and the reproducibility was superior to the other methods.