False cyanide formation during drinking water sample preservation and storage

Carefully controlled bench-scale and on-site experiments demonstrated that cyanide can form in the treated drinking water sample container during preservation and storage. In the bench-scale experiment, treated tap water samples were collected on 20 days over six months. The tap water samples were split and some of the splits were spiked with formaldehyde, a known ozone disinfection byproduct, held for three hours and tested for cyanide. Then they were preserved and held for 2-10 days. None of the 69 initial samples had cyanide detects, but 22 of 49 formaldehyde-spiked samples and three of the 20 unspiked samples developed detectable cyanide concentrations during storage. In the on-site experiment, six samples were collected at a finished water tap at an ozone/chloramination treatment plant over three days. Each sample was split, and a portion was spiked with formaldehyde. Each portion was analyzed in triplicate after three different procedures: (1) immediately distilled on-site, (2) stabilized on-site in a distillation tube and distilled back at the laboratory several days later, or (3) following the conventional procedure of preserving the sample to pH > 12 in a container and distilling the sample back at the laboratory. Only the samples handled in the conventional way had detectable amounts of cyanide. Both experiments demonstrated that cyanide can form during conventional preservation and storage, and it is likely that the cyanide detected for this treated drinking water was formed in the sample container as a consequence of the preservation and storage conditions.     

Adaptive filters cascade applied to a frequency identification improvement problem

Problem of frequency identification performance improvement for a single‐tone sinusoidal signal is solved via construction of an adaptive filters cascade. The cascade consists of adaptive band‐pass filters tuned by estimates of the frequency provided by a given identification algorithm. Stability of the cascade is studied and boundedness of trajectories is proven with Lyapunov analysis under certain assumption on identification algorithm. Numerical simulations are given illustrating improved identification performance for different identification algorithms. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Experimental study of coal fracture dynamics under the influence of cyclic freezing-thawing using shear elastic waves

Cyclic freezing-thawing can lead to fracture development in coal,affecting its mechanical and consumer properties.To study crack formations in coal,an ultrasoni...     

Increased Susceptibility of the CD57− NK Cells Expressing KIR2DL2/3 and NKG2C to iCasp9 Gene Retroviral Transduction and the Relationships with Proliferative Potential,Activation Degree,and Death Induction Response

Nowadays, the use of genetically modified NK cells is a promising strategy for cancer immunotherapy. The additional insertion of genes capable of inducing cell suicide allows for the timely elimination of the modified NK cells. Different subsets of the heterogenic NK cell population may differ in proliferative potential, in susceptibility to genetic viral transduction, and to the subsequent induction of cell death. The CD57⁻NKG2C⁺ NK cells are of special interest as potential candidates for therapeutic usage due to their high proliferative potential and certain features of adaptive NK cells. In this study, CD57⁻ NK cell subsets differing in KIR2DL2/3 and NKG2C expression were transduced with the iCasp9 suicide gene. The highest transduction efficacy was observed in the KIR2DL2/3⁺NKG2C⁺ NK cell subset, which demonstrated an increased proliferative potential with prolonged cultivation. The increased transduction efficiency of the cell cultures was associated with the higher expression level of the HLA-DR activation marker. Among the iCasp9-transduced subsets, KIR2DL2/3⁺ cells had the weakest response to the apoptosis induction by the chemical inductor of dimerization (CID). Thus, KIR2DL2/3⁺NKG2C⁺ NK cells showed an increased susceptibility to the iCasp9 retroviral transduction, which was associated with higher proliferative potential and activation status. However, the complete elimination of these cells with CID is impeded.     

Stereo Matching with Transparency and Matting

This paper formulates and solves a new variant of the stereo correspondence problem: simultaneously recovering the disparities, true colors, and opacities of visible surface elements. This problem arises in newer applications of stereo reconstruction, such as view interpolation and the layering of real imagery with synthetic graphics for special effects and virtual studio applications. While this problem is intrinsically more difficult than traditional stereo correspondence, where only the disparities are being recovered, it provides a principled way of dealing with commonly occurring problems such as occlusions and the handling of mixed (foreground/background) pixels near depth discontinuities. It also provides a novel means for separating foreground and background objects (matting), without the use of a special blue screen. We formulate the problem as the recovery of colors and opacities in a generalized 3D (x, y, d) disparity space, and solve the problem using a combination of initial evidence aggregation followed by iterative energy minimization.     

Quantity-based buffer-constrained two-machine flowshop problem: active and passive prefetch models for multimedia applications

Conventional studies on buffer-constrained flowshop scheduling problems have considered applications with a limitation on the number of jobs that are allowed in the intermediate storage buffer before flowing to the next machine. The study in Lin et al. (Comput. Oper. Res. 36(4):1158?C1175, 2008a) considered a two-machine flowshop problem with ??processing time-dependent?? buffer constraints for multimedia applications. A???passive?? prefetch model (the PP-problem), in which the download process is suspended unless the buffer is sufficient for keeping an incoming media object, was applied in Lin et al. (Comput. Oper. Res. 36(4):1158?C1175, 2008a). This study further considers an ??active?? prefetch model (the AP-problem) that exploits the unoccupied buffer space by advancing the download of the incoming object by a computed maximal duration that possibly does not cause a buffer overflow. We obtain new complexity results for both problems. This study also proposes a new lower bound which improves the branch and bound algorithm presented in Lin et al. (Comput. Oper. Res. 36(4):1158?C1175, 2008a). For the PP-problem, compared to the lower bounds developed in Lin et al. (Comput. Oper. Res. 36(4):1158?C1175, 2008a), on average, the results of the simulation experiments show that the proposed new lower bound cuts about 38% of the nodes and 32% of the execution time for searching the optimal solutions.     

Cyclization dynamics of polymers: 7. Applications of the pyrene excimer technique to the internal dynamics of poly(dimethylsiloxane) chains

Poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) polymers end-capped on both ends with pyrene chromophores have been synthesized. Rate constants for end-to-end cyclization 〈 k₁ 〉 have been determined for dilute solutions of these polymers in toluene solution using a combination of fluorescence decay and steady-state fluorescence measurements. While precise values of the critical exponent for the chain length (N¯) dependence of 〈 k₁ 〉 are not yet available, these results are consistent with the N¯^{? 3/2} dependence predicted by Wilemski-Fixman theory. PDMS chains cyclize somewhat more than two times faster than polystyrene chains of the same length in solvents of similar solvating power and viscosity. These results provide strong support for similar predictions made several years ago by Perico and Cuniberti, who used intrinsic viscosity data to parametrize the Rouse-Zimm model for analysis of polymer cyclization dynamics.     

An investigation of microbial adhesion to natural and synthetic polysaccharide-based films and its relationship with the surface energy components

In recent years, polysaccharide-based films have been developed for many applications. Some of these are in the pharmaceutical industry, where the adhesion of microorganisms to surfaces is a concern. After adhesion of a microorganism to a solid surface has taken place, the subsequent biofilm formed can act as a vehicle for spreading infections. The aim of this study is to compare the bacterial adhesion of E. coli and S. aureus from a contaminated solid model (Tryptone Soya Agar) to a range of polysaccharide-based films. These polysaccharide-based films consist of different natural starches (potato, cassava, wheat, pea and rice) and synthetic polymers hydroxyl-propyl cellulose (HPC) and carboxyl methyl cellulose (CMC)). The surface energy parameters of the films were calculated from the contact angle measurements by the sessile drop method. Apolar and polar liquids (water, formamide and hexadecane) and the Lifshitz-Van der Waals/acid-base (LW/AB) approach were used according to the method of Van Oss, Chaundhury and Good. The surface properties of the films were also correlated to the microbial adhesion. This indicated that, for both E. coli and S. aureus, the surface roughness did not affect the microbial adhesion. Only had any correlation with the microbial adhesion and was almost constant for all the various polysaccharide films tested. In addition, the electron—donor properties of the materials, exhibited via , were positively correlated with the adhesion of S. aureus but not with E. coli. This was in agreement with the results of the MATS (Microbial Adhesion To Solvents) test performed on the two bacteria. This revealed that only S. aureus presented an electron—acceptor characteristic.     

Martensitic Transformations and Mechanical and Corrosion Properties of Fe-Mn-Si Alloys for Biodegradable Medical Implants

Metallurgical and Materials Transactions A - The Fe-Mn-Si alloys are promising materials for biodegradable metallic implants for temporary healing process in the human body. In this study, three...     

Citizen (dis)engagement during assessment of sports mega-events: the case of the 2013 Universiade in Kazan,Russia

Based on the environmental case of the 2013 Universiade in Kazan, this research highlights that despite the variety of tools employed for citizen engagement, the key procedures can be claimed as ‘false dialogues’. The study identifies the key factors for such a discrepancy. The main external barriers for post-socialist Russian cities include the limited time frame for building sports venues, poor execution of environmental legislation, and complicated bureaucratic procedures maintained by governmental actors. The internal factors are polarized positions in the community due to the complexity of the project, the gap between the citizen environmental concern and actual engagement in environmentally friendly behaviours associated with the lack of the environmental knowledge, time, and financial resources, lack of knowledge of the environmental impact assessment process, and dominance of the material and paternalistic values and low trust in government proponents.