The Effect of Sulphur and Water Treatments on the Performance of Pd/��-Zeolite Diesel Oxidation Catalysts

Sulphur, sulphur-water, and water pretreatments were done to find out the effect of these compounds on a diesel oxidation Pd/??-zeolite catalyst and ??-zeolite washcoat. After pretreatments, the samples were analysed by BET, XRF, TEM-SEM, and XPS. In addition, the activity of fresh and pretreated Pd/??-zeolite catalysts was studied utilizing the by Gasmet FT-IR in production gas analysis. Sulphur compounds (SO₂ or ?SO₄) were found to have a deactivating effect on the activity of the studied Pd/??-zeolite catalyst.     

Use of life cycle assessments to evaluate the environmental footprint of contaminated sediment remediation

Ecological and human risks often drive the selection of remedial alternatives for contaminated sediments. Traditional human and ecological risk assessment (HERA) includes assessing risk for benthic organisms and aquatic fauna associated with exposure to contaminated sediments before and after remediation as well as risk for human exposure but does not consider the environmental footprint associated with implementing remedial alternatives. Assessment of environmental effects over the whole life cycle (i.e., Life Cycle Assessment, LCA) could complement HERA and help in selecting the most appropriate sediment management alternative. Even though LCA has been developed and applied in multiple environmental management cases, applications to contaminated sediments and marine ecosystems are in general less frequent. This paper implements LCA methodology for the case of the polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and -furans (PCDD/F)-contaminated Grenland fjord in Norway. LCA was applied to investigate the environmental footprint of different active and passive thin-layer capping alternatives as compared to natural recovery. The results showed that capping was preferable to natural recovery when analysis is limited to effects related to the site contamination. Incorporation of impacts related to the use of resources and energy during the implementation of a thin layer cap increase the environmental footprint by over 1 order of magnitude, making capping inferior to the natural recovery alternative. Use of biomass-derived activated carbon, where carbon dioxide is sequestered during the production process, reduces the overall environmental impact to that of natural recovery. The results from this study show that LCA may be a valuable tool for assessing the environmental footprint of sediment remediation projects and for sustainable sediment management.     

Boron Fertilization Enhances the Induced Defense of Silver Birch

Boron (B) deficiency is a common micronutrient deficiency that has been reported to affect the phenolic metabolism of plants. Thus, it may play a role in defense against herbivorous animals. However, the role of B in a plant’s resistance to herbivores has not received any particular attention from researchers. In this study, we tested the effects of B nutrition 1) on the biochemical and mechanical defenses of birches and the growth of seedlings, and 2) the resistance of seedlings to larvae of the autumnal moth, Epirrita autumnata. Boron fertilization improved the resistance of birch, which was shown as reduced pupal weight of the herbivore. However, B fertilized trees suffered from heavier defoliation than unfertilized ones due to compensation feeding of larvae. The growth of the seedlings was diminished, and several biochemical changes occurred in leaves of herbivore seedlings, and B also played a role in these changes. Polyphenoloxidases (PPOs) and peroxidases (PODs) and their substrates, chlorogenic acids, were induced by herbivory in B fertilized seedlings but not in unfertilized seedlings. The lower pupal weights and increased consumption of the herbivores were probably linked to the plants’ phenoloxidase-mediated production of reactive quinones, which decrease the nutritive value. Herbivory upon new stems led to an increase in the number of resin glands that provide defense against mammalian herbivores. Herbivory also had a substantially negative effect on B concentration in leaves of B fertilized seedlings. We postulate that B nutrition of trees may play a significant role in the induced defense of birches.     

Novel detector implementations for 3G LTE downlink and uplink

We summarize our recent state-of-the-art programmable and reconfigurable detector and QR decomposition (QRD) implementations targeting 3G long term evolution (LTE) downlink and uplink requirements. The downlink transmission is based on the orthogonal frequency division multiplexing, whereas the uplink transmission uses a single-carrier frequency-division multiple access. The downlink implementations are based on the programmable transport triggered architecture (TTA) which provides a flexible and energy efficient architecture template. In TTA detector implementation, the LTE detection rate requirements up to 20 MHz bandwidth and 4 × 4 antenna system with 64-QAM, are achieved by using 1–6 programmable cores in parallel. Each core runs at 277 MHz clock frequency and consumes 55.5–64.0 mW depending on the detector configuration. The downlink detector is based on the selective spanning with fast enumeration algorithm. The uplink field-programmable gate array (FPGA) detector implementation is targeted for 4 × 4 antenna system and 64-QAM achieving a detection rate requirement for 20 MHz bandwidth. The used FPGA board for uplink implementation is Xilinx Virtex-6 and the implementation has been carried out using Xilinx Vivado high level synthesis tool. Two different detector architectures are implemented. The first one achieves the detection rate requirement with a single processing block running at 231 MHz and the latter one with four blocks in parallel, each running at 247 MHz. The implemented detector is based on the K-best algorithm. A multiple-input multiple-output receiver requires QRD to produce valid inputs for the detector. In addition to detector implementations, QRD is also implemented on both TTA and FPGA. Modified Gram–Schmidt algorithm is used in both QRD implementations.     

The storage life of packed shredded Iceberg lettuce dipped in glycine betaine solutions.

The effects of glycine betaine dip, packaging method, and storage time on the sensory quality of shredded Iceberg lettuce were first modeled using a statistical experimental design, followed by a second storage test verifying the effect of the glycine betaine treatment. Shredded lettuce was dipped in 0 to 100 mg/liter active chlorine solution and then in 0 to 1.0 mol/liter glycine betaine solution, packed in 25 microm oriented polypropylene film, 250 g per package, and stored at 5 degrees C for 8 days. Models with good predictability were created suggesting that the glycine betaine dip helped retain sensory quality, especially appearance (P < 0.05). The models also suggested that washing periods over 60 s were not needed and that the microperforation of packages should not exceed 0.31 mm2 per package. The modeled positive effect on sensory quality was verified in the second storage test (P < 0.05). The optimum glycine betaine concentration was 0.2 mol/liter. Chlorination of the first dip particularly retained appearance of packed lettuce.     

Transpassive dissolution of Ni-Cr alloys in sulphate solutions—comparison between a model alloy and two industrial alloys

The application of a general model for the transpassive dissolution mechanism of binary Ni-based alloys to industrial alloys, Alloy 600 and Alloy C276, containing Ni, Cr, Fe and Mo, in 1 M sulphate solutions at pH 0 and 5 is described. A comparison of the electrochemical behaviour of these two alloys to a binary Ni-15%Cr alloy is also included. The techniques used were ring-disc voltammetry, impedance spectroscopy and resistance measurements. Soluble high-valency products were found to be released in a considerable amount from all the materials. The presence of Mo in Alloy C276 was found to increase the transpassive oxidation rate in comparison to alloys 600 and Ni-15%Cr at pH 0, but the same effect of Mo is not so well pronounced at pH 5. The mechanism of transpassive dissolution was found to be similar on every material at pH 0. At pH 5 the mechanism of the transpassive dissolution on Alloy C276 at high overpotentials is different from that at low overpotentials or from that at pH 0. This change is concluded to be due to the increased effect of adsorbed intermediates at the film/solution interface. The model was found to reproduce the steady state current and the impedance spectra satisfactorily.     

Bayesian Fusion for Indoor Positioning Using Bluetooth Fingerprints

This paper studies the use of received signal strength indicators (RSSI) applied to fingerprinting method in a Bluetooth network for indoor positioning. A Bayesian fusion (BF) method is proposed to combine the statistical information from the RSSI measurements and the prior information from a motion model. Indoor field tests are carried out to verify the effectiveness of the method. Test results show that the proposed BF algorithm achieves a horizontal positioning accuracy of about 4.7 m on the average, which is about 6 and 7 % improvement when compared with Bayesian static estimation and a point Kalman filter method, respectively.     

Exercise as an adjunct to nicotine gum in treating tobacco dependence among women.

This was the first randomized, controlled smoking cessation trial assessing the efficacy of an exercise intervention as an adjunct to nicotine gum therapy in comparison with both equal contact control and standard care control conditions. Sedentary female smokers aged 18-55 years were provided with nicotine gum treatment along with brief behavioral counseling and were randomized into one of these three behavioral adjunct conditions. In the "intent-to-treat" sample (N = 182), at end of treatment and at 1-year follow-up, there were clear, but nonsignificant, trends in univariate analyses in which the exercise and equal contact control conditions both had higher rates of abstinence than the standard care control. However, when adjusting for other predictors of relapse in a multiple logistic regression, both exercise and equal contact control showed an advantage over standard care control in avoiding early relapse (i.e., after 1 week). In a multivariate survival model adjusting for other predictors, the equal contact condition had a significantly lower likelihood of relapse compared with the standard care condition and there was a near significant trend in which exercise offered an advantage over standard care as well. While these findings suggest a slightly improved likelihood of abstinence with exercise compared with standard care, exercise did not differ from equal contact control in its efficacy. Potential explanations for these equivalent levels of efficacy and implications for the findings are discussed.     

Investigation of the Pentathiepin Functionality as an Inhibitor of Feline Immunodeficiency Virus (FIV) via a Potential Zinc Ejection Mechanism,as a Model for HIV Infection

A small diverse library of pentathiepin derivatives were prepared to evaluate their efficacy against the nucleocapsid protein function of the feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) as a model for HIV, using an in vitro cell culture approach. This study led to the development of nanomolar active compounds with low toxicity.     

Targeting an EGFR Water Network with 4-Anilinoquin(az)oline Inhibitors for Chordoma

Quinoline- and quinazoline-based kinase inhibitors of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) have been used to target non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and chordomas with varying amounts of success. We designed and prepared compounds to probe several key structural features including an interaction with Asp855 within the EGFR DGF motif and interactions with the active site water network. EGFR target engagement was then evaluated in a cellular assay, with the inhibitors then profiled in representative cellular models of NSCLC and chordomas. In addition, structure–activity relationship insight into EGFR inhibitor design with potent dimethoxyquin(az)olines identified compounds 1 [N-(3-ethynylphenyl)-6,7-dimethoxyquinolin-4-amine], 4 [N-(3-ethynylphenyl)-6,7-dimethoxyquinazolin-4-amine], and 7 [4-((3-ethynylphenyl)amino)-6,7-dimethoxyquinoline-3-carbonitrile]. We also identified 6,7-dimethoxy-N-(4-((4-methylbenzyl)oxy)phenyl)quinolin-4-amine (compound 18 ), which is the most potent inhibitor (IC₅₀=310 nm ) of the UCH-2 chordoma cell line to date.