Removal of nitrates from groundwater through the use of artificial wetlands

Intensive fertilizer use has led to nitrate contamination of groundwater in many areas. This article examines the possibility of removing nitrates through the construction of artificial wetlands. A pilot study conducted in Denmark has found that the method is effective and economical, at least for small waterworks, though further treatment is necessary before an acceptable microbiological water quality is attained.     

Influence of Lipid Composition on the Water and Fat Exudation and Gel Strength of Meat Batters

Blends of lard with eight separate fats or oils (70:30 w/w) were prepared and used as the fat component of meat batters. After cooking, the batters were analyzed for water and fat exudation and gel strength. None differed significantly from the control of 100% lard. Positive correlation coefficients, however, were significant between percent monounsaturated triglycerides and water exudation, polyunsaturated triglycerides and fat exudation and saturated triglycerides and gel strength. Addition of lecithin, cholesterol or methyl palmitate to the lard increased fat exudation and decreased gel strength. Sodium laurate had the opposite effect whether added to the lard or to the aqueous phase.     

Modeling and CW operation of a quasi-three-level 946 nm Nd: YAG laser

A model is developed for an end-pumped quasi-three-level laser with population in the lower laser level at equilibrium such as for transitions to the manifolds⁴I9/2in Nd³⁺,⁴I15/2in Er³⁺,⁵I8in Ho³⁺and³H6in Tm³⁺. It is shown that the effect of residual lower laser level population on laser operation can be treated as a saturable loss. Room temperature operation on the⁴F3/2-⁴I9/2transition in Nd:YAG under CW dye laser pumping has been demonstrated with a threshold as low as 11.5 mW incident power and a slope efficiency of 7 percent with 0.3 percent output coupling. Performance is limited by the low output coupling and diffraction loss.     

Interdisciplinary research: roles for self-organization

No generally accepted principles and guidelines currently exist to help engineers design local interaction mechanisms that result in a desired global behavior. However, several communities have developed ways of approaching this problem in the context of niched application areas. Because the ideas underlying these approaches are often obscured or underemphasized in technical papers, the authors review the role of self-organization in their work. They provide a better picture of the status of the emerging field of self-organizing systems or autonomic computing.     

A Semantic Future for AI

Computing must become much more human centered--for example, by presenting personalized information to users and by respecting personal preferences when controlling multiple devices or invoking various services. Appropriate representation of the information's semantics and of the functionality of devices and services will be critical to such personalized computing. Symbolic artificial intelligence techniques provide the method of choice for the required semantic-representation and reasoning capabilities.