Rate of ammonia oxidation in a synthetic saline wastewater by a nitrifying mixed‐culture

Most of the kinetic studies on nitrification have been performed in diluted salts medium. In this work, the ammonia oxidation rate (AOR) was determined by respirometry at different ammonia (0.01 and 33.5 mg N‐NH₃ L^?1), nitrite (0–450 mg N‐NO₂^? L^?1) and nitrate (0 and 275 mg N‐NO₃^? L^?1) concentrations in a saline medium at 30 °C and pH 7.5. Sodium azide was used to uncouple the ammonia and nitrite oxidation, so as to measure independently the AOR. It was determined that ammonia causes substrate inhibition and that nitrite and nitrate exhibit product inhibition upon the AOR. The effects of ammonia, nitrite and nitrate were represented by the Andrews equation (maximal ammonia oxidation rate, r_AOMAX, = 43.2 [mg N‐NH₃ (g VSS_AO h)^?1]; half saturation constant, K_SAO, = 0.11 mg N‐NH₃ L^?1; inhibition constant K_IAO, = 7.65 mg N‐NH₃ L^?1), by the non‐competitive inhibition model (inhibition constant, K_INI, = 176 mg N‐NO₂^? L^?1) and by the partially competitive inhibition model (inhibition constant, K_INA, = 3.3 mg N‐NO₃^? L^?1; α factor = 0.24), respectively. The r_AOMAX value is smaller, and the K_SAO value larger, than the values reported in diluted salts medium; the K_IAO value is comparable to those reported. Process simulations with the kinetic model in batch nitrifying reactors showed that the inhibitory effects of nitrite and nitrate are significant for initial ammonia concentrations larger than 100 mg N‐NH₄⁺ L^?1. Copyright © 2005 Society of Chemical Industry     

A Bayesian propensity score adjustment for latent variable modeling and MCMC algorithm

The estimation of the differences among groups in observational studies is frequently inaccurate owing to a bias caused by differences in the distributions of covariates. In order to estimate the average treatment effects when the treatment variable is binary, Rosenbaum and Rubin [1983. The central role of the propensity score in observational studies for causal effects. Biometrika 70, 41-55] proposed an adjustment method for pre-treatment variables using propensity scores. Imbens [2000. The role of the propensity score in estimating dose-response functions. Biometrika 87, 706-710] extended the propensity score methodology for estimation of average treatment effects with multivalued treatments.However, these studies focused only on estimating the marginal mean structure. In many substantive sciences such as the biological and social sciences, a general estimation method is required to deal with more complex analyses other than regression, such as testing group differences on latent variables. For latent variable models, the EM algorithm or the traditional Monte Carlo methods are necessary. However, in propensity score adjustment, these methods cannot be used because the full distribution is not specified.In this paper, we propose a quasi-Bayesian estimation method for general parametric models that integrate out the distributions of covariates using propensity scores. Although the proposed Bayes estimates are shown to be consistent, they can be calculated by existing Markov chain Monte Carlo methods such as Gibbs sampler. The proposed method is useful to estimate parameters in latent variable models, while the previous methods were unable to provide valid estimates for complex models such as latent variable models.We also illustrated the procedure using the data obtained from the US National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSY1979-2002) for estimating the effect of maternal smoking during pregnancy on the development of the child's cognitive functioning.     

Potential of vibro-milling technique for preparation of electroceramic nanopowders

The potential of the vibro-milling technique as a simple method to obtain usable quantities of single-phase electroceramic powders with nanosized particles was examined. A detailed study considering the role of both milling time and firing condition on phase formation and particle size of the final product was performed. The calcination temperature for the formation of the desired phase was lower when longer milling times have been applied. More importantly, by employing an appropriate choice of the milling time and calcination condition, high purity electroceramic nanopowders have been successfully prepared with a simple solid-state reaction method.     

Transmittance and cathodoluminescence of AlN ceramics sintered with Ca3Al2O6 as sintering additive

Aluminum nitride ceramics were prepared by sintering with 0–4.8 mass% of Ca₃Al₂O₆ (C₃A) as a sintering additive. The transmittance in the range of 260–550 nm increased with increasing amount of C₃A. The cathodoluminescence intensity attributed to oxygen-induced defects decreased with increasing amount of C₃A. From the results, the increase of the transmittance in the range of 260–550 nm was considered to be related to the decrease of the oxygen-induced defect density.     

一种新的基于PARC技术的MIMO系统

MIMO (Multiple-Input Multiple-Output)的显著优点就是在不增加带宽的情况下,能够成倍地提高通信系统容量和频谱利用率,是未来移动通信与个人通信系统实现高速率数据传输,提高高传输质量的重要途径,也是未来移动通信系统广泛采用的关键技术.文中简要介绍了MIMO系统及其一种新的MIMO系统中的应用技术,即PARC(Per-antenna Rate Control)技术.     

Novel electro-optic properties of epitaxially grown (Pb, La)(Zr, Ti)O3 (PLZT) thin films derived by advanced sol–gel methods

Advanced sol–gel methods using a secondary solvent addition into (Pb, La)(Zr, Ti)O₃ (PLZT) sol–gel solution and a methanol pre-treatment of sapphire substrates are demonstrated. For the secondary solvent addition, the additive affected the crystallinity and electro-optic (EO) property of PLZT films and only methanol addition can improve them. In addition, the methanol pre-treatment is also appeared to be effective to improve film characteristics.

Through these optimizations, epitaxially grown PLZT thin films on r-cut sapphire are obtained and a high Pockels coefficient which is comparable to those of bulk PLZTs is achieved. It is believed that these PLZT thin films are applicable for integrated EO devices and open the door for the future data communication systems.     

3D velocity from 3D Doppler radial velocity

We present local least squares and regularization frameworks for computing 3D velocity (3D optical flow) from 3D radial velocity measured by a Doppler radar. We demonstrate the performance of our algorithms quantitatively on synthetic radial velocity data and qualitatively on real radial velocity data, obtained from the Doppler radar at Kurnell Radar station, Botany Bay, New South Wales, Australia. Radial velocity can be used to predict the future positions of storms in sequences of Doppler radar datasets.© 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Imaging Syst Technol, 15, 189–198, 2005     

Ring‐opening polymerization of D,L‐lactide by rare earth 2,6‐dimethylaryloxide

Ring‐opening polymerization of D,L ‐lactide (LA) has been successfully carried out by using rare earth 2,6‐dimethylaryloxide (Ln(ODMP)₃) as single component catalyst or initiator for the first time. The effects of different rare earth elements, solvents, monomers and catalyst concentration as well as polymerization temperature and time on the polymerization were investigated. The results show that La(ODMP)₃ exhibits higher activity to prepare poly(D,L ‐lactide) (PLA) with a viscosity molecular weight of 4.5 × 10⁴ g mol^?1 and the conversion of 97 % at 100 °C in 45 min. The catalytic activity of Ln(ODMP)₃ has following sequence: La > Nd > Sm > Gd > Er > Y. A kinetic study has indicated that the polymerization is first order with respect to both monomer and catalyst concentration. The apparent activation energy of the polymerization of LA with La(ODMP)₃ is 69.6 kJ mol^?1. The analyses of polymer ends indicate that the LA polymerization proceeds according to ‘coordination–insertion’ mechanism with selective cleavage of the acyl–oxygen bond of the monomer. Copyright © 2004 Society of Chemical Industry     

Performance modeling and evaluation of data/voice services in wireless networks

Application-level performance is a key to the adoption and success of the CDMA 2000. To predict this performance in advance, a detailed end-to-end simulation model of a CDMA network is built to include application traffic characteristics, network architecture, network element details using the proposed simulation methodology. We assess the user-perceived application performance when a RAN and a CN adopt different transport architectures such as ATM and IP. To evaluate the user-perceived quality of voice service, we compare the end-to-end packet delay for different vocoder schemes such as G.711, G.726 (PCM), G.726 (ADPCM), and vocoder bypass scheme. By the simulation results, the vocoder bypass scenario shows 30% performance improvement over the others. We also compare the quality of voice service with and without DPS scheduling scheme. We know that DPS scheme keep the voice delay bound even if the service traffic is high. For data packet performance, HTTP v.1.1 shows better performance than that of HTTP v.1.0 due to the pipelining and TCP persistent connection. We may conclude that IP transport technology is better solution for higher FER environment since the packet overhead of IP is smaller than that of ATM for web browsing data traffic, while it shows opposite effect to the small size voice packet in RAN architecture. We show that the 3G-1X EV-DO system gives much better packet delay performance than 3G-1X RTT. The main conclusion is that end-to-end application-level performance is affected by various elements and layers of the network and thus it must be considered in all phases of the development process. Jae-Hyun Kim He received the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees, all in computer science and engineering, from Hanyang University, Ansan, Korea, in 1991, 1993, and 1996 respectively. In 1996, he was with the Communication Research Laboratory, Tokyo, Japan, as a Visiting Scholar. From April 1997 to October 1998, he was a post-doctoral fellow at the department of electrical engineering, University of California, Los Angeles. From November 1998 to February 2003, he worked as a member of technical staff in Performance Modeling and QoS management department, Bell laboratories, Lucent Technologies, Holmdel, NJ. He has been with the department of electrical engineering, Ajou University, Suwon, Korea, as an assistant professor since 2003. His research interests include QoS issues and cross layer optimization for high-speed wireless communication. Dr. Kim was the recipient of the LGIC Thesis Prize and Samsung Human-Tech Thesis Prize in 1993 and 1997, respectively. He is a member of the Korean Institute of Communication Sciences (KICS), Korea Institute of Telematics and Electronis (KITE), Korea Information Science Society (KISS), and IEEE. Hyun-Jin Lee received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering from Ajou University, Suwon, Korea, in 2004, and is working toward the M.S. degree and Ph. D. degree in electrical engineering at Ajou University. He has been awarded Samsung Human-Tech Thesis Prize in 2004. His research interests QoS, especially network optimization and wireless packet scheduling. He is a member of the KICS. Sung-Min Oh received the B.S. and M. S. degrees in electrical engineering form Ajou University, Suwon, Korea, in 2004, and is working toward the Ph. D. degree in electrical engineering at Ajou University. His research interests QoS performance analysis and 4G network. He is a member of the KICS. Sung-Hyun Cho received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. in computer science and engineering from Hanyang University, Korea, in 1995, 1997, and 2001, respectively. From 2001 to 2005, he has been with Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology, where he has been engaged in the design and standardization of MAC and upper layers of B3G, IEEE 802.16e, and WiBro systems. He is currently a MAC part leader in the telecommunication R&D center of Samsung Electronics. His research interests include 4G air interface design, radio resource management, cross layer design, and handoff in wireless systems.     

Innovation in construction: a sociology of technology approach

An alternative approach to understanding innovation is made using two intersecting ideas. The first is that successful innovation requires consideration of the social and organizational contexts in which it is located. The complex context of construction work is characterized by inter-organizational collaboration, a project-based approach and power distributed amongst collaborating organizations. The second is that innovations can be divided into two modes: 'bounded', where the implications of innovation are restricted within a single, coherent sphere of influence, and 'unbounded', where the effects of implementation spill over beyond this. Bounded innovations are adequately explained within the construction literature. However, less discussed are unbounded innovations, where many firms' collaboration is required for successful implementation, even though many innovations can be considered unbounded within construction's inter-organizational context. It is argued that unbounded innovations require an approach to understand and facilitate the interactions both within a range of actors and between the actors and technological artefacts. The insights from a sociology of technology approach can be applied to the multiplicity of negotiations and alignments that constitute the implementation of unbounded innovation. The utility of concepts from the sociology of technology, including 'system building' and 'heterogeneous engineering', is demonstrated by applying them to an empirical study of an unbounded innovation on a major construction project (the new terminal at Heathrow Airport, London, UK). This study suggests that 'system building' contains outcomes that are not only transformations of practices, processes and systems, but also the potential transformation of technologies themselves.