Ozonation of Drinking Water: A Design Methodology

The formation of potentially carcinogenic organic halides has been shown to result from drinking water disinfection with chlorine. xidative treatment of organic halide precursors with ozone prior to chlorination has surfaced as an attractive technique for reducing the formation of these compounds. In addition to reduction of precursor levels, preozonation has been reported to effect other beneficial results in water treatment. This paper presents design methodologies to optimize the implementation of the ozonation process for water treatment applications. Pre-design considerations common to all ozonation design processes are discussed. Subsequently, design procedures for the ozone generation and contacting systems are reviewed.     

UNICORE 6 — Recent and Future Advancements

UNICORE is a European Grid Technology with more than 10 years of history. Originating from the Supercomputing domain, the latest version UNICORE 6 has turned into a general-purpose Grid technology that follows established standards and offers a rich set of features to its users. The paper starts with an architectural insight into UNICORE 6, highlighting the workflow features, standards and the different clients. Next, the current state of advancement is presented by describing recent developments. The paper closes with an outlook on future planned developments.     

Basilar membrane nonlinearity and loudness

Loudness matching functions for tones for persons with one shifted-threshold ear (hearing loss and noise-shifted thresholds) and one ear within normal limits were used to derive the presumed basilar membrane (BM) input-output (I/O) function in a normal ear. The comparison was made by assuming that the BM I/O function for the ear with the cochlear threshold shift has a slope of one (a linearized cochlea). The function for the normal ear was derived from the loudness matching function based on this assumption. Comparisons were made for archival basilar membrane data [M. A. Ruggero, N. C. Rich, A. Recio, S. S. Narayan, and L. Robles, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 101, 2151-2163 (1997)] for chinchilla and archival loudness matches for long-duration tones for persons with various degrees of cochlear hearing loss [F. Miskolczy-Fodor, J. Acoust Soc. Am. 32, 486-492 (1960)]. Comparisons were made also between BM I/O functions and ones derived from loudness matches for persons with unilateral hearing loss simulated by broadband noise. The results show a close resemblance between the basilar membrane I/O function and the function derived from loudness matches for long-duration tones, even though the comparison was between human and chinchilla data. As the degree of threshold shift increases from 40 to 80 dB, the derived BM I/O functions become shallower, with slopes for losses of 60 dB or more falling in the range of values reported for physiological data. Additional measures with short-duration tones in noise show that the slope of the loudness function and the slope of the derived basilar membrane I/O function are associated with the behavioral threshold for the tone. The results for long-duration tones suggest a correspondence between BM displacement and loudness perception in cases of recruitment, but the relation between the degree of loss and the amount of BM compression and the relation between signal duration and compression suggests that other factors, such as the neural population response, may play a role.     

A test of the censure-deficit model and its relation to premorbidity in the performance of schizophrenics.

This investigation incorporated controls suggested by the Rodnick-Garmezy model of schizophrenic behavior with the task most frequently employed in disconfirmatory studies, in order to assess the tenability of the latter. A number of hypotheses derived from Rodnick and Garmezy, concerned with premorbid history of patients (Goods and Poors) and normals, reinforcement conditions (reward, punishment, and nonevaluation) and sex of E (parental surrogates), were tested in a 3×3×2 design with reaction time (RT) as the dependent variable. None of the hypotheses was supported. Instead, punishment led to fastest performance for all groups, and all Ss tended to perform faster for male than for female Es. This research is consistent with the results of the disconfirmatory studies rather than those of Rodnick-Garmezy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A test of the censure-deficit model in schizophrenia, employing the Rodnick-Garmezy visual discrimination task.

This study tested hypotheses derived from the Garmezy and Rodnick censure-deficit theory of schizophrenia. There was no support for the theory with respect to (a) reported child-rearing practices and (b) reactions to cues depicting maternal and paternal dominance. The behavioral findings obtained irrespective of whether the censure was imbedded in the stimulus or combined with verbal censure by the experimenter. This and a series of other disconfirmatory studies are discussed in relation to the validity of the Garmezy and Rodnick formulations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Guidelines, criteria, and rules of thumb for evaluating normed and standardized assessment instruments in psychology.

In the context of the development of prototypic assessment instruments in the areas of cognition, personality, and adaptive functioning, the issues of standardization, norming procedures, and the important psychometrics of test reliability and validity are evaluated critically. Criteria, guidelines, and simple rules of thumb are provided to assist the clinician faced with the challenge of choosing an appropriate test instrument for a given psychological assessment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Combining Acoustic Emission and Vibration Technologies Harbors Huge Potential for Material Characterization

The demand for raw materials is growing worldwide, in step with increasing world population and rising living standards of emerging countries. It is becoming more difficult to exploit primary raw materials because of declining ore grades and increasingly complicated mineralogies. Thus, the efficient and environmentally sustainable exploitation of primary resources using innovative technologies has emerged as an important research field to address these issues. An innovative approach is introduced to optimize process and quality control by combining acoustic emission (AE) and vibration technology. The general feasibility of these two technologies for material recognition and characterization is examined. The new approach was tested to determine whether coal could be distinguished from waste rock.     

Ionic‐Liquid Gating of InAs Nanowire‐Based Field‐Effect Transistors

Here, the operation of a field‐effect transistor based on a single InAs nanowire gated by an ionic liquid is reported. Liquid gating yields very efficient carrier modulation with a transconductance value 30 times larger than standard back gating with the SiO₂/Si₊₊ substrate. Thanks to this wide modulation, the controlled evolution from semiconductor to metallic‐like behavior in the nanowire is shown. This work provides the first systematic study of ionic‐liquid gating in electronic devices based on individual III–V semiconductor nanowires: this architecture opens the way to a wide range of fundamental and applied studies from the phase transitions to bioelectronics.     

The Migrant Metropolis and American Planning

Problem: Immigration poses various problems for U.S. cities and regions, and the roles planners should play in migrant communities are not clear.

Purpose: I consider how practitioners and scholars have understood and addressed the planning challenges and opportunities presented by the major migrations of ethnic minorities to U.S. cities and regions over the past century.

Methods: I trace discussions of planning and migration at professional planning conferences over the past century and survey planning scholarship and practice related to immigration and migrant communities in three principal eras: early 20th century southern and eastern European immigration; the mid-century internal migrations of African Americans and Puerto Ricans; and immigration in the late 20th and early 21st century.

Results and conclusions: Over the past century, immigration has had physical, economic, and social effects on people and places that are legitimate concerns of urban planners. Yet, the planning profession has had an ambiguous and often ambivalent relationship with migrant communities and has struggled to define specific roles for planners within those communities while social workers and other community and economic development practitioners played larger roles. Planning scholars have not paid as much attention to migrants' adaptation and mobility in U.S. society or their impacts on receiving communities, labor markets, housing, and congestion as have other scholars and urbanists.

Takeaway for practice: Planners have engaged with migrants in a variety of ways. Understanding this history provides context for contemporary debates about immigration and helps frame challenges and opportunities in migrant and receiving communities as planning problems.

Research support: None.