Egg Thiamine Status of Lake Ontario Salmonines 1995–2004 with Emphasis on Lake Trout

Alewives (Alosa pseudoharengus), the major prey fish for Lake Ontario, contain thiaminase. They are associated with development of a thiamine deficiency in salmonines which greatly increases the potential for developing an early mortality syndrome (EMS). To assess the possible effects of thiamine deficiency on salmonine reproduction we measured egg thiamine concentrations for five species of Lake Ontario salmonines. From this we estimated the proportion of families susceptible to EMS based on whether they were below the ED20, the egg thiamine concentration associated with 20% mortality due to EMS. The ED20s were 1.52, 2.63, and 2.99 nmol/g egg for Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), lake trout (Salvelinus namaycush), and coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch), respectively. Based on the proportion of fish having egg thiamine concentrations falling below the ED20, the risk of developing EMS in Lake Ontario was highest for lake trout, followed by coho (O. kisutch), and Chinook salmon, with the least risk for rainbow trout (O. mykiss). For lake trout from western Lake Ontario, mean egg thiamine concentration showed significant annual variability during 1994 to 2003, when the proportion of lake trout at risk of developing EMS based on ED20 ranged between 77 and 100%. Variation in the annual mean egg thiamine concentration for western Lake Ontario lake trout was positively related (p < 0.001, r² = 0.94) with indices of annual adult alewife biomass. While suggesting the possible involvement of density-dependent changes in alewives, the changes are small relative to egg thiamine concentrations when alewife are not part of the diet and are of insufficient magnitude to allow for natural reproduction by lake trout.     

Kinetics of phenol oxidation in a trickle bed reactor over active carbon catalyst

The wet air oxidation of phenol over a commercial active carbon catalyst was studied in a trickle bed reactor (TBR) in the temperature and oxygen partial pressure ranges of 120–160 °C and 0.1–0.2 MPa, respectively. The performance of the active carbon was compared in terms of phenol and COD destruction. The weight change of active carbon due to reaction was also measured. Finally, oxic phenol adsorption isotherms were assessed in batch conditions at 25, 125 and 160 °C. In order to use the conversion data obtained from the TBR for a kinetic study, special care was taken to check the kinetic control in the TBR experiments. Several kinetic models including power law or Langmuir–Hinshelwood expressions were considered to describe the catalytic oxidation of phenol over active carbon. The simple power law model with first order dependence on both phenol and oxygen concentration predicted satisfactorily the experimental data not only over the entire range of operating conditions studied, but also outside its validity range. Copyright © 2005 Society of Chemical Industry     

Carbon materials and catalytic wet air oxidation of organic pollutants in wastewater

The use of carbon materials as catalytic support or direct catalyst in catalytic wet air oxidation (WAO) of organic pollutants is reviewed. The discussion covers important engineering aspects including the characterisation, activity and stability of carbon catalysts, process performance, reaction kinetics and reactor modelling. Recommendations for further research in catalytic WAO are outlined.     

Improving data fusion in personal positioning systems for outdoor environments

A fault detection and correction methodology for personal positioning systems for outdoor environments is presented. We demonstrate its successful use in a system consisting of a global positioning system receiver and an inertial measurement unit. Localization is based on the dead reckoning algorithm. In order to obtain more reliable information from data fusion, which is carried out with Kalman filtering, the proposed methodology involves: (1) evaluation of the information provided by the sensors and (2) adaptability of the filtering. By carefully analyzing these factors we accomplish fault detection in different sources of information and in filtering. This allows us to apply corrections whenever the system requires it. Hence, our methodology consists of two stages. In the first stage, the evaluation is conducted. We apply the principles of causal diagnosis using possibility theory by defining states for normal behavior and for fault states. When a fault occurs, corrective measures are applied according to empirical knowledge. In the second stage, the consistency test of the filtering is performed. If this is inconsistent, principles of adaptive Kalman filtering are applied, which means the process and measurement noise matrices are tuned. Our results indicate a reasonable improvement of the trajectory obtained. At the same time, we can achieve consistent filtering, to obtain a more robust system and reliable information.     

Morphology and structure of the pollen cone and pollen grain of the Araucaria species from Argentina

The pollen cone and the pollen grain of the two Argentinean species of Araucaria are described with LM, SEM and TEM. Primordia of pollen cones are formed in April and May and reach maturity by mid-October in A. angustifolia (Bert.) O. Kuntze and by mid-November in A. araucana. (Mol.) K. Koch. Characters of the mature pollen cones and microsporophylls between both taxa are clearly differentiated. Pollen grains are spheroidal-subspheroidal, inaperturate, and asaccate with granulate exine and a subequatorial annular area that corresponds to the sexine thickness. Sculpturing consists of irregularly dispersed granules that are sometimes fused to each other (A. angustifolia) or forming microrugulae (A. araucana). Microgranules and microspinules are also present. The pollen wall ultrastructure is formed by a granular ectexine and lamellated endexine. Granular elements in A. angustifolia are more loosely disposed, form more interstices, and are gradually smaller towards the endexine than in A. araucana. To asses the probable relationships within the family, we compared the pollen grains of the two Araucaria species with those of other extant genera (Agathis, Wollemia) and also with fossil pollen (Araucariacites, Balmeiopsis, Cyclusphaera, Dilwynites) attributed to Araucariaceae.     

Structural and electrical conductivity studies on rutile solid solutions [FexTi1-2xMxO2 (M=Nb, Ta)]

In this study, FexTi1-xMxO2 (M=Nb, Ta; 0x0.5) solid solutions have been synthesized from both ceramic and gel methods, and electrical and structural characterization hasbeen carried out. The solid solutions show rutile structure except for the case of FeNbO4, which forms an orthorhombic structure. The electrical behaviour of the system studied corresponds to extrinsic p-type semiconduction and it is related to the presence of Fe(II) ions. Conductivity is enhanced by local distortions of the M–O lengths associated with ordering oxidation states such as those in Fe3O4. The distortions are more frequent when the asymmetry is greater (M=Nb). No electrical changes have been detected when the synthesis method is different. © 1998 Kluwer Academic Publishers     

Impact of DEM accuracy and resolution on topographic indices

Topography is an important land-surface characteristic that affects most aspects of the water balance in a catchment, including the generation of surface and sub-surface runoff; the flow paths followed by water as it moves down and through hillslopes and the rate of water movement. All of the spatially explicit fully distributed hydraulic and hydrological models use topography (represented by the DEM of the area modelled) to derive bathymetry. DEM is also used to derive some other key information critical in fully distributed hydraulic and hydrological models.With high-resolution DEMs such as LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) becoming more readily available and also with the advancements in computing facilities which can handle these large data sets, there is a need to quantify the impact of using different resolution DEMs (e.g. 1 m against 10 m or 25 m) on hydrologically important variables and the loss of accuracy and reliability of the results as we move from high resolution to coarser resolution.The results from statistical analysis carried out to compare field survey elevations with the LiDAR DEM-derived elevations, show that there are small differences between the two data sets but LiDAR DEM is a reasonably good representation of the actual ground surface compared to other commonly used DEMs derived from contour maps.The results from the analysis clearly show that the accuracy and resolution of the input DEM have serious implications on the values of the hydrologically important spatial indices derived from the DEM. The result also indicates that the loss of details by re-sampling the higher resolution DEM to coarser resolution are much less compared to the details captured in the commonly available coarse resolution DEM derived from contour maps. Topographic indices based on contour derived DEMs should be used with caution and where available, the higher resolution DEM should be used instead of the coarse resolution one.     

A PC-based architecture for parameter analysis of vector-controlled induction motor drive

In this article a methodology for constructing a user interface for system control and data acquisition of a drive which is suitable for three-phase induction motors (3?IM) is presented. The entire hardware implementation is shown, including power and digital stages. Communication between the computer and the controller is engaged in order to enhance an analysis of power quality, adjust the controller parameters for tuning the flux and speed loops, and performance of the embedded algorithm. USB and Ethernet protocols have been put into operation in the user front-end because a high speed sample frequency is required in order to guarantee the real-time operation of the whole system. A software interface is developed using LabVIEW environment enabling features not only as filtering signals of phase voltage and current but also power spectrum measurements. Vector-controlled drive is programmed on a digital signal processor (DSP) in order to ensure efficient use of energy in the power stage and proper tracking of the reference at low and high speeds.     

The ALTER-NATIVA knowledge management approach

Nowadays, it is commonly known that information systems need an agile capability of handling knowledge. To accomplish this, systems have to have a formal knowledge representation ability supported by specific and advanced reasoning features. This research work proposes a knowledge management approach with the purpose to gather, model and consume community knowledge for specific recommendation commitments. Such approach is accomplished by a semantic lexicon alignment between the various community knowledge assets, to facilitate collaborations establishment between people and systems in an interoperable fashion. Thus, a knowledge base supported by a thesaurus able to represent all the metadata needed to represent and characterize the various community stakeholders’ resources is proposed. The thesaurus represents the lexicon in the domain, which in the ALTER-NATIVA systems is mostly used to support the various e-Learning elements (e.g. courses) and users categorization, sustained by synchronization features to facilitate a constant update of its information. A set of services designed to recommend specific resources in relation to a determined profile of user is provided. Additionally, a discussion about how the ALTER-NATIVA knowledge management approach can be applied to industrial environments is presented.     

Binary ant colony optimization applied to variable screening in the Mahalanobis–Taguchi System

This work presents the application of the Mahalanobis–Taguchi System (MTS) to a dimensional problem in the automotive industry. The combinatorial optimization problem of variable selection is solved by the application of a recent version of binary ant colony optimization algorithm. Moreover, a comparison with respect to binary particle swarm optimization algorithm is also presented and a discussion regarding the numerical results is given.