正丁醇/柴油复合燃烧对轻型柴油机排放的影响

通过在一台轻型柴油机上加装低压共轨实现在进气歧管上的正丁醇喷射,喷射压力恒定为0.35 MPa;柴油采用缸内直喷,喷射压力恒定为120 MPa;采用自主开发的电控单元(ECU)分别控制柴油与正丁醇的喷射,实现正丁醇/柴油复合燃烧.试验研究了在2800 r·min~(-1)不同负荷下正丁醇喷射量对排放量及颗粒物粒径分布的影响.结果表明:随正丁醇喷射量增加,NO_x和碳烟排放减少,高负荷时降低幅度较大;HC和CO排放增加,低负荷时增加幅度较大;颗粒物生成总量降低且粒径分布重心左移;低负荷时相比于大粒径颗粒物,正丁醇对小粒径颗粒物数浓度的减少更明显;大粒径颗粒物减少比例与小粒径颗粒物减少比例的差距随正丁醇喷射量的增加而减小.     

给水管网中余氯浓度对颗粒物表面细菌附着的影响

为解析余氯浓度对颗粒物表面细菌附着的影响,以给水管网细菌为研究对象,开展其在不同余氯浓度条件下的附着实验.结果表明,低浓度氯(0~0.5 mg·L~(-1))会促进细菌在针铁矿表面的附着,而高浓度氯(0.5~3.0 mg·L~(-1))抑制了细菌的表面附着.通过定量测定及激光共聚焦显微镜的观测发现,当氯浓度为0.5 mg·L~(-1)时,聚集体总细菌数、胞外聚合物(EPS)含量均达到最大.研究结果揭示了余氯浓度调控着细菌EPS的分泌,进而影响细菌在给水管网中颗粒物表面的附着.     

Household hazardous waste: composition of paint waste.

'Paint waste', a part of the 'household hazardous waste', amounting to approximately 5 tonnes was collected from recycling stations in two Danish cities. Sorting and analyses of the waste showed paint waste comprised approximately 65% of the mass, paint-like waste (cleaners, fillers, etc.) comprised 15-25% and foreign items comprised 10-20%.Water-based paint was the dominant part of the paint waste. The chemical composition of the paint waste and the paint-like waste was characterized by an analysis of 27 substances in seven waste fractions. The content of critical substances was low and the paint waste was less contaminated with heavy metals than was the ordinary household waste. This may suggest that households no longer need to source-segregate their paint if the household waste is incinerated, since the presence of a small quantity of solvent-based paint will not be harmful when incinerated. Allowing household paint waste to be collected with ordinary household waste is expected to reduce the cost of handling household hazardous waste, since paint waste in Denmark comprises the major fraction of household hazardous waste.     

General overview of the disaster management framework in Cameroon

Efficient and effective disaster management will prevent many hazardous events from becoming disasters. This paper constitutes the most comprehensive document on the natural disaster management framework of Cameroon. It reviews critically disaster management in Cameroon, examining the various legislative, institutional, and administrative frameworks that help to facilitate the process. Furthermore, it illuminates the vital role that disaster managers at the national, regional, and local level play to ease the process. Using empirical data, the study analyses the efficiency and effectiveness of the actions of disaster managers. Its findings reveal inadequate disaster management policies, poor coordination between disaster management institutions at the national level, the lack of trained disaster managers, a skewed disaster management system, and a top‐down hierarchical structure within Cameroon's disaster management framework. By scrutinising the disaster management framework of the country, policy recommendations based on the research findings are made on the institutional and administrative frameworks.     

Increased grooming after repeated brood care provides sanitary benefits in a clonal ant

Repeated pathogen exposure is a common threat in colonies of social insects, posing selection pressures on colony members to respond with improved disease-defense performance. We here tested whether experience gained by repeated tending of low-level fungus-exposed (Metarhizium robertsii) larvae may alter the performance of sanitary brood care in the clonal ant, Platythyrea punctata. We trained ants individually over nine consecutive trials to either sham-treated or fungus-exposed larvae. We then compared the larval grooming behavior of naive and trained ants and measured how effectively they removed infectious fungal conidiospores from the fungus-exposed larvae. We found that the ants changed the duration of larval grooming in response to both, larval treatment and their level of experience: (1) sham-treated larvae received longer grooming than the fungus-exposed larvae and (2) trained ants performed less self-grooming but longer larval grooming than naive ants, which was true for both, ants trained to fungus-exposed and also to sham-treated larvae. Ants that groomed the fungus-exposed larvae for longer periods removed a higher number of fungal conidiospores from the surface of the fungus-exposed larvae. As experienced ants performed longer larval grooming, they were more effective in fungal removal, thus making them better caretakers under pathogen attack of the colony. By studying this clonal ant, we can thus conclude that even in the absence of genetic variation between colony members, differences in experience levels of brood care may affect performance of sanitary brood care in social insects.