Application of recycled aggregate porous concrete pile (RAPP) to improve soft ground

In this study, a series of laboratory chamber tests was carried out to evaluate the applicability of a porous concrete pile fabricated with recycled aggregates for soft ground improvement. The recycled aggregate porous concrete pile (RAPP) has been developed to replace natural aggregates and to overcome technical problems associated with the conventional compaction piling systems. The laboratory chamber tests for evaluating the performance of RAPP were carried out with a cylindrical mold of 280?mm in internal diameter and 580?mm in height. A replacement area ratio of 5?% and three different loading steps were applied in the chamber tests. The experimental results of the surface settlement, excess pore pressure and vertical stress distribution versus time were compared with those of the sand compaction pile (SCP) reinforced composite ground under the same experimental condition. In addition, the experimental results were compared with the numerical simulation using ABAQUS. The current study shows that the settlement reduction in the RAPP-reinforced system is?significantly enhanced due to load transfer from the soil formation to the RAPP. Furthermore, the comparison of consolidation rates shows that the RAPP can also accelerate the consolidation of soft clay formation because the RAPP behaves as a vertical drain.     

AUTOMATED WEB GIS BASED HYDROGRAPH ANALYSIS TOOL,WHAT1

The separation of the base flow component from a varying streamflow hydrograph is called “hydrograph analysis.” In this study, two digital filter based separation modules, the BFLOW and Eckhardt filters, were incorporated into the Web based Hydrograph Analysis Tool (WHAT) system. A statistical component was also developed to provide fundamental information for flow frequency analysis and time series analysis. The Web Geographic Information System (GIS) version of the WHAT system accesses and uses U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) daily streamflow data from the USGS web server. The results from the Eckhardt filter method were compared with the results from the BFLOW filter method that was previously validated, since measured base flow data were not available for this study. Following validation, the two digital filter methods in the WHAT system were run for 50 Indiana gaging stations. The Nash‐Sutcliffe coefficient values comparing the results of the two digital filter methods were over 0.91 for all 50 gaging stations, suggesting the filtered base flow using the Eckhardt filter method will typically match measured base flow. Manual separation of base flow from streamflow can lead to inconsistency in the results, while the WHAT system provides consistent results in less than a minute. Although base flow separation algorithms in the WHAT system cannot consider reservoir release and snowmelt that can affect stream hydrographs, the Web based WHAT system provides an efficient tool for hydrologic model calibration and validation. The base flow information from the WHAT system can also play an important role for sustainable ground water and surface water exploitation, including irrigation and industrial uses, and estimation of pollutant loading from both base flow and direct runoff. Thus, best management practices can be appropriately applied to reduce and intercept pollutant leaching if base flow contributes significant amounts of pollutants to the stream. This Web GIS based system also demonstrates how remote, distributed resources can be shared through the Internet using Web programming.     

Cell-recycle fed-batch production of a highly unsaturated polyhydroxyalkanoate from 1,3-butanediol byPseudomonas sp. A33

The recently isolatedPseudomonas sp. A33 was investigated for the production of a highly unsaturated polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) containing various alkyl and alkenyl pendent groups from 1,3-butanediol in a cell-recycle fed-batch production mode. The monomer composition and degree of unsaturation in PHA were dependent on the environmental conditions. The production temperature markedly influenced the content, composition, and degree of unsaturation of PHA. As the production temperature decreased from 30 to 10°C, the degree of unsaturation and content of PHA were increased, while the mole percentage of 3-hydroxybutyrate (3HB) was decreased. These temperature effects on the composition of PHA imply that the production can be used as a control variable for the biosynthesis of a highly unsaturated PHA and for the specific regulation of the composition of PHA. The biosynthetic pathway for a highly unsaturated PHA which is based on de novo fatty acid biosynthetic pathway is proposed. For the enhanced production of this functional PHA, a high cell density was achieved by cell-recycle continuous culture at 30°C, and then a large amount of PHA was accumulated at 15°C by fed-batch addition of the feeding solution containing excess 1,3-butanediol. The structures of monomer constituents of polymer were confirmed by gas chromatography—mass spectrometric analysis of trimethylsiyl derivatives of 3-hydroxyalkanoic acids methyl esters.     

Increase of Ozone Concentration in an Inland Basin During the Period of Nocturnal Thermal High

Since ground level ozone concentrations in the basin on one day before the occurrence of unusually high air temperature with nocturnal thermal high showed a typical urban type of a maximum ozone concentration at 1300 LST and a minimum at night. However, a maximum ozone concentration under extremely high air temperature of 39.2 °C was detected at 1700 LST or 1800 LST at two environmental monitoring sites, which was 4 or 5 hr delayed from the typical occurrence time, 1300 LST. Its maximum value showed about 50 or 70% increase of the concentration more than the typical maximum value and its concentration gradually decreased until 2100 LST. After 1200 LST until 1800 LST, air temperature was maintained over 35 °C and the high temperature made a great contribution to the increase of O₃ for several hours. The deviated occurrence time of a maximum ozone concentration is mainly attributed to meteorological and topographic effects – shifted occurrence time of maximum air temperature, shrunken atmospheric boundary layer depth and wind. While daytime O₃ concentration due to photochemical production of O₃ from NO₂ increased, NO₂ concentration decreased, with their reverse respondent patterns each night. A secondary maximum concentration of O₃ at 2300 LST or 2400 LST is due to a much shallower depth of nocturnal surface inversion layer with daytime producing more O₃ than that of the daytime convective boundary layer, resulting in the increase of ozone concentration, though the reduction of ozone occurred under the reversal process of O₃ into NO₂.     

Change‐oriented organizational citizenship behavior: effects of work environment characteristics and intervening psychological processes

Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) has attracted major research effort for the last two decades. The vast majority of studies of OCB have been devoted to affiliative forms of such behavior including interpersonal helping, courtesy, and compliance, which are intended to maintain and reinforce the status quo. The present study attends to another form of OCB that challenges the status quo through suggestions for constructive changes in work methods, processes, and policies. This study identifies a set of workplace characteristics that predict change‐oriented OCB. Multi‐level analyses of large‐scale longitudinal data showed that strong vision and innovative climate predicted change‐oriented OCB via both individual‐ and cross‐level processes. These contextual influences were mediated by two intervening variables: psychological empowerment and felt responsibility for change. The results suggest that change‐oriented OCB is significantly predicted by only organizational characteristics. Group‐level dynamics may be less important for understanding challenging types of OCB than for affiliative types such as helping or compliance. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Influence of the wastewater composition on denitrification and biological P-removal in the S-DN-P process： （c） Dissolved and undissolved substrates

The denitrification and P-removal in the sorption-denitrification-P-removal (S-DN-P) process were carried out under various wastewater compositions. It is noted that P-removal largely depends on the wastewater composition as well to the quantity of the substrates present in wastewater fraction. Three different wastewater fractions are obtained as: raw wastewater, dissolved wastewater (obtained with filtration using 0.45 μm filter), and undissolved wastewater (i.e., infiltrate obtained by above filtration). ...     

Fate of HTO following its acute soil deposition at different growth stages of Chinese cabbage

Lysimeter experiments were carried out in a greenhouse to study the fate of HTO following its soil deposition at different growth stages of Chinese cabbage. An HTO solution was applied to the surface of an acidic sandy soil at a time before, and four different times after, sowing. The transfer of HTO to the plants was quantified with the areal transfer factor (TFa, m2 kg(-1)-fresh) defined as the ratio of the plant concentration at harvest to the areal activity deposition. In the four post-sowing applications, the TFa values were in the ranges of 1.6 x 10(-5)-4.9 x 10(-3) for TFWT and 4.5 x 10(-6) -4.3 x 10(-5) for OBT, increasing with a decrease in the time interval between application and harvest. In the pre-sowing application, which was followed by a soil mixing, the TFa values for TFWT and OBT were 1.3 x 10(-4) and 8.6 x 10(-6), respectively. One week after harvest, soil samplings were made for the applications at 26 (A(26)) and 63d (A(63)) after sowing. Peaks of the depth profiles of the soil HTO appeared in the 10-15 cm layer for A(26) and the 5-10 cm layer for A(63). The top 30 cm of soil contained 0.5% and 20% of the applied activity for A(26) and A(63), respectively. Negligible fractions seemed to be in the deeper zone. It was estimated that almost all or most of the applied HTO had escaped to the air before plants' harvest.     

Ignitability of aluminous coating powders due to electrostatic spark

Electrostatic Powder coating which is a surface finishing technique has widely been used in paint industry since its invention in the 1960s. However, so far, insufficient attention has been paid to the powder fires and/or explosion hazards caused by electrostatic spark during coating process. This paper is a report of the electrostatic spark ignitability of aluminous coating powders (dry blend-type) used in practical electrostatic powder coating. The Hartman vertical-tube apparatus was used for the minimum ignition energy (MIE) test. Various aluminous coating powders, different with respect to the amount of aluminum pigment, were used in this study. Experimental results obtained in this study are as follows: (1) The aluminous coating powder was so sensitive that even an electrostatic spark with an energy as low as 10 mJ could ignite it. (2) The particle size of aluminous coating powder has a considerable effect on the ignitability when the aluminum pigment concentration is within 6 wt% of the practical coating powder manufacturing standards. Thus, the conventional expression for estimating the MIE can be useful when assessing the electrostatic hazards associated with aluminum coating powders.     

Control of electrostatic charge for powder by using feedback control-type ionizer system

As a method to prevent or mitigate cone discharges in a specific section such as a large silo, we have developed a new feedback control-type ionizer system. The feedback control-type system is composed mainly of an ionizer, an electrostatic field strength meter, and computer control equipment. In this study, we evaluated experimentally the practical version of the feedback control-type ionizer system through several tests in a pneumatic powder transport facility. The specific charges of the falling pellets in the silo were also measured for 10 s using a Faraday cage. Polypropylene (PP) pellets with a mean particle size of 3 mm were used in this experiment. The results of the experiment revealed that the feedback control-type ionizer system had the following characteristics: (1) it is possible to control the performance of the ionizer with a supply current; (2) the electrostatic field strength in the loading pipe from the charged powder is reduced and maintained at near zero by using the feedback control-type system; and (3) the performance of the feedback control-type system is superior to that of others, such as the conventional AC- or DC-type ionizers.     

Assessments of natural and anthropogenic influences on water chemistry in the upper Nakdong River,South Korea

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to evaluate what sources principally affect the chemical compositions in the catchment of the upper Nakdong River, South Korea where bedrock mostly consists of silicates as a natural factor. From October 7^th to 9^th, 2015, thirty-three water samples were collected, including samples from tributaries which run alongside mines. We analyzed the major anions, cations, trace elements and water isotopes of the samples and the analyzed data are divided into four groups by principle component analysis (PCA). We determined that most of the water samples are influenced by water-rock interactions when we consider the PCA results and the chemical weathering equation line. However, six samples have excess concentrations of sulfate and plot below the equation line. These samples were mostly from streams beside a zinc-cadmium smelter, which was also consistent with the PCA results. Samples near populated area could also be separated into a group via domestic pollution. Based on the PCA and chemical results, the chemical compositions of the river can be affected by two anthropogenic inputs: mine wastes and domestic contaminants.