Science Diplomacy, Epistemic Communities, and Practice in Sub-Saharan Africa

For many states in Sub-Saharan Africa, the capacity to participate in the international food standard setting process continues to be a challenge. The scientific and technical capacity for many states in this region remains low. This has consequences for African states beyond international food standard setting but for trade and economic development as well. The present paper considers how science diplomacy is mobilised to improve African scientific capacity and participation in international standard setting and thus the multilateral trading system. Through the conceptual frame of epistemic communities, we argue that science diplomacy is exemplified through how scientific expertise embedded within a set of international institutions seeks to build capacity and participation of African states in this important, yet often little considered aspect of international governance

An efficient and rapid microwave-assisted synthesis of 1-acetyl-1H-indol-3-YL acetates

An efficient and rapid synthesis of 1-acetyl-1H-indol-3-yl acetate 1 and its derivatives 7 via the microwave-assisted cyclisation and decarboxylation of 2-[(carboxymethyl)amino]benzoic acids 5 is described. The latter were left to react with acetic anhydride using triethylamine as the base and were subjected to microwave irradiation for 1 minute, at 80 °C with initial power of 300 W. The target 1-acetyl-1H-indol-3-yl acetate 1 and derivatives 7 were isolated in 34-71% yield. In particular, synthesis of 1-acetyl-6-(trifluoromethyl)-1H-indol-3-yl acetate 7f and 1-acetyl-3-methyl-1H-indol-3-yl acetate 7h is reported for the first time

The CLIMPACTS synthesis report: An assessment of the effects of climate change and variation in New Zealand using the CLIMPACTS system

In the late 1980s, New Zealand undertook the first national assessment of climate change and its possible impacts on the country.The landmark report, reflecting the judgement of scores of national experts, called for greater efforts in building the national research capacity in order to better quantify the range of impacts that could occur in New Zealand from climate change and variability. In response, the collaborative CLIMPACTS Programme was established to provide this capacity. Ten years on from the first national assessment, the present synthesis offers some results from, as well as a demonstration of, the capacity developed by the CLIMPACTS Programme. The purpose of the present document is to provide a summary report from the CLIMPACTS Programme on climate change and its effects on New Zealand.The chapters and their contents are not comprehensive. Rather, they are focused on a specific set of questions, which conform to the particular expertise of the CLIMPACTS Programme members and which employ a limited set of the wide range of tools available within the CLIMPACTS Model. Other important areas such as forests, indigenous ecosystems and pests and diseases are not yet covered

A mathematical analysis of reaction diffusion systems in chemical and biological reactors with macro and micro structures :|ba thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Massey University

This thesis is concerned with generalised models for biological and chemical reactors such as the tubular, fluidised, fixed, packed, continuously stirred and trickle bed reactors. Suppose n chemical components at concentrations Ci (i = 1,2,..,n) are "diffusing" and reacting in a homogeneous incompressible fluid with a known velocity profile u(z) independent of Ci so that in the reactor region Λ, div u is zero. Immersed in the fluid may be a uniformly distributed population of particles which absorb these chemicals and act as local sites for reaction-diffusion phenomena. The particles are sources and sinks for the chemicals Ci in the fluid and these fluid concentrations govern the boundary conditions for the particle or local behaviour. A system of equations is set up as a general model for these complex interactions. The principle limitations of this model are firstly that u(t, z), the velocity profile in Λ is known and not coupled with the concentrations Ci in any way, and secondly the particles are assumed to be fixed relative to the coordinate system of z in Λ and sufficiently small so that a representative sample of them can be taken to be in a spatially constant concentration environment in Λ. The objectives of this thesis are generalised comparison theorems for these systems which are used to prove uniqueness, existence, stability and other general qualitative features of such models. A number of examples from literature are examined. Models conforming to the system described in this thesis have applications in biological wastewater treatment, biochemical manufacture, urea removal by the compact artificial kidney and industrial fermentation processes. Other potential modelling areas concern fertiliser or pollutants diffusing in soil moisture and reacting with soils, oxidation with product formation in waste deposits and industrial ore reduction processes. There are many other industrial and environmental problems with similar interacting macro and micro structures. These include the catalytic cracking and synthesis processes in chemical industries ranging from the making of synthesis gas from coal to oil refining

Mathematical analysis of the reaction diffusion processes occuring within a biofilm: submitted as a 3 paper thesis for the degree of Masters of Philosophy in biotechnology at Massey University in New Zealand

This thesis investigates the behaviour of the solutions to mass transfer type reaction-diffusion equations within a biological film around a spherical particle, around a rotating cylinder and on a slab. In general these biological films may be found in any biological system and as examples of systems with spherical, cylindrical and slab geometry we examine biofilms in a fluidised bed biofilm reactor, biological growth around a rotating cylinder and on a rotating biological disk contactor. These equations model concentrations of substrates within a single biofilm as a function of position and time. In dimensionless coordinates , these equations have the form = _1_ l (xa-1 QY) - 4/ F(y) a-1 ax ax (P) X for a = 1,2,3 being geometries of a slab, cylinder and sphere respectively and \w-• ti hai-a F(y) may correspond to F0,F1 Fn or Fmm and where ' FO = 1 corresponds to zero order kinetics F1 = y corresponds to first order kinetics Fn =yn corresponds to nth order kinetics where n is an integer and F Y corresponds to Michaelis-Menten reaction kinetics mm 1 + y The dependent variable y corresponds to concentration and the independent variables x and t correspond to distance and time respectively. The model parameters are saturation parameter , which describes the concentration and Thiele modulus , which is the ratio of reaction to diffusion coefficients. The boundary conditions are (a,t)=O and y(1,t)=1 for all time >0 Here a is the internal boundary, a parameter that corresponds in spherical geometries to the ratio of the radius of a support media to the total radius of the bioparticle, in cylindrical geometries to the radius of a cylinder without biofilm to the total radius of the cylinder with biofilm and in slab geometry to be the ratio of the inactive region of diffusion to the thickness of biofilm measured from the centre of the slab. This may vary but for our purposes we shall take it to be a constant. The major part of this thesis is concerned with the solution to the steady state associated with problem (P). Using the maximum principle and, methods of upper and lower solutions and standard topologocal results from non-linear analysis, existence , uniqueness and monotonicity results are obtained. In particular it is shown that the steady state problem has a unique solution for all values ,.,n,.,f C "\ ,-,.f -1-h'"' .f,-,,.,..,.., 1 above in the geometries slab, cylinder and sphere. Liiv ,v1111 It is also shown that if F(0) = 0, F(y) 0, the unique solution of the steady state problem associated with (P) is strictly greater than zero. This is indeed true for nth order and Michaelis-Menten kinetics. For the zero order case F(0) * 0 implies that our solution to the steady state problem associated with (P) could become negative. Having a negative concentration is not a physical reality and we impose a third boundary condition that redefines a in terms of Thiele modulus, . We also show that our solution to the steady state problem associated with problem (P) is monotonically decreasing in <P and monotonically increasing in f3 for all geometries and all orders. This may be generalised to all time for the unsteady state case. The final part of this thesis considers the equation of the existence of solutions to problem (P) which are defined for all time . Such existence results are derived and approximate analytical solutions are obtained for some special cases ; but for general regions , only partial answers are obtained

Modelling regional markets for co-produced timber and biofuel

It has been suggested that the large scale use of biofuel, that is fuel derived from biological materials, instead of traditional fossil fuels, especially in combination with reforestation of large areas, can lead to a low-cost reduction in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. In this paper, we attempt to estimate the cost of a policy aimed at the reduction of carbon in the atmosphere. We model an economical system of n geographical regions with inter-regional trade, with the aim of evaluating the impacts of large scale biofuel production and forestry on regional and global energy, wood and land markets. It is shown that the costs under these policies are lower than has been previously expected.Mathematical modelling Biofuel Carbon sequestration Market modelling