Untersuchungen zur Steuerung und Kontrolle der Vermikompostierung von organischen Abfällen

Die Abwasserbehandlung muss die Aufgaben der Abwasseraufbereitung und der hygienisierenden Behandlung der Feststoffe erfüllen. Besonders in Wassermangelgebieten und dünn besiedelten Regionen bietet sich darüber hinaus die Möglichkeit an, im Abwasserstrom enthaltene Nährstoffe zurückzugewinnen. Ein Großteil dieser Arbeit wurde im Rahme des Komplett-Projektes erstellt, in dem ein neuartiges dezentrales Recyclingsystem zur Schließung von Wasser- und Stoffkreisläufen entwickelt wurde. Gegenstand der vorliegenden Arbeit war die Entwicklung einer Anlage (im Technikumsmaßstab für ca. 200 Personen) zur direkten Behandlung der Feststoffe aus der Abwasserreinigung und anderer organischer Abfälle. Ziel war ein weitgehend automatisierter Betrieb, der eine direkte Verwendung des behandelten Substrates als nährstoffreiches und hygienisch unbedenkliches Düngemittel ermöglichen sollte. Aufgrund der Beschaffenheit der erwarteten Reststoffe sowie der Vorgabe, möglichst hohe Anteile der Nährstoffe zu erhalten, wurde als Behandlungsform die Vermikompostierung (mit der Wurmart Dendrobaena veneta) gewählt. Es zeigte sich, dass die Feststoffe aus der Abwasserreinigung des Komplett-Projektes ohne weitere Vorbehandlung und ohne die Verwendung von Co-Substraten direkt zur Vermikompostierung verwendet werden konnten. Organische Siedlungs- und Küchenabfälle waren jedoch ohne weiteren Voraufschluss (z.B. in Form einer Heißrotte) nicht geeignet, da die eingesetzten Würmer nicht in der Lage waren, die frischen Bioabfälle aufzunehmen. Der Wassergehalt der Substratmischung wurde als entscheidender Parameter für die Vermikompostierung der untersuchten Feststoffe (Fäkalien und häuslicher Bioabfall) identifiziert. Dieser kann im System deutlichen Schwankungen unterliegen, was bei hohem Wassergehalt zu Anoxie, bei zu geringem Wassergehalt zum Austrocknen und Absterben der Tiere führt. Weiterhin wurde die Möglichkeit geprüft, die Vermikompostierung zu überwachen und zu steuern. Zu diesem Zweck wurde untersucht, ob die Geräusche, die von den Würmern beim Durchwandern des Substrates erzeugt wurden, als Kontrollparameter genutzt werden können. Nach Isolation eines „Wurmgeräusches“ unter idealisierten Bedingungen und Festlegen einer Zielfrequenz zur Überwachung konnten die Geräuschmuster einer Vermikompostierung mit Fäkalien mit geeignetem Wassergehalt klar von denen einer entsprechenden Durchführung unter trockeneren Bedingungen unterschieden werden. Die akustischen Eigenschaften verschiedener Substrate sind voneinander unterschiedlich. Daher müsste das System für abweichende Materialmischungen neu kalibriert werden. Die Technisierung der Vermikompostierung war in weiten Teilen möglich, eine umfassende Automatisierung konnte nicht erreicht werden. Diese Untersuchungen zeigen, dass die Vermikompostierung eine sinnvolle Form der Behandlung von Feststoffen aus der Abwasserreinigung zur Schließung von Stoffkreisläufen ist, wobei ein extensiver Betrieb empfohlen wird. Es konnte eine zweckmäßige Technisierung erreicht werden. Die Kontrolle der Vermikompostierung über die akustischen Signale der Vermikompostierung erscheint möglich, für die Implementierung einer Steuerung ist jedoch weiterer Forschungsbedarf gegeben.Especially in areas with water shortage and in secluded, sparsely populated regions, wastewater treatment hast to serve for sanitation and besides, may help to recycle valuable nutrients. In the “Komplett-Projekt”, a new decentralized recycling system for closing waterand nutrient-cycles was developed, and within this project, the task of the present work was the development of a (“intermediate-scale”) unit for the direct treatment of biosolids from the wastewater treatment plus further organic residues, as obtained in smaller settlements or hotel kitchens. The main objectives were a largely automated operation and the quality of the obtained substrates as a nutrient rich and hygienically safe fertilizer was assessed. Given texture and nutrient concentrations of the residues, it was tested whether vermicomposting using the species Dendrobaena veneta could be used as a treatment alternative. In a series of experiments, vermicomposting of organic residues was tested as an option for the given conditions. It was found that solids from the “Komplett”-wastewater treatment could be used for vermicomposting without further treatment or amendment of co-substrates. The organic residues and domestic bio-waste could not be applied directly, as Dendrobaena veneta cannot thrive on fresh intact tissues. Thus, the vermicomposting process requires input of pre-digested material. In any case, an additional pre-treatment (i.e. composting) is recommended. The water content was found to be the most crucial parameter for vermicomposting of the substrates (feces and domestic bio-waste) as high fluctuations may occur. High moisture contents may lead to anoxia. Thus both, drying out as well as low oxygen levels, lead to the death of earthworms. The vermicomposting process has to be tightly controlled for a continuous turn-over of the substrates by the worm species for a sanitized and suitable compost. Thus, the “noise” produced by the animal activity (migrating through the substrate) was tested for monitoring the process. Under tightly controlled and acoustically isolated conditions, single “noise” peaks could be identified and a centre frequency of 5000 Hz +/- 882 Hz was selected. This acoustic system was subsequently used to monitor the vermicomposting of feces. It could clearly separate two different conditions (dry vs. moist) with different worm activities. As the acoustic properties of the substrates are very specific, the monitoring of the worm-sounds could not be universally applied, as a comprehensive calibration for every substrate-mixture is required. It was possible to mechanize large parts of the vermicomposting-process, although full automation could not yet be achieved due to the difficulty to unequivocally monitor the vermicomposting process. It thus can be stated, that vermicomposting is a suitable treatment for separated solids from wastewater treatment (in our case tested with a device designed for approx. 200 persons) to close nutrient cycles, where an extensive operation is recommended. The process could be reasonably mechanized. The monitoring of the vermicomposting-process using the acoustic signals from the worm activity is promising, but before it can be implemented on a larger scale, the control system needs further research and development

Attosecond Photoionization Dynamics: from Molecules over Clusters to the Liquid Phase

Photoionization is a process taking place on attosecond time scales. How its properties evolve from isolated particles to the condensed phase is an open question of both fundamental and practical relevance. Here, we review recent work that has advanced the study of photoionization dynamics from atoms to molecules, clusters and the liquid phase. The first measurements of molecular photoionization delays have revealed the attosecond dynamics of electron emission from a molecular shape resonance and their sensitivity to the molecular potential. Using electron-ion coincidence spectroscopy these measurements have been extended from isolated molecules to clusters. A continuous increase of the delays with the water-cluster size has been observed up to a size of 4-5 molecules, followed by a saturation towards larger clusters. Comparison with calculations has revealed a correlation of the time delay with the spatial extension of the created electron hole. Using cylindrical liquid-microjet techniques, these measurements have also been extended to liquid water, revealing a delay relative to isolated water molecules that was very similar to the largest water clusters studied. Detailed modeling based on Monte-Carlo simulations confirmed that these delays are dominated by the contributions of the first two solvation shells, which agrees with the results of the cluster measurements. These combined results open the perspective of experimentally characterizing the delocalization of electronic wave functions in complex systems and studying their evolution on attosecond time scales

Brimming bubbles? On an Innovative Piston Design of Dosing Pumps

For delivery, dosing and pressure control of fluids in mobile and stationary applications electromagnetically operated piston pumps are an established solution. The volume per stroke is exactly defined by the geometry. Nevertheless cavitation, more likely with the new fuel blends containing a high proportion of ethanol /1/, deteriorates the dosing precision of the liquid portion. One important criterion of precise metering is the transport of the liquids through the reciprocating piston pump without transferring bubbles. Especially, pumping in the range of vapour pressure of gasoline fuels implies challenges for precision. The objective of this work is revealing potential sources of reduced cavitation by optimising the design. For doing so, optical investigations have been applied. In addition to this, cavitation can be diminished controlling the piston’s travel externally. The second important item covers pumping of degenerated fluids even without negative effects on the pump’s performance. Up to now, wide, inefficient gaps or high force surplus are necessary. A new helix-design /2/ has been investigated and built up in order to reduce the described effort. The effects coming with the helix allow a permanent rinsing of the stressed surfaces, leading to lubrication and lower temperature loads. The results are shown in simulation, fundamental tests and is validated in practical pump operation

CD4+ T Cell Dependent B Cell Recovery and Function After Autologous Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation

Introduction: High-dose chemotherapy followed by autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (auto-HSCT) represents a standard treatment regime for multiple myeloma (MM) patients. Common and potentially fatal side effects after auto-HSCT are infections due to a severely compromised immune system with hampered humoral and cellular immunity. This study delineates in depth the quantitative and functional B cell defects and investigates underlying extrinsic or intrinsic drivers. Methods: Peripheral blood of MM patients undergoing high-dose chemotherapy and auto-HSCT (before high-dose chemotherapy and in early reconstitution after HSCT) was studied. Absolute numbers and distribution of B cell subsets were analyzed ex vivo using flow cytometry. Additionally, B cell function was assessed with T cell dependent (TD) and T cell independent (TI) stimulation assays, analyzing proliferation and differentiation of B cells by flow cytometry and numbers of immunoglobulin secreting cells in ELISpots. Results: Quantitative B cell defects including a shift in the B cell subset distribution occurred after auto-HSCT. Functionally, these patients showed an impaired TD as well as TI B cell immune response. Individual functional responses correlated with quantitative alterations of CD19+, CD4+, memory B cells and marginal zone-like B cells. The TD B cell function could be partially restored upon stimulation with CD40L/IL-21, successfully inducing B cell proliferation and differentiation into plasmablasts and immunoglobulin secreting cells. Conclusion: Quantitative and functional B cell defects contribute to the compromised immune defense in MM patients undergoing auto-HSCT. Functional recovery upon TD stimulation and correlation with CD4+ T cell numbers, indicate these as extrinsic drivers of the functional B cell defect. Observed correlations of CD4+, CD19+, memory B and MZ-like B cell numbers with the B cell function suggest that these markers should be tested as potential biomarkers in prospective studies

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Modelling human choices: MADeM and decision‑making

Research supported by FAPESP 2015/50122-0 and DFG-GRTK 1740/2. RP and AR are also part of the Research, Innovation and Dissemination Center for Neuromathematics FAPESP grant (2013/07699-0). RP is supported by a FAPESP scholarship (2013/25667-8). ACR is partially supported by a CNPq fellowship (grant 306251/2014-0)

Was zieht junge Menschen in die Bundeswehr? Eine Gender-Analyse der YouTube-Serie „Die Rekruten“

Dieser Beitrag untersucht die diskursive Konstruktion militarisierter Maskulinität(en) in der von der Bundeswehr produzierten Webserie „Die Rekruten“ (DR). Insbesondere konzentriert er sich auf einen bestimmten Aspekt im Zusammenhang von Militärdienst und Nachwuchsgewinnung: was zieht junge Menschen in die Bundeswehr? In diesem Sinne fragt der Beitrag, welche Formen militarisierter Maskulinität(en) in DR produziert werden und wie dies zur Legitimität und Attraktivität der Bundeswehr als Arbeitgeber beiträgt. Der Beitrag argumentiert, dass die Konstruktion von Maskulinität(en) in DR nicht uniform, sondern ambivalent ist. Er versucht zu zeigen, dass diese ambivalente und gemäßigte Artikulation von militärischer Maskulinität es erst möglich macht, dass eine breite Gruppe von Subjekten sich mit der Bundeswehr bzw. dem Soldatentum identifizieren kann. Der Beitrag geht wie folgt vor: nach der Einleitung (Abschnitt 1) wird DR in der (überwiegend feministischen) Literatur zu Militarisierung, militarisierten Maskulinität(en) und militärischer Personalanwerbung (2) verortet. Hierbei konzentriert er sich insbesondere auf die Rolle, die Genderkonstruktionen bei der Anwerbung von Rekrut*innen im Besonderen und der Legitimierung von Streitkräften im Allgemeinen spielen. Darauf folgend stellt der Beitrag knapp methodologische Überlegungen vor (3), gefolgt von der empirischen Analyse (4). Der Schlussteil (5) fasst die Ergebnisse zusammen und diskutiert die Implikationen der Ergebnisse für die Forschung

Brimming bubbles? On an Innovative Piston Design of Dosing Pumps

For delivery, dosing and pressure control of fluids in mobile and stationary applications electromagnetically operated piston pumps are an established solution. The volume per stroke is exactly defined by the geometry. Nevertheless cavitation, more likely with the new fuel blends containing a high proportion of ethanol /1/, deteriorates the dosing precision of the liquid portion. One important criterion of precise metering is the transport of the liquids through the reciprocating piston pump without transferring bubbles. Especially, pumping in the range of vapour pressure of gasoline fuels implies challenges for precision. The objective of this work is revealing potential sources of reduced cavitation by optimising the design. For doing so, optical investigations have been applied. In addition to this, cavitation can be diminished controlling the piston’s travel externally. The second important item covers pumping of degenerated fluids even without negative effects on the pump’s performance. Up to now, wide, inefficient gaps or high force surplus are necessary. A new helix-design /2/ has been investigated and built up in order to reduce the described effort. The effects coming with the helix allow a permanent rinsing of the stressed surfaces, leading to lubrication and lower temperature loads. The results are shown in simulation, fundamental tests and is validated in practical pump operation

Brimming bubbles? On an Innovative Piston Design of Dosing Pumps

For delivery, dosing and pressure control of fluids in mobile and stationary applications electromagnetically operated piston pumps are an established solution. The volume per stroke is exactly defined by the geometry. Nevertheless cavitation, more likely with the new fuel blends containing a high proportion of ethanol /1/, deteriorates the dosing precision of the liquid portion. One important criterion of precise metering is the transport of the liquids through the reciprocating piston pump without transferring bubbles. Especially, pumping in the range of vapour pressure of gasoline fuels implies challenges for precision. The objective of this work is revealing potential sources of reduced cavitation by optimising the design. For doing so, optical investigations have been applied. In addition to this, cavitation can be diminished controlling the piston’s travel externally. The second important item covers pumping of degenerated fluids even without negative effects on the pump’s performance. Up to now, wide, inefficient gaps or high force surplus are necessary. A new helix-design /2/ has been investigated and built up in order to reduce the described effort. The effects coming with the helix allow a permanent rinsing of the stressed surfaces, leading to lubrication and lower temperature loads. The results are shown in simulation, fundamental tests and is validated in practical pump operation