(Biphenyl-2-yl)bromidobis(2-methyl­tetra­hydro­furan-κO)magnesium(II)

In the title Grignard reagent, [MgBr(C12H9)(C5H10O)2], the Mg centre adopts a distorted tetra­hedral MgCO2Br arrangement. The dihedral angle between the two aromatic rings of the biphenyl residue is 44.00 (14)°. Each mol­ecule incorporates one R- and one S-configured 2-methyl­tetra­hydro­furan mol­ecule

Thermal drying of faecal sludge from vip latrines and characterisation of dried faecal material.

Master of Chemical Engineering in Engineering. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 2016.Ensuring safe, adequate, effective and sustainable sanitation is a major global challenge, especially in developing countries. This project is part of the ‘Reinvent the Toilet Challenge’ (RTTC) which focuses on the development and implementation of new and sustainable technologies for processing human excreta from on-site sanitation systems. This project investigated the drying kinetics of pit latrine sludge by convective drying using different air properties and analysed the resulting thermal properties and nutrient content of the sludge. The drying experiments were conducted at air temperatures of 40 °C, 60 °C and 80 °C; relative humidity of 5 %, 15 % and 25 %; effective air flow velocity of 0.03 cm/s, 0.06 cm/s and 0.12 cm/s. The drying curves obtained indicated two distinct stages during the drying process, a constant rate period and the falling rate period. It was observed that the drying kinetics were greatly affected by temperature, relative humidity and sample thickness but the effect of air flow rate seemed negligible in the range of study. The effective moisture diffusivity was found to range between 7.8×10-8 and 2.1×10-7 m2/s. The relationship between the effective moisture diffusivity and temperature was described well using the Arrhenius type equation. The concentration of nutrients was no affected by the conditions except for ammonia and nitrates which decreased greatly. The thermal conductivity of the wet sludge, of moisture content 79 % (wb), was 55 W/m.K and it showed a linear relationship with the moisture ratio of the sludge sample. The average thermal conductivity of the final dried product was 0.04 W/m.K. Heat capacity also showed great dependence on the moisture content of the sample but it was not a linear relationship. The calorific value of the dried samples was around 13 MJ/kg. The drying curves were regressed against common empirical drying models and the Page model described the experimental data well of the models analysed, yielding a R2 greater than 0.996

Evaluation of Gender Difference Influence: Effects of Games on Acquisition of Science Process Skills in Junior Secondary School South East Nigeria

The relevance of instructional games has made it an important instructional approach for the teaching and learning of science especially at junior secondary level. The present study was focused on gender difference influence: effects of games on acquisition of science process skills in junior secondary school south east Nigeria. The quasi-experimental design was used for this study. The population of this study consisted of the entire Junior Secondary School, Basic Science students one (JSS 1) of the thirty-five (35) public secondary schools in Enugu Education Zone. The sample for the study was one hundred and sixty (160) Basic Science students and four Basic Science teachers from co-education secondary schools in Enugu Education Zone of Enugu state. Stratified random sampling was employed to obtain the schools used for the study. The instruments used for the study was the Test of Science Process Skills Acquisition Test (TOSPSAT). The instruments were given to four (4) experts in science education, two (2) science educators (measurement and evaluators) and two (2) experienced integrated teachers for face and content validation.  The reliability of TOSPSAT was done using Kuder-Richardson formula 20 (K-R 20). The research questions were answered using mean and standard deviation. Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was used for testing hypotheses at P<0.05 level of significance.  The students taught using game teaching approach had higher mean science process skills acquisition scores in all the skills studied than those taught using conventional method. There was a significant difference in the mean science process skills acquisition scores of subjects exposed to games than those exposed to conventional method. Male and female students exposed to games scored higher in all the science process skills studied. There was no significant difference found in the mean science process skills acquisition scores of male and female students exposed to games. The interaction effect of instructional methods and gender on mean science process skills acquisition scores was not significant. The findings of this implies that students, teachers and curriculum planners should adopt the use of games in teaching and learning processes. Keywords: games, science process skills, gender difference DOI: 10.7176/JEP/11-15-06 Publication date:May 31st 202

Adjoint of the Global Eulerian Lagrangian Coupled Atmospheric transport model (A-GELCA v1.0): development and validation

Abstract. We present the development of the Adjoint of the Global Eulerian–Lagrangian Coupled Atmospheric (A-GELCA) model that consists of the National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES) model as an Eulerian three-dimensional transport model (TM), and FLEXPART (FLEXible PARTicle dispersion model) as the Lagrangian plume diffusion model (LPDM). The tangent and adjoint components of the Eulerian model were constructed directly from the original NIES TM code using an automatic differentiation tool known as TAF (Transformation of Algorithms in Fortran; http://www.FastOpt.com), with additional manual pre- and post-processing aimed at improving the performance of the computing, including MPI (Message Passing Interface). As results, the adjoint of Eulerian model is discrete. Construction of the adjoint of the Lagrangian component did not require any code modification, as LPDMs are able to track a significant number of particles back in time and thereby calculate the sensitivity of observations to the neighboring emissions areas. Eulerian and Lagrangian adjoint components were coupled at the time boundary in the global domain.The results are verified using a series of test experiments. The forward simulation shown the coupled model is effective in reproducing the seasonal cycle and short-term variability of CO2 even in the case of multiple limiting factors, such as high uncertainty of fluxes and the low resolution of the Eulerian model. The adjoint model demonstrates the high accuracy compared to direct forward sensitivity calculations and fast performance. The developed adjoint of the coupled model combines the flux conservation and stability of an Eulerian discrete adjoint formulation with the flexibility, accuracy, and high resolution of a Lagrangian backward trajectory formulation. </jats:p

rac-N-{6-[Bromo­(hydr­oxy)meth­yl]-2-pyrid­yl}pivalamide

The title compound, C11H15BrN2O2, contains an amide group which is close to coplanar with the adjacent pyridine ring, the dihedral angle between the planes being 9.0 (5)°. The mol­ecular packing reveals a mutual hydrogen-bond inter­action between centrosymmetrically related hydroxyl O atoms. Further hydrogen bonding involving O—H⋯Br and N—H⋯Br inter­actions also appears to consolidate the packing

Evolution of faecal sludge chemical and physical characteristics during drying

The effect of drying on faecal sludge chemical and physical properties for its reuse as agricultural product and biofuel was explored in this investigation. The nutrient content, calorific value and thermal properties were determined for faecal sludge samples dried at different moisture contents, in two different drying apparatus, one based on convective drying and the other on infrared drying. The results show that the nutrient content and calorific value were not affected during drying. On the contrary, drying modified the chemical form of nitrogen in the sludge, by binding it more tightly to the solid structure. Moreover, drying led to the increase of the thermal diffusivity, which improves its quality as biofuel by enhancing its ability to conduct heat. Faecal sludge, after being dried, could be used in agriculture as an organic fertilizer of slow nitrogen and phosphorous release, and as a biofuel with similar characteristics than wood

Adjoint of the global Eulerian-Lagrangian coupled atmospheric transport model (A-GELCA v1.0): development and validation

We present the development of the Adjoint of the Global Eulerian–Lagrangian Coupled Atmospheric (A-GELCA) model that consists of the National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES) model as an Eulerian three-dimensional transport model (TM), and FLEXPART (FLEXible PARTicle dispersion model) as the Lagrangian Particle Dispersion Model (LPDM). The forward tangent linear and adjoint components of the Eulerian model were constructed directly from the original NIES TM code using an automatic differentiation tool known as TAF (Transformation of Algorithms in Fortran; http://www.FastOpt.com), with additional manual pre- and post-processing aimed at improving transparency and clarity of the code and optimizing the performance of the computing, including MPI (Message Passing Interface). The Lagrangian component did not require any code modification, as LPDMs are self-adjoint and track a significant number of particles backward in time in order to calculate the sensitivity of the observations to the neighboring emission areas. The constructed Eulerian adjoint was coupled with the Lagrangian component at a time boundary in the global domain. The simulations presented in this work were performed using the A-GELCA model in forward and adjoint modes. The forward simulation shows that the coupled model improves reproduction of the seasonal cycle and short-term variability of CO2. Mean bias and standard deviation for five of the six Siberian sites considered decrease roughly by 1 ppm when using the coupled model. The adjoint of the Eulerian model was shown, through several numerical tests, to be very accurate (within machine epsilon with mismatch around to ±6 e−14) compared to direct forward sensitivity calculations. The developed adjoint of the coupled model combines the flux conservation and stability of an Eulerian discrete adjoint formulation with the flexibility, accuracy, and high resolution of a Lagrangian backward trajectory formulation. A-GELCA will be incorporated into a variational inversion system designed to optimize surface fluxes of greenhouse gases

Epidemiology and Characteristics of Gastric Carcinoma in Childhood : An Analysis of Data from Population-Based and Clinical Cancer Registries

(1) Background: Gastric carcinoma is an exceptionally rare tumor in childhood. Little is known about the etiology, epidemiology, and clinical features of pediatric gastric carcinomas. This analysis aimed to fill this gap by increasing knowledge about the occurrence of gastric carcinoma in childhood. (2) Material and methods: Data from gastric carcinoma cases diagnosed between 2000 and 2017/2018 were retrieved from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Program (SEER) and the German Center for Cancer Registry Data. Data from patients <20 years of age were analyzed for patient- and tumor-related characteristics. In addition, clinical data from patients with gastric carcinoma registered in the German Registry for Rare Pediatric Tumors (STEP) were analyzed for diagnostics, therapy, and outcome. (3) Results: Ninety-one cases of gastric carcinoma, mainly in adolescents, were identified in the epidemiologic cancer registries. Among patients with recorded staging data, advanced tumor stages were common (66.7%). Within the follow-up period covered, 63.7% of patients with clinical follow-up data died. Eight pediatric patients with gastric carcinoma were enrolled in the STEP registry, among whom two were patients with hereditary CDH1 mutations and another was a patient with Peutz–Jeghers syndrome. Three patients were found to have distinctly decreased immunoglobulin concentrations. All four patients in whom complete resection was achieved remained in remission. Three of the other four patients died despite multimodal therapy. (4) Conclusions: A combination of Helicobacter pylori infection and tumor predisposition and/or immunodeficiency appears to promote the development of gastric carcinoma in childhood. While patients with localized disease stages have a good chance of achieving durable remission through complete resection, patients with stage IV carcinomas face a dismal prognosis, highlighting the need to develop new strategies such as mutation-guided treatments

Testing variational estimation of process parameters and initial conditions of an earth system model

We present a variational assimilation system around a coarse resolution Earth System Model (ESM) and apply it for estimating initial conditions and parameters of the model. The system is based on derivative information that is efficiently provided by the ESM's adjoint, which has been generated through automatic differentiation of the model's source code. In our variational approach, the length of the feasible assimilation window is limited by the size of the domain in control space over which the approximation by the derivative is valid. This validity domain is reduced by non-smooth process representations. We show that in this respect the ocean component is less critical than the atmospheric component. We demonstrate how the feasible assimilation window can be extended to several weeks by modifying the implementation of specific process representations and by switching off processes such as precipitation

Healing and Ritual Imagination in Chinese Medicine: The Multiple Interpretations of Zhuyou

In the Chinese medical corpus, ritual healing largely fell under the rubric of zhuyou 祝由 to uncover and expel the unknown, imperceptible, and occult causes of illness. Often dealing with uncertain or incurable cases, zhuyou remained at the cutting-edge of contemporary medicine. For a rising medical elite after the Northern Song, zhuyou was the branch of medicine to flexibly incorporate and critique the variety of ritual therapies into orthodox practice. Zhuyou employed prayer, incantations, talismans, gestures, and drugs in a nuanced clinical encounter to reveal the hidden root of disorder ranging from a blockage of qi, spirit possession, emotional imbalance, or loss of virtue. These rituals opened an imaginative space for therapeutic play where patients and healers could use spiritual proxies and props to address difficult emotions or issues that were often the hidden cause of affliction. The development of zhuyou also reflected the changing role of ritual in the history of Chinese medicine and the exchanges among physicians, Daoist priests, and other ritual healers. The significance of ritual in Chinese medical history has largely remained unclear as most editions of medical classics republished since the early twentieth century excise relevant chapters and zhuyou manuscripts, until recently, were uncatalogued