Civic Engagement and Service Learning Partnerships

Service learning is designed to promote volunteerism and civic awareness. Community engagement in higher education specifically involves university members partnering with local community organizations to address a need. Students engage with community partners through service learning and other activities (Moore & Mendez, 2014). Service learning is a practice that connects new knowledge and social responsibility through active learning (Benson & Younkin, 1996).https://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/btp_expo/1083/thumbnail.jp

Metaldehyde removal from drinking water by adsorption onto filtration media: mechanisms and optimisation

Trace micropollutants should be removed during drinking water production without increasing the disinfection-by-product formation potential or energy demand of the treatment process. We demonstrate the efficacy of different filtration media to remove metaldehyde through controlled batch experiments on water augmented with metaldehyde. Equilibrium concentrations of metaldehyde and surrogate organics were successfully described by the Freundlich isotherm. Metaldehyde can be attenuated to varying degrees with activated carbon and sand with an active and inactive biofilm with kf values ranging from 0.006–0.3 (mg g−1)(L mg−1)1/n. The presence of the active biofilm improved metaldehyde adsorption by sand media, due to additional biosorption mechanisms, a greater surface area or biodegradation. Baseline levels of competing natural organic matter surrogates (NOM) reduced overall adsorption efficacy but increasing concentrations of NOM did not impact metaldehyde removal efficacy in a significant way. Biological activated carbon was identified as the most suitable adsorbent of metaldehyde (94% removal) but sand with an acclimated biofilm was capable of acting as a bio-adsorbent of metaldehyde even under environmentally relevant concentrations (41% adsorption from 0.002.5 mg L−1). Moreover, we observed that thermal hydrolysis of metaldehyde occurred at 60 °C, suggesting that thermal regeneration of GAC for this pesticide was possible at relatively low temperatures. Biological adsorption and thermal hydrolysis approaches presented herein offered a way forward to increase efficiency and cost effectiveness of existing treatments for metaldehyde

Extraordinary transverse magneto-optical Kerr effect in a superlens

It has been shown that a slab of a negative index material can behave as a superlens enhancing the imaging resolution beyond the wavelength limit. We show here that if such a slab possesses in addition some magneto-optical activity, it could act as an ideal optical filter and exhibit an extraordinary transverse magneto-optical Kerr effect. Moreover, we show that losses, which spoil the imaging resolution of these lenses, are a necessary ingredient to observe this effect.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figure

Pilot study of vegetation in the Alchichica-Perote region by remote sensing

A study of the application of satellite images to the identification of vegetation in a small area corresponding to the arid zone of Veracruz and part of Puebla is presented. This study is accomplished by means of images from the LANDSAT satellite obtained on January 19 and May 23, 1973. The interpretation of the different maps is made on the basis of information from the data bank of the Flora de Veracruz program, and various surveys made by land and air

Analysis and correction of the magnetic field effects in the Hybrid Photo-Detectors of the RICH2 Ring Imaging Cherenkov detector of LHCb

The Ring Imaging Cherenkov detectors of the LHCb experiment at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN are equipped with Hybrid Photo-Detectors. These vacuum photo-detectors are affected by the stray magnetic field of the LHCb magnet, which degrades their imaging properties. This effect increases the error on the Cherenkov angle measurement and would reduce the particle identification capabilities of LHCb. A system has been developed for the RICH2 Ring Imaging Cherenkov detector to perform a detailed characterisation of the magnetic distortion effects. It is described, along with the methods implemented to correct for these effects, restoring the optimal resolution.Comment: 16 pages, 11 figure