It\u27s oil and water : Race, Gender, Power, and Trauma in Vu Tran\u27s Dragonfish

ABSTRACT: This article analyzes in-depth the interplay between race, gender, power, and trauma in Vu Tran’s debut novel, Dragonfish. We argue that Dragonfish focuses on the relationships, desires, and conflicts among its three protagonists—Robert, Suzy, and Sonny—to highlight how their postwar interactions complicate race, gender, trauma, and remembrance. The three protagonists engage in an intense socio-political struggle for dominance and control, which is riddled with irony, heart-wrenching pain, and misleading appearances. They experience hardship and loss, but they rely on each other for recovery from past and present trauma, and to advance their own varying personal priorities and agendas: while both of the male characters, Robert and Sonny, attempt individually to exercise control over Suzy, she in fact embodies the femme fatale archetype who subverts their dominance in order to act independently of their wills

Catalytic microwave pyrolysis of waste engine oil using metallic pyrolysis char

Microwave pyrolysis was performed on waste engine oil pre-mixed with different amounts of metallic-char catalyst produced previously from a similar microwave pyrolysis process. The metallic-char catalyst was first prepared by pretreatment with calcination followed by analyses to determine its various properties. The heating characteristics of the mixture of waste oil and metallic-char during the pyrolysis were investigated, and the catalytic influence of the metallic-char on the yield and characteristics of the pyrolysis products are discussed with emphasis on the composition of oil and gaseous products. The metallic-char, detected to have a porous structure and high surface area (124 m2/g), showed high thermal stability in a N2 atmosphere and it was also found to have phases of metals and metal oxides attached or adsorbed onto the char, representing a potentially suitable catalyst to be used in pyrolysis cracking process. The metallic-char initially acted as an adsorptive-support to adsorb metals, metal oxides and waste oil. Then, the char became a microwave absorbent that absorbed microwave energy and heated up to a high temperature in a short time and it was found to generate arcing and sparks during microwave pyrolysis of the waste oil, resulting in the formation of hot spots (high temperature sites with temperature up to 650 °C) within the reactor under the influence of microwave heating. The presence of this high temperature metallic-char, the amounts of which are likely to increase when increasing amounts of metallic-char were added to the waste oil (5, 10, and 20 wt% of the amount of waste oil added to the reactor), had provided a reducing chemical environment in which the metallic-char acted as an intermediate reductant to reduce the adsorbed metals or metal oxides into metallic states, which then functioned as a catalyst to provide more reaction sites that enhanced the cracking and heterogeneous reactions that occurred during the pyrolysis to convert the waste oil to produce higher yields of light hydrocarbons, H2 and CO gases in the pyrolysis products, recording a yield of up to 74 wt% of light C5–C10 hydrocarbons and 42 vol% of H2 and CO gases. The catalytic microwave pyrolysis produced 65–85 wt% yield of pyrolysis-oil containing C5–C20 hydrocarbons that can potentially be upgraded to produce transport-grade fuels. In addition, the recovered pyrolysis-gases (up to 33 wt%) were dominated by aliphatic hydrocarbons (up to 78 vol% of C1–C6 hydrocarbons) and significant amounts of valuable syngas (up to 42 vol% of H2 and CO in total) with low heating values (LHV) ranging from 4.7 to 5.5 MJ/m3, indicating that the pyrolysis-gases could also be used as a gaseous fuel or upgraded to produce more hydrogen as a second-generation fuel. The results indicate that the metallic-char shows advantages for use as a catalyst in microwave pyrolysis treatment of problematic waste oils. [Graphical abstract - see article]The authors acknowledges the financial support by the Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovation Malaysia (MOSTI), Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia (MOHE), and University Malaysia Terengganu for the conduct of the research under the E-Science fund (UMT/RMC/SF/13/52072(5), Vot No: 52072), the Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (Project No: FRGS/1/2013/TK05/UMT/02/2, Vot No: 59296), and the Research Acculturation Grant Scheme (Project No: RAGS/2012/UMT/TK07/3, Vot No: 57085).This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from [publisher] via http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apcatb.2015.04.01

Editors\u27 Notes

Editors\u27 Note

Recovery of diesel-like fuel from waste palm oil by pyrolysis using a microwave heated bed of activated carbon

Microwave pyrolysis using a well-mixed bed of activated carbon as both the microwave absorber and reaction bed was investigated for its potential to recover useful products from waste palm cooking oil – a cooking oil widely used in Asia. The carbon bed provided rapid heating (∼18 °C/min) and a localized reaction hot zone that thermally promoted extensive pyrolysis cracking of the waste oil at 450 °C, leading to increased production of a biofuel product in a process taking less than 25 min. It also created a reducing reaction environment that prevented the formation of undesirable oxidized compounds in the biofuel. The pyrolysis produced a biofuel product that is low in oxygen, free of sulphur, carboxylic acid and triglycerides, and which also contains light C$_{10}$-C$_{15}$ hydrocarbons and a high calorific value nearly comparable to diesel fuel, thus showing great potential to be used as fuel. This pyrolysis approach offers an attractive alternative to transesterification that avoids the use of solvents and catalysts, and the need to remove free fatty acids and glycerol from the hydrocarbon product. The pyrolysis apparatus operated with an electrical power input of 1.12 kW was capable of producing a biofuel with an energy content equivalent to about 3 kW, showing a positive energy ratio of 2.7 and ≥73% recovery of the energy input to the system. The results show that the pyrolysis approach has huge potential as a technically and energetically viable means for the recovery of biofuels from the waste oil.The authors acknowledge the financial support by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation and the Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia for the conduct of the research under the E-Science fund (UMT/RMC/SF/13/52072(5), Vot 52072) and the FRGS grant (FRGS/1/2016/TK07/UMT/02/3, Vot 59434).This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2016.09.07

Reviewer Acknowledgments 2016

Reviewer Acknowledgment

From the Editors: October 2016

Editors\u27 Note

Visual search in ecological and non-ecological displays: Evidence for a non-monotonic effect of complexity on performance

Copyright @ 2013 PLoSThis article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.Considerable research has been carried out on visual search, with single or multiple targets. However, most studies have used artificial stimuli with low ecological validity. In addition, little is known about the effects of target complexity and expertise in visual search. Here, we investigate visual search in three conditions of complexity (detecting a king, detecting a check, and detecting a checkmate) with chess players of two levels of expertise (novices and club players). Results show that the influence of target complexity depends on level of structure of the visual display. Different functional relationships were found between artificial (random chess positions) and ecologically valid (game positions) stimuli: With artificial, but not with ecologically valid stimuli, a “pop out” effect was present when a target was visually more complex than distractors but could be captured by a memory chunk. This suggests that caution should be exercised when generalising from experiments using artificial stimuli with low ecological validity to real-life stimuli.This study is funded by Brunel University and the article is made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund

Learning and Adapting Agile Locomotion Skills by Transferring Experience

Legged robots have enormous potential in their range of capabilities, from navigating unstructured terrains to high-speed running. However, designing robust controllers for highly agile dynamic motions remains a substantial challenge for roboticists. Reinforcement learning (RL) offers a promising data-driven approach for automatically training such controllers. However, exploration in these high-dimensional, underactuated systems remains a significant hurdle for enabling legged robots to learn performant, naturalistic, and versatile agility skills. We propose a framework for training complex robotic skills by transferring experience from existing controllers to jumpstart learning new tasks. To leverage controllers we can acquire in practice, we design this framework to be flexible in terms of their source -- that is, the controllers may have been optimized for a different objective under different dynamics, or may require different knowledge of the surroundings -- and thus may be highly suboptimal for the target task. We show that our method enables learning complex agile jumping behaviors, navigating to goal locations while walking on hind legs, and adapting to new environments. We also demonstrate that the agile behaviors learned in this way are graceful and safe enough to deploy in the real world.Comment: Project website: https://sites.google.com/berkeley.edu/twir

Progress in waste oil to sustainable energy, with emphasis on pyrolysis techniques

This paper begins with a review on the current techniques used for the treatment and recovery of waste oil, which is then followed by an extensive review of the recent achievements in the sustainable development and utilization of pyrolysis techniques in energy recovery from waste oils. The advantages and limitations shown by the use of pyrolysis technique and other current techniques were discussed along with the future research that can be performed on the pyrolysis of waste oil. It was revealed that the current techniques (transesterification, hydrotreating, gasification, solvent extraction, and membrane technology) are yet to be sustainable or completely feasible for waste oil treatment and recovery. It was established that pyrolysis techniques offer a number of advantages over other existing techniques in recovering both the energetic and chemical value of waste oil by generating potentially useful pyrolysis products suitable for future reuse. In particular, microwave pyrolysis shows a distinct advantage in providing a rapid and energy-efficient heating compared to conventional pyrolysis techniques, and thus facilitating increased production rates. It was found that microwave pyrolysis of waste oil showed good performance with respect to product yield, reaction time, energy consumption, and product quality, and thus showing exceptional promise as a sustainable means for energy recovery from waste oils. Nevertheless, it was revealed that some important characteristics of the pyrolysis process have yet to be fully investigated. It was thus concluded that more studies are needed to extend existing understanding in the optimal reaction and process parameters in order to develop the pyrolysis technology to be a sustainable and commercially viable route for energy recovery from problematic waste oils.The authors acknowledges the financial support by Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovation Malaysia (MOSTI), Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia (MOHE), and Universiti Malaysia Terengganu for the conduct of the research under the E-Science fund (UMT/RMC/SF/13/52072(5), Vot no.: 52072), the Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (Project no.: FRGS/1/2013/TK05/UMT/02/2, Vot no.: 59296), and the Research Acculturation Grant Scheme (Project no.: RAGS/2012/UMT/TK07/3, Vot no.: 57085).This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2015.09.00

Pyrolysis using microwave absorbents as reaction bed: An improved approach to transform used frying oil into biofuel product with desirable properties

Used frying oil (UFO), a waste produced in large volume each year worldwide, represents a potential resource for biofuel production rather than a disposal problem for modern society. Pyrolysis technique using microwave heating offers a promising approach for the conversion of UFO into biofuel products with improved properties. In this study, pyrolysis of UFO was performed by contacting with a bed of microwave absorbents heated by microwave radiation. The pyrolysis approach was examined using different materials as the reaction bed, comprising particulate carbon, activated carbon and mesoporous aluminosilicate (MCM-41). The use of particulate and activated carbon as the reaction bed provided a fast heating rate and extensive cracking capacity to pyrolyze the used oil, thus showing favorable features that could lead to short process time and less energy usage. This resulted in a production of a high yield of a biofuel product (up to 73 wt%) in a process taking less than 35 min. The biofuel showed a composition dominated by light C$_{5}$-C$_{20}$ aliphatic hydrocarbons with low amounts of oxygenated compounds (≤11%). In particular, the oil product obtained from activated carbon bed showed a low nitrogen content and was free of carboxylic acid and sulphur. The absence of carboxylic acids with low amounts of oxygenated compounds could reduce the formation of oxygenated by-products that could generate undesirable acidic tar or potentially hazardous sludge in the biofuel during storage. Combined with the detection of a high calorific value (46 MJ/kg) nearly comparable to diesel fuel, the biofuel shows great promise to be upgraded for use as a ‘cleaner’ fuel source with potentially reduced oxygenated by-products plus low or zero emissions of NO$_{x}$ and SO$_{x}$ during the use of the fuel in combustion process. This study also revealed that the use of activated carbon bed results in the highest energy recovery (88–90%) from the used frying oil. Our results demonstrated that the use of a microwave-heated reaction bed of activated carbon shows great potential as an improved and sustainable pyrolysis approach that is energy-efficient and timesaving for the recycling of used frying oil into a biofuel product with desirable properties. This pyrolysis approach provides an alternative to transesterification that avoids the use of solvents and catalysts, and thus could be developed further as a promising route to recycle various types of waste and biomass materials