Radiatively active trace gas emissions from waste management systems

Current waste management practices present significant potential for emissions of radiatively active trace gases to the atmosphere. This dissertation describes the quantitative assessment of nitrous oxide (N\sb2O) emissions from liquid waste and residuals treatment, emissions of methane (CH\sb4) from landfills, and the effects of microbial oxidation on landfill CH\sb4 emissions. N\sb2O emissions were measured from liquid treatment process at a wastewater treatment plant where the highest emissions occurred during secondary aeration. Emission factors derived from the measurements included 3.2 g N\sb2O person\sp{-1} year\sp{-1} and 1.6\times10\sp{-6} g N\sb2O (liter wastewater\sp{-1}). The potential for N\sb2O emissions from the composting of the residual wastewater sludge was also investigated. Treatment by composting resulted in significant emissions yielding an emission factor of 0.7 g N\sb2O (dry kg of sludge)\sp{-1}. In addition, potential N\sb2O emissions were predicted from the treatment of other organic wastes. Preliminary data from livestock waste and yard waste composting yielded emission factors of 0.5 g N\sb2O (dry kg)\sp{-1} and 0.3 g N\sb2O (dry kg waste)\sp{-1} from livestock and yard wastes, respectively. Livestock wastes were determined to present the greatest potential for global N\sb2O emissions, estimated to contribute 1.2 Tg year\sp{-1}.. CH\sb4 emissions from the landfilling of municipal solid wastes were determined using static enclosure and atmospheric tracer methods. Favorable agreement was observed between whole landfill emission estimates, yielding values of 16200 and 16740 liters CH\sb4 min\sp{-1} using the chamber and tracer methods, respectively. The influence of microbial oxidation on landfill CH\sb4 emissions was also investigated. Soil samples from locations of CH\sb4 flux were returned to the laboratory and subjected to incubation experiments to quantify the response of oxidation in these soils to temperature, moisture, in-situ CH\sb4, soil depth, and oxygen. The mathematical representations of the oxidation responses were combined with measured and predicted soil characteristics in a computer model to predict the rate of CH\sb4 oxidation in the soils. Air temperature and precipitation data were used in conjunction with an existing soil climate model to estimate an annual whole landfill oxidation rate in 1994 of 11%

Maximizing female retention in the Navy

This study estimates Navy female officer retention probabilities and identifies individual-level attitudes and perceptions for particular designator categories with female representation in order to better understand the effects of occupation assignment and retention policies. The design of this study included a multivariate logistical regression model and a survey. The data included 368,667 annual Navy officer observations from fiscal years 2003'20012 collected from DMDC for regression analysis and 877 active duty male and female Navy officers who participated in the survey portion of this study. Retention in this study is defined as five years and six months from the officers commissioning date. Through our multivariate logistical regression, our results indicate that there is a point at which the probability of female officers remaining on active duty service increases with the proportion of women in certain designator categories. Furthermore, our survey findings confirm that for some occupations, the perception of women with regards to factors such as career plateau and turnover intention are affected by the proportion of women within their occupational grouping.http://archive.org/details/maximizingfemale1094541356Outstanding ThesisLieutenant, United States Navy;Captain, United States Marine CorpsApproved for public release; distribution is unlimited

Induced pluripotent stem cells:therapeutic potential for multiple sclerosis

Het reduceren en bij voorkeur geheel voorkomen van het verlies van zenuwcellen in het centraal zenuwstelsel van MS-patiënten vormt nog steeds de belangrijkste uitdaging voor nieuwe behandelingsmethodes. Terwijl in de afgelopen jaren aanzienlijke vooruitgang is geboekt in de ontwikkeling van ontstekingsremmende medicijnen die de ernst en frequenties van schubs bij MS-patiënten aanzienlijk kunnen reduceren, bestaat er nog geen enkele therapeutische mogelijkheid om voortschrijdende neurodegeneratie in het zenuwstelsel van MS-patiënten te stoppen. Met de aantasting van de voor prikkelgeleiding essentiële myeline-schede rond axonen bij MS, gaat ook de beschermende/voedende functie van het myeline voor de axonen verloren. Langdurige afwezigheid van die bescherming maakt het axon kwetsbaar voor allerlei toxische invloeden uit de omgeving, waardoor uiteindelijk degeneratie van axon en bijbehorende cellichaam zal optreden. Het zo spoedig mogelijk herstellen van de myeline-schede lijkt de meest logische en adequate methode om neurodegeneratie bij MS te voorkomen. Tot nu toe is er echter geen enkele therapeutische strategie in geslaagd om remyelinisatie van axonen te bewerkstelligen. Intracerebrale transplantatie van allerlei nieuwe myeline-vormende cellen heeft in verschillende proefdiermodellen voor MS geleid tot herstel van myeline en een verbetering van de symptomen die het gevolg waren van het verlies van myeline. Tot dusverre was een dergelijke benadering voor MS-patiënten niet mogelijk vanwege het ontbreken van een geschikte bron voor grote aantallen autologe (“eigen”) myeline-vormende cellen. Met de ontdekking van induced pluripotency in 2006, kwam een oplossing voor dit probleem in zicht. De mogelijkheid om fibroblasten uit een huidbiopt te reprogrammeren tot een soort embryonale stamcellen, zgn. induced pluripotente stamcellen (iPS-cellen), die te differentiëren zijn tot elk celtype, heeft een vrijwel onuitputtelijke autologe bron voor myeline-vormende cellen binnen bereik gebracht. Dit proefschrift beschrijft experimenteel onderzoek naar het mogelijk gebruik van iPS-cellen als bron voor autologe oligodendrocyten t.b.v. een celtransplantatie-therapie gericht op myeline-herstel en neuroprotectie in MS-patiënten

Proximal Bundle Method for simplied unilateral adhesion contact problem of elasticity

We consider a mathematical model which describes the adhesive contact between a linearly elastic body and an obstacle. The process is static and frictionless. The normal contact is governed by two laws. The first one is a Signorini law, representing the fact that there is no penetration between a body and an obstacle. The second one is a Winkler type law signifying that if there is no contact, the bonding force is proportional to the displacement below a given bonding threshold and equal to zero above the bonding threshold. The model leads to a variational-hemivariational inequality. We present the numerical results for solving a simple two-dimensional model problem with the Proximal Bundle Method (PBM). We analyze the method sensitivity and convergence speed with respect to its parameters

"Helios rückt die Träume aus dem Nachlass" : romantic imagination and dream life in Hannah Arendt's thought

The article aims at presenting Hannah Arendt's complicated relation with romanticism and romantic imagination and pays particular attention to dream life. It discovers that the theme of dreams-that-turn-out-to-be-real-life mysteriously appears throughout Arendt’s works. The primary source of this theme would be a self-reflective essay Die Schatten written in 1925 by 19-year-old Arendt, in which she admits that in dreams she lives "her proper life" (ihr eigentliches Leben) and feels internal harmony as well as harmony with the world. Interestingly, the essay ends with a wish to have, in the real life, scope for free verbal expression that would enable her to "release her soul," thus to dwell in a real, non-perfect version of dreamlike harmony. This source-as well as other texts, including the book on Rahel Varnhagen and unknown youthful notes on Sophocles-allows me to find out that it is both tempting and justified to describe Arendt's mature concept of political realm as a realm where the involuntary features of dreams, namely the perfect expression of uniqueness of the individual as well as his or her internal har-mony and harmony with the world, are to some extent recaptured