Evaluation of Recycling Legislation Pending before the 119th Session of the Ohio General Assembly

This Article summarizes and analyzes the recycling bills before the 119th Session of the Ohio General Assembly. Part I of this Article reviews the requirements and recommendations of H.B. 592 and the State Plan. Part II provides an overview of the recycling bills and identifies the three basic approaches to recycling represented by these bills. Parts III, IV, V, and VI summarize and evaluate the recycling bills. This Article uses three criteria to evaluate the recycling bills: (1) consistency with H.B. 592 and the State Plan, (2) effectiveness in preventing the disposal of solid waste in landfills, and (3) efficiency in promoting recycling. There are two premises to these criteria. First, it is poor public policy for a legislative body to frequently overhaul a substantive area of the law. Second, given the limited nature of public and private funds, the statutory structure should promote the greatest amount of recycling while resulting in the expenditure of the least amount of public and private funds. On the basis of these criteria, this Article concludes that S.B. 977 and S.B. 152, which would require most communities to establish curbside recycling programs and would provide for volume-based fees on non-recycled solid waste, are the most desirable of the eight recycling bills pending before the Ohio General Assembly

Word Adjacency Graph Modeling: Separating Signal From Noise in Big Data

There is a need to develop methods to analyze Big Data to inform patient-centered interventions for better health outcomes. The purpose of this study was to develop and test a method to explore Big Data to describe salient health concerns of people with epilepsy. Specifically, we used Word Adjacency Graph modeling to explore a data set containing 1.9 billion anonymous text queries submitted to the ChaCha question and answer service to (a) detect clusters of epilepsy-related topics, and (b) visualize the range of epilepsy-related topics and their mutual proximity to uncover the breadth and depth of particular topics and groups of users. Applied to a large, complex data set, this method successfully identified clusters of epilepsy-related topics while allowing for separation of potentially non-relevant topics. The method can be used to identify patient-driven research questions from large social media data sets and results can inform the development of patient-centered interventions

Ice nucleation from aqueous NaCl droplets with and without marine diatoms

Ice formation in the atmosphere by homogeneous and heterogeneous nucleation is one of the least understood processes in cloud microphysics and climate. Here we describe our investigation of the marine environment as a potential source of atmospheric IN by experimentally observing homogeneous ice nucleation from aqueous NaCl droplets and comparing against heterogeneous ice nucleation from aqueous NaCl droplets containing intact and fragmented diatoms. Homogeneous and heterogeneous ice nucleation are studied as a function of temperature and water activity, <i>a</i><sub>w</sub>. Additional analyses are presented on the dependence of diatom surface area and aqueous volume on heterogeneous freezing temperatures, ice nucleation rates, ω<sub>het</sub>, ice nucleation rate coefficients, <i>J</i><sub>het</sub>, and differential and cumulative ice nuclei spectra, <i>k(T)</i> and <i>K(T)</i>, respectively. Homogeneous freezing temperatures and corresponding nucleation rate coefficients are in agreement with the water activity based homogeneous ice nucleation theory within experimental and predictive uncertainties. Our results confirm, as predicted by classical nucleation theory, that a stochastic interpretation can be used to describe the homogeneous ice nucleation process. Heterogeneous ice nucleation initiated by intact and fragmented diatoms can be adequately represented by a modified water activity based ice nucleation theory. A horizontal shift in water activity, Δ<i>a</i><sub>w, het</sub> = 0.2303, of the ice melting curve can describe median heterogeneous freezing temperatures. Individual freezing temperatures showed no dependence on available diatom surface area and aqueous volume. Determined at median diatom freezing temperatures for <i>a</i><sub>w</sub> from 0.8 to 0.99, ω<sub>het</sub><u>~</u>0.11<sup>+0.06</sup><sub>−0.05</sub> s<sup>−1</sup>, <i>J</i><sub>het</sub><u>~</u>1.0<sup>+1.16</sup><sub>−0.61</sub>×10<sup>4</sup> cm<sup>−2</sup> s<sup>−1</sup>, and <i>K</i><u>~</u>6.2<sup>+3.5</sup><sub>−4.1</sub> ×10<sup>4</sup> cm<sup>−2</sup>. The experimentally derived ice nucleation rates and nuclei spectra allow us to estimate ice particle production which we subsequently use for a comparison with observed ice crystal concentrations typically found in cirrus and polar marine mixed-phase clouds. Differences in application of time-dependent and time-independent analyses to predict ice particle production are discussed

Stability of complex hyperbolic space under curvature-normalized Ricci flow

Using the maximal regularity theory for quasilinear parabolic systems, we prove two stability results of complex hyperbolic space under the curvature-normalized Ricci flow in complex dimensions two and higher. The first result is on a closed manifold. The second result is on a complete noncompact manifold. To prove both results, we fully analyze the structure of the Lichnerowicz Laplacian on complex hyperbolic space. To prove the second result, we also define suitably weighted little H\"{o}lder spaces on a complete noncompact manifold and establish their interpolation properties.Comment: Some typos in version 2 are correcte

Ricci flow for homogeneous compact models of the universe

Using quaternions, we give a concise derivation of the Ricci tensor for homogeneous spaces with topology of the 3-dimensional sphere. We derive explicit and numerical solutions for the Ricci flow PDE and discuss their properties. In the collapse (or expansion) of these models, the interplay of the various components of the Ricci tensor are studied. We dedicate this paper to honor the work of Josh Goldberg.Comment: 18 pages, 2 figure

Wafer test of the LHCb Outer Tracker TDC-Chip

The OTIS-TDC is the front end readout chip for the LHCb Outer Tracker. It is designed to measure drift times with a resolution better than 1 ns. As the chip will be directly mounted to its board, the test have to be performed on the wafer itself. As the testing period for 7 000 chips was only three weeks, many test routines have been implemented on a FPGA. Each chip is subjected to detailed probe testing to ensure the full functionality as well as a good performance. Overall 47 wafer have been tested. From the chips passing the test 2 000 have been used in the Outer Tracker front end electronic

Regional-scale brine migration along vertical pathways due to CO2 injection - Part 1: The participatory modeling approach

Saltwater intrusion into potential drinking water aquifers due to the injection of CO₂ into deep saline aquifers is one of the potential hazards associated with the geological storage of CO₂. Thus, in a site selection process, models for predicting the fate of the displaced brine are required, for example, for a risk assessment or the optimization of pressure management concepts. From the very beginning, this research on brine migration aimed at involving expert and stakeholder knowledge and assessment in simulating the impacts of injecting CO₂ into deep saline aquifers by means of a participatory modeling process. The involvement exercise made use of two approaches. First, guideline-based interviews were carried out, aiming at eliciting expert and stakeholder knowledge and assessments of geological structures and mechanisms affecting CO₂-induced brine migration. Second, a stakeholder workshop including the World Café format yielded evaluations and judgments of the numerical modeling approach, scenario selection, and preliminary simulation results. The participatory modeling approach gained several results covering brine migration in general, the geological model sketch, scenario development, and the review of the preliminary simulation results. These results were included in revised versions of both the geological model and the numerical model, helping to improve the analysis of regional-scale brine migration along vertical pathways due to CO₂ injection

New Dimensions for Wound Strings: The Modular Transformation of Geometry to Topology

We show, using a theorem of Milnor and Margulis, that string theory on compact negatively curved spaces grows new effective dimensions as the space shrinks, generalizing and contextualizing the results in hep-th/0510044. Milnor's theorem relates negative sectional curvature on a compact Riemannian manifold to exponential growth of its fundamental group, which translates in string theory to a higher effective central charge arising from winding strings. This exponential density of winding modes is related by modular invariance to the infrared small perturbation spectrum. Using self-consistent approximations valid at large radius, we analyze this correspondence explicitly in a broad set of time-dependent solutions, finding precise agreement between the effective central charge and the corresponding infrared small perturbation spectrum. This indicates a basic relation between geometry, topology, and dimensionality in string theory.Comment: 28 pages, harvmac big. v2: references and KITP preprint number added, minor change