Effects of carbon dioxide on trapped electrolyte hydrogen-oxygen, alkaline fuel cells

Effects of carbon dioxide on trapped electrolyte hydrogen-oxygen alkaline fuel cell

The "witness anonymity" and "investigation anonymity" provisions

This article offers an analysis of the creation of statutory powers to allow witnesses to give evidence anonymously. The latest provisions are those in the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 replacing the emergency temporary legislation: Criminal Evidence (Witness Anonymity) Act 2008. Consideration is given to that Act, its legislative history and case law. Examination of the new powers for investigation anonymity orders suggests that these are likely to be of symbolic rather than practical significance

Estimating carbon stock change in agroforestry and family forestry practices

Paper presented at the 11th North American Agroforesty Conference, which was held May 31-June 3, 2009 in Columbia, Missouri.In Gold, M.A. and M.M. Hall, eds. Agroforestry Comes of Age: Putting Science into Practice. Proceedings, 11th North American Agroforestry Conference, Columbia, Mo., May 31-June 3, 2009.The Carbon Management Evaluation Tool for Voluntary Reporting (COMET-VR) is an online tool that estimates short-term carbon stock (CS) changes under different farm or forest land management systems, including temperate agroforestry practices. It was developed by the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service in conjunction with Colorado State University. The intended audience includes private farm and forest landowners, NRCS field staff, and technical service providers. Through the online interface, users identify their location, parcel size, surface soil texture, crop rotation history and tillage intensity. The user can choose either of two methods to estimate CS change for their agroforestry practice: 1) for new or future plantings, by using standard prescriptions common to their geographic region, or 2) for a more accurate estimate of an existing planting, by using a summary of live-tree stand inventory data collected from their parcel. Above and below-ground individual tree biomass is calculated using diameter-based allometric equations generalized for tree genera groups. For existing agroforestry plantings, growth estimates are based on empirical models developed from forest inventory data specific to species and region. For new or future plantings, growth estimates were derived for standard agroforestry prescriptions using the Forest Vegetation Simulator. COMET-VR uses the Century soil carbon model to estimate CS change in soil. The output of the tool is a report estimating CS changes over the forthcoming 10 years in the above and below-ground portions of live trees and in the soil. Although specifically designed to meet the requirements of the US Dept. of Energy voluntary greenhouse gas reporting program, COMET-VR may also be applicable to other private and public sector carbon offset programs.Miles L. Merwin (1), Mark Easter (2), Lyn R. Townsend (1), Roel C. Vining (1) and Greg L. Johnson (1) ; 1. USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, 1201 NE Lloyd Blvd., Portland, OR 97232. 2. Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory, Colorado State University, Ft. Collins, CO.Includes bibliographical references

Growth of the adult goldfish eye--I: Optics

We have measured the optical and retinal fields of goldfish eyes; the animals ranged from 6 to 20 cm in body length. Both fields are spherically symmetric, invariant with the size of the eye, and equal (retinal FIELD = 185.3[deg] +/- 4.1[deg], optical FIELD = 183.6[deg] +/- 2.7[deg], means +/- S.D.). They are tilted with respect to one another by a few (< 10) degrees. We have also measured the retinal magnification factor, the number of [mu]m per degree on the retinal surface. It is 20.5 x lens diameter, where lens diameter is expressed in mm.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/23062/1/0000634.pd

WTEC panel report on European nuclear instrumentation and controls

Control and instrumentation systems might be called the 'brain' and 'senses' of a nuclear power plant. As such they become the key elements in the integrated operation of these plants. Recent developments in digital equipment have allowed a dramatic change in the design of these instrument and control (I&C) systems. New designs are evolving with cathode ray tube (CRT)-based control rooms, more automation, and better logical information for the human operators. As these new advanced systems are developed, various decisions must be made about the degree of automation and the human-to-machine interface. Different stages of the development of control automation and of advanced digital systems can be found in various countries. The purpose of this technology assessment is to make a comparative evaluation of the control and instrumentation systems that are being used for commercial nuclear power plants in Europe and the United States. This study is limited to pressurized water reactors (PWR's). Part of the evaluation includes comparisons with a previous similar study assessing Japanese technology

Modeling organic aerosols in a megacity: comparison of simple and complex representations of the volatility basis set approach

The Weather Research and Forecasting model coupled with chemistry (WRF-Chem) is modified to include a volatility basis set (VBS) treatment of secondary organic aerosol formation. The VBS approach, coupled with SAPRC-99 gas-phase chemistry mechanism, is used to model gas-particle partitioning and multiple generations of gas-phase oxidation of organic vapors. In addition to the detailed 9-species VBS, a simplified mechanism using 2 volatility species (2-species VBS) is developed and tested for similarity to the 9-species VBS in terms of both mass and oxygen-to-carbon ratios of organic aerosols in the atmosphere. WRF-Chem results are evaluated against field measurements of organic aerosols collected during the MILAGRO 2006 campaign in the vicinity of Mexico City. The simplified 2-species mechanism reduces the computational cost by a factor of 2 as compared to 9-species VBS. Both ground site and aircraft measurements suggest that the 9-species and 2-species VBS predictions of total organic aerosol mass as well as individual organic aerosol components including primary, secondary, and biomass burning are comparable in magnitude. In addition, oxygen-to-carbon ratio predictions from both approaches agree within 25 %, providing evidence that the 2-species VBS is well suited to represent the complex evolution of organic aerosols. Model sensitivity to amount of anthropogenic semi-volatile and intermediate volatility (S/IVOC) precursor emissions is also examined by doubling the default emissions. Both the emission cases significantly under-predict primary organic aerosols in the city center and along aircraft flight transects. Secondary organic aerosols are predicted reasonably well along flight tracks surrounding the city, but are consistently over-predicted downwind of the city. Also, oxygen-to-carbon ratio predictions are significantly improved compared to prior studies by adding 15 % oxygen mass per generation of oxidation; however, all modeling cases still under-predict these ratios downwind as compared to measurements, suggesting a need to further improve chemistry parameterizations of secondary organic aerosol formation

Analysis and quantification of the diversities of aerosol life cycles within AeroCom

Simulation results of global aerosol models have been assembled in the framework of the AeroCom intercomparison exercise. In this paper, we analyze the life cycles of dust, sea salt, sulfate, black carbon and particulate organic matter as simulated by sixteen global aerosol models. The diversities among the models for the sources and sinks, burdens, particle sizes, water uptakes, and spatial dispersals have been established. These diversities have large consequences for the calculated radiative forcing and the aerosol concentrations at the surface. The AeroCom all-models-average emissions are dominated by the mass of sea salt (SS), followed by dust (DU), sulfate (SO_4), particulate organic matter (POM), and finally black carbon (BC). Interactive parameterizations of the emissions and contrasting particles sizes of SS and DU lead generally to higher diversities of these species, and for total aerosol. The lower diversity of the emissions of the fine aerosols, BC, POM, and SO_4, is due to the use of similar emission inventories, and does therefore not necessarily indicate a better understanding of their sources. The diversity of SO_4-sources is mainly caused by the disagreement on depositional loss of precursor gases and on chemical production. The diversities of the emissions are passed on to the burdens, but the latter are also strongly affected by the model-specific treatments of transport and aerosol processes. The burdens of dry masses decrease from largest to smallest: DU, SS, SO_4, POM, and BC. The all-models-average residence time is shortest for SS with about half a day, followed by S_O4 and DU with four days, and POM and BC with six and seven days, respectively. The wet deposition rate is controlled by the solubility and increases from DU, BC, POM to SO_4 and SS. It is the dominant sink for SO_4, BC, and POM, and contributes about one third to the total removal rate coefficients of SS and DU species. For SS and DU we find high diversities for the removal rate coefficients and deposition pathways. Models do neither agree on the split between wet and dry deposition, nor on that between sedimentation and turbulent dry Deposition. We diagnose an extremely high diversity for the uptake of ambient water vapor that influences the particle size and thus the sink rate coefficients. Furthermore, we find little agreement among the model results for the partitioning of wet removal into scavenging by convective and stratiform rain. Large differences exist for aerosol dispersal both in the vertical and in the horizontal direction. In some models, a minimum of total aerosol concentration is simulated at the surface. Aerosol dispersal is most pronounced for SO4 and BC and lowest for SS. Diversities are higher for meridional than for vertical dispersal, they are similar for a given species and highest for SS and DU. For these two components we do not find a correlation between vertical and meridional aerosol dispersal. In addition the degree of dispersals of SS and DU is not related to their residence times. SO_4, BC, and POM, however, show increased meridional dispersal in models with larger vertical dispersal, and dispersal is larger for longer simulated residence times

An AeroCom initial assessment – optical properties in aerosol component modules of global models

The AeroCom exercise diagnoses multi-component aerosol modules in global modeling. In an initial assessment simulated global distributions for mass and mid-visible aerosol optical thickness (aot) were compared among 20 different modules. Model diversity was also explored in the context of previous comparisons. For the component combined aot general agreement has improved for the annual global mean. At 0.11 to 0.14, simulated aot values are at the lower end of global averages suggested by remote sensing from ground (AERONET ca. 0.135) and space (satellite composite ca. 0.15). More detailed comparisons, however, reveal that larger differences in regional distribution and significant differences in compositional mixture remain. Of particular concern are large model diversities for contributions by dust and carbonaceous aerosol, because they lead to significant uncertainty in aerosol absorption (aab). Since aot and aab, both, influence the aerosol impact on the radiative energy-balance, the aerosol (direct) forcing uncertainty in modeling is larger than differences in aot might suggest. New diagnostic approaches are proposed to trace model differences in terms of aerosol processing and transport: These include the prescription of common input (e.g. amount, size and injection of aerosol component emissions) and the use of observational capabilities from ground (e.g. measurements networks) or space (e.g. correlations between aerosol and clouds)

Addressing inequities in maternal health among women living in communities of social disadvantage and ethnic diversity.

The response to the coronavirus outbreak and how the disease and its societal consequences pose risks to already vulnerable groups such those who are socioeconomically disadvantaged and ethnic minority groups. Researchers and community groups analysed how the COVID-19 crisis has exacerbated persisting vulnerabilities, socio-economic and structural disadvantage and discrimination faced by many communities of social disadvantage and ethnic diversity, and discussed future strategies on how best to engage and involve local groups in research to improve outcomes for childbearing women experiencing mental illness and those living in areas of social disadvantage and ethnic diversity. Discussions centred around: access, engagement and quality of care; racism, discrimination and trust; the need for engagement with community stakeholders; and the impact of wider social and economic inequalities. Addressing biomedical factors alone is not sufficient, and integrative and holistic long-term public health strategies that address societal and structural racism and overall disadvantage in society are urgently needed to improve health disparities and can only be implemented in partnership with local communities

Conserved and divergent functions of Drosophila atonal , amphibian, and mammalian Ath5 genes

Insect and vertebrate eyes differ in their formation, cellular composition, neural connectivity, and visual function. Despite this diversity, Drosophila atonal and its vertebrate Ortholog in the eye, Ath5 , each regulate determination of the first retinal neuron class—R8 photo-receptors and retinal ganglion cells (RGCs)—in their respective organisms. We have performed a cross-species functional comparison of these genes. In ato 1 mutant Drosophila , ectopic Xenopus Ath5 ( Xath5 ) rescues photoreceptor cell development comparably with atonal . In contrast, mouse Ath5 ( Math5 ) induces formation of very few ommatidia, and most of these lack R8 cells. In the developing frog eye, ectopic atonal , like Xath5 , promotes the differentiation RGCs. Despite strong conservation of atonal , Xath5 , and Math5 structure and shared function, other factors must contribute to the species specificity of retinal neuron determination. These observations suggest that the atonal family may occupy a position in a gene hierarchy where differences in gene regulation or function can be correlated with evolutionary diversity of eye development.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/72909/1/j.1525-142X.2003.03058.x.pd