20,598 research outputs found
Dry anaerobic digestion of organic waste: A review of operational parameters and their impact on process performance.
open access articleDry digestion is a suitable technology for treating organic wastes with varying composition such as the organic
fraction of municipal solids waste. Yet, there is a need for further research to overcome some of the disadvantages
associated with the high total solids content of the process. Optimisation of inoculum to substrate
ratio, feedstock composition and size, liquid recirculation, bed compaction and use of bulking agents are some of
the parameters that need further investigation in batch dry anaerobic digestion, to limit localised inhibition
effects and avoid process instability. In addition, further attention on the relation between feedstock composition,
organic loading rate and mixing regimes is required for continuous dry anaerobic digestion systems. This
paper highlights all the areas where knowledge is scarce and value can be added to increase dry anaerobic
digestion performance and expansion
A First-Principles Approach to Insulators in Finite Electric Fields
We describe a method for computing the response of an insulator to a static,
homogeneous electric field. It consists of iteratively minimizing an electric
enthalpy functional expressed in terms of occupied Bloch-like states on a
uniform grid of k points. The functional has equivalent local minima below a
critical field E_c that depends inversely on the density of k points; the
disappearance of the minima at E_c signals the onset of Zener breakdown. We
illustrate the procedure by computing the piezoelectric and nonlinear
dielectric susceptibility tensors of III-V semiconductors.Comment: 4 pages, with 1 postscript figure embedded. Uses REVTEX and epsf
macros. Also available at
http://www.physics.rutgers.edu/~dhv/preprints/is_ef/index.htm
Spitzer Space Telescope Observations of the Nucleus of Comet 103P/Hartley 2
We have used the Spitzer Space Telescope InfraRed Spectrograph (IRS) 22-μm peakup array to observe thermal emission from the nucleus and trail of comet 103P/Hartley 2, the target of NASA’s Deep Impact Extended Investigation (DIXI). The comet was observed on UT 2008 August 12 and 13, while 5.5 AU from the Sun. We obtained two 200 frame sets of photometric imaging over a 2.7 hr period. To within the errors of the measurement, we find no detection of any temporal variation between the two images. The comet showed extended emission beyond a point source in the form of a faint trail directed along the comet’s antivelocity vector. After modeling and removing the trail emission, a NEATM model for the nuclear emission with beaming parameter of 0.95 ± 0.20 indicates a small effective radius for the nucleus of 0.57 ± 0.08 km and low geometric albedo 0.028 ± 0.009 (1σ). With this nucleus size and a water production rate of 3 × 10^(28) molecules s^(-1) at perihelion, we estimate that ~100% of the surface area is actively emitting volatile material at perihelion. Reports of emission activity out to ~5 AU support our finding of a highly active nuclear surface. Compared to Deep Impact’s first target, comet 9P/Tempel 1, Hartley 2’s nucleus is one-fifth as wide (and about one-hundredth the mass) while producing a similar amount of outgassing at perihelion with about 13 times the active surface fraction. Unlike Tempel 1, comet Hartley 2 should be highly susceptible to jet driven spin-up torques, and so could be rotating at a much higher frequency. Since the amplitude of nongravitational forces are surprisingly similar for both comets, close to the ensemble average for ecliptic comets, we conclude that comet Hartley 2 must have a much more isotropic pattern of time-averaged outgassing from its nuclear surface. Barring a catastrophic breakup or major fragmentation event, the comet should be able to survive up to another 100 apparitions (~700 yr) at its current rate of mass loss
Bound - states for truncated Coulomb potentials
The pseudoperturbative shifted - expansion technique PSLET is generalized
for states with arbitrary number of nodal zeros. Bound- states energy
eigenvalues for two truncated coulombic potentials are calculated using PSLET.
In contrast with shifted large-N expansion technique, PSLET results compare
excellently with those from direct numerical integration.Comment: TEX file, 22 pages. To appear in J. Phys. A: Math. & Ge
Isotopic distribution of fission fragments in collisions between 238U beam and 9Be and 12C targets at 24 MeV/u
Inverse kinematics coupled to a high-resolution spectrometer is used to
investigate the isotopic yields of fission fragments produced in reactions
between a 238U beam at 24 MeV/u and 9Be and 12C targets. Mass, atomic number
and isotopic distributions are reported for the two reactions. These
informations give access to the neutron excess and the isotopic distribution
widths, which together with the atomic-number and mass distributions are used
to investigate the fusion-fission dynamics.Comment: Submitted to PR
Overall evaluation of Skylab imagery for mapping of Latin America
The author has identified the following significant results. Skylab imagery is both desired and needed by the Latin American catographic agencies. The imagery is cost beneficial for the production of new mapping and maintenance of existing maps at national topographic series scales. If this information was available on a near time routine coverage basis, it would provide an excellent additional data base to the Latin American cartographic community, specifically Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Paraguay, and Venezuela
Spitzer observations of the asteroid-comet transition object and potential spacecraft target 107P (4015) Wilson-Harrington
Context. Near-Earth asteroid-comet transition object 107P/ (4015)
Wilson-Harrington is a possible target of the joint European Space Agency (ESA)
and Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Marco Polo sample return
mission. Physical studies of this object are relevant to this mission, and also
to understanding its asteroidal or cometary nature. Aims. Our aim is to obtain
significant new constraints on the surface thermal properties of this object.
Methods. We present mid-infrared photometry in two filters (16 and 22 microns)
obtained with NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope on February 12, 2007, and results
from the application of the Near Earth Asteroid Thermal Model (NEATM).We
obtained high S/N in two mid-IR bands allowing accurate measurements of its
thermal emission. Results. We obtain a well constrained beaming parameter (eta
= 1.39 +/- 0.26) and obtain a diameter and geometric albedo of D = 3.46 +/-
0.32 km, and pV = 0.059 +/- 0.011. We also obtain similar results when we apply
this best-fitting thermal model to single-band mid-IR photometry reported by
Campins et al. (1995), Kraemer et al. (2005) and Reach et al. (2007).
Conclusions. The albedo of 4015 Wilson-Harrington is low, consistent with those
of comet nuclei and primitive C-, P-, D-type asteorids. We establish a rough
lower limit for the thermal inertia of W-H of 60 Jm^-2s^(-0.5)K^-1 when it is
at r=1AU, which is slightly over the limit of 30 Jm^-2s^(-0.5)K-1 derived by
Groussin et al. (2009) for the thermal inertia of the nucleus of comet
22P/Kopff.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure and 3 tables. Paper accepted for publicatio
The origin of power-law distributions in deterministic walks: the influence of landscape geometry
We investigate the properties of a deterministic walk, whose locomotion rule
is always to travel to the nearest site. Initially the sites are randomly
distributed in a closed rectangular ( landscape and, once
reached, they become unavailable for future visits. As expected, the walker
step lengths present characteristic scales in one () and two () dimensions. However, we find scale invariance for an intermediate
geometry, when the landscape is a thin strip-like region. This result is
induced geometrically by a dynamical trapping mechanism, leading to a power law
distribution for the step lengths. The relevance of our findings in broader
contexts -- of both deterministic and random walks -- is also briefly
discussed.Comment: 7 pages, 11 figures. To appear in Phys. Rev.
Reflectivity Anisotropy Spectra of Cu- and Ag- (110) surfaces from {\it ab initio} theory
We are able to disentagle the effects of the intraband and interband parts of
the bulk dielectric function on the bare dielectric anisotropy of the surface.
We show how the position, sign and amplitude of the structures observed in such
spectra depend on the above quantities. The lineshape of all the calculated
structures agree very well with the ones observed experimentally for samples
treated by suitable surface cleaning. In particular, we reproduce the observed
single peak structure of Ag at high energy, found to represent a state of the
clean surface different from the one giving the originally observed double peak
structure. This results is not reproduced by the 'local field' model.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures. submitted to Phys. Rev. Let
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