Purification of Tannery Effluent by electrolytic corrosion of aluminium

Tannery Effluent is noxious because tanning process chemicals are preservatives, including chromium, and the pH is high. Electrolytic processing is feasible because the high salt content gives a high electrical conductivity. While research on the subject dates back to early in the 20th Century, commercialization has not occurred, perhaps due to excessive power consumption. Other researchers have produced promising results with rendering plant effluent (Tetrault 2003). During 2005 a specialised proprietary prototype with a novel anode design was trialed extensively at a Tannery site in New Zealand and produced good results during continuous inline operation despite wide variation in the inflow. Greater than 90% removal of chromium from solution with similar reductions in turbidity were achieved at lower operating cost, residual aluminum and total aluminum addition than by dosing with usual commercial aluminum based flocculants. Results from the field trials are shown and discussed

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Scenes from January Term 2006; clockwise from top left, Austrialia, India and Londo

The identification and exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities on family-owned estates in the north-east of Scotland.

Family-owned estates face challenges achieving economic stability. Estate owners, including those in the North East of Scotland (the focus of this study) are committed to perpetuating family ownership. To enable this, entrepreneurial diversification is advocated by both landowner associations and rural consultancies. However, upper-class estate owners have historically been perceived to be reluctant to engage in entrepreneurial activities and some remain so. With other remunerative options available to them, this research investigates the identification and exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities by estate owners in the North East of Scotland. Multiple perspectives drawn from institutional and entrepreneurial theory provide insights into estate owners' embeddedness in the institutions of family and social class, and their influence on the socially-constructed nature of entrepreneurial motivations, personality and process. Individual case studies of estate owners in the North East of Scotland provide rich insights into what activities estate owners engage in, and how and why they identify and exploit entrepreneurial opportunities. Cross-case analysis identifies patterns of similarity and difference between individual estates. Case-state estate owners are found to engage in similar ranges of activities, with a minority identifying and exploiting differentiated opportunities. Motivations are layered in nature. Explicit commitments to community and implicit commitments to family motivate estate owners to ensure continued financial stability of their estates. Awareness and identification of estate resources are push factors for estate owners to engage in entrepreneurial activities. Their entrepreneurial process consists of multiple, overlapping journeys, which consist of phases of awareness, identification, development, action and outcomes. Estate owners whose continued entrepreneurial activities have short-term requirements have retained traditional identities of estate owners or farmers, whereas those whose activities are planned to continue over a longer time are those who have embraced - albeit partially - entrepreneurial identities. Contributions have been made to theory and understanding in the areas of entrepreneurial process, personality and motivation. Contributions to policy and practice include recommendations to support estate owners engaging in entrepreneurial activities, aimed at both enterprise and/or landowner support organisations as well as policy makers. Finally, methodological contributions are made to the process of sampling and interviewing elites, and the use of individual case studies of elites and cross-case analysis

The Importance of Revenue Sharing for the Local Economic Impacts of a Renewable Energy Project: A Social Accounting Matrix Approach

As demand for electricity from renewable energy sources grows, there is increasing interest, and public and financial support, for local communities to become involved in the development of renewable energy projects. In the UK, “Community Benefit” payments are the most common financial link between renewable energy projects and local communities. These are “goodwill” payments from the project developer for the community to spend as it wishes. However, if an ownership stake in the renewable energy project were possible, receipts to the local community would potentially be considerably higher. The local economic impacts of these receipts are difficult to quantify using traditional Input-Output techniques, but can be more appropriately handled within a Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) framework where income flows between agents can be traced in detail. We use a SAM for the Shetland Islands to evaluate the potential local economic and employment impact of a large onshore wind energy project proposed for the Islands. Sensitivity analysis is used to show how the local impact varies with: the level of Community Benefit payments; the portion of intermediate inputs being sourced from within the local economy; and the level of any local community ownership of the project. By a substantial margin, local ownership confers the greatest economic impacts for the local community.renewable energy; rural economic impacts; revenue sharing; community ownership

Designing creativity tools to support business innovation.

There are a wide range of approaches and organizations, which have the common aim of supporting SMEŸs to deliver new products and services. This paper examines the various approaches which have been taken and in particular describes the work of The Centre for Design & Innovation (http://www.c4di.org.uk), Aberdeen, which has been established to provide innovation support for small to medium sized companies in Scotland. The centre has adopted a user-centered approach that encourages companies to consider their core values, identify opportunities based on their customers needs and encourage new thinking based on a re-evaluation of the companyŸs innovation culture. This paper examines the philosophical basis for the development of the new centre and subsequent methodology that has been adopted. It also describes a number of resources that have been developed to help SMEŸs with their innovation processes. This is based on a user-centered, ethnographical strategy. Serious play is used to help companies shift their perspective which in turn leads to new insights. Recognition of the barriers to creative thinking enables companies to develop an innovation culture that promotes continuous innovation and development. Prototyping methods are described that help companies develop and evaluate concepts and encourage co-design and interdisciplinary working

Assessing Metadata and Curation Quality

Since 2017, the publisher Springer Nature has provided an optional Research Data Support service to help researchers deposit and curate data that support their peer-reviewed publications. This service builds on a Research Data Helpdesk, which since 2016 has provided support to authors and editors who need advice on the options available for sharing their research data. In this paper, we describe a short project which aimed to facilitate an objective assessment of metadata quality, undertaken during the development of a third-party curation service for researchers (Research Data Support). We provide details on the single-blind user-testing that was undertaken, and the results gathered during this experiment. We also briefly describe the curation services which have been developed and introduced following an initial period of testing and piloting

Hyperadrenocorticism in the Domestic Ferret

Domestic ferrets (Mustela putorius furo) are becoming increasingly common in the United States. They are very popular as household pets and are also used in large numbers as research animals. With the increase in ferret numbers, there has been a corresponding increase in the number and frequency of diseases described. Neoplastic conditions are at the top of the list of problems occurring in ferrets found in the United States. An exceedingly common condition is adrenal disease as a result of adrenocortical hyperplasia, adenoma, or adenocarcinoma. These conditions present as the same clinical syndrome and anyone examining ferrets in a veterinary setting can expect to see many cases of adrenal disease

Towards a Jurisprudence (and Pedagogy) of Access: A Reflection on 25 Years of the Public Interest Practicum

The Public Interest Practicum (PIP), a course at the University of Georgia School of Law, fosters awareness among law students of the demand for access to justice. For more than 25 years, PIP has served many purposes: to explore a street level jurisprudence; to challenge students’ professional identities; to generate new models of clinical legal education; to inculcate the habit of public service; and to help individuals with legal problems. Through its many iterations, PIP has consistently exposed future lawyers to ways of helping those in need. This reflection traces the history of PIP as a course, contextualizes it within several modern movements, and assesses it as a way to teach the value of access to justice to law students

Towards a Jurisprudence (and Pedagogy) of Access: A Reflection on 25 Years of the Public Interest Practicum

The Public Interest Practicum (PIP), a course at the University of Georgia School of Law, fosters awareness among law students of the demand for access to justice. For more than 25 years, PIP has served many purposes: to explore a street level jurisprudence; to challenge students’ professional identities; to generate new models of clinical legal education; to inculcate the habit of public service; and to help individuals with legal problems. Through its many iterations, PIP has consistently exposed future lawyers to ways of helping those in need. This reflection traces the history of PIP as a course, contextualizes it within several modern movements, and assesses it as a way to teach the value of access to justice to law students