Life cycle modelling of environmental impacts of application of processed organic municipal solid waste on agricultural land (EASEWASTE)

A model capable of quantifying the potential environmental impacts of agricultural application of composted or anaerobically digested source-separated organic municipal solid waste (MSW) is presented. In addition to the direct impacts, the model accounts for savings by avoiding the production and use of commercial fertilizers. The model is part of a larger model, Environmental Assessment of Solid Waste Systems and Technology (EASEWASTE), developed as a decisionsupport model, focusing on assessment of alternative waste management options. The environmental impacts of the land application of processed organic waste are quantified by emission coefficients referring to the composition of the processed waste and related to specific crop rotation as well as soil type. The model contains several default parameters based on literature data, field experiments and modelling by the agro-ecosystem model, Daisy. All data can be modified by the user allowing application of the model to other situations. A case study including four scenarios was performed to illustrate the use of the model. One tonne of nitrogen in composted and anaerobically digested MSW was applied as fertilizer to loamy and sandy soil at a plant farm in western Denmark. Application of the processed organic waste mainly affected the environmental impact categories global warming (0.4–0.7 PE), acidification (–0.06 (saving)–1.6 PE), nutrient enrichment (–1.0 (saving)–3.1 PE), and toxicity. The main contributors to these categories were nitrous oxide formation (global warming), ammonia volatilization (acidification and nutrient enrichment), nitrate losses (nutrient enrichment and groundwater contamination), and heavy metal input to soil (toxicity potentials). The local agricultural conditions as well as the composition of the processed MSW showed large influence on the environmental impacts. A range of benefits, mainly related to improved soil quality from long-term application of the processed organic waste, could not be generally quantified with respect to the chosen life cycle assessment impact categories and were therefore not included in the model. These effects should be considered in conjunction with the results of the life cycle assessment

The paranasal sinuses are focus for colonisation and chronic biofilm lung infection in CF patients

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Temperature and Polarization Patterns in Anisotropic Cosmologies

We study the coherent temperature and polarization patterns produced in homogeneous but anisotropic cosmological models. We show results for all Bianchi types with a Friedman-Robertson-Walker limit (i.e. Types I, V, VII$_{0}$, VII$_{h}$ and IX) to illustrate the range of possible behaviour. We discuss the role of spatial curvature, shear and rotation in the geodesic equations for each model and establish some basic results concerning the symmetries of the patterns produced. We also give examples of the time-evolution of these patterns in terms of the Stokes parameters $I$, $Q$ and $U$.Comment: 24 pages, 7 Figures, submitted to JCAP. Revised version: numerous references added, text rewritten, and errors corrected

The extended empirical process test for non-Gaussianity in the CMB, with an application to non-Gaussian inflationary models

In (Hansen et al. 2002) we presented a new approach for measuring non-Gaussianity of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropy pattern, based on the multivariate empirical distribution function of the spherical harmonics a_lm of a CMB map. The present paper builds upon the same ideas and proposes several improvements and extensions. More precisely, we exploit the additional information on the random phases of the a_lm to provide further tests based on the empirical distribution function. Also we take advantage of the effect of rotations in improving the power of our procedures. The suggested tests are implemented on physically motivated models of non-Gaussian fields; Monte-Carlo simulations suggest that this approach may be very promising in the analysis of non-Gaussianity generated by non-standard models of inflation. We address also some experimentally meaningful situations, such as the presence of instrumental noise and a galactic cut in the map.Comment: 15 pages, 6 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.

The Cold Spot as a Large Void: Lensing Effect on CMB Two and Three Point Correlation Functions

The "Cold Spot" in the CMB sky could be due to the presence of an anomalous huge spherical underdense region - a "Void" - of a few hundreds Mpc/h radius. Such a structure would have an impact on the CMB two-point (power spectrum) and three-point (bispectrum) correlation functions not only at low-l, but also at high-l through Lensing, which is a unique signature of a Void. Modeling such an underdensity with an LTB metric, we show that for the power spectrum the effect should be visible already in the WMAP data only if the Void radius is at least L \gtrsim 1 Gpc/h, while it will be visible by the Planck satellite if L \gtrsim 500 Mpc/h. We also speculate that this could be linked to the high-l detection of an hemispherical power asymmetry in the sky. Moreover, there should be non-zero correlations in the non-diagonal two-point function. For the bispectrum, the effect becomes important for squeezed triangles with two very high l's: this signal can be detected by Planck if the Void radius is at least L \gtrsim 300 Mpc/h, while higher resolution experiments should be able to probe the entire parameter space. We have also estimated the contamination of the primordial non-Gaussianity f_NL due to this signal, which turns out to be negligible.Comment: v1: 18 pages, 12 figures; v2: 19 pages, 12 figures, calculation of bispectrum improved, reference added, published version; v3: 19 pages, 12 figures, refined eq.(9) and related figures, conclusions strengthene

Searching for hidden mirror symmetries in CMB fluctuations from WMAP 7 year maps

We search for hidden mirror symmetries at large angular scales in the WMAP 7 year Internal Linear Combination map of CMB temperature anisotropies using global pixel based estimators introduced for this aim. Two different axes are found for which the CMB intensity pattern is anomalously symmetric (or anti-symmetric) under reflection with respect to orthogonal planes at the 99.84(99.96)% CL (confidence level), if compared to a result for an arbitrary axis in simulations without the symmetry. We have verified that our results are robust to the introduction of the galactic mask. The direction of such axes is close to the CMB kinematic dipole and nearly orthogonal to the ecliptic plane, respectively. If instead the real data are compared to those in simulations taken with respect to planes for which the maximal mirror symmetry is generated by chance, the confidence level decreases to 92.39 (76.65)%. But when the effect in question translates into the anomalous alignment between normals to planes of maximal mirror (anti)-symmetry and these natural axes mentioned. We also introduce the representation of the above estimators in the harmonic domain, confirming the results obtained in the pixel one. The symmetry anomaly is shown to be almost entirely due to low multipoles, so it may have a cosmological and even primordial origin. Contrary, the anti-symmetry one is mainly due to intermediate multipoles that probably suggests its non-fundamental nature. We have demonstrated that these anomalies are not connected to the known issue of the low variance in WMAP observations and we have checked that axially symmetric parts of these anomalies are small, so that the axes are not the symmetry ones.Comment: 18 pages, 10 figures, 2 tables. Consideration and discussion expanded, 5 figures and 1 table added, main conclusions unchange

Constraints on cosmic hemispherical power anomalies from quasars

Recent analyses of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) maps from the WMAP satellite have uncovered evidence for a hemispherical power anomaly, i.e. a dipole modulation of the CMB power spectrum at large angular scales with an amplitude of +/-14 percent. Erickcek et al have put forward an inflationary model to explain this anomaly. Their scenario is a variation on the curvaton scenario in which the curvaton possesses a large-scale spatial gradient that modulates the amplitude of CMB fluctuations. We show that this scenario would also lead to a spatial gradient in the amplitude of perturbations sigma_8, and hence to a dipole asymmetry in any highly biased tracer of the underlying density field. Using the high-redshift quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, we find an upper limit on such a gradient of |nabla sigma_8|/sigma_8<0.027/r_{lss} (99% posterior probability), where r_{lss} is the comoving distance to the last-scattering surface. This rules out the simplest version of the curvaton spatial gradient scenario.Comment: matches JCAP accepted version (minor revisions