Land utilization and ecological aspects in the Sylhet-Mymensingh Haor Region of Bangladesh: An analysis of LANDSAT data

The use of remote sensing data from LANDSAT (ERTS) imageries in identifying, evaluating and mapping land use patterns of the Haor area in Bangladesh was investigated. Selected cloud free imageries of the area for the period 1972-75 were studied. Imageries in bands 4, 5 and 7 were mostly used. The method of analysis involved utilization of both human and computer services of information from ground, aerial photographs taken during this period and space imageries

Analytical solution for cauchy reaction-diffusion problems by homotopy perturbation method

In this paper, the homotopy-perturbation method (HPM) is applied to obtain approximate analytical solutions for the Cauchy reaction-diffusion problems. HPM yields solutions in convergent series forms with easily computable terms. The HPM is tested for several examples. Comparisons of the results obtained by the HPM with that obtained by the Adomian decomposition method (ADM), homotopy analysis method (HAM) and the exact solutions show the efficiency of HPM

Hydraulic and Electrokinetic Delivery of Remediants for In-situ Remediation

Nano-scale zero valent iron (nZVI) has shown promising mobility and in-situ reactivity with chlorinated volatile organic compounds when injected into saturated porous media. The current study evaluated nZVI mobility and subsequent reactivity with in-situ contaminants in a variably saturated porous media. The nZVI particles, synthesized onsite at subzero temperatures, demonstrated complete trichloroethene (TCE) degradation within the target area. Furthermore, a three dimensional finite difference model (CompSim) was utilized to investigate nZVI mobility in variably saturated zones. Model predicted well head data were in very good agreement with field observations. Simulation results showed that the injected slurry migrated radially outward from the injection well and that nZVI travel distance increases were not proportional to the increase in injected nZVI volume. This study suggested that the numerical simulator can be a practical tool for optimal design of nZVI field applications. The second study aimed at alleviating back diffusion from low permeability porous media observed at numerous field studies. Experiments were conducted in a two-dimensional sandbox with alternate vertical layers of coarse sand and silt flooded with TCE at aqueous solubility. Electrokinetics (EK) was used to enhance permanganate delivery through the silt layers. The suite of experiments demonstrated that EK was able to drive more permanganate at a faster rate throughout the silt layers in comparison to no-EK experiments. The combined EK and permanganate application resulted in 4.4 orders of magnitude reduction in TCE concentrations compared to a 3.5 orders of magnitude reduction without EK application. This experiment demonstrated that EK coupled with permanganate application can be used to remediate low permeability strata. The third study investigated a novel approach of EK assisted persulfate delivery followed by electrical resistance heating (ERH) for persulfate activation for low permeability soil remediation. The study showed that EK delivered persulfate throughout the silt. The application of ERH was successfully able to activate the persulfate within the porous matrix leading to complete in-situ tetrachlorothene (PCE) degradation. To the authors’ knowledge, this study was the first to combine EK and ERH for persulfate delivery and activation for low permeability soil remediation

Anaerobic Digestion and Co-digestion of Thickened Waste Activated Sludge (TWAS) and Food Waste (FW)

This study aimed at assessing the impact of ultrasonication on the anaerobic digestibility of thickened waste activated sludge (TWAS) in anaerobic fluidized bed reactor (AnFBR), determining the unbiodegradable fraction of TWAS, and exploring co-digestion of food waste (FW) and TWAS. Two lab-scale AnFBRs treating TWAS were studied to explore the impact of ultrasonication (US) in the break down and reuse of scum for methane production. At an organic loading rate (OLR) of 4.7 kg COD/m3-d and 480 kJ of US energy, COD and VSS destruction efficiencies were 65% and 63%, respectively roughly 20% higher than the control reactor without US. To explore the specific methanogenic bacterial activity (SMA), the SMA test was conducted during OLR of 9.7 kg COD/m3-d and showed that the activity-based sludge retention time is higher for the ultrasonicated AnFBR (U-AnFBR) (7.1 days) compared to AnFBR (5.1 days). The investigation also indicated that the unbiodegradable fractions of PCOD and VSS were 0.28 based on PCOD and 0.26 based on VSS. However, to investigate the co-digestibility of FW as co-substrate, five semi-continuous flow anaerobic digesters were operated to explore the co-digestion performance treating a mixture of FW and municipal biosolids (primary sludge and TWAS) at an HRT of 20 days. Sixty days of steady-state operation at organic loading rates of 2.2 kgCOD/m3-d to 3.85 kgCOD/m3-d showed that COD removals were higher for the three co-digesters than for the two municipal biosolids digesters i.e. 61%-69% versus 47%-52%. Specific methane production per influent CODs were 1.3-1.8 folds higher in co-digestion than mono-digestion. Additional methane production through synergism accounted for the minimum 18%-20% of the overall methane production

A (Running) Bolt for New Reasons

We construct a four-parameter family of smooth, horizonless, stationary solutions of ungauged five-dimensional supergravity by using the four-dimensional Euclidean Schwarzschild metric as a base space and "magnetizing" its bolt. We then generalize this to a five-parameter family based upon the Euclidean Kerr-Taub-Bolt. These "running Bolt" solutions are necessarily non-static. They also have the same charges and mass as a non-extremal black hole with a classically-large horizon area. Moreover, in a certain regime their mass can decrease as their charges increase. The existence of these solutions supports the idea that the singularities of non-extremal black holes are resolved by low-mass modes that correct the singularity of the classical black hole solution on large (horizon-sized) scales.Comment: 25 pages, 3 figures, LaTeX; v2: minor changes, references adde

Distribution of dwell times of a ribosome: effects of infidelity, kinetic proofreading and ribosome crowding

Ribosome is a molecular machine that polymerizes a protein where the sequence of the amino acid residues, the monomers of the protein, is dictated by the sequence of codons (triplets of nucleotides) on a messenger RNA (mRNA) that serves as the template. The ribosome is a molecular motor that utilizes the template mRNA strand also as the track. Thus, in each step the ribosome moves forward by one codon and, simultaneously, elongates the protein by one amino acid. We present a theoretical model that captures most of the main steps in the mechano-chemical cycle of a ribosome. The stochastic movement of the ribosome consists of an alternating sequence of pause and translocation; the sum of the durations of a pause and the following translocation is the time of dwell of the ribosome at the corresponding codon. We derive the analytical expression for the distribution of the dwell times of a ribosome in our model. Whereever experimental data are available, our theoretical predictions are consistent with those results. We suggest appropriate experiments to test the new predictions of our model, particularly, the effects of the quality control mechanism of the ribosome and that of their crowding on the mRNA track.Comment: This is an author-created, un-copyedited version of an article accepted for publication in Physical Biology. IOP Publishing Ltd is not responsible for any errors or omissions in this version of the manuscript or any version derived from it. The definitive publisher authenticated version is available online at DOI:10.1088/1478-3975/8/2/02600