Behaviours of natural organic matter in membrane filtration for surface water treatment : a review

Membrane application in surface water treatment provides many advantages over conventional treatment. However, this effort is hampered by the fouling issue, which restricts its widespread application due to increases in hydraulic resistances, operational and maintenance costs, deterioration of productivity and frequency of membrane regeneration problems. This paper discusses natural organic matter (NOM) and its components as the major membrane foulants that occur during the water filtration process, possible fouling mechanisms relating to reversible and irreversible of NOM fouling, current techniques used to characterize fouling mechanisms and methods to control fouling. Feed properties, membrane characteristics, operational conditions and solution chemistry were also found to strongly influence the nature and extent of NOM fouling. Findings of such studies are highlighted. The understanding of the combined roles of controlling factors and the methods used is very important in order to choose and optimize the best technique and conditions during surface water treatment. The future potential of membrane application for NOM removal is also discussed

Role of magnesium in carbon partitioning and alleviating photooxidative damage

Magnesium (Mg) deficiency exerts a major influence on the partitioning of drymatter and carbohydrates between shoots and roots. One of the very early reactions of plants to Mg deficiency stress is themarked increase in the shootto- root dry weight ratio, which is associated with a massive accumulation of carbohydrates in source leaves, especially of sucrose and starch. These higher concentrations of carbohydrates in Mg-deficient leaves together with the accompanying increase in shoot-to-root dry weight ratio are indicative of a severe impairment in phloem export of photoassimilates from source leaves. Studies with common bean and sugar beet plants have shown that Mg plays a fundamental role in phloem loading of sucrose. At a very early stage of Mg deficiency, phloem export of sucrose is severely impaired, an effect that occurs before any noticeable changes in shoot growth, Chl concentration or photosynthetic activity. These findings suggest that accumulation of carbohydrates in Mg-deficient leaves is caused directly by Mg deficiency stress and not as a consequence of reduced sink activity. The role of Mg in the phloem-loading process seems to be specific; resupplying Mg for 12 or 24 h to Mg-deficient plants resulted in a very rapid recovery of sucrose export. It appears that the massive accumulation of carbohydrates and related impairment in photosynthetic CO2 fixation in Mg-deficient leaves cause an over-reduction in the photosynthetic electron transport chain that potentiates the generation of highly reactive O2 species (ROS). Plants respond to Mg deficiency stress by marked increases in antioxidative capacity of leaves, especially under high light intensity, suggesting that ROS generation is stimulated by Mg deficiency in chloroplasts. Accordingly, it has been found that Mg-deficient plants are very susceptible to high light intensity. Exposure of Mg-deficient plants to high light intensity rapidly induced leaf chlorosis and necrosis, an outcome that was effectively delayed by partial shading of the leaf blade, although the Mg concentrations in different parts of the leaf blade were unaffected by shading. The results indicate that photooxidative damage contributes to development of leaf chlorosis under Mg deficiency, suggesting that plants under high-light conditions have a higher physiological requirement for Mg. Maintenance of a high Mg nutritional status of plants is, thus, essential in the avoidance of ROS generation, which occurs at the expense of inhibited phloem export of sugars and impairment of CO2 fixation, particularly under high-light conditions

Leptonic Pion Decay And Physics Beyond The Electroweak Standard Model

The ratio of branching ratios in leptonic pion decay $R_{\pi} \equiv (\Gamma(\pi^- \to e \nu_e))/(\Gamma(\pi^- \to \mu \nu_\mu))$ is a powerfully sensitive probe of new interactions beyond the electroweak standard model. This is due to the chirality suppression of the standard model amplitude for the decay, which results in a precise prediction for the ratio, and suppressed amplitudes for new contributions to interfere with. We calculate, including QCD corrections, the contributions to $R_{\pi}$ arising from a broad selection of standard model extensions to which it is sensitive, including: R-parity violating interactions in supersymmetric theories, theories with light (electroweak scale) leptoquark degrees of freedom, non-minimal models of extra doublet Higgs bosons, models in which the quarks and leptons are composite both with and without supersymmetry, and models with strong TeV scale gravitational interactions. Comparing with existing measurements of $R_{\pi}$ we provide limits on each of these classes of models; our calculations also represent state of the art theoretical benchmarks against which the results from the upcoming round of leptonic pion decay experiments may be compared.Comment: 31 pages, 3 figure

Performance of treated and untreated asymmetric polysulfone hollow fiber membrane in series and cascade module configurations for CO2/CH4 gas separation system

This study investigates the effects of one-, two- and three-stage membrane system configurations in series arrangement for theCO2/CH4 separation for both untreated and treated membranes. Asymmetric polysulfone hollow fiber membranes were fabricated from 33 wt.% of polysulfone polymer using dry/wet phase inversion process. The produced membranes were characterized by pure gas permeation experiments, Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), density measurement and Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA). For both untreated and treated membranes, the pressure-normalized flux of CO2 decreased with increasing of the membrane stages. In addition, the selectivities of asymmetric hollow fiber membrane showed a more constant trend with feed pressure. Treated membrane exhibited lower pressure-normalized flux than untreated membranes due to skin layer densification which increased the transport resistance, thus lead to the reduction in pressure-normalized fluxes. Among all the three configurations studied, two-stage membrane configuration showed the most constant trend in term of selectivity. However, three-stage cascade configuration produced the highest CO2/CH4 selectivity especially when tested at low feed pressure range. Effect of stage cut on feed pressure showed an increasing trend with increasing of CO2 and CH4 feed pressure for all configurations. This is due to the increase of the permeation driving force, which caused the passage of larger amounts of more permeable gas through the membrane. This study showed that, three-stage cascade configuration exhibited the smallest stage cut values thus produced higher purity of CO2 in permeate stream

Chiral Disorder and Diffusion of Light Quarks in the QCD Vacuum

We give a pedagogical introduction to the concept that light quarks diffuse in the QCD vacuum following the spontaneous breaking of chiral symmetry. By analogy with disordered electrons in metals, we show that the diffusion constant for light quarks in QCD is D=2F_{\pi}^2/|\la\bar{q}q\to| which is about 0.22 fm. We comment on the correspondence between the diffusive phase and the chiral phase as described by chiral perturbation theory, as well as the cross-over to the ergodic phase as described by random matrix theory. The cross-over is identified with the Thouless energy $E_c=D/\sqrt{V_4}$ which is the inverse diffusion time in an Euclidean four-volume $V_4$.Comment: 9 pages in APPB sty (included). Invited talk by MAN at the Workshop on the Structure of Mesons, Baryons and Nuclei, Cracow, May 26-30, 199

A netnography study to uncover the underlying dimensions of customer experience with resort brands

The interest in customer experience has increased at a phenomenal rate. However, research to capture the true meaning of the concept is limited. This study aims to address the question of what are the underlying dimensions that constitute the construct of customer experience. The netnography method is utilized to validate a priori concepts that have been identified in the literature within the context of resort-hotel brands in a Sharm El Sheikh resort in Egypt. The results identified eight dimensions; comfort, educational, hedonic, novelty, recognition, relational, safety and sense of beauty which are consistent with major studies on experience