Waste Water Treatment in New Hampshire: Analysis of Nitrogen Treatment in the Great Bay Community

This thesis addresses and analyzes the challenge of high nitrogen levels in treated wastewater. As fresh water supplies are decreasing, demand for water usage is increasing, as are pollution levels. Wastewater treatment plants are designed to improve the quality of wastewater and allow for future reuse. Although reusing wastewater was initially an innovative solution, many of the treatment plants that were built thirty years ago are now reaching the end of their useful life. This research focuses on the Great Bay community in New Hampshire and analyses the existing systems and accomplishments. Future projects are identified, as well as proposals and prospective developments. The basis of this research is to identify cost effective methods to reduce the levels of nitrogen that are present in the waters of the three municipalities which cover the Great Bay community

Poland and Voting in the Council

Poland wants to reopen the debate about voting in the Council. The Polish government has made public its desire to renegotiate the voting system in the Council. The main reason is that the voting system envisaged in the Constitution implies a huge loss of voting power with respect to Germany and a break-up of the accession package which brought Poland to the EU. Whereas the previous government accepted the new voting system as a part of a global package, the new government considers that once the Constitutional Treaty is open for renegotiation, each and every member state has the right to place onto the agenda the elements it dislikes. Whereas this is not often clearly perceived from abroad, the Polish government has adopted a constructive position: rather than a ‘Nice or die’ position, it is demanding that new options be examined, discussed and eventually negotiated. One of them is the ‘square root’ formula, which offers some sort of middle point between the Nice system and the Constitutional Treaty, but there are other possibilities. But, first and foremost, the European Council should allow the issue to be included in the IGC’s agenda. Not to do so would not only amount to repeating the mistakes made during the previous IGC negotiations but would open a question mark about the legitimacy of the EU’s treaty-making processes and threaten the satisfactory conclusion and ratification of the new Treaty

Associations among neighborhood socioeconomic deprivation, physical activity facilities, and physical activity in youth during the transition from childhood to adolescence

BACKGROUND: This study aims to examine the longitudinal association of neighborhood socioeconomic deprivation (SED) with physical activity in youth during the transition from elementary to middle school, and to determine if access to physical activity facilities moderates this relationship. METHODS: Data were obtained from the Transitions and Activity Changes in Kids (TRACK) study, which was a multilevel, longitudinal study designed to identify the factors that influence changes in physical activity as youth transition from elementary to middle school. The analytic sample for the current study included 660 youth with complete data in grades 5 (baseline) and 7 (follow-up). A repeated measures multilevel framework was employed to examine the relationship between SED and physical activity over time and the potential moderating role of elements of the built environment. RESULTS: Decreases in physical activity varied by the degree of neighborhood SED with youth residing in the most deprived neighborhoods experiencing the greatest declines in physical activity. Access to supportive physical activity facilities did not moderate this relationship. CONCLUSION: Future research studies are needed to better understand how neighborhood SED influences youth physical activity over time

Computing The Cubical Cohomology Ring (Extended Abstract)

The goal of this work is to establish a new algorithm for computing the cohomology ring of cubical complexes. The cubical structure enables an explicit recurrence formula for the cup product. We derive this formula and, next, show how to extend the Mrozek and Batko [7] homology coreduction algorithm to the cohomology ring structure. The implementation of the algorithm is a work in progress. This research is aimed at applications in electromagnetism and in image processing, among other fields

Virtual testing in terms of pedestrian safety improvements

Pedestrian fatalities in traffic accidents continue to be a significant social burden and pose a costly hospitalization problem. Statistical research conducted in European countries onfirms that pedestrians account for 12-35% of severely injured or illed victims of road traffic accidents. The paper outlines the European test procedure and a pedestrian safety guideline drawn up by the EEVC (European Enhanced Vehicle-Safety Committee). In addition, the emphasis is put on the Virtual Testing regarding the current regulations. The great development of computation power and expansion of Finite Element Method enables to widen the possibilities and application fields including pedestrian safety in terms of a collision with the front of a motor vehicle

Homology and symmetry breaking in Rayleigh-Benard convection: Experiments and simulations

Algebraic topology (homology) is used to analyze the weakly turbulent state of spiral defect chaos in both laboratory experiments and numerical simulations of Rayleigh-Benard convection.The analysis reveals topological asymmetries that arise when non-Boussinesq effects are present.Comment: 21 pages with 6 figure