Tastes and odours in potable water:perception versus reality

Tastes and odours are amongst the few water quality standards immediately apparent to a consumer and, as a result, account for most consumer complaints about water quality. Although taste and odour problems can arise from a great many sources, from an operational point of view they are either ”predictable” or ”unpredictable”. The former - which include problems related to actinomycete and algal growth - have a tendency to occur in certain types of water under certain combinations of conditions, whereas the latter - typically chemical spills - can occur anywhere. Long-term control is one option for predictable problems, although biomanipulation on a large scale has had utile success. Detection and avoidance is a more practicable option for both predictable and unpredictable problems, particularly if the distribution network can be serviced from other sources. Where these are not feasible, then water treatment, typically using activated carbon, is possible. In general there is a reasonable understanding of what compounds cause taste and odour problems, and how to treat these. An efficient taste and odour control programme therefore relies ultimately on good management of existing resources. However, a number of problems lie outside the remit of water supply companies and will require more fundamental regulation of activities in the catchment

Nitrogen in the Environment: Chapter 10. Nitrogen Effects on Coastal Marine Ecosystems

Throughout the 20th century, a rapidly growing human population increased the global circulation of nitrogen (N). In the United States and elsewhere, human populations and activities have been disproportionately distributed towards coastlines, leading to markedly increased N inputs to coastal receiving waters. Nitrogen inputs to coastal waters come from the land, from the sea, and from the air; because of these multiple sources and the complexity of the N cycle, confident estimates of total N loading to coastal systems are not routine. Ecological problems from increasing inputs of N to coastal waters are well known and arise from stimulation of algal growth. There is, however, a great diversity in coastal systems (estuaries, small and large embayments, lagoons, open shelfwaters, and semi-enclosed coastal seas) and vulnerability to increased N loading varies greatly. The combination of uncertainties in characterization of loading and variability in response together have hindered development of predictive N loading-ecological response relationships and, in part, have engendered a case-by-case approach to defining protective limits for N loading for coastal systems

A daily representation of Great Britain's energy vectors : Natural gas, electricity and transport fuels

In much of Europe there is a strong push to decarbonise energy demands, including the largest single end-use demand – heat. Moving heat demands over to the electrical network poses significant challenges and the use of hybrid energy vector and storage systems (heat and electrical storage) will be a critical component in managing this transition. As an example of these challenges (facing many developed countries), the scale of recently available daily energy flows through the UK’s electrical, gas and transport systems are presented. When this data is expressed graphically it illustrates important differences in the demand characteristics of these different vectors; these include the quantity of energy delivered through the networks on a daily basis, and the scale of variability in the gas demand over multiple timescales (seasonal, weekly and daily). As the UK proceeds to migrate heating demands to the electrical network in its drive to cut carbon emissions, electrical demand will significantly increase. Additionally, the greater variability and uncertainty shown in the gas demand will also migrate to the electrical demand posing significant difficulties for the maintenance of a secure and reliable electrical system in the coming decades. The paper concludes an analysis of the different means of accommodating increasingly volatile electricity demands in future energy networks

Welfare guarantees for proportional allocations

According to the proportional allocation mechanism from the network optimization literature, users compete for a divisible resource -- such as bandwidth -- by submitting bids. The mechanism allocates to each user a fraction of the resource that is proportional to her bid and collects an amount equal to her bid as payment. Since users act as utility-maximizers, this naturally defines a proportional allocation game. Recently, Syrgkanis and Tardos (STOC 2013) quantified the inefficiency of equilibria in this game with respect to the social welfare and presented a lower bound of 26.8% on the price of anarchy over coarse-correlated and Bayes-Nash equilibria in the full and incomplete information settings, respectively. In this paper, we improve this bound to 50% over both equilibrium concepts. Our analysis is simpler and, furthermore, we argue that it cannot be improved by arguments that do not take the equilibrium structure into account. We also extend it to settings with budget constraints where we show the first constant bound (between 36% and 50%) on the price of anarchy of the corresponding game with respect to an effective welfare benchmark that takes budgets into account.Comment: 15 page

Probing the isovector transition strength of the low-lying nuclear excitations induced by inverse kinematics proton scattering

A compact approach based on the folding model is suggested for the determination of the isoscalar and isovector transition strengths of the low-lying ($\Delta S=\Delta T=0$) excitations induced by inelastic proton scattering measured with exotic beams. Our analysis of the recently measured inelastic $^{18,20}$O+p scattering data at $E_{\rm lab}=30$ and 43 MeV/nucleon has given for the first time an accurate estimate of the isoscalar $\beta_0$ and isovector $\beta_1$ deformation parameters (which cannot be determined from the (p,p') data alone by standard methods) for 2$^+_1$ and $3^-_1$ excited states in $^{18,20}$O. Quite strong isovector mixing was found in the 2$^+_1$ inelastic $^{20}$O+p scattering channel, where the strength of the isovector form factor $F_1$ (prototype of the Lane potential) corresponds to a $\beta_1$ value almost 3 times larger than $\beta_0$ and a ratio of nuclear transition matrix elements $M_n/M_p\simeq 4.2$.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

Metric trees of generalized roundness one

Every finite metric tree has generalized roundness strictly greater than one. On the other hand, some countable metric trees have generalized roundness precisely one. The purpose of this paper is to identify some large classes of countable metric trees that have generalized roundness precisely one. At the outset we consider spherically symmetric trees endowed with the usual combinatorial metric (SSTs). Using a simple geometric argument we show how to determine decent upper bounds on the generalized roundness of finite SSTs that depend only on the downward degree sequence of the tree in question. By considering limits it follows that if the downward degree sequence $(d_{0}, d_{1}, d_{2}...)$ of a SST $(T,\rho)$ satisfies $|\{j \, | \, d_{j} > 1 \}| = \aleph_{0}$, then $(T,\rho)$ has generalized roundness one. Included among the trees that satisfy this condition are all complete $n$-ary trees of depth $\infty$ ($n \geq 2$), all $k$-regular trees ($k \geq 3$) and inductive limits of Cantor trees. The remainder of the paper deals with two classes of countable metric trees of generalized roundness one whose members are not, in general, spherically symmetric. The first such class of trees are merely required to spread out at a sufficient rate (with a restriction on the number of leaves) and the second such class of trees resemble infinite combs.Comment: 14 pages, 2 figures, 2 table

Polarization transfer in the 4^{4}He(e⃗,e′p⃗3(\vec{e},e' \vec{p}^{3}H reaction

Polarization transfer in the 4He(e,e'p)3H reaction at a Q^2 of 0.4 (GeV/c)^2 was measured at the Mainz Microtron MAMI. The ratio of the transverse to the longitudinal polarization components of the ejected protons was compared with the same ratio for elastic ep scattering. The results are consistent with a recent fully relativistic calculation which includes a predicted medium modification of the proton form factor based on a quark-meson coupling model.Comment: 5 pages, Latex, 2 postscript figures, submitted to Physics Letters

Meson Exchange Currents in (e,e'p) recoil polarization observables

A study of the effects of meson-exchange currents and isobar configurations in $A(\vec{e},e'\vec{p})B$ reactions is presented. We use a distorted wave impulse approximation (DWIA) model where final-state interactions are treated through a phenomenological optical potential. The model includes relativistic corrections in the kinematics and in the electromagnetic one- and two-body currents. The full set of polarized response functions is analyzed, as well as the transferred polarization asymmetry. Results are presented for proton knock-out from closed-shell nuclei, for moderate to high momentum transfer.Comment: 44 pages, 18 figures. Added physical arguments explaining the dominance of OB over MEC, and a summary of differences with previous MEC calculations. To be published in PR

Estimating degradation-related settlement in two landfill-reclaimed soils by sand-salt analogues

Landfill reclaimed soil here refers to largely degraded materials excavated from old landfill sites, which after processing can be reinstated as more competent fill, thereby restoring the former landfill space. The success of the process depends on the presence of remaining degradable particles and their influence on settlement. Tests on salt-sand mixtures, from which the salt is removed, have been used to quantify the impact of particle loss on settlement. Where the amount of particle loss is small, say 10% by mass or less, settlements are small and apparently independent of lost particle size. A conceptual model is presented to explain this behaviour in terms of nestling particles and strong force chains. At higher percentages of lost particles, greater rates of settlement together with some sensitivity to particle size were observed. The conceptual model was then applied to two landfill reclaimed soils, the long-term settlements of which were found to be consistent with the conceptual model suggesting that knowledge of particle content and relative size are sufficient to estimate the influence of degradable particles in landfill reclaimed soils

Proof of the Hyperplane Zeros Conjecture of Lagarias and Wang

We prove that a real analytic subset of a torus group that is contained in its image under an expanding endomorphism is a finite union of translates of closed subgroups. This confirms the hyperplane zeros conjecture of Lagarias and Wang for real analytic varieties. Our proof uses real analytic geometry, topological dynamics and Fourier analysis.Comment: 25 page