Cleaning of ultrafiltration membranes after the treatment of surface water: static–dynamic test

Access to safe drinkable water is a basic human right and an international development goal. AQUAPOT international project, created by Chemical and Nuclear Engineering Department of the Polytechnic University of Valencia, has been focused on research and development of low-cost and effective water treatment technologies based on membrane technology able to be used in developing countries. After several years of intensive laboratory and field research, Aquapot's ultrafiltration (UF) plants have been settled in different locations of Ecuador (province of Azuay) and Mozambique (province of Maputo). At present, most of the installed plants work successfully, producing drinking water suitable for human consumption and even for industrial use. However, installation of the designed UF-drinking water treatment facilities has shown that cleaning standard protocol of ultrafiltration membranes is not effective. This fact could affect microbiological quality and volume of the pure water produced and also life of the membrane and the UF-plant. In order to develop optimized cleaning protocols based on the use of common and accessible chemicals, Aquapot started an applied research studying several cleaning methods. Previous studies have been focused in applying different types of cleaning: chemical cleaning (by means of static tests and dynamic tests) and physico-chemical cleaning (combining chemical reagents with the hydrodynamic action of air bubbles). This work describes the experimental procedure performed in static-dynamic cleaning test, which combines soaking with dynamic circulation of cleaning solutions. Sodium hypochlorite and hydrogen peroxide at 25 degrees C performed the best results, recovering permeate flux from 10 to 12 times, respectively, compared with fouled membranes. Main results obtained for the different chemical solutions tested at 25 and 40 degrees C were also compared with previous chemical (static and dynamic test) and physicochemical cleaning. Results showed that the tested cleaning protocol improves the effectiveness of the cleaning and recovers UF membrane performance even until 30 times, when sequence of cleaning is done by sodium hypochlorite followed by hydrogen peroxide.García Fayos, B.; Arnal Arnal, JM.; Sancho Fernández, MP. (2013). Cleaning of ultrafiltration membranes after the treatment of surface water: static–dynamic test. Desalination and Water Treatment. 51(1-3):609-616. doi:10.1080/19443994.2012.704687S609616511-

Cross-Correlation Earthquake Precursors in the Hydrogeochemical and Geoacoustic Signals for the Kamchatka Peninsula

We propose a new type of earthquake precursor based on the analysis of correlation dynamics between geophysical signals of different nature. The precursor is found using a two-parameter cross-correlation function introduced within the framework of flicker-noise spectroscopy, a general statistical physics approach to the analysis of time series. We consider an example of cross-correlation analysis for water salinity time series, an integral characteristic of the chemical composition of groundwater, and geoacoustic emissions recorded at the G-1 borehole on the Kamchatka peninsula in the time frame from 2001 to 2003, which is characterized by a sequence of three groups of significant seismic events. We found that cross-correlation precursors took place 27, 31, and 35 days ahead of the strongest earthquakes for each group of seismic events, respectively. At the same time, precursory anomalies in the signals themselves were observed only in the geoacoustic emissions for one group of earthquakes.Comment: 21 pages, 5 figures, 1 table; to be published in "Acta Geophysica". arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1101.147

Outcome measures for children with mitochondrial disease: consensus recommendations for future studies from a Delphi-based international workshop

Although there are no effective disease-modifying therapies for mitochondrial diseases, an increasing number of trials are being conducted in this rare disease group. The use of sensitive and valid endpoints is essential to test the effectiveness of potential treatments. There is no consensus on which outcome measures to use in children with mitochondrial disease. The aims of this two-day Delphi-based workshop were to (i) define the protocol for an international, multi-centre natural history study in children with mitochondrial myopathy and (ii) to select appropriate outcome measures for a validation study in children with mitochondrial encephalopathy. We suggest two sets of outcome measures for a natural history study in children with mitochondrial myopathy and for a proposed validation study in children with mitochondrial encephalopathy

Search for direct production of charginos and neutralinos in events with three leptons and missing transverse momentum in √s = 7 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for the direct production of charginos and neutralinos in final states with three electrons or muons and missing transverse momentum is presented. The analysis is based on 4.7 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data delivered by the Large Hadron Collider and recorded with the ATLAS detector. Observations are consistent with Standard Model expectations in three signal regions that are either depleted or enriched in Z-boson decays. Upper limits at 95% confidence level are set in R-parity conserving phenomenological minimal supersymmetric models and in simplified models, significantly extending previous results

Jet size dependence of single jet suppression in lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s(NN)) = 2.76 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC

Measurements of inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions at the LHC provide direct sensitivity to the physics of jet quenching. In a sample of lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s) = 2.76 TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of approximately 7 inverse microbarns, ATLAS has measured jets with a calorimeter over the pseudorapidity interval |eta| < 2.1 and over the transverse momentum range 38 < pT < 210 GeV. Jets were reconstructed using the anti-kt algorithm with values for the distance parameter that determines the nominal jet radius of R = 0.2, 0.3, 0.4 and 0.5. The centrality dependence of the jet yield is characterized by the jet "central-to-peripheral ratio," Rcp. Jet production is found to be suppressed by approximately a factor of two in the 10% most central collisions relative to peripheral collisions. Rcp varies smoothly with centrality as characterized by the number of participating nucleons. The observed suppression is only weakly dependent on jet radius and transverse momentum. These results provide the first direct measurement of inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions and complement previous measurements of dijet transverse energy imbalance at the LHC.Comment: 15 pages plus author list (30 pages total), 8 figures, 2 tables, submitted to Physics Letters B. All figures including auxiliary figures are available at http://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/HION-2011-02

Large-Eddy Simulations of Magnetohydrodynamic Turbulence in Heliophysics and Astrophysics

We live in an age in which high-performance computing is transforming the way we do science. Previously intractable problems are now becoming accessible by means of increasingly realistic numerical simulations. One of the most enduring and most challenging of these problems is turbulence. Yet, despite these advances, the extreme parameter regimes encountered in space physics and astrophysics (as in atmospheric and oceanic physics) still preclude direct numerical simulation. Numerical models must take a Large Eddy Simulation (LES) approach, explicitly computing only a fraction of the active dynamical scales. The success of such an approach hinges on how well the model can represent the subgrid-scales (SGS) that are not explicitly resolved. In addition to the parameter regime, heliophysical and astrophysical applications must also face an equally daunting challenge: magnetism. The presence of magnetic fields in a turbulent, electrically conducting fluid flow can dramatically alter the coupling between large and small scales, with potentially profound implications for LES/SGS modeling. In this review article, we summarize the state of the art in LES modeling of turbulent magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) ows. After discussing the nature of MHD turbulence and the small-scale processes that give rise to energy dissipation, plasma heating, and magnetic reconnection, we consider how these processes may best be captured within an LES/SGS framework. We then consider several special applications in heliophysics and astrophysics, assessing triumphs, challenges,and future directions

Measurement of the View the tt production cross-section using eμ events with b-tagged jets in pp collisions at √s = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector

This paper describes a measurement of the inclusive top quark pair production cross-section (σtt¯) with a data sample of 3.2 fb−1 of proton–proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of √s = 13 TeV, collected in 2015 by the ATLAS detector at the LHC. This measurement uses events with an opposite-charge electron–muon pair in the final state. Jets containing b-quarks are tagged using an algorithm based on track impact parameters and reconstructed secondary vertices. The numbers of events with exactly one and exactly two b-tagged jets are counted and used to determine simultaneously σtt¯ and the efficiency to reconstruct and b-tag a jet from a top quark decay, thereby minimising the associated systematic uncertainties. The cross-section is measured to be: σtt¯ = 818 ± 8 (stat) ± 27 (syst) ± 19 (lumi) ± 12 (beam) pb, where the four uncertainties arise from data statistics, experimental and theoretical systematic effects, the integrated luminosity and the LHC beam energy, giving a total relative uncertainty of 4.4%. The result is consistent with theoretical QCD calculations at next-to-next-to-leading order. A fiducial measurement corresponding to the experimental acceptance of the leptons is also presented

Search for TeV-scale gravity signatures in high-mass final states with leptons and jets with the ATLAS detector at sqrt [ s ] = 13TeV

A search for physics beyond the Standard Model, in final states with at least one high transverse momentum charged lepton (electron or muon) and two additional high transverse momentum leptons or jets, is performed using 3.2 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider in 2015 at √s = 13 TeV. The upper end of the distribution of the scalar sum of the transverse momenta of leptons and jets is sensitive to the production of high-mass objects. No excess of events beyond Standard Model predictions is observed. Exclusion limits are set for models of microscopic black holes with two to six extra dimensions

Operation and performance of the ATLAS semiconductor tracker

The semiconductor tracker is a silicon microstrip detector forming part of the inner tracking system of the ATLAS experiment at the LHC. The operation and performance of the semiconductor tracker during the first years of LHC running are described. More than 99% of the detector modules were operational during this period, with an average intrinsic hit efficiency of (99.74±0.04)%. The evolution of the noise occupancy is discussed, and measurements of the Lorentz angle, δ-ray production and energy loss presented. The alignment of the detector is found to be stable at the few-micron level over long periods of time. Radiation damage measurements, which include the evolution of detector leakage currents, are found to be consistent with predictions and are used in the verification of radiation background simulations

Search for H→γγ produced in association with top quarks and constraints on the Yukawa coupling between the top quark and the Higgs boson using data taken at 7 TeV and 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

A search is performed for Higgs bosons produced in association with top quarks using the diphoton decay mode of the Higgs boson. Selection requirements are optimized separately for leptonic and fully hadronic final states from the top quark decays. The dataset used corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 4.5 fb−14.5 fb−1 of proton–proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV and 20.3 fb−1 at 8 TeV recorded by the ATLAS detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. No significant excess over the background prediction is observed and upper limits are set on the tt¯H production cross section. The observed exclusion upper limit at 95% confidence level is 6.7 times the predicted Standard Model cross section value. In addition, limits are set on the strength of the Yukawa coupling between the top quark and the Higgs boson, taking into account the dependence of the tt¯H and tH cross sections as well as the H→γγ branching fraction on the Yukawa coupling. Lower and upper limits at 95% confidence level are set at −1.3 and +8.0 times the Yukawa coupling strength in the Standard Model