The effect of land disposal of dairy factory wastes on soil properties : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Agricultural Science in Soil Science, Massey University

Many New Zealand dairy factories dispose of their wastewater by spray irrigating onto pasture. Little is known, however, about the effects of this disposal on soil properties. Research was undertaken at three pasture disposal sites in order to determine whether certain soil property changes may have occurred as a result of the wastewater treatment. Of particular interest were those properties related to water movement. Laboratory studies using 'undisturbed' soil cores indicated that dairy factory wastewater can impede soil water movement. A single application of simulated whey effluent resulted in approximately a 50% decrease in saturated hydraulic conductivity (K) within two days. This reduction was observed to be caused by a combination of both physical and biological blockage processes. With repetitive doses of effluent a K decrease of over 99% was induced in some cores. Several cores, particularly those containing earthworms, showed signs of recovery, and in some cores the final hydraulic conductivity value was greater than the initial value. Analyses of soil samples from the disposal and control sites at Te Rehunga and Tokomaru suggest that fifteen years of wastewater irrigation have resulted in marked changes in soil physical, chemical and biological properties. Total carbon and nitrogen levels were found to be significantly higher at the disposal site; for the Te Rehunga site, the differences in the organic matter level down to 600mm represented an increase of 250 000 kg ha-1. Water balances for the Te Rehunga and Longburn sites indicate that, in the absence of wastewater, pasture is likely to be water stressed on average for approximately forty days per year. The water balance also shows that deep percolation will be greatly increased by the wastewater application. The period of maximum deep percolation loss is likely to be September to October at both the Te Rehunga and Longburn disposal sites. The major site management problems encountered at the disposal sites examined occurred as a result of poor soil drainage, pasture burning and pasture pulling. An infiltration problem was observed at the Longburn site and the recently established disposal site at Tokomaru, with two major causes of the low infiltration rate appearing to be blockage from the effluent and pugging; these observations illustrate the need for controlling the effluent application rate, the suspended solids level in the wastewater, and the stock grazing pattern, in order to minimise site drainage problems. A drainage problem over the winter-spring period at Te Rehunga was due to a high groundwater table. Pasture burning was observed at all three disposal sites. The pasture pulling problem at Te Rehunga is the only cited example of such a problem occurring at a dairy factory disposal site. Observations made at the established Te Rehunga and Tokomaru disposal sites show that long term spray irrigation of dairy factory wastewater can occur without inducing undesirable soil property changes. It appears as though considerable benefit can be gained from the wastewater irrigation, particularly in reducing the incidence of water stress in the pasture and decreasing the requirement for fertilizer

Searching for Prosociality in Qualitative Data: Comparing Manual, Closed-Vocabulary, and Open-Vocabulary Methods

Although most people present themselves as possessing prosocial traits, people differ in the extent to which they actually act prosocially in everyday life. Qualitative data that were not ostensibly collected to measure prosociality might contain information about prosocial dispositions that is not distorted by self–presentation concerns. This paper seeks to characterise charitable donors from qualitative data. We compared a manual approach of extracting predictors from participants’ self–described personal strivings to two automated approaches: A summation of words predefined as prosocial and a support vector machine classifier. Although variables extracted by the support vector machine predicted donation behaviour well in the training sample ( N = 984), virtually, no variables from any method significantly predicted donations in a holdout sample ( N = 496). Raters’ attempts to predict donations to charity based on reading participants’ personal strivings were also unsuccessful. However, raters’ predictions were associated with past charitable involvement. In sum, predictors derived from personal strivings did not robustly explain variation in charitable behaviour, but personal strivings may nevertheless contain some information about trait prosociality. The sparseness of personal strivings data, rather than the irrelevance of open–ended text or individual differences in goal pursuit, likely explains their limited value in predicting prosocial behaviour. © 2020 European Association of Personality Psycholog

Interface characteristics in an {\alpha}+{\beta} titanium alloy

The alpha/beta interface in Ti-6Al-2Sn-4Zr-6Mo (Ti-6246) is investigated via centre of symmetry analysis, both as-grown and after 10% cold work. Semi-coherent interface steps are observed at a spacing of 4.5 +/-1.13 atoms in the as-grown condition, in good agreement with theory prediction (4.37 atoms). Lattice accommodation is observed, with elongation along [-1 2 -1 0]alpha and contraction along [1 0 -1 0]alpha . Deformed alpha exhibited larger, less coherent steps with slip bands lying in {110}beta. This indicates dislocation pile-up at the grain boundary, a precursor to globularisation, offering insight into the effect of deformation processing on the interface, which is important for titanium alloy processing route design.Comment: Revised after revie

Variability within individuals of plasma ionic magnesium concentrations

BACKGROUND: With the invention of the ion-selective electrode (ISE), ionic magnesium (iMg) is a common blood assay. This could be advantageous, as iMg is the biologically active form of Mg. There is some evidence that iMg has considerable within subject variability. RESULTS: Individual ranges averaged .08 mmol/L (range .05 to .14). Coefficients of variation (CV) ranged from 3% to 7% (mean 4%) while analytical variation was determined to be 2.3%. Biological variability thus accounts for almost half of the variability, which is clinically significant, as 9 of the 13 subjects recorded at least one value below a reference range of .46 – .60 mmol/L. A significant within-day variation (p < .001) was noted, with differences between 7:00 and 10:00 as well as 10:00 and 22:00. Between day variations were not significant (p = .56). CONCLUSIONS: A plausible explanation of this data is that iMg has a circadian rhythm. Thus, cautious interpretation of single iMg values is warranted until future research determines the nature of iMg variability

Impact of Raman amplification on a 2 Tb/s coherent WDM system

The impact of hybrid erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA)/Raman amplification on a spectrally efficient coherent-wavelength-division-multiplexed (CoWDM) optical communication system is experimentally studied and modeled. Simulations suggested that 23-dB Raman gain over an unrepeatered span of 124 km single-mode fiber would allow a decrease of the mean input power of ~6 dB for a fixed bit-error rate (BER). Experimentally we demonstrated 1.2-dB Q-factor improvement for a 2-Tb/s seven-band CoWDM with backward Raman amplification. The system delivered an optical signal-to-noise ratio of 35 dB at the output of the receiver preamplifier providing a worst-case BER of 2 × 10 -6 over 49 subcarriers at 42.8 Gbaud, leaving a system margin (in terms of Q -factor) of ~4 dB from the forward-error correction threshold

Bostonia: The Boston University Alumni Magazine. Volume 11

Founded in 1900, Bostonia magazine is Boston University's main alumni publication, which covers alumni and student life, as well as university activities, events, and programs

Tiny houses and their usefulness in addressing logistical challenges associated with operating a permanent 50-person Martian colony

When American singer-songwriter Malvina Reynolds composed the folk hit Little Boxes in 1963 it was held up as a protest song about the sameness and predictability of contemporary American architecture and 20th century society. More than half a century later, however, the habitat pendulum has swung and the “Tiny House/Home” movement is gaining momentum among sustainability activists, environmentalists, and a new breed of architects, who must rethink and incorporate inexpensive and realistic, as well as adaptable designs, into these tiny habitats for them to become a reality for ordinary people. Since the question is not whether we will colonize the Moon or Mars, but when, who and how we will colonize, these new habitats, therefore, must also reflect a sense of connectivity and situational awareness to avoid social isolation. This is important not for reasons of survivability in space, but also for marketability of the space living experience and for desirability for communities to move to space

Psychological Science Accelerator: A Promising Resource for Clinical Psychological Science

The Psychological Science Accelerator (PSA) is an international collaborative network of psychological scientists that facilitates rigorous and generalizable research. In this chapter, we describe how the PSA can help clinical psychologists and clinical psychological science more broadly. We first describe the PSA and outline how individual clinical psychologists can use the PSA as a helpful resource in numerous capacities: leading or contributing to clinical research or research with clinical relevance, building collaborative relationships, obtaining experience and expertise, and learning about systems and tools, particularly those related to open science practices, that they can adapt to their own research. We then describe how the PSA supports rigor and transparency at each stage of the research process. Finally, we discuss the challenges of the PSA’s large, collaborative approach to research

All-optical OFDM and distributed Raman amplification:challenges to enable high capacities and extend reach

We review recent advances in all-optical OFDM technologies and discuss the performance of a field trial of a 2 Tbit/s Coherent WDM over 124 km with distributed Raman amplification. The results indicate that careful optimisation of the Raman pumps is essential. We also consider how all-optical OFDM systems perform favourably against energy consumption when compared with alternative coherent detection schemes. We argue that, in an energy constrained high-capacity transmission system, direct detected all-optical OFDM with `ideal' Raman amplification is an attractive candidate for metro area datacentre interconnects with ~100 km fibre spans, with an overall energy requirement at least three times lower than coherent detection techniques