14,335 research outputs found
Fate and occurrence of alkylphenolic compounds in sewage sludges determined by liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry
This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below. Copyright @ 2009 Taylor & Francis.An analytical method has been developed and applied to determine the concentrations of the nonionic alkylphenol polyethoxylate surfactants and their metabolites, alkylphenoxy carboxylates and alkyphenols, in sewage sludges. The compounds were extracted with methanol/acetone (1:1 v/v) from sludge, and concentrated extracts were cleaned by silica solidāphase extraction prior to determination by liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry. The recoveries, determined by spiking sewage sludge at two concentrations, ranged from 51% to 89% with method detection limits from 6 Āµg kgā1 to 60 Āµg kgā1. The methodology was subsequently applied to sludge samples obtained from a carbonaceous activated sludge plant, a nitrifying/denitrifying activated sludge plant and a nitrifying/denitrifying activated sludge plant with phosphorus removal. Concentrations of nonylphenolic compounds were two to three times higher than their octyl analogues. Longāchain nonylphenol polyethoxylates (NP3ā12EO) ranged from 16 Āµg kgā1 to 11754 Āµg kgā1. The estrogenic metabolite nonylphenol was present at concentrations ranging from 33 Āµg kgā1 to 6696 Āµg kgā1.Public Utilities Board of Singapore, Thames Water and Yorkshire Water
Generalizations of Ripley's K-function with Application to Space Curves
The intensity function and Ripley's K-function have been used extensively in
the literature to describe the first and second moment structure of spatial
point sets. This has many applications including describing the statistical
structure of synaptic vesicles. Some attempts have been made to extend Ripley's
K-function to curve pieces. Such an extension can be used to describe the
statistical structure of muscle fibers and brain fiber tracks. In this paper,
we take a computational perspective and construct new and very general variants
of Ripley's K-function for curves pieces, surface patches etc. We discuss the
method from [Chiu, Stoyan, Kendall, & Mecke 2013] and compare it with our
generalizations theoretically, and we give examples demonstrating the
difference in their ability to separate sets of curve pieces.Comment: 9 pages & 8 figure
Speed of light as measured by two terrestrial stable clocks
Despite the recent criticism within the special theory of relativity, there exists an arrangement of stable clocks rotating with the earth which predicts diurnal variations of the one-way speed of light, as suggested previously
Solutions of the Ginsparg-Wilson Relation
We analyze general solutions of the Ginsparg-Wilson relation for lattice
Dirac operators and formulate a necessary condition for such operators to have
non-zero index in the topologically nontrivial background gauge fields.Comment: 6 pages, latex, no figures, set T to 1 in eqs. (10)--(13
Experimental and theoretical investigation for the suppression of the plasma arc drop in the thermionic converter
Ion generation and recombination mechanisms in the cesium plasma as they pertain to the advanced mode thermionic energy converter were studied. The decay of highly ionized cesium plasma was studied in the near afterglow to examine the recombination processes. Very low recombination in such a plasma may prove to be of considerable importance in practical converters. The approaches of external cesium generation were vibrationally excited nitrogen as an energy source of ionization of cesium ion, and microwave power as a means of resonant sustenance of the cesium plasma. Experimental data obtained so far show that all three techniques - i.e., the non-LTE high-voltage pulsing, the energy transfer from vibrationally excited diatomic gases, and the external pumping with a microwave resonant cavity - can produce plasmas with their densities significantly higher than the Richardson density. The implication of these findings as related to Lam's theory is discussed
Quenched chiral logarithms in lattice QCD with exact chiral symmetry
We examine quenched chiral logarithms in lattice QCD with overlap Dirac
quark. For 100 gauge configurations generated with the Wilson gauge action at on the lattice, we compute quenched quark
propagators for 12 bare quark masses. The pion decay constant is extracted from
the pion propagator, and from which the lattice spacing is determined to be
0.147 fm. The presence of quenched chiral logarithm in the pion mass is
confirmed, and its coefficient is determined to be , in agreement with the theoretical estimate in quenched chiral perturbation
theory. Further, we obtain the topological susceptibility of these 100 gauge
configurations by measuring the index of the overlap Dirac operator. Using a
formula due to exact chiral symmetry, we obtain the mass in quenched
chiral perturbation theory, Mev, and an estimate
of , which is in good agreement with that
determined from the pion mass.Comment: 24 pages, 6 EPS figures; v2: some clarifications added, to appear in
Physical Review
Predicting rare events in chemical reactions: application to skin cell proliferation
In a well-stirred system undergoing chemical reactions, fluctuations in the
reaction propensities are approximately captured by the corresponding chemical
Langevin equation. Within this context, we discuss in this work how the Kramers
escape theory can be used to predict rare events in chemical reactions. As an
example, we apply our approach to a recently proposed model on cell
proliferation with relevance to skin cancer [P.B. Warren, Phys. Rev. E {\bf
80}, 030903 (2009)]. In particular, we provide an analytical explanation for
the form of the exponential exponent observed in the onset rate of uncontrolled
cell proliferation.Comment: New materials and references added. To appear in Physical Review
- ā¦