STUDY ON THE DISPOSAL OF WASTE FROM THE HYDROGEN GENERATION BY ALUMINUM OXIDATION IN ALKALINE SOLUTION

In face of the current high energy consumption and demand worldwide, a change to a sustainable energy matrix became one of the pillars for global sustainability. The use of renewable energy has been one of the most attractive subjects in recent years. Several public policies in this matter have been suggested and there are ongoing efforts toward their implementation. The United Nations (UN) proposed what is called the 2030 Agenda, which considers 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) to be achieved by the year 2030. In support of the 2030 Agenda, research on the production of fuels from clean and sustainable sources is being conducted by the scientific community around the world. Fossil fuels are finite and also a major source of environmental pollutants, therefore the choice of using renewable sources of energy tends to be an increasingly growing and attractive alternative. Hydrogen is a fuel with a high heating value and is known as the most abundant gaseous element and simplest in chemical structure. The scientific community researching fuel cells has given much attention to the generation and storage of hydrogen. Besides the electrolytic hydrogen production and the reforming of fossil fuels (e.g., natural gas), hydrogen can be generated by metallic means, for example, by oxidation of aluminum in an alkaline solution. The use of recyclable metals, such as aluminum in this study, is an option for sustainable hydrogen generation processes. Nevertheless, like any chemical reaction, part of the products generated are waste, and some are even harmful to the environment, which makes the production of sustainable fuels unfeasible in case of not finding an appropriate technological industrial destination for such waste. The herein study comprises the investigation of the industrial and technological applications of the products of the hydrogen generation reaction from aluminum. Mastering the chemical reaction parameters of that reaction is paramount for the optimal design of a hydrogen generation system. The disposal of the waste is relevant since it makes the energy supply chain complete and sustainable

Design, development and field evaluation of a Spanish into sign language translation system

This paper describes the design, development and field evaluation of a machine translation system from Spanish to Spanish Sign Language (LSE: Lengua de Signos Española). The developed system focuses on helping Deaf people when they want to renew their Driver’s License. The system is made up of a speech recognizer (for decoding the spoken utterance into a word sequence), a natural language translator (for converting a word sequence into a sequence of signs belonging to the sign language), and a 3D avatar animation module (for playing back the signs). For the natural language translator, three technological approaches have been implemented and evaluated: an example-based strategy, a rule-based translation method and a statistical translator. For the final version, the implemented language translator combines all the alternatives into a hierarchical structure. This paper includes a detailed description of the field evaluation. This evaluation was carried out in the Local Traffic Office in Toledo involving real government employees and Deaf people. The evaluation includes objective measurements from the system and subjective information from questionnaires. The paper details the main problems found and a discussion on how to solve them (some of them specific for LSE)

No major flaws in "Identification of individuals by trait prediction using whole-genome sequencing data"

In a recently published PNAS article, we studied the identifiability of genomic samples using machine learning methods [Lippert et al., 2017]. In a response, Erlich [2017] argued that our work contained major flaws. The main technical critique of Erlich [2017] builds on a simulation experiment that shows that our proposed algorithm, which uses only a genomic sample for identification, performed no better than a strategy that uses demographic variables. Below, we show why this comparison is misleading and provide a detailed discussion of the key critical points in our analyses that have been brought up in Erlich [2017] and in the media. Further, not only faces may be derived from DNA, but a wide range of phenotypes and demographic variables. In this light, the main contribution of Lippert et al. [2017] is an algorithm that identifies genomes of individuals by combining multiple DNA-based predictive models for a myriad of traits

Atmospheric Evolution

Earth's atmosphere has evolved as volatile species cycle between the atmosphere, ocean, biomass and the solid Earth. The geochemical, biological and astrophysical processes that control atmospheric evolution are reviewed from an "Earth Systems" perspective, with a view not only to understanding the history of Earth, but also to generalizing to other solar system planets and exoplanets.Comment: 34 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables. Accepted as a chapter in "Encyclopaedia of Geochemistry", Editor Bill White, Springer-Nature, 201

Cross-lingual C*ST*RD: English access to Hindi information

We present C*ST*RD, a cross-language information delivery system that supports cross-language information retrieval, information space visualization and navigation, machine translation, and text summarization of single documents and clusters of documents. C*ST*RD was assembled and trained within 1 month, in the context of DARPA’s Surprise Language Exercise, that selected as source a heretofore unstudied language, Hindi. Given the brief time, we could not create deep Hindi capabilities for all the modules, but instead experimented with combining shallow Hindi capabilities, or even English-only modules, into one integrated system. Various possible configurations, with different tradeoffs in processing speed and ease of use, enable the rapid deployment of C*ST*RD to new languages under various conditions

HappyHier: hoe gelukkig is men waar? : Gegevensverzameling en bepaling van de invloed van het type grondgebruik, deel I

This study set out to measure what influence the type of environment has on how happy people say they feel at a certain moment in time, with the aim of formulating rules for quantifying the effect of spatial changes on wellbeing. A smartphone app was developed for use by a broad sample population in the Netherlands, with push notifications prompting people to report how they felt at a certain moment. From 1 May to 28 July of 2016, 4318 unique participants made use of this HappyHier app, filling in at least one questionnaire on location. The results show that people are happier outdoors than indoors. And when they are outdoors, they are happier in predominantly natural surroundings than in more built-up areas. Moreover, from the ratings given to the surroundings, it can be concluded that they have a more positive effect when the participants found them more restful or stimulating. People’s impressions of the beauty of their surroundings had less influenc

The warm ionized medium in spiral galaxies

This article reviews observations and models of the diffuse ionized gas that permeates the disk and halo of our Galaxy and others. It was inspired by a series of invited talks presented during an afternoon scientific session of the 65th birthday celebration for Professor Carl Heiles held at Arecibo Observatory in August 2004. This review is in recognition of Carl's long standing interest in and advocacy for studies of the ionized as well as the neutral components of the interstellar medium.Comment: 29 pages, 19 figures; accepted by Reviews of Modern Physic

Marine oxygen production and open water supported an active nitrogen cycle during the Marinoan Snowball Earth

The Neoproterozoic Earth was punctuated by two low-latitude Snowball Earth glaciations. Models permit oceans with either total ice cover or substantial areas of open water. Total ice cover would make an anoxic ocean likely, and would be a formidable barrier to biologic survival. However, there are no direct data constraining either the redox state of the ocean or marine biological productivity during the glacials. Here we present iron-speciation, redox-sensitive trace element, and nitrogen isotope data from a Neoproterozoic (Marinoan) glacial episode. Iron-speciation indicates deeper waters were anoxic and Fe-rich, while trace element concentrations indicate surface waters were in contact with an oxygenated atmosphere. Furthermore, synglacial sedimentary nitrogen is isotopically heavier than the modern atmosphere, requiring a biologic cycle with nitrogen fixation, nitrification and denitrification. Our results indicate significant regions of open marine water and active biologic productivity throughout one of the harshest glaciations in Earth history