Infrastructure for irrigation of grapevines with diluted winery wastewater in a field experiment

Winemaking produces large volumes of poor quality water. The possibility to re-use this water for  vineyard irrigation was investigated in a field trial. For this purpose, winery wastewater had to be diluted  to chemical oxygen demand (COD) levels ranging between 100 and 3 000 mg/L. The relatively simple  infrastructure and procedure required to dilute the winery wastewater in 15 m3 tanks are described. Analyses of the diluted  winery wastewater confirmed that the COD concentrations were reasonably close to the target values.  Furthermore, measuring COD concentrations in the irrigation water while it was being pumped from the tanks confirmed that the concentrations of diluted wastewater within the tanks were fairly homogeneous, and that effective mixing had taken place while tanks were being filled. The COD measurements were more reliable when the oxidation time was standardised at 2 h compared to shorter periods, irrespective of the level of COD in the water. After initial practical problems and sources of error were eliminated, the accuracy of treatment application obtained in terms of the target COD concentrations was acceptable.Keywords: chemical oxygen demand, winery wastewater, re-use, irrigation, grapevine

Comparison of Heating Protocols for Detection of Disbonds in Lap Joints

With the increased concern for the safety and reliability of aging aircraft, new nondestructive techniques are being sought for detecting and characterizing defects in these structures. These techniques must be both reliable and economical to impact the current safety of the fleet. To meet both of these requirements, more focus is being placed on large area inspection techniques. These offer the possibility for greatly reduced inspection times as compared to current point measurement techniques

Numerical Simulations of Thermal Detection of Disbonds in Lap Joints

The detection of disbonds in riveted lap joints is of increasing interest to the aerospace community. For some cases a disbonded lapjoint gives rise to cracks at the rivets due to stress concentrations in the aluminum skin when the lapjoints are loaded. When a number of these cracks exist they have been known to suddenly link up and cause sudden failure of the part. Thermographic detection of these disbonds has advantages over other methods in that it is a noncontacting, quantitative method which can inspect large areas in a short period of time. By even application of heat to the outer surface of the lap joint, details of the inner structure become thermographically detectable. A disbond between layers of a laminated structure will prevent heat from penetrating from the surface layer to the subsurface layers and will result in an increase in surface temperature over the disbond.</p

Sub-luminous type Ia supernovae from the mergers of equal-mass white dwarfs with M~0.9 M_sun

Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) are thought to result from thermonuclear explosions of carbon-oxygen white dwarf stars. Existing models generally explain the observed properties, with the exception of the sub-luminous 1991-bg-like supernovae. It has long been suspected that the merger of two white dwarfs could give rise to a type Ia event, but hitherto simulations have failed to produce an explosion. Here we report a simulation of the merger of two equal-mass white dwarfs that leads to an underluminous explosion, though at the expense of requiring a single common-envelope phase, and component masses of ~0.9 M_sun. The light curve is too broad, but the synthesized spectra, red colour and low expansion velocities are all close to what is observed for sub-luminous 1991bg-like events. While mass ratios can be slightly less than one and still produce an underluminous event, the masses have to be in the range 0.83-0.9 M_sun.Comment: Accepted to Natur

Doppler broadening of in-flight positron annihilation radiation due to electron momentum

An overview is given on the first observation of Doppler broadening due to electron momentum in the τ rays emitted from in-flight two-photon annihilation when highly energetic positrons traverse thin foils. This observation can serve as basis in the development of a new probe of electron momentum distributions similar to Compton or electron scattering technique

Type Ia Supernovae as Stellar Endpoints and Cosmological Tools

Empirically, Type Ia supernovae are the most useful, precise, and mature tools for determining astronomical distances. Acting as calibrated candles they revealed the presence of dark energy and are being used to measure its properties. However, the nature of the SN Ia explosion, and the progenitors involved, have remained elusive, even after seven decades of research. But now new large surveys are bringing about a paradigm shift --- we can finally compare samples of hundreds of supernovae to isolate critical variables. As a result of this, and advances in modeling, breakthroughs in understanding all aspects of SNe Ia are finally starting to happen.Comment: Invited review for Nature Communications. Final published version. Shortened, update

The effect of transmucosal 0.2mg/kg Midazolam premedication on dental anxiety, anaesthetic induction and psychological morbidity in children undergoing general anaesthesia for tooth extraction

&lt;b&gt;Background:&lt;/b&gt; The project aims were to evaluate the benefit of transmucosal Midazolam 0.2mg/kg pre-medication on anxiety, induction behaviour and psychological morbidity in children undergoing general anaesthesia (GA) extractions. &lt;b&gt;Method:&lt;/b&gt; 179 children aged 5-10 years (mean 6.53 years) participated in this randomised, double blind, placebo controlled trial. Ninety children had Midazolam placed in the buccal pouch. Dental anxiety was recorded pre operatively and 48 hours later using a child reported MCDAS-FIS scale. Behaviour at anaesthetic induction was recorded and psychological morbidity was scored by the parent using the Rutter Scale pre-operatively and again one-week later. Subsequent dental attendance was recorded at one, three and six months after GA. &lt;b&gt;Results:&lt;/b&gt; Whilst levels of mental anxiety did not reduce overall, the most anxious patients demonstrated a reduction in anxiety after receiving midazolam premedicationmay (p=0.01). Neither induction behaviour nor psychological morbidity improved. Irrespective of group, parents reported less hyperactive (p= 0.002) and more prosocial behaviour (p=0.002) after the procedure:;, older children improved most (p=0.048), Post GA Dental attendance was poor and unrelated to after the procedure and unaffected by premedication. &lt;b&gt;Conclusion:&lt;/b&gt; 0.2mg/kg buccal Midazolam provided some evidence for reducing anxiety in the most dentally anxious patients. However, induction behaviour, psychological morbidity and subsequent dental attendance were not found to alter between the premedication groups