Carbon monoxide formation during aerobic biostabilization of the organic fraction of municipal solid waste: the influence of technical parameters in a full-scale treatment system

The present study sought to investigate the formation of carbon monoxide (CO) during aerobic biostabilization (AB) of the organic fraction of municipal solid waste (OFMSW) in forced aerated piles. Understanding the factors influencing CO formation may be important not only for safety, but also for environmental and technical reasons. The objective of the study was to determine the effect of the technical parameters of the piles on the concentration of CO in the process gas during AB of the OFMSW in a full-scale waste treatment system: rate of waste aeration (from 3365 to 12,744 m3∙Mg−1), waste mass loads in the pile (from 391 to 702 Mg), thermal conditions, application of sidewalls as an element of pile bioreactor construction, concentration of O2 and CO2 in the waste piles and the duration of the process from 6 to 9 weeks. The temperature and concentration of O2, CO2, CO, CH4 were measured in each pile at weekly intervals. All six reactors provide stable thermal and aerobic conditions, but the presence of CO was observed, ranging from a few to over 2000 ppm, which demonstrated that ensuring optimum conditions for the process is not sufficient for CO to be eliminated. A moderate, non-linear rise in CO concentration was observed along with a rise in the temperature inside the reactors. Concentrations of CO were not highly correlated with those of O2 or CO2. An increase in waste mass loads increased the CO concentration in waste piles, while application of sidewalls decreased CO concentration. Increasing aeration rate had an influence on CO production, and the highest CO concentrations were noted under air flow rate 5.3 m3·Mg−1·h−1

Towards cognitively plausible data science in language research

Over the past 10 years, Cognitive Linguistics has taken a Quantitative Turn. Yet, concerns have been raised that this preoccupation with quantification and modelling may not bring us any closer to understanding how language works. We show that this objection is unfounded, especially if we rely on modelling techniques based on biologically and psychologically plausible learning algorithms. These make it possible to take a quantitative approach, while generating and testing specific hypotheses that will advance our understanding of how knowledge of language emerges from exposure to usage

Morphological variation and sensitivity to frequency of forms among native speakers of Czech

This article looks at inter-speaker variation in two environments: the genitive and locative singular cases of masculine ‘hard inanimate’ nouns in Czech, using a large-scale survey of native speakers that used two tasks to test their preferences for certain forms (acceptability) and their choices (gap filling). Our hypothesis that such variation exists was upheld, but only within limited parameters. Most biographical data (age, gender, education) played no role in respondents’ choices or preferences. Their region of origin played a small but significant role, although not the one expected. Relating the two types of tasks to each other, we found that respondents’ use of the ratings scale did not correlate to their choice of forms, but their overall strength of preference for one form over another did correlate with their choices. Inter-speaker variation does thus go some way to explaining the persistent diversity in this paradigm and arguably may contribute to its maintenance

Discriminative characteristics of marginalised novel psychoactive users: A transnational study

New psychoactive substances (NPS) continue to be considered as a major public health concern in many European countries. The study was implemented within the framework of a transnational project of six European countries (Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal). Our aim here is to report on the distinct and differentiating characteristics of marginalised NPS users. Three subgroups of a total of 3023 adult NPS users (socially marginalised, night life, online community) were examined regarding their socio-demographic characteristics, substance use, and external motives towards NPS use. Poland and Hungary reported higher rates of NPS use in comparison to traditional controlled drugs. The external/contextual motives did not play a central role in the background of NPS use, the least important motives were alleged legality and non-detectability of these substances. Marginalised (defined as those accessing low threshold harm reduction services) users’ substance use patterns are different from the other two groups in terms of showing more intense and riskier drug use. The most important variables which contributed to be categorised as a marginalised NPS user were lower level education, being older, having an unfavourable labour market position and using drugs intravenously. Contextual motives did not play a decisive role in being categorised as a marginalised user when drug use pattern was controlled. These identified discriminative features of marginalised drug users should inform policy makers to develop and implement tailor-made interventions targeting this user group to successfully tackle the elevated public health concerns associated with NPS use

The T2K Side Muon Range Detector

The T2K experiment is a long baseline neutrino oscillation experiment aiming to observe the appearance of {\nu} e in a {\nu}{\mu} beam. The {\nu}{\mu} beam is produced at the Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex (J-PARC), observed with the 295 km distant Super- Kamiokande Detector and monitored by a suite of near detectors at 280m from the proton target. The near detectors include a magnetized off-axis detector (ND280) which measures the un-oscillated neutrino flux and neutrino cross sections. The present paper describes the outermost component of ND280 which is a side muon range detector (SMRD) composed of scintillation counters with embedded wavelength shifting fibers and Multi-Pixel Photon Counter read-out. The components, performance and response of the SMRD are presented.Comment: 13 pages, 19 figures v2: fixed several typos; fixed reference

Why do people use new psychoactive substances? Development of a new measurement tool in six European countries.

This study was supported by the European Union (New Psychoactive Substances: transnational project on different user groups, user characteristics, extent and patterns of use, market dynamics, and best practices in prevention [HOME/2014/JDRU/AG/DRUG/7077]), the Hungarian National Research, Development and Innovation Office (Grant number: KKP126835; NKFIH1157-8/2019-DT). The study was also supported for the realization of this international cofinanced science project in 2016-2017 by the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education. Máté Kapitány-Fövény acknowledges the support by the János Bolyai Research Scholarship of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and the support by the ÚNKP-19 New National Excellence Program of the Hungarian Ministry for Innovation and Technology. The funding institutions had no role in the study design or the collection, analysis and interpretation of the data, writing the manuscript, or the decision to submit the paper for publication

Factors Affecting Grammatical and Lexical Complexity of Long-Term L2 Speakers’ Oral Proficiency

There remains considerable disagreement about which factors drive second language (L2) ultimate attainment. Age of onset (AO) appears to be a robust factor, lending support to theories of maturational constraints on L2 acquisition. The present study is an investigation of factors that influence grammatical and lexical complexity at the stage of L2 ultimate attainment. Grammatical and lexical complexity were assessed in 102 spontaneous oral interviews. Interviewees' AOs ranged from 7 to 17 years old. Multifactorial analyses yielded consistently significant effects of gender and level of education for grammatical and lexical complexity. Additionally, native language use at work was a significant predictor for lexical complexity; conversely, AO did not emerge as a significant factor. We conclude that grammatical and lexical complexity at the stage of L2 ultimate attainment is the result of a complex interplay of variables that are general to language learning and performance rather than L2 specific

The ICARUS T600 Experiment in the Gran Sasso Underground Laboratory

With a mass of about 600 tons of Liquid Argon (LAr), the ICARUS T600 detector is the biggest, up to now, LAr Time Projection Chamber (TPC). Following its successful test run, on the Earth surface, in Pavia (Italy) in 2001, the detector is now very close to start data taking in the Gran Sasso underground laboratory. The main features of the LAr TPC technique, together with a short discussion of some of the ICARUS T600 test run results, are presented in this paper

Do users’ reading skills and difficulty ratings for texts affect choices and evaluations?

In our contribution, we consider how corpus data can be used as a proxy for the written language environment around us in constructing offline studies of native-speaker intuition and usage. We assume a broadly emergent perspective on language: in other words, the linguistic competence of individuals is not identical or hardwired but forms gradually through exposure and coalescence of patterns of production and reaction. We hypothesize that while users presumably all in theory have access to the same linguistic material, their actual exposure to it and their ability to interpret it may differ, which will result in differing judgments and choices. Our study looks at the interaction between corpus frequency and two possible indicators of individual difference: attitude towards reading tasks and performance on reading tasks. We find a small but consistent effect of task performance on respondents’ judgments but do not confirm any effects on respondents’ production tasks