A Fiber Optic Spectroscopic Analysis of Diuron Sorption/Desorption Processes in Subsurface Media

The quantitative assessment of sorption and desorption processes is vital to the complete understanding of contaminant fate and transport in the subsurface. The sorption and desorption of a synthetic organic pesticide, diuron, was studied by optical ultraviolet (UV) absorption spectroscopy in two configurations. The first utilized the "grab sample" method and a conventional laboratory benchtop UV/VIS spectrophotometer, and the second employed a fiber optic spectrophotometer. The "grab sample" method is susceptible to systematic errors related to the removal of the sample from the subsurface system for analysis. Fiber optic spectrophotometry has the potential for noninvasive, nondestructive measurements obtained within the subsurface media. The hypothesis of this work was that fiber optic spectrophotometry can be used to determine the fate and transport of a pesticide in laboratory systems of subsurface media, using a one dimensional column configuration. The results of this research demonstrate that fiber optic spectroscopic methods can be used for one-dimensional subsurface media column sorption/desorption and tracer experiments under the conditions used in this study. In addition, sorption kinetic experiments indicate that equilibrium conditions are not attained after 140 days of equilibration. Data from equilibrium distribution experiments support this conclusion.Master of Science in Environmental Engineerin

The Qur'an and Identity in Contemporary Chinese Fiction

How is it possible to comprehend and assess the impact of the Qur’an on the literary expressions of Chinese Muslims (Hui) when the first full ‘translations’ of the Qur’an in Chinese made by non-Muslims from Japanese and English appeared only in 1927 and 1931, and by a Muslim from Arabic in 1932? But perhaps the fact that such a translation appeared so late in the history of the Muslim community in China, who have had a continuous presence since the ninth-century, is the best starting point. For it would be possible to address the relationship between the sacred text (as well as language) and identity among minority groups in a different way. This paper looks at the ways in which the Qur’an is imagined then embodied in literary texts authored by two prize-winning Chinese Muslim authors: Huo Da (b. 1945) and Zhang Chengzhi (b. 1948). While Huo Da, who does not have access to the Arabic language, alludes to the Chinese Qur’an in her novel, The Muslim’s Funeral (1982), transforming the its teachings into ritual performances of alterity through injecting Arabic and Persian words for religious rituals into her narrative of a Muslim family’s fortunes at the turn of the twentieth century, Zhang Chengzhi, who learned Arabic as an adult and travelled widely in the Muslim world, involves himself in reconstructing the history of the spread and persecution of the Jahriyya Sufi sect (an off-shoot of the Naqshabandiyya) in China between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries in his only historical novel, A History of the Soul (1991), and in education reform in Muslim communities, inventing an identity for Chinese Muslims based on direct knowledge of the sacred text and tradition and informed by the history of Islam not in China alone but in the global Islamic world, especially Arabic Islamic history

DNAPL characterization methods and approaches, Part I: Performance comparisons

Contamination from the use of chlorinated solvents, often classified as dense nonaqueous phase liquids (DNAPLs) when in an undissolved state, pose environmental threats to ground water resources worldwide. DNAPL site characterization method performance comparisons are presented in a companion paper (Kram et al. 2001). This study compares the costs for implementing various characterization approaches using synthetic unit model scenarios (UMSs), each with particular physical characteristics. Unit costs and assumptions related to labor, equipment, and consumables are applied to determine costs associated with each approach for various UMSs. In general, the direct-push sensor systems provide cost-effective characterization information in soils that are penetrable with relatively shallow (less than 10 to 15 m) water tables. For sites with impenetrable lithology using direct-push techniques, the Ribbon NAPL Sampler Flexible Liner Underground Technologies Everting (FLUTe) membrane appears to be the most costeffective approach. For all scenarios studied, partitioning interwell tracer tests (PITTs) are the most expensive approach due to the extensive pre- and post-PITT requirements. However, the PITT is capable of providing useful additional information, such as approximate DNAPL saturation, which is not generally available from any of the other approaches included in this comparison