Pretreatment Of Cellulosic Biomass By Iron-Containing Magnetic Ionic Liquid Dissolution

The focus of this project is to determine the effectiveness in the preprocessing of biomass when magnetic ionic liquids (MIL) (1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrachloroferrate (Bmim[FeCl4]) and 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrachloroferrate (Emim[FeCl4])) are used as a green solvent. Lignocellulose is a promising starting material for a plethora of products, ranging from biofuels to custom chemicals; however, lignocellulose is resistant to enzymatic degradation. Various biomass-preprocessing techniques such as microbial, mechanical, and chemical pretreatment are used for enhancing the digestibility of biomass to sugars for ethanol production. Varieties of ionic liquids have demonstrated the ability to fragment lignocellulose. However, after fragmentation, separation of biomass and ionic liquids has proven to present economic challenges for this pretreatment process. Research has proven that the addition of magnetic properties to the ionic liquid can be used to stabilize the ionic liquids and prevent its loss or other detrimental fluid/fluid interactions in the bioreactor. Therefore, this paper presents the outcomes of such MIL dissolution studies

Increasing Ultrasound-Guided Thyroid Biopsy Yield

Objectives: Conduct Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) performance improvement project to improve thyroid biopsy yield Short Term\u3ereduce unsuccessful biopsies by 50% Long-Term\u3eeliminate unsuccessful biopsieshttps://jdc.jefferson.edu/patientsafetyposters/1064/thumbnail.jp

The New Market for Federal Judicial Law Clerks

In the past, judges have often hired applicants for judicial clerkships as early as the beginning of the second year of law school for positions commencing approximately two years down the road. In the new hiring regime for federal judicial law clerks, by contrast, judges are exhorted to follow a set of start dates for considering and hiring applicants during the fall of the third year of law school. Using the same general methodology as we employed in a study of the market for federal judicial law clerks conducted in 1998-2000, we have broadly surveyed both federal appellate judges and law students about their experiences of the new market for law clerks. This paper analyzes our findings within the prevailing economic framework for studying markets with tendencies toward "early" hiring. Our data make clear that the movement of the clerkship market back to the third year of law school is highly valued by judges, but we also find that a strong majority of the judges responding to our surveys has concluded that nonadherence to the specified start dates is very substantial -- a conclusion we are able to corroborate with specific quantitative data from both judge and student surveys. The consistent experience of a wide range of other markets suggests that such nonadherence in the law clerk market will lead to either a reversion to very early hiring or the use of a centralized matching system such as that used for medical residencies. We suggest, however, potential avenues by which the clerkship market could stabilize at something like its present pattern of mixed adherence and nonadherence, thereby avoiding the complete abandonment of the current system.

How do expectations about the macroeconomy affect personal expectations and behavior?

Using a representative online panel from the US, we examine how individuals' macroeconomic expectations causally affect their personal economic prospects and their behavior. To exogenously vary respondents' expectations, we provide them with different professional forecasts about the likelihood of a recession. Respondents update their macroeconomic outlook in response to the forecasts, extrapolate to expectations about their personal economic circumstances and adjust their consumption plans and stock purchases. Extrapolation to expectations about personal unemployment is driven by individuals with higher exposure to macroeconomic risk, consistent with macroeconomic models of imperfect information in which people are inattentive, but understand how the economy works

Atmospheric ozone retrieval using radiance measurements from the Chappuis and Hartley-Huggins absorption bands

The monitoring of global ozone in the atmosphere is a necessary prerequisite to understanding atmospheric chemistry and managing atmospheric constituents. Satellite systems have been developed to measure ozone and other constituents accurately on a global basis. However, within this area there is considerable room for advancement in the techniques used to measure ozone from a satellite platform.The Canadian instrument OSIRIS onboard the Swedish-led satellite Odin contains an optical spectrograph that is used for measuring limb radiance in the atmosphere. There are various proven techniques to convert limb radiance data into ozone density profiles. This work presents a new technique that combines radiance data from both the Chappuis and Hartley-Huggins bands to retrieve ozone density. The new technique extends the current upper limit of Chappuis-only retrievals from 40 km to 60 km.The major portion of this work describes the implementation of this new technique. Briefly, a Multiplicative Algebraic Reconstructive Technique, together with the SaskTRAN radiative transfer model, is used to invert the limb radiance data into ozone density profiles.An overview of the resulting ozone density profiles is presented together with comparisons against other ozone products as a first order verification of the results.This work will be used to produce a new ozone data set from the OSIRIS limb radiance data consisting of ozone density profiles that are valid to 60 km