Environment and harvest time affects the combustion qualities of Miscanthus genotypes

Miscanthus spp. are high-yielding perennial C4 grasses, native to Asia, that are being investigated in Europe as potential biofuels. Production of economically viable solid biofuel must combine high biomass yields with good combustion qualities. Good biomass combustion quality depends on minimizing moisture, ash, K, chloride, N, and S. To this end, field trials at five sites in Europe from Sweden to Portugal were planted with 15 different genotypes including M. x giganteus, M. sacchariflorus, M. sinensis, and newly bred M. sinensis hybrids. Yield and combustion quality at an autumn and a late winter/ early spring harvest were determined in the third year after planting when the stands had reached maturity. As expected, delaying the harvest by three to four months improved the combustion quality of all genotypes by reducing ash (from 40 to 25 g kg-1 dry matter), K (from 9 to 4 g kg-1 dry matter), chloride (from 4 to 1 g kg-1 dry matter), N (from 5 to 4 g kg-1 dry matter), and moisture (from 564 to 291 g kg-1 fresh matter). However, the delayed harvest also decreased mean biomass yields from 17 to 14 t ha-1. There is a strong interaction among yield, quality, and site growing conditions. Results show that in northern regions of Europe, M. sinensis hybrids can be recommended for high yields (yielding up to 25 t ha-1), but M. sinensis (nonhybrid) genotypes have higher combustion qualities. In mid- and south Europe, M. giganteus (yielding up to 38 t ha-1) or specific high-yielding M. sinensis hybrids (yielding up to 41 t ha-1) are more suitable for biofuel production

ARCDEV - Demonstration and Exploratory Voyage Final report

The ARCDEV-Project was partly sponsored by the EU-DG VII and the HSVA-part within this project also by the German Ministry for Education and Research. The ARCDEV-Project did prove the technical feasibility to transport Oil/Gas Condensate from the Ob-estuary in the Russian Arctic to Western Europe by the tanker convoy consisting of one 15000 tdw icebreaking tanker UIKKO and two Russian icebreakers (ROSSIA, KAPITAN DRANYTZIN). Approx. 70 scientiests from seven European countries (incl. Russia) participated in the 21 day voyage. The demonstrating project showed also deficiencies for making such transport system economically profitable. Research tasks were defined for future development of such an Arctic Marine Transport System. (orig.)Available from TIB Hannover: RN 3770(296) / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekSIGLEBundesministerium fuer Bildung und Forschung (BMBF), Bonn (Germany)DEGerman

Note on an extremal problem arising for unreliable networks in parallel computing

Ahlswede R, Koschnick KU. Note on an extremal problem arising for unreliable networks in parallel computing. Discrete Mathematics. 1983;47:137-152.Motivated by a certain model of parallel computing in unreliable networks we study combinatorial problems of the following type: For any graph and any integer c, what is the least number d such that removal of any d edges (or vertices) leaves a graph with a largest connected component of more than c vertices. We give rather precise estimates for the n-cube

Erste eisbrechtechnische Expedition mit F.S. Polarstern Schlussbericht. Bd. 3

TIB: AC 9385 (3) / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekSIGLEDEGerman

The role of vaccines in the control of STDs: HPV vaccines.

Prophylactic vaccines for genital human papillomavirus (HPV) infection have been shown to be feasible in animal models, and suitable vaccine material based on virus-like particles can be produced in bulk at reasonable cost. Initiation of phase III clinical trials will follow definition of trial outcome measures through further epidemiological studies, and development of assays of host protective immunity. Vaccines could in principle eliminate HPV-related disease, as the human race is the only natural host for the relevant papillomaviruses (PVs). Therapeutic vaccines for genital HPV infection are also possible, but have not yet been demonstrated as feasible in practice because the choice of vaccine antigens is difficult, the method of their optimal delivery is uncertain, and the nature of the relevant antiviral immunity is unknown. PV species specificity will require trials to be conducted in man, which will slow definition of an ideal vaccine