Emergent behaviour in a chlorophenol-mineralising three-tiered microbial `food web'

Anaerobic digestion enables the water industry to treat wastewater as a resource for generating energy and recovering valuable by-products. The complexity of the anaerobic digestion process has motivated the development of complex models. However, this complexity makes it intractable to pin-point stability and emergent behaviour. Here, the widely used Anaerobic Digestion Model No. 1 (ADM1) has been reduced to its very backbone, a syntrophic two-tiered microbial food chain and a slightly more complex three-tiered microbial food web, with their stability analysed as function of the inflowing substrate concentration and dilution rate. Parameterised for phenol and chlorophenol degradation, steady-states were always stable and non-oscillatory. Low input concentrations of chlorophenol were sufficient to maintain chlorophenol- and phenol-degrading populations but resulted in poor conversion and a hydrogen flux that was too low to sustain hydrogenotrophic methanogens. The addition of hydrogen and phenol boosted the populations of all three organisms, resulting in the counterintuitive phenomena that (i) the phenol degraders were stimulated by adding hydrogen, even though hydrogen inhibits phenol degradation, and (ii) the dechlorinators indirectly benefitted from measures that stimulated their hydrogenotrophic competitors; both phenomena hint at emergent behaviour.Comment: 19 pages, 8 figure

Beliefs About the Prevalence of Dissociative Identity Disorder, Sexual Abuse, and Ritual Abuse Among Religious and Nonreligious Therapists

Four hundred ninety-seven Christian therapists and 100 membe.rs of the American Psychological Association returned questionnaires indicating the prevalence of dissociative identity disorder (DID) . sexual abuse, and ritual abuse in their clinical practices. There was a low rate of diagnosing DID and ritual abuse among all respondents. Christian pSychologists were slightly more likely to diagnose ritual abuse than other psychologists, but they were no more likely to diagnose DID or sexual abuse. No differences were observed in diagnosing ritual abuse or DID between Christian psychologists, other licensed Christian therapists, non licensed Christian therapists, and lay counselors. Licensed Christian therapists who are not psychologists reported a greater prevalence of sexual abuse among their clients than nonlicensed Christian therapists and lay counselors. Implications for clinical practice are discussed

Recovery of the global magnetic field configuration of 78 Virginis from Stokes IQUV line profiles

The surface magnetic field configuration of the Ap star HD 118022 (78 Vir) has been reconstructed in the framework of the magnetic charge distribution (MCD) method from the analysis of Stokes $IQUV$ spectra obtained using the MuSiCoS spectropolarimeter at Pic du Midi Observatory. Magnetically-sensitive Fe~{\sc ii} lines were primarily employed in the analysis, supposing that iron is evenly distributed over the stellar surface. We show that the Stokes $IQUV$ profile shapes and variations of 78 Vir can be approximately fit assuming a global magnetic field configuration described by a slightly decentered, inclined magnetic dipole of polar surface intensity approximately 3.3~kG. The derived inclinations of the stellar rotational axis to the line of sight i=24\pm 5\degr as well as to the magnetic dipole axis \beta=124\pm5\degr are in good agreement with previous estimations by other authors, whereas the sky-projected position angle\thanks{$\Omega$ increases clockwise from the axis to the North Celestial Pole and relates to the azimuth angle $\Theta$ specified by Landolfi at al.~(\cite{Landolfi+93}) as \Omega=360\degr-\Theta.} of the stellar rotation axis \Omega\sim110\degr is reported here for the first time. In addition, several lines of Cr~{\sc ii} and Ti~{\sc ii} were studied, yielding evidence for non-uniform surface distributions of these elements, and magnetic field results similar to those derived from Fe.Comment: Accepted by A&A, 16 page

Extragalactic infrared spectroscopy

The spectra of galaxies in the near infrared atmospheric transmission windows are explored. Emission lines were detected due to molecular hydrogen, atomic hydrogen recombination lines, a line attributed to FEII, and a broad CO absorption feature. Lines due to H2 and FEII are especially strong in interacting and merging galaxies, but they were also detected in Seyferts and normal spirals. These lines appear to be shock excited. Multi-aperture measurements show that they emanate from regions as large as 15 kpc. It is argued that starbursts provide the most plausible and consistent model for the excitation of these lines, but the changes of relative line intensity of various species with aperture suggest that other excitation mechanisms are also operating in the outer regions of these galaxies