Organic waste management studies : inventory in Juva

Two different organic waste management systems have been studied in the BERAS project. The most extensive study was of biowaste and nutrient flows in the community of Juva, Finland. The research methods used were waste flow and substance flow studies

Homochirality in an early peptide world

A recently proposed model of non-autocatalytic reactions in dipeptide reactions leading to spontaneous symmetry breaking and homochirality is examined. The model is governed by activation, polymerization, epimerization and depolymerization of amino acids. Symmetry breaking is primarily a consequence of the fact that the rates of reactions involving homodimers and heterodimers are different, i.e., stereoselective, and on the fact that epimerization can only occur on the N-terminal residue and not on the Cterminal residue. This corresponds to an auto-inductive cyclic process that works only in one sense. It is argued that epimerization mimics both autocatalytic behavior as well as mutual antagonism - both of which were known to be crucial for producing full homochirality.Comment: 19 pages, 7 figures, 3 boxe

On regional specialization of high- and low-tech industries

Industries have varying abilities to benefit from externalities associated with geographical concentration, and are also likely to suffer in different degrees from crowding costs. This makes industries differ in their concentration process. We hypothesize that firms with low education levels (low tech) tend to be concentrated in areas with low urban costs and small populations, and firms with high education levels (high tech) to be concentrated in areas with high urban costs and large populations. This is shown to be true with Finnish regional-industry data.

Possibilities for developing combined recycling and renewable energy production in Juva and Järna

Two ways of local recycling of te solid fraction of biowaste, one of which is combined with the production of biogas, have been studied within the BERAS-project. On-farm biogas plant treatment in Juva could also support agriculture

Solid compost from biogas plant digestion residues - a new product

Here is presented the nitrogen content of dairy cattle solid manure treated anaerobically and aerobically