Understanding and Quantifying Phosphorus Transport from Septic Systems to Lake Auburn

Rural areas often use septic systems to treat household wastewater, which may pose a phosphorus (P) loading risk to nearby water bodies if systems fail or if the soil types are unsuitable for P retention. In the Lake Auburn watershed, septic systems may be a source of phosphorus loading to Lake Auburn, an unfiltered drinking water supply. Site evaluations from municipal permits reveal patterns of septic system locations and soil types in septic drain fields. Many septic drain fields have shallow depths to groundwater or a restrictive layer, which may lead to inadequate P retention in the soil. Areas with a high density of septic systems near the two largest inlets to the lake may be P loading hotspots. Near the Basin inlet, shallow soil depths and proximity to the lake suggest that failing systems may be a source of P loading, and that there may not be robust P removal in these drain fields. A high density cluster of systems near Townsend Brook is located on a sand and gravel aquifer, with coarse sands that have less capacity to retain P than finer-textured soils. The creation of a model that simulates 200 years (1900 to 2100) of septic system operation demonstrates that septic systems may create a legacy P issue, because P loading was estimated to increase even after new development ceased. The model shows that policy changes may be able to decrease the septic system P load, but that the impact of such changes on P loading estimates may not be substantial for decades. In Auburn, such policy changes also have land use implications that would increase watershed sources of P loading through additional deforestation, impervious surface, and septic systems from new development. Other studies on Lake Auburn demonstrate that land-based P loading from new development may be higher than the P load reductions from improved wastewater treatment estimated in this study, suggesting that any change to septic system policy that does not also restrict development where it has previously been restricted is likely to lead to a net increase in the cumulative P load

Elastic strain engineering for unprecedented materials properties

“Smaller is stronger.” Nanostructured materials such as thin films, nanowires, nanoparticles, bulk nanocomposites, and atomic sheets can withstand non-hydrostatic (e.g., tensile or shear) stresses up to a significant fraction of their ideal strength without inelastic relaxation by plasticity or fracture. Large elastic strains, up to ∼10%, can be generated by epitaxy or by external loading on small-volume or bulk-scale nanomaterials and can be spatially homogeneous or inhomogeneous. This leads to new possibilities for tuning the physical and chemical properties of a material, such as electronic, optical, magnetic, phononic, and catalytic properties, by varying the six-dimensional elastic strain as continuous variables. By controlling the elastic strain field statically or dynamically, a much larger parameter space opens up for optimizing the functional properties of materials, which gives new meaning to Richard Feynman’s 1959 statement, “there’s plenty of room at the bottom.”National Science Foundation (U.S.) (DMR-1240933)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (DMR-1120901

Boundary motion coupled with tensile and compressive deformation: TEM observation of twinning-like lattice reorientation in Mg micropillars

For magnesium and some other hexagonal-close-packed metals, twinning on the plane is a common mode of plastic deformation. Recently, we have used in situ transmission electron microscopy (TEM) to monitor the deformation of submicron-sized single-crystal magnesium, in quantitative compression and tension tests (B-Y. Liu et al., Nature Commun. 2014). We have observed the reorientation of the parent lattice to a “twin” lattice, producing an orientational relationship akin to that of the conventional twinning. However, aberration-corrected TEM observations reveal that the boundary between the parent lattice and the “twin” lattice is composed of many segments of semi-coherent basal-prismatic (B-P) interfaces, instead of the twinning plane. Both TEM and molecular dynamics simulations suggest that the migration of this boundary is accomplished by B-P interfaces undergoing basal-prismatic transformation, in addition to the migration of the boundary of the extension twin. This deformation mode mimics conventional deformation twinning, but is distinct from the latter. It is a form of boundary motion coupled to stresses, but produces plastic strain that is not simple shear. The basal-prismatic transformation appears to be important under deformation conditions when the availability and/or mobility of twinning dislocations/disconnections are limited. As such, this new twist in lattice reorientation accompanying deformation twinning enriches the known repertoire of plasticity mechanisms

The Effect of Acute Hyperglycemia on Muscular Strength, Power and Endurance

International Journal of Exercise Science 10(3): 390-396, 2017. The purpose of this study was to elucidate the impact of acute hyperglycemia on skeletal muscle strength, power, and endurance. Ten male collegiate athletes (age 21.5 ± 1.5 years, height 186 ± 2.03 cm, body mass 108.8 ± 7.6 kg) participated in 2 testing sessions, separated by 7 days and randomized for either high glucose (HG) or control (C) treatment conditions. HG consumed a high glucose drink (2 g glucose/kg body weight) while controls consumed an isocaloric nutrition bar (40% protein, 30% fat, and 30% carbohydrate). Blood glucose (BC) levels for HG and C were tested at 0 (basal) and 30, 60, 90, and 120 minutes (mins) post consumption. At 30 mins post consumption, HG and C muscular strength was assessed by a 1RM bench press (BP) test followed by lower body power at 60 mins via vertical jump test. Muscular endurance was examined with a 3-set-to-failure BP test at 90 mins. HG exhibited significantly greater BC values (

Surface Rebound of Relativistic Dislocations Directly and Efficiently Initiates Deformation Twinning

Under ultrahigh stresses (e.g., under high strain rates or in small-volume metals) deformation twinning (DT) initiates on a very short time scale, indicating strong spatial-temporal correlations in dislocation dynamics. Using atomistic simulations, here we demonstrate that surface rebound of relativistic dislocations directly and efficiently triggers DT under a wide range of laboratory experimental conditions. Because of its stronger temporal correlation, surface rebound sustained relay of partial dislocations is shown to be dominant over the conventional mechanism of thermally activated nucleation of twinning dislocations.National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant DMR-1410636

Second-Nearest-Neighbor Correlations from Connection of Atomic Packing Motifs in Metallic Glasses and Liquids

Using molecular dynamics simulations, we have studied the atomic correlations characterizing the second peak in the radial distribution function (RDF) of metallic glasses and liquids. The analysis was conducted from the perspective of different connection schemes of atomic packing motifs, based on the number of shared atoms between two linked coordination polyhedra. The results demonstrate that the cluster connections by face-sharing, specifically with three common atoms, are most favored when transitioning from the liquid to glassy state, and exhibit the stiffest elastic response during shear deformation. These properties of the connections and the resultant atomic correlations are generally the same for different types of packing motifs in different alloys. Splitting of the second RDF peak was observed for the inherent structure of the equilibrium liquid, originating solely from cluster connections; this trait can then be inherited in the metallic glass formed via subsequent quenching of the parent liquid through the glass transition, in the absence of any additional type of local structural order. Increasing ordering and cluster connection during cooling, however, may tune the position and intensity of the split peaks.Comment: 25 pages, 5 figure

Modelling chemical abundance distributions for dwarf galaxies in the Local Group: the impact of turbulent metal diffusion

We investigate stellar metallicity distribution functions (MDFs), including Fe and ${\alpha}$-element abundances, in dwarf galaxies from the Feedback in Realistic Environments (FIRE) project. We examine both isolated dwarf galaxies and those that are satellites of a Milky Way-mass galaxy. In particular, we study the effects of including a sub-grid turbulent model for the diffusion of metals in gas. Simulations that include diffusion have narrower MDFs and abundance ratio distributions, because diffusion drives individual gas and star particles toward the average metallicity. This effect provides significantly better agreement with observed abundance distributions of dwarf galaxies in the Local Group, including the small intrinsic scatter in [${\alpha}$/Fe] vs. [Fe/H] (less than 0.1 dex). This small intrinsic scatter arises in our simulations because the interstellar medium (ISM) in dwarf galaxies is well-mixed at nearly all cosmic times, such that stars that form at a given time have similar abundances to within 0.1 dex. Thus, most of the scatter in abundances at z = 0 arises from redshift evolution and not from instantaneous scatter in the ISM. We find similar MDF widths and intrinsic scatter for satellite and isolated dwarf galaxies, which suggests that environmental effects play a minor role compared with internal chemical evolution in our simulations. Overall, with the inclusion of metal diffusion, our simulations reproduce abundance distribution widths of observed low-mass galaxies, enabling detailed studies of chemical evolution in galaxy formation.Comment: 19 pages, 13 figures, published in MNRA