Nitrogen fertilizer value of digestates from anaerobic digestion of animal manures and crops

After anaerobic digestion (AD) of manures for biogas production the concentration of ammonium-N is increased and the concentration of decomposable carbon in manure is decreased. That implies that the first year fertilizer value of the manure can be increased by the treatment. However, pH is also increased by AD thereby increasing the risk of ammonia losses while the lowered dry matter content on the other hand improves the manure infiltration in soil and reduces the risk of ammonia loss. Therefore the effects of AD on plant N availability can be expected to interact with the manure application method used. In stockless organic farming it has been suggested that nitrogen utilization can be improved by using anaerobic digestion of plant-based green manures, but the information about such manures is scarce. We have compared nitrogen fertilizer values of 1) pig and cattle slurries before and after AD and 2) digested plant-based manures. Mineral fertilizer replacement values (MFRV) were determined after direct injection to barley and oats crops and after surface-banding in a winter wheat crop. The manures were digested in continuously fed pilot digesters at thermophilic conditions (ca. 50°C). The manures were applied to small framed plots and grain yields and N uptake were compared to plots receiving increasing amounts of mineral N fertilizer. The three tested plant-based manures derived from crops of either grass clover, yellow lupine or a triticale-winter vetch mixture. The MFRV of total N in two different injected cattle slurries increased from 58-75% to 69-82% after AD. The MFRV of cattle slurry after surface-banding in winter wheat was much lower: 30-37% for untreated slurry and 38-49% after AD. The low availability after surface-banding can be ascribed to high ammonia volatilization. The MFRV of injected pig slurry was high and similar with and without AD: 89-91%. After surface banding of pig slurry MFRV was 75% for untreated and 87% for digested pig slurry. The plant-based manures contained a high proportion of ammonium-N (59-68% of total N) after AD and the MFRVs of total manure N were comparable to the digested cattle slurries: 73-77% after injection, but only 43-57% after surface-banding of the manure. The influence of AD of manure on N turnover in soil has also been evaluated in a soil incubation study with some of the same manures, and the differences between untreated and digested manures were more distinct in this incubation study than the observed differences in fertilizer value. We conclude that the potential plant availability of pig and cattle slurry can be increased by 10-15% points after AD. However, after surface-banding of digested manures rich in fibers, such as cattle and plant-based manures, significant ammonia loss can be expected resulting in relative poor N utilization

Cosmogenic Neutrinos Through the GRAND Lens Unveil the Nature of Cosmic Accelerators

The sources of cosmic rays with energies above 55 EeV are still mysterious. A guaranteed associated flux of ultra high energy neutrinos known as the cosmogenic neutrino flux will be measured by next generation radio facilities, such as the proposed Giant Radio Array for Neutrino Detection (GRAND). By using the orthogonal information provided by the cosmogenic neutrino flux, we here determine the prospects of GRAND to constrain the source redshift evolution and the chemical composition of the cosmic ray sources. If the redshift evolution is known, independently on GRAND's energy resolution, GRAND with 200,000 antennas will constrain the proton/iron fraction to the $\sim5-10\%$ level after one year of data taking; on the other hand, if hints on the average source composition are given, GRAND will measure the redshift evolution of the sources to a $\sim 10\%$ uncertainty. However, the foreseen configuration of GRAND alone will not be able to break the degeneracy between redshift evolution of the sources and their composition. Our findings underline the discriminating potential of next generation radio array detectors and motivate further efforts in this direction.Comment: 18 pages, 6 figures, 1 table, comments welcome; clarifying comments added, matches published versio

Fingerprint Analysis with Marked Point Processes

We present a framework for fingerprint matching based on marked point process models. An efficient Monte Carlo algorithm is developed to calculate the marginal likelihood ratio for the hypothesis that two observed prints originate from the same finger against the hypothesis that they originate from different fingers. Our model achieves good performance on an NIST-FBI fingerprint database of 258 matched fingerprint pairs

EDITORIAL: Communication and Language at Work (CLAW) – Bridging Theory and Practice, 3rd issue, 2014

Dear readers, We, the editors, are proud to bring you the 3rd edition of CLAW with a focus on Social Media and / in Business Communication

EDITORIAL

Editorial to the second issue of CLa

Evaluering af Istedgade: Bedre forhold for cyklister

Københavns Kommune har gennemført en større ombygning af Istedgade for blandt andet at skabe bedre cykelforhold. Målet med projektet har været at omdanne den eksisterende bydelsgade til en strøggade med fokus på handelsliv, busser, fodgængere og cyklister, men uden gennemgående cykelstier. Projektet blev udviklet og gennemført i en proces med stor inddragelse af borgere og interessenter, og med særligt fokus på Københavns Kommunes trafikale og byrumsmæssige mål og strategier. Projektets sidste etape blev taget i brug i sommeren 2015. Den samlede løsning for Istedgade har dermed været benyttet i godt et halvt år. Københavns Kommune har derfor ønsket at opsamle de foreløbige erfaringer, og evaluere projektet. Evalueringen undersøger i hvilken grad projektet har indfriet de ønskede mål og effekter, for på det grundlag, at kunne drage erfaringer som kan bidrage til kommende projekter. Denne artikel beskriver resultatet af erfaringsopsamling og evaluering, som er udført af Københavns Kommune i samarbejde med Via Trafik Rådgivning A/S og Megafon