42 research outputs found
Effect of extended famine conditions on aerobic granular sludge stability in the treatment of brewery wastewater
No full textResults obtained from three aerobic granular sludge reactors treating brewery wastewater are presented. Reactors were operated for 60 d days in each of the two periods under different cycle duration: (Period I) short 6 h cycle, and (Period II) long 12 h cycle. Organic loading rates (OLR) varying from 0.7 kg COD m-3 d-1 to 4.1 kg COD m-3 d-1 were tested. During Period I, granules successfully developed in all reactors, however, results revealed that the feast and famine periods were not balanced and the granular structure deteriorated and became irregular. During Period II at decreased 12 h cycle time, granules were observed to develop again with superior structural stability compared to the short 6 h cycle time, suggesting that a longer starvation phase enhanced production of proteinaceous EPS. Overall, the extended famine conditions encouraged granule stability, likely because long starvation period favours bacteria capable of storage of energy compounds
Aerobic granular sludge treating anaerobically pretreated brewery wastewater at different loading rates
No full textIn this study, three different aerobic granular sludge (AGS) reactors fed with anaerobically pre-treated brewery wastewater were studied. The AGS reactors were operated under different conditions including organic loading rates (OLR) between 0.8 and 4.1 kg COD m-3 d-1, C:N:P ratios (100:10:1 and 100:6:1) and food to microorganism ratios (F/M) between 0.8 ±0.6 and 1.2 ±0.5 and 0.9± 0.3 kg-TCOD kg-VSS-1d-1. Stable granulation was achieved within two weeks and the size of the granules increased according to the OLR applied. The results indicated that low C:N:P and F/M ratios were favorable to achieve stable aerobic granules in the long term. The carbon removal rate was load-independent in the range examined (TCOD removal >80%), whereas TN removals were inversely proportional to the OLRs. Overall, a longer aeration reaction time with a lower OLR was beneficial to granular structure, which exhibited a compact and defined architecture. Performance results within the other conditions studied further indicated that the microbial community and its complex functionality in nutrient removal was efficient at operational parameters of OLR at 0.8±0.2 kg-TCOD m-3d-1 and F/M ratio at 0.5±0.2 kg-TCOD VSS-1d-1. Moreover, the protein to polysaccharide ratio increased as OLR decreased, leading to a stable granular structure
The All Whites are alright with us: An analysis of New Zealand national media coverage surrounding the 2010 All Whites World Cup finals campaign
No full textIn June of 2010, the New Zealand men’s representative football team, the All Whites, contested the FIFA World Cup finals in South Africa for only the second time. Due to their credible on-field performances and unprecedented exposure in the national media, their campaign captured the attention of the New Zealand public like never before; surpassing even the national interest in the previous 1982 All Whites and their own storied World Cup finals campaign. Mainstream New Zealand’s sudden resurgence of interest and the accompanying rise in the All Whites’ media profile provided a rare opportunity to undertake a substantial survey of the media discourses surrounding the team in the hopes of better understanding the ways in which national audiences were likely to have (re)configured their understandings regarding the team and, in the broader sense, football’s place in the contemporary New Zealand socio-cultural landscape. Via an integration of poststructuralist textual analysis and content analysis, this thesis examined a sampling of national media coverage related to the All Whites’ 2010 World Cup campaign. Overarching themes relating to masculinity, nationalism and celebrity were identified, and I argue that audiences engaging with the media discourses surrounding these themes would likely have been encouraged to ascribe to the All Whites (a) an acceptably masculine status, (b) an authentic affiliation to New Zealand national identity, and (c) to ascribe to All Whites captain Ryan Nelsen a legitimated celebrity status. Furthermore, I suggest that these likely interpretations are indicative of an incremental but ongoing shift for football and the All Whites away from New Zealand’s socio-cultural periphery and towards its centre
Optimization of surface area loading rate for an anaerobic moving bed biofilm reactor treating brewery wastewater
No full textSpatial variability of air pollutants in the Basel area and carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic health risk
No full textIn environmental epidemiology, exposure assessment is a central topic as its
quality determines in large part the validity of a study. Further, it is used in
risk assessment to quantify the impact of environmental risk factors. Usually
in cross-sectional studies the air pollution measurements, performed at one
fixed site monitoring station, are used to assign exposure levels to all study
subjects living in the corresponding city. In order to prove the validity of this
technique, spatial and temporal variability of air pollutants in the Basel area
was systematically investigated. Based on these findings a risk assessment was
performed to quantify the carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic health risk that
is associated with the occurring pollution levels in the cantons Basel-Stadt and
Landschaft (Switzerland). During 1997 a broad palette of air pollutants was measured at six temporary
sites using a mobile monitoring station changing location every two weeks.
The six sites differed mainly with respect to the road traffic density and
represented typical residential place in the city of Basel. It was measured
particulate matter (PM4, PM10 and TSP), classical pollutants (NOx, SO2, CO,
O3, black carbon) and 61 different compounds belonging to VOCs (volatile
organic compounds), PAHs (polycyclic aromatic carbons) and nitro-PAHs,
thereof many carcinogens. Additional, air pollutant data from further urban
and rural monitoring stations as well as from the following year were taken
into account in the data analysis. Concurrently performed reference measurements
allowed a statistical analysis of the spatial variability of air pollutants at
the six temporary sites. To quantify cancer risk from air pollution, two methodological approaches
were performed. On the one hand cancer risk attributable to air pollution was
quantified based on the indicator concept, taking PM10 as a surrogate of the
cancerogenicity of air pollution. This integrative approach was based purely
on human epidemiological data. On the other hand unit risk factors were used
to quantify the cancer risk with an analytical approach. Unit risk factors
express the cancer risk of each single agent and have been traditionally applied in cancer risk assessment. They are based mainly on animal, partly
also on human data. The analyses of the air pollutant measurements yielded generally a homogeneous
distribution of PM4, PM10, and TSP in the city of Basel. With the
exception of one site in a street canyon next to a traffic light, proximity to road
traffic had only a weak tendency to inc rease the levels of PM. Mean PM10
concentration at the six temporary sites with different traffic densities was in
the range of less than ±10% of the average urban PM10 level. Higher spatial
variability in the urban environment and a stronger association to the traffic
density, respectively, was found for the particle number, some traffic related
components in PM, and for most carcinogens. Differences in the PM levels between urban and more elevated rural sites were
larger during the cold season than during the warm season due to days with
persistent surface inversion in winter. Generally, largest urban-rural-differences
were observed for primary traffic related substances such as carbonaceous
compounds and Pb, smallest differences for the secondary produced
sulfate and ammonium. Comparing mean PM values by day of the week showed a clear trend with
highest values on Wednesday and Thursday and lowest values on weekend.
The workday/weekend was most pronounced for mineralogical elements and
elemental carbon. The quantification of the cancer risk attributable to air pollution yielded 0.8
(range: 0.2-11.4) annual lung cancer cases per 100,000 persons in the cantons
Basel-Stadt and Basel-Land when an unit risk-based approach was used. By
means of an indicator-based approach resulted 6.7 (95%-CI: -0.8 to 14.2)
cases. Generally estimates based on human data yielded a higher risk.
Estimating the cancer risk from diesel exhaust in ambient air based only on
human occupational studies without considering animal studies resulted in
11.4 (95%-CI: 3.1-19.7) lung cancer cases per 100,000 person years in the
study area. In total 59 (95%-CI: 36-81) premature deaths per 100,000 person years were
estimated to be associated with air pollution in the both cantons. Further a significant number of respiratory and cardiovascular hospitality admissions,
chronic bronchitis, acute bronchitis, restricted activity days, and asthma
attacks had been quantified. The remarkable spatial homogeneity of long-term mean PM levels reduces the
error of assigning data from one fixed monitoring site to all study subjects
living in one city as usually done in cross-sectional studies. The homogeneous
distribution is mainly caused by the long residence time of particle in the
atmosphere and the plurality of emissions source types for PM. The difference
between mean PM concentration on workday as compared to the one on
weekend can be interpreted as an indicator of the influence from regional
anthropogenic emission sources. Difference between long-term PM levels at
urban and rural sites seems more to be affected by differences in the altitude
than by the distance to the cit y, due to occurring persistent surface inversions
in the cold season. The health risk assessment generated evidence that a large part of the cancerogenicity
of air pollution is caused by synergistic effects of various pollutants
in the ambient air mixture and cannot be ascribed to single agents. Thus, it is
propagated that in future an efficient air pollution regulatory strategy is rather
focussed on the whole air quality than on single agents. This can mean that
setting and controlling of air pollutant standards is done based on the philosophy
of the 'indicator-perspective' of the environmental epidemiology. If so, air
pollutants are mainly comprehended as a proxy of certain emission sources.
The causal acting on human health of a single agent is of minor importance.
However, reducing the indicator pollutants, decrease strategically all
pollutants so that implicitly synergistic effects of the air pollution mixture are
diminished. The planned sanctions to reduce PM10 levels in Switzerland show
that regulatory policy has developed in this direction, yet
From page to screen : placing hypertext fiction in an historical and contemporary context of print and electronic literary experiments
No full textOnly recently has our perception of the computer, now a familiar and ubiquitous element of
everyday life, changed from seeing it as a mere tool to regarding it as a medium for creative
expression. Computer technologies such as multimedia and hypertext applications have
sparked an active critical debate not only about the future of the book format, ("the late age
of print" {Bolter} is only one term used to describe the shift away from traditional print
media to new forms of electronic communication) but also about the future of literature.
Hypertext Fiction is the most prominent of proposed electronic literary forms and strong
claims have been made about it: it will radically alter concepts of text, author and reader,
enable forms of non-linear writing closer to the associative working of the mind, and make
possible reader interaction with the text on a level impossible in printed text.
So far the debate that has attempted to put hypertext fiction into a historical perspective
has linked it to two developments. Firstly the developments in computer technology that
made hypertext not only possible but also widely accessible and secondly a tradition of
postmodern theory, where characteristics attributed to hypertext echo concepts of
fragmentation, multiplicity and instability that theorists like Barthes and Derrida have
formulated previously and that have led to the notion of hypertext as an "authentic, yet
functional postmodern form" {Roberts}
A third element that is not generally subject to critical evaluation is the practice of
(post)modern writing in which a number of authors consciously break with the linearity of
print conventions in favour for a more fragmented narrative and presentation as well as
actively inviting the reader's participation in what Barthes calls "writerly" text. There are two
reasons why these "proto-hypertexts" have been widely ignored or dismissed: Hypertext is
still widely define as exclusive to the electronic realm and is furthermore generally
perceived in oppositional pairs in contrast to print, i.e. non-linear vs. linear and interactive
vs. passive, which conceptually does not leave room for a study of an "evolution" out of
existing forms of writing practice.
By examining hypertext fiction in a context of print experiments (Cortazar, Borges, B.S.
Johnson, Andreas Okopenko, Raymond Queneau, Miroslav Pavic, Italo Calvino) and also in
a context of other forms of digital literary experimentation (collaborative projects and
computer-generated writing), this thesis aims to, on a diachronic level, reincorporate
hypertext fiction into an evolutionary (though radical) literary tradition and examines the
manner in which concepts which originated in this tradition have been taken over often
very literally and without much redefinition. On the a-historical, synchronic level, this study
explores some of the possible formats for literature in the new electronic textual media:
hypertext fiction, collaborative writing projects, computer-generated writing and the
different challenges these present to our understanding ofliterature.
After an introduction in Chapter 1, Chapter 2 and 3 discuss two of the keywords of
hypertext theory, its "grand narratives' (non-linearity and interactivity) and the
appropriation of the terminology to hypertext theory and to hypertext fiction. Chapter 4
and 5 will look at alternative, though related, approaches to electronic fiction: Chapter 4 will
examine aspects of collaborative writing in both a print and a digital environment while
computer-generated writing stands at the centre of Chapter 5
The view from the backbench : Irish Nationalist MPs and their work, 1910-1914
No full textAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:DXN065144 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreSIGLEGBUnited Kingdo
Prospective longitudinal associations between persistent sleep problems in childhood and anxiety and depression disorders in adulthood
No full textThe objective of this study was to examine the associations between persistent childhood sleep problems and adulthood anxiety and depression. Parents of 943 children (52% male) participating in the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study provided information on their children’s sleep and internalizing problems at ages 5, 7, and 9 years. When the participants were 21 and 26 years, adult anxiety and depression were diagnosed using a standardized diagnostic interview. After controlling for childhood internalizing problems, sex, and socioeconomic status, persistent sleep problems in childhood predicted adulthood anxiety disorders (OR (95% CI) = 1.60 (1.05– 2.45), p = .030) but not depressive disorders (OR (95% CI) = .99 (.63–1.56), p = .959). Persistent sleep problems in childhood may be an early risk indicator of anxiety in adulthood
A biopsychosocial model of diabetes self-management: mediators and moderators
No full textDiabetes mellitus (diabetes), an endocrine disorder, is in epidemic proportions globally, threatening the well being of people affected and challenging health care systems. In the main, diabetes warrants adjustments to lifestyle and therapeutic interventions simply to self-manage the condition. Research in self-management of diabetes has targeted socio-cognitive theory and espoused self-efficacy as the main driver of self-management. More recently, self-regulatory theory has focused on illness representations and argued they are the force underpinning goal directed behaviours. Research to-date has tended to adopt one or other of the prevailing theoretical models to the exclusion of key concepts in other explanatory health behaviour models. Studies are lacking in demonstrating a comprehensive exploration of the interrelationships between self-regulatory skills inherent in self-management, illness representations and self-efficacy with other potential health behaviour determinants. In this thesis, it was postulated that an integrated biopsychosocial model of self-management was warranted to account for the complexities of human understanding and interactions within a naturalistic setting.
The purpose of this dissertation was to develop and substantiate a conceptual model of diabetes self-management integrating key concepts from health behaviour theories within a structure of four broad determinants of health behaviour, which were: personal traits, diabetes traits, socio-environmental factors and health contextual factors. Specifically, determinants associated with diabetes self-management behaviours and the predictors for its success for those with type 1 and type 2 diabetes was sought. In order to substantiate the proposed integrated model a cross-sectional design, using quantitative survey methodology, was undertaken. Structural equation modelling allowed interrelationships in the integrated model to be explored simultaneously and advanced model testing thus far in the field. The study involved males (n = 504) and females (n = 519), aged over 18 years (M = 63.90, SD = 13.89) who had a diagnosis of either type 1 or type 2 diabetes and who resided in Western Australia.
Model testing substantiated the integrated biopsychosocial model proposed and was relatively parsimonious, making the application of the findings to a clinical setting possible. Key predictors for both types of diabetes were: self-efficacy, diabetes distress, diabetes traits, self-determination support by health care professionals and to some extent age of the person with diabetes. In addition, locus of control by doctors was important for type 2 diabetes and marital status and socio-economic status for type 1 diabetes. The presence of emotional distress had a negative effect on interrelated factors, emphasising the criticality of its assessment and management by health professionals if self-management is to be achieved. Illness representations had low or minimal predictive power, refuting claims that it is responsible for the initiation of goal directed behaviours.
The integrated model, a first of its kind in the Australian context, contributes to existing knowledge in diabetes self-management through its attention to contextualising the self-regulatory individual within their personal, social and health environment. In particular it makes explicit the distinguishing integrated predictors for type 1 and type 2 diabetes previously unknown in the adult population. Through the understanding of predictors, the health sector is better placed to target predictors in supporting self-management
Why without pay? Intrinsic motivation in unpaid labour supply
No full textEconomic theory explains the supply of volunteering alternatively as an ordinary consumer good or an investment one. This paper provides a simultaneous approach considering both the objectives, by using the psychological distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic motivations, in order to reconcile conflicting results reported in the literature. According to the simultaneity approach, the paper develops a theoretical model of unpaid labour supply within an agent’s two-period utility maximization problem, taking into account the role of psychological motivation. The theoretical findings are tested with a sample selection model for Italy, by using 1997 Multipurpose Households Survey on everyday life issues of Istat. Robustness analysis and endogeneity test for intrinsic motivation are also performed. Empirical analysis rejects the hypothesis that only a consumption or investment motive could explain Italian volunteers’ behaviour, supporting the hypothesis that both motives interact in shaping regular unpaid labour supply, with a stronger impact of consumption motives. The relevant variables for frequently supplied unpaid labour are intrinsic motivation, age, household income, family responsibilities and activity sector.Intrinsic motivation, investment and consumption motives, volunteering.
