The hydrodynamic and capture/retention performance of a gross pollutant trap

This research shows that gross pollutant traps (GPTs) continue to play an important role in preventing visible street waste—gross pollutants—from contaminating the environment. The demand for these GPTs calls for stringent quality control and this research provides a foundation to rigorously examine the devices. A novel and comprehensive testing approach to examine a dry sump GPT was developed. The GPT is designed with internal screens to capture gross pollutants—organic matter and anthropogenic litter. This device has not been previously investigated. Apart from the review of GPTs and gross pollutant data, the testing approach includes four additional aspects to this research, which are: field work and an historical overview of street waste/stormwater pollution, calibration of equipment, hydrodynamic studies and gross pollutant capture/retention investigations. This work is the first comprehensive investigation of its kind and provides valuable practical information for the current research and any future work pertaining to the operations of GPTs and management of street waste in the urban environment. Gross pollutant traps—including patented and registered designs developed by industry—have specific internal configurations and hydrodynamic separation characteristics which demand individual testing and performance assessments. Stormwater devices are usually evaluated by environmental protection agencies (EPAs), professional bodies and water research centres. In the USA, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and the Environmental Water Resource Institute (EWRI) are examples of professional and research organisations actively involved in these evaluation/verification programs. These programs largely rely on field evaluations alone that are limited in scope, mainly for cost and logistical reasons. In Australia, evaluation/verification programs of new devices in the stormwater industry are not well established. The current limitations in the evaluation methodologies of GPTs have been addressed in this research by establishing a new testing approach. This approach uses a combination of physical and theoretical models to examine in detail the hydrodynamic and capture/retention characteristics of the GPT. The physical model consisted of a 50% scale model GPT rig with screen blockages varying from 0 to 100%. This rig was placed in a 20 m flume and various inlet and outflow operating conditions were modelled on observations made during the field monitoring of GPTs. Due to infrequent cleaning, the retaining screens inside the GPTs were often observed to be blocked with organic matter. Blocked screens can radically change the hydrodynamic and gross pollutant capture/retention characteristics of a GPT as shown from this research. This research involved the use of equipment, such as acoustic Doppler velocimeters (ADVs) and dye concentration (Komori) probes, which were deployed for the first time in a dry sump GPT. Hence, it was necessary to rigorously evaluate the capability and performance of these devices, particularly in the case of the custom made Komori probes, about which little was known. The evaluation revealed that the Komori probes have a frequency response of up to 100 Hz —which is dependent upon fluid velocities—and this was adequate to measure the relevant fluctuations of dye introduced into the GPT flow domain. The outcome of this evaluation resulted in establishing methodologies for the hydrodynamic measurements and gross pollutant capture/retention experiments. The hydrodynamic measurements consisted of point-based acoustic Doppler velocimeter (ADV) measurements, flow field particle image velocimetry (PIV) capture, head loss experiments and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation. The gross pollutant capture/retention experiments included the use of anthropogenic litter components, tracer dye and custom modified artificial gross pollutants. Anthropogenic litter was limited to tin cans, bottle caps and plastic bags, while the artificial pollutants consisted of 40 mm spheres with a range of four buoyancies. The hydrodynamic results led to the definition of global and local flow features. The gross pollutant capture/retention results showed that when the internal retaining screens are fully blocked, the capture/retention performance of the GPT rapidly deteriorates. The overall results showed that the GPT will operate efficiently until at least 70% of the screens are blocked, particularly at high flow rates. This important finding indicates that cleaning operations could be more effectively planned when the GPT capture/retention performance deteriorates. At lower flow rates, the capture/retention performance trends were reversed. There is little difference in the poor capture/retention performance between a fully blocked GPT and a partially filled or empty GPT with 100% screen blockages. The results also revealed that the GPT is designed with an efficient high flow bypass system to avoid upstream blockages. The capture/retention performance of the GPT at medium to high inlet flow rates is close to maximum efficiency (100%). With regard to the design appraisal of the GPT, a raised inlet offers a better capture/retention performance, particularly at lower flow rates. Further design appraisals of the GPT are recommended.

Codes of conduct for mobile device use in meetings : an exploratory analysis

The present paper addresses the findings of a preliminary investigation into policy and codes of conduct pertaining to the use of laptops and PDA’s in business meetings. The purpose of this study was to conduct a review of policies or codes of conduct pertaining to the use of laptops and PDAs in meetings. The investigation included academic literature, policy searches in the public domain of the Internet, as well as personal contact with target industries (large corporations – N=1000 + employees). The results highlight the dearth of policy and codes of conducts pertaining to the use of laptops and PDA’s in business meetings. Consequently, given the growing interdependence between mobile technologies and the contemporary workplace, there exists an opportunity for communication professionals to further research and develop policy and codes of conduct in this area. Implications for corporate communication policies and practices are also discussed.

Script proposals: a device for empowering clients in counselling

Much of the research on the delivery of advice by professionals such as physicians, health workers and counsellors, both on the telephone and in face to face interaction more generally, has focused on the theme of client resistance and the consequent need for professionals to adopt particular formats to assist in the uptake of the advice. In this paper we consider one setting, Kid’s Helpline, the national Australian counselling service for children and young people, where there is an institutional mandate not to give explicit advice in accordance with the values of self-direction and empowerment. The paper examines one practice, the use of script proposals by counsellors, which appears to offer a way of providing support which is consistent with these values. Script proposals entail the counsellors packaging their advice as something that the caller might say – at some future time – to a third party such as a friend, teacher, parent, or partner, and involve the counsellor adopting the speaking position of the caller in what appears as a rehearsal of a forthcoming strip of interaction. Although the core feature of a script proposal is the counsellor’s use of direct reported speech they appear to be delivered, not so much as exact words to be followed, but as the type of conversation that the client needs to have with the 3rd party. Script proposals, in short, provide models of what to say as well as alluding to how these could be emulated by the client. In their design script proposals invariably incorporate one or more of the most common rhetorical formats for maximising the persuasive force of an utterance such as a three part list or a contrastive pair. Script proposals, moreover, stand in a complex relation to the prior talk and one of their functions appears to be to summarise, respecify or expand upon the client’s own ideas or suggestions for problem solving that have emerged in these preceding sequences.

Mechanical evaluation of a new minimally invasive device for stabilization of proximal humeral fractures in elderly patients : a cadaver study

BACKGROUND: Treatment of proximal humerus fractures in elderly patients is challenging because of reduced bone quality. We determined the in vitro characteristics of a new implant developed to target the remaining bone stock, and compared it with an implant in clinical use. METHODS: Following osteotomy, left and right humeral pairs from cadavers were treated with either the Button-Fix or the Humerusblock fixation system. Implant stiffness was determined for three clinically relevant cases of load: axial compression, torsion, and varus bending. In addition, a cyclic varus-bending test was performed. RESULTS: We found higher stiffness values for the humeri treated with the ButtonFix system--with almost a doubling of the compression, torsion, and bending stiffness values. Under dynamic loading, the ButtonFix system had superior stiffness and less K-wire migration compared to the Humerusblock system. INTERPRETATION: When compared to the Humerusblock design, the ButtonFix system showed superior biomechanical properties, both static and dynamic. It offers a minimally invasive alternative for the treatment of proximal humerus fractures.

Physicality in the Information Age : a normative perspective on the patent eligibility of non-physical methods

There has been much conjecture of late as to whether the patentable subject matter standard contains a physicality requirement. The issue came to a head when the Federal Circuit introduced the machine-or-transformation test in In re Bilski and declared it to be the sole test for determining subject matter eligibility. Many commentators criticized the test, arguing that it is inconsistent with Supreme Court precedent and the need for the patent system to respond appropriately to all new and useful innovation in whatever form it arises. Those criticisms were vindicated when, on appeal, the Supreme Court in Bilski v. Kappos dispensed with any suggestion that the patentable subject matter test involves a physicality requirement. In this article, the issue is addressed from a normative perspective: it asks whether the patentable subject matter test should contain a physicality requirement. The conclusion reached is that it should not, because such a limitation is not an appropriate means of encouraging much of the valuable innovation we are likely to witness during the Information Age. It is contended that it is not only traditionally-recognized mechanical, chemical and industrial manufacturing processes that are patent eligible, but that patent eligibility extends to include non-machine implemented and non-physical methods that do not have any connection with a physical device and do not cause a physical transformation of matter. Concerns raised that there is a trend of overreaching commoditization or propertization, where the boundaries of patent law have been expanded too far, are unfounded since the strictures of novelty, nonobviousness and sufficiency of description will exclude undeserving subject matter from patentability. The argument made is that introducing a physicality requirement will have unintended adverse effects in various fields of technology, particularly those emerging technologies that are likely to have a profound social effect in the future.

Real-time evaluation of driver’s alertness on highways

Suburbanisation has been internationally a major phenomenon in the last decades. Suburb-to-suburb routes are nowadays the most widespread road journeys; and this resulted in an increment of distances travelled, particularly on faster suburban highways. The design of highways tends to over-simplify the driving task and this can result in decreased alertness. Driving behaviour is consequently impaired and drivers are then more likely to be involved in road crashes. This is particularly dangerous on highways where the speed limit is high. While effective countermeasures to this decrement in alertness do not currently exist, the development of in-vehicle sensors opens avenues for monitoring driving behaviour in real-time. The aim of this study is to evaluate in real-time the level of alertness of the driver through surrogate measures that can be collected from in-vehicle sensors. Slow EEG activity is used as a reference to evaluate driver's alertness. Data are collected in a driving simulator instrumented with an eye tracking system, a heart rate monitor and an electrodermal activity device (N=25 participants). Four different types of highways (driving scenario of 40 minutes each) are implemented through the variation of the road design (amount of curves and hills) and the roadside environment (amount of buildings and traffic). We show with Neural Networks that reduced alertness can be detected in real-time with an accuracy of 92% using lane positioning, steering wheel movement, head rotation, blink frequency, heart rate variability and skin conductance level. Such results show that it is possible to assess driver's alertness with surrogate measures. Such methodology could be used to warn drivers of their alertness level through the development of an in-vehicle device monitoring in real-time drivers' behaviour on highways, and therefore it could result in improved road safety.

Application of an optimisation algorithm to configure an internal fixation device

Fractures of long bones are sometimes treated using various types of fracture fixation devices including internal plate fixators. These are specialised plates which are used to bridge the fracture gap(s) whilst anatomically aligning the bone fragments. The plate is secured in position by screws. The aim of such a device is to support and promote the natural healing of the bone. When using an internal fixation device, it is necessary for the clinician to decide upon many parameters, for example, the type of plate and where to position it; how many and where to position the screws. While there have been a number of experimental and computational studies conducted regarding the configuration of screws in the literature, there is still inadequate information available concerning the influence of screw configuration on fracture healing. Because screw configuration influences the amount of flexibility at the area of fracture, it has a direct influence on the fracture healing process. Therefore, it is important that the chosen screw configuration does not inhibit the healing process. In addition to the impact on the fracture healing process, screw configuration plays an important role in the distribution of stresses in the plate due to the applied loads. A plate that experiences high stresses is prone to early failure. Hence, the screw configuration used should not encourage the occurrence of high stresses. This project develops a computational program in Fortran programming language to perform mathematical optimisation to determine the screw configuration of an internal fixation device within constraints of interfragmentary movement by minimising the corresponding stress in the plate. Thus, the optimal solution suggests the positioning and number of screws which satisfies the predefined constraints of interfragmentary movements. For a set of screw configurations the interfragmentary displacement and the stress occurring in the plate were calculated by the Finite Element Method. The screw configurations were iteratively changed and each time the corresponding interfragmentary displacements were compared with predefined constraints. Additionally, the corresponding stress was compared with the previously calculated stress value to determine if there was a reduction. These processes were continued until an optimal solution was achieved. The optimisation program has been shown to successfully predict the optimal screw configuration in two cases. The first case was a simplified bone construct whereby the screw configuration solution was comparable with those recommended in biomechanical literature. The second case was a femoral construct, of which the resultant screw configuration was shown to be similar to those used in clinical cases. The optimisation method and programming developed in this study has shown that it has potential to be used for further investigations with the improvement of optimisation criteria and the efficiency of the program.

A cell migration device that maintains a defined surface with no cellular damage during wound edge generation

Studying the rate of cell migration provides insight into fundamental cell biology as well as a tool to assess the functionality of synthetic surfaces and soluble environments used in tissue engineering. The traditional tools used to study cell migration include the fence and wound healing assays. In this paper we describe the development of a microchannel based device for the study of cell migration on defined surfaces. We demonstrate that this device provides a superior tool, relative to the previously mentioned assays, for assessing the propagation rate of cell wave fronts. The significant advantage provided by this technology is the ability to maintain a virgin surface prior to the commencement of the cell migration assay. Here, the device is used to assess rates of mouse fibroblasts (NIH 3T3) and human osteosarcoma (SaOS2) cell migration on surfaces functionalized with various extracellular matrix proteins as a demonstration that confining cell migration within a microchannel produces consistent and robust data. The device design enables rapid and simplistic assessment of multiple repeats on a single chip, where surfaces have not been previously exposed to cells or cellular secretions.

Long term survival following the detection of circulating tumour cells in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma

Background Techniques for detecting circulating tumor cells in the peripheral blood of patients with head and neck cancers may identify individuals likely to benefit from early systemic treatment. Methods Reconstruction experiments were used to optimise immunomagnetic enrichment and RT-PCR detection of circulating tumor cells using four markers (ELF3, CK19, EGFR and EphB4). This method was then tested in a pilot study using samples from 16 patients with advanced head and neck carcinomas. Results Seven patients were positive for circulating tumour cells both prior to and after surgery, 4 patients were positive prior to but not after surgery, 3 patients were positive after but not prior to surgery and 2 patients were negative. Two patients tested positive for circulating cells but there was no other evidence of tumor spread. Given this patient cohort had mostly advanced disease, as expected the detection of circulating tumour cells was not associated with significant differences in overall or disease free survival. Conclusion For the first time, we show that almost all patients with advanced head and neck cancers have circulating cells at the time of surgery. The clinical application of techniques for detection of spreading disease, such as the immunomagnetic enrichment RT-PCR analysis used in this study, should be explored further.