Modelling the exothermic heat and the demand of cooling in paper and pulp industry biological wastewater treatment

This master thesis presents a study on the requisite cooling of an activated sludge process in paper and pulp industry. The energy consumption of paper and pulp industry and it’s wastewater treatment plant in particular is relatively high. It is therefore useful to understand the wastewater treatment process of such industries. The activated sludge process is a biological mechanism which degrades carbonaceous compounds that are present in waste. The modified activated sludge model constructed here aims to imitate the bio-kinetics of an activated sludge process. However, due to the complicated non-linear behavior of the biological process, modelling this system is laborious and intriguing. We attempt to find a system solution first using steady-state modelling of Activated Sludge Model number 1 (ASM1), approached by Euler’s method and an ordinary differential equation solver. Furthermore, an enthalpy study of paper and pulp industry’s vital pollutants was carried out and applied to revise the temperature shift over a period of time to formulate the operation of cooling water. This finding will lead to a forecast of the plant process execution in a cost-effective manner and management of effluent efficiency. The final stage of the thesis was achieved by optimizing the steady state of ASM1.

Opportunity meets uncertainty. Towards sustainable business in the Arctic region

The Arctic region is experiencing a significant change in terms of climate change and a growing economic interest towards its natural resources and emerging business opportunities. The purpose of this study is to explore how can Finnish companies create sustainable business in the Arctic. This is done by examining the arctic business environment, identifying sectors with growth potential, addressing challenges related to operating in the Arctic and suggesting how to ensure sustainability and succeed in the globally competed arctic market. The theoretical framework is based on theories of sustainable development, corporate social responsibility and the role of strategy in creating sustainable business. Empirical data was collected by using qualitative research methods: first, background knowledge was formed based on written documents and, secondly, six expert interviews were conducted in early 2014. The interviewees represented the viewpoints of companies, political decision makers and NGO’s. The analysis of the data was conducted using thematic categorization. The empirical findings of the study suggest that in order to create sustainable business in the Arctic companies should adopt a long-term perspective, embrace a holistic approach to sustainability, understand interdependencies between the dimensions of sustainability and aim at high-level engagement in responsible behavior. To succeed in the arctic market core competencies, customer needs, multivendor cooperation and long-term presence need to be invested in on a company level. In addition, to promote and advance arctic development on a national level support is needed in terms of investments in infrastructure, funding research and design, creating a regulative framework and removing barriers of trade.

Mr Judge qui a demandé la libération de Mr [Mac Swiney, lord-maire de] Cork : [photographie de presse] / [Agence Rol]

Référence bibliographique : Rol, 60750

School funding and education policy-making models in Ontario /

The purpose of this thesis is to examine various policy implementation models, and to determine what use they are to a government. In order to insure that governmental proposals are created and exercised in an effective manner, there roust be some guidelines in place which will assist in resolving difficult situations. All governments face the challenge of responding to public demand, by delivering the type of policy responses that will attempt to answer those demands. The problem for those people in positions of policy-making responsibility is to balance the competitive forces that would influence policy. This thesis examines provincial government policy in two unique cases. The first is the revolutionary recommendations brought forth in the Hall -Dennis Report. The second is the question of extending full -funding to the end of high school in the separate school system. These two cases illustrate how divergent and problematic the policy-making duties of any government may be. In order to respond to these political challenges decision-makers must have a clear understanding of what they are attempting to do. They must also have an assortment of policy-making models that will insure a policy response effectively deals with the issue under examination. A government must make every effort to insure that all policymaking methods are considered, and that the data gathered is inserted into the most appropriate model. Currently, there is considerable debate over the benefits of the progressive individualistic education approach as proposed by the Hall -Dennis Committee. This debate is usually intensified during periods of economic uncertainty. Periodically, the province will also experience brief yet equally intense debate on the question of separate school funding. At one level, this debate centres around the efficiency of maintaining two parallel education systems, but the debate frequently has undertones of the religious animosity common in Ontario's history. As a result of the two policy cases under study we may ask ourselves these questions: a) did the policies in question improve the general quality of life in the province? and b) did the policies unite the province? In the cases of educational instruction and finance the debate is ongoing and unsettling. Currently, there is a widespread belief that provincial students at the elementary and secondary levels of education are not being educated adequately to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century. The perceived culprit is individual education which sees students progressing through the system at their own pace and not meeting adequate education standards. The question of the finance of Catholic education occasionally rears its head in a painful fashion within the province. Some public school supporters tend to take extension as a personal religious defeat, rather than an opportunity to demonstrate that educational diversity can be accommodated within Canada's most populated province. This thesis is an attempt to analyze how successful provincial policy-implementation models were in answering public demand. A majority of the public did not demand additional separate school funding, yet it was put into place. The same majority did insist on an examination of educational methods, and the government did put changes in place. It will also demonstrate how policy if wisely created may spread additional benefits to the public at large. Catholic students currently enjoy a much improved financial contribution from the province, yet these additional funds were taken from somewhere. The public system had it funds reduced with what would appear to be minimal impact. This impact indicates that government policy is still sensitive to the strongly held convictions of those people in opposition to a given policy.

Scales, networks and uncertainty : an examination of environmental policy-making in Ontario

Through a case-study analysis of Ontario's ethanol policy, this thesis addresses a number of themes that are consequential to policy and policy-making: spatiality, democracy and uncertainty. First, I address the 'spatial debate' in Geography pertaining to the relevance and affordances of a 'scalar' versus a 'flat' ontoepistemology. I argue that policy is guided by prior arrangements, but is by no means inevitable or predetermined. As such, scale and network are pragmatic geographical concepts that can effectively address the issue of the spatiality of policy and policy-making. Second, I discuss the democratic nature of policy-making in Ontario through an examination of the spaces of engagement that facilitate deliberative democracy. I analyze to what extent these spaces fit into Ontario's environmental policy-making process, and to what extent they were used by various stakeholders. Last, I take seriously the fact that uncertainty and unavoidable injustice are central to policy, and examine the ways in which this uncertainty shaped the specifics of Ontario's ethanol policy. Ultimately, this thesis is an exercise in understanding sub-national environmental policy-making in Canada, with an emphasis on how policy-makers tackle the issues they are faced with in the context of environmental change, political-economic integration, local priorities, individual goals, and irreducible uncertainty.

How health organizations can apply scenario based planning and analytic technologies to make strategic consequential decisions in a time of uncertainty

The magnitude of the cervical cancer problem, coupled with the potential for prevention with recent technological advances, made it imperative to step back and reassess strategic options for dealing with cervical cancer screening in Kenya. The purpose of this qualitative study was: 1) to explore the extent to which the Participatory Action Research (PAR) methodology and the Scenario Based Planning (SBP) method, with the application of analytics, could enable strategic, consequential, informed decision making, and 2) to determine how influential Kenyan decision makers could apply SBP with analytic tools and techniques to make strategic, consequential decisions regarding the implementation of a Cervical Self Sampling Program (CSSP) in both urban and rural settings. The theoretical paradigm for this study was action research; it was experiential, practical, and action oriented, and resulted in co-created knowledge that influenced study participants’ decision making. Action Africa Help International (AAHI) and Brock University collaborated with Local Decision Influencing Participants (LDIP’s) to develop innovative strategies on how to implement the CSSP. SBP tools, along with traditional approaches to data collection and analysis, were applied to collect, visualize and analyze predominately qualitative data. Outputs from the study included: a) a generic implementation scenario for a CSSP (along with scenarios unique to urban and rural settings), and b) 10 strategic directions and 22 supporting implementation strategies that address the variables of: 1) technical viability, 2) political support, 3) affordability, 4) logistical feasibility, 5) social acceptability, and 6) transformation/sustainability. In addition, study participants’ capacity to effectively engage in predictive/prescriptive strategic decision making was strengthened.

(A) Photoregulation of DNA Functions by Cyclic Azobenzene-tethered Oligonucleotides (B) Site-specific Fluorescent Labeling of DNA using Inverse Electron Demand Diels-Alder Reaction between trans-Cyclooctene Derivatives and BODIPY-Tetrazine Adducts

(A) Most azobenzene-based photoswitches require UV light for photoisomerization, which limit their applications in biological systems due to possible photodamage. Cyclic azobenzene derivatives, on the other hand, can undergo cis-trans isomerization when exposed to visible light. A shortened synthetic scheme was developed for the preparation of a building block containing cyclic azobenzene and D-threoninol (cAB-Thr). trans-Cyclic azobenzene was found to thermally isomerize back to the cis-form in a temperature-dependent manner. cAB-Thr was transformed into the corresponding phosphoramidite and subsequently incorporated into oligonucleotides by solid phase synthesis. Melting temperature measurement suggested that incorporation of cis-cAB into oligonucleotides destabilizes DNA duplexes, these findings corroborate with circular dichroism measurement. Finally, Fluorescent Energy Resonance Transfer experiments indicated that trans-cAB can be accommodated in DNA duplexes. (B) Inverse Electron Demand Diels-Alder reactions (IEDDA) between trans-olefins and tetrazines provide a powerful alternative to existing ligation chemistries due to its fast reaction rate, bioorthogonality and mutual orthogonality with other click reactions. In this project, an attempt was pursued to synthesize trans-cyclooctene building blocks for oligonucleotide labeling by reacting with BODIPY-tetrazine. Rel-(1R-4E-pR)-cyclooct-4-enol and rel-(1R,8S,9S,4E)-Bicyclo[6.1.0]non-4-ene-9-ylmethanol were synthesized and then transformed into the corresponding propargyl ether. Subsequent Sonogashira reactions between these propargylated compounds with DMT-protected 5-iododeoxyuridine failed to give the desired products. Finally a methodology was pursued for the synthesis of BODIPY-tetrazine conjugates that will be used in future IEDDA reactions with trans-cyclooctene modified oligonucleotides.

Méthode pour l'exercise de l'Heure Sainte demandé par N.S. a la Bienheureuse Marguerite-Marie.

UANL

A Theory of Random Consumer Demand

This paper presents a new theory of random consumer demand. The primitive is a collection of probability distributions, rather than a binary preference. Various assumptions constrain these distributions, including analogues of common assumptions about preferences such as transitivity, monotonicity and convexity. Two results establish a complete representation of theoretically consistent random demand. The purpose of this theory of random consumer demand is application to empirical consumer demand problems. To this end, the theory has several desirable properties. It is intrinsically stochastic, so the econometrician can apply it directly without adding extrinsic randomness in the form of residuals. Random demand is parsimoniously represented by a single function on the consumption set. Finally, we have a practical method for statistical inference based on the theory, described in McCausland (2004), a companion paper.

Relative Uncertainty and Additively Representable Set Rankings

This paper proposes a definition of relative uncertainty aversion for decision models under complete uncertainty. It is shown that, for a large class of decision rules characterized by a set of plausible axioms, the new criterion yields a complete ranking of those rules with respect to the relative degree of uncertainty aversion they represent. In addition, we address a combinatorial question that arises in this context, and we examine conditions for the additive representability of our rules.

ITEM : An Integrated Transport Economy Model - Price Elasticities of Freight Transport Demand in Canada : Three Canadian Markets and Four Commodities.

Rapport de recherche