The Methods of Possible Joint Treatment of Manure and Sewage Sludge in the Leningrad Region

The nutrient load to the Gulf of Finland has started to increase as a result of the strong economic recovery in agriculture and livestock farming in the Leningrad region. Also sludge produced from municipal wastewater treatment plant of the Leningrad region causes the great impact on the environment, but still the main options for its treatment is disposal on the sludge beds or Landfills. The aim of this study was to evaluate the implementation of possible joint treatment methods of manure form livestock and poultry enterprises and sewage sludge produced from municipal wastewater treatment plants in the Leningrad region. The study is based on published data. The most attention was put on the anaerobic digestion and incineration methods. The manure and sewage sludge generation for the whole Leningrad region and energy potential produced from their treatment were estimated. The calculations showed that total amount of sewage sludge generation is 1 348 000 t/a calculated on wet matter and manure generation is 3 445 000 t/a calculated on wet matter. The potential heat release from anaerobic digestion process and incineration process is 4 880 000 GJ/a and 5 950 000 GJ/a, respectively. Furthermore, the work gives the overview of the general Russian and Finnish legislation concerning manure and sewage sludge treatment. In the Gatchina district it was chosen the WWTP and livestock and poultry enterprises for evaluation of the centralized treatment plant implementation based on anaerobic digestion and incineration methods. The electricity and heat power of plant based on biogas combustion process is 4.3 MW and 7.8 MW, respectively. The electricity and heat power of plant based on manure and sewage sludge incineration process is 3.0 MW and 6.1 MW, respectively.

Stability constants and thermodynamic parameters of cadmium complexes with sulfonamides and cephapirin

Stability constant (log beta) and thermodynamic parameters of Cd2+ complexes with sulfonamide and cephapirin were determined by Polarographic technique at pH = 7.30 ± 0.01 and µ = 1.0 M KNO3 at 250°C. The sulfonamides were sulfadiazine, sulfisoxazole, sulfamethaxazole, sulfamethazine, sulfathiazole, sulfacetamide and sulfanilamide used as primary ligands and cephapirin as secondary ligand. Cd2+ formed 1:1:1, 1:2:1 and 1:1:2 complexes. The nature of electrode processes were reversible and diffusion controlled. The stability constants and thermodynamic parameters (deltaG, deltaH and deltaS) were determined. The formation of the metal complexes has been found to be spontaneous, exothermic in nature, and entropically unfavourable at higher temperature.

Developing co-operation of business units – exploring synergies and a joint business model

The purpose of this study was to develop co-operation between business units of the company operating in graphic industry. The development was done by searching synergy opportunities between these business units. The final aim was to form a business model, which is based on co-operation of these business units.The literature review of this thesis examines synergies and especially the process concerning the search and implementation of synergies. Also the concept of business model and its components are examined. The research was done by using qualitative research method. The main data acquiring method to the empirical part was theme interviews. The data was analyzed using thematisation and content analysis.The results of the study include seven identified possible synergies and a business model, which is based on the co-operation of the business units. The synergy opportunities are evaluated and the implementation order of the synergies is suggested. The presented synergies create the base for the proposed business model.

Thermal stability and thermal decomposition of sucralose

Several papers have been described on the thermal stability of the sweetener, C12H19Cl3O8 (Sucralose). Nevertheless no study using thermoanalytical techniques was found in the literature. Simultaneous thermogravimetry and differential thermal analysis (TG-DTA), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and infrared spectroscopy, have been used to study the thermal stability and thermal decomposition of sweetener.

Analysis and Control of Excitation, Field Weakening and Stability in Direct Torque Controlled Electrically Excited Synchronous Motor Drives

Direct torque control (DTC) is a new control method for rotating field electrical machines. DTC controls directly the motor stator flux linkage with the stator voltage, and no stator current controllers are used. With the DTC method very good torque dynamics can be achieved. Until now, DTC has been applied to asynchronous motor drives. The purpose of this work is to analyse the applicability of DTC to electrically excited synchronous motor drives. Compared with asynchronous motor drives, electrically excited synchronous motor drives require an additional control for the rotor field current. The field current control is called excitation control in this study. The dependence of the static and dynamic performance of DTC synchronous motor drives on the excitation control has been analysed and a straightforward excitation control method has been developed and tested. In the field weakening range the stator flux linkage modulus must be reduced in order to keep the electro motive force of the synchronous motor smaller than the stator voltage and in order to maintain a sufficient voltage reserve. The dynamic performance of the DTC synchronous motor drive depends on the stator flux linkage modulus. Another important factor for the dynamic performance in the field weakening range is the excitation control. The field weakening analysis considers both dependencies. A modified excitation control method, which maximises the dynamic performance in the field weakening range, has been developed. In synchronous motor drives the load angle must be kept in a stabile working area in order to avoid loss of synchronism. The traditional vector control methods allow to adjust the load angle of the synchronous motor directly by the stator current control. In the DTC synchronous motor drive the load angle is not a directly controllable variable, but it is formed freely according to the motor’s electromagnetic state and load. The load angle can be limited indirectly by limiting the torque reference. This method is however parameter sensitive and requires a safety margin between the theoretical torque maximum and the actual torque limit. The DTC modulation principle allows however a direct load angle adjustment without any current control. In this work a direct load angle control method has been developed. The method keeps the drive stabile and allows the maximal utilisation of the drive without a safety margin in the torque limitation.

Stability of Citrus tristeza virus protective isolate 'Pêra IAC' according to SSCP analysis of old and new lines of three sweet orange varieties

Clonal cleaning, followed by pre-immunization with protective complexes of Citrus tristeza virus(CTV), allowed the commercial cultivation of Pêra sweet orange, a variety that has great importance for Brazilian citriculture but is sensitive to the virus. The use of mild protective isolates in other citrus varieties, even those more tolerant to CTV, can also be of interest to prevent the spread of severe isolates. The aim of this study was to characterize, by means of SSCP (Single Strand Conformational Polymorphism) analysis of the coat protein gene, CTV isolates present in plants of the sweet orange cultivars Pêra, Hamlin and Valencia propagated from four budwood sources: 1) old lines, 2) nucellar lines, 3) shoot-tip-grafted lines, and 4) shoot-tip-grafted lines pre-immunized with the mild CTV protective isolate 'PIAC'. We also evaluated the correlation of the obtained SSCP patterns to stem pitting intensity, tree vigor and fruit yield. SSCP results showed low genetic diversity among the isolates present in different trees of the same variety and same budwood source and, in some cases, in different budwood sources and varieties. Considering tristeza symptoms, lower intensity was noted for plants of new, shoot-tip-grafted and pre-immunized shoot-tip-grafted lines, compared to old lines of the three varieties. The observed SSCP patterns and symptomatology suggested that more severe CTV complexes infect the plants of old lines of all three varieties. The protective complex stability was observed in the SSCP patterns of CTV isolates of some shoot-tip-grafted and pre-immunized clones. It was concluded that the changes detected in other electrophoretic profiles of this treatment did not cause loss of the protective capacity of CTV isolate 'PIAC' inoculated in the pre-immunization.

The effect of wood supply and bleaching process on pulp brightness stability

One hundred different 5.5-year-old Eucalyptus grandis x Eucalyptus urophylla wood clones were cooked to kappa number 15-17.5 and the resulting kraft pulps oxygen-delignified to kappa 9.5-11.5 under fixed conditions, except for chemical charges. Thirteen samples showing large variations in effective alkali requirement, pulp yield and O-stage efficiency and selectivity were selected for brightness reversion studies. These samples were bleached to 90-91% ISO by DEDD and DEDP sequences and their brightness stability and chemical characteristics determined. Heat reversion of the eucalyptus kraft pulps was strongly influenced by the wood supply, with brightness loss varying in the range of 2.1-3.6 and 0.8-1.7 %ISO for ODEDD and ODEDP bleached pulps, respectively. Pulps bleached by the ODEDP sequence showed reversion values 1.3-1.9 % ISO lower than those bleached by the ODEDD sequence. Pulp carbonyl content decreased by 35-40% during the final peroxide bleaching stage. Carbonyl and carboxyl groups correlated positively with brightness reversion, as did permanganate number and acid soluble lignin. Pulp final viscosity and metal and DCM extractives contents showed no significant correlation with brightness reversion. Pulping, oxygen delignification and ECF bleaching performances also showed no correlation with brightness reversion.

Viipurinlahden taistelu 1944 joint-operaation näkökulmasta tarkasteltuna

Viipurinlahden taistelun kesällä 1944 on monesti esitetty olevan ensimmäinen suomalainen joint- eli yhteisoperaatio. Työ käsittelee Viipurinlahden taistelua nykyaikaisen jointoperaation periaatteiden näkökulmasta. Viipurinlahden taistelussa toimi kaikkien kolmen puolustushaaran joukkoja pienellä taistelualueella. Joint-käsitettä tarkastellaan yhdysvaltalaisten ohjesääntöjen ja suomalaisten näkemysten kautta. Yhdysvallat on yksi maailman johtavin joint-doktriinin käyttäjä. Tämän vuoksi joint-käsitettä tarkastellaan työssä pääasiassa Yhdysvaltojen ohjesääntöjen ja niihin perustuvan tiedon kautta.

Pluripotency and genetic stability of human pluripotent stem cells

Pluripotent cells have the potential to differentiate into all somatic cell types. As the adult human body is unable to regenerate various tissues, pluripotent cells provide an attractive source for regenerative medicine. Human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) can be isolated from blastocyst stage embryos and cultured in the laboratory environment. However, their use in regenerative medicine is restricted due to problems with immunosuppression by the host and ethical legislation. Recently, a new source of pluripotent cells was established via the direct reprogramming of somatic cells. These human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) enable the production of patient specific cell types. However, numerous challenges, such as efficient reprogramming, optimal culture, directed differentiation, genetic stability and tumor risk need to be solved before the launch of therapeutic applications. The main objective of this thesis was to understand the unique properties of human pluripotent stem cells. The specific aims were to identify novel factors involved in maintaining pluripotency, characterize the effects of low oxygen culture on hESCs, and determine the high resolution changes in hESCs and hiPSCs during culture and reprogramming. As a result, the previously uncharacterized protein L1TD1 was determined to be specific for pluripotent cells and essential for the maintenance of pluripotency. The low oxygen culture supported undifferentiated growth and affected expression of stem cell associated transcripts. High resolution screening of hESCs identified a number of culture induced copy number variations and loss of heterozygosity changes. Further, screening of hiPSCs revealed that reprogramming induces high resolution alterations. The results obtained in this thesis have important implications for stem cell and cancer biology and the therapeutic potential of pluripotent cells.

Design of Instrument for Knee Joint Kinematics Measurement

This thesis describes the process of design and modeling of instrument for knee joint kinematics measurement that can work for both in-vivo and in-vitro subjects. It is designed to be compatible with imaging machine in a sagittal plane. Due to the invasiveness of the imaging machine, the instrument is designed to be able to function independently. The flexibility of this instrument allows to measure anthropometrically different subject. Among the sixth degree of freedom of a knee, three rotational and one translational degree of freedom can be measured for both type of subject. The translational, proximal-distal, motion is stimulated by external force directly applied along its axis. These angular and linear displacements are measured by magnetic sensors and high precision potentiometers respectively

IT Investment Portfolio Management Over Joint Ventures: Case Study in a Multinational Oil & Gas Company

With information technology (IT) playing an increasing important role in driving the business, the value of IT investment is often challenged because not all of those investment decisions are made in a reasonable way or aligned with business strategies. IT investment portfolio management (PfM) is an effective way to prioritize and select the right IT projects to invest in, by taking all the project proposals into consideration as a whole, based on their business value, risks, costs, and interrelationships. There are different decision models to prioritise projects, and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is one of the most commonly-used methods and is discussed in this master thesis. At the same time, there are IT projects on different levels for a multinational company, from global to local. For instance, many of them are probably proposed by joint ventures on local level. In the oil & gas industry, joint ventures are often formed especially in the area of the upstream (exploration & production). How to involve those projects into the IT investment PfM approach of the parent company is a challenge, because the parent company cannot make the decisions on its own. It needs to prioritize all projects in an adequate way, communicate with JVs and influence them. Also, different control levels on JVs need to be considered. This paper hence attempts to introduce a tailored approach of IT investment PfM for a multinational oil & gas company to address the issues around JVs.

Applications and Benefits of Adaptive Pulsed GMAW

In ship and offshore terminal construction, welded cross sections are thick and the number of welds very high. Consequently, there are two aspects of great importance; cost and heat input. Reduction in the welding operation time decreases the costs of the work force and avoids excessive heat, preventing distortion and other weld defects. The need to increase productivity while using a single wire in the GMAW process has led to the use of a high current and voltage to improve the melting rate. Unfortunately, this also increases the heat input. Innovative GMAW processes, mostly implemented for sheet plate sections, have shown significant reduction in heat input (Q), low distortion and increase in welding speed. The aim of this study is to investigate adaptive pulsed GMAW processes and assess relevant applications in the high power range, considering possible benefits when welding thicker sections and high yield strength steel. The study experimentally tests the usability of adaptive welding processes and evaluates their effects on weld properties, penetration and shapes of the weld bead.The study first briefly reviews adaptive GMAW to evaluate different approaches and their applications and to identify benefits in adaptive pulsed. Experiments are then performed using Synergic Pulsed GMAW, WiseFusionTM and Synergic GMAW processes to weld a T-joint in a horizontal position (PB). The air gap between the parts ranges from 0 to 2.5 mm. The base materials are structural steel grade S355MC and filler material G3Si1. The experiment investigates heat input, mechanical properties and microstructure of the welded joint. Analysis of the literature reveals that different approaches have been suggested using advanced digital power sources with accurate waveform, current, voltage, and feedback control. In addition, studies have clearly indicated the efficiency of lower energy welding processes. Interest in the high power range is growing and a number of different approaches have been suggested. The welding experiments in this study reveal a significant reduction of heat input and a weld microstructure with the presence of acicular ferrite (AF) beneficial for resistance to crack propagation. The WiseFusion bead had higher dilution, due to the weld bead shape, and low defects. Adaptive pulse GMAW processes can be a favoured choice when welding structures with many welded joints. The total heat reduction mitigates residual stresses and the bead shape allows a higher amperage limit. The stability of the arc during the process is virtually spatter free and allows an increase in welding speed.

Mapping financial stability

The ongoing global financial crisis has demonstrated the importance of a systemwide, or macroprudential, approach to safeguarding financial stability. An essential part of macroprudential oversight concerns the tasks of early identification and assessment of risks and vulnerabilities that eventually may lead to a systemic financial crisis. Thriving tools are crucial as they allow early policy actions to decrease or prevent further build-up of risks or to otherwise enhance the shock absorption capacity of the financial system. In the literature, three types of systemic risk can be identified: i ) build-up of widespread imbalances, ii ) exogenous aggregate shocks, and iii ) contagion. Accordingly, the systemic risks are matched by three categories of analytical methods for decision support: i ) early-warning, ii ) macro stress-testing, and iii ) contagion models. Stimulated by the prolonged global financial crisis, today's toolbox of analytical methods includes a wide range of innovative solutions to the two tasks of risk identification and risk assessment. Yet, the literature lacks a focus on the task of risk communication. This thesis discusses macroprudential oversight from the viewpoint of all three tasks: Within analytical tools for risk identification and risk assessment, the focus concerns a tight integration of means for risk communication. Data and dimension reduction methods, and their combinations, hold promise for representing multivariate data structures in easily understandable formats. The overall task of this thesis is to represent high-dimensional data concerning financial entities on lowdimensional displays. The low-dimensional representations have two subtasks: i ) to function as a display for individual data concerning entities and their time series, and ii ) to use the display as a basis to which additional information can be linked. The final nuance of the task is, however, set by the needs of the domain, data and methods. The following ve questions comprise subsequent steps addressed in the process of this thesis: 1. What are the needs for macroprudential oversight? 2. What form do macroprudential data take? 3. Which data and dimension reduction methods hold most promise for the task? 4. How should the methods be extended and enhanced for the task? 5. How should the methods and their extensions be applied to the task? Based upon the Self-Organizing Map (SOM), this thesis not only creates the Self-Organizing Financial Stability Map (SOFSM), but also lays out a general framework for mapping the state of financial stability. This thesis also introduces three extensions to the standard SOM for enhancing the visualization and extraction of information: i ) fuzzifications, ii ) transition probabilities, and iii ) network analysis. Thus, the SOFSM functions as a display for risk identification, on top of which risk assessments can be illustrated. In addition, this thesis puts forward the Self-Organizing Time Map (SOTM) to provide means for visual dynamic clustering, which in the context of macroprudential oversight concerns the identification of cross-sectional changes in risks and vulnerabilities over time. Rather than automated analysis, the aim of visual means for identifying and assessing risks is to support disciplined and structured judgmental analysis based upon policymakers' experience and domain intelligence, as well as external risk communication.

Acid-base balance of dairy cows and its relationship with alcoholic stability and mineral composition of milk

This study aimed to associate the occurrence of acid-base disorders with the alcoholic stability of milk from animals in the field, and to evaluate differences between the mineral composition of milk that was both stable and unstable in alcohol. The sample comprised 96 dairy cows, where the milk and blood of each corresponding animal was collected. The mineral composition of stable and unstable milk in alcohol was different and may be related to acid-base disturbances. The average amount of phosphate was lower in the milk that was unstable in alcohol, while potassium was greater. Frequency of the alcoholically unstable milk cases was higher in the cows with acid-base disturbances. Respiratory alkalosis was the disorder that was most observed.