Surface modelling of soil pH

In addition to classical methods, namely kriging, Inverse Distance Weighting (IDW) and splines, which have been frequently used for interpolating the spatial patterns of soil properties, a relatively more accurate surface modelling technique is being developed in recent years, namely high accuracy surface modelling (HASM). It has been used in the numerical tests, DEM construction and the interpolation of climate and ecosystem changes. In this paper, HASM was applied to interpolate soil pH for assessing its feasibility of soil property interpolation in a red soil region of Jiangxi Province, China. Soil pH was measured on 150 samples of topsoil (0-20 cm) for the interpolation and comparing the performance of HASM, kriging. IDW and splines. The mean errors (MEs) of interpolations indicate little bias of interpolation for soil pH by the four techniques. HASM has less mean absolute error (MAE) and root mean square error (RMSE) than kriging, IDW and splines. HASM is still the most accurate one when we use the mean rank and the standard deviation of the ranks to avoid the outlier effects in assessing the prediction performance of the four methods. Therefore, HASM can be considered as an alternative and accurate method for interpolating soil properties. Further researches of HASM are needed to combine HASM with ancillary variables to improve the interpolation performance and develop a user-friendly algorithm that can be implemented in a GIS package. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

广义预测控制方法在网络遥操作机器人系统中的应用

Internet网络的时变时延及网络数据丢包严重影响了遥操作机器人系统的操作性能,甚至造成系统不稳定。为了解决这一问题,提出一种新的基于Internet的遥操作机器人系统控制结构。通过在主端对给定信息加入时间标签获得过去的系统回路时延,采用多元线性回归算法,预测下一时刻系统回路时延,然后在从端设计一个广义预测控制器控制远端机器人,从而改善时变时延对系统性能的影响。应用广义预测控制器产生的冗余控制信息,降低了网络数据丢包对系统的影响。最后根据预测控制稳定性定理,推导出系统的稳定性条件。仿真试验结果表明,该方法能有效解决时变时延以及网络数据丢包引起的性能下降问题。

PUMA760基于红外接近觉控制与编程实验系统

本文介绍 PUMA760 工业机器人基于红外接近觉传感器信号控制与编程实验系统。提出了搜索信号极值确定基准相对位置的方法,在位置控制系统中加入了基于传感器信号控制的指令,使 PUMA760完成了快速寻找、接近、定位和抓取非完全固定方位和高度的工件的动作.

广西合山固体废弃物制备地质聚合物胶凝材料

Geopolymer gelatinous material was prepared by ferroalloy slag (signed with NKT in laboratory) and circulating fluidization bed slag (CFB slag, signed with NM in laboratory) produced from Heshan city, Guangxi zhuang autonomous region, China. The mechanical properties of the geopolymer made of high content ferroalloy slag can reach the standard of 42.5# portland blastfurnace-slag cement, and it’s processing technology is more simple and not need of mill and burn and will not produce harmful gas. By means of chemical and XRD analyses, it is concluded that NKT is a kind of acidity water-granulated slag with better activation and fit to be activated by alkali activators. Low-cost industrial gypsum (signed with NG in laboratory), analytic reagent oxide(signed with NH in laboratory) and sulfate(signed with NS in laboratory) were selected as alkali activation in the experiment. The results showed NH is a good alkali activator for NKT. Both NH and NG can activate ferroally slag’s activities, but NS can’t alone. The activation effect of superimposing activation of NH and NG excel by separateness. Based on those experiments, optimization compounds were carried out: (1) NKT: NH: NG = 80: 10: 10 and (2) NM: NKT: NS: NG: NH = 10: 70: 2: 8: 10。. The soundness of the test blocks is good by boiling examination. Through XRD, SEM, IR, NMR analyses of geopolymer, the reaction mechanism of geopolymer prepared by alkalescent activating in solid wastes was discussed in the thesis first. It is point out, there is difference in reaction mechanism between traditional geopolymer preparation and the preparation of alkalescent activating solid wastes because NG is a industry product. There is the similar process of depolymerization and reunion of Si-O bond. The latter preparation process generate new subtance but the former doesn’t. In the experiment, we found a performance of NKT that the water requirement of normal consistency of geopolymer reduces with increasing content of NKT. The result shows NKT has some ability to reduce water requirement. The performance is worthy of further research and utilization. Making use of solid wastes to prepare geopolymer, not only can settle environment problem caused by a great deal of dump of NKT, but also settle the shortage of natural resources. Moreover it could take economic, environmental and social benefits and settle thoroughly contradiction in the environment protection and regional economy development and promote circulation economy development.

塔里木盆地寒武－奥陶系白云岩类型、成因机理及其孔隙性研究

Cambrian-Ordovician dolostones in Tarim Basin are hydrocarbon reservoir rocks of vital importance. Under the guidance of the theories of sedimentology and the sedimentology of carbonate reservoir, based on the first-hand qualitative and quantitative data especially, combined with micro-study, geochemical and reservoir capacity analysis, and precursor research, the origin and reservoir characteristics of the dolostones were discussed. Based on detailed petrographic investigations, four types of dolostone have been recognized, which are, respecitively, mud-silt-sized dolostones, algal laminated dolostones (ALD), prophyritic dolostone, and neomorphic dolostone. Mud-silt-sized dolostones always presents as laminas together with evaporated signatures, its REE patterns and ΣREE are all close to that of the finely crystalline limestone. This kind of dolomite probably experienced relatively low fluid-rock ratio during diagenesis was formed in hypersaline and oxidizing environment and involved fast dolomitization process. It was dolomitized by evaporated seawater in sabkha environment.The main primary fabrics of algal lamination in algal laminated dolomite (ALD) can still be identified and its ΣREE (21.37) is very close to that of algae. This reveals that ALD was dolomitized during early diagenesis and algae possibly played an important role. The ALD was formed under mediation of organic matter and Mg2+ were supplied by magnesium concentrated algal laminites and sea water. Prophyritic dolostones presents mainly as patchy occurrence and yield the lowest δ13C and Z value. Its ΣREE is much less than that of the finely crystalline limestone. These characteristics reveal that the cloudy cores were dolomitized in shallow early diagenetic environments by pore fluids riched in Mg2+. Whereas the clear rims were likely formed in subsequent burial into deeper subsurface environments, and the Mg2+ needed for further dolomitization possibly was supplied by the transformations of clay minerals. Neomorphic dolostones consist of coarse, turbid crystals and exhibits sucrosic and mosaic textures. It has highest Fe2+ contents and average homogeneous temperature (110.2℃). Collectively, these characteristics demonstrate that the neomorphic dolostones was likely formed by recrystallization of pre-existing dolomites during deep burial. The ΣREE of the four types of dolostone distinctly differentiates from each other. However, their REE patterns are all enriched in LREE, depleted in HREE and have Eu negative anomalies. Its ΣREE 13.64 ppm, less than 1/4 of finely crystalline limestone, and ranks the lowest in the 4 types.These characteristics are comparable to those of finely crystalline limestone, and are mainly infuenced by the sea water. These four types of dolostone show similar REE mobility behaviour and no significant fractionation, althouth they have been subjected to evidently different diageneses. Seven main pore types are identified in the dolostones , which are fenestral, moldic, intercrystal, dissolved，breccia, dissolved breccia and stylolite pores. Fenestral pores are primary and the others are secondary. The dissolved pores and intercrystal pores are the most important reservoir spaces and followed by breccias and dissolved breccia pores, and the moldic and fenestral pores are less important. Stylolites can enhance permeability of reservoir rocks in one hand, for the other hand, the capacity of reservoir and permeability are enhanced and then better reservoir rocks can be formed when they are combined with patchy dolostones. The relationship between porosity and the type of dolostones is that the dissolved neomorphic dolostones have the highest porosity of 3.65%, than followed by dissolved Mud-silt-sized dolostones of 3.35%. The mud-silt-sized dolostones without dissolution have the lowest porosity of 0.90%. Moreover, the porosity of prophyritic dolostones and the neomorphic dolostones without dissolution are lower, respectively 1.675% and 1.41%. Although algal laminated dolostones consist of euhedral crystals and riched in intercrystal pores, its porosity just yields 1.20%. The relationship between permeability and the type of dolostones is that that algal laminated dolostones have the highest permeability of 0.462mD and followed by 0.065mD of prophyritic dolostones. Dissolution have no significant influence on the permeability of neomorphic dolostones and this presented by the permeability of dissolved and non-dissolved are very close, respectively 0.043mD and 0.062mD. No matter dissolved or not, mud-silt-sized dolostones are much less permeable. The permeability of non-dissolved and dissolved are 0.051mD and 0.016mD. Collectively, in the study area, neomorphic dolostones can form high quality reservoir.

准噶尔盆地吉木萨尔凹陷含油气系统形成与分布研究

On the basis of the theory and method of petroleum system, by using formation analysis and multi-discipline ways, we study the formation and .distribution of petroleum system of the Jimusaer sag in the Zhungaer Basin. Through analysis and description of main formation factors, petroleum system is classified and subdivided into several ranks. At the same time, we describe the main elements of reservoir formation and the contribution to the petroleum system. By analyzing the process of reservoir formation, we define the quantitative relationship of petroleum sources, migration and oil accumulation. Through a comprehensive studying method, the next step is to build the reservoir formation model of petroleum system and confirm the exploration target. Finally, a method which fits to study the petroleum system formation and distribution in this type of basin is created. It broadens the quantitative theory of petroleum system. The following are the main conclusions. 1. The division of rank concept of petroleum system and the classification of multi-ranks combination are put forwarded for the first time. The petroleum system is classified into 5 ranks. These ranks, in an ascending order, are compounded petroleum system, independent petroleum system, sub-petroleum system, reservoir formation structure and the main factors of reservoir formation respectively. Therefore the Jimusaer sag is divided into 1 first ranked compounded petroleum system, 2 independent petroleum systems (The first is Jiang first member ~ Jiang second member+Pingdiquan member+ Wutonggou member petroleum system and the second Pingdiquan member - Wutonggou member+Triassic + Jurassic petroleum system) and 22 sub- petroleum systems. 2. The existence of the Jiangjunmiao member petroleum system in P_1 is put forwarded for the first time in the target zone except for Pingdiquan member hydro-source rock in P2 Both two hydro-source rock experience two evolvement movements, sub-mature and mature. It is estimated that there is the matured oil&gas in the sag. 3. By introduction of the basin simulation method, regaining and formation process of the different independent petroleum system are achieved. The sources, migration, accumulation and evolution rule are all indicated. It proposed that Jiang first member ~ Jiang second member+Pingdiquan member + Wutonggou member petroleum system formed primarily in Triassic and Jurassic. The oil&gas predominantly accumulated in layers of Jiang second member and Wutonggou member. Pingdiquan member ~ Wutonggou member+Triassic + Jurassic petroleum system formed in middle of Jurassic, and middle and late of the Kreaceous. In addition the oil&gas mostly accumulated in layers of Pingdiquan member and Wutonggou member. 4. By comprehensively analyzing the reservoir formation mechanism, it is proposed that oil&gas reservoir in this zone is formed in multiple periods. Major migration and accumulation power of oil&gas can be explained by an abnormal stratum pressure. There are six channels for the migration and accumulation -of oil&gas and therefore, can be considered as multi-circular distribution. 5. Combining the rank theory of petroleum system with mode identification method, we developed a quantitative evaluation method and judgment system for the exploration target. Using this technique, we confirmed three exploration target zones, four favorable oil&gas reservoir combinations, three exploration wells. Ji -15 well has been drilled and has provided a breakthrough on the oil&gas exploration.

运动与重定向时物-我、物-物空间表征的使用

Eight experiments tested how object array structure and learning location influenced the establishing and utilization of self-to-object and object-to-object spatial representations in locomotion and reorientation. In Experiment 1 to 4, participants learned either at the periphery of or amidst regular or irregular object array, and then pointed to objects while blindfolded in three conditions: before turning (baseline), after rotating 240 degrees (updating), and after disorientation (disorientation). In Experiment 5 to 8, participants received instruction to keep track of self-to-object or object-to-object spatial representations before rotation. In each condition, the configuration error, which means the standard deviation of the means per target object of the signed pointing errors, was calculated as the index of the fidelity of representation used in each condition. Results indicate that participants form both self-to-object and object-to-object spatial representations after learning an object-array. Object-array structure influences the selection of representation during updating. By default, object-to-object spatial representation is updated when people learned the regular object-array structure, and self-to-object spatial representation is updated when people learned the irregular object array. But people could also update the other representation when they are required to do so. The fidelity of representations will confine this kind of “switch”. People could only “switch” from a low fidelity representation to a high fidelity representation or between two representations of similar fidelity. They couldn’t “switch” from a high fidelity representation to a low fidelity representation. Leaning location might influence the fidelity of representations. When people learned at the periphery of object array, they could acquire both self-to-object and object-to-object spatial representations of high fidelity. But when people learned amidst the object array, they could only acquire self-to-object spatial representation of high fidelity, and the fidelity of object-to-object spatial representation was low.

Development and validation of a sport-specific exercise protocol for elite youth soccer players

Thatcher, Rhys, and Alan Batterham, 'Development and validation of a sport-specific exercise protocol for elite youth soccer players', Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness, (2004) 44(1) pp.15-22 RAE2008

Complying with the NIH Public Access Policy - Copyright Considerations and Options

On January 11, 2008, the National Institutes of Health ('NIH') adopted a revised Public Access Policy for peer-reviewed journal articles reporting research supported in whole or in part by NIH funds. Under the revised policy, the grantee shall ensure that a copy of the author's final manuscript, including any revisions made during the peer review process, be electronically submitted to the National Library of Medicine's PubMed Central ('PMC') archive and that the person submitting the manuscript will designate a time not later than 12 months after publication at which NIH may make the full text of the manuscript publicly accessible in PMC. NIH adopted this policy to implement a new statutory requirement under which: The Director of the National Institutes of Health shall require that all investigators funded by the NIH submit or have submitted for them to the National Library of Medicine's PubMed Central an electronic version of their final, peer-reviewed manuscripts upon acceptance for publication to be made publicly available no later than 12 months after the official date of publication: Provided, That the NIH shall implement the public access policy in a manner consistent with copyright law. This White Paper is written primarily for policymaking staff in universities and other institutional recipients of NIH support responsible for ensuring compliance with the Public Access Policy. The January 11, 2008, Public Access Policy imposes two new compliance mandates. First, the grantee must ensure proper manuscript submission. The version of the article to be submitted is the final version over which the author has control, which must include all revisions made after peer review. The statutory command directs that the manuscript be submitted to PMC 'upon acceptance for publication.' That is, the author's final manuscript should be submitted to PMC at the same time that it is sent to the publisher for final formatting and copy editing. Proper submission is a two-stage process. The electronic manuscript must first be submitted through a process that requires input of additional information concerning the article, the author(s), and the nature of NIH support for the research reported. NIH then formats the manuscript into a uniform, XML-based format used for PMC versions of articles. In the second stage of the submission process, NIH sends a notice to the Principal Investigator requesting that the PMC-formatted version be reviewed and approved. Only after such approval has grantee's manuscript submission obligation been satisfied. Second, the grantee also has a distinct obligation to grant NIH copyright permission to make the manuscript publicly accessible through PMC not later than 12 months after the date of publication. This obligation is connected to manuscript submission because the author, or the person submitting the manuscript on the author's behalf, must have the necessary rights under copyright at the time of submission to give NIH the copyright permission it requires. This White Paper explains and analyzes only the scope of the grantee's copyright-related obligations under the revised Public Access Policy and suggests six options for compliance with that aspect of the grantee's obligation. Time is of the essence for NIH grantees. As a practical matter, the grantee should have a compliance process in place no later than April 7, 2008. More specifically, the new Public Access Policy applies to any article accepted for publication on or after April 7, 2008 if the article arose under (1) an NIH Grant or Cooperative Agreement active in Fiscal Year 2008, (2) direct funding from an NIH Contract signed after April 7, 2008, (3) direct funding from the NIH Intramural Program, or (4) from an NIH employee. In addition, effective May 25, 2008, anyone submitting an application, proposal or progress report to the NIH must include the PMC reference number when citing articles arising from their NIH funded research. (This includes applications submitted to the NIH for the May 25, 2008 and subsequent due dates.) Conceptually, the compliance challenge that the Public Access Policy poses for grantees is easily described. The grantee must depend to some extent upon the author(s) to take the necessary actions to ensure that the grantee is in compliance with the Public Access Policy because the electronic manuscripts and the copyrights in those manuscripts are initially under the control of the author(s). As a result, any compliance option will require an explicit understanding between the author(s) and the grantee about how the manuscript and the copyright in the manuscript are managed. It is useful to conceptually keep separate the grantee's manuscript submission obligation from its copyright permission obligation because the compliance personnel concerned with manuscript management may differ from those responsible for overseeing the author's copyright management. With respect to copyright management, the grantee has the following six options: (1) rely on authors to manage copyright but also to request or to require that these authors take responsibility for amending publication agreements that call for transfer of too many rights to enable the author to grant NIH permission to make the manuscript publicly accessible ('the Public Access License'); (2) take a more active role in assisting authors in negotiating the scope of any copyright transfer to a publisher by (a) providing advice to authors concerning their negotiations or (b) by acting as the author's agent in such negotiations; (3) enter into a side agreement with NIH-funded authors that grants a non-exclusive copyright license to the grantee sufficient to grant NIH the Public Access License; (4) enter into a side agreement with NIH-funded authors that grants a non-exclusive copyright license to the grantee sufficient to grant NIH the Public Access License and also grants a license to the grantee to make certain uses of the article, including posting a copy in the grantee's publicly accessible digital archive or repository and authorizing the article to be used in connection with teaching by university faculty; (5) negotiate a more systematic and comprehensive agreement with the biomedical publishers to ensure either that the publisher has a binding obligation to submit the manuscript and to grant NIH permission to make the manuscript publicly accessible or that the author retains sufficient rights to do so; or (6) instruct NIH-funded authors to submit manuscripts only to journals with binding deposit agreements with NIH or to journals whose copyright agreements permit authors to retain sufficient rights to authorize NIH to make manuscripts publicly accessible.

Exploiting Phonological Constraints for Handshape Inference in ASL Video

Handshape is a key articulatory parameter in sign language, and thus handshape recognition from signing video is essential for sign recognition and retrieval. Handshape transitions within monomorphemic lexical signs (the largest class of signs in signed languages) are governed by phonological rules. For example, such transitions normally involve either closing or opening of the hand (i.e., to exclusively use either folding or unfolding of the palm and one or more fingers). Furthermore, akin to allophonic variations in spoken languages, both inter- and intra- signer variations in the production of specific handshapes are observed. We propose a Bayesian network formulation to exploit handshape co-occurrence constraints, also utilizing information about allophonic variations to aid in handshape recognition. We propose a fast non-rigid image alignment method to gain improved robustness to handshape appearance variations during computation of observation likelihoods in the Bayesian network. We evaluate our handshape recognition approach on a large dataset of monomorphemic lexical signs. We demonstrate that leveraging linguistic constraints on handshapes results in improved handshape recognition accuracy. As part of the overall project, we are collecting and preparing for dissemination a large corpus (three thousand signs from three native signers) of American Sign Language (ASL) video. The video have been annotated using SignStream® [Neidle et al.] with labels for linguistic information such as glosses, morphological properties and variations, and start/end handshapes associated with each ASL sign.

Cryptographic Tamper Evidence

We propose a new notion of cryptographic tamper evidence. A tamper-evident signature scheme provides an additional procedure Div which detects tampering: given two signatures, Div can determine whether one of them was generated by the forger. Surprisingly, this is possible even after the adversary has inconspicuously learned (exposed) some-or even all-the secrets in the system. In this case, it might be impossible to tell which signature is generated by the legitimate signer and which by the forger. But at least the fact of the tampering will be made evident. We define several variants of tamper-evidence, differing in their power to detect tampering. In all of these, we assume an equally powerful adversary: she adaptively controls all the inputs to the legitimate signer (i.e., all messages to be signed and their timing), and observes all his outputs; she can also adaptively expose all the secrets at arbitrary times. We provide tamper-evident schemes for all the variants and prove their optimality. Achieving the strongest tamper evidence turns out to be provably expensive. However, we define a somewhat weaker, but still practical, variant: α-synchronous tamper-evidence (α-te) and provide α-te schemes with logarithmic cost. Our α-te schemes use a combinatorial construction of α-separating sets, which might be of independent interest. We stress that our mechanisms are purely cryptographic: the tamper-detection algorithm Div is stateless and takes no inputs except the two signatures (in particular, it keeps no logs), we use no infrastructure (or other ways to conceal additional secrets), and we use no hardware properties (except those implied by the standard cryptographic assumptions, such as random number generators). Our constructions are based on arbitrary ordinary signature schemes and do not require random oracles.

Simultaneous Localization and Recognition of Dynamic Hand Gestures

A framework for the simultaneous localization and recognition of dynamic hand gestures is proposed. At the core of this framework is a dynamic space-time warping (DSTW) algorithm, that aligns a pair of query and model gestures in both space and time. For every frame of the query sequence, feature detectors generate multiple hand region candidates. Dynamic programming is then used to compute both a global matching cost, which is used to recognize the query gesture, and a warping path, which aligns the query and model sequences in time, and also finds the best hand candidate region in every query frame. The proposed framework includes translation invariant recognition of gestures, a desirable property for many HCI systems. The performance of the approach is evaluated on a dataset of hand signed digits gestured by people wearing short sleeve shirts, in front of a background containing other non-hand skin-colored objects. The algorithm simultaneously localizes the gesturing hand and recognizes the hand-signed digit. Although DSTW is illustrated in a gesture recognition setting, the proposed algorithm is a general method for matching time series, that allows for multiple candidate feature vectors to be extracted at each time step.

Facial Feature Tracking and Occlusion Recovery in American Sign Language

Facial features play an important role in expressing grammatical information in signed languages, including American Sign Language(ASL). Gestures such as raising or furrowing the eyebrows are key indicators of constructions such as yes-no questions. Periodic head movements (nods and shakes) are also an essential part of the expression of syntactic information, such as negation (associated with a side-to-side headshake). Therefore, identification of these facial gestures is essential to sign language recognition. One problem with detection of such grammatical indicators is occlusion recovery. If the signer's hand blocks his/her eyebrows during production of a sign, it becomes difficult to track the eyebrows. We have developed a system to detect such grammatical markers in ASL that recovers promptly from occlusion. Our system detects and tracks evolving templates of facial features, which are based on an anthropometric face model, and interprets the geometric relationships of these templates to identify grammatical markers. It was tested on a variety of ASL sentences signed by various Deaf native signers and detected facial gestures used to express grammatical information, such as raised and furrowed eyebrows as well as headshakes.

Spatiotemporal Gesture Segmentation

Spotting patterns of interest in an input signal is a very useful task in many different fields including medicine, bioinformatics, economics, speech recognition and computer vision. Example instances of this problem include spotting an object of interest in an image (e.g., a tumor), a pattern of interest in a time-varying signal (e.g., audio analysis), or an object of interest moving in a specific way (e.g., a human's body gesture). Traditional spotting methods, which are based on Dynamic Time Warping or hidden Markov models, use some variant of dynamic programming to register the pattern and the input while accounting for temporal variation between them. At the same time, those methods often suffer from several shortcomings: they may give meaningless solutions when input observations are unreliable or ambiguous, they require a high complexity search across the whole input signal, and they may give incorrect solutions if some patterns appear as smaller parts within other patterns. In this thesis, we develop a framework that addresses these three problems, and evaluate the framework's performance in spotting and recognizing hand gestures in video. The first contribution is a spatiotemporal matching algorithm that extends the dynamic programming formulation to accommodate multiple candidate hand detections in every video frame. The algorithm finds the best alignment between the gesture model and the input, and simultaneously locates the best candidate hand detection in every frame. This allows for a gesture to be recognized even when the hand location is highly ambiguous. The second contribution is a pruning method that uses model-specific classifiers to reject dynamic programming hypotheses with a poor match between the input and model. Pruning improves the efficiency of the spatiotemporal matching algorithm, and in some cases may improve the recognition accuracy. The pruning classifiers are learned from training data, and cross-validation is used to reduce the chance of overpruning. The third contribution is a subgesture reasoning process that models the fact that some gesture models can falsely match parts of other, longer gestures. By integrating subgesture reasoning the spotting algorithm can avoid the premature detection of a subgesture when the longer gesture is actually being performed. Subgesture relations between pairs of gestures are automatically learned from training data. The performance of the approach is evaluated on two challenging video datasets: hand-signed digits gestured by users wearing short sleeved shirts, in front of a cluttered background, and American Sign Language (ASL) utterances gestured by ASL native signers. The experiments demonstrate that the proposed method is more accurate and efficient than competing approaches. The proposed approach can be generally applied to alignment or search problems with multiple input observations, that use dynamic programming to find a solution.

Biogas production from novel substrates

Biogas production is the conversion of the organic material into methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2) under anaerobic conditions. Anaerobic digestion (AD) is widely used in continental and Scandinavian communities as both a waste treatment option and a source of renewable energy. Ireland however lags behind this European movement. Numerous feedstocks exist which could be digested and used to fuel a renewable transport fleet in Ireland. An issue exists with the variety of feedstocks; these need to be assessed and quantified to ascertain their potential resource and application to AD. From literature the ideal C:N ratio is between 25 and 30:1. Low levels of C:N (<15) can lead to problems with ammonia inhibition. Within the digester a plentiful supply of nutrients and a balanced C:N is required for stable performance. Feedstocks were sampled from a range of over 100 different substrates in Ireland including for first, second and third generation feedstocks. The C:N ranged from 81:1 (Winter Oats) to 7:1 (Silage Effluent). The BMP yields were recorded ranging from 38 ± 2.0 L CH4 kg−1 VS for pig slurry (weaning pigs) to 805 ± 57 L CH4 kg−1 VS for used cooking oil (UCO). However the selection of the best preforming feedstock in terms of C:N ratio or BMP yield alone is not sufficiently adequate. A total picture has to be created which includes C:N ratio, BMP yield, harvest yield and availability. Potential feedstocks which best meet these requirements include for Grass silage, Milk processing waste (MPW) and Saccharina latissima. MPW has a potential of meeting over 6 times the required energy for Ireland’s 2020 transport in energy targets. S. Latissima recorded a yield of over 10,000 GJ ha-1 yr-1 which out ranks traditional second generation biofuels by a factor of more than 4.