An evaluation of septic tank effluent movement in soil and groundwater systems

Recent studies have shown that septic tank systems are a major source of groundwater pollution. Many public health workers feel that the most cri^cal aspect of the use of septic tanks as a means of sewage disposal is the contamination of private water wells with attendant human health hazards. In this study the movement and attenuation of septic tank effluents in a range of soil/overburden types and hydrogeological situations was investigated. The suitability of a number of chemical and biological tracer materials to monitor the movement of septic tank effluent constituents to groundwater sources was also examined. The investigation was divided into three separate but inteiTelated sections. In the first section of the study the movement of septic tank effluent from two soil treatment systems was investigated by direct measurements of soil nutrient concentrations and enteric bacterial numbers in the soil beneath and downgradient of the test systems. Two sites with different soil types and hydrogeological characteristics were used. The results indicated that the attenuation of the effluent in both of the treatment systems was incomplete. Migration of nitrate, ammonium, phosphate and fecal bacteria to a depth of 50 cm beneath the inverts of the distribution tiles was demonstrated on all sampling occasions. The lateral migration of the pollutants was less pronounced, although on occasions high nutrients levels and fecal bacterial numbers were detected at a lateral distance of 4.0 m downgradient of the test systems. There was evidence that the degree and extent of effluent migration was increased after periods of heavy or prolonged rainfall when the attenuating properties of the treatment systems were reduced as a result of saturation of the soil. The second part of the study examined the contamination of groundwaters downgradient of septic tank soil treatment systems. Three test sites were used in the investigation. The sites were chosen because of differences in the thicknesses and nature of the unsaturated zone available for effluent attenuation at each of the locations. A series of groundwater monitoring boreholes were installed downgradient of the test systems at each of the sites and these were sampled regularly to assess the efficiency of the overburden material in reducing the polluting potential of the wastewater. Effluent attenuation in the septic tank treatment systems was shown to be incomplete, resulting in chemical and microbiological contamination of the groundwaters downgradient of the systems. The nature and severity of groundwater contamination was dependent on the composition and thickness of the unsaturated zone and the extent of weathering in the underlying saturated bedrock. The movement of septic tank effluent through soil/overburdens to groundwater sources was investigated by adding a range of chemical and biological tracer materials to the three septic tank systems used in section two of the study. The results demonstrated that a single tracer type cannot be used to accurately monitor the movement of all effluent constituents through soils to groundwater. The combined use of lithium bromide and endospores of Bacillus globigii was found to give an accurate indication of the movement of both the chemical and biological effluent constituents.

Reusability evaluation of component-based embedded automative software systems

Magdeburg, Univ., Fak. für Informatik, Diss., 2012

Preventive health care and payment systems to providers

Prevention has been a main issue of recent policy orientations in health care. This renews the interest on how different organizational designs and the definition of payment schemes to providers may affect the incentives to provide preventive health care. We present, both the normative and the positive analyses of the change from independent providers to integrated services. We show the evaluation of that change to depend on the particular way payment to providers is done. We focus on the externality resulting from referral decisions from primary to acute care providers. This makes our analysis complementary to most works in the literature allowing to address in a more direct way the issue of preventive health care.

Markers, Cofactors and Staging Systems in the Study of HIV Disease Progression: A Review

This paper is aimed at providing a comprehensive review of markers, cofactors and staging systems used for HIV disease, focusing on some aspects that nowadays could even be considered historical, and advancing in current issues such as the prognostic value of viral load measurements, viral genotypic and phenotypic characterization, and new HIV disease treatment protocols. CD4+ cell values, combined with the new viral markers mentioned are promising as a parsimonious predictor set for defining both severity and progression. An adequate predictor of patient resource use for planning purposes still needs to be defined

Importance of influx and efflux systems and xenobiotic metabolizing enzymes in intratumoral disposition of anticancer agents.

In this review, intratumoral drug disposition will be integrated into the wide range of resistance mechanisms to anticancer agents with particular emphasis on targeted protein kinase inhibitors. Six rules will be established: 1. There is a high variability of extracellular/intracellular drug level ratios; 2. There are three main systems involved in intratumoral drug disposition that are composed of SLC, ABC and XME enzymes; 3. There is a synergistic interplay between these three systems; 4. In cancer subclones, there is a strong genomic instability that leads to a highly variable expression of SLC, ABC or XME enzymes; 5. Tumor-expressed metabolizing enzymes play a role in tumor-specific ADME and cell survival and 6. These three systems are involved in the appearance of resistance (transient event) or in the resistance itself. In addition, this article will investigate whether the overexpression of some ABC and XME systems in cancer cells is just a random consequence of DNA/chromosomal instability, hypo- or hypermethylation and microRNA deregulation, or a more organized modification induced by transposable elements. Experiments will also have to establish if these tumor-expressed enzymes participate in cell metabolism or in tumor-specific ADME or if they are only markers of clonal evolution and genomic deregulation. Eventually, the review will underline that the fate of anticancer agents in cancer cells should be more thoroughly investigated from drug discovery to clinical studies. Indeed, inhibition of tumor expressed metabolizing enzymes could strongly increase drug disposition, specifically in the target cells resulting in more efficient therapies.

Hard instances of algorithms and proof systems

"Vegeu el resum a l'inici del document del fitxer adjunt."

Evaluation of a mixed approach combining stationary and wearable systems to monitor gait over long distance.

Thanks to decades of research, gait analysis has become an efficient tool. However, mainly due to the price of the motion capture systems, standard gait laboratories have the capability to measure only a few consecutive steps of ground walking. Recently, wearable systems were proposed to measure human motion without volume limitation. Although accurate, these systems are incompatible with most of existing calibration procedures and several years of research will be necessary for their validation. A new approach consisting of using a stationary system with a small capture volume for the calibration procedure and then to measure gait using a wearable system could be very advantageous. It could benefit from the knowledge related to stationary systems, allow long distance monitoring and provide new descriptive parameters. The aim of this study was to demonstrate the potential of this approach. Thus, a combined system was proposed to measure the 3D lower body joints angles and segmental angular velocities. It was then assessed in terms of reliability towards the calibration procedure, repeatability and concurrent validity. The dispersion of the joint angles across calibrations was comparable to those of stationary systems and good reliability was obtained for the angular velocities. The repeatability results confirmed that mean cycle kinematics of long distance walks could be used for subjects' comparison and pointed out an interest for the variability between cycles. Finally, kinematics differences were observed between participants with different ankle conditions. In conclusion, this study demonstrated the potential of a mixed approach for human movement analysis.

Report of Recommendations to the Iowa Department of Administrative Services on the Review of General and Application Controls over the HRIS and Payroll Systems, May 10, 2004 through June 4, 2004

State Audit Reports

Applying recommendations to aligncompetences, methodology and assessment in Telematics, Computing and Electronic Engineering courses

The alignment between competences, teaching-learning methodologies and assessment is a key element of the European Higher Education Area. This paper presents the efforts carried out by six Telematics, Computer Science and Electronic Engineering Education teachers towards achieving this alignment in their subjects. In a joint work with pedagogues, a set of recommended actions were identified. A selection of these actions were applied and evaluated in the six subjects. The cross-analysis of the results indicate that the actions allow students to better understand the methodologies and assessment planned for the subjects, facilitate (self-) regulation and increase students’ involvement in the subjects.

Report of Recommendations to Iowa State University of Science and Technology on the Review of Selected General and Application Controls over the University's Accounts Payable and Purchasing Systems, March 28 through April 28, 2005

State University Audit Report

Strategy communication and measurement systems

Organizations often face the challenge of communicating their strategiesto local decision makers. The difficulty presents itself in finding away to measure performance wich meaningfully conveys how to implement theorganization's strategy at local levels. I show that organizations solvethis communication problem by combining performance measures in such away that performance gains come closest to mimicking value-added asdefined by the organization's strategy. I further show how organizationsrebalance performance measures in response to changes in their strategies.Applications to the design of performance metrics, gaming, and divisionalperformance evaluation are considered. The paper also suggests severalempirical ways to evaluate the practical importance of the communicationrole of measurement systems.

Physical properties of a humic cambisol under tillage and cropping systems after twelve years

Soil is the basis underlying the food production chain and it is fundamental to improve and conserve its productive capacity. Imbalanced exploitation can degrade agricultural areas physical, chemical and biologically. The objective of this study was to evaluate some soil physical properties and their relation with organic carbon contents of a Humic Dystrudept under conventional tillage (CT) and no-tillage (NT), for 12 years in rotation (r) and succession (s) cropping systems. The experiment was carried out in Lages, SC (latitude 27 º 49 ' S and longitude 50 º 20 ' W, 937 m asl), using crop sequences of bean-fallow-maize-fallow-soybean in conventional tillage rotation; maize-fallow in conventional tillage succession; bean-oat-maize-turnip-soybean-vetch in no-tillage rotation; and maize-vetch in no-tillage succession. The experimental design was completely randomized with four replications. The soil samples were collected in the layers 0-2.5, 2.5-5, 5-10, and 10-20 cm. The following properties were analyzed: soil density, porosity, aggregate stability, degree of flocculation, water retention, infiltration, mechanical strength, and total organic carbon. Soil aggregation in the surface layer (0-5 cm) was better in the no-tillage than the conventional system, related to higher microporosity, organic carbon contents and water retention capacity, indicating that a periodical tillage of this soil is unnecessary. Infiltration was highest in no-tillage with crop succession.

Chemical and structural characterization of soil humic substances under agroforestry and conventional systems

Studies have proven that the agroforestry systems in the semi-arid region of the State of Ceará, Brazil, induce an increase in soil organic C levels. Notwithstanding, there is no information if this increase also results in qualitative changes in different pools of soil organic matter. The objective of this study was to verify the possible chemical and structural alterations in fulvic and humic acids of a Luvisol in areas adopting agroforestry, traditional intensive cultivation and native forest in a long-term experiment conducted in the semi-arid region of Ceará State, Brazil. The study was conducted in an experimental area of the National Goat Research Center (Embrapa) in Sobral, CE. The following treatments were evaluated: agrosilvopasture (AGP), silvopasture (SILV), intensive cultivation under fallow (ICF), and areas with native forest (NF). Soil fulvic and humic acids fractions were extracted from the 0-6 and 6-12 cm layers and characterized by elemental composition, thermogravimetry and infrared spectroscopy analyses. The elemental composition analysis of humic acids confirmed the data found for fulvic acids, showing reduction in the C, H and N levels, followed by an increase in O contents in the AGP and ICF treatments over SILV and NF. In all treatments, except to SILV in the 0-6 cm layer, the percentage of mass loss was highest (300-600 °C) for humic acids in the thermally most stable region. Despite the similarity between infrared spectra, soil fulvic acids in the SILV treatment extracted from 6-12 cm depth decrease the absorption bands at 1708 and 1408 cm-1 followed by an increase in the absorption band at 1608 cm-1 attributed to aromatic C=C groups. This behavior suggests an increase in the aromatic character of the structure. The AGP and ICF treatments, which increase the soil tilling, favored the maintenance of humic substances with a more aromatic character in the soil than SILV and NF. The less aromatic humic substances in the SILV treatment resulted in an increase of exchange sites of soil organic matter, indicating improved nutrient cycling and maintenance of productivity in the system.

Soil microbial biomass under different management and tillage systems of permanent intercropped cover species in an orange orchard

To mitigate soil erosion and enhance soil fertility in orange plantations, the permanent protection of the inter-rows by cover species has been suggested. The objective of this study was to evaluate alterations in the microbial biomass, due to different soil tillage systems and intercropped cover species between rows of orange trees. The soil of the experimental area previously used as pasture (Brachiaria humidicola) was an Ultisol (Typic Paleudult) originating from Caiuá sandstone in the northwestern part of the State of Paraná, Brazil. Two soil tillage systems were evaluated: conventional tillage (CT) in the entire area and strip tillage (ST) (strip width 2 m), in combination with different ground cover management systems. The citrus cultivar 'Pera' orange (Citrus sinensis) grafted onto 'Rangpur' lime rootstock was used. Soil samples were collected after five years of treatment from a depth of 0-15 cm, under the tree canopy and in the inter-row, in the following treatments: (1) CT and an annual cover crop with the leguminous species Calopogonium mucunoides; (2) CT and a perennial cover crop with the leguminous peanut Arachis pintoi; (3) CT and an evergreen cover crop with Bahiagrass Paspalum notatum; (4) CT and a cover crop with spontaneous Brachiaria humidicola grass vegetation; and (5) ST and maintenance of the remaining grass (pasture) of Brachiaria humidicola. Soil tillage and the different cover species influenced the microbial biomass, both under the tree canopy and in the inter-row. The cultivation of brachiaria increased C and N in the microbial biomass, while bahiagrass increased P in the microbial biomass. The soil microbial biomass was enriched in N and P by the presence of ground cover species and according to the soil P content. The grass species increased C, N and P in the soil microbial biomass from the inter-row more than leguminous species.

Heat capacity measurements on the equiatomic compounds in Ni-X (X = Al, In, Si, Ge and Bi) and M-Sb (with M = Ni, Co and Fe) systems

Molar heat capacities of the binary compounds NiAl, NiIn, NiSi, NiGe, NiBi, NiSb, CoSb and FeSb were determined every 10 K by differential scanning calorimetry in the temperature range 310-1080 K. The experimental results have been fitted versus temperature according to C-p = a + b . T + c . T-2 + d . T-2. Results are given, discussed and compared to estimations found in the literature. Two compounds, NiBi and FeSb, are subject to transformations between 460 and 500 K. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.