In this study, the synergistic elfects of ethylene-propane and ethylene-dimethyl ester (DME) mirtures on soot formation were investigated experimentully using u coflow dilfusion flame burnen The soot volume fraction, soot particle diameter and number density were measured and compured to the homogenous mixture. Addition of DME and propane to the ethylene fuel increased soot volume fraction in the ethylene flames. The ethylene- propnne has more pronounced synergistic ffict in compsrison to the ethylene-DME flame* This is due to the fact that during the decomposition of propane some methyl radicals are generated, The reuctions related to these methyl radicals promote the formation of propargyl rodiculs and conseqaently the formation of benzene through propargyl self-reaction and finally to the soot formation. Althoagh DME decomposition produces methyl, the C-O bond in the DME removes some carbon from the reaction puth that produces soot, Hence the soot formation in ethylene-DME mixture is much slower than that in ethylene-propane mixtuFe,

No description available.

Drinking water sources are vulnerable to a broad range of contaminant threats. Recent U.S. legislation has focused on protecting public health from pathogens while also managing disinfection byproducts (DBPs) and organic contaminants. Chlorine is known to react with organic matter to form DBPs, thus alternative disinfection schemes are desirable. The goal of our research was to evaluate synergistic inactivation of E. coli with chlorine and sonication in a flow through system. Laboratory experiments were conducted to determine the impact of chlorine dose (0 to 1 mg/L), cavitation intensity (90 to 150 watts) and contact time (0 to 16 minutes) on inactivation. Tests were conducted with a probe system and a flow through cavitation device. Results showed that sonication alone was ineffective for the conditions tested. Sonication applied simultaneously with chlorine did not improve inactivation compared to each disinfectant alone.

The objective of this thesis is to experimentally investigate the performance of steam gasification of chars of pure coal (lignite, sub-bituminous), pure biomass (radiata pine, eucalyptus nitens) and their blends. The influences of gasification temperature, types of coal and biomass, coal-biomass blending ratio, alkali and alkaline earth metal (AAEM) in lignite, on specific gasification characteristics (producer gas composition and yield, char reactivity) were studied. In addition, synergistic effects in co-gasification of coal-biomass blend char were also investigated. This project is in accordance with objectives of the BISGAS Consortium. In this study, experiments were performed in a bench-scale gasifier at gasification temperatures of 850°C, 900°C and 950°C, respectively. Two types of coals (lignite and sub-bituminous) and two kinds of biomass (radiata pine and eucalyptus nitens) from New Zealand were selected as sample fuels. From these raw materials, the chars with coal-to-biomass blending ratios of 0:100 (pure coal), 20:80, 50:50, 80:20 and 100:0 (pure biomass), which were derived through the devolatilization at temperature of 900°C for 7 minutes, were gasified with steam as gasification agent. During the gasification tests, the producer gas composition and gas production were continuously analysed using a Micro gas chromatograph. When the gas production was undetectable, the gasification process was assumed to be completed and the gasification time was recorded. The gasification producer gas consisted of three main gas components: hydrogen (H2), carbon monoxide (CO) and carbon dioxide (CO2). The results from gasification of chars of individual solid fuels (coal or biomass) confirmed that biomass char gasification was faster than coal char gasification. The influences of gasification temperatures were shown as: when gasification temperature increased, the H2 yield increased in coal char gasification but decreased in biomass char gasification. In the meantime, CO yields increased while CO2 yields decreased in both coal char and biomass char gasification. In addition, the char reactivity of all the pure fuel samples increased with elevated gasification temperatures. The results from co-gasification of coal-biomass blend char exhibited that the syngas production rate, which is defined as the total gas production divided by the gasification completion time, was enhanced by an increase in gasification temperatures as well as an increase in the biomass proportion in the blend. The AAEM species played a significant catalytic role in both gasification of pure coal chars and co-gasification of coal-biomass blend chars. The presence of AAEM increased the producer gas yield and enhanced the char reactivity. The positive synergistic effects of the coal-biomass blending char on syngas production rate only existed in the co-gasification of lignite-eucalyptus nitens blend chars. The other blend chars showed either insignificant synergistic effects or negative effects on the syngas production rate.

Listeria monocytogenes is a foodborne pathogenic bacterium responsible for ~500 deaths and a financial burden of ~$2.3 billion each year in the United States. Though a zero tolerance policy is enforced with regard to its detection in cooked ready-to-eat foods, additional preemptive control alternatives are required for certain products. Among these alternatives are strategies permitting the usage of food antimicrobial combinations to control the pathogen. Research on antimicrobial combinations can provide insight into more efficient control of the pathogen, but is currently lacking. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the in vitro inhibition of L. monocytogenes exposed to the antimicrobials e-Poly-L-Lysine (EPL), lauric arginate ester (LAE), and sodium lactate (SL) at pH 7.3, octanoic acid (OCT) at pH 5.0, and nisin (NIS) and acidic calcium sulfate (ACS) at both pH 5.0 and 7.3. A broth dilution assay was used to determine single antimicrobial minimum inhibitory and bactericidal concentrations for L. monocytogenes Scott A, 310, NADC 2783, and NADC 2045. Optical density differences (delta<0.05 at 630 nm) were used to denote inhibition. Concentrations producing population decreases of greater than or equal to 3.0 log10 CFU/ml after incubation were considered bactericidal. Inhibition resulting from combinations of antimicrobials (NIS+ACS, EPL+ACS, SL+ACS, NIS+LAE, OCT+ACS, and OCT+NIS) was assessed using a checkerboard assay, and fractional inhibitory concentrations (FIC) were determined. FIC values were plotted on isobolograms and were used to create FIC indices (FICI). Isobologram curvature was used to classify combinations as synergistic, additive, or antagonistic. From FIC indices, interactions were defined as antagonistic (FICI >1.0), additive (FICI =1.0), or synergistic (FICI &lt;1.0). Strain-dependent factors had a bearing on MIC and MBC values for NIS and EPL. At pH 7.3, NIS+ACS displayed synergistic inhibition, NIS+LAE and EPL+ACS demonstrated additive-type interactions, and the SL+ACS pairing was unable to be defined. At pH 5.0, interpretation of the OCT+NIS interaction also presented challenges, while the OCT+ACS combination resulted in synergistic behavior. Additional studies are needed to validate in vitro findings on surfaces of ready-to-eat meats. Future in vivo studies should investigate the ability of synergistic combinations (NIS+ACS and OCT+ACS) to control the pathogen. Better characterizations of inhibitory mechanisms should also be performed.

No description available.

This research investigated the perceptions of student-teachers and lecturers regarding Initial Teacher Education (ITE) for secondary teachers in Zimbabwe. The ways in which factors in and between the university and school settings for ITE shaped learning to teach were investigated. Student-teachers’ and lecturers’ perceptions of the development of ideas as student-teachers moved through the different stages of training were also investigated. The study employed a qualitative case study methodology and methods - interviews, biographical questionnaires and document analysis. Data analysis began by defining a priori themes and identifying parts of the interview transcripts that were relevant to these a priori themes. The initial coding was then refined by adding additional codes which emerged from the data to create a final coding template to interpret findings. Activity Theory was used to provide a conceptual map to help describe and analyse the findings. Student-teachers had varied backgrounds and motives for joining the teacher education programme. These were often at variance with the goals of ITE. They had pre-conceived ideas about teaching from their years of schooling, prior training and work experience. Student-teachers were learning to teach in the university setting and attempting to prove their competence in school settings. In both settings students, teachers and lecturers constituted the learning communities. Relationships and availability of tools often determined the kind of support student-teachers were receiving. The factors encountered within and between the two different activity systems shaped learning to teach in various ways. ‘Taken-for-granted’ practices were not questioned and this limited the ways in which ideas presented in the university were used in the school setting. The student-teachers’ professional development, evident both to the students themselves as well as their lecturers, demonstrated not only growth in their pedagogical maturity, but also some deeper insights and the beginnings of their teacher identity. Much literature argues that learning to become an effective practitioner necessitates the use of reflective practice as a tool to resolve contradictions and for processing and internalising the complexities of boundary crossing between settings. The ‘theory-practice’ gap can be viewed as a ‘transformation space’ where teacher identity is often developed. A model to explain learning to teach made up of five elements is proposed: preconceived ideas of teaching, new ideas, contradictions, socialisation and reflective practice. The findings suggest that the university where the study was carried out should harmonise espoused practice and actual practice so that activities are consistent with the notion of concurrent learning. Concerted efforts are also needed to develop collaborative school-university partnerships, which foster reflective practice as a tool to promote professional development. Staff development programmes are needed to develop appropriate working practices. Working conditions for teachers need to be revised by the Zimbabwe government, both to encourage teaching as a desirable profession and to keep pace with changes occurring in pedagogic practice. Further research is needed to investigate how students can successfully negotiate and learn from university-school boundary crossing issues, and what sort of boundary brokers and tools are needed. Contextual factors in Zimbabwe are such that little funding is available to develop ITE. The challenge is to find innovative ways of using scarce resources to produce high quality teachers.

Natural selection acts on multiple traits simultaneously. How mechanisms underlying such traits enable or constrain their response to simultaneous selection is poorly understood. We show how antagonism and synergism among three traits at the developmental level enable or constrain evolutionary change in response to simultaneous selection on two focal traits at the phenotypic level. After 10 generations of 25% simultaneous directional selection on all four combinations of body size and development time in Manduca sexta (Sphingidae), the changes in the three developmental traits predict 93% of the response of development time and 100% of the response of body size. When the two focal traits were under synergistic selection, the response to simultaneous selection was enabled by juvenile hormone and ecdysteroids and constrained by growth rate. When the two focal traits were under antagonistic selection, the response to selection was due primarily to change in growth rate and constrained by the two hormonal traits. The approach used here reduces the complexity of the developmental and endocrine mechanisms to three proxy traits. This generates explicit predictions for the evolutionary response to selection that are based on biologically informed mechanisms. This approach has broad applicability to a diverse range of taxa, including algae, plants, amphibians, mammals, and insects.

The goal with this project, was to explore the producing of a musicvideo with a synergistic focus in a practical way. Beside the practical work with the recording and editing of music and video, I wanted to explore the sound engineers role in such a project? To my help I had the video producer Hannes Knutsson from the small film- collective Lefvande Bilder and the singer, guitarist and songwriter Conny Flink. The result of my work is a musicvideo published on the internet website YouTube and the report of the making of it along with my work around the question above is published in this report. The name of the recorded and filmed song, written and performed by Conny Flink is ”My Way”.

Tesis para optar al grado de Doctor en Ciencias, Mención Computación / Los refinamientos actuales del análisis del peor caso sobre instancias con tamaño de entrada fijo consideran el orden de la entrada (por ejemplo, las subsecuencias ordenadas en una secuencia de números y las cadenas poligonales simples en las que puede dividirse una secuencia de puntos) o la estructura de la entrada (por ejemplo, la multiplicidad de los elementos en un multiconjunto y las posiciones relativas entre un conjunto de puntos en el plano), pero nunca, hasta donde sabemos, ambos al mismo tiempo. En esta tesis se proponen nuevas técnicas que combinan soluciones que se aprovechan del orden y la estructura de la entrada en una sola solución sinérgica para ordenar multiconjuntos, y para calcular la eficiencia de Pareto y la envoltura convexa de un conjunto de puntos en el plano. Estas soluciones sinérgicas se aprovechan del orden y la estructura de la entrada de tal forma que asintóticamente superan cualquier solución comparable que se aproveche solo de una de estas características. Como resultados intermedios, se describen y analizan varios algoritmos de mezcla: un algoritmo para mezclar secuencias ordenadas que es óptimo para cada instancia del problema; el primer algoritmo adaptativo para mezclar eficiencias de Pareto; y un algoritmo adaptativo para mezclar envolturas convexas en el plano. Estos tres algoritmos se basan en un paradigma donde las estructuras se dividen antes de ser mezcladas. Este paradigma es conveniente para extenderlo al contexto donde se responden consultas. Karp et al. (1998) describieron estructuras de datos diferidas como estructuras "perezosas" que procesan la entrada gradualmente a medida que responden consultas sobre los datos, trabajando la menor cantidad posible en el peor caso sobre instancias de tamaño fijo y número de consultas fijo. En esta tesis se desarrollan nuevas técnicas para refinar aún más estos resultados y aprovechar al mismo tiempo el orden y la estructura de la entrada y el orden y la estructura de la secuencia de consultas en tres problemas distintos: calcular el rango y la posici\'on de un elemento en un multiconjunto, determinar si un punto está dominado por la eficiencia de Pareto de un conjunto de puntos en el plano y determinar si un punto pertenece a la envoltura convexa de un conjunto de puntos en el plano. Las estructuras de datos diferidas que se obtienen superan todas las soluciones previas que solo se aprovechan de un subconjunto de estas características. Como una extensión natural a los resultados sinérgicos obtenidos en este trabajo para ordenar un multiconjunto, se describen estructuras de datos comprimidas que se aprovechan del orden y la estructura de la entrada para representar un multiconjunto, mientras se responden consultas del rango y la posición de elementos en el multiconjunto. / CONICYT-PCHA/Doctorado Nacional/2013-63130161, y los proyectos CONICYT Fondecyt/Regular nos 1120054 y 1170366