The effects of lime treatment on the mechanical properties of soils are usually not accounted for in the design of geotechnical structures. As a result the potential of lime treatment has not been fully exploited. In this thesis, a comprehensive experimental program has been carried out to identity the key features of the mechanical behaviour of structured materials. The chemical modifications arising from lime treatment were quantified using thermal analysis methods. From these results a non-linear chemo-mechanical coupling was established between the concentration of cementitious compounds and the yield stress. Using these results, a new formulation to model the degradation of the structure at yield has been developed and implemented in a constitutive model for structured materials. This new model, developed in the framework of the Modified Cam Clay model, requires a limited number of additional parameters that all have a physical meaning and can all be determined from a single isotropic compression test. The model has proven to be successful in reproducing the key features of structured materials and for the modelling of the mechanical behaviour of lime treated specimens under various stress paths. Due to similarities in behaviour, it is shown that the formulation is also suitable for naturally structured soils. To account for a structured material in the design of geotechnical structures, a fully functional finite element program for elasto-plastic problems was developed including the pre- and post-processing of the results. A thorough validation has confirmed the good implementation of the finite element method and its suitability for the modelling of complex geometries involving structured materials.

A general systematic framework with several sub-frameworks was developed to help managers make informed decisions related to the reuse of treated wastewater in agricultural irrigation. The framework involves the identification and evaluation of the short- and long-term effects of using treated wastewater with some common constituents of concern ( e.g. salts and some specific ions, nutrients, heavy metals, organic compounds, and microorganisms) on the environmental elements ( crop , soils, surface water, and groundwater), and on the public health. Local and/ or international standards, criteria, and guidelines related to agricultural reuse are applied to the evaluation of the effects. Based on the evaluation results, decisions are made and management alternatives are proposed. The management alternatives include improving the wastewater treatment level , blending treated wastewater with good-quality water, using an appropriate irrigation method, using different reuse schemes, and zero discharging from specific industries. The framework demonstration includes the data input, information processing, output, evaluation, and decision-making phases. Data related to the plant-soil system (crop, soil, and any other assimilation pathway), and the behavior and fate of treated wastewater constituents are necessary for the identification of the effect on the environmental elements. Jordan was selected as a case study for the demonstration of the general systematic framework. Due to the lack of data related to the different constituents, some of the hazardous heavy metals were considered in the demonstration with the worst condition of accumulating the whole quantity of metals in the soil. The demonstration results showed that, at least for the coming 40 years Jordan can practice the reuse of the treated wastewater for agricultural irrigation without exceeding the maximum allowable limits in the agricultural soils based on the USEPA for biosolid application. With regard to blending and system efficiency, the demo result s also showed that they do not have an effect on the long-term accumulation of the hazardous metals in the soil. The general systematic framework is a decision tool, which is able to answer questions related to water treatment level and type , when to blend with freshwater, the recommended blending ratio, the recommended irrigation method, selection of the optimum reuse scheme, as well as providing answers to questions related to industrial wastewater constituents.

The preservative concentration difference in treated wood was investigated to understand the component distribution; a study of different chemical extractions of treated wood waste was carried out and certain reagents were realized to be feasible to the preservative component removal. During fixation, the preservative components redistributed between earlywood and latewood and concentration gradients at depths also developed. Different solvent extractions of CCA treated wood were tested and ion exchange, chelation and metal dissolving were all mechanisms for component extraction. The transition of Cr(III) to Cr(VI) by oxidizing reagents (NaClO and H2O2) can make possible the direct reuse of extracted chemicals as a preservative. Different reaction factors in the oxidant extractions were compared and higher pHs significantly improved the oxidizing capability of the reagents and CCA component removal. Fresh and aged CCA treated wood generally responsed similarly to the oxidant extractions. However, arsenic in aged wood was more difficult to be removed by NaClO, while, H2O2 was more efficient to extract CCA components from aged wood than fresh wood. Monoethanolamine (Mea) efficiently extracted copper (above 90%) from ACQ treated wood and the formation of stable neutral Cu(Mea)2 in sufficient Mea solution is the main mechanism for Mea extraction. Little wood structure degradation occurred during the process. Mea (10%~15%) extraction was fast and the effect of temperature was insignificant. Cu diffusion in the longitudinal direction was the most significant compared to other wood directions. To further promote Mea extraction, repeated extraction (batch-based and column-based) was performed and proved to be more efficient, feasible and economical than one-time extraction. Column-based continuous Mea extraction showed both high Cu removal (up to 99%) and Cu accumulation in the extract. After the preservative treated wood waste is decontaminated significantly, the extract solution can be reused by directly mixing with the preservative treating solution, which is the most straightforward procedure for the recycling of chemicals removed from the preservative treated wood.

The preservative concentration difference in treated wood was investigated to understand the component distribution; a study of different chemical extractions of treated wood waste was carried out and certain reagents were realized to be feasible to the preservative component removal. During fixation, the preservative components redistributed between earlywood and latewood and concentration gradients at depths also developed. Different solvent extractions of CCA treated wood were tested and ion exchange, chelation and metal dissolving were all mechanisms for component extraction. The transition of Cr(III) to Cr(VI) by oxidizing reagents (NaClO and H2O2) can make possible the direct reuse of extracted chemicals as a preservative. Different reaction factors in the oxidant extractions were compared and higher pHs significantly improved the oxidizing capability of the reagents and CCA component removal. Fresh and aged CCA treated wood generally responsed similarly to the oxidant extractions. However, arsenic in aged wood was more difficult to be removed by NaClO, while, H2O2 was more efficient to extract CCA components from aged wood than fresh wood. Monoethanolamine (Mea) efficiently extracted copper (above 90%) from ACQ treated wood and the formation of stable neutral Cu(Mea)2 in sufficient Mea solution is the main mechanism for Mea extraction. Little wood structure degradation occurred during the process. Mea (10%~15%) extraction was fast and the effect of temperature was insignificant. Cu diffusion in the longitudinal direction was the most significant compared to other wood directions. To further promote Mea extraction, repeated extraction (batch-based and column-based) was performed and proved to be more efficient, feasible and economical than one-time extraction. Column-based continuous Mea extraction showed both high Cu removal (up to 99%) and Cu accumulation in the extract. After the preservative treated wood waste is decontaminated significantly, the extract solution can be reused by directly mixing with the preservative treating solution, which is the most straightforward procedure for the recycling of chemicals removed from the preservative treated wood.

The traditional wood used to make barrels destined for use in the world wide wine industry is oak. However, oak chips and shavings can substitute for barrels to add flavour to wine and are very much more cost effective. As with the heat treatment of barrels, oak chips are toasted before use. This serves to pyrolyse lignin and hemicellulose, generating families of compounds that impart desirable flavours to wine. Other woods are very occasionally used in wine barrel construction, but no chips other than oak chips have been used to flavour wine. This is surprising given that all woods contain lignin and hemicellulose, the composition of which will vary perhaps usefully from species to species. The 12 woods used in this research, including American oak, were chosen on several criteria: botanical similarly to oak, exclusivity to New Zealand, and historical association with New Zealand. The woods were cut to chips measuring about 10 x 20 x 2.5 mm. The moisture content was measured after dry heating to 110°C. Fresh samples of chips were heated (toasting in the context of wine) to 200°C for 2 hours, 210°C for 3 hours, called light and heavy toasting respectively. Weight loss was determined. The colour of the untreated and toasted wood chips was measured in Hunter colour space, yielding data on lightness (L*), hue angle (the basic colour) and saturation (the intensity of colour). The moisture content of oak was the lowest of all the woods. The weight loss of oak chips at 200°C was much greater than that of other woods, but the colour change did not indicate losses due to severe charring. Overall, each wood behaved in a distinctive way to the toasting treatments, with some charring much more than others. Hue was the least affected, indicating that the basic colour of the woods was little changed by toasting. Light and saturation generally decreased strongly, particularly on heavy toasting. Colour was thus being lost and less light reflected. An unoaked chardonnay was infused with toasted chips at the rate of 5 g.L-1 for two weeks at room temperature, and later decanted. At all stages exposure to air was minimised. The 25 treatments (2 x 12 plus the unwooded control) were first assessed by a panel comprising eight experienced wine tasters and 29 AUT staff members who claimed some knowledge of wine flavour. This qualitative/semi-quantitative analysis required tasters to assess the wines in terms of 12 descriptors commonly associated with oaked wines (boxes were ticked for ‘sweet oak’, ‘smokey’, ‘vanilla’ etc.), and to choose the three most liked and the three least liked. 6 Confidential A principal component analysis of a correlation matrix of descriptors was used to summarise panelist’s opinion. The first two principal components explained 53 % of the variation and served to group descriptors into four quadrants, which were each associated with different woods and toasting levels. Most liked were totara light (toast), kahikatea heavy, manuka heavy and American oak light. Macrocarpa light toast was almost universally disliked. On the basis of liking and association with New Zealand, five woods and chosen toasting levels and the control were selected for hedonic trials (1 to 9 liking scale) with 180 consumers (age range and gender were identified) in six retail wine shops. The decreasing numerical of liking by treatment was totara (6.49), control, manuka, American oak, kahikatea, radiata pine (5.47), with an overall significant effect (P < 0.001) for treatment. Tukey’s test revealed that only totara and the control treatments were outstanding (P < 0.05). Retail wine shop as a factor was marginally significant. Older consumers liked the wines more (P < 0.05), as did females (P < 0.001). There were no significant interactions between any of the factors. Because of the difficulties in sourcing totara, manuka appears to be the most viable alternative to oak as a wine flavouring in the New Zealand context.

Within this thesis, I performed a systematic review of approaches to broad-scale modelling of disease vector distributions and determined the most widely used methods predict current species niches and project the models forward under future climate scenarios without temporal validation. I then provided a forward-looking summary of emerging techniques to improve the reliability and transferability of those models, including historical calibration. I then predicted Anopheles mosquito distributions across Tanzania in 2001 (before large-scale ITN distributions) and compared this model with countrywide ITN use by 2012 to assess where the most suitable mosquito habitats were located and whether ITN rollouts in Tanzania ensured coverage of such areas. I concluded that ITNs in Tanzania did not optimally target areas most at risk of malaria. In doing so, I provided a new approach to monitoring and evaluating vector control interventions across large spatial scales.

The research presented in this paper evaluates the potential impact of municipal solid waste (MSW) landfill leachate quality on the loss of metals from discarded treated wood during disposal. The loss of arsenic (As), chromium (Cr), copper (Cu), and boron (B) from several types of pressure-treated wood (CCA: chromated copper arsenate, ACQ: alkaline copper quaternary, CBA: copper boron azole, and DOT: disodium octaborate tetrahydrate) using leachate collected from 26 MSW landfills in Florida was examined. The toxicity characteristic leaching procedure (TCLP), the synthetic precipitation leaching procedure (SPLP), and California's waste extraction test (WET) were also performed. The results suggested that loss of preservative components was influenced by leachate chemistry. Copper loss from CCA-, ACQ- and CBA-treated wood was similar in magnitude when in contact with landfill leachates compared to synthetic TCLP and SPLP solutions. Ammonia was found as one of the major parameters influencing the leaching of Cu from treated wood when leached with MSW landfill leachates. The results suggest that disposal of ACQ- and CBA-treated wood in substantial quantity in MSW landfills may elevate the Cu concentration in the leachate; this could be of potential concern, especially for a bioreactor MSW landfill in which relatively higher ammonia concentrations in leachate have been reported in recent literature. For the As, Cr and B the concentrations observed with the landfill leachate as the leaching solutions were over a range from some sample showing the concentrations below and some showing above the observed value from corresponding SPLP and TCLP tests. In general the WET test showed the highest concentrations.

The sagebrush shrub steppe ecosystem is of great concern to researchers, conservationists, and the general public because of the documented declines associated with it. Monitoring in the past has generally been point-based and lacking in long-term data. To overcome these deficiencies, an automated method of monitoring was developed using GIS and remote sensing. Geospatial layers of vegetation, soils, fire history, roads, streams, and springs were acquired and processed to characterize selected monitoring locations. A temporal set of Landsat satellite imagery for the past 30 years was normalized to reduce the effects of sun angle, haze, and sensor change. After normalization, a Tasseled Cap Transformation was adapted with local coefficients to provide a landscape metric which was sensitive to actual ground conditions and meaningful at management level. The Tasseled Cap outputs of brightness and greenness are a relative measure of bare ground and plant productivity, respectively. When measured over time, brightness and greenness provided diagnostic trends and condition of treated big sagebrush communities

Biomassa innehåller oorganiska ämnen som bl.a. alkalimetaller och alkaliska jordartsmetaller, vilket bidrar till ett minskat utbyte av pyrolysolja och ökar istället utbytet av gaser och lågvärdiga produkter. Detta sker p.g.a. att oorganiska ämnen agerar som krackningkatalysatorer. [1] Pyrolysolja har även en hög syrehalt vilket t.ex. gör den oblandbar med fossil olja. Genom att använda lakning som förbehandlingsmetod kan biomassans innehåll av oorganiska ämnen minska och pyrolysoljans sammansättning ändras. Detta sker genom bl.a. jonbytesreaktioner som uppstår mellan joner i lakningsmedlet och biomassans oorganiska ämnen. [2]        En katalysator kan användas för att minska syrehalten i pyrolysoljan och erhålla högvärdiga produkter som aromater. Detta sker genom katalytiska reaktioner som bl.a. krackning, aromatisering, ketoniserings- och aldolkondensation samt avspjälkning av vatten. [3] [4] I detta arbete har kombinationen av att förbehandla biomassa samt att låta pyrolysångor reagera över en katalysator undersökts. Fyra olika experiment har utförts för att kunna jämföra produktfördelningen mellan vätska, gas och kolrest, vätskefördelningen mellan H2O och olja samt olje-sammansättningen i de olika fallen. Experimenten utfördes med förbehandlad/icke-förbehandlad biomassa med och utan katalysator. Som lakningsmedel vid förbehandlingen användes en blandning av ättiksyra och avjoniserat vatten som biomassan behandlades med och sedan separerades ifrån. Som katalysator användes zeoliten HZSM-5 och utvärderades ex-bed i pyrolysören.        Resultaten visar att halten oorganiska ämnen minskar efter behandling. Förbehandlad biomassa utan katalysator ger ett ökat utbyte av vätska där vätskefördelningen mellan H2O och olja visar en större mängd olja jämfört med icke-förbehandlad biomassa utan katalysator. I fallet förbehandlad biomassan med katalysator visar resultatet att en större mängd gas bildas jämfört med icke-förbehandlad biomassa med katalysator, vilket tyder på att katalysatorn reagerar starkare mot sammansättningen av pyrolysångor från förbehandlad biomassa i det fallet. Vätskefördelningen vid icke-förbehandlad biomassan med katalysator visar en större mängd olja jämfört med förbehandlad biomassa med katalysator.       Olje-sammansättningen visar att den största mängden högvärdiga produkter, i detta fall polyaromatiska kolväten, bildas vid närvaro av katalysator. / Biomass generally contains inorganic substances such as alkali metals and alkaline earth metals, which reduce the yield of pyrolysis oil and increases the yield of gases and low-value products due to inorganic substances acting as cracking catalysts. [1] Pyrolysis oil also has a high oxygen content, making it im-miscible with fossil oil. Using leaching as a pretreatment method, the content of inorganic substances in biomass can decrease which changes the composition of the pyrolysis oil. Among other things, this occurs through ion-exchange reactions that occur when ions between the leachant and the ionically bonded inorganic elements in biomass change site. [2] A catalyst can be used to reduce oxygen content in the pyrolysis oil and obtain high-quality products such as aromatics. This is done through reactions such as cracking, aromatization, ketonization and aldol condensation as well as hydro-deoxygenation that arise in the presence of a catalyst. [3] [4]            In this work, four different experiments have been conducted to compare the product distribution between liquid, gas and char, the liquid distribution between H2O and oil and the oil composition in the different cases. The experiments were performed with pre-treated/untreated biomass with and without catalyst. As leachant, a mixture of acetic acid and deionized water was used with which the biomass was boiled and then separated. As catalyst, The zeolite HZSM-5 was used. HZSM-5 was evaluated ex-bed in the process. The results show that the content of inorganic substances decreases after treatment. Pre-treated biomass without catalytic upgrading leads to increase in the liquid yield in which the liquid distribution between H2O and oil shows a greater amount of oil compares to untreated biomass with without catalytic upgrading, indicating a decrease of inorganic substances. In the case of pre-treated biomass with catalyst, the result shows that a larger amount of gas is formed compared to untreated biomass with catalyst, which indicates that the catalyst reacts more strongly to the composition of pyrolysis vapors from a pre-treated biomass in that case. The liquid distribution of the untreated biomass with catalyst shows a greater amount of oil compared to pre-treated biomass with catalyst.       The oil composition shows that the largest amount of high-value products, in this case polyaromatic hydrocarbons, is formed in the presence of the catalyst.

Denna studie har gjorts för att se hur personal på daglig verksamhet uppfattar sitt eget bemötande och hur de arbetar med att ge ett bra bemötande. Den forsknings som finns är begränsad, speciellt inom det valda området och det finns en gemensam medvetenhet hos forskarna att det finns en bemötandeproblematik. En medvetenhet hos forskarna att det behövs mer utbildning som handlar om kommunikation och bemötande. Metoden som har använts i denna studie är en kvalitativ metod med semi-strukturerade intervjuer. Den personal som deltog i studien arbetade inom kommunalt eller på privatägd daglig verksamhet runt om i sydvästra Skåne. Personalen fick möjligheten att reflektera över sitt bemötande och det fanns en medvetenhet i när ett dåligt bemötande gavs och detta såg personalen som en del av en process. De såg sitt bemötande av brukarna som viktigt och betydelsefullt och för att stärka brukarnas empowerment bemöter personalen dem med respekt genom att skapa tillit och trygghet hos brukarna. Det som studien kom fram till var att personalen hade en medvetenhet inom sitt eget bemötande och att utbildning var en viktig del av att skapa sig kunskap och erfarenheter inom bemötande och kommunikation. Personalen hade även en förförståelse i hur kommunikation och attityder hörde ihop med bemötandet och hur de kunde förbättra sitt bemötande genom att reflektera och diskutera med sina medarbetare. / This study has been done to see how the staff in daily activity centers experience their interaction and how they are working to provide a good response. There is a limited amount of studies in the chosen field and there is a common awareness among scientists that an attitude problem exists. There is an awareness of the fact that it needs more education about communication and interaction. The study was carried out with a qualitative method with semi-structured interviews. The staff who participated in the study worked in privately owned or publicly managed daily activity centers across the southwest of Skåne. By having the staff reflect on their approach and how they interacted, it raised an awareness of when a less than ideal interaction had occurred and this was seen as a part of the process. They saw their interaction with the users as important and significant. To facilitate empowerment to the user, the staff treats the users with respect. This helps build up a sense of trust and security between them.The conclusion of the study was that staff members were aware of their own interaction with their users and that education was an important part of creating knowledge and experience in interaction and communication. The staff also had an understanding of how communication and attitudes belonged to the interaction and how they could improve their approach by reflecting and discussing it with their fellow staff members.