Today waste management has entered a new stage. Since wastes still contain natural materials and energy that can be extracted, it should be treated in effective ways, for example, for energy recovery or material recycling. Many countries and the municipalities have therefore made waste treatment strategies in accordance with for example, EU directives or governmental regulations. In such circumstances, Envac is one of waste management companies in Sweden, which collects different kinds of waste fractions through an underground pipe system by means of air pressure. In Hammarby sjöstad in Stockholm, currently organic waste, combustible waste, and newspapers are collected by the Envac’s system, however a cross contamination between organic fraction and newspapers has been observed. We therefore performed on-site waste transporting experiments in order to solve this cross contamination and suggest an optimum transporting condition which means that waste bags can be transported with high rate and acceptable condition to the terminal. From the previous study, bag quality and transporting speed were supposed to be the factors that affect the waste purity. Then on-site experiments were designed and carried out based on these factors. In the end, we proposed the optimum condition depending on the bag quality and clarified the causes of the cross contamination.

Sri Lanka has a number of small waterfalls and channels. Related to this there is a significant potential to develop small hydropower plants, thus to generate much needed electricity for country’s development efforts. Small hydro power plants cause less environmental effects compared to large scale hydro power generation and power generation using fossil fuel. Therefore, it is a timely requirement to explore the possibilities of utilizing small water streams to generate electricity as much as possible as well as to optimize the energy generation with the available    water in those water streams.   The importance of small hydro power is highlighted in the   Sri Lanka’s energy generation plan, and  the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) annual report states that in year 2011 total installed capacity of small hydro plant was around 200MW and it is expected to expand energy generation to around 800GWh. This study focuses on finding out optimum operating parameters to maximize the energy generation of existing small hydro power plant in the country. By selecting a few small hydro power plants, preliminary studies were performed to identify optimum values of water flow rate to maximize the efficiency of the power generation. The study revealed that the selected plants had not operated at the maximum efficiency; hence they did not optimally utilize the available water.

The research undertaken in this study is an attempt to determine the influence of farm advisory services, socio-economic factors, and physical factors on the aggregate toxicity of pesticides used by cotton and peanut farmers in the Albemarle-Pamlico Watershed of Virginia and North Carolina. An aggregate toxicity index is developed for all pesticides used on each farm site. Four different types of farm advisors are considered in this study, namely, hired staff, university and state extension agents, chemical dealers, and scouting personnel. Regression analysis is used to estimate how the aggregate toxicity index and the aggregate pesticide expenditures were affected by farmers' choice of the most important farm advisory services; the farmer's age, education, and farming experience; productivity of the soil; soil erosion index; distance of farm from nearest water source; and the state in which the farm was located. The results of this study indicate that hired staff, scouting personnel, and extension agents are associated with higher aggregate toxicity of pesticides on cotton farms, while scouting personnel and chemical dealers are associated with higher aggregate toxicity of pesticides on peanut farms. More years of farming experience is associated with a slight decrease in aggregate toxicity on cotton farms. Increasing age of farmers is associated with a slight increase in aggregate toxicity on peanut farms. Training of farm advisors should include information about potential environmental damage from alternative pesticides. Advisors should be informed about the effects of soil physical characteristics on potential for environmental damage from pesticide use. Farm advisors should also be trained in methods to disseminate information to farmers on pesticide toxicity to the environment. More information on pesticide toxicity could also be publicized on pesticide packages. Continued research on less toxic pesticides and alternative pesticides is also an important strategy to reduce pesticide toxicity. / Master of Science

Through the Cenozoic, paleoclimate records show general trends of global cooling and increased aridity, and environments in North America shifted from predominantly forests to more open habitats. Paleobotanical records indicate grasses were present on the continent in the Eocene; however, paleosol and phytolith studies indicate that open habitats did not arise until the late Eocene or even later in the Oligocene. Studies of large mammalian herbivores have documented changes in ecomorphology and community structure through time, revealing that shifts in mammalian morphology occurred millions of years after the environmental changes thought to have triggered them. Smaller mammals, like rodents and lagomorphs, should more closely track climate and habitat changes due to their shorter generation times and smaller ranges, but these animals have received much less study. To examine changes in smaller mammals through time, we have assembled and analyzed an ecomorphological database of all North American rodent and lagomorph species. Analyses of these data found that rodent and lagomorph community structure changed dramatically through the Cenozoic, and shifts in diversity and ecology correspond closely with the timing of habitat changes. Cenozoic rodent and lagomorph species diversity is strongly biased by sampling of localities, but sampling-corrected diversity reveals diversity dynamics that, after an initial density-dependent diversification in the Eocene, track habitat changes and the appearance of new ecological adaptations. As habitats became more open and arid through time, rodent and lagomorph crown heights increased while burrowing, jumping, and cursorial adaptations became more prevalent. Through time, open-habitat specialists were added during periods of diversification, while closed-habitat taxa were disproportionately lost in subsequent diversity declines. While shifts among rodents and lagomorphs parallel changes in ungulate communities, they started millions of years earlier than in larger mammals. This is likely a consequence of the smaller mammal' greater sensitivity to environmental changes and more rapid evolution. These results highlight the importance of examining understudied members of vertebrate faunas for understanding the evolution of terrestrial communities through time.

Continental scale studies on ungulate crown heights in relation to climate and habitat changes have revealed a correlation between increasing hypsodonty and a shift to more arid environments. Small mammals have been shown to adapt to changing habitats millions of years earlier than larger mammals. In this study I examined fossil localities throughout the last 37 Ma across North America. Diversity of rodents and lagomorphs were analyzed through this time period, with examination of community structure characterized by relative percentages of taxa with different crown heights. Overall, a decrease in precipitation and temperature was found across North America from 37 Ma to the present. The Mid Miocene Climatic Optimum (around 15 Ma) was an pronounced period of warming, comparable to the warming we see today. Nebraska and California showed increases in crown height before Oregon. Overall, these findings help demonstrate how communities react at different time scales to climate change.

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(人間健康科学) / 甲第19232号 / 人健博第29号 / 新制||人健||3(附属図書館) / 32231 / 京都大学大学院医学研究科人間健康科学系専攻 / (主査)教授 杉本 直三, 教授 精山 明敏, 教授 戸井 雅和 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Human Health Sciences / Kyoto University / DFAM

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Research was conducted using the Soil-Plant-Atmosphere-Research (SPAR) units at Mississippi State University, Starkville, MS to investigate temperature effects on warm- and cool-season turfgrasses. Data collected include clipping yield, total root biomass, and relative chlorophyll index (RCI). Cultivars and species in the study included: ‘Latitude 36’, ‘Tifway’, ‘MSB-285’, and ‘TifEagle’ bermudagrass, ‘Meyer’ zoysiagrass, ‘Penn A1/A4’ and ‘Penncross’ creeping bentgrass, ‘Midnight’ Kentucky bluegrass, ‘Fiesta 4’ perennial ryegrass, and ‘Falcon V’ tall fescue. Grasses were grown in the SPAR units at varying day/night temperature regimes. Clipping yield was collected every three days, and regression was used to determine the temperature at which clipping yield equaled zero. Root biomass was collected at the conclusion of the trial, while RCI was taken once weekly. Base temperature for warm-season grasses ranged from 12.5 to 13.2°C. Determined optimum temperatures ranged from 31.8 to 36.1°C for warm-season turfgrasses and 18.8 to 20.6°C for cool-season turfgrasses.

[pt] O problema geral de minimizar os custos operativos de um sistema de potência mediante escolha acertada de geração ativa e reativa, é formulado como um problema matemático de programação não linear. O problema geral é particularizado para o de minimização das perdas ativas em transmissão, com decisões judiciosas quanto a geração de potência reativa e posicionamento de taps de transformadores. Rotinas computacionais eficientes baseadas na resolução do fluxo de potência pelo método de Newton-Raphson e nas variáveis duais (lagrangeanas) do teorema de Kuhn-Tucker são discutidas. As possibilidades de se estender o fluxo de potência com otimização de reativo para a potência ativa são também discutidas. Verifica-se que o trabalho adicional envolvido é bastante simples, resultando no problema economicamente mais importante do despacho otimizado da potência ativa e reativa. / [en] The general problem of minimizing the operating cost of a power system by proper selection of active and reactive productions is formulated as a nonlinear programming problem. The general problem is particularized to the minimization of transmission line losses by suitable selection of the reactive productions and tranformer tap settings. An efficient computational producedure based on the Newton- Raphson method for solving the power flow equations ando n the dual (lagranggian) variables of the Kuhn and Tucker theorem is discussed. The possibilities of extending the optimum reactive power flow to consider the real power are also discussed. The extra work to be done is very simple, resulting in the economically more important problem of combined active and reactive dispatch optimication.

In the construction of highways, airports, and other structures, the compaction of soils is needed to improve its strength. In 1933 Proctor developed a laboratory compaction test to determine the maximum dry density of compacted soils, which can be used for specifications of field compaction. The Compaction of soils is influenced by many factors, the most common are the moisture content, the soil type and the applied compaction energy. The objective of this research is the analysis of the maximum dry density values based on the soil classification and characterization. The method of choice in the determination of the maximum dry density from different soils was the Standard Proctor Test following the procedure for the standard Proctor test as is explained in ASTM Test Designation D-698. From this investigation, the maximum dry density of eight types of sands was obtained, the sands were classified by using the Unified Soil Classification System. The influence on the maximum dry density of the type of sands, type of fines, amount of fines and distribution of the grain size was determined, followed by a sensitivity analysis that measured the influence of these parameters on the obtained maximum dry density. The research revealed some correlations between the maximum dry density of soils with the type of fines, the fines content and the Uniformity Coefficient. These correlations were measured and some particular behavioral trends were encountered and analyzed. It was found that well-graded sands have higher maximum dry density than poorly graded when the soils have the same fines content, also it was encountered that plastic fines tend to increase the maximum dry density.