Efficacy of slow-release system for improving the quality of water in streams affected by mining activities

Author(s):  
Eung Seok Lee ◽  
Ryan Wolbert

<p>Acid mine drainage (AMD) is considered as one of the most prevalent environmental problems worldwide and remediation of AMD-affected streams remains a major challenge due to the large affected areas, large volume of polluted water, poor accessibility, and lack of financial supports. Advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) have been widely investigated as potential remedial options for contaminated water bodies of variety of settings, such as groundwater and waste discharges. This study presents a novel cost-effective approach for utilizing AOPs on improving quality of AMD-affected streams. Slow-release cylinders and pellets were created using polymeric binder and reagent salts that release strong oxidant and alkalinity upon dissolution in water. Results of column tests demonstrated that release durations were over 29 days and up to 100% iron removal was achieved within 20 minutes. Field-scale slow-release forms were manufactured and applied to an AMD site in southeast Ohio, USA for a 29-day demonstration study. Narrow channels were constructed for installation of slow-release forms and characterization of quality and flow of mine seeps and AMD stream during low subsurface flow periods. Results of field investigations suggest that the slow-release forms can be used to rapidly remove metals from AMD, as well as improve water parameters such as pH and minimize ecological impacts of remediation within the system in cost-effective manner.</p><p> </p>

Author(s):  
Steven Wilcox ◽  
Richard Wilkins ◽  
Martin Lyons

Many organisations are currently dealing with long standing legacy issues in clean up, decommissioning and demolition projects. Industry is required to ensure that all bulk articles, substances and waste arisings are adequately characterised and assigned to the correct disposal routes in compliance with UK legislation and best practice. It is essential that data used to support waste sentencing is of the correct type, quality and quantity, and that it is appropriately assessed in order to support defensible, confident decisions that account for inherent uncertainties. AMEC has adopted the Data Quality Objectives (DQO) based methodology and the software package Visual Sample Plan (VSP) to provide a better, faster, and more cost effective approach to meeting regulatory and client requirements, whilst minimising the time spent gathering data and assessing the information. The DQO methodology is based on a scientific approach that requires clear objectives to be established from the outset of a project and that there is a demonstration of acceptability of the results. Through systematic planning, the team develops acceptance or performance criteria for the quality of the data collected and for the confidence in the final decision. The systematic planning process promotes communication between all departments and individuals involved in the decision-making process thus the planning phase gives an open and unambiguous method to support the decisions and enables the decision-makers (technical authorities on the materials of concern) to document all assumptions. The DQO process allows better planning, control and understanding of all the issues. All types of waste can be sentenced under one controllable system providing a more defensible position. This paper will explain that the DQO process consists of seven main steps that lead to a detailed Sampling and Analysis Plan (SAP). The process gives transparency to any assumptions made about the site or material being characterised and identifies individuals involved. The associated calculation effort is reduced using the statistically based sampling models produced with VSP. The first part of this paper explains the DQO based methodology and Visual Sample Plan and the second part shows how the DQO process has been applied in practice.


Author(s):  
L Mohana Tirumala ◽  
S. Srinivasa Rao

Privacy preserving in Data mining & publishing, plays a major role in today networked world. It is important to preserve the privacy of the vital information corresponding to a data set. This process can be achieved by k-anonymization solution for classification. Along with the privacy preserving using anonymization, yielding the optimized data sets is also of equal importance with a cost effective approach. In this paper Top-Down Refinement algorithm has been proposed which yields optimum results in a cost effective manner. Bayesian Classification has been proposed in this paper to predict class membership probabilities for a data tuple for which the associated class label is unknown.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eirini Tsiropoulou ◽  
George Kousis ◽  
Athina Thanou ◽  
Ioanna Lykourentzou ◽  
Symeon Papavassiliou

This paper addresses the problem of museum visitors’ Quality of Experience (QoE) optimization by viewing and treating the museum environment as a cyber-physical social system. To achieve this goal, we harness visitors’ internal ability to intelligently sense their environment and make choices that improve their QoE in terms of which the museum touring option is the best for them and how much time to spend on their visit. We model the museum setting as a distributed non-cooperative game where visitors selfishly maximize their own QoE. In this setting, we formulate the problem of Recommendation Selection and Visiting Time Management (RSVTM) and propose a two-stage distributed algorithm based on game theory and reinforcement learning, which learns from visitor behavior to make on-the-fly recommendation selections that maximize visitor QoE. The proposed framework enables autonomic visitor-centric management in a personalized manner and enables visitors themselves to decide on the best visiting strategies. Experimental results evaluating the performance of the proposed RSVTM algorithm under realistic simulation conditions indicate the high operational effectiveness and superior performance when compared to other recommendation approaches. Our results constitute a practical alternative for museums and exhibition spaces meant to enhance visitor QoE in a flexible, efficient, and cost-effective manner.


Author(s):  
Samir Kumar Sadhukhan ◽  
Swarup Mandal

It is an established fact that cost of churning is a common concern for being profitable in the cellular network service provider’s space. Service providers can view this problem as a service management problem and can have a solution to enhance the stickiness of subscribers by managing the quality of user experience. Quality of Experience (QoE) is important in contrast to Quality of Service (QoS). Three basic components of service management are stage, prop, and user experience. In this cellular network service context, network infrastructure acts as prop. Prop needs to be flexible to enable the personalization in providing the service. In reality the major challenge for a service provider is keep the fitment between prop and the dynamic changes in subscriber profile in a cost effective manner. To define the problem more precisely, the authors take the conventional UMTS cellular network. Here, operators have considered single-homing of RNCs to MSCs/SGSNs (i.e., many-to-one mapping) with an objective to generate service at lower cost over a fixed period of time. However, a single-homing network does not remain cost-effective and flexible anymore when subscribers later begin to show specific inter-MSC/SGSN mobility patterns over time. This necessitates post-deployment topological extension of the network in which some specific RNCs are connected to two MSCs/SGSNs via direct links resulting in a more complex many-to-two mapping structure in parts of the network. The authors formulate the scenario as a combinatorial optimization problem and solve the NP-Complete problem using three meta-heuristic techniques, namely Simulated Annealing (SA), Tabu search (TS), and Ant colony optimization (ACO). They then compare these techniques with a novel optimal heuristic search method that the authors propose typically to solve the problem. The comparative results reveal that the search-based method is more efficient than meta-heuristic techniques in finding optimal solutions quickly.


Author(s):  
Deepak T. Mohan ◽  
Jeffrey Birt ◽  
Can Saygin ◽  
Jaganathan Sarangapani

Fastening operations are extensively used in the aerospace industry and constitute for more than a quarter of the total cost. Inspection of fasteners is another factor that adds cost and complexity to the overall process. Inspection is usually carried out on a sampling-basis as a stand-alone process after the fastening process is completed. Lack of capability to inspect all fasteners in a cost effective manner and the need to remove non-value added activities, such as inspection by itself, in order to reduce the manufacturing lead time have been the motivation behind this study. This paper presents a novel diagnostics scheme based on Mahalanobis-Taguchi System (MTS) for monitoring the quality of rotary-type fastening operations in real-time. This approach encompasses (1) integrating a torque sensor, a pressure sensor, and an optical encoder on a hand-held rotary-type fastening tool; (2) obtaining process parameters via the embedded sensors and generating process signatures in real-time; and (3) detecting anomalies on the tool using a wireless mote that communicates the decision with a base station. The anomalies investigated in this study are the grip length variations as under grip and normal grip, and presence of re-used fasteners. The proposed scheme has been implemented on prototype rotary tool for bolt-nut type of fasteners and tested under a variety of experimental settings. The experimental results have shown that the proposed approach is successful, with an accuracy of over 95% in detecting grip lengths of fasteners in real-time during the process.


1970 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 76-79
Author(s):  
Tanvir Bashar ◽  
Khondokar Mahzebin Shurovi ◽  
Sanjida Dilshad

Most of the environmental organism possess endotoxin which presence indicates the organisms are much lethal and for the purposes bacteriological quality of pharmaceutical raw products is much important. In these current study, 2 raw materials out of 10 were found to containing pathogenic bacteria Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas species in the culture medium, that indicates the raw materials were contaminated with the deadly organism. These two raw materials checked for the presence of Endotoxin and both provided positive gel clot by Limulas amoebocyte lysate (LAL) assay. Quality maintenance and assurance is the essential need of Drug preparation in pharmaceutical sector. The result ensure that Pharmaceutical industry should need to follow GMP and HACCP to minimize the contamination for improving the biological safety of the product in a cost-effective manner. Key Word: Limulas amoebocyte lysate (LAL) assay, Gram negative bacteria, endotoxin. doi:10.3329/sjps.v1i1.1812    S. J. Pharm. Sci. 1(1&2): 76-79


1994 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 63-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian B. Burkey ◽  
Robert H. Ossoff

Nasopharyngeal cancer (NPC) is a unique disease with increasing interest for many physicians due to its unusual etiology, histology, and epidemiology. The recent era of fiberoptic endoscopy now provides the clinician with better tools for the screening, diagnosis, staging, and follow-up of NPC. The use of high resolution flexible and rigid nasopharyngoscopy gives the physician an opportunity for a more sensitive examination in a higher proportion of patients. Ultimately, this will allow for earlier diagnosis of NPC, and improved prognosis and better quality of life for the patients with this disease. Also, by allowing the clinician to perform directed biopsies of the nasopharynx under local anesthesia, fiberoptic nasopharyngoscopy allows a less morbid and more cost-effective approach towards this disease, including screening protocols in certain high risk regions of the world.


2015 ◽  
Vol 97 (3) ◽  
pp. 221-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
U Butt ◽  
A Whiteman ◽  
J Wilson ◽  
E Paul ◽  
B Roy

Introduction There has been a significant rise in the volume of subacromial decompression surgery performed in the UK. This study aimed to determine whether arthroscopic subacromial decompression improves health related quality of life in a cost effective manner. Methods Patients undergoing arthroscopic subacromial decompression surgery for impingement were enrolled between 2012 and 2014. The Oxford shoulder score and the EQ-5D™ instruments were completed prior to and following surgery. A cost–utility analysis was performed. Results Eighty-three patients were eligible for the study with a mean follow-up duration of 15 months (range: 4–27 months). The mean Oxford shoulder score improved by 13 points (95% confidence interval [CI]: 11–15 points). The mean health utility gain extrapolated from the EQ-5D™ questionnaire improved by 0.23 (95% CI: 0.16–0.30), translating to a minimum cost per QALY of £5,683. Conclusions Subacromial decompression leads to significant improvement in function and quality of life in a cost effective manner. This provides justification for its ongoing practice by appropriately trained shoulder surgeons in correctly selected patients.


Author(s):  
Manolis Panagiotakis ◽  
Nektarios Chrysoulakis ◽  
Vasiliki Charalampopoulou ◽  
Dimitris Poursanidis

A very high-resolution DSM covering an area of 400km2 over the Athens Metropolitan Area has been produced using Pleiades 1B 0,5m panchromatic tri-stereo images. Applied Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry tools have been used resulted in a 1x1m DSM over the study area. DSM accuracy has been evaluated by comparison with measured elevations with D-GPS and a reference DSM provided by the National Cadaster & Mapping Agency S.A. In addition, different combinations of stereo images have been prepared for further exploitation of the quality of the produced DSM by stereo vs. tri-stereo images. Results show that the produced by the tri-stereo images DSM has an RMSE of 1.17m in elevation (z), which is among the best reported in the relevant literature. Stereo based DSMs from the same sensor have worst performance to this end. Satellite Remote Sensing (SRS) based DSMs over urban areas provide the best cost-effective approach in comparison to airborne-based datasets due to high spatial coverage, lower cost and high temporal coverage. Pleiades-based high-quality DSM products can serve the domains of urban planning/climate, hydrological modelling and natural hazards, as major input for simulation models and morphological analysis at local scale.


Author(s):  
Joel Chiadikobi Nwaubani ◽  
Artemis Tsianta ◽  
Magdalini Zelka

In today's era of high competition and globalisation, it is an indisputable fact that customers are more demanding not only in the quality of products but also on the services provided. Consequently, the pressure on companies to discover new ways to create and provide quality to their customers has increased much more. More specifically, customer service has become a key tool for diversification, as culture and customer demands are constantly increasing. Greece stands on a strategic crossroad for the development of transportation in the greater region of Europe, Asia and Africa. Its geographical position renders it highly attractive for investments in logistics and transport to take advantage of these increasing trade flows in an efficient and cost-effective manner. In this paper, we carried out a quantitative research in Greece using a questionnaire to analyse the importance and effectiveness of the application of logistics in businesses with regard to customer service, which serve as a critical source of sustainable competitive advantage. By applying this method, a business will have its customers satisfied, thereby giving them the motivation to remain loyal and faithful to their purchasing practices within the company.


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