Energy from waste: reuse of compost heat as a source of renewable energy

An in-vessel tunnel composting facility in Scotland was used to investigate the potential for collection and reuse of compost heat as a source of renewable energy. The amount of energy offered by the compost was calculated and seasonal variations analysed. A heat exchanger was designed in order to collect and transfer the heat. This allowed heated water of 47.3oC to be obtained. The temperature could be further increased to above 60oC by passing it through multiple tunnels in series. Estimated costs for installing and running the system were calculated. In order to analyse these costs alternative solar thermal and ground source heat pump systems were also designed. The levels of supply and economic performance were then compared. A capital cost of £11,662 and operating cost of £1,039 per year were estimated, resulting in a cost of £0.50 per kWh for domestic water and £0.10 per kWh for spatial heat. Using the heat of the compost was found to provide the most reliable level of supply at a similar price to its rivals

Jumble Java Byte Code to Measure the Effectiveness of Unit Tests

Jumble is a byte code level mutation testing tool for Java which inter-operates with JUnit. It has been designed to operate in an industrial setting with large projects. Heuristics have been included to speed the checking of mutations, for example, noting which test fails for each mutation and running this first in subsequent mutation checks. Significant effort has been put into ensuring that it can test code which uses custom class loading and reflection. This requires careful attention to class path handling and coexistence with foreign class-loaders. Jumble is currently used on a continuous basis within an agile programming environment with approximately 370,000 lines of Java code under source control. This checks out project code every fifteen minutes and runs an incremental set of unit tests and mutation tests for modified classes. Jumble is being made available as open source

Mass Dependence of M3Y-Type Interactions and the Effects of Tensor Correlations

The mass dependence of the M3Y-type effective interactions and the effects of tensor correlations are examined. Two-body nuclear matrix elements are obtained by the lowest order constrained variational (LOCV) technique with and without tensor correlations. We have found that the tensor correlations are important especially in the triplet-even (TE) and tensor-even (TNE) channels in order to reproduce the G-matrix elements obtained previously. Then M3Y-type potentials for inelastic scattering are obtained by fitting our two-body matrix elements to those of a sum of Yukawa functions for the mass numbers A=24, A=40 and A=90.Comment: 13 pages, 6 table

Marine benthic flora and fauna of Gourdon Bay and the Dampier Peninsula in the Kimberley region of North-Western Australia

Surveys undertaken to characterise the marine benthic habitats along the Dampier Peninsula and further south at Gourdon Bay in the Kimberley region of Western Australia were augmented with epibenthic sled sampling of soft and hard bottom habitats. This paper describes the species collected, their biomass and relative abundance for the main groups of marine macrophytes and invertebrates. Five localities were surveyed; Gourdon Bay, Quondong Point to Coulomb Point, Carnot Bay to Beagle Bay, Perpendicular Head and Packer Island. Sampling was limited to fifteen epibenthic dredge operations from a range of habitat types and was designed to target the most common habitat types and to obtain species identifications of the most important species and those which typified different habitat types. Surveys covered a total of 1,350 m 2 of seabed in depths between 11 and 23m. We identified 415 taxa comprising: 1 seagrass, 43 algae, 52 sponges, 30 ascidians, 10 hydroids, 14 scleractinian corals, 52 other cnidarians, 69 crustaceans, 73 molluscs and 71 echinoderms. Despite the limited nature of the sampling, a significant number of new species, range extensions and new records for Western Australia and Australia were recorded. Within the algae, one range extension (Halimeda cf. cuneata f. digitata not previously recorded in Western Australia) and one possible new species of Areschougia were recorded. Two range extensions were present in the ascidians; the solitary ascidian Polycarpa cf. intonata has previously only been recorded in Queensland and Cnemidocarpa cf. radicosa only in temperate Australian waters. There were several range extensions for the crustacea, for example, the sponge crab, Tumidodromia dormia, has only been recorded in Queensland. One species of holothurian of the genus Phyllophorus could not be identified from the literature available and may represent a new species. Similarly, a small species of the echinoid Gymnechinus could possibly be a new species. The collections of hydroids, hard corals, crinoids and molluscs contained no new species or range extensions. There was difficulty in identification of some groups to species level due to the status of the current taxonomic literature (e.g. Cnidaria, Porifera and ascidians) and there may be a number of new species among the material collected. Among the anthozoa, there is at least one new species of Chromonephthea and potentially 10 range extensions to Western Australia. Sinularia cf. acuta and Chromonephthea curvata are both new records for Australia with both previously recorded in Indonesia only. Among the better known taxa (e.g. molluscs, echinoderms, corals), most of the taxa identified to species level have been recorded to occur throughout north-western Australia, however the diversity recorded in this study is less than other parts of the Kimberley and this is almost certainly a result of the small overall area sampled and the single method of collection utilised. The most important species on soft bottom habitats in terms of biomass was the heart urchin Breynia desorii (up to 326 g.m -2). Sponges were the dominant fauna by biomass (up to 620 g.m -2) on hard bottom habitats and biomass was dominated a by a few large cup and massive sponge species (e.g. Pione velans and two unidentified Spheciospongia). The biomass of other filter feeders, especially ascidians (e.g. Aplidium cf. crateriferum), soft corals (e.g. Chromonephthea spp.), gorgonians (e.g. Junceella fragilis and Dichotella gemmacea) was also high, indicating the importance of these groups in characterising hard bottom habitats. Although low in biomass, crinoids such as Comaster multifidus and Comatula pectinata were abundant in samples that included a high biomass of other filter feeders

Two-to-one resonant multi-modal dynamics of horizontal/inclined cables. Part II : internal resonance activation, reduced-order models and nonlinear normal modes

Resonant multi-modal dynamics due to planar 2:1 internal resonances in the nonlinear, finite-amplitude, free vibrations of horizontal/inclined cables are parametrically investigated based on the second-order multiple scales solution in Part I [1]. The already validated kinematically non-condensed cable model accounts for the effects of both non-linear dynamic extensibility and system asymmetry due to inclined sagged configurations. Actual activation of 2:1 resonances is discussed, enlightening on a remarkable qualitative difference of horizontal/inclined cables as regards non-linear orthogonality properties of normal modes. Based on the analysis of modal contribution and solution convergence of various resonant cables, hints are obtained on proper reduced-order model selections from the asymptotic solution accounting for higher-order effects of quadratic nonlinearities. The dependence of resonant dynamics on coupled vibration amplitudes, and the significant effects of cable sag, inclination and extensibility on system non-linear behavior are highlighted, along with meaningful contributions of longitudinal dynamics. The spatio-temporal variation of non-linear dynamic configurations and dynamic tensions associated with 2:1 resonant non-linear normal modes is illustrated. Overall, the analytical predictions are validated by finite difference-based numerical investigations of the original partial-differential equations of motion

Bernardin Frankapan i Krbavska bitka: je li spasio sebe i malobrojne ili je pobjegao iz boja?

Veliki poraz hrvatske vojske od Osmanlija na Krbavskom polju 9. rujna 1493. predstavlja jednu od najvažnijih epizoda u dugotrajnom obrambenom ratu Hrvata protiv Osmanlija. Iako su uzroci i posljedice, pa i sam tijek bitke, već u znatnoj mjeri prikazani u starijoj i novijoj hrvatskoj historiografiji, ipak su uloga i djelovanje kneza Bernardina Frankapana u samoj bitki i događajima koji su joj prethodili, ostali u značajnoj mjeri nerasvijetljeni i nerazjašnjeni. Autor na osnovi sačuvanih pisanih i arheoloških svjedočanstva, kao i nakon uvida na terenu, analizira događaje koji su prethodili Bernardinovu povlačenju iz bitke, pokušavajući odgonetnuti uzroke i motive takova poteza. Isto tako, detaljnijim uvidom u sačuvana pisana svjedočanstva o događajima prije Krbavske bitke, pokušava objasniti odnose između bana Derenčina i knezova Frankapana.The great defeat of Croatian army against ottoman troops in the battle of Krbava field (9th September 1493) is one of the most important episode in long–lasting defensive war against Ottoman Empire. Although, the causes and the consequences, and the very duration of the battle, are already elaborated in older and newer Croatian historiography, the role and actions of the duke Bernardin Frankapan in the events before battle and in the battle are still not illuminated and dismissed. Analyzing the written sources and archeological artifacts, author describes events that are preceded Bernardin’s evacuation from the battle. He is, also, trying to figure out the motives and causes of such actions. Further more, by detailing analysis of written sources about events before battle of Krbava field, author clarifies relationships between banus Derenčin and ducal family of Frankapan

Separable approximation to two-body matrix elements

Two-body matrix elements of arbitrary local interactions are written as the sum of separable terms in a way that is well suited for the exchange and pairing channels present in mean-field calculations. The expansion relies on the transformation to center of mass and relative coordinate (in the spirit of Talmi's method) and therefore it is only useful (finite number of expansion terms) for harmonic oscillator single particle states. The converge of the expansion with the number of terms retained is studied for a Gaussian two body interaction. The limit of a contact (delta) force is also considered. Ways to handle the general case are also discussed.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures (for high resolution versions of some of the figures contact the author