Free Energy (Slovakia)

ABSTRACT Large quantities of petroleum-contaminated soil are generated with increased global energy consumption and crude oil production. This theoretical study evaluates the treatment of 1 ton of petroleum-contaminated soil using seven methods: incineration, physical washing, chemical washing, thermal pyrolysis, Fenton-oxidation-pyrolysis, the biological treatment, and asphaltenes. Data were based on experimental results from the Nahran Bin Omar oil lake in Basra Governorate, Iraq, (2019–2021). The methods were compared by waste generation, treatment cost, and duration. Results indicate that using petroleum-contaminated soil as a raw material for asphalt manufacturing is most beneficial since it is sold as a raw material. Incineration is faster and cheaper, but produces large amount of flue gases (17446.069 kg/ton.h) and ash (651.39 kg/ton.h). Physical washing is cost-effective and efficient in the Iraqi context, but generates substantial oily water (133.33 L/ton.h). Chemical washing is the most expensive creating chemical waste (10000 L/ton.h). The biological method (anaerobic digestion) may generate methane gas (40.847 kg/ton) however further research is needed. Aerobic bioremediation is unsuitable for Basra due to high soil salinity and ambient temperatures raise treatment costs. Pyrolysis and Fenton-oxidation-pyrolysis are energy-intensive and costly but efficient with CO2 emissions at (27.66% and 17.62% of incineration emissions) respectively.

Abstract In the United States, much research on federal sentencing relies on data made available by the U.S. Sentencing Commission (USSC). As valuable as USSC data is, it also has “blind spots” that limit defendant-level analysis and corresponding insights into key aspects of sentencing, including disparities among codefendants and among judges within a common court. This article describes how we generated a dataset on more than 2,770 defendants without using USSC resources. Instead, we drew from the Public Access to Court Electronic Record (PACER) Website and a searchable Website maintained by the Bureau of Prisons to generate data on a specific defendant population: foreign nationals detained at sea by the U.S. Coast Guard. We describe the challenges we encountered during this process, including inconsistencies in data-sharing practices across federal courts, the high costs associated with accessing court records in PACER, and ethical concerns regarding access to sensitive information. Nevertheless, we show how our approach can yield vital information that would be unattainable through USSC-based analysis, including detailed data on the nature of the offense, demographic characteristics of defendants, and judge identifiers. We suggest ways for researchers interested in federal sentencing to streamline and automate our approach. We also propose that the USSC consider supporting similar data-gathering initiatives through grant opportunities to enrich understanding of judicial decision making.

A theoretical study is done to treat Baghdad biomedical wastes (5.21 tons/day) using many treatment methods according to construction and maintenance costs, energy and water consumption and decreasing waste volume and mass. Previous published experimental data results and experimental operation conditions are considered in the current research. The thermal energy and generated wastes are computed from the complete combustion of biomedical wastes (100 kg/h) from two hospitals in Baghdad. Survey data shows that the Medical City and Al-Yarmouk Hospital generate about (700 kg /day) of biomedical waste. A multi-chamber incinerator with a capacity of (100 kg/h) has been designed to burn biomedical wastes using diesel fuel to reach (1100˚C) as a burning temperature. The resulting thermal energy was computed to be (0.7178565 MW) which is emitted directly with flue gases to the ambient without any off-gas system. The mass of flue gases is found to be (1895.8175 kg/h) and the gases are (193.20872 kg/h for CO2 and 1.6352 kg/h for HCl) through using excess air ratios at 150% for solid wastes burning and 20% for liquid fuel burning. The required cement and water are determined for resulting ash to produce concrete suitable for hot weather countries. The results show that incineration has the less costs in construction and operational costs among other modern technologies with a decreasing waste mass to 91.5%.

The part of the vacuum energy that we associate with “dark matter” is assimilated to the classical gravitational potential energy, this energy is at the origin of the Casimir effect and can be measured by it. Here we provide additional information to demonstrate this proposition and clarify what “dark matter” could be in our universe

The article presents the unification of two Maxwell's systems equations (homogeneous and inhomogeneous) within the generalized Clifford algebra. In this new formalism, an electromagnetic current and certain gauges acquire a geometric meaning associated with the properties of space.

This study focuses on the comprehension of English morphological features by adult learners of English based in Belgium. I explore the relationship between their receptive grammatical processing and identified stages of the emergence of productive capacities using the Processability Theory framework. I problematise the notion of emergence in receptive grammatical processing, including recognising the additional challenges of chance performance. I explore the effects of using different acquisition criteria for the same data comparing the learners’ performance across multiple morphological features in relation to PTs proposed developmental stages. I find no developmental systematicity on any of the measures. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Abstract The genome versus experience, or “Nature versus Nurture”, debate has dominated our understanding of individual behavioral variation. A third factor, namely variation in complex behavior potentially due to non-heritable “developmental noise” in brain development, has been largely ignored. Using the Drosophila vinegar fly we demonstrate a causal link between variation in brain wiring due to developmental noise, and behavioral individuality. A population of visual system neurons called DCNs shows non-heritable, inter-individual variation in right/left wiring asymmetry, and control object orientation in freely walking flies. We show that DCN wiring asymmetry predicts an individual’s object responses: the greater the asymmetry, the better the individual orients. Silencing DCNs abolishes correlations between anatomy and behavior, while inducing visual asymmetry via monocular deprivation “rescues” object orientation in DCN-symmetric individuals.One Sentence SummaryNon-heritable individual variation in neural circuit development underlies individual variability in behavior.