Fraser Duckworth (danielbill44)

Chitin production wastewater contains nutrient-rich organic and mineral contents. Coagulation of the wastewater with a natural coagulant such as by-product chitosan would be an economical and environmentally friendly method of treatment. This study investigated the treatment efficiencies of a preliminary sedimentation process followed by coagulation. The removal efficiencies for wastewater parameters were evaluated and compared for coagulants including by-product chitosan, polyaluminum chloride, and polyacryamide. The evaluation was based on the removal of wastewater turbidity and other criteria, including tCOD, sCOD, TKN, NH4+-N, TP, TSS, calcium, and crude protein. The results showed that the preliminary sedimentation (before coagulation) can remove over 80% of turbidity and more than 93% of TSS at pH 4 in 30 min. At optimal conditions, when the ratio of crude protein and calcium was 4.95, by-product chitosan dose of 77.5 mg·L-1 and pH = 8.3, the wastewater characteristics changes were tCOD 23%, sCOD 32%, TKN and ammonium 25%, TP 90%, TSS 84%, Ca2+ 29%, and crude protein 25%. The residue recovered through coagulation consists of up to 55 mg·g-1 crude protein, which is used for animal feed or crop fertilizer.Much effort has been made to enhance the toughness of poly (lactic acid) (PLA) to broaden its possible range of usage in technical applications. In this work, the compatibility of PLA with a partly bio-based ethylene-propylene-diene-rubber (EPDM) through reactive extrusion was investigated. The concentration of EPDM in the PLA matrix was in the range of up to 20%. The reactive extrusion was carried out in a conventional twin-screw extruder. RG7741 Contact angle measurements were performed to calculate the interfacial tension and thus the compatibility between the phases. The thermal and mechanical properties as well as the phase morphology of the blends were characterized. A copolymer of poly (ethylene-co-methyl acrylate-co-glycidyl methacrylate) (EMAGMA) was used as compatibilizer, which leads to a significant reduction in the particle size of the dispersed rubber phase when compared with the blends without this copolymer. The use of EMAGMA combined with soybean oil (SBO) and a radical initiator enhances the elongation at break of the compound. The results indicate that the reduction of the particle size of the dispersed phase obtained with the compatibilizer alone is not sufficient to improve the mechanical properties of the blend system. The induced radical reactions also influenced the mechanical properties of the blend significantly.This editorial follows an influential review paper published in Brain Sciences in 2018 (What is Developmental Dyslexia? by John Stein). In this editorial, I present a critical look at the arguments in Stein's review, with a particular view towards "looking ahead". In looking ahead, I will focus on why dyslexia has been largely neglected by psycholinguistics and, in particular, shortfalls in knowledge about sentence processing. I will highlight some things that I think psycholinguistic methodologies can contribute to the understanding of developmental dyslexia. The editorial will then turn to address the larger research context of dyslexia. In short, investigations of dyslexia tend to be conducted across a wide range of disciplines, and by individuals with varied backgrounds, divergent views, and different goals. One argument I advance is that dyslexia has reached a point where "interdisciplinary" collaboration is essential, and in the event that that is not successful, the field would at least benefit from "adversarial collaborations". Finally, I briefly address the issue of interventions (raised by Stein) for older children and adolescents by returning to the contributions that psycholinguistics can provide to dyslexia. The crux of my argument here is that there exists a missing link in interventions, and that missing link is sentence-level language comprehension.Water pollution seri