Use of a novel nitrification inhibitor to reduce nitrous oxide emission from (15)N-labelled dairy slurry injected into soil

Recent recommendations for environmentally sound use of liquid animal manure often include injection of slurry into soil. Two of the most important undesired side effects, ammonia (NH(3)) volatilisation and odour emissions, are usually significantly reduced by slurry injection. On the other hand, because of the higher amount of nitrogen (N) remaining in soil, the risk of nitrate (NO(3)(-)) leaching and nitrous oxide (N(2)O) emissions is increased. Thus, the reduction of local effects caused by NH(3) deposition, e.g. N enrichment and soil acidification, may be at the cost of large-scale effects such as ozone depletion and global warming as a result of emitted N(2)O. In this context, nitrification inhibitors can contribute significantly to a reduction in NO(3)(-) leaching and N(2)O production. A field experiment was carried out at IGER, North Wyke, which aimed to evaluate the effect of the new nitrification inhibitor 3,4-dimethylpyrazole phosphate (DMPP/ENTEC). For this experiment, (15)N enriched dairy slurry was used and the isotopic label in soil N as well as in N(2)O were studied. After slurry injection into the grassland soil in August 2000, the major emissions of N(2)O occurred during the first ten days. As expected, high N(2)O emission rates and (15)N content of the emissions were concentrated on the slurry injection slots, showing a steep decrease towards the untreated centre-point between slurry injection slots. The nitrification inhibitor DMPP proved to be very efficient in reducing N(2)O emissions. At a rate of 2 kg DMPP ha(-1), the total amount of N(2)O emitted was reduced by 32%, when compared with slurry injection without DMPP. The isotopic label of the emitted N(2)O showed that during the 22-day experimental period, emissions from the slurry N pool were strongly reduced by DMPP from 0.93 kg N(2)O-N ha(-1) (-DMPP) to 0.50 kg N(2)O-N ha(-1) (+DMPP), while only a minor effect on emissions from the soil N pool was observed (0.69 to 0.60 kg N(2)O-N ha(-1); -DMPP, +DMPP, respectively).     

Analysis and compression of six-dimensional gyrokinetic datasets using higher order singular value decomposition

Higher order singular value decomposition (HOSVD) is explored as a tool for analyzing and compressing gyrokinetic data. An efficient numerical implementation of an HOSVD algorithm is described. HOSVD is used to analyze the full six-dimensional (three spatial, two velocity space, and time dimensions) gyrocenter distribution function from gyrokinetic simulations of ion temperature gradient, electron temperature gradient, and trapped electron mode driven turbulence. The HOSVD eigenvalues for the velocity space coordinates decay very rapidly, indicating that only a few structures in velocity space can capture the most important dynamics. In almost all of the cases studied, HOSVD extracts parallel velocity space structures which are very similar to orthogonal polynomials. HOSVD is also used to compress gyrokinetic datasets, an application in which it is shown to significantly outperform the more commonly used singular value decomposition. It is shown that the effectiveness of the HOSVD compression improves as the dimensionality of the dataset increases.     

1-Million droplet array with wide-field fluorescence imaging for digital PCR

Digital droplet reactors are useful as chemical and biological containers to discretize reagents into picolitre or nanolitre volumes for analysis of single cells, organisms, or molecules. However, most DNA based assays require processing of samples on the order of tens of microlitres and contain as few as one to as many as millions of fragments to be detected. Presented in this work is a droplet microfluidic platform and fluorescence imaging setup designed to better meet the needs of the high-throughput and high-dynamic-range by integrating multiple high-throughput droplet processing schemes on the chip. The design is capable of generating over 1-million, monodisperse, 50 picolitre droplets in 2-7 minutes that then self-assemble into high density 3-dimensional sphere packing configurations in a large viewing chamber for visualization and analysis. This device then undergoes on-chip polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification and fluorescence detection to digitally quantify the sample's nucleic acid contents. Wide-field fluorescence images are captured using a low cost 21-megapixel digital camera and macro-lens with an 8-12 cm(2) field-of-view at 1× to 0.85× magnification, respectively. We demonstrate both end-point and real-time imaging ability to perform on-chip quantitative digital PCR analysis of the entire droplet array. Compared to previous work, this highly integrated design yields a 100-fold increase in the number of on-chip digitized reactors with simultaneous fluorescence imaging for digital PCR based assays.     

Heterogeneous nucleation of nitric acid trihydrate on clay minerals: relevance to type ia polar stratospheric clouds

Although critical to atmospheric modeling of stratospheric ozone depletion, selective heterogeneous nuclei that promote the formation of Type Ia polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs) are largely unknown. While mineral particles are known to be good ice nuclei, it is currently not clear whether they are also good nuclei for PSCs. In the present study, a high-vacuum chamber equipped with transmission Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and a quadrupole mass spectrometer was used to study heterogeneous nucleation of nitric acid trihydrate (NAT) on two clay minerals-Na-montmorillonite and kaolinite-as analogs of atmospheric terrestrial and extraterrestrial minerals. The minerals are first coated with a 3:1 supercooled H2O/HNO3 solution prior to the observed nucleation of crystalline NAT. At 220 K, NAT formation was observed at low SNAT values of 12 and 7 on kaolinite and montmorillonite clays, respectively. These are the lowest SNAT values reported in the literature on any substrate. However, NAT nucleation exhibited significant temperature dependence. At lower temperatures, representative of typical polar stratospheric conditions, much higher supersaturations were required before nucleation was observed. Our results suggest that NAT nucleation on mineral particles, not previously treated with sulfuric acid, may not be an important nucleation platform for Type Ia PSCs under normal polar stratospheric conditions.     

Water adsorption on clay minerals as a function of relative humidity: application of BET and Freundlich adsorption models

Water adsorption on kaolinite, illite, and montmorillonite clays was studied as a function of relative humidity (RH) at room temperature (298 K) using horizontal attenuated total reflectance (HATR) Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy equipped with a flow cell. The water content as a function of RH was modeled using the Brunauer, Emmett, and Teller (BET) and Freundlich adsorption isotherm models to provide complementary multilayer adsorption analysis of water uptake on the clays. A detailed analysis of model fit integrity is reported. From the BET fit to the experimental data, the water content on each of the three clays at monolayer (ML) water coverage was determined and found to agree with previously reported gravimetric data. However, BET analysis failed to adequately describe adsorption phenomena at RH values greater than 80%, 50%, and 70% RH for kaolinite, illite, and montmorillonite clays, respectively. The Freundlich adsorption model was found to fit the data well over the entire range of RH values studied and revealed two distinct water adsorption regimes. Data obtained from the Freundlich model showed that montmorillonite has the highest water adsorption strength and highest adsorption capacity at RH values greater than 19% (i.e., above ML water adsorption) relative to the kaolinite and illite clays. The difference in the observed water adsorption behavior between the three clays was attributed to different water uptake mechanisms based on a distribution of available adsorption sites. It is suggested that different properties drive water adsorption under different adsorption regimes resulting in the broad variability of water uptake mechanisms.     

The State of Readiness of Initial Level Preservice Middle Grades Science and Mathematics Teachers and Its Implications on Teacher Education Programs

The purpose of this study was to document through interview and videotaped data the current state of readiness of 10 preservice middle grade teachers, regarding their ability to plan, implement, and reflect on an integrated mathematics and science lesson. The results showed that only one student was successful in implementing a lesson that compared favorably to national standards. This student's lesson plan contained minimal pedagogical considerations and consisted primarily of notes emphasizing fine detail of distinction about the content of the lesson using her own examples. The lesson plan and post-lesson-plan interview data of the remaining students indicated an adherence to algorithmic learning, rote memorization, and procedural knowledge. There were numerous content errors in the plans, and these students orally described a lack of self-confidence in their ability to teach this lesson successfully. The most successful student demonstrated her competence in meeting standards of pedagogical content knowledge and was most successful in analyzing her own teaching. The results showed that most subjects of this study needed extensive training in content and pedagogy and in synthesizing these in a way consistent with modern learning theory.