Characterization of raw and stabilized waste in relation to toxic metals mobility in realistic landfilling scenarios

Toxic metal release in simple leaching tests has been studied in this paper to assess waste behaviour in realistic landfilling scenarios. The waste is a galvanic sludge, raw or cement stabilized. Six different leachants were taken into account: distilled water, CO2-saturated solution, Olsen solution, Mehlich No. 3 solution, acid or alkaline soil circulating solution. Dynamic leaching tests of different duration were used for raw and stabilized waste. The results have shown that, with the exception of Mehlich No. 3 solution, when the waste comes into contact with waters of composition similar to that of the solutions studied, the potential environmental contamination should not be of concern.     

Su alcune formule in termini finiti per la risoluzione numerica dell’equazione di Poisson

Sommario Sono presentate diverse formule, di ordine elevato, che approssimano l'operatore di Laplace e che sono particolarmente vantaggiose quando vengono impiegate per la soluzione numerica della equazione di Poisson in due dimensioni.

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In this paper some high-order difference approximations to Poisson's equation in two dimensions are given It is shown that many formulas are available for practical calculations; their appropriate use associated with the process of repeating the solution on a finer mesh is a faster and more accurate method of improving the numerical solution.

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Lavoro eseguito nell'ambito del Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricetche.     

Chiral symmetry on the lattice with Wilson fermions

The chiral properties of the continuum limit of lattice QCD with Wilson fermions are studied. We show that a partially conserved axial current can be defined, satisfying the usual current algebra requirements.A proper definition of the chiral symmetry order parameter, $\text{〈0|}\text{ψ}\text{ψ|0〉}$, is given, and the chiral properties of composite operators are investigated. The implications of our analysis to the lattice determination of non-leptonic weak amplitudes are also discussed.     

Absence of biologically related Raman lines in cultures of Bacillus megaterium

Cultures of Bacillus megaterium have been examined with laser-Raman spectroscopy in the 20–300 and 800–1800 cm^?1 ranges. No lines were detected in the 20–300 cm^?1 range, and evidence is presented that sporadic lines observed in the other range can be ascribed to experimental artifacts.     

Structure of sodium glycodeoxycholate micellar aggregates from small-angle X-ray scattering and light-scattering techniques

Small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) and dynamic light scattering (DLS) measurements were accomplished on sodium glycodeoxycholate (NaGDC) aqueous electrolyte solutions as a function of NaGDC and NaCl concentrations with the aim to determine with satisfactory approximation the NaGDC micellar aggregate structure at a gross molecular level, assuming monodispersity. Different conditions of interparticle interactions by varying ionic strength (NaCl concentration from 0 to 0.70 M) and NaGDC concentration (from 0.02 to 0.10 M) were studied. Smeared scattering intensities and electron pair distance distribution functions, radii of gyration, and aggregate heights are in satisfactory agreement with the corresponding functions calculated using a 2(1) helix as model. It is formed by trimers, each one composed by three NaGDC and nine H2O molecules related by a 3-fold rotation axis, and can be described by a hollow cylinder, probably filled by water molecules, characterized by a conventional radius of 23.7 A and a trimer repeat along the helical axis of 3.6 A. The helix is considerably inhomogeneous since the volume of the cylinder occupied by NaGDC molecules is less than one-third of the total. On the other hand, calculations performed with the average radial electronic density of the helix without water molecules or totally filled by water molecules (a NaGDC/H2O molecular ratio of about 1/50) or by using a three-shell average radial electronic density, independently evaluated on absolute scale, do not show significant differences, thus supporting the helical model. The aggregate size increases for all the samples by increasing either the NaCl or NaGDC concentration. The NaGDC low concentration (0.02 M) samples with NaCl within the range 0.30-0.70 M are characterized by short cylindrical aggregates that do not give rise to sensible interference effects. This assertion is supported by the satisfactory fit between the observed apparent mean hydrodynamic radii and the calculated ones by means of the method of Ortega and Garcia de la Torre (J. Chem. Phys. 2003, 119, 9914), valid for rods with a length-to-diameter ratio > or = 0.1 in dilute solution (noninteracting rods). The NaGDC moderate concentration (0.10 M) samples with NaCl within the range 0.20-0.60 M are characterized by cylindrical aggregates that, in the presence of repulsive Coulombic interactions progressively more and more screened, produce interference effects, due to the hard-body repulsion and attractive forces, but the agreement between observed and calculated SAXS data is satisfactory. The results of the low and moderate NaGDC concentration samples seem to indicate that the aggregation number increase, produced by adding 0.10 M NaCl, is constant within an ionic strength range and occurs by the addition of oligomers formed by trimers. The samples with a variable NaGDC concentration (0.02-0.10 M) at a fixed and high NaCl concentration (0.6 M) contain cylindrical aggregates that give rise to an attractive term effect prevailing on the hard-body repulsive one. The same situation seems to occur in the NaGDC moderate concentration samples.     

Nonextensive analysis of seismic sequences

By using the Tsallis-based nonextensive statistics, the analysis of the magnitude distribution of several seismic catalogues in Italy was performed. The analysis shows similar values for the q-value, in good agreement with those obtained for other seismo-tectonic settings [e.g. Silva et al. (2006) [2] and Vilar et al. (2007) [3]]. In particular, it is shown that the volcano seismicity is characterized by slightly lower values for q. The latter results could provide hints for further investigation in discriminating tectonic from volcanic seismicity.