Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Events for November
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Science & Litigation - The basic Science of Mold as a Resultant Damage
Wed, Nov 01, 2006 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Harry L. Skalsky, Ph.D.
DABT. Skalsky & AssociatesAbstract:
During the past ten years both celebrities and news media have "headlined" the adverse health effects resulting from alleged mold exposures in their private home or in public buildings. Likewise, the Internet is replete with information concerning the hazards of toxic mold, how to find it, and what to do about it. This seminar is intended to outline the scientific approach that is necessary to gather appropriate information to answer specific litigation questions. The seminar is based on over ten years of experience in mold litigation and addresses a wide range of issues from both a scientific and a court room point of view.Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - rielian Hall, Room 203
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes
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Vapor Intrusion and Indoor Air Sampling Issues
Fri, Nov 03, 2006 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker:Mr. Rafat Abbasi, P.E.
Senior Project Manager
School Unit-Cypress Office
School Property Evaluation and Cleanup Division
Cypress, CAAbstract:
The vapor intrusion (VI) into the buildings is one of the most potent pathways for assessing risks associated with releases of chemicals into the environment. In cases where groundwater is shallow, VI becomes an issue of immediate concern to the occupants of the building and poses challenges with respect to acquisition of quality data, associated evaluation, and subsequent need for mitigation. There are approximately 375,000-500,000 contaminated sites in the United States. Half of the high priority sites are contaminated with trichloroethylene (TCE) and approximately half of those have possible VI of TCE. Almost a quarter of high priority sites have VI issues associated with TCE. As the field of VI evolves and environmental community gains experience in this field, it also realizes the need for higher quality data for risk-management decision-making. In this presentation, we will attempt to address approaches for screening sites for VI and indoor air sampling and highlight issues associated with acquisition of indoor air data. Based on our agency experience, we will also try to provide some recommendations to address data quality issues.
Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 156
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes
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Probabilistic Construction and Numerical Analysis of Model Verification and Validation
Wed, Nov 08, 2006 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker:Alireza Doostan,Ph.D.
John Hopkins University
Department of Civil EngineeringAbstract: In this presentation, some recent developments in verification and validation (V&V) of predictive models are introduced. Verification is a mathematical concept which aims at assessing the accuracy of the solution of a given computational simulation compare to sufficiently accurate or analytical solutions. Validation, on the other hand, is a physics-based issue that aims at appraising the accuracy of a computational simulation compare to experimental data.The proposed developments cast V&V in the form of an approximation-theoretic representation that permits their clear mathematical definition and resolution. In particular, three types of problems will be addressed. First, a-priori and a-posteriori error analysis of spectral stochastic Galerkin schemes, a widely used tool for uncertainty propagation, are discussed. Second, a statistical procedure is developed in order to calibrate the uncertainty associated with parameters of a predictive model from experimental or model-based measurements. An important feature of such data-driven characterization algorithm, is in its ability to simultaneously represent both the intrinsic uncertainty and also the uncertainty due to data limitation.
Third, a stochastic model reduction technique is proposed in order to increase the computational efficiency of spectral stochastic Galerkin schemes for the solution of complex stochastic systems.While the second part of this research is essential in model validation phase, the first part is particularly important as it provides one with basic components of the verification phase.Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 203
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes
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THE PETROLEUM INDUSTRY AND THE ENVIRONMENT
Fri, Nov 10, 2006 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker:Dr. James G. Speight
CD&W Inc.
2476 Overland Road,
Laramie, WY 82070-4808, USA
Tel: 307-745-6069 Fax: 307-721-3128
E-mail: JamesSp8@aol.com
Web page: http://www.drjamesspeight.qpg.comABSTRACT
There are many areas of the chemical industry that are responsible for the release of pollutants into the environment. Petroleum refining is one such industry that has seen inadvertent spillage of unrefined petroleum and petroleum products.
The continuing question, since the beginning of the environmental movement in the 1960s, relates to the relative condition of the environment. The capacity of the environment to absorb the air emissions and waste products as well as the other impacts of process technologies is limited. The petroleum refining industry is keeping pace with environmental legislation to insure that air emissions, effluents, and waste products are handled without maximum expediency and without environmental disruption. In fact, expenditures by the refining industry have risen remarkable over a very short period that speaks for the efforts by the industry to protect the environment. Dramatic improvements have been made in pollution control by the industry. But there is work to be done. Perhaps the place most in need of further work is an understanding the nature of the waste materials and to understand these materials, strong analytical programs are necessary.
The intent of this presentation is to focus on the issues that become of the focus of any environmental monitoring or cleanup program for petroleum refineries. Even though the prime focus is on refining operations, and test methods are also subject to question as applied to release of petroleum and petroleum products during storage, transport, and utilization.Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - rielian Hall, Room 156
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes
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Using Advanced Site Diagnostics and In-Situ Treatment Technologies...
Fri, Nov 17, 2006 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Using Advanced Site Diagnostics and In-Situ Treatment Technologies to Optimize Environmental RemediationSpeaker:Stephen S. Koenigsberg, Ph.D.
Vice President
WSP Environmental Strategies
www.wspes.com
www.wspgroup.comAbstractSite remediation has evolved from energy intensive, mechanically driven remediation processes to more effective and cost efficient in situ processes. In situ remediation is best served when it incorporates advanced technologies, such as molecular biology, stable isotope analysis, and advanced geophysical methods. These advanced technologies assure the optimization of in situ bioremediation, chemical oxidation, chemical reduction, treatment trains thereof, and even monitored natural attenuation. Furthermore, there is a great deal of variation within the remedial methods themselves, which can also be optimized with the proper information and understanding to serve the ultimate goal of site closure.Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - rielian Hall, Room 156
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes
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Understanding Interfacial Processes:....
Wed, Nov 29, 2006 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker:Dr. Megan Ferguson, Postdoctoral Fellow
Occidental College
Los Angeles, CA Understanding interfacial processes: TiO2-photocatalyzed As(III) oxidation and Bacterial predation by Bdellovibrio bacteriovorusAbstract
The U.S. drinking water standard has recently been revised from 50 Ýg L-1 to 10 Ýg L-1, thus requiring thousands of water distribution facilities to implement new As removal procedures. However, most As removal technologies treat As(V) much more effectively than As(III), so a pre-oxidation step is recommended for source waters containing As(III) at significant concentrations. The photocatalyzed oxidation of As(III) on titanium dioxide (TiO2) has been critically evaluated as a potential technology to achieve pre-oxidation. Mechanistic studies conducted with batch slurries demonstrated that the extent of As(III) sorption to TiO2 dictates the order of the photooxidation reaction and that photogenerated superoxide plays a major role in this reaction. Experiments with fixed-bed, flow-through reactors did not suffer from catalyst poisoning or severe mass transport limitations. The UV requirement for this photooxidation of micromolar levels of As(III) was sufficiently small that both a 365 nm handheld lamp and natural sunlight were effective. Based on these findings, TiO2-photocatalyzed As(III) oxidation could be a viable pre-oxidation technology for certain small water distribution facilities.
The predation of E. coli by Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus is a very different example of interactions at an interface. B. bacteriovorus burrows into the periplasm of other gram-negative bacteria, where it feeds on the prey cell cytoplasm and ultimately divides, lyses the prey cell, and moves on to new prey. Understanding these microbial interactions could contribute to many potential applications in which B. bacteriovorus is used to reduce unwanted bacteria in agriculture, medicine, and industry. In these studies, atomic force microscopy (AFM) was used in contact, tapping, and force modes to characterize the cell surface properties over the course of B. bacteriovorus infection. Force curves taken in buffer solution show that the adhesive force between a cell and the AFM tip increases significantly after an E. coli cell has been infected.Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - rielian Hall, Room 203
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes