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Low consistency (LC) refining of (chemi-)thermomechanical pulp (TMP) provides an energy efficient alternative to high consistency refining for pulp property development. However, the benefit of LC refining is often limited by excessive fibre shortening, lower tear strength and a reduction of bulk caused by the refining process. In this study, microfibres produced by LC refining of TMP and kraft pulp fibres were investigated for their reinforcement potential in high freeness mechanical pulp. Primary pulp at 645 mL Canadian Standard Freeness was LC refined to different energy targets as a baseline for mechanical and optical property development. In contrast, the same primary pulp was reinforced with different microfibre types in ratios that yielded the same specific energies of the baseline LC refined pulp. The study revealed that at equivalent energies, the addition of TMP microfibres to the high freeness primary pulp displayed tensile development identical to the LC refined pulp, with significantly improved tear and bulk. The addition of kraft microfibre to primary pulp produced the highest tensile and tear strength but compromised light scattering. Additionally, all microfibre composites showed improved elongation, as opposed to no notable change in elongation with conventional LC refining. This investigation proposes an alternative, cost-effective approach for developing high bulk, high strength mechanical pulp by limiting the extent of second stage refining and using LC refined microfibres for pulp reinforcement. The high tear–high bulk open construction of the composite paper is likely to benefit boxboard and packaging applications.

This chapter provides an overview of the domain of supply chain planning in the pulp and paper industry. A short description of the industry and its particular characteristics is provided along with a short discussion on what differentiates pulp and paper from other industries. Key papers in the field are also reviewed and discussed. The chapter focus of the key decisions and planning problems in supply chain planning at the strategic, tactical and operational levels. This relates for all the process steps included in the chain, that is, procurement, production, distribution and sales. Industrial cases are describes as examples. In addition, the chapter discusses emerging concepts and important issues in the field, such as the challenge of coordinating sales and operations as well as anticipating and adapting the transformation of the traditional pulp and paper supply chain into an integrated biorefinery supply chain.

In this chapter, we study Finland, Sweden and Norway as examples of countries with small firm populations without intense domestic competition. This has enabled firms to build certain organizational capabilities while neglecting others. The basic story-line in the Nordic paper industry evolution is that a few firms that emerged as industrial populations were (a) built on to exploit abundant raw materials (timber, water, labor); (b) focused to a large extent on exporting their products; and (c) relied on cooperation between competitors to success in competition with the large firms populations of Britain and Germany – the two main markets for Nordic paper industry products.

This chapter discusses the evolution of the South American pulp and paper industry (PPI), emphasising Brazil, Chile and Uruguay. The analysis is mainly based on secondary sources and demonstrates how the industry has evolved from its establishment to its present organization, the development of mechanisms and institutions to support innovation and the political, economic and legal regulations, including environmental regulation and social responsibility. This analysis is justified because of the importance the region has gained in the scenario of PPI worldwide, following a trend of reorganization and expansion of the PPI.

This chapter explores the evolution of the pulp and paper industry in Russia. The evolution is divided into three main periods: the era of the Russian Empire, the Soviet era and the era of transition to the market economy. The evolution described refers to changes in the technology and resources used in the industry, the changes in products and output volumes, as well as the changes in government policies. The road of many transitions of pulp and paper in Russia can be traced from the early 1700s to the development of the Russian paper giants, which are the world players of today. Also, the main challenges of the pulp and paper industry in the first decade of 2000 are analysed. The chapter concludes with an analysis of the evolution of the development of the pulp and paper industry in other transitional countries of Central Eastern Europe. The evolution path of the transition countries seems to have created certain common features in the pulp and paper industry in the transition countries. However, these countries have quite different pre-socialist economic, cultural and political histories. There are a few indicators of a path dependency in the most recent development of the Russian pulp and paper industry. The challenges currently faced by the pulp and paper industry are similar to those of the last century: the Soviet legacy of inefficient institutions, unclear legislation, environmental degradation, lack of investment in efficient technologies and infrastructure. As the industry became largely monopolized by a few major players, the future development will depend crucially on their ability to make investments and also on the growing environmental awareness of forests and the change to a low carbon economy, which would pose more challenges for the pulp and paper industry.

The contemporary history of the paper and board industry in the Netherlands is the narrative of an industry that had to cope with considerable competitive disadvantages. This chapter analyses the evolution of the paper and board industry in the Netherlands and the way businessmen formulated their strategies to increase the profitability of their activities and decrease the uncertainties of competition. How did the industry cope with the challenges of the markets, the increasing international competition and the formal and informal institutional context? After a brief introduction of the pre-industrial era and the slow process of industrialization during the nineteenth century, this chapter will focus on the development of the industry and the corporate strategies that became apparent during the twentieth century.

Namakkal district in Tamilnadu, India is climatically semi-arid with low rainfall of ca.400 mm per year. Agriculture of sorghum and manihot through well irrigation in some localized areas is practiced in this district. In rivurine areas, cultivation of coconut, sugarcane and banana are also made. Effluents through sago industries, paper industries and sugarcane industries are generally polluting the soil and well water drastically in many parts of the district, which results in the soil not so fit for plant growth and well water not good for drinking and agriculture. Oddapalli is an agricultural belt in Namakkal district contains ca. 10,000 ha of farming land and most of it depends on well water for agriculture. Hence to asses the quality of ground water, the present study was attempted in the water samples collected from a well, located at Oddapalli where Seshasayee paper mill and Ponni sugar mill effluents are being discharged without proper treatment. The results of the study revealed that the samples contained significantly higher amount of total solids and dissolved CO2, elements such as Mg, Ca and Fe and the nutrients such as NO3, SO4 and PO4 than that of the standards prescribed by WHO. On the other hand, contents of dissolved O2 was very low in the well water in comparison to that of standard. Further, it has been estimated that the chlorides and total solids are higher in the well water then that of the irrigation standard. The over all study shows that the well water of Oddapalli is not adequately suitable for drinking as well as agriculture. Hence proper treatment of effluent of paper and sugar mills is suggested before discharging so as to fit for all domestic and farming purposes which also keep the soil environment in healthy status at maximum extent.

Paper chemicals and their use, L. Wagberg and L. Winter the use of retention and drainage aids in the wet end, K. Johansson et al the source and control of paper machine deposits, T. Hassler fillers for papermaking, R.A. Gill starch in papermaking, M. Georgeson the improvement in dry strength by synthetic polymers, S.N. Jenkins the practical application of wet-strength resins, F. Linhart the use and mis-use of dyestuffs and fluorescent whitening agents, F. Colling sizing in acid, neutral and alkaline conditions, P. Otway and K. Smith on-line monitoring and control in the wet end, T. Sopenlehto foam control in the mill - a practical review, M.R. Hunt.

The ability to wet-strengthen paper is an important requirement of the paper industry because wet strength agents allow for the manufacture of a variety of paper grades and products. The most significant area of application is in the manufacture of hygiene grades of paper, including hand towels and facial tissues, kitchen towels and serviettes, and other tableware products. Another important area of application is in packaging grades, including liquid packaging board for fruit juice and milk cartons; carrier bags and paper sacks; and corrugated cardboard boxes for transportation of fruit, meat and other items. Speciality grades, such as tea bags and coffee filters, bottle labels and currency paper, and wallpaper and poster paper also use wet strength agents. In fact, any grade of paper that needs to maintain a degree of strength and integrity after becoming wet involves the application of a wet strength agent.

Pulp and paper industry is one among the 11 most polluting industry in India are utilizing natural resources as lignocellulose, inorganic and organic materials, and large volume of water in pulping and bleaching stages of the paper manufacturing. In manufacturing processes, 1 tonne of paper generates about 150 m3 of waste water contains lignin and its degradation products, resin acids, fatty acids and lignosulphonics. In bleaching stages, waste water contains nascent chlorine, chlorinated organic compounds, dioxin, furan, peroxides etc. The coloured compounds and adsorbable organic halogens formed due to environmental factors in waste water exhibit strong mutagenic effects, physiological impairment and they are ­ecoestrogens. In addition they are recognized as an excellent source of food, fuel, feed, chemicals, vitamins and bioactive compounds after biodegradation and bioconversion of biowaste. This potential is being realized as data from research in the areas of the physiology and chemistry of microorganisms which have been used for treatment of effluent by aerobic and anaerobic methods in different types of bioreactors. The major enzymes, xylanases and ligninases, have been used and commercialized successfully for biopulping and biobleaching purposes for production of ecofriendly pulp and paper, recovery of products, and environmental waste management. Their commercial role as value added products has been established after evaluation of detoxification of toxicants. In this review, the pulping and bleaching processes of pulp and paper, formation of organic compounds, use of microorganisms in degradation and bioconversion of biowaste in different types of bioreactors are discussed. The methods for detection of toxic compounds in the effluent and evaluation of detoxification are also described so that value added products ­recovered from effluent can be used commercially.

Pulp and paper mills are categorized as a core sector industry and are the fifth largest contributor to industrial water pollution. Pulp and paper production has increased globally and will contribute to increase in the near future. For every tonne of paper produced, these mills generate 220-380 m3 of highly coloured and potentially toxic wastewater. The pulp and paper mill is a major industrial sector utilizing a huge amount of lignocellulosic materials and water during the manufacturing process, and releases chlorinated lignosulphonic acids, chlorinated resin acids, chlorinated phenols and chlorinated hydrocarbons in the effluent. About 500 different chlorinated organic compounds have been identified including chloroform, chlorate, resin acids, chlorinated hydrocarbons, phenols, catechols, guaiacols, furans, dioxins, syringols, vanillins, etc. In wastewater these compounds are estimated collectively as “Adorbable Organic Halides” AOX. This paper is the state of the art review of the manufacturing process, treatability of the pulp and paper mill wastewater and performance of available treatment processes. A comparison of all treatment processes is presented emphasis being made on the treatability studies of AOX.

Water is particularly important substance in papermaking. It plays essential role in fibers transportation, equipment cleaning, lubrication, cooling and in development of a product quality. A tendency to reduce the fresh water consumption in paper production is economically and environmentally justifiable but it must be emphasized that strict closing of water system in paper mill has significant negative impact on several technological operations. High water temperature, as well as increased content of suspended and dissolved solids in water system of a paper machine is examples of major consequences of closing the water loop. As a result, serious problems may cause e.g. paper defects, loss of product quality and problems with run ability of a paper machine. Situation becomes even worse when recycled raw materials are used. Hence, methods of fresh water usage reduction in papermaking are very complex issues and usually depend on the degree of closure. Equilibrium between the advantages and the disadvantages relevant to water consumption restrictions should be established. The acceptable level of water loop closure will depend on the several factors e.g. paper quality required, raw materials used, chemical additives, equipment and staff education.

Canada’s status as a “New World” country with a relatively small population and abundant natural resources dictated that the pulp and paper industry arrived late, enjoyed rapid growth that propelled it into a prolonged period of international ascendancy, and then suffered a steep downturn in its fortunes, one from which its escape is hardly assured. The chapter will trace the industry’s development from the early 1800s until today, focusing in particular on corporate strategy, industry structure and the role of the government.

Waste paper collection rate is one of indexes to calculate how many percentage of waste paper collected in the total amount of paper and paper board consumption and measures the effectiveness of one country’s waste paper collection process. Nowadays, waste paper collecting has become a serious issue in China for its low collection rate. This article tries to use of linear regression and grey correlation to analyze both endogenous factors and possible exogenous factors affect on collection rate. The results shows that the amount of waste paper collection influences largely on collection rate comparing with other factors, and level of aging and gross domestic product per capita are positive related with waste paper collection rate.

Pulp and paper industries are capital intensive and benefit from economies of scale. The vast majority of paper products are made from cellulose fibres, the aggregate of fibres being known as pulps. Chemical pulp mills typically operate at tonnages of 1000 tonnes per day, while a modern newsprint machine will produce 600 tonnes per day.

This chapter describes the development and structure of the NAPAP model and compares it to other forest sector models. The NAPAP model was based on PELPS and adapted to describe paper and paperboard product demand, pulp- wood and recovered paper supply, and production capacity and technology, with spatially dynamic market equilibria. We describe how the model predicts paper and paperboard product demands and trade flows over time, concurrently with regional capacity changes and corresponding shifts in process technology based on Tobin's q theory of capital investment. We describe how the model was tested and calibrated and then provide examples of applications. The NAPAP model was designed to work within the context of the RPA Timber Assessment to project ongoing and future economic trends in the US and Canadian pulp and paper sectors. The model was designed to take into account changes in demand and supply for all primary pulp, paper, and paperboard products, changes in indus- try capacity by process and region, and regional markets for hard- wood pulpwood, softwood pulpwood, and recovered paper. Six North American supply regions (Canada East and West, US North, South- east, South Central, and West) were represented in the latest version of the model, along with three demand regions (Canada, USA, and the rest of the world).

The softened rolling contact of two paper machine rolls is considered. A regenerative excitation source can exists in the system due to the finite relaxation time of the roll cover polymer materials. The modeling of the rolls is described by multibody substructuring methodology and the polymer cover layer between the rolls in contact is modeled by contact spring reaction forces calculated according to the stiffness of the layer. The regenerative excitation is introduced to the system as a time delay term and it is calculated from the penetration history of the cover layer. The solution of the system equations is obtained by numerical time integration by utilizing the method of steps time delay equation solution procedure. Some numerical results are illustrated.

This study demonstrates a new and realizable possibility of 1T-type ferroelectric random access memory devices using an all solution processing method with cellulose paper substrates. A ferroelectric poly(vinylidene fluoride-trifluoroethylene) (P(VDF-TrFE)) thin film was formed on a paper substrate with an Al electrode for the bottom gate structure, and then a semiconducting poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) thin film was formed on the P(VDF-TrFE)/paper structure using a spin-coating technique. The fabricated ferroelectric gate field effect transistors (FeFETs) on the cellulose paper substrates demonstrated excellent ferroelectric property with a memory window width of 20 V for a bias voltage sweep from −30 to 30 V, and the on/off ratio of the device was approximately 102. These results agree well with those of the FeFETs fabricated on a rigid Si substrate. These results will lead to the emergence of printable electron devices on paper. Furthermore, these non-volatile paper memory devices, which are fabricated by a solution processing method, are reliable, very inexpensive, have a high-density, and can be fabricated easily.

The paper industry in India is more than a century old. Commercial production of paper started as early as 1879. Limitations with respect to forest-based raw materials forced the Indian paper industry, in these early stages of its development, to utilise non-conventional materials, such as straw, bagasse, and textile material. India was the first country in the world to have a paper mill relying entirely on bamboo as its primary fibre. The use of non-conventional raw materials was strongly supported by the Indian government (RAO 1989). Around 1950 waste paper was also introduced as a raw material for the production of paper.

World wide consumption of pulp and paper products now exceeds 268 million tons per year (PPI 1995) and has been steadily rising since the late 1970s (PPI 1991, Smook 1989). Per capita consumption varies considerably from around 332.6 kg of pulp products in the United States to 71.2 kg in Malta and 2.7 kg in India (PPI 1991). The pulp and paper industry is expected to grow significantly in the newly industrialised countries of Africa and Latin America while the highest rates of growth are expected in SE Asia (PPI 1995). World consumption is projected to rise to over 310 million tonnes in the year 2000 (Myreen 1994) with a significant impact on the chemical industry as well given that some 16.5 million tons of chemicals are used annually in the US and Canadian industries alone. It has been estimated that approximately US$ 50 worth of chemicals are used in the production of every ton of bleached softwood pulp, US$ 20 per ton of newsprint and US$ 80 per ton of reprographic papers (Burt 1987). Costs of finished pulps delivered to northern Europe range between 300–500 US$ per tonne, depending upon origin, and the industry is, in general, highly competitive (Reeve 1999). Historically, pulp and paper production has long been recognised as a significant point source of pollution. Early control initiatives in the UK, for example, concentrated upon reducing the loading of suspended solids and biological oxygen demand (BOD) to the recipient (Waldmeyer 1957). BOD control is still problematic in areas where discharges are made to restricted watercourses or enclosed coastal areas. A study of the Sone River in India (Srivastava et al. 1988) has shown that the river effectively required 216 km to revert to its original condition after receiving the effluent from a mill of installed capacity of 85 kt per year. Estimated BOD-7 (biological oxygen demand measured over 7 days) discharges direct to the Gulf of Bothnia, Gulf of Finland, Baltic Sea and Kattegat totalled some 180 kt per year in the late 1980s (CGB 1987). Technologies used or under development at this time included percolating filters, activated sludge processes, anaerobic treatment and high pressure oxidation. These were all broadly end-of-pipe methodologies whose counterparts may be found at many modem mills.

Size press technology has undergone a revolutionary change over the past ten years. The driving force behind this was the speed increase of fine paper machines which the conventional pond size press was incapable of matching. New generation film presses were born, with no speed limits and with the flexibility to produce different kinds of surface sizing treatments, until finally the new process has become a challenger to the blade coating process itself. The competing blade surface sizing technology lost its chance because of low efficiency and inadequate paper quality. The gateroll film press, even though having good efficiency, also has quality limitations as well as too low a speed limit in coating and in surface sizing, especially with high size amounts.

Fiber supply, waste reduction and pollution control have long been key challenges facing the pulp and paper industry in Taiwan. Water usage, energy consumption and capital effectiveness are also high on the list. An average of 5,213 hectares of plantation was established each year on the island in the past decade to provide a wood volume of approximately 26 thousand cubic meters annually. To complement the supply of increasingly expensive virgin fiber, the industry in 1997 re-utilized about 4 million tons of waste paper, of which nearly 70% was collected domestically. This secondary fiber input for paper and board production eliminated both the construction of ten incinerators and 3.65 million tons of C02 emission.

Modern papermaking is, from a mechanical point of view, a very well refined process utilizing what might well be the most advanced process control used in any industry. The art of preparing fibres from trees and forming a sheet of paper from these fibres has reached a degree of sophistication which, for an unknowledged outside observer, must appear phenomenal. Hundreds of tonnes of a leaf thin sheet (e.g. newsprint) can be produced each day at a speed of 90 km/h (equivalent to 1500 m/min) so a chapter within the above title seems trivial in this context. However, the modern papermaking process is very sensitive to disturbances, and the formation of deposits is one of the most important factors limiting the productivity on a paper machine today. Further, paper defects (such as breaks, holes and spots very often caused by deposits) represent one of the most common complaints of a user/buyer of paper, but still deposit control does not usually get high attention and on the contrary, deposit control is often considered unnecessary in the ultimate papermaking process which all papermakers strive to reach. However, it is often forgotten that trees represent a living material made not only of cellulose fibres but also, like any living organism, of a number of substances produced by the tree so that it can live and that recycled waste paper often contains large quantities of non-fibrous material causing a deposit problem. Further, it is only natural that microorganisms (that potentially can cause problems in the papermaking process) are present in a papermaking system, as these represent a natural part of life with presence just about everywhere on the earth. This chapter reviews the source and control of paper machine deposits and the alternative methods of application of chemicals to minimize/eliminate these troublesome deposits.

Due to rapid depletion of wild stocks, the necessity to cultivate fish is eminent. Current fish farming practices seek to improve flesh quality. The notion that white muscles are the main target of the fishing industry is emphasized. A novel approach is suggested based on the development of white muscles in wild fish from eggs to adults. A compilation of facts about white muscle structure, function and ontogeny is followed by an account of the changes in swimming behaviour and performance related to the use of white muscle during growth from larva to adult. Ecological data narrate early swimming performance with white muscle development and growth, unveiling some of the important natural selection factors eliminating weak swimmers and poor growers from the breeding stock. A comparison between fish culture practise and natural conditions reveals fundamental differences. New approaches following wild breeding processes promise several important advantages regarding the quality of white muscle.

The objective of the studies was to evaluate the appropriateness of paper mill lime sludge for liming through its chemical composition, its effects on the chemical properties of an acid Oxic Paleustult, and on growth of corn plants in this soil in a greenhouse and a field experiment. Treatments in the greenhouse experiment consisted of a factorial combination of 5 rates of lime sludge (0, 312.5, 625, 1250 and 2500 kg ha-1) and 3 rates each of K and Mg (0, 0.25, and 0.5 cmol kg-1), while those of the field experiment were the 5 rates of lime sludge only. The lime sludge had a high calcium carbonate equivalent (91.3%), it increased soil pH, Bray II extractable P and exchangeable Ca and decreased exchangeable Al and H contents, as application rate increased. However, increased levels of soil Na and Cl occurred at high rates of application of lime sludge. Increased rates of K, Mg and lime significantly increased corn top yields in the greenhouse experiment. However, corn yield was significantly decreased by 625 kg lime sludge ha-1 when K was applied at the highest rate. Inadequate Ca and Mg concentrations in corn, especially at the highest K rate, were associated with the yield depression. Maximum top yields in both experiments were obtained at 312.5 kg lime sludge ha-1.

Two of the five EU benchmarks for Education and Training ET2020 are central to the issue of access to education for marginalised groups and are prima facie relevant to a view of access to education being an EU strategic priority on paper. These are that (1) the share of 30–34-year-olds with tertiary educational attainment should be at least 40 % and (2) an average of at least 15 % of adults aged 25–64 should participate in lifelong learning. There is a need to place opening up barriers to access to higher education more firmly on the policy agenda at EU level and across national levels in Europe. Despite a number of commitments in EU Council and Commission documents in the past decade, it appears that the equity, social cohesion and active citizenship issue of access to higher education for lower socio-economic groups are currently falling between two stools in relation to the ET2020 targets. It is relevant on paper to both higher education and lifelong learning benchmarks but arguably being sufficiently prioritised by neither.

The idea to establish an astronomical observatory at the University of Coimbra (OAUC) was inspired by a major reform of that university in 1772. At that time the observatory was planned for the site where the Castle of the city was built. However, mainly due to financial difficulties, its construction stopped after 3 years. Meanwhile a small building was erected (1775–1777) to serve astronomical lessons. The problem of lack of a real and effective observatory to serve true scientific research required a solution that began to be formulated around the years 1785–1790. In this article we explore the problems related with the foundation of the OAUC and discus the importance of astronomical instruments in implementing its primary scientific mission—elaboration of the astronomical ephemeris (1803).

Pulp and paper production is classified as a water consuming industrial activity. In this study, effluent treatments that have been proved to be functionabley economical and effective for paper mills are examined. Emphasis is given in mechanical (filtering), physicochemical (coagulation-flotation-sedimentation) and biological treatment (aerobic — anaerobic).

There is increasing interest in the use of composted organic wastes for intensive vegetable production. Here, systematically designed fertilizer experiments with factorial combinations of organic wastes, a town waste compost and a paper mill waste composted with bark, and top-dress ammonium nitrate were carried out on summer cabbage (Brassica oleracea var. capitata cv. Lima) and randomised block designed experiments were conducted to evaluate seedlings emergence and plant growth rates on lettuce (Lactuca sativa L. cvs. Serda and Animo). Summer cabbage responded positively to base organic wastes in the absence of top-dressed ammonium nitrate whilst high base organic waste application rates caused cabbage growth reduction. There was clear evidence that lettuce growth rates increased with increasing concentration of composted paper mill waste whereas negative responses occurred with composted town waste. Inhibitory effects of town waste compost on lettuce seedling emergence and plant growth were likely to be the result of a combination of the high electrical conductivity, ammonia toxicity and a low degree of stabilisation of this compost. Field application rates of composts were limited by compost heavy-metal concentration to rates of 27 t ha−1 year−1 and 32 t ha−1 year−1 respectively for paper mill waste composted with bark and town waste compost.

Europe is the second-largest paper producing and consuming area in the world after North America. In 1989 the production of paper and paperboard was close to 60 million tons, about 25% of total world output. Consumption was slightly above 56 million tons, or about 157 kilos per capita.

Biotechnology generates tools: enzymes and microorganisms that permit one (i) to reduce pollution, chemical and energy requirements, and (ii) to obtain biodegradable and less toxic side products. This is mainly related to the high specificity of enzymes which hydrolyse lignocellulosic materials. Enzymes can be used to prevent or minimise pollution in the process, and microorganisms for the elimination of pollution.

For developing countries, electricity cogeneration is quite important due to the economic difficulties of local utilities, avoiding investments for the construction of new plants.

The annual reproductive success of Coregonus albula and C. lavaretus in some polluted and clean areas of the central parts of L. Paijanne was estimated in 1981–90 on the basis of occurrence of larvae in shore seine and seine net samples after the ice melted. In polluted areas (0-5 km from Kaipola paper mill) larvae of coregonids were found only occasionally. In semipolluted areas (5–15 km from the paper mill) the densities of larvae were usually less than 0.1 ind m-2. In ‘clean’ areas the mean densities of larvae ranged from 0.45 to 5.34 inds m-2. A relatively high reproductive success of vendace was observed in 1984–85, moderate success in 1982–83 and low success in 1986–90. The larvae of whitefish were scarce in both polluted and semipolluted areas and their density ranged from 0.01 to 0.15 ind m-2 in clean shores. The highest density was observed in 1989. In spite of the improvement of the quality of water in the area in the 1980s, the reproductive success of coregonids is still low in a great part of the basin which may depend on adverse oxygen conditions of the hypolimnion and sediment and the toxic effects of the effluents.

Waste paper processing gains more and more importance for environmental and technological reasons. Herewith in connection, the deinking flotation plays an important role. In this paper the basic terms of the deinking process are presented.

The study about visualization of paper has been developed abroad in the recent few years. To analysis the thesis status and track research hotspots in universities, we propose an effective visualization method based on some techniques and utilities. A combined method of the data integration, data mining and visualization analysis is applied to analyze thesis keywords and citation. We use model-driven approach to design and build the scientific data integration and data mining platform. And a visible data analysis method is outlined to reveal research hotspot and conceptual graph.

Germany is the biggest paper exporter in the world, the biggest paper producer in Europe and the fourth biggest producer in the world. It is also the biggest market in Europe and a major export market for European pulp producers. However, only three German pulp and paper companies made it to the top 100 list of the industry in 2010 and none made it into the top 50 (PPI 2011). This article describes the development of the German industry from the beginning of the nineteenth century to the present in order to explain the factors contributing to this unusual state of affairs in a country which, during the second Industrial Revolution, created major players in the new global oligopolies in chemicals, machinery and metals. In many lighter industries, such as paper, the focus remained on domestic markets, or foreign companies came to dominate the industry. To cover the development of the industry, the chapter relies on existing research and statistical sources to describe changes in production, trade, raw materials and technology; changes in firms and industry structure, and changes in regulation. The article also discusses government policies, major historical events and their effects.

The European paper and board industry has currently to pursue an important investment effort in order to improve its competitiveness and to meet the challenge of an increasing product demand both in quantity and quality.

China’s pulp and paper industry grows rapidly in recent decades. During the raw material transformation from non-wood to wood, the demand pressure of wood increased dramatically. The forest–paper integration project was launched to support the sustainable development of China’s pulp and paper industry. The necessity of the implementation of forest–paper integration project, it’s enforcement mode, the achievement, existing problems and suggestions are analysed in this paper.

E-paper screen mobile devices that primarily process multimedia data, such as image, audio and text, are expected to become important platforms for pervasive computing. Diverse mobile devices with wireless network are now growingly used, range over various applications. There is an accelerating trend toward ubiquitous computing. Although there have been some ways available for implementation of mobile applications, this research field is still under development. One challenge that remains is the ability to make allowance for running any burdensome task in mobile devices which is commonly run in desktop devices. Traditionally, E-reader devices can only support limited services for limitations of resource. Ubiquitous computing applications promise user to richer and more complicate behavior, but the current state of research in this field is still far removed from that vision. This paper presented a novel and effective wireless network-based software framework to support developers building applications in E-paper devices. The framework includes 3G and Wi-Fi network manager, service module-based XML, service module based on Webkit and resource scheduler. The proposed framework can provide the technical basis for mobile business applications.

In recent decades, there has been an accelerating trend in the use of diverse mobile embedded devices which have been an important part in users’ daily life. Since mobile users need to access the rich resource of the World Wide Web, mobile embedded browser has been a necessary part of an embedded system. This paper analyzed the related techniques and framework of Qt WebKit and developed an embedded browser based on Qt WebKit in E-paper mobile devices. In addition, according to the characteristics of E-paper screen, we proposed some key problems about the implementation. Some novel and effective solutions to address these problems were also proposed. Experimental results demonstrate that this embedded browser can reach the desired benefits.

This paper contains the results of the Mobile Tools for Teachers project concerning the viability of digital pen and paper technology (DPPT) for administration in a K-12 classroom environment. Filled out forms were evaluated and interviews as well as user tests with teachers were done to show the advantages and disadvantages of DPPT compared to regular methods for attendance tracking and grading. Additionally, the paper addresses the problems that arise with DPPT in a classroom environment and includes suggestions how to deal with those.

It is my sincere belief that all practising clinicians have at least one idea, observation, or case that could form the basis of a medical ethics article. It is a matter only of identifying what that is, and putting it on paper in the right form. Armed with the ability to identify and analyse an ethical problem, you are in a position to publish articles and to contribute to the literature. Potential outlets include general medical journals, specialty journals, medical ethics journals, and newspapers. This chapter provides guidance on how to publish in clinical ethics. Again, it is based on my own experience as an author, reviewer and editor. It does not purport to be beyond dispute.

Internal process water cycles have been installed in many industries throughout the last decades. Closing the water cycle is advantageous from the ecological as well as from the economic point of view, mainly because of savings of water and energy. However, closed water cycles may lead to serious operational problems in the production process, such as biofouling and encrustations of limescale. These problems can be avoided by implementing biological wastewater treatment in the internal water cycles. Moreover, energy can be recovered by biological wastewater treatment, particularly if the first treatment step is anaerobic. Examples of heat recovery in the paper industry are presented as well as an example of reuse of biologically treated wastewater in a beet sugar factory. Trends in the application of biological process water treatment for reuse are discussed.

Provisional Table of Contents, August 2009: A: UAS Modeling, Control and Identification: J. Kim, M. S. Kang, S. Park: Accurate Modeling and Robust Hovering Control for a Quad-rotor VTOL Aircraft D. Schafroth, C. Bermes, S. Bouabdallah, R. Siegwart: Modeling and System Identification of the muFly Micro Helicopter E. Rondon, S. Salazar, J. Escareno, R. Lozano, A. Malo-Tamayo: Vision-Based Position Control of a Two-Rotor VTOL mini UAV B: UAS Navigation, Path Planning and Tracking: C. Goerzen, Z. Kong, B. Mettler: A Survey of Motion Planning Algorithms from the Perspective of Autonomous UAV Guidance K. Yang, S. K. Gan, S. Sukkarieh: An Efficient Path Planning and Control Algorithm for an RUAV in an Unknown and Cluttered Environment A. A. Neto, D. G. Macharet, M. F. M. Campos: On the Generation of Trajectories for Multiple UAVs in Environments with Obstacles E. Koyuncu, N. K. Ure, G. Inalhan: Integration of Path/Maneuver Planning in Complex Environments for Agile Maneuvering UCAVs M. Kontitsis, K. Valavanis: A Cost-Effective Tracking System for Small Unmanned Aerial Systems C: UAS Vision and Vision-Based Systems R. S. Holt, R. W. Beard: Vision-Based Road-Following Using Proportional Navigation S. Huh, D. H. Shim: A Vision-based Automatic Landing Method for Fixed-wing UAVs A. Cesetti, E. Frontoni, A. Mancini, P. Zingaretti, S. Longhi: A Vision-based Guidance System for UAVs Navigation and Safe Landing using Natural Landmarks F. Andert, F. M. Adolf, L. Goormann, J. S. Dittrich: Autonomous Vision-Based Helicopter Flights through Obstacle Gates D: Landing and Forced Landing K. W. Sevcik, N. Kuntz, P. Y. Oh: Exploring the Effect of Obscurants on Safe Landing Zone Identification K. E. Wenzel, P. Rosset, A. Zell: Low-Cost Visual Tracking of a Landing Place and Hovering Flight Control with a Microcontroller A. L. Desbiens, M. Cutkosky: Landing and Perching on Vertical Surfaces with Microspines for Small Unmanned Air Vehicles P. Eng, L.Mejias, X. Liu: Automating Human Thought Processes for a UAV Forced Landing K. Dalamagkidis, K. Valavanis, L. Piegl: Autonomous Autorotation of Unmanned Rotorcraft using Nonlinear Model Predictive Control E: Simulation Platforms and Testbeds: I. Maza, F. Caballero, R. Molina, N. Pena, A. Ollero: Multimodal Interface Technologies for UAV Ground Control Stations: A Comparative Analysis R. Garcia, L. Barnes: Multi-UAV Simulator Utilizing X-Plane J. Saunders, R. Beard: UAV Flight Simulation with Hardware-in-the-loop Testing and Vision Generation F: UAS Applications: I. Maza, K. Kondak, M. Bernard, A. Ollero: Multi-UAV Cooperation and Control for Load Transportation and Deployment S. Erhard, K. E. Wenzel, A. Zell: Flyphone: Visual Self-Localization Using a Mobile Phone as Onboard Image Processor on a Quadrocopter A. H. Goktogan, S. Sukkarieh, M. Bryson, J. Randle, T. Lupton, C. Hung: Using Rotary-Wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicles for Aquatic Weed Surveillance and Management J. T. Hing, K. W. Sevcik, P. Y. Oh: Development and Evaluation of a Chase View for UAV Operations in Cluttered Environments M. Aksugur, G. Inalhan: Design Methodology of a Hybrid Propulsion Driven Electric Powered Miniature Tailsitter Unmanned Aerial Vehicle.

We provide an overview of a framework for measuring the economic and environmental impact of digital content delivery currently being pilot tested in the College of Business at the University of Dallas. This framework is based on Elkington’s Triple Bottom Line (TBL) model of sustainability which includes Economic (Profit), Environmental (Planet) and Social (People) dimensions [1]. We first describe the development of a rubric for quantifying online digital content followed by an overview of the process for assessing the environmental and economic effects of digital versus traditional paper delivery. Results are based on archival data generated with the rubric and survey data collected from 1,039 online students in the spring and summer semesters of 2009. We conclude with suggestions for establishing measurement models at other institutions where fostering partnerships between university administrators, faculty and students holds promise for increasing the sustainable impact of eLearning.

One corporate communication instrument which is now gaining its popularity is the sustainability reporting. The advantages and possibilities of communicating with a sustainability report (SR) are often discussed in a more theoretical view, but a few empirical analyses regarding this are now being conducted. This paper concentrates on the empirical analyses of communication process between companies and their stakeholders with the help of SR. The questions that emerge in this regard are: Who reads sustainability reports? Can sustainability reporting be an all-purpose tool in the effort to attract and manage the interests of various stakeholder groups? Or is it just a matter of joining the trend by producing sustainability reports rather than finally using them to achieve corporate goals?The results of the research show that the communication with an SR can only be successful, not only by producing a detailed, clear and structured report, but also most importantly by improving the engagement with the SR.

This book is about additives for plastics; in this context, we shall treat paper and certain related materials as additives for resins. As will become apparent, there are also additives (such as pigments) in the paper used to make laminates, so this topic is relevant to the book’s central theme in more than one way.

In 1904 the French Academy of science posed the following question for the Prix Vaillant: determine all displacements in which some or all points of a rigid body move on spherical paths. Two papers were awarded prizes, however, neither solved the problem completely. In this paper we discuss the results of both award winning papers, the scientific circle from which the question evolved, give some biographical notes on the prize-winning authors and discuss the relevance to self-motions of parallel manipulators.

Literature provides only vague references as to when paper and board first started to be surface-finished on-line. We can only be certain of the real industrial breakthrough, which came with the introduction of the roll coater, based on an invention by Peter Massey. The first commercial installation was commissioned in 1933 at the Consolidated Water Power and Paper Company in Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin.

A debate on whether electronic information technology (IT) will make paper products obsolete has continued for decades. It is now known that the early predictions of the “paperless office” have turned out to be premature. The debate has not died away, however, indeed, it appears to have gained momentum. Nevertheless, there continues to be widely differing opinions on this issue, which, to some extent, reflect the different interests among the various stakeholders.

The problem of the origins of Galileo’s mechanics has been discussed during this century by a number of eminent historians of science.1 Is Galileo’s dynamics fundamentally new, as compared with the medieval Aristotelian tradition, or only a continuation of the medieval theory of motion. Some scholars maintained that Galileo had merely taken over and perfected the “impetus” dynamics of scholastic philosophers of the fourteenth century.2 Other historians, on the other hand, vindicated the newness of Galileo’s dynamics, maintaining that it essentially depended on mathematical mechanics of the “Platonist” Archimedes.3

These comments will be concerned only with Uriagereka’s analysis, not (for reasons that will become obvious as we proceed) with the implications he claims that ensue from it.

Jaklin Kornfilt’s contribution to this volume touches on a key problem in syntax—the question of what sorts of devices the theory of grammar should have at its disposal for explaining the fairly frequent instances in natural language in which typically local grammatical processes give the appearance of operating at a distance (as, for example, when a characteristically clause-bounded rule applies in a domain consisting of two clauses). The particular case she considers—the IDP construction of Turkish—results to be only an apparent, not a real instance of non-local application of NP movement, under the analysis she advances: the occurrence of passive morphology in both the main and the subordinate clause is not the result of any particular linkage between the INFL nodes of the two clauses (though she does explore an alternative possible analysis, under which the two are linked by head-raising). Rather, passive morphology in the main clause is simply forced when the embedded clause is passive by the fact that the failure of the passivized object to get case by moving to matrix subject position would result in ill-formedness. The analysis requires no special assumptions about locality conditions, aside from the claim that try-type verbs can in some languages exceptionally govern but not case-mark the subjects of their complements. In particular, a satisfactory account of IDP’s does not require the assumption of restructuring/reanalysis, and the consequent weakening of the Projection Principle.

Waste disposal in the Netherlands has come under great pressure in recent years. The policy of the Dutch government is directed towards radically restricting on the domestic waste to be dumped on the basis of social, spatial and environmentalprotection considerations.

Incorporating a heat transformer unit in an existing process to increase its energy efficiency was studied in this work. Two different applications; an evaporation plant in the pulp and paper industry and a fat hydrolysis unit in the oleochemical industry, were investigated.

In the fall of 1987 the senior management of International Paper Company initiated a project referred to as the Productivity Improvement Process (PIP). The purpose was to transform an existing operating facility (the Cincinnati folding carton plant), into a leader in its industry. The original objective of the project was “to make the Cincinnati plant (CP) the “best” Folding Carton organization in the industry and to have it serve as a model for other International Paper plants.” It was understood at the time that CP was a mediocre performer by most accepted measures (productivity, profitability, quality, safety, receptivity to innovation). At the same time the management and work force had shown consistent improvement and a “can do” attitude towards change. Senior Management turned to the Corporate Technology Organization and chartered the Operations Analysis/Industrial Engineering (OA/IE) group to play a key role in organizing and energizing PEP. The OA/IE group would also serve as the conduit to the entire corporate Technology organization and its staff of more than 500 scientists and engineers. The OA/IE group would have a partnership role with the plant and business group management team in providing leadership and management for the Project. From the outset the project was seen as a prototype effort that would serve as a model to be refined and applied selectively to many of the other 64 converting facilities owned by the company.

The combination of unexpected new details with a synthetic view is as admirable in this eassy on Spinoza’s biblical criticism as it is in all of Richard Popkin’s historical studies. My remarks are but few and marginal.

Automatic target recognition in images from sources such as video cameras,infrared cameras, radar, satellites, etc., is an area of increasing importance and growing concern. Pattern recognition in images largely depends on two important factors: (a) a good feature extraction technique, and (b) good feature recognition and classification. Many image processing techniques and tools are available today to improve the quality of acquired images and thereby enhance the feature extraction process. Feature extraction depends on the nature of the image data and application. Statistical feature extraction methods treat patterns as points in a multidimensional measurement space. The statistical methods normally consider relationships—such as joint probability distribution, interpoint distances, and scatter matrices—to define patterns. There is, however, another approach.Recently there has been a sudden surge in research activity in the area of feature detection and recognition using neural networks. We will discuss the application of two interesting neural network structures based on (a) probabilistic neural networks (PNNs) and (b) self-organising neural networks. The self-organising neural net structure is built on adaptive resonance theory (ART), as propounded by Grossberg and Carpenter [1].

Only some 75 per cent of the Community’s paper consumption is covered by its own paper industry, which is heavily dependent on imported raw and semi-processed materials (roughly 1/3). Waste paper is by far and away (57 per cent) the most important “indigenous” raw material. The use of 10.1 million tonnes of waste paper in the production of 23.3 milliot tonnes of paper means a use rate of 43.1 per cent.

Accountability is of universal interest to the business ethics community, but the emphasis to date has been primarily at the level of the industry, organization, or key individuals. This paper unites concepts from relational and felt accountability and team dynamics to provide an initial explanatory framework that emphasizes the importance of social interactions to team accountability. We develop a measure of team accountability using participants in the USA and Europe and then use it to study a cohort of 65 teams of Irish business students over three months as they complete a complex simulation. Our hypotheses test the origins of team accountability and its effects on subsequent team performance and attitudinal states. Results indicate that initial team accountability is strongly related to team trust, commitment, efficacy, and identifying with the team emotionally. In established teams, accountability increases effort and willingness to continue to collaborate but did not significantly improve task performance in this investigation.

Competences are the most important career capital a university graduate can have. The objective of the paper is to determine which competences acquired at tourism degree programmes affect students’ self-assessment regarding their own competitive advantage on the labour market. The data was collected during a nationwide diagnostic survey (N = 476) carried out at ten Polish universities among students finishing their tourism degree courses. Principal component analysis allowed us to identify a set of competences that have a significant impact on the students’ perception of their chances of finding employment in the tourism industry. These are: ability to cope with challenges and stress; writing and speaking skills in a foreign language; public speaking; planning and implementation of subject-specific projects; ability to conduct subject-specific research and perseverance. The higher the assessment of each of the above, the more confident of their competitive advantage on the labour market the students were., Highlights Self-assessment of competences credibly corresponds to the students' perception of their career potentialCompetences are the fundamental career capital of recent university graduatesPCA helps identify a set of competences that determine self-perception of one’s competitive advantage on the labour marketSeven competences determine how students of tourism degree courses assess their chances on the Polish labour marketThe topic of tourism degree graduates’ competences in relation to their situation on the labour market is still an under-researched area

Recent years have seen growing interest in enabling volunteers to play a more pronounced role in disaster response, and yet efforts to systematically analyse this crisis volunteer action, particularly among young people, have been surprisingly limited. This study examines the case of the Student Volunteer Army (SVA) in Aotearoa New Zealand, a student-led group which over the space of a decade has responded to multiple disasters, including earthquakes, floods, fires, a terrorist attack and the Covid-19 pandemic. Drawing on in-depth interviews, our analysis compares the practices adopted by the SVA in response to these different crises and identifies how members and supporters of the group have come to understand its capabilities, limitations, and conditions for effective operation. We present a framework of cross-cutting lessons of "why", "who", "when", "what" and "how" and demonstrate the ways they have been built upon for each new disaster mobilisation. In distilling, the key lessons of a youth-led crisis volunteer group that has mobilised for a spectrum of disasters, this paper contributes to theoretical understandings of how groups at a local level learn after sequential disasters, and the conditions and considerations that enable such groups to effectively-and repeatedly-"meet a need" in disaster response.

By stressing results, or program outcomes, evaluation research has turned against itself. And by posing the same question that evaluation has traditionally put to Intervention programs onto evaluation’s own “results”, we tend to receive the same “no demonstrable effect” answer. This chapter focuses not on what decision-makers do with evaluation data, but on what evaluation does to them, and why. Decision-makers do not always show indifference toward social research; occasionally what evaluation says or might say does seem to matter. By gauging the power of evaluation through looking at the energy devoted to influencing its findings, or to curtailing its potential influence, we get a more balanced picture than by concentrating on the “uses” of evaluation alone. The question then is: Howcome it is that (certain) evaluation data matter? Discussing the evaluation of Project Renewal (and, in brief, the evaluation of primary education in Israel) as an example of an evaluation that mattered, my attempt will be to explain its “power” with the help of papermoney as a metaphor.

The expansion of agro-dealers into remote areas can be seen as conducive to more smallholders adopting new technologies and inputs, to include improved seed and fertilizer. However, lower travel costs may be offset by agro-dealer decisions on stocking and pricing, reflecting both travel time from wholesale markets as well as the level of competition in localized areas. This paper investigates the geographical distribution of agro-dealers and related patterns of local market competition on the availability and prices of maize seed and fertilizer. We use a unique census of agro-dealers in eight districts of Tanzania (n = 299) which maps distribution points for agricultural inputs in these areas. Results suggested that despite a high number of agro-dealers, almost 30% of farmers lived more than an hour travel time from at least one agro-dealer. Instead of wide geographical coverage, agro-dealers tended to be found in clusters, with strong variation in cluster sizes between different districts. Overall, more remote agro-dealers faced less competition, resulting in fewer stocked product choices and charging higher prices to customers, even after controlling for travel time from district headquarters. Remote farmers are disadvantaged in their uptake of new technologies and critical production inputs due to lack of competition among agro-dealers. Our results suggest that highly aggregated and/or simplified measures of market access fail to reflect important heterogeneity in the market access conditions faced by farmers; a better understanding of distribution networks and competition is needed.

This paper analyzes the use of wood wastes to replace the extensive fossil-fuel consumption at nineteen pulp and paper mills in British Columbia, and the further use of wood wastes to produce electricity at these mills. The evaluation, which is based on simulation models of energy consumption at each of the mills, is done from the points of view of both the firms involved and of the economy as a whole. The latter evaluation is carried out using world prices for fossil fuels and the cost of electricity from new British Columbia Hydro projects. The private returns are found to depend primarily on the price paid for fossil fuel and electricity. Some predictions can be made as to the amount that the mill managers would be willing to pay for hauling wood waste (to overcome apparent shortages in some locations) and still earn a positive return on the investment in wood waste-burning facilities.

The first digital computer control applications in the pulp and paper industry date from the early 1960’s, the very first ones being the paper machine control systems. The first application in the pulp mill area was the development of Kamyr digester control system. These first control systems installed at that early date have since times been replaced by systems of the next generation.

Against the backdrop of a global pandemic, this study investigates how U.S. higher education leaders have centered their crisis management on values and guiding ethical principles. We conducted 55 in-depth interviews with leaders from 30 U.S. higher education institutions, with most leaders participating in two interviews. We found that crisis plans created prior to the COVID-19 pandemic were inadequate due to the long duration and highly uncertain nature of the crisis. Instead, higher education leaders applied guiding principles on the fly to support their decision-making. If colleges and universities infuse shared values into their future crisis plans, they will not have to develop a moral compass on the fly for the next pandemic. This paper suggests the following somewhat universal shared values: (1) engage in accuracy, transparency, and accountability; (2) foster deliberative dialog; (3) prioritize safety; (4) support justice, fairness, and equity; and (5) engage in an ethic of care. To navigate ethics tensions, leaders need to possess crisis-relevant expertise or ensure that such expertise is present among crisis management team members. Standing up formal ethics committees composed of diverse stakeholders also is instrumental in navigating tensions inherent in crises. The next pandemic is already on the horizon according to experts. Through infusing values into future crisis plans, higher education leaders can be confident that their responses will be grounded in their communities’ shared values.

Working outside traditional bureaucratic structures, animal activists have a long history of creating, managing and using records in radical ways to bring the suffering of animals to society’s attention. Today’s online platforms enable animal activism on a networked scale, with unprecedented reach and immediacy of impact, but also with risks and challenges. This article presents findings from a critical case study of the radical recordkeeping of Direct Action Everywhere (DxE), a US-based animal liberation group. The case study explores the performative role recordkeeping plays in the group’s animal activism and advocacy, and the challenge of ensuring the longevity of an archival record of its activities and their impact. It is framed by Records Continuum Theory and illustrates the benefits of applying a Records Continuum lens to researching radical recordkeeping contexts. The paper reports on the research findings of the case study, including the vital role recordkeeping plays as a form of “strategic witnessing” for the activities of DxE, as well as in developing the DxE community and communicating its mission to the public. It discusses the challenges faced by DxE in preserving their archives into the future through integrating archiving into their current radical recordkeeping processes, Continuum-style, and addressing the risks associated with using online collaborative platforms for recordkeeping and archiving. Overcoming these challenges will ensure that current recordkeeping plays its part in DxE’s animal activism, and that in the future records of continuing value take their place among the multiple narratives of society in the archival multiverse.

This paper highlights the dark side of power imbalance regarding its consequences in agri-food supplier–buyer relationships. We report on findings from two studies. The first study is based on a sample of 105 key informants, while study 2 is based on a sample of 444 key informants, all from the cocoa agri-food supply market of Ghana. While the first study focuses on the antecedents of power imbalance and its consequences, the second study explores the role of cooperatives/collective action in minimizing supplier exploitation. Data from these studies were analysed using the partial least squares technique (SmartPLS). Analysis of these findings shows switching costs’ impact on power imbalance to be curvilinear, while power imbalance has a curvilinear relationship with opportunism. The negative consequences of power imbalance are further exacerbated by dependency and the lack of joint action. Furthermore, we found the negative impact of power imbalance on financial performance to be stronger for non-cooperative members than for cooperative members, while, counterintuitively, we found the positive impact of economic satisfaction on financial performance to be stronger for non-cooperative members than for cooperative members.

Covid-19 is one of the biggest health challenges that the world has ever faced. Public health policy makers need the reliable prediction of the confirmed cases in future to plan medical facilities. Machine learning methods learn from the historical data and make predictions about the events. Machine learning methods have been used to predict the number of confirmed cases of Covid-19. In this paper, we present a detailed review of these research papers. We present a taxonomy that groups them in four categories. We further present the challenges in this field. We provide suggestions to the machine learning practitioners to improve the performance of machine learning methods for the prediction of confirmed cases of Covid-19.

Consumer behavior changes differently in emergencies. Understanding consumer food stockpiling behavior during COVID-19 pandemic can provide critical information for governments and policymakers to adjust inventory and response strategies. This paper analyzed consumer food stockpiling behavior, including the change of food reserve scale and willingness to pay for fresh food reserves in COVID-19. Our paper shows that the scale of food reserve extends from 3.37 to 7.37 days after the outbreak of COVID-19; if available, consumers on average are willing to pay 18.14 yuan (60.47%) premium for fresh products reserves. The result shows that food stockpiling behavior is fueled by a set of multiple motivations and subjective risk perception. Female, high education level and high-income consumers were more likely to reserve larger scale food reserves, but consumers’ willingness to pay for fresh food reserves is determined by income. This study was conducted when new infection cases continued to rise in the world. The story of food stockpiling during the COVID-19 pandemic in China is similar with the rest of world. Consumer stockpiling behavior in China can also be expanded to other countries to predict the change of food demand and understand more about consumer preferences in emergencies.

The purpose of this article is to analyze the relationships among the basic conditions, the structure and the behaviour of the European pulp and paper industry. However, the characteristics of the industry and (mainly) the supply of raw materials from areas outside the European Economic Community (EEC) impedes an analysis limited to the paper industry of the EEC. In addition it is too simple to consider the conduct of the European firms without taking into account an international context. This means the consideration of a wider field of observations which includes the Scandinavian and North American countries as well as Japan.

This paper describes the work performed in ESPRIT Project 295, “The Paper Interface”. The project deals with the interaction between the electronic and paper forms of documents. It covers the input from handwritten or printed documents, the manipulation of the electronic version of the document, and the output to paper. The input can be from a document scanner or from a digitising tablet in real time. Techniques have been developed in order to recognise both the textual and graphical parts of the input document so as to enable their subsequent manipulation by computer. Editing and printing facilities have also been developed. The paper highlights the Final Technology Demonstrator which is a prototype office workstation with the “Paper Interface” components integrated into it.

The speaker dismisses a few existing myths about waste paper and goes on to make several possible subdivisions of waste paper.

There have been a number of significant changes in the UK paper and board industry over the last decade, in particular the increase in waste paper usage and the reduction in water consumption of mills per tonne of product. This review paper presents details of how these changes have affected the microbiological aspects of paper and board manufacture. Emphasis is directed to the reduction in water consumption ‘closing up’ in mill systems and methods of controlling microbial slime deposits. Details of microbial content of pulps, fibres and final products are also discussed.

This paper describes the disaggregation problem in the production setting of a paper mill. The starting point is a machine loading which specifies the quantity of each product grouping to be made on each paper machine during each period of the planning horizon. The first level of disaggregation is discussed in the context of the development of a master schedule for each machine. In a paper mill this involves sequencing and cycling the product groups allocated to each machine. This is complicated by the fact that some customer requirements must be made to order, while others can be satisfied from inventory.

In this paper, we present a double gate JL-TFET based biosensor by varying the gate dielectric constant to detect various biomolecules through label-free detection technique. An investigation regarding properties and behavior device has been investigated with the help of Silvaco TCAD. It is observed that Junction less TFET has advantageous over JLFET and TFETdue to the absence of junctions. The proposed device shows reduced short channel effects, lower subthreshold swing along with a higher voltage gain. The detection of the biomolecule is done by varying the gate dielectric constant inside the cavity and different electrical parameters such as electric field, sensing current, threshold voltage and transconductance are observed. The change in the threshold voltage, drain current, transconductance has been used as the sensing metric to detect the sensitivity of the presented device for biomolecule detection. Biomolecule position inside the cavity have been investigated to find out their effect on sensitivity parameter.

Having content in an archive is of limited value if it cannot be read and used. As a case study of extricating information from obsolete media, making it readable once again through deep learning techniques, we examine the Cauzin Softstrip: one of the first two-dimensional bar codes, released in 1985 by Cauzin Systems, which could be used for encoding all manner of digital data. Softstrips occupy a curious middle ground, as they were both physical and digital. The bar codes were printed on paper, and in that sense are no different in an archival way than any printed material. Softstrips can be found in old computer magazines, computer books, and booklets of software Cauzin produced. However, managing the digital nature of these physical artifacts falls within the scope of digital curation. To make the information on them readable and useful, the digital information needs to be extracted, which originally would have occurred using a physical Cauzin Softstrip reader. Obtaining a working Softstrip reader is already extremely difficult and will most likely be impossible in the coming years. In order to extract the encoded data, we created a digital Softstrip reader, making Softstrip data accessible without needing a physical reader. Our decoding strategy is able to decode over 91% of the 1229 Softstrips in our Softstrip corpus; this rises to 99% if we only consider Softstrip images produced under controlled conditions. Furthermore, we later acquired another set of 117 Softstrips and we were able to decode nearly 95% of them with no adjustments to the decoder. These excellent results underscore the fact that technology like deep learning is readily accessible to non-experts; we obtained these results using a convolutional neural network, even though neither of the authors are expert in the area.

The financial sector has seen a transformation towards ‘sustainable’ finance particularly in Europe, driven also by unprecedented regulatory reforms. At the same time, many are sceptical about the real impact of these reforms, fearing that they are triggering a paradoxical financialisation of sustainability. Building on recent research on institutional logics and institutional fields formation, we examine changes in the EU regulatory dynamics as characterised by shifts in framing the relationship between sustainability and finance. Deploying a longitudinal approach (2009–2019), consisting of archival data and semi-structured interviews, we explore the development of EU sustainable finance regulation as an extended, interactive and contested process. Specifically, we suggest that regulatory dynamics depend on the hybrid configuration of the social constituencies supporting sustainable finance reforms and on shifts in the overall prevalence of the financial logic in society. Our paper sheds light on the inherent contradictions and limitations of sustainable finance as a means for transformative sustainability reforms. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10551-021-04763-x.

It is a great pleasure for me to have the opportunity of speaking to you within this seminar on “Wood as a renewable raw material”.

The term paper work here is attributed to the work connected with preparation and handling of an application for registration of a radiopharmaceutical product. The material to be presented derives from applications for registrations submitted in Denmark since 1976 with the exception of applications later withdrawn. It is considered of general interest since the registration material in most cases seems to be identical to that submitted to registration authorities in other countries. At the start of the Danish registration system for radiopharmaceuticals (January 1 1976) a grandfather clause was granted for products, which were well known and well established and had been in regular use for several years. For these products registration could take place without full documentation with respect to the pharmacological, toxico1ogical and clinical developing work. With respect to these points such products of course too are excluded from the present study of quality of the applications. The questions raised by the registration authority according to the first review are considered to represent the most open defects and errors and thus form the basis of most of the presented material.

There are several methods available to convert vegetable cellulose-containing biomass into raw materials for fermentation processes. Two of these methods - acid hydrolysis and enzymatic hydrolysis - will be compared as to their economic merits. For this purpose, use has been made of paper from domestic waste separation installations.

Tissue perfusion monitoring is increasingly being employed clinically in a non-invasive fashion. In this end-of-year summary of the Journal of Clinical Monitoring and Computing, we take a closer look at the papers published recently on this subject in the journal. Most of these papers focus on monitoring cerebral perfusion (and associated hemodynamics), using either transcranial doppler measurements or near-infrared spectroscopy. Given the importance of cerebral autoregulation in the analyses performed in most of the studies discussed here, this end-of-year summary also includes a short description of cerebral hemodynamic physiology and its autoregulation. Finally, we review articles on somatic tissue oxygenation and its possible association with outcome.

Purpose There is scarce literature regarding genitourinary symptoms in COVID-19, especially post-acute disease otherwise known as Long COVID. We identified recovered COVID-19 patients presenting with new or worsening overactive bladder symptoms, known as COVID-19-associated cystitis (CAC). Methods We used the American Urological Association Urology Care Foundation Overactive Bladder (OAB) Assessment Tool to screen COVID-19 recovered patients presenting with urological complaints at our urban-located institution from 5/22/2020 to 12/31/2020. Patients 10–14 weeks post-discharge responded to 5 symptom and 4 quality-of-life (QoL) questions. We reported median symptom scores, as well as QoL scores, based on new or worsening urinary symptoms, and by sex. Results We identified 350 patients with de novo or worsening OAB symptoms 10–14 weeks after hospitalization with COVID-19. The median total OAB symptom score in both men and women was 18. The median total QoL score for both men and women was 19. Patients with worsening OAB symptoms had a median pre-COVID-19 symptom score of 8 (4–10) compared to post-COVID-19 median symptom score of 19 (17–21). Median age was 64.5 (range 47–82). Median hospital length-of-stay was 10 days (range 5–30). Conclusion We report survey-based results of patients suffering from new or worsening OAB symptoms months after their hospitalization from COVID-19. Future studies with larger sample sizes and more extensive testing will hopefully elucidate the specific pathophysiology of OAB symptoms in the context of long COVID so urologists can timely and appropriately treat their patients. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11255-021-03030-2.

Objective To describe the clinical profile and microbiology trends in patients undergoing therapeutic keratoplasty at a multi-tier ophthalmology hospital network in India. Methods This cross-sectional hospital-based study included 3147 eyes undergoing therapeutic keratoplasty between Jan 2016 and Dec 2020 (5 years period) as cases. The demographic data, clinical profile and microbiological analysis were collected using an electronic medical record system. Results Of a total of 13,625 eyes with microbial keratitis(non-viral), 3147 (23.1%) underwent therapeutic keratoplasty during the study duration. Majority of patients were males (68.35%), from a rural geography (49.89%) and in 51–60 years age bracket (23.74%). The mean age of the patients was 50.54 ± 15.83 years. Two-thirds of patients were from lower socio-economic strata (66.63%) with an agrarian background (36.51%). Of the 3,147 eyes, fungus (51.8%) was the most common indication of therapeutic keratoplasty followed by bacteria (16.87%) and parasite (1.27%). No organisms could be identified in about a third (29.33%) of the cases. Between 2016 and 2020, the trend of therapeutic keratoplasties for fungal infections steadily grew (39.9% vs 45.49%) while the bacterial infections showed a steady decline (23.15% vs 11.81%). Conclusions Medical cure rate was seen in majority of those with microbial keratitis, and 23.1% eventually required management with therapeutic keratoplasty. Fungal keratitis was the most common indication for therapeutic keratoplasty. Male gender, rural setting, low socio-economic background and agricultural occupation are common risk factors for patients undergoing therapeutic keratoplasty in India.

China’s phenomenal growth in higher education has received increasing scholarly attention, particularly its initiative to build world-class universities. Though a crucial contributor to its rapid development, the changing hiring practices of mainland Chinese university employers remain largely underexposed. This study presents qualitative evidence drawn from document analysis and in-depth interviews to show current trends, which reveal university employers’ widespread preference for graduates with an overseas background, will tend to deprive domestically trained graduates of vital opportunities for career development, which may have detrimental consequences in the long run. The study found that a substantial number of Chinese university employers explicitly articulated their talent preferences, with a strong favour towards applicants with overseas credentials and/or experience. Further analysis of the textual data identified two nuanced trends: universities in a more economically developed region and at a higher level tended to have more rigid and exclusive recruitment preferences for candidates with an overseas background; competitive employers tended to be selective in applicants’ overseas backgrounds by gauging their potential productivity measured in quantifiable research outputs. In response to the pressure brought by such preferential practices, domestic doctorates were found to be learning to accept and struggle to cope with the changes. These findings are discussed in the context of the internationalisation of higher education and the popularisation of overseas education with implications for and beyond the Chinese experience.

Purpose To test for differences in cancer-specific mortality (CSM) rates in Hispanic/Latino prostate cancer patients according to treatment type, radical prostatectomy (RP) vs external beam radiotherapy (EBRT). Methods Within the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database (2010–2016), we identified 2290 NCCN (National Comprehensive Cancer Network) high-risk (HR) Hispanic/Latino prostate cancer patients. Of those, 893 (39.0%) were treated with RP vs 1397 (61.0%) with EBRT. First, cumulative incidence plots and competing risks regression models tested for CSM differences after adjustment for other cause mortality (OCM). Second, cumulative incidence plots and competing risks regression models were refitted after 1:1 propensity score matching (according to age, PSA, biopsy Gleason score, cT-stage, cN-stage). Results In NCCN HR patients, 5-year CSM rates for RP vs EBRT were 2.4 vs 4.7%, yielding a multivariable hazard ratio of 0.37 (95% CI 0.19–0.73, p = 0.004) favoring RP. However, after propensity score matching, the hazard ratio of 0.54 was no longer statistically significant (95% CI 0.21–1.39, p = 0.2). Conclusion Without the use of strictest adjustment for population differences, NCCN high-risk Hispanic/Latino prostate cancer patients appear to benefit more of RP than EBRT. However, after strictest adjustment for baseline patient and tumor characteristics between RP and EBRT cohorts, the apparent CSM benefit of RP is no longer statistically significant. In consequence, in Hispanic/Latino NCCN high-risk patients, either treatment modality results in similar CSM outcome.

To gather information from stakeholders involved in corneal donation and transplantation to inform discussion at the “National Consensus Forum on Improving Cornea Donation and Transplantation Access in Canada” held in February 2020, survey questions were posed to eye banks, transplanting ophthalmologists and organ donation organizations across Canada to learn more about demand, wait times, and access to tissue for transplant. The survey response rate was one hundred percent (100%) for eye banks and organ donation organizations while 64 percent (64%) of transplant ophthalmologists provided feedback. A number of opportunities for improvement were identified including: demand forecasting; infrastructure and strategies to align supply with demand; data collection and benchmarking of wait times for assessment and transplant to support consistency, equitability and transparency in access; and national collaboration in the development of a data strategy to accurately measure demand and access to cornea transplants in a consistent manner across all provinces to facilitate equity in access nationally.

PURPOSE: Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) sequelae in the transplant population are scarcely reported. Post-COVID-19 mucormycosis is one of such sequelae, which is a dreadful and rare entity. The purpose of this report was to study the full spectrum of this dual infection in kidney transplant recipients (KTR). METHODS: We did a comprehensive analysis of 11 mucormycosis cases in KTR who recovered from COVID-19 in IKDRC, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India during the study period from Nov 2020 to May 2021. We also looked for the risk factors for mucormycosis with a historical cohort of 157 KTR who did not develop mucormycosis. RESULTS: The median age (interquartile range, range) of the cohort was 42 (33.5-50, 26-60) years with 54.5% diabetes. COVID-19 severity ranged from mild (n = 10) to severe cases (n = 1). The duration from COVID-19 recovery to presentation was 7 (7-7, 4-14) days. Ten cases were Rhino-orbital-cerebral-mucormycosis (ROCM) and one had pulmonary mucormycosis. Functional endoscopic sinus surgery (FESS) was performed in all cases of ROCM. The duration of antifungal therapy was 28 (24-30, 21-62) days. The mortality rate reported was 27%. The risk factors for post-transplant mucormycosis were diabetes (18% vs 54.5%; p-value = 0.01), lymphopenia [12 (10-18) vs 20 (12-26) %; p-value = 0.15] and a higher neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio [7 (4.6-8.3) vs 3.85 (3.3-5.8); p-value = 0.5]. CONCLUSION: The morbidity and mortality with post-COVID-19 mucormycosis are high. Post-transplant patients with diabetes are more prone to this dual infection. Preparedness and early identification is the key to improve the outcomes.

Limited views are often obtained in the setting of cardiac ultrasound, however, the likelihood of missing left ventricular (LV) dysfunction based on a single view is not known. We sought to determine the echo views that were least likely to miss LV systolic dysfunction in consecutive transthoracic echocardiograms (TTEs). Structured data from TTEs performed at 2 hospitals from September 25, 2017, to January 15, 2019, were screened. Studies of interest were those with reported LV dysfunction. Views evaluated were the parasternal long-axis (PLAX), parasternal-short axis at mitral (PSAX M), papillary muscle (PSAX PM), and apical (PSAX A) levels, apical 2 (AP2), apical 3 (AP3), and apical 4 (AP4) chamber views. The probability that a view contained at least 1 abnormal segment was determined and analyzed with McNemar’s test for 21 adjusted pair-wise comparisons. There were 4102 TTE studies included for analysis. TTEs on males comprised 72.7% of studies with a mean LV ejection fraction of 42.8 ± 9.7%. The echo view with the greatest likelihood of encompassing an abnormal segment was the AP2 view with a prevalence of 93.4% (p 82% of the time in the setting of LV systolic dysfunction, with a prevalence of up to 93.4% in the apical windows. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10554-021-02460-4.