Balanced sourcing techniques

Non-methane volatile organie eompounds (NMVOC) were measured at various sites representing different areas and different emission sources in the city of Wuppertal, Germany. The measurements covered volatile hydrocarbons in the range of C2-C10 and oxygenated hydrocarbons such as alcohols, ketones and esters. Samples were collected using Carbotrap and Carbosieve Sill solid adsorption tubes and analysed off-line by thermal desorption and GC-FID analysis. Measurement results were used to create the input data for the source apportionment analysis with the Chemical Mass Balance Modelling technique. Emission profiles for traffic and solvent use were calculated. 

Table 9.1 shows that only 42 individual tools and techniques were discovered to be in use in the 122 surveyed companies (see Appendix E), but there were 456 incidences in which tools and techniques were in use. This indicates that the procurement and supply function appears to use tools and techniques relatively less than most other functions and that companies appear to be using many of the same tools. Table 9.1 below shows that 63% of all usage were accounted for by the top ten tools and techniques, and that almost 87% of all tool and technique use is accounted for by just twenty applications. What also stands out is that, despite the considerable debate within the profession - especially amongst academics and consultants - about what constitutes best practice, the tools and techniques that are actually used by managers are fairly traditional. There is only limited evidence of the adoption of the more recently advanced best practice tools associated with lean (0.22% of total recorded uses), power (0.44%) and balanced sourcing (no uses) approaches. 

If the source fingerprints, for each of n sources are known and the number of sources is less than or equal to the number of measured species (n < m), an estimate for the solution to the system of equations (3) can be obtained. If m > n, then the set of equations is overdetermined, and least-squares or linear programming techniques are used to solve for L. This is the basis of the chemical mass balance (CMB) method (20,21). If each source emits a particular species unique to it, then a very simple tracer technique can be used (5). Examples of commonly used tracers are lead and bromine from mobile sources, nickel from fuel oil, and sodium from sea salt. The condition that each source have a unique tracer species is not often met in practice. 

Ionization and condensation nuclei detectors alarm at the presence of invisible combustion products. Most industrial ionization smoke detectors are of the dual chamber type. One chamber is a sample chamber the other is a reference chamber. Combustion products enter an outer chamber of an ionization detector and disturb the balance between the ionization chambers and trigger a highly sensitive cold cathode tube that causes the alarm. The ionization of the air in the chambers is caused by a radioactive source. Smoke particles impede the ionization process and trigger the alarm. Condensation nuclei detectors operate on the cloud chamber principle, which allows invisible particles to be detected by optical techniques. They are most effective on Class A fires (ordinary combustibles) and Class C fires (electrical). 

Pollutants emitted by various sources entered an air parcel moving with the wind in the model proposed by Eschenroeder and Martinez. Finite-difference solutions to the species-mass-balance equations described the pollutant chemical kinetics and the upward spread through a series of vertical cells. The initial chemical mechanism consisted of 7 species participating in 13 reactions based on sm< -chamber observations. Atmospheric dispersion data from the literature were introduced to provide vertical-diffusion coefficients. Initial validity tests were conducted for a static air mass over central Los Angeles on October 23, 1968, and during an episode late in 1%8 while a special mobile laboratory was set up by Scott Research Laboratories. Curves were plotted to illustrate sensitivity to rate and emission values, and the feasibility of this prediction technique was demonstrated. Some problems of the future were ultimately identified by this work, and the method developed has been applied to several environmental impact studies (see, for example, Wayne et al. ). 

PLS (partial least squares) multiple regression technique is used to estimate contributions of various polluting sources in ambient aerosol composition. The characteristics and performance of the PLS method are compared to those of chemical mass balance regression model (CMB) and target transformation factor analysis model (TTFA). Results on the Quail Roost Data, a synthetic data set generated as a basis to compare various receptor models, is reported. PLS proves to be especially useful when the elemental compositions of both the polluting sources and the aerosol samples are measured with noise and there is a high correlation in both blocks. 

Selected entries from Methods in Enzymology [vol, page(s)] Theoretical aspects, 76, 354-356 diagmagnetic contribution, 76, 358-359 experimental methods, 76, 356-360 Faraday balance technique, 76, 360-361 Gouy technique, 76, 357, 360 instrumentation, 76, 360-369 oxygen contribution, 76, 360, 368 sources of experimental errors, 76, 359-360 SQUID magnetometer use, 76, 364-365 thermal equilibria, 76, 358, 370 thermal expansion, 76, 358. 

The factor analysis technique used was unable to distinguish separate soil and road sources. Ca appeared with Al, Si, K, Ti, and Fe on a factor that can be characterized only as "crustal," including both soil and road materials. It appears that a chemical element balance should always be used as a check on factor analysis results, at least until a more sophisticated factor analysis method, such as target transformation factor analysis (14), can be shown not to require it. 

The arrival of the third phase of non-Kekule chemistry now awaited two necessary developments. First, the Guoy balance technique was of limited sensitivity and yielded no stmctural information about the source of the paramagnetism thus, a most desirable development would be the appearance of a new and independent... 

Spark source (SSMS) and thermal emission (TEMS) mass spectrometry are used to determine ppb to ppm quantities of elements in energy sources such as coal, fuel oil, and gasoline. Toxic metals—cadmium, mercury, lead, and zinc— may be determined by SSMS with an estimated precision of 5%, and metals which ionize thermally may be determined by TEMS with an estimated precision of 1% using the isotope dilution technique. An environmental study of the trace element balance from a coal-fired steam plant was done by SSMS using isotope dilution to determine the toxic metals and a general scan technique for 15 other elements using chemically determined iron as an internal standard. In addition, isotope dilution procedures for the analysis of lead in gasoline and uranium in coal and fly ash by TEMS are presented. 

The isotope dilution results in Table II are on fuel source samples obtained from NBS which were considered homogeneous. The results in Table III are from the sampling points indicated in Figure 4. These summarized results are mostly by the SSMS general scan technique which has an estimated accuracy of better than 50%. The isotope dilution measurements are limited by the emulsion detector to 3-5%. The results are in grams of metal flow per minute. The mass balance for the various elements was computed by the following equations ... 

Isotopes of oxygen and hydrogen are useful tracers of water sources because they are constituents of the water molecule itself and because they are conservative in aquifers at near-surface temperatures. Isotopic techniques take advantage of the fact that lakes and their surrounding ground-water systems are usually isotopically distinct. Applications of stable isotopes for the study of lakes were first described by Dincer (10) and were discussed in several subsequent review articles (11-14). Most applications of isotopic techniques to lake systems are designed for the determination of water balances, nutrient-uptake studies, and paleotemperature reconstructions. 

The single most important application of statistical methods in science is the determination and propagation of experimental uncertainties. Quantitative experimental results are never perfectly reproducible. Common sources of error include apparatus imperfections, judgments involved in laboratory technique, and innumerable small fluctuations in the environment. Does the slight breeze in the lab affect a balance When a motor starts in the next building, does the slight power surge affect a voltmeter Was the calibrated volumetric flask perfectly clean ... 

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