Urban water systems in Asia and Africa mostly provide intermittent rather than continuous water supplies; such systems compromise water quality and inconvenience the user. Starting in 2008, an upgrade to continuous (24/7) water services was provided for 10% of the twin cities of Hubli-Dharwad, India, through a process of privatisation and formalisation. The goals were to improve water quality, ...

The terms sustainability, scaling up, and enabling environment are inconsistently used in implementing water supply projects. To clarify these terms we develop a framework based on Normalization Process Theory, and apply the framework to a hypothetical water supply project in schools. The resulting framework provides guidance on how these terms could be implemented and analyzed in water supply ...

We developed a model to describe the radiation-DNA interaction in water solution. The model is based on some important aspects of the Bethe Theory for the ionizing process, and on the assumption that the direct interaction between the incident particle and the DNA molecule is negligible in comparison with the indirect effect. This assumption can always be true under controlled conditions. The r...

The site-selective H/D exchange reaction of phenol in sub- and supercritical water is studied without added catalysts. In subcritical water in equilibrium with steam at 210-240 degrees C, the H/D exchange proceeds both at the ortho and para sites in the phenyl ring, with no exchange observed at the meta site. The pseudo-first-order rate constants are of the order of 10(-4) s(-1); 50% larger for...

Within the context of predicting and mitigating flood hazards, this paper motivates the development of innovative ideas in three engineering research areas: (a) spatially-distributed quantitative rainfall prediction, (b) spatially-distributed flow prediction, and (c) long-term flow prediction for water resources management. Design, operational implementation, real-time testing, and training of ...

Oil and natural gas development in the Bakken shale play of North Dakota has grown substantially since 2008. This study provides a comprehensive overview and analysis of water quantity and management impacts from this development by (1) estimating water demand for hydraulic fracturing in the Bakken from 2008 to 2012; (2) compiling volume estimates for maintenance water, or brine dilution water;...

Full-quantum mechanical fragment molecular orbital-based molecular dynamics (FMO-MD) simulations were applied to the hydration reaction of formaldehyde in water solution under neutral conditions. Two mechanisms, a concerted and a stepwise one, were considered with respect to the nucleophilic addition and the proton transfer. Preliminary molecular orbital calculations by means of polarized conti...

Although a fundamental physical parameter, surface tension is difficult to measure. Common tensiometry inaccuracy comes from failure to control air—liquid—solid contact conditions, or account for liquid meniscus geometry and buoyancy corrections. This paper describes an in situ tensiometry technique, based on withdrawal of a thin-walled tube from the liquid interface, that enforces a known air—...