Journal articles on the topic 'Multiple hearth furnace'

The modern direction of improving the technology of steel production in high-power arc furnaces is the intensification of magnetohydrodynamic effects for mixing the melt. In this article, a furnace design is proposed that contains three roof arc and three bottom electrodes, which provides the formation of additional eddy currents in the melt when the furnace is supplied with direct current or a low-frequency current. For a numerical study of the features of heat transfer in the melt of this furnace, a three-dimensional mathematical model of magnetohydrodynamic and thermal processes was used. The results were processed using the methods of visualization of vortex structures and the Richardson criterion. In an oven with a capacity of 180 tons at currents in the electrodes of 80 kA, the conditions for the interaction of electric vortex and thermogravitational convection were studied. Results showed that thermogravitational convection due to nonuniform heating of the melt led to a decrease in the size of the main electric vortex flow and the formation of an additional flow near the side walls of the furnace. The features of azimuthal flows formed in the areas of electric arcs and hearth electrodes were analyzed. Results showed that the multivortex structure of the flows that formed in the furnace allowed the volume of stagnant zones to be reduced and provided acceptable melt mixing conditions. The results can be used to improve the energy and structural parameters of three-electrode arc furnaces.

The influence of cake concentration on fuel consumption, air requirement and flue gas production in incineration of sewage sludge is discussed. Fluidized bed (FBF), multiple hearth (MHF) and rotary kiln (RKF) furnaces are considered as alternatives together with the optional use of an afterburning chamber where exhaust gases are taken at 950°C for 2 s with an oxygen concentration of 6% by volume. It clearly appears that, if an afterburning chamber is used, and total minimum fuel consumption can be achieved at an optimal value of cake concentration (45.9% for FBF and 32.5% for MHF) when autogenous conditions are reached in the furnace and air addition is no longer needed in the afterburning chamber. At higher concentrations, abundant exhaust gas productions, due to the dilution air needed in the furnace, can considerably increase fuel consumption in the afterburning chamber, especially in MHF operation. In the rotary kiln furnace, fuel requirement decreases over the whole range of cake concentration as no conditions for autogenous combustion in the furnace can be achieved.

To enhance the reduction of multiple layers carbon containing pellets in rotary hearth furnace (RHF) process, a three-layer bed pellets were investigated using an electric furnace by simulating the RHF process. It was found that the metallization rate of the pellets on the upper layer was greatly higher than that on the middle and lower layers due to the low reduction efficiency and heat transfer efficiency. Various types and amount of reducing agent in carbon containing pellets showed different metallization rate and shrinkage rate, which affected the reduction efficiency and heat transfer efficiency of pellets. By optimization the type and amount of reducing agent, the metallization rates of reduced pellets for each layer of the bed all achieved more than 85% at 1300 °C and holding 20min, the metallization rates of reduced pellets for each layer of the bed reached over 90% at 1300 °C and holding 25 min.

Abstract With exception of Maluma (1979) and Musambachime (2016, 2017), there have been no archaeometallurgical publications on the technology and culture of iron production in Zambia. This paper presents archaeological and archaeometallurgical evidence of a technology of iron production in Chongwe in terms of spatial organization, the process of metal production (either a three-stage process involving smelting in relatively tall furnaces, refining in miniature (vintengwe) furnaces, and smithing on a hearth or a two-stage process involving smelting and smithing), furnace air supply mechanisms, liquid slag handling techniques, variation in the geochemistry of ore and clay, and the nature of the final smelting products. Archaeological field data collection techniques included ethnoarchaeological interviews, (furnace) excavation, surface collections, and surface walkover surveys, while laboratory analytical techniques included optical microscopy (OM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and x-ray fluorescence (XRF). New field evidence indicates that iron production in Chongwe in the previous two centuries was secluded from respective pre-modern settlements for socio-cultural and technical reasons. There are no settlement remains in and around Chongwe smelting sites. Also, most of the archaeological data in Chongwe are supportive of the two-stage process that did not involve iron refining in vintengwe furnaces. There were no iron refining sites in Chongwe. Archaeological evidence also strongly points to the use of natural air supply mechanism for the smelting furnaces because proximal ends of tuyères inter alia were not trumpeted. All smelting sites were systematically located on termite mounds. There were three to four smelting furnaces located on the western side of a termite mound. The presence of tuyère mould slags and thin and elongated slag microstructures strongly indicates that liquid slag was tapped outside the furnace apparently through tuyères and was left to cool quickly. Presence of primary wüstite and iron particles in the slags strongly suggests the production of iron as the final smelting product in Chongwe. The results are compared with the archaeology, chemistry, and mineralogy of iron production from other parts of sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in the Lake Tanganyika-Nyasa Corridor. The presence of three to four smelting furnaces per termite mound makes iron production in Chongwe a unique technology in the Corridor.

The multiple hearth furnace is a common industrial reactor for the thermal treatment of particulate material. The present contribution concentrates on a numerical analysis of contact heat transfer on a batch-operated single floor of a multiple hearth furnace employing the Discrete Element Method (DEM). The particles are agitated on an electrically heated circular floor by a single rotating rabble arm equipped with three flat blades. Blade angles have been varied from 0° to 90°. The DEM simulations (particle mechanics and contact heat transfer) were validated against experimental data. The transient heating of 20 mm diameter polyoxymethylene (POM) spheres was analysed. As the simulations did not consider natural convection inherently leading to time-varying heat losses, an averaged heat loss parameter was determined to represent heat dissipation from the particles to the surrounding gas and incorporated into the DEM simulations. With this approach, a good agreement with measurements was obtained. The DEM simulations and experiments do not show a large influence of the blade angle on the temporal evolution of the mean particle temperatures. However, the frequency distribution of particle temperature is dependent on the blade angle, revealing an increase in the standard deviation of the frequency distribution with an increasing blade angle.

Abstract Steel production accounts for a significant share of industrial CO2 emissions. The HPSR process is a possible alternative to reduce these emissions massively if not completely negate them. In principle, Fe-ore is reduced at high temperatures in the plasma of a DC electric arc. hydrogen reacts with the oxidic melt at the gas-liquid interface. Various concepts for the hydrogen plasma reduction of iron ore have been investigated, but the process technology has not yet surpassed the demonstration scale (TRL5). Experimental setups for charging masses from a few grams to a few hundred kilograms have been realized. Further investigations on the process stability and the reaction kinetics are still necessary. An improved laboratory-scale furnace concept shall provide the basis for the fundamental research. An existing laboratory facility is the starting point for designing and constructing the new plasma furnace. There are several problems with this experimental setup. Mainly, the reactor’s dimensions and power supply limitations restrict the arc’s length. The first leads to problems with excessive refractory wear, while the latter limits the variation of process parameters. Strong cooling when using Fe crucibles and the unstable nature of the arc complicate the process control. A promising concept to deal with the problem of arc stability is the use of multiple electrodes in a direct current arc furnace. Together with an optimized furnace geometry, new potential for further investigations can open. Using a multi-cathode furnace is also promising to further explore ferroalloy production via hydrogen plasma reduction. An electric arc furnace was designed based on the requirements for the planned plasma reduction facility. The energy requirement was based on assumptions for heat transfer from the arc to the melt, walls, and lid and continuous transfer through the individual furnace parts. Considerations of power supply, hearth dimensions, refractory design, controlled gas atmosphere, and the implementation of auxiliary equipment were central to creating an ideal basis for various experimental setups.

The present study investigates the performance of a new generation mineral with high alumina (Al2O3), very low thermal conductivity (K) and high density, which are necessary insulation properties, sandwiched to achieve effective insulation results, in a compound heating resistance furnace at 1600°C. Two heating elements SiC and MoSi2 are used for long hours with a number of pre-set programmable cycles of operations. Zirconium tiles, mullite tiles, zirconium modules are being used in this experiment. Air, a bad conductor of heat transfer, is also used in a gap of 20 mm between two different tiles to lessen heat transfer from working chamber towards outer ambience by conduction and radiation—combined modes of heat transfer during multiple programmable operations at preset working temperature of 1600°C to achieve desirable results—maximum thermal efficiency with least heat loss from outer surface and to achieve skin temperature as equal to ambience temperature. Also, hot face red bricks are used under the hearth by a new design in this experiment for optimum insulation performances. This study aimed to design a compact furnace that would occupy less space and reduced total weight with better insulation for working temperature 1600°C, when compared with conventional ceramic materials used as insulation material.

Basic Oxygen Furnace (BOF) steelmaking is, worldwide, the most frequently applied process. According to the world steel organization statistical report, 2021, it saw a total production share of 73.2%, or 1371.2 million tons per year of the world steel production in 2020. The rest is produced in Electric Arc Furnace (EAF)-based steel mills (26.3%), and only a very few open-hearth and induction furnace-based steel mills. The BOF technology remains the leading technology applied based on its undoubted advantages in productivity and liquid steel composition control. The BOF technology started as the LD process 70 years ago, with the first heat applied in November 1952 in a steel mill in Linz, Austria. The name LD was formed from the first letters of the two sites with the first industrial scale plants, Linz and Donawitz, both in Austria. The history and development of the process have been honored in multiple anniversary publications over the last few decades. Nevertheless, the focus of the steel industry worldwide is significantly changing following a social and political trend and the requirement for fossil-free energy generation and industrial production to be in accordance with the world climate targets committed to in relation to the decades leading up to 2050. Iron and steel production is one of the major polluters of climate changing greenhouse gases; it must change to renewable primary energy sources and the use of climate-neutral reduction agents. Because it is very obvious that carbon, as the main component for steel strength properties, cannot be eliminated totally from the steel production process, the question arises of where a “zero carbon” approach can lead? This paper will review the ongoing success story of the LD-process, discuss the recent technology advancements, and give an outlook on the future role of the process in the steel industry.

The dripping zone connects the cohesive zone and the hearth, it is one of the key areas of the blast furnace (BF). This study aims to explore the mechanism of the dripping process in BF. The dripping experiments under different conditions were carried out. Dynamics of liquid permeability in the dripping zone was analyzed, the reaction behavior at the slag-coke interface was investigated, and the consumption of coke in the dripping zone was clarified. The results show that: The retention ratio increases with the increase of Al2O3 content. The increase in retention ratio is related to the viscosity of slag. Once the Al2O3 content in slag increases, Si4+ coordination polymer ions in tetrahedra will be replaced by Al3+ cations, forming a tetrahedral structure of [AlO4]5– tetrahedron. The retention ratio decreases with the increase of FeO content. The dissociation of free oxygen ions (O)2– from FeO increases the concentration of free oxygen ions (O)2– in slag, this reduces the viscosity of slag. The presence of FeO can compensate for the increase in retention ratio caused by Al2O3. The quantitative relationship between retention ratio and Al2O3 content and FeO content in slag is obtained. The reduction reaction of FeO occurs at the slag-coke interface, the molten iron takes on the shape of small iron beads, which is the result of multiple small droplets gathering. The reduction of TiO2 is carried out by a series of reactions, the Ti exhibits a granular embedding state in molten iron, its color is darker than that of molten iron and its particles have distinct edges and corners. In the slag-coke area of retained sample, the reduction reaction occurs between coke and oxides in slag. The carbon will be consumed, resulting in a decrease in particle size. In the iron-coke area of retained sample, the carburization reaction occurs in large quantities due to the carbon content of molten iron in hearth is undersaturated, coke is further consumed.

Kyoto City, an ancient city of international tourism, has been actively constructing its public sewerage system as one of the most important policies of the city. As of April, 1989, 79.6% of the urbanization promotion area of the city has been sewered. The fully completed sewerage system will be established in 1994, the 1200th anniversary of the founding of the city as the ancient Heian capital of Japan. However, the increase of the sewered ratio effects a steady increase in the influent volume of wastewater. Due to the inland location of the city, sludge produced in the wastewater treatment plants has been landfilled after incineration, but recently the securing of appropriate sites for landfill is difficult, and hence sludge treatment and disposal is an important issue for Kyoto City. In order to minimize the ultimate disposal volume, incineration of the entire volume of sludge has been undertaken in early days of sewerage operations. This report introduces the sludge incineration system and assesses the newly adopted step grate stoker furnace. At present, Kyoto City has 4 treatment plants in operation. The Toba Treatment Plant, which has the largest treatment capacity receives sludge cake trucked from the Fushimi Treatment Plant and excess sludge pumped through pipes from the Kisshoin Treatment Plant, and incinerates the whole amount of sludge cake generated in the plant. The sludge cake produced at the Ishida Treatment Plant is incinerated at an adjacent refuse sanitation plant together with the municipal refuse from the city. The characteristics of sludge treatment systems are given in this report. The step grate stoker furnace system was introduced to reduce the final disposal volume and to save energy. Through comparison with the multiple-hearth furnace system the actual results of operation were verified. The volume of generated ash was decreased by more than 50%, and energy consumption was reduced by 77%, resulting in an 18% reduction of operating expenses.

Objectives.The main objective of this study was to assess the chromium exposure levels in printing workers. The study evaluated the airborne, serum, and urinary chromium levels and determines any correlation between level of chromium in specimen and airborne chromium levels.Material and Methods.A cross-sectional study was conducted with 75 exposed and 75 matched nonexposed subjects. Air breathing zone was measured by furnace atomic absorption spectrophotometer. Serum and urine samples were collected to determine chromium levels by graphite furnaces atomic absorption spectrometer chromium analyzer.Results and Discussion.The printing workers’ urinary chromium levels (6.86±1.93 μg/g creatinine) and serum chromium levels (1.24±1.13 μg/L) were significantly higher than the control group (p<0.001andp<0.001). Work position, duration of work, personal protective equipment (PPE), and personal hygiene were significantly associated with urinary chromium level and serum chromium levels (p<0.001andp<0.001). This study found a correlation between airborne chromium levels and urinary chromium levels (r=0.247,p=0.032). A multiple regression model was constructed. Significant predictors of urinary and serum chromium levels were shown in this study.Conclusion.Improvements in working conditions, occupational health training, and PPE use are recommended to reduce chromium exposure.

As the consumption of honey is booming because of its multiple health-promoting effects, the possible health risks resulting from long-term exposure to metals contained in this honey need to be evaluated. The concentrations of heavy metals (Pb, Cd, Cu, As,Hg and Zn) in three sources of honeys collected from China, were determined by flame atomic absorption spectrophotometry (FAAS), graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry (GF-AAS) and hydride generation-atomic fluorescence spectrometry (HG-AFS) after microwave-assisted digestion. The rangs obtained for the element analyzed in ug kg-1 were as follow:Cd(4.9)Comparing with safety intake levels for these heavy metals recommended by US Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) and Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA), both the Hazard Quotient (HQ) values for single heavy metal and the Hazard Index (HI) value for all six heavy metals were far below 1, indicating no chronic-toxic risks from these heavy metals due to daily consumption of 0.01 kg of honey for a 70 kg individual.

Abstract: Poets use sensory imagery and perception, memory and experience, free association and contemplation to join psychic and material worlds, and to honour both emotional and discursive truths. Through multiple drafts, free-writing and research, the author unpacks her own reflections and poems to demonstrate the process by which intuition and personal insight are crafted for public understanding. This poetic process suggests that scholarly discourses of the arts and the humanities need not always fall into the quantitative/qualitative binary, but that both heart and mind are required to some degree in the seeking of wisdom.Keywords: imagery, craft, metaphor, cadence, tone, sensory perception, memory, intuition, contemplationRésumé : Les poètes utilisent l’imagerie sensorielle et la perception, la mémoire et l’expérience ainsi que l’association libre et la contemplation, pour unifier les univers psychique et matériel et célébrer à la fois les vérités émotionnelles et discursives. Par le biais de multiples ébauches, d’écriture libre et de recherches, l’auteure partage ses réflexions et poèmes pour décrire le procédé par lequel intuition et points de vue personnels sont façonnés dans le but d’être compris par le public. Ce procédé poétique donne à penser que les discours érudits sur les arts et les sciences humaines ne doivent pas obligatoirement être de nature binaire quantitative ou qualitative mais que cœur et esprit sont, dans une certaine mesure, indispensables à la quête de la sagesse. Mots-clés : imagerie, art, métaphore, cadence, ton, perception sensorielle, mémoire, intuition, contemplation.

AbstractHuman exposure to aluminium is a burgeoning issue. The brain is a sink for systemically available aluminium and a putative target of neurotoxicity. An increasing number of studies continue to confirm the presence of aluminium in human brain tissue though primarily in relation to donors who have died of a neurodegenerative or neurodevelopmental disorder. Herein, we have measured aluminium in brain tissue in donors who died of a specific disease or condition though without showing any neurodegeneration. The donors were diagnosed as not suffering from multiple sclerosis. Herein, these novel data are compared with recent data on aluminium in brain tissue in multiple sclerosis. Brain tissues from all four lobes were obtained from the Multiple Sclerosis Society Tissue Bank. Tissues were digested using microwave-assisted acid digestion and their aluminium content was measured by transversely heated graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry. Both are established methods in our laboratory. Detailed statistical analyses were used to compare new data with recent data for multiple sclerosis. Aluminium was found in brain tissue in each donor with a high proportion of measurements (189/291) being below 1.00 μg/g dry weight. The data for all cases (median and IQR) were 0.74 (0.48–1.28), 1.23 (0.62–1.63), 0.84 (0.45–1.14) and 1.01 (0.62–1.65) μg/g dry weight for occipital, parietal, temporal and frontal lobes, respectively. There was a statistically significant positive correlation between aluminium content of brain tissue and the age of donor. Comparison of data for this non-multiple sclerosis group with brain aluminium data for donors dying with a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis showed that the latter had a statistically significant higher content of brain aluminium. The data reinforce a previous conclusion that the aluminium content of brain tissue in multiple sclerosis is elevated and support the suggestion that human exposure to aluminium may have a role to play in the aetiology of multiple sclerosis.

Integrated advanced wastewater treatment provides important fundamental solutions to problems associated with water scarcity prevailing in arid and semi arid climatic regions. This was accomplished through treated water with specific specification and characteristics suitable to be used for agricultural, domestic, and industrial purposes. This study is concerned with the use of genetic algorithm procedure for the optimum design of integrated advance wastewater treatment units, with their various types and characteristics. The aim of optimum wastewater treatment units design is to attain optimum values of certain pre defined objective function. Based on the results of applying genetic algorithm on activated carbon treatment plant, it was found that the optimum values of empty bed contact time, dose of activated carbon, diameter of contractor, and loading rate of multiple hearth furnaces are 10min, 25mg/l, 2.4m, and 30 m/min, respectively

Wastewater treatment (WWT) is a foremost challenge for maintaining the health of ecosystems and human beings; the waste products of the water-treatment process can be a problem or an opportunity. The sewage sludge (SS) produced during sewage treatment can be considered a waste to be disposed of in a landfill or as a source for obtaining raw material to be used as a fertilizer, building material, or alternative fuel source suitable for co-incineration in a high-temperature furnace. To this concern, this study’s purpose consisted of developing a decision model, supported by an Artificial Neural Network (ANN model), allowing us to identify the most effective sludge management strategy in economic terms. Consistent with the aim of the work, the suitable SS treatment was identified, selecting for each phase of the SS treatment, an alternative available on the market ensuring energy and/or matter recovery, in line with the circular water value chain. Results show that the ANN model identifies the suitable SS treatments on multiple factors, thus supporting the decision-making and identifying the solution as per user requirements.

This study explores the advancement of aluminum-based composite manufacturing through the integration of titanium dioxide (TiO2) reinforcement using the stir casting technique. Aluminum alloy served as the matrix material, combined with ceramic reinforcement particles, melted at approximately 700°C within a muffle furnace. Through continuous stirring at 400 rpm for 10 minutes, ceramic particles were uniformly dispersed into the molten alloy, crucial for enhancing composite properties. The incorporation of 6.5% TiO2 via stir casting resulted in significant enhancements across multiple mechanical properties. Tensile strength improved by 23.67%, while hardness saw a remarkable increase of 38.9%. Additionally, fatigue strength exhibited a notable improvement of 26.67%, and wear resistance showed a substantial enhancement of 24.34%. The uniform dispersion of TiO2 particles throughout the composite material underscores the efficacy of the stir casting technique in achieving consistent improvements across various performance metrics. These findings hold promise for the development of high-performance aluminum-based composites tailored for diverse engineering applications.

This study explores the advancement of aluminum-based composites through the integration of fly ash and silicon carbide (SiC) reinforcement via stir casting. The process involves melting the alloy in a crucible within a muffle furnace at 700°C, gradually introducing fly ash and SiC particles while stirring at 450 rpm for 12 minutes to ensure uniform dispersion. The addition of 5% SiC and 2.5% fly ash led to significant improvements in multiple mechanical properties.Tensile strength experienced a remarkable enhancement of approximately 19.56%, while hardness showcased a substantial increase of about 34.67%. Furthermore, fatigue strength demonstrated a notable improvement of approximately 26.87%, and wear resistance exhibited a significant enhancement of approximately 31.45%. These enhancements underscore the efficacy of integrating fly ash and SiC reinforcement, highlighting the potential for advanced aluminum composites with superior mechanical properties. This approach presents a promising avenue for enhancing material performance, with implications for diverse industrial applications requiring durability, strength, and wear resistance.

With the significant increase of construction activities in the road sector, the scenario has awakened the need for typical good quality soils for subgrade construction which are deficient in supply at many locations for numerous reasons. In this research activity, comprehensive study in the laboratory has been carried out to examine the use of fly ash and GGBS (Ground Granulated Blast Furnace Slag) to stabilize alluvial soils. Multiple influential properties such as UCS, CBR, Permeability, swelling potential, Compaction characteristics, and Atterberg limits were found for control samples and compared with the samples of distinct sequences of different percentages of Fly ash and GGBS ratio and on different curing periods. All the tests are performed by varying the Fly ash content to 5%,15%,25%,35% and 45% while keeping the GGBS content constant at 5% to the weight of dry soil. There is a remarkable change in the shear strength of the soil as the UCS value increased by 150% and the CBR value increased by 389% when the control sample is compared with those of treated samples with 35% Flyash+5% GGBS

Magnetic nanoparticles (MNps) have become powerful tools for multiple biomedical applications such as hyperthermia drivers, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) vectors, as well as drug-delivery systems. However, their toxic effects on human health have not yet been fully elucidated, especially in view of their great diversity of surface modifications and functionalizations. Citrate-coating of MNps often results in increased hydrophilicity, which may positively impact their performance as drug-delivery systems. Nonetheless, the consequences on the intrinsic toxicity of such MNps are unpredictable. Herein, novel magnetite (Fe3O4) nanoparticles covered with citrate were synthesized and their potential intrinsic acute toxic effects were investigated using in vitro and in vivo models. The proposed synthetic pathway turned out to be simple, quick, inexpensive, and reproducible. Concerning toxicity risk assessment, these citrate-coated iron oxide nanoparticles (IONps) did not affect the in vitro viability of different cell lines (HaCaT and HepG2). Moreover, the in vivo acute dose assay (OECD test guideline #425) showed no alterations in clinical parameters, relevant biochemical variables, or morphological aspects of vital organs (such as brain, liver, lung and kidney). Iron concentrations were slightly increased in the liver, as shown by Graphite Furnace Atomic Absorption Spectrometry and Perls Prussian Blue Staining assays, but this finding was considered non-adverse, given the absence of accompanying functional/clinical repercussions. In conclusion, this study reports on the development of a simple, fast and reproducible method to obtain citrate-coated IONps with promising safety features, which may be used as a drug nanodelivery system in the short run. (263 words)

The construction sector uses various metals like steel (for frames, reinforced concrete), iron (wrought iron for beams, trusses, girders), aluminium (ceiling and walls, window frames, HVAC systems etc.) and copper (cladding, electrical wiring, oil & gas lines). Due to increasing pressure on various resources like energy, chemicals and raw materials, economic edge can be sustained only through high resource efficiency. Adopting resource efficient cleaner production (RECP) measures will improve economic and environmental performance, including reducing greenhouse gas emissions; in turn, this will make them less vulnerable to changes in external conditions and more competitive. With co-funding from the EU SWITCH-Asia Programme, the project METABUILD (www.metabuild-southasia.org) aims at implementing sustainable production processes and practices in 400 SMEs across Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka besides creating a conducive environment for further adoption of sustainable production processes in the metal products supply chain for the building and construction sector. In Nepal, the project has already engaged with 82 metal industries. These cover different sectors such as fabrication, wire drawing, electrical cables, re-rolling, galvanizing/electroplating, casting etc. and are in multiple locations viz. Kathmandu, Lalitpur, Morang, Sunsari, Rupandehi, Bara, Parsa, Kaski districts. RECP measures such as use of daylight, replacement of inefficient lights by LED lights, power factor improvement, furnace modification, waste heat recovery, insulation etc. have been implemented. These have led to savings in energy and raw materials, at the same time reducing generation of wastes from these participating industries and improvement of occupational health and safety (OHS). This paper will explain the mode of engagement with industries, details of the resource efficiency measures implemented and estimated saving.

Humans and the environment are both concerned about contaminated drinking water. One of the most dangerous constituents in wastewater is heavy metals. The removal of these contaminants from the ecosystem is still a challenge. Some of these heavy metals have been toxic concentrations in human and livestock drinking water. As a result, the goal of this study was to compare the adsorption potential of non-treated and acid-treated activated carbon generated from maize cob in the treatment of wastewater. Fresh maize cobs were air-dried and oven-dried at 255 °C for 9 hours after being cleaned in distilled water. These were crushed, sieved through a 300 μm mesh and carbonized in a muffle furnace to produce powdered activated carbon (PAC). One half of PAC was treated with 780 mL of hydrochloric acid (acid-treated activated carbon - AAC), while the other received no further treatment (non-treated activated carbon - NAC). For surface characteristics and functional groups, the conventional approach was applied to characterize AAC and NAC. Thirty grams of each sample were used in the treatment of metal recycling effluent. Untreated (T1), filtered (T2), NAC treated (T3), and AAC treated (T4) wastewater samples were analysed in three replicates using World Health Organization (WHO) and Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency (LASEPA) standard methods for Physico-chemical parameters. Analysis of data was by ANOVA, while mean separation was by Duncan’s Multiple Range Test (DMRT) at (P ≤ .05). Results showed that T2 had no significant improvement (P ≤ .05) in all parameters tested. T3 significantly increased pH, conductivity, TS and TSS, gave the highest mean alkalinity, but showed no significant changes in heavy metal contents. T4 significantly improved mean colour, conductivity, nitrate content and DO, reduced mean pH (from 7.4±0 to 2.1±0.1), increased heavy metal concentrations (P ≤ .05) and increased mean total acidity, but not significantly (P ≥ .05). Treatments improved parameters in the following order: filtration < NAC < AAC. Thus, acid-activated carbon had a higher adsorbent capability than non-activated carbon due to its wide surface area and low moisture and ash contents.

The objective of this paper is to make the case that the United States became an economic super-power in the nineteenth century on the backs of African-American slaves and Native Americans.It was in 1619, when Jamestown colonists bought 20-30 slaves from English pirates. The paper starts with ‘The 1619 Project’ whose objective is to place the consequences of slavery--and the contributions of black Americans--at the very center of the story we tell ourselves about who we are as a nation.Slavery was common in all thirteen colonies, and at-least twelve Presidents owned slaves. The enslaved people were not recognized as human beings, but as property: once a slave always a slave.The U.S. Constitution, adopted in 1788, never mentions slavery, yet slavery is at the very heart of the constitution. The U.S. government used the Declaration of Independence as a license to commit genocide on the Native Americans, and to seize their land.Racist ideas have persisted throughout American history, based on the myth that blacks are intellectually inferior compared to whites. However, in a 2012 article in the Scientific American, the authors reported that 85.5% of genetic variation is within the so-called races, not between them. So, the consensus among Western researchers today is that human races do not represent a scientific theory, but are sociocultural constructs.After end of the Civil War, the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution abolished slavery in America, and the 15th Amendment protected the voting rights of African Americans.However, in the Confederate South, Jim Crow laws legalized racial segregation between 1870-1968. In 1965, thanks to the Civil Rights movement, the Voting Rights Act was passed to overcome barriers created by Jim Crow laws to the legal rights of African Americans under the 15th Amendment.British and American innovations in cotton technology sparked the Industrial Revolution during the latter part of the eighteenth century. The British cotton manufacturing exploded in the 1780s. Eighty years later in 1860, Manchester, England stood at the center of a world-spanning empire—the empire of cotton. There were three pillars of the Industrial Revolution. One was the centuries-earlier conquest by Europeans of a colossal expanse of lands in the New World. It was the control of huge territories in America, that made monoculture farming of cotton possible. Second was that the Europeans drastically—and unilaterally--altered the global competitive landscape of cotton. They did it by using their military might, and the willingness to use it—often violently--to their advantage.The third—and the most important--was slavery: without which there would be no Industrial Revolution. America was tremendously suited for cotton production. The climate and soil of a large part of American South met the conditions under which the cotton plant thrived. More importantly, the plantation owners in America commanded unlimited supplies of the three crucial ingredients that went into the production of cotton: labor, land, and credit. And this was topped by their unbelievable political power.In 1793 Eli Whitney’s revolutionary cotton gin increased ginning productivity fifty times, and thus removed the bottleneck of removing seeds from cotton. Because of relying on monoculture farming, the problem the cotton planters were facing was soil exhaustion. So, they wanted the U.S. government to acquire more land. Surprisingly, in 1803 America was able to strike an unbelievable deal with the French--the Louisiana Purchase--which doubled the territory of the United States. In 1819 America acquired Florida from Spain, and in 1845 annexed Texas from Mexico.Between 1803 and 1838, under President Andrew Jackson, America fought a multi-front war against the Native Americans in the Deep South, and expropriated vast tracts of their land, that culminated in the ethnic cleansing of the Deep South.With an unlimited supply of land—and slave labor--even soil exhaustion did not slow down the cotton barons; they just moved further west and farther south. New cotton fields now sprang up in the sediment-rich lands along the banks of Mississippi. So swift was this move westward that, by the end of the 1830s, Mississippi was producing more cotton than any other southern state. By 1860, there were more millionaires per capita in Mississippi Valley than anywhere else in America.The New Orleans slave market was the largest in America--where 100,000 men, women, and children were packaged, priced, and sold.The entry of the United States in the cotton market quickly began to reshape the global cotton market. By 1802 America was the single-most supplier of cotton to Britain.For eighty years--from the 1780s to 1865--almost a million people were herded down the road from the upper South to the lower South and the West, to toil on cotton plantations. The thirty-odd men walked in coffles, the double line hurrying in lock-step. Each hauled twenty pounds of iron, chains that draped from neck-to-neck, and wrist-to-wrist, binding them all together. They walked for miles, days, and weeks, and many covered over 700 miles.The plantation owners devised a cruel system of controlling their slaves that the enslaved called “the pushing system.” This system constantly increased the number of acres each slave was expected to cultivate. In 1805 each “hand” could tend to five acres of a cotton field. Fifty years later that target had been doubled to ten acres.Overseers closely monitored enslaved workers. Each slave was assigned a daily quota of number of pounds of cotton to pick. If the worker failed to meet it, he received as many lashes on his back as the deficit. However, if he overshot his quota, the master might “reward” him by raising his quota the next day.One of the most brutal weapons the planters used against the slaves, was the whip: ten feet of plaited cowhide. When facing the specter of an overseer’s whip, slaves were so terrified that they could not speak in sentences. They danced, trembled, babbled, and lost control of their bodies.When seeking a loan, the planters used slaves as a collateral. With extraordinarily high returns from their businesses, the planters began to expand their loan portfolio: sometimes using the same slave worker as collateral for multiple mortgages. The American South produced too much cotton. However, consumer demand could not keep up with the excessive supply, that then led to a precipitous fall in prices, which, in turn, set off the Panic of 1837. And that touched off a major depression.The slaveholders were using advanced management and accounting practices long before the techniques that are still in use today.The manufacture of sugar from sugarcane began in Louisiana Territory in 1795. In sugar mills, children, alongside with adults, toiled like factory workers with assembly-like precision and discipline under the constant threat of boiling hot kettles, open furnaces, and grinding rollers. To attain the highest efficiency, sugar factories worked day and night where there is no distinction as to the days of the week. Fatigue might mean losing an arm to the grinding rollers, or being flayed for not being able to keep up. Resistance was often met with sadistic cruelty.The expansion of slavery in the first eight decades after American independence, drove the evolution and modernization of the United States. In the course of a single life time, the South grew from a narrow coastal strip of worn-out tobacco plantations, to a continental cotton empire. As a result, the United States became a modern, industrial, and capitalistic economy. This is the period in which America rose from being a minor European trading partner, to becoming the world’s leading economy. Finally, we hope that we have successfully been able to make the argument that America became an economic powerhouse in the nineteenth century not only on the backs of African-American slaves, but also on the genocide of Native Americans, and their stolen lands.

AbstractIn a nickel-producing multiple hearth furnace, there is a problem associated to the automatic operation of the temperature control loops in two of the hearths, since the same flow of air is split into two branches. A neural model of the post-combustion sub-process is built and served to increase the process efficiency of the industrial furnace. Data was taken for a three-months operating time period to identify the main variables characterizing the process and a model of multilayer perceptron type is built. For the validation of this model, process data from a four-months operating time period in 2018 was used and prediction errors based on a measure of closeness in terms of a mean square error criterion measured through its weights for the temperature of two of the hearths (four and six) versus the air flow to these hearths. Based on a rigorous testing and analysis of the process, the model is capable of predicting the temperature of hearth four and six with errors of 0.6 and 0.3 °C, respectively. In addition, the emissions by high concentration of carbon monoxide in the exhaust gases are reduced, thus contributing to the health of the ecosystem.

AbstractPerfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are an emerging issue in wastewater treatment. High‐temperature thermal processes, incineration being time‐tested, offer the opportunity to destroy and change the composition of PFAS. The fate of PFAS has been documented through wastewater sludge incinerators, including a multiple hearth furnace (MHF) and a fluidized bed furnace (FBF). The dewatered wastewater sludge feedstock averaged 247‐ and 1280‐μmol targeted PFAS per sample run in MHF and FBF feed, respectively. Stack emissions (reportable for all targeted PFAS from MHF only) averaged 5% of that value with shorter alkyl chain compounds comprising the majority of the targeted PFAS. Wet scrubber water streams accumulated nonpolar fluorinated organics from the furnace exhaust with an average of 0.740‐ and 0.114‐mol Fˉ per sample run, for the MHF and FBF, respectively. Simple alkane PFAS measured at the stack represented 0.5%–4.5% of the total estimated facility greenhouse gas emissions.Practitioner Points The MHF emitted six short chain PFAS from the stack, which were shorter alkyl chain compounds compared with sludge PFAS. The FBF did not consistently emit reportable PFAS from the stack, but contamination complicated the assessment. Five percent of the MHF sludge molar PFAS load was reported in the stack. MHF and FBF wet scrubber water streams accumulated nonpolar fluorinated organics from the furnace exhaust. Ultra‐short volatile alkane PFAS measured at the stack represented 0.5%–4.5% of the estimated facility greenhouse gas emissions.

AbstractRed mud (RM) is a solid waste material with high alkalinity and low cementing activity component. The low activity of RM makes it difficult to prepare high-performance cementitious materials from RM alone. Five groups of RM-based cementitious samples were prepared by adding steel slag (SS), grade 42.5 ordinary Portland cement (OPC), blast furnace slag cement (BFSC), flue gas desulfurization gypsum (FGDG), and fly ash (FA). The effects of different solid waste additives on the hydration mechanisms, mechanical properties, and environmental safety of RM-based cementitious materials were discussed and analyzed. The results showed that the samples prepared from different solid waste materials and RM formed similar hydration products, and the main products were C–S–H, tobermorite, and Ca(OH)2. The mechanical properties of the samples met the single flexural strength criterion (≥ 3.0 MPa) for first-grade pavement brick in the Industry Standard of Building Materials of the People's Republic of China-Concrete Pavement Brick. The alkali substances in the samples existed stably, and the leaching concentrations of the heavy metals reached class III of the surface water environmental quality standards. The radioactivity level was in the unrestricted range for main building materials and decorative materials. The results manifest that RM-based cementitious materials have the characteristics of environmentally friendly materials and possess the potential to partially or fully replace traditional cement in the development of engineering and construction applications and it provides innovative guidance for combined utilization of multi-solid waste materials and RM resources.

Random Forest (RF) has been successfully applied to a variety of engineering problems due to its simplicity, versatility, and suitability for both classification and regression tasks. Concrete, as a material composed of multiple complex elements, is influenced by numerous factors, posing challenges in accurately predicting its properties. In this article, an RF model is developed in predicting the slump and strength of concrete using mixed mineral admixtures from blast furnace slag and silicafume. The criterions to evaluate the accuracy of the models are the R squared (R2 ) and the root mean square error (RMSE). Comparing the predicted data with the tested data, the result indicates that RF model should be used in predicting both the slump and strength of concrete.

Biology teaches us that organisms adapt—or don’t; sociology claims that people adapt—or don’t. We know that ideas can adapt; sometimes even institutions can adapt. Or not. Various papers in this issue attest in exciting ways to precisely such adaptations and maladaptations. (See, for example, the articles in this issue by Lelia Green, Leesa Bonniface, and Tami McMahon, by Lexey A. Bartlett, and by Debra Ferreday.) Adaptation is a part of nature and culture, but it’s the latter alone that interests me here. (However, see the article by Hutcheon and Bortolotti for a discussion of nature and culture together.) It’s no news to anyone that not only adaptations, but all art is bred of other art, though sometimes artists seem to get carried away. My favourite example of excess of association or attribution can be found in the acknowledgements page to a verse drama called Beatrice Chancy by the self-defined “maximalist” (not minimalist) poet, novelist, librettist, and critic, George Elliot Clarke. His selected list of the incarnations of the story of Beatrice Cenci, a sixteenth-century Italian noblewoman put to death for the murder of her father, includes dramas, romances, chronicles, screenplays, parodies, sculptures, photographs, and operas: dramas by Vincenzo Pieracci (1816), Percy Bysshe Shelley (1819), Juliusz Slowacki (1843), Waldter Landor (1851), Antonin Artaud (1935) and Alberto Moravia (1958); the romances by Francesco Guerrazi (1854), Henri Pierangeli (1933), Philip Lindsay (1940), Frederic Prokosch (1955) and Susanne Kircher (1976); the chronicles by Stendhal (1839), Mary Shelley (1839), Alexandre Dumas, père (1939-40), Robert Browning (1864), Charles Swinburne (1883), Corrado Ricci (1923), Sir Lionel Cust (1929), Kurt Pfister (1946) and Irene Mitchell (1991); the film/screenplay by Bertrand Tavernier and Colo O’Hagan (1988); the parody by Kathy Acker (1993); the sculpture by Harriet Hosmer (1857); the photograph by Julia Ward Cameron (1866); and the operas by Guido Pannain (1942), Berthold Goldschmidt (1951, 1995) and Havergal Brian (1962). (Beatrice Chancy, 152) He concludes the list with: “These creators have dallied with Beatrice Cenci, but I have committed indiscretions” (152). An “intertextual feast”, by Clarke’s own admission, this rewriting of Beatrice’s story—especially Percy Bysshe Shelley’s own verse play, The Cenci—illustrates brilliantly what Northrop Frye offered as the first principle of the production of literature: “literature can only derive its form from itself” (15). But in the last several decades, what has come to be called intertextuality theory has shifted thinking away from looking at this phenomenon from the point of view of authorial influences on the writing of literature (and works like Harold Bloom’s famous study of the Anxiety of Influence) and toward considering our readerly associations with literature, the connections we (not the author) make—as we read. We, the readers, have become “empowered”, as we say, and we’ve become the object of academic study in our own right. Among the many associations we inevitably make, as readers, is with adaptations of the literature we read, be it of Jane Austin novels or Beowulf. Some of us may have seen the 2006 rock opera of Beowulf done by the Irish Repertory Theatre; others await the new Neil Gaiman animated film. Some may have played the Beowulf videogame. I personally plan to miss the upcoming updated version that makes Beowulf into the son of an African explorer. But I did see Sturla Gunnarsson’s Beowulf and Grendel film, and yearned to see the comic opera at the Lincoln Centre Festival in 2006 called Grendel, the Transcendence of the Great Big Bad. I am not really interested in whether these adaptations—all in the last year or so—signify Hollywood’s need for a new “monster of the week” or are just the sign of a desire to cash in on the success of The Lord of the Rings. For all I know they might well act as an ethical reminder of the human in the alien in a time of global strife (see McGee, A4). What interests me is the impact these multiple adaptations can have on the reader of literature as well as on the production of literature. Literature, like painting, is usually thought of as what Nelson Goodman (114) calls a one-stage art form: what we read (like what we see on a canvas) is what is put there by the originating artist. Several major consequences follow from this view. First, the implication is that the work is thus an original and new creation by that artist. However, even the most original of novelists—like Salman Rushdie—are the first to tell you that stories get told and retold over and over. Indeed his controversial novel, The Satanic Verses, takes this as a major theme. Works like the Thousand and One Nights are crucial references in all of his work. As he writes in Haroun and the Sea of Stories: “no story comes from nowhere; new stories are born of old” (86). But illusion of originality is only one of the implications of seeing literature as a one-stage art form. Another is the assumption that what the writer put on paper is what we read. But entire doctoral programs in literary production and book history have been set up to study how this is not the case, in fact. Editors influence, even change, what authors want to write. Designers control how we literally see the work of literature. Beatrice Chancy’s bookend maps of historical Acadia literally frame how we read the historical story of the title’s mixed-race offspring of an African slave and a white slave owner in colonial Nova Scotia in 1801. Media interest or fashion or academic ideological focus may provoke a publisher to foreground in the physical presentation different elements of a text like this—its stress on race, or gender, or sexuality. The fact that its author won Canada’s Governor General’s Award for poetry might mean that the fact that this is a verse play is emphasised. If the book goes into a second edition, will a new preface get added, changing the framework for the reader once again? As Katherine Larson has convincingly shown, the paratextual elements that surround a work of literature like this one become a major site of meaning generation. What if literature were not a one-stage an art form at all? What if it were, rather, what Goodman calls “two-stage” (114)? What if we accept that other artists, other creators, are needed to bring it to life—editors, publishers, and indeed readers? In a very real and literal sense, from our (audience) point of view, there may be no such thing as a one-stage art work. Just as the experience of literature is made possible for readers by the writer, in conjunction with a team of professional and creative people, so, arguably all art needs its audience to be art; the un-interpreted, un-experienced art work is not worth calling art. Goodman resists this move to considering literature a two-stage art, not at all sure that readings are end products the way that performance works are (114). Plays, films, television shows, or operas would be his prime examples of two-stage arts. In each of these, a text (a playtext, a screenplay, a score, a libretto) is moved from page to stage or screen and given life, by an entire team of creative individuals: directors, actors, designers, musicians, and so on. Literary adaptations to the screen or stage are usually considered as yet another form of this kind of transcription or transposition of a written text to a performance medium. But the verbal move from the “book” to the diminutive “libretto” (in Italian, little book or booklet) is indicative of a view that sees adaptation as a step downward, a move away from a primary literary “source”. In fact, an entire negative rhetoric of “infidelity” has developed in both journalistic reviewing and academic discourse about adaptations, and it is a morally loaded rhetoric that I find surprising in its intensity. Here is the wonderfully critical description of that rhetoric by the king of film adaptation critics, Robert Stam: Terms like “infidelity,” “betrayal,” “deformation,” “violation,” “bastardisation,” “vulgarisation,” and “desecration” proliferate in adaptation discourse, each word carrying its specific charge of opprobrium. “Infidelity” carries overtones of Victorian prudishness; “betrayal” evokes ethical perfidy; “bastardisation” connotes illegitimacy; “deformation” implies aesthetic disgust and monstrosity; “violation” calls to mind sexual violence; “vulgarisation” conjures up class degradation; and “desecration” intimates religious sacrilege and blasphemy. (3) I join many others today, like Stam, in challenging the persistence of this fidelity discourse in adaptation studies, thereby providing yet another example of what, in his article here called “The Persistence of Fidelity: Adaptation Theory Today,” John Connor has called the “fidelity reflex”—the call to end an obsession with fidelity as the sole criterion for judging the success of an adaptation. But here I want to come at this same issue of the relation of adaptation to the adapted text from another angle. When considering an adaptation of a literary work, there are other reasons why the literary “source” text might be privileged. Literature has historical priority as an art form, Stam claims, and so in some people’s eyes will always be superior to other forms. But does it actually have priority? What about even earlier performative forms like ritual and song? Or to look forward, instead of back, as Tim Barker urges us to do in his article here, what about the new media’s additions to our repertoire with the advent of electronic technology? How can we retain this hierarchy of artistic forms—with literature inevitably on top—in a world like ours today? How can both the Romantic ideology of original genius and the capitalist notion of individual authorship hold up in the face of the complex reality of the production of literature today (as well as in the past)? (In “Amen to That: Sampling and Adapting the Past”, Steve Collins shows how digital technology has changed the possibilities of musical creativity in adapting/sampling.) Like many other ages before our own, adaptation is rampant today, as director Spike Jonze and screenwriter Charlie Kaufman clearly realised in creating Adaptation, their meta-cinematic illustration-as-send-up film about adaptation. But rarely has a culture denigrated the adapter as a secondary and derivative creator as much as we do the screenwriter today—as Jonze explores with great irony. Michelle McMerrin and Sergio Rizzo helpfully explain in their pieces here that one of the reasons for this is the strength of auteur theory in film criticism. But we live in a world in which works of literature have been turned into more than films. We now have literary adaptations in the forms of interactive new media works and videogames; we have theme parks; and of course, we have the more common television series, radio and stage plays, musicals, dance works, and operas. And, of course, we now have novelisations of films—and they are not given the respect that originary novels are given: it is the adaptation as adaptation that is denigrated, as Deborah Allison shows in “Film/Print: Novelisations and Capricorn One”. Adaptations across media are inevitably fraught, and for complex and multiple reasons. The financing and distribution issues of these widely different media alone inevitably challenge older capitalist models. The need or desire to appeal to a global market has consequences for adaptations of literature, especially with regard to its regional and historical specificities. These particularities are what usually get adapted or “indigenised” for new audiences—be they the particularities of the Spanish gypsy Carmen (see Ioana Furnica, “Subverting the ‘Good, Old Tune’”), those of the Japanese samurai genre (see Kevin P. Eubanks, “Becoming-Samurai: Samurai [Films], Kung-Fu [Flicks] and Hip-Hop [Soundtracks]”), of American hip hop graffiti (see Kara-Jane Lombard, “‘To Us Writers, the Differences Are Obvious’: The Adaptation of Hip Hop Graffiti to an Australian Context”) or of Jane Austen’s fiction (see Suchitra Mathur, “From British ‘Pride’ to Indian ‘Bride’: Mapping the Contours of a Globalised (Post?)Colonialism”). What happens to the literary text that is being adapted, often multiple times? Rather than being displaced by the adaptation (as is often feared), it most frequently gets a new life: new editions of the book appear, with stills from the movie adaptation on its cover. But if I buy and read the book after seeing the movie, I read it differently than I would have before I had seen the film: in effect, the book, not the adaptation, has become the second and even secondary text for me. And as I read, I can only “see” characters as imagined by the director of the film; the cinematic version has taken over, has even colonised, my reader’s imagination. The literary “source” text, in my readerly, experiential terms, becomes the secondary work. It exists on an experiential continuum, in other words, with its adaptations. It may have been created before, but I only came to know it after. What if I have read the literary work first, and then see the movie? In my imagination, I have already cast the characters: I know what Gabriel and Gretta Conroy of James Joyce’s story, “The Dead,” look and sound like—in my imagination, at least. Then along comes John Huston’s lush period piece cinematic adaptation and the director superimposes his vision upon mine; his forcibly replaces mine. But, in this particular case, Huston still arguably needs my imagination, or at least my memory—though he may not have realised it fully in making the film. When, in a central scene in the narrative, Gabriel watches his wife listening, moved, to the singing of the Irish song, “The Lass of Aughrim,” what we see on screen is a concerned, intrigued, but in the end rather blank face: Gabriel doesn’t alter his expression as he listens and watches. His expression may not change—but I know exactly what he is thinking. Huston does not tell us; indeed, without the use of voice-over, he cannot. And since the song itself is important, voice-over is impossible. But I know exactly what he is thinking: I’ve read the book. I fill in the blank, so to speak. Gabriel looks at Gretta and thinks: There was grace and mystery in her attitude as if she were a symbol of something. He asked himself what is a woman standing on the stairs in the shadow, listening to distant music, a symbol of. If he were a painter he would paint her in that attitude. … Distant Music he would call the picture if he were a painter. (210) A few pages later the narrator will tell us: At last she turned towards them and Gabriel saw that there was colour on her cheeks and that her eyes were shining. A sudden tide of joy went leaping out of his heart. (212) This joy, of course, puts him in a very different—disastrously different—state of mind than his wife, who (we later learn) is remembering a young man who sang that song to her when she was a girl—and who died, for love of her. I know this—because I’ve read the book. Watching the movie, I interpret Gabriel’s blank expression in this knowledge. Just as the director’s vision can colonise my visual and aural imagination, so too can I, as reader, supplement the film’s silence with the literary text’s inner knowledge. The question, of course, is: should I have to do so? Because I have read the book, I will. But what if I haven’t read the book? Will I substitute my own ideas, from what I’ve seen in the rest of the film, or from what I’ve experienced in my own life? Filmmakers always have to deal with this problem, of course, since the camera is resolutely externalising, and actors must reveal their inner worlds through bodily gesture or facial expression for the camera to record and for the spectator to witness and comprehend. But film is not only a visual medium: it uses music and sound, and it also uses words—spoken words within the dramatic situation, words overheard on the street, on television, but also voice-over words, spoken by a narrating figure. Stephen Dedalus escapes from Ireland at the end of Joseph Strick’s 1978 adaptation of Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man with the same words as he does in the novel, where they appear as Stephen’s diary entry: Amen. So be it. Welcome, O life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race. … Old father, old artificer, stand me now and ever in good stead. (253) The words from the novel also belong to the film as film, with its very different story, less about an artist than about a young Irishman finally able to escape his family, his religion and his country. What’s deliberately NOT in the movie is the irony of Joyce’s final, benign-looking textual signal to his reader: Dublin, 1904 Trieste, 1914 The first date is the time of Stephen’s leaving Dublin—and the time of his return, as we know from the novel Ulysses, the sequel, if you like, to this novel. The escape was short-lived! Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man has an ironic structure that has primed its readers to expect not escape and triumph but something else. Each chapter of the novel has ended on this kind of personal triumphant high; the next has ironically opened with Stephen mired in the mundane and in failure. Stephen’s final words in both film and novel remind us that he really is an Icarus figure, following his “Old father, old artificer”, his namesake, Daedalus. And Icarus, we recall, takes a tumble. In the novel version, we are reminded that this is the portrait of the artist “as a young man”—later, in 1914, from the distance of Trieste (to which he has escaped) Joyce, writing this story, could take some ironic distance from his earlier persona. There is no such distance in the film version. However, it stands alone, on its own; Joyce’s irony is not appropriate in Strick’s vision. His is a different work, with its own message and its own, considerably more romantic and less ironic power. Literary adaptations are their own things—inspired by, based on an adapted text but something different, something other. I want to argue that these works adapted from literature are now part of our readerly experience of that literature, and for that reason deserve the same attention we give to the literary, and not only the same attention, but also the same respect. I am a literarily trained person. People like me who love words, already love plays, but shouldn’t we also love films—and operas, and musicals, and even videogames? There is no need to denigrate words that are heard (and visualised) in order to privilege words that are read. Works of literature can have afterlives in their adaptations and translations, just as they have pre-lives, in terms of influences and models, as George Eliot Clarke openly allows in those acknowledgements to Beatrice Chancy. I want to return to that Canadian work, because it raises for me many of the issues about adaptation and language that I see at the core of our literary distrust of the move away from the written, printed text. I ended my recent book on adaptation with a brief examination of this work, but I didn’t deal with this particular issue of language. So I want to return to it, as to unfinished business. Clarke is, by the way, clear in the verse drama as well as in articles and interviews that among the many intertexts to Beatrice Chancy, the most important are slave narratives, especially one called Celia, a Slave, and Shelley’s play, The Cenci. Both are stories of mistreated and subordinated women who fight back. Since Clarke himself has written at length about the slave narratives, I’m going to concentrate here on Shelley’s The Cenci. The distance from Shelley’s verse play to Clarke’s verse play is a temporal one, but it is also geographic and ideological one: from the old to the new world, and from a European to what Clarke calls an “Africadian” (African Canadian/African Acadian) perspective. Yet both poets were writing political protest plays against unjust authority and despotic power. And they have both become plays that are more read than performed—a sad fate, according to Clarke, for two works that are so concerned with voice. We know that Shelley sought to calibrate the stylistic registers of his work with various dramatic characters and effects to create a modern “mixed” style that was both a return to the ancients and offered a new drama of great range and flexibility where the expression fits what is being expressed (see Bruhn). His polemic against eighteenth-century European dramatic conventions has been seen as leading the way for realist drama later in the nineteenth century, with what has been called its “mixed style mimesis” (Bruhn) Clarke’s adaptation does not aim for Shelley’s perfect linguistic decorum. It mixes the elevated and the biblical with the idiomatic and the sensual—even the vulgar—the lushly poetic with the coarsely powerful. But perhaps Shelley’s idea of appropriate language fits, after all: Beatrice Chancy is a woman of mixed blood—the child of a slave woman and her slave owner; she has been educated by her white father in a convent school. Sometimes that educated, elevated discourse is heard; at other times, she uses the variety of discourses operative within slave society—from religious to colloquial. But all the time, words count—as in all printed and oral literature. Clarke’s verse drama was given a staged reading in Toronto in 1997, but the story’s, if not the book’s, real second life came when it was used as the basis for an opera libretto. Actually the libretto commission came first (from Queen of Puddings Theatre in Toronto), and Clarke started writing what was to be his first of many opera texts. Constantly frustrated by the art form’s demands for concision, he found himself writing two texts at once—a short libretto and a longer, five-act tragic verse play to be published separately. Since it takes considerably longer to sing than to speak (or read) a line of text, the composer James Rolfe keep asking for cuts—in the name of economy (too many singers), because of clarity of action for audience comprehension, or because of sheer length. Opera audiences have to sit in a theatre for a fixed length of time, unlike readers who can put a book down and return to it later. However, what was never sacrificed to length or to the demands of the music was the language. In fact, the double impact of the powerful mixed language and the equally potent music, increases the impact of the literary text when performed in its operatic adaptation. Here is the verse play version of the scene after Beatrice’s rape by her own father, Francis Chancey: I was black but comely. Don’t glance Upon me. This flesh is crumbling Like proved lies. I’m perfumed, ruddied Carrion. Assassinated. Screams of mucking juncos scrawled Over the chapel and my nerves, A stickiness, as when he finished Maculating my thighs and dress. My eyes seep pus; I can’t walk: the floors Are tizzy, dented by stout mauling. Suddenly I would like poison. The flesh limps from my spine. My inlets crimp. Vultures flutter, ghastly, without meaning. I can see lice swarming the air. … His scythe went shick shick shick and slashed My flowers; they lay, murdered, in heaps. (90) The biblical and the violent meet in the texture of the language. And none of that power gets lost in the opera adaptation, despite cuts and alterations for easier aural comprehension. I was black but comely. Don’t look Upon me: this flesh is dying. I’m perfumed, bleeding carrion, My eyes weep pus, my womb’s sopping With tears; I can hardly walk: the floors Are tizzy, the sick walls tumbling, Crumbling like proved lies. His scythe went shick shick shick and cut My flowers; they lay in heaps, murdered. (95) Clarke has said that he feels the libretto is less “literary” in his words than the verse play, for it removes the lines of French, Latin, Spanish and Italian that pepper the play as part of the author’s critique of the highly educated planter class in Nova Scotia: their education did not guarantee ethical behaviour (“Adaptation” 14). I have not concentrated on the music of the opera, because I wanted to keep the focus on the language. But I should say that the Rolfe’s score is as historically grounded as Clarke’s libretto: it is rooted in African Canadian music (from ring shouts to spirituals to blues) and in Scottish fiddle music and local reels of the time, not to mention bel canto Italian opera. However, the music consciously links black and white traditions in a way that Clarke’s words and story refuse: they remain stubbornly separate, set in deliberate tension with the music’s resolution. Beatrice will murder her father, and, at the very moment that Nova Scotia slaves are liberated, she and her co-conspirators will be hanged for that murder. Unlike the printed verse drama, the shorter opera libretto functions like a screenplay, if you will. It is not so much an autonomous work unto itself, but it points toward a potential enactment or embodiment in performance. Yet, even there, Clarke cannot resist the lure of words—even though they are words that no audience will ever hear. The stage directions for Act 3, scene 2 of the opera read: “The garden. Slaves, sunflowers, stars, sparks” (98). The printed verse play is full of these poetic associative stage directions, suggesting that despite his protestations to the contrary, Clarke may have thought of that version as one meant to be read by the eye. After Beatrice’s rape, the stage directions read: “A violin mopes. Invisible shovelsful of dirt thud upon the scene—as if those present were being buried alive—like ourselves” (91). Our imaginations—and emotions—go to work, assisted by the poet’s associations. There are many such textual helpers—epigraphs, photographs, notes—that we do not have when we watch and listen to the opera. We do have the music, the staged drama, the colours and sounds as well as the words of the text. As Clarke puts the difference: “as a chamber opera, Beatrice Chancy has ascended to television broadcast. But as a closet drama, it play only within the reader’s head” (“Adaptation” 14). Clarke’s work of literature, his verse drama, is a “situated utterance, produced in one medium and in one historical and social context,” to use Robert Stam’s terms. In the opera version, it was transformed into another “equally situated utterance, produced in a different context and relayed through a different medium” (45-6). I want to argue that both are worthy of study and respect by wordsmiths, by people like me. I realise I’ve loaded the dice: here neither the verse play nor the libretto is primary; neither is really the “source” text, for they were written at the same time and by the same person. But for readers and audiences (my focus and interest here), they exist on a continuum—depending on which we happen to experience first. As Ilana Shiloh explores here, the same is true about the short story and film of Memento. I am not alone in wanting to mount a defence of adaptations. Julie Sanders ends her new book called Adaptation and Appropriation with these words: “Adaptation and appropriation … are, endlessly and wonderfully, about seeing things come back to us in as many forms as possible” (160). The storytelling imagination is an adaptive mechanism—whether manifesting itself in print or on stage or on screen. The study of the production of literature should, I would like to argue, include those other forms taken by that storytelling drive. If I can be forgiven a move to the amusing—but still serious—in concluding, Terry Pratchett puts it beautifully in his fantasy story, Witches Abroad: “Stories, great flapping ribbons of shaped space-time, have been blowing and uncoiling around the universe since the beginning of time. And they have evolved. The weakest have died and the strongest have survived and they have grown fat on the retelling.” In biology as in culture, adaptations reign. References Bloom, Harold. The Anxiety of Influence. New York: Oxford University Press, 1975. Bruhn, Mark J. “’Prodigious Mixtures and Confusions Strange’: The Self-Subverting Mixed Style of The Cenci.” Poetics Today 22.4 (2001). Clarke, George Elliott. “Beatrice Chancy: A Libretto in Four Acts.” Canadian Theatre Review 96 (1998): 62-79. ———. Beatrice Chancy. Victoria, BC: Polestar, 1999. ———. “Adaptation: Love or Cannibalism? Some Personal Observations”, unpublished manuscript of article. Frye, Northrop. The Educated Imagination. Toronto: CBC, 1963. Goodman, Nelson. Languages of Art: An Approach to a Theory of Symbols. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1968. Hutcheon, Linda, and Gary R. Bortolotti. “On the Origin of Adaptations: Rethinking Fidelity Discourse and “Success”—Biologically.” New Literary History. Forthcoming. Joyce, James. Dubliners. 1916. New York: Viking, 1967. ———. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. 1916. Penguin: Harmondsworth, 1960. Larson, Katherine. “Resistance from the Margins in George Elliott Clarke’s Beatrice Chancy.” Canadian Literature 189 (2006): 103-118. McGee, Celia. “Beowulf on Demand.” New York Times, Arts and Leisure. 30 April 2006. A4. Rushdie, Salman. The Satanic Verses. New York: Viking, 1988. ———. Haroun and the Sea of Stories. London: Granta/Penguin, 1990. Sanders, Julie. Adaptation and Appropriation. London and New York: Routledge, 160. Shelley, Percy Bysshe. The Cenci. Ed. George Edward Woodberry. Boston and London: Heath, 1909. Stam, Robert. “Introduction: The Theory and Practice of Adaptation.” Literature and Film: A Guide to the Theory and Practice of Film Adaptation. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005. 1-52. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Hutcheon, Linda. "In Defence of Literary Adaptation as Cultural Production." M/C Journal 10.2 (2007). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0705/01-hutcheon.php>. APA Style Hutcheon, L. (May 2007) "In Defence of Literary Adaptation as Cultural Production," M/C Journal, 10(2). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0705/01-hutcheon.php>.