87value/wos11967 huggingface dataset:
The increasing population living in cities is leading to higher resource utilization, which strains the cities' ability to focus on sustainability. Adoption of different technologies can transform cities into smart cities that utilize energy in a more efficiently. This paper presents results from a technology assessment tool developed together with six mid-sized European cities. The main areas of focus have been evaluated based on the cities' priorities: transportation (both public and private) and consumers' perspectives on the use of smart electricity meters. The use of electric vehicles in Sweden, and a techno-economic evaluation of biogas-derived biomethane and electricity use in public transportation have been analyzed. The main conclusions show an overall higher efficiency for biogas-derived electricity use in electric buses; a need for higher consumer engagement through more detailed information provision for both increasing EV market penetration and electricity savings; and a need to establish detailed technology assessments for successful technology adoption in cities. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Aim : The aim of this research was to evaluate if leaf removal and red geotextile reflective mulch Vitexsol could affect phenolic composition of wines from three white cultivars, Riesling italico, Traminer, and Manzoni bianco. Methods and results: A two-year study was conducted to evaluate the effects of leaf removal and reflective mulch on the phenolic composition of white wines from Zagreb vineyards in northwestern Croatia. Leaf removal (LR) and reflective mulch (RM) Vitexsol, made from weave of aluminum platelets protected by a transparent film and sewn together with red polypropylene threads, were tested separately and combined (LR + RM) on vines of Traminer, Riesling italico and Manzoni bianco in 2008 and 2009. LR and RM had no consistent effect on must sugar content and titratable acidity. All treatments resulted in higher total phenol and flavan-3-ol content in wines of all cultivars, but in different years. LR + RM generally resulted in the highest phenolic acid and individual flavan-3-ol content in all wines except Traminer. RM treatment had the least effect on phenolic composition of wines. Conclusion: LR + RM generally resulted in the highest content of most phenolic compounds, especially when compared to control wines. Significance and impact of the study: This work provides some useful informations for adjusting vineyard practices and thus optimizing phenolic quality of white wines.
Traditional cognitive assessment in neurological conditions involving physical disability is often prevented by the presence of verbal-motor impairment; to date, an extensive motor-verbal-free neuropsychological battery is not available for such purposes. We adapted a set of neuropsychological tests, assessing language, attentional abilities, executive functions and social cognition, for eye-tracking (ET) control, and explored its feasibility in a sample of healthy participants. Thirty healthy subjects performed a neuropsychological assessment, using an ET-based neuropsychological battery, together with standard paper and pencil cognitive measures for frontal (Frontal Assessment Battery-FAB) and working memory abilities (Digit Sequencing Task) and for global cognitive efficiency (Montreal Cognitive Assessment-MoCA). Psychological measures of anxiety (State-Trait Anxiety Inventory-Y-STAI-Y) and depression (Beck Depression Inventory-BDI) were also collected, and a usability questionnaire was administered. Significant correlations were observed between the paper and pencil screening of working memory abilities and the ET-based neuropsychological measures. The ET-based battery also correlated with the MoCA, while poor correlations were observed with the FAB. Usability aspects were found to be influenced by both working memory abilities and psychological components. The ET-based neuropsychological battery developed could provide an extensive assessment of cognitive functions, allowing participants to perform tasks independently from the integrity of motor or verbal channels. Further studies will be aimed at investigating validity and usability components in neurological populations with motor-verbal impairments.
Realization of Millennium Development Goals should be also reflected in construction industry. Sustainable consumption and production patterns can be associated with implementing and developing reverse logistics system on construction site to close the supply chain of construction materials. Initiating activities are undertaken already at the construction site, conditioning thereby further possibilities of resource recovery, stages of the recovery process, and total costs. Hence, the type, quantity and the quality of waste affect the cost of its collection - which can be a significant item in a project's budget. The paper provides an overview of the existing national recovery systems and waste policies to provide background for the case study. A crucial part of the research is an analysis of three waste management scenarios for a particular construction project. Anthropocentric, current and ecocentric approaches were studied in terms of waste collection costs. Two extreme approaches were created as an alternative to usual waste management policy applied on construction site. The antropocentric approach is a reflection of ill-conceived waste management - assuming no segregation, which leads to high costs of waste processing. The ecocentric approach, in turn, assumes direct sales of sorted waste at lower prices, and also by reverse logistics within the project, thereby providing cost savings. The results show that policy of waste disposal encourages and even forces entrepreneurs to implement reverse logistics despite the additional duties and requirements. General conclusions of research confirm that currently operating systems of waste management on site are sustainable, but nevertheless, it is still possible to make them more eco-efficient and, at the same time, more profitable. This was proved in the analysis of the Ecocentric scenario, which could be also called as Economic. (C) 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
The practice of rainwater harvesting (RWH) is spreading rapidly in urban areas. This article studies the impact of a possible generalization of this practice for municipalities by proposing a new method to quantify the potential for potable water savings (PPWS) by using rainwater harvesting at the urban level. The proposed method is based on the adaptation of an already validated model assessing the PPWS for single buildings and the use of urban databases. Two concepts are introduced: (1) the building type that allows gathering all the buildings sharing common features; and (2) the equivalent building, which is used to assess the PPWS of a set of buildings (of a same building type) as if it were a single building. In the case of the municipality of Colombes (located in the suburbs of Paris), the method shows that the PPWS by using rainwater harvesting represents about 10% of the total potable water consumption: the residential buildings account for 64% of this potential. This method can be applied to other municipalities with a level of acceptable reliability with regard to the means to be implemented in terms of collecting information.
Dagger is a modeling and visualization framework that addresses the challenge of representing knowledge and information for decision-makers, enabling them to better comprehend the operational context of network security data. It allows users to answer critical questions such as Given that I care about mission X, is there any reason I should be worried about what is going on in cyberspace? or If this system fails, will I still be able to accomplish my mission?
Snow load strength, excellent ventilation, strong end-wall construction, structure mobility, and rainwater harvesting are high tunnel features important to urban growers; rural farmers are interested in the same features for their high tunnels. Working to include these features in a single structure for urban growers has led to innovations that benefit both urban and rural farmers; rainwater harvesting, a mobile ready base frame, all weather retractable dome(s), and a two person installation method are a few of the innovations that have been developed in Cleveland, Ohio. These innovations have been applied on small farms throughout Northeast Ohio.A serious concern for the environmental and human health is represented by the increasing copper (Cu) occurrence in agricultural soils andwaters, because of the possible food contamination and bioaugmentation along the trophic chain. The request for the decontamination of different matrices with an environmentally sustainable technology as the phytoremediation should be addressed by selecting plant materials with improved pollutant tolerance and removal capability. With this purpose, plants of the hybrid poplar clone Monviso (Populus x generosa A. Henry x P. nigra L.) were grown in growth chamber under hydroponics and exposed to excess Cu concentrations (T-1, 75 mu M Cu; T-2, 150 mu M Cu), selected as about 5 and 10 times higher than those allowed by the Italian regulation on water use. Results evidenced a notable Cu tolerance by poplar plants, particularly at the lowest Cu concentration. At organ level, the root system was themost affected by Cu treatment, especially in T(2-)exposed plants. Copper determinations revealed that the metal was mostly bioaccumulated in the roots, with a limited amount reaching the shoots. Chlorophyll content and fluorescence analyses confirmed the visible symptoms in leaves, highlighting a good physiological status in T-1-exposed plants. Contrarily, an impairment of themain processes associated to photosynthesis was observed in T-2-exposed plants also by gas exchange measurements. Remarkably, the Cu content analysis of the spiked water solutions revealed that poplar plants succeeded in removing almost the 50% of the total Cu amount added. These results strengthen the evidence that poplar plants represent a useful eco-friendly bio-tool for the decontamination of metal polluted waters. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
In Manufacturing Engineering, there are several areas of knowledge focused on the study of manufacturing processes that give rise to products supplied to the processing industries and products to final consumers that can be processed from sheet, wires, rods and beams. In both cases, one of the most widely used manufacturing processes is the Metal Forming which is the mechanical process that pieces can be obtained by compression of solid metal in molds using plastic deformation of the material for filling the molds cavities. However, there is a process that can do the same without the need for molds, the so-called incremental sheet forming which consists of drawing the workpiece on a CNC form milling using a small cylindrical punch with a rounded tip. The purpose of this work is to make a study of the process of incremental sheet forming of polymers as a new type of rapid prototyping technology that is based on the process of forming material, different from the existing processes for removing or adding material. The tests were done in a geometry pyramid trunk format, in three subsequent stages and the objective is to evaluate some parameters such as temperature of working and the punch diameter in the final result of the prototype. The material chosen for the study was the PVC because that is present in many studies already done on the subject. Tests made with PVC indicated that a variation in 20 degrees C of material working temperature resulted in a significant increase in forming results during the tests.
The presence of congenitally impaired skin barrier followed by atopic dermatitis (AD) is an initial step in the atopic march. The maintenance of acidic pH in the stratum corneum (SC) has been suggested as a therapeutic or preventive strategy for barrier impairment caused by skin inflammation. To determine whether an AD murine model, flaky tail mice, with inherited filaggrin deficiency could develop airway inflammation by repeated topical application followed by nasal inhalation of house dust mite (HDM) antigen (defined as a novel atopic march animal model), and whether maintenance of an acidic SC environment by continuous application of acidic cream could interrupt the following atopic march. During the course of HDM treatment, acidic cream (pH2.8) or neutral cream (pH7.4) was applied to flaky tail mice twice daily. Repeated applications and inhalations of HDM to flaky tail mice induced AD skin lesions followed by respiratory allergies. Maintenance of SC acidity inhibited the occurrence of respiratory allergic inflammation as well as AD-like skin lesions. Collectively, a novel atopic march model could be developed by repeated epicutaneous and nasal applications of HDM to flaky tail mice, and that the acidification of SC could prevent the atopic march from AD to respiratory allergy.
For the characteristic of compact structure, low inertia, high rigidness and accuracy, parallel mechanisms are worthwhile to be popularized in the field of agricultural robotization, especially in situations that require precise movement in limited space. Focusing on the harvesting task of strawberries in ridge culture, a 4-PPPR robot manipulator with three translational DOF and one rotational DOF is devised in this paper. A type synthesis method of G(F) set theory is used to design its topology structure in 3D space. Compared to traditional machine design methods, this synthesis method allow one to decide the manipulator's configuration in a Topdown logic initially from the appointed features of the manipulator's moving platform. A software simulation is carried out to demonstrate this mechanism can meet all the movement requirements by driving the four active joints allocated on the fixed platform.
The land surface temperature (Ts) is an important parameter in land surface and atmosphere studies. A set of synchronously observed ground-truth temperature as training data is required for some empirical/semiempirical statistical and neural network methods for retrieving Ts from passive microwave (PMW) remote sensing data. To provide information for the choice of the most suitable dataset in Ts retrieval of PMWremote sensing, the spatiotemporal comparison between the moderate-resolution imaging spectroradiometer Ts (MODIS Ts), the meteorologically observed Ts (in situ Ts), themeteorologically observed near-surface air temperature (in situ Ta), and European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecast reanalysis products, the ERA-Interim Ts (ERA Ts), in South China for each season's daytime and nighttime is conducted in this paper. Results show that a large discrepancy between the MODIS Ts and the in situ Ts exists, whereas the discrepancies between the MODIS Ts, the in situ Ta and the ERA Ts are relatively smaller in daytime. For nighttime period, the differences between each dataset are relatively much smaller. Because the MODIS Ts is representative at the satellite pixel scale, it has a smaller spatial-scale mismatch with PMW data compared to in situ meteorological observation. The MODIS Ts is suitable for both the daytime and the nighttime PMW Ts model calibration if it is synchronously observed under almost clear-sky condition. By contrast, for the PMW Ts model calibration within the daytime period, the synchronously obtained in situ Ts is not suitable to be used as training data. If the ground temperature of daytime period derived from PMW is required, but the MODIS Ts is unavailable, the in situ Ta should be selected as the ground truth for the model calibration. However, it should be noticed that the inversion results are the near-surface air temperature rather than the Ts. Remarkably, reanalysis products such as the ERA Ts presents an alternative choice for both the daytime and the nighttime Ts model calibration if there are no MODIS Ts products or in situ temperature available. After the comparison, an example of PMW Ts retrieval for nighttime period was given, showing a promising performance on deriving an applicable PMW Ts inversion model based on the selection of an appropriate training dataset.
Contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) are often poorly removed from wastewater using conventional treatment technologies and there is limited understanding of their fate during treatment. Inappropriate sampling strategies lead to inaccuracies in estimating removals of CECs. In this study, we used the fractionated approach that accounts for the residence time distribution (RTD) in treatment units to investigate the fate of 26 target CECs in a municipal wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) that includes primary, secondary and tertiary treatment steps. Prior, hydraulic calibration of each treatment unit was performed. Wastewater and sludge samples were collected at different locations along the treatment train and the concentrations of target CECs were measured by liquid chromatography mass spectrometry. The most substantial aqueous removal occurred during activated sludge treatment (up to 99%). Removals were <50% in the primary clarifier and tertiary rotating biological contactors (RBCs) and up to 70% by sand filtration. Mass balance calculations demonstrated that (bio)degradation accounted for up to 50% of the removal in the primary clarifier and 100% in activated sludge. Removal by sorption to primary and secondary sludge was minimal for most CECs. Analysis of the selected metabolites demonstrated that negative removals obtained could be explained by transformations between the parent compound and their metabolites. This study contributes to the growing literature by applying the fractionated approach to calculate removal of different types of CECs across each wastewater treatment step. An additional level of understanding of the fate of CECs was provided by mass balance calculations in primary and secondary treatments. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
The anticipation of ethical issues that may arise with the clinical use of genomic technologies is crucial to envision their future implementation in a manner sensitive to local contexts. Yet, populations in low- and middle-income countries are underrepresented in studies that aim to explore stakeholders' perspectives on the use of such technologies. Within the framework of a research project entitled Personalized medicine in the treatment of epilepsy, we sought to increase inclusiveness by widening the reach of our survey, inviting neurologists from around the world to share their views and practices regarding the use of whole-genome sequencing in clinical neurology and its associated ethics. We discuss herein the compelling scientific and ethical reasons that led us to attempt to recruit neurologists worldwide, despite the lack, in many low- or middle-income countries, of access to genomic technologies. Recruitment procedures and their results are presented and discussed, as well as the barriers we faced. We conclude that inclusive recruitment remains a challenging, albeit necessary and legitimate, endeavour.
Objectives: Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID) are the cornerstone of treatment in axial spondyloarthritis (axSpA). We aimed to describe the real life NSAID use in early axSpA according to the disease characteristics. Methods: The DESIR cohort is an observational study of patients presenting with inflammatory back pain suggestive of axSpA for less than 3 years. Patients who attended all 6 visits (every 6 months during the first 2 years and yearly at 3 years) were analysed. Data collected at every visit over 3 years was NSAID intake and the ASAS-NSAID score for the 6 months preceding the visit, where 100 reflects the full daily intake of an NSAID. Results: In all, 627 patients were assessed: 46.1% males, mean age: 33.7 (standard deviation: 8.7) years, mean symptom duration: 1.5 (0.9) year and mean BASDAI: 44.3 (25.3). Over the 6 months preceding inclusion, 92.8% had received NSAIDs; this proportion significantly decreased over time, to 73% patients after 3 years (P < 0.001). This decrease was not different with regard to the fulfillment (or not) of the ASAS criteria at baseline, nor with regard to the arm of the ASAS criteria fulfilled (i.e. imaging vs. clinical). The median ASAS-NSAID score was 36 [interquartile range: 13-72] at inclusion, and substantially decreased to reach 7 [0-44] after 3 years (P<0.001), although BASDAI at 3 years was 33.8 (21.7). Conclusion: NSAID prescription was very frequent in this early axSpA cohort, but the intake was low, and decreased significantly over time, even though symptoms remained present. Early axSpA patients may not be sufficiently treated with NSAIDs. (C) 2016 Societe francaise de rhumatologie. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.
To examine the cultural organization of collaboration, 50 U.S. Mexican-heritage sibling pairs (ages 6-11) were videotaped as they participated in a puzzle construction activity. Half were from families with more recent connection with rural practices, and limited schooling (pueblo families) and half from high schooling families (more connection with middle-class practices, higher schooling). Children were given a previously constructed model, parts to construct another, and left alone. Every 10 s coders noted how the siblings coordinated either: jointly engaged, checking-in, solo, or off-task and if collaboration was organized either verbally, nonverbally, or with multiple means. Children from Pueblo families engaged jointly and used nonverbal and multiple means of communication more than children from high schooling families who more often worked solo, were off-task, and used talk to communicate. Results are linked to practices in Indigenous American communities where children's Learning by Observing and Pitching In is common. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
The kernel model has been part of operating system architecture for decades, but upon closer inspection it clearly violates the principle of least required privilege. The kernel is a single entity which provides many services (memory management, interfacing to drivers, context switching, IPC) having no real relation to each other, and has the ability to observe or tamper with all state of the system. This work presents Antikernel, a novel operating system architecture consisting of both hardware and software components and designed to be fundamentally more secure than the state of the art. To make formal verification easier, and improve parallelism, the Antikernel system is highly modular and consists of many independent hardware state machines ( one or more of which may be a general-purpose CPU running application or systems software) connected by a packet-switched network-on-chip (NoC). We create and verify an FPGA-based prototype of the system.