Search results for " Balance"
showing 10 items of 823 documents
The biogeochemical cycle of mercury in the Augusta Bay
2014
Mercurial, the metaphor for volatile unpredictable behavior, aptly reflects the complexities of one of the most insidiously interesting and scientifically challenging biogeochemical cycles at the Earth’s surface. At the base of this toxic metal cycle there is the conversion between the different Hg chemical species, in which the balance between the reduced and oxidized forms depends primary on redox system conditions. The potential risks of human exposure to Hg, especially in the form of monomethylmercury (MMHg), particularly prenatally, and the potential deleterious ecological consequences from localized to global scale Hg pollution, have given much impetus to mercury studies and regulator…
Comparison of evapotranspiration estimates by NOAA-AVHRR images and aircraft flux measurements in a semiarid region of Spain.
1998
Abstract This paper is intended to show how to aggregate two different remote-sensing techniques carried out in the framework of the European-Union funded project EFEDA (European Field Experiment in a Desertification-threatened Area). One of these is based on satellite measurements, and the other on aircraft flux measurements. The aim of putting together both methodologies was to determine regional evapotranspiration as a major component of the water balance in Castilla-La Mancha, a semiarid region in southeast Spain. The basis for the satellite approach is using temperature information collected by the Advanced Very High-Resolution Radio- meter (AVHRR) sensor on board the National Oceanic …
Testing two temporal upscaling schemes for the estimation of the time variability of the actual evapotranspiration
2015
Temporal availability of grapes actual evapotranspiration is an emerging issue since vineyards farms are more and more converted from rainfed to irrigated agricultural systems. The manuscript aims to verify the accuracy of the actual evapotranspiration retrieval coupling a single source energy balance approach and two different temporal upscaling schemes. The first scheme tests the temporal upscaling of the main input variables, namely the NDVI, albedo and LST; the second scheme tests the temporal upscaling of the energy balance output, the actual evapotranspiration. The temporal upscaling schemes were implemented on: i) airborne remote sensing data acquired monthly during a whole irrigatio…
Actual evapotranspiration estimation by means of airborne and satellite remote sensing data
2006
ABSTRACT During the last the two decades, the scientific community developed detailed mathematical models for simulating land surface energy fluxes and crop evapotrans piration rates by means of a energy ba lance approach. These models can be applied in large areas and with a spatial distributed approach using surface brightness temperature and some ancillary data retrieved from satellite/airborne remote sensed imagery. In this paper a district scale application in combination with multispectral (LandaSat 7 TM data) and hyperspectral airborne MIVIS data has been carried out to test the potentialities of two different energy balance models to estimate evapotranspiration fluxes from a set of …
Evaluation of methane emissions from Palermo municipal landfill: Comparison between field measurements and models
2010
Methane (CH(4)) diffuse emissions from Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) landfills represent one of the most important anthropogenic sources of greenhouse gas. CH(4) is produced by anaerobic biodegradation of organic matter in landfilled MSW and constitutes a major component of landfill gas (LFG). Gas recovery is a suitable method to effectively control CH(4) emissions from landfill sites and the quantification of CH(4) emissions represents a good tool to evaluate the effectiveness of a gas recovery system in reducing LFG emissions. In particular, LFG emissions can indirectly be evaluated from mass balance equations between LFG production, recovery and oxidation in the landfill, as well as by a d…
Metabolic stasis in an ancient symbiosis: genome-scale metabolic networks from two Blattabacterium cuenoti strains, primary endosymbionts of cockroac…
2012
Abstract Background Cockroaches are terrestrial insects that strikingly eliminate waste nitrogen as ammonia instead of uric acid. Blattabacterium cuenoti (Mercier 1906) strains Bge and Pam are the obligate primary endosymbionts of the cockroaches Blattella germanica and Periplaneta americana, respectively. The genomes of both bacterial endosymbionts have recently been sequenced, making possible a genome-scale constraint-based reconstruction of their metabolic networks. The mathematical expression of a metabolic network and the subsequent quantitative studies of phenotypic features by Flux Balance Analysis (FBA) represent an efficient functional approach to these uncultivable bacteria. Resul…
Estimation of the mean crystal size and the moments of the crystal size distribution in batch crystallization processes
2016
International audience; A cascade high gain observer is designed to estimate the first four leading moments of the crystal size distribution (CSD) and the mean crystal size in batch crystallization processes. The proposed observer is based on a well-known transformation of the partial differential equation describing the CSD to a set of ordinary differential equations (the method of moments). Due to numerical difficulties resulting from the important differences in the magnitudes of the moments, a set of new variables is computed to allow a good estimation of the moments and thus the mean crystal size. In this work, only solute concentration and crystallizer temperature are used to estimate…
New exergy criterion in the multicriteria context: a life cycle assessment of two plaster products
2003
This paper deals with the exergy analysis (EXA) of plaster materials and ranks the environmental burdens due to the production of such materials. The calculation of the exergy loss during the whole examined process represents a relevant index, looking at the technology improvement of a process, as a suitable tool in aid of the trade-off of alternative materials in the decision making. A life cycle inventory is performed for building plaster products and the matrix method is used. The authors extend the application of EXA to life cycle assessment, conducting an exergetic life cycle assessment, and propose an exergetic index in the framework of multi-criteria decision making. An exergy balanc…
Modeling of perched leachate zone formation in municipal solid waste landfills.
2010
The paper presents a 1D mathematical model for the simulation of the percolation fluxes throughout a landfill for municipal solid waste (MSW). Specifically, the model was based on mass balance equations, that enable simulation of the formation of perched leachate zones in a landfill for MSW. The model considers the landfill divided in several layers evaluating the inflow to and outflow from each layer as well as the continuous moisture distribution. The infiltration flow was evaluated by means of the Darcy’s law for an unsaturated porous medium, while the moisture distribution evaluation has been carried out on the basis of the theory of the vertically distributed unsaturated flow. The solu…
Contribution of musculoskeletal pain to postural balance in community-dwelling people aged 75 years and older.
2010
Background. Balance is among the most important prerequisites for safe and independent mobility. Whether musculoskeletal pain is related to standing balance impairment has received limited attention. The aim of this study was to examine the association of musculoskeletal pain with the control of balance in older people. Methods. A total of 605 participants aged 75 years and older (mean age 80.4, 71 % women) were interviewed about presence and severity of musculoskeletal pain. Balance was measured by a force platform, and impaired balance was defined as a high sway velocity moment or inability to maintain semitandem standing. Results. Musculoskeletal pain was reported by 48% of the participa…