Search results for " Monitoring"

The PAH composition of surface sediments from Stagnone coastal lagoon, Marsala (Italy)

2006

Abstract This paper examines the presence, distribution, nature and sources of 22 Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs), which are important environmentally and toxicologically, in sediments from the Stagnone coastal lagoon at Marsala (Italy). Analysis was performed by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) with selected ion monitoring (SIM). The total concentration of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons ranged from 72 to 18381 μg/kg of dry matrix. The relative standard deviation (RSD) of the replicates on the concentrations of individual compounds ranged from 5% to 20%. The accuracy of method was estimated by analyzing “blank” samples added of known quantities of analytes and the recover percent…

Factors Affecting Mobile Diabetes Monitoring Adoption Among Physicians: Questionnaire Study and Path Model

2012

BackgroundPatients with type 1 and type 2 diabetes often find it difficult to control their blood glucose level on a daily basis because of distance or physical incapacity. With the increase in Internet-enabled smartphone use, this problem can be resolved by adopting a mobile diabetes monitoring system. Most existing studies have focused on patients’ usability perceptions, whereas little attention has been paid to physicians’ intentions to adopt this technology. ObjectiveThe aim of the study was to evaluate the perceptions and user acceptance of mobile diabetes monitoring among Japanese physicians. MethodsA questionnaire survey of physicians was conducted in Japan. The structured questionna…

Assessment of regional ventilation distribution: comparison of vibration response imaging (VRI) with electrical impedance tomography (EIT)

2013

BACKGROUND: Vibration response imaging (VRI) is a bedside technology to monitor ventilation by detecting lung sound vibrations. It is currently unknown whether VRI is able to accurately monitor the local distribution of ventilation within the lungs. We therefore compared VRI to electrical impedance tomography (EIT), an established technique used for the assessment of regional ventilation. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Simultaneous EIT and VRI measurements were performed in the healthy and injured lungs (ALI; induced by saline lavage) at different PEEP levels (0, 5, 10, 15 mbar) in nine piglets. Vibration energy amplitude (VEA) by VRI, and amplitudes of relative impedance changes (rel.ΔZ) …

2020

Arts-based practices can support sustainability, combined with research that points out needs for intervention. We practiced environmental sensitivity and dialogic art with fifth-grade school pupil...

Pesticides in the Ebro River basin: Occurrence and risk assessment

2016

In this study, 50 pesticides were analyzed in the Ebro River basin in 2010 and 2011 to assess their impact in water, sediment and biota. A special emphasis was placed on the potential effects of both, individual pesticides and their mixtures, in three trophic levels (algae, daphnia and fish) using Risk Quotients (RQs) and Toxic Units (TUs) for water and sediments. Chlorpyrifos, diazinon and carbendazim were the most frequent in water (95, 95 and 70% of the samples, respectively). Imazalil (409.73 ng/L) and diuron (150 ng/L) were at the highest concentrations. Sediment and biota were less contaminated. Chlorpyrifos, diazinon and diclofenthion were the most frequent in sediments (82, 45 and 2…

A fugacity model assessment of ibuprofen, diclofenac, carbamazepine, and their transformation product concentrations in an aquatic environment

2018

An updated version of FATEMOD, a multimedia fugacity model for environmental fate of organic chemicals, was set up to assess environmental behaviour of three pharmaceuticals in northern Lake Päijänne, Finland. Concentrations of ibuprofen, diclofenac, and carbamazepine were estimated at various depths at two sites: near a wastewater treatment plant and 3.5 km downstream the plant. When compared with environmental sampling data from corresponding depths and sites, the predicted concentrations, ranging from nanograms to hundreds of nanograms per litre, were found to be in good agreement. Weather data were utilised with the model to rationalise the effects of various environmental parameters on…

The contribution of geographical certification programs to farm income and rural economies: The case of Pecorino Siciliano PDO

2021

This study attempts to measure the capacity of the EU geographical certification scheme to positively influence the price of certified products and the incomes of their producers. A comparison of the economic results of two cheese-producing dairy farm enterprises with different business strategies and locations within the Sicilian hinterlands is performed in order to determine the transformation value of each dairy’s sheep milk into pecorino cheese (with and without the Protected Designation of Origin, or PDO, certification) and the related joint products (ricotta). The economic convenience of the total transformation of sheep milk into Pecorino Siciliano PDO and ricotta is also appraised. …

Efficiency of a digital particle image velocimetry (DPIV) method for monitoring the surface velocity of hyper-concentrated flows

2018

Digital particle image velocimetry records high resolution images and allows the identification of the position of points in different time instants. This paper explores the efficiency of the digital image-technique for remote monitoring of surface velocity and discharge measurement in hyper-concentrated flow by the way of laboratory experiment. One of the challenges in the application of the image-technique is the evaluation of the error in estimating surface velocity. The error quantification is complex because it depends on many factors characterizing either the experimental conditions or/and the processing algorithm. In the present work, attention is devoted to the estimation error due …

Developing and Integrating Advanced Movement Features Improves Automated Classification of Ciliate Species

2015

Recent advances in tracking technologies such as GPS or video tracking systems describe the movement paths of individuals in unprecedented details and are increasingly used in different fields, including ecology. However, extracting information from raw movement data requires advanced analysis techniques, for instance to infer behaviors expressed during a certain period of the recorded trajectory, or gender or species identity in case data is obtained from remote tracking. In this paper, we address how different movement features affect the ability to automatically classify the species identity, using a dataset of unicellular microbes (i.e., ciliates). Previously, morphological attributes a…

Advanced Ultrasonic Structural Monitoring of Waveguides

2008

Ultrasonic Guided Waves (UGWs) are a useful tool in those structural health monitoring applications that can benefit from built-in transduction, moderately large inspection ranges and high sensitivity to small flaws. This paper describes two methods, based on linear and nonlinear acoustics for structural damage detection based on UGWs. The linear method combine the advantages of UGW inspection with the outcomes of the Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) that is used for extracting defect-sensitive features that can be combined to perform a multivariate diagnosis of damage. In particular, the DWT is exploited to generate a set of relevant wavelet coefficients to construct a uni-dimensional or m…