Search results for " war"

Assessment of the Trend of Albedo: a Case Study of Palermo

2013

In this paper we propose a case study of urban heat island applied to Palermo. The urban heat island (UHI) is the most studied of the climate effects of settlements. The UHI refers to the generally warm urban temperatures compared to those over surrounding, non-urban, areas. The aim of this paper is to find a connection among the average rise in temperature and the modification of albedo.

UCT-MBR vs IFAS-UCT-MBR for Wastewater Treatment: A Comprehensive Comparison Including N2O Emission

2017

In this study the performance (in terms of carbon and nutrient removal) and N2O emission of two plant configurations adopting innovative technologies were investigated. With this regards, an University Cape Town (UCT) membrane bioreactor (MBR) plant and an Integrated Fixed Film Activated Sludge (IFAS) -UCT-MBR plant were monitored. Both plants treat real wastewater under two different values of the influent carbon nitrogen ratio (C/N = 5 mgCOD/mgN and C/N = 10 mgCOD/mgN). Results have shown the highest carbon and nutrients removal efficiencies for the IFAS-UCT-MBR configuration during both the two investigated C/N values. Furthermore, the lowest N2O emission occurred for the IFAS-UCT-MBR.

Acoustic differentiation reflects mitochondrial lineages in Blyth's leaf warbler and white-tailed leaf warbler complexes (Aves: Phylloscopus reguloid…

2009

The present study evaluated the degree of differentiation between closely-related species of Blyth's leaf warbler complex (Phylloscopus reguloides s.l.) and white-tailed leaf warbler complex (Phylloscopus davisoni s.l.) by molecular (cytochrome b and 16S rRNA) and bioacoustic markers (sonagraphic analysis of songs). Molecular phylogenetic results corroborate the recently suggested splittings of the two former taxa into three and two species, respectively. By contrast to previous opinion, differentiation of territorial songs parallels the genetic diversification in both groups. In the P. reguloides group, all recently established species can be distinguished by a characteristic song pattern.…

Comparative sclerochronology of modern and mid-Pliocene (c. 3.5Ma) Aequipecten opercularis (Mollusca, Bivalvia): an insight into past and future clim…

2009

Records of environment contained within the accretionarily deposited tissues of fossil organisms afford a means of detailed reconstruction of past climates and hence of rigorous testing of numerical climate models. We identify the environmental factors controlling oxygen and carbon stable-isotopic composition, and microgrowth-increment size, in the shell of modern examples of the Queen Scallop, Aequipecten opercularis. This understanding is then applied in interpretation of data from mid-Pliocene A. opercularis from eastern England. On the basis of oxygen-isotope evidence we conclude that winter minimum seafloor temperature was similar to present values (typically 6–7 °C) in the adjacent so…

Dazzled and confused? Habituation and sensitization in free-living Yellow Warblers

2004

In-situ measurements of hemp-lime insulation materials for energy efficiency improvement

2018

Abstract Reduction of the CO2 emissions in the atmosphere is one of the goals set forth by the European Union, hence various directives have been adopted, such as the European directive 2012/27/EU on energy efficiency, i.e. ensuring from 2019 the construction of the near-zero energy buildings (nZEB). The construction segment plays a very important part in solving the current global problem of the greenhouse gas emissions and related processes of global warming, because in certain countries (i.e. in Latvia) it represents more than a half of the total energy consumption. Hence the necessity to elaborate means on how to boost the energy efficiency of the buildings meanwhile not rising pressure…

Data lakes in business intelligence: reporting from the trenches

2018

Abstract The data lake approach has emerged as a promising way to handle large volumes of structured and unstructured data. This big data technology enables enterprises to profoundly improve their Business Intelligence. However, there is a lack of empirical studies on the use of the data lake approach in enterprises. This paper provides the results of an exploratory study designed to improve the understanding of the use of the data lake approach in enterprises. I interviewed 12 experts who had implemented this approach in various enterprises and identified three important purposes of implementing data lakes: (1) as staging areas or sources for data warehouses, (2) as a platform for experime…

Learning Flow-Based Feature Warping for Face Frontalization with Illumination Inconsistent Supervision

2020

Despite recent advances in deep learning-based face frontalization methods, photo-realistic and illumination preserving frontal face synthesis is still challenging due to large pose and illumination discrepancy during training. We propose a novel Flow-based Feature Warping Model (FFWM) which can learn to synthesize photo-realistic and illumination preserving frontal images with illumination inconsistent supervision. Specifically, an Illumination Preserving Module (IPM) is proposed to learn illumination preserving image synthesis from illumination inconsistent image pairs. IPM includes two pathways which collaborate to ensure the synthesized frontal images are illumination preserving and wit…

Increasingly emotional design for growingly pragmatic users? A report from Finland

2012

Researchers and practitioners in the field of information and communication technologies (ICT) have for a while been embracing the concepts of user and consumer experience as well as emotions in design, encouraging the industry to emphasise hedonic and symbolic qualities of products and services, over and beyond their utilitarian characteristics. However, the idea that mobile phone users, for instance, seek increasingly experience-rich, personalised products can not be taken for granted. Therefore, it is valuable to investigate the degree to which users really share designers' increasingly socio-emotional stances. The presented longitudinal study investigated users' mobile phone-related pro…

Assessing environmental performance in the European Union: Eco-innovation versus catching-up

2017

Abstract This paper assesses environmental performance in the European Union (EU) using Luenberger productivity indicators, directional distance functions and Data Envelopment Analysis techniques. It considers four indicators of the pressures exerted by economic activity on the environment: global warming, tropospheric ozone formation, acidification and particulate formation. The change in environmental performance from the early 2000s onwards is decomposed at the levels of country and environmental pressure, and as the result of eco-innovations and catching-up with the best available environmental technologies; furthermore, we distinguish between the periods of economic growth (2001–07) an…