Search results for "IDE"

Exposure to mercury among 9-year-old Spanish children: Associated factors and trend throughout childhood

2019

Mercury is considered a neurotoxicant and human exposure occurs mainly from the consumption of marine species. We aimed to describe total mercury concentrations (THg) and associated factors in 9-year old children, as well as to explore the trend in THg from 4 to 9 years of age. The study population consisted of 9-year-old children participating in the INMA (Environment and Childhood) birth cohort study in Valencia, Spain (n = 405, 2013–2014). THg in hair samples was measured by atomic absorption spectrometry at the age of 4 and 9 years. Sociodemographic and dietary data was obtained through questionnaires. Multiple linear regression was used to explore the association between THg and covari…

Vibration Tests and Structural Identification of the Bell Tower of Palermo Cathedral

2019

Background: The recent seismic events in Italy have underlined once more the need for seismic prevention for historic constructions of architectural interest and in general, the building heritage. During the above-mentioned earthquakes, different masonry monumental buildings have been lost due to the intrinsic vulnerability and ageing that reduced the structural member strength. This has made the community understand more that prevention is a necessary choice for the protection of monuments. Objective: The paper aims at demonstrating a strategy of investigation providing the possibility of health judgment, identifying a computational model for the assessment of structural capacity under se…

Statistical retrieval of atmospheric profiles with deep convolutional neural networks

2019

Abstract Infrared atmospheric sounders, such as IASI, provide an unprecedented source of information for atmosphere monitoring and weather forecasting. Sensors provide rich spectral information that allows retrieval of temperature and moisture profiles. From a statistical point of view, the challenge is immense: on the one hand, “underdetermination” is common place as regression needs to work on high dimensional input and output spaces; on the other hand, redundancy is present in all dimensions (spatial, spectral and temporal). On top of this, several noise sources are encountered in the data. In this paper, we present for the first time the use of convolutional neural networks for the retr…

Effects of natural radiation damage on back-scattered electron images of single crystals of minerals

2006

Generally, it has been assumed that signal intensity variations in back-scattered electron (BSE) images of minerals are mainly controlled by chemical heterogeneity. This is especially true for images of single crystals, where effects of different crystal orientations with respect to the incident beam on the observed BSE are excluded. In contrast, we show that local variations of the structural state within single-crystals (i.e., degree of lattice order or lattice imperfectness) may also have dramatic effects on the back-scattering of electrons. As an example, we present BSE images of single-crystals of natural zircon, ZrSiO 4 , whose intensity patterns are predominantly controlled by struct…

Relations between Air Quality and Covid-19 Lockdown Measures in Valencia, Spain

2021

The set of measures to contain the diffusion of COVID-19 instituted by the European governments gave an unparalleled opportunity to improve our understanding of the transport and industrial sectors’ contribution to urban air pollution. The purpose of this study was to assess the impacts of the lockdown measures on air quality and pollutant emissions in Valencia, Spain. For this reason, we determined if there was a significant difference in the concentration levels of different particulate matter (PM) sizes, PM10, PM2.5, and NOx, NO2, NO, and O3, between the period of restrictions in 2020 and the same period in 2019. Our findings indicated that PM pollutant levels during the lockdown period…

Preliminary results on the influence of car characteristics on their gases emissions using gas sensors

2018

Abstract A method, based on the use of monitoring portable sensors, has been successfully employed for the determination of the composition of car exhausts from 11 diesel and 5 gasoline cars. These emissions include nitrogen oxides (NOx), carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO2) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). The measures were taken in different places where each car was parked. In this study it has been tried to correlate the emitted gases with some of the car characteristics, such as the power (varied from 68 to 143 HP), the number of kilometers traveled and the age of the car (between 2 and 19 years). Results found show a significant variation of the emission values, which rang…

Pesticides and Agricultural Air Quality

2016

Geophysical prospection of the Roman city of Pollentia, Alcúdia (Mallorca, Balearic Islands, Spain)

2016

Abstract We present the results of the geophysical investigation carried out in the Roman city of Pollentia, in the island of Mallorca. The ancient city was identified in the 19th century. Old and new archaeological excavations have helped to uncover a residential area, a theatre, the forum, several necropolises and other remains of the city, but a large unexplored area has still to be investigated. For instance, the limits of the ancient town and the presence of harbour structures are still unknown. The geophysical survey has covered an area of more than 20.000 m2 by integrating magnetic, electromagnetic, electrical and ground penetrating radar (GPR) methods. Many unseen archaeological fea…

Enhanced detection of terrestrial gamma-ray flashes by AGILE

2015

At the end of March 2015 the onboard software configuration of the Astrorivelatore Gamma a Immagini Leggero (AGILE) satellite was modified in order to disable the veto signal of the anticoincidence shield for the minicalorimeter instrument. The motivation for such a change was the understanding that the dead time induced by the anticoincidence prevented the detection of a large fraction of Terrestrial Gamma-Ray Flashes (TGFs). The configuration change was highly successful resulting in an increase of one order of magnitude in TGF detection rate. As expected, the largest fraction of the new events has short duration (<100 μs), and part of them has simultaneous association with lightning sfer…

Active Degassing of Deeply Sourced Fluids in Central Europe: New Evidences From a Geochemical Study in Serbia

2021

We report on the results of an extensive geochemical survey of fluids released in the Vardar zone (central-western Serbia), a mega-suture zone at the boundary between Eurasia and Africa plates. Thirty-one bubbling gas samples are investigated for their chemical and isotopic compositions (He, C, Ar) and cluster into three distinct groups (CO2-dominated, N2-dominated, and CH4-dominated) based on the dominant gas species. The measured He isotope ratios range from 0.08 to 1.19 Ra (where Ra is the atmospheric ratio), and reveal for the first time the presence of a minor (&lt;20%) but detectable regional mantle-derived component in Serbia. δ13C values range from −20.2‰ to −0.1‰ (versus PDB), with…