Search results for "Modelling"
showing 10 items of 1353 documents
A more cost-effective geomatic approach to modelling PM10 dispersion across Europe
2014
International audience; PM10 concentrations in most major European cities exceed the limits set by the European Directive and are expected to continue to do so in the coming years. Moreover, PM10s can be transported over long distances impacting air quality, public health and ecosystem functionality far from their sources of emission. Modelling remains one of the only options for tracking PM10 deposition in remote areas with no monitoring stations. Even so, air pollution models based on atmospheric physics usually imply substantial economic, logistical and computational investment. In this work, we present a new geomatic approach to modelling mean annual PM10 concentrations across Europe. O…
Emission standards versus immission standards for assessing the impact of urban drainage on ephemeral receiving water bodies
2010
In the past, emission standard indicators have been adopted by environmental regulation authorities in order to preserve the quality of a receiving water body. Such indicators are based on the frequency or magnitude of a polluted discharge that may be continuous or intermittent. In order to properly maintain the quality of receiving waters, the Water Framework Directive, following the basic ideas of British Urban Pollution Manual, has been established. The Directive has overtaken the emission-standard concept, substituting it with the stream-standard concept that fixes discharge limits for each polluting substance depending on the self-depurative characteristics of receiving waters. Stream-…
Pollution of Flooded Arable Soils with Heavy Metals and Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs)
2014
Soils that are exposed to floodwaters because of shallow groundwater and periodical wetlands are, to a large extent, exposed to contamination by organic and inorganic compounds. These are mainly compounds that have drifted along with the inflow of heavily laden floodwater and are produced within the soil profile by the anaerobic transformation of organic matter. Heavy metals and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) compounds are absorbed by the soil of the floodwaters, and moving in the soil profile, they pose a threat to groundwater. What is more, after a flood, they may be absorbed by the crops. This paper focuses on the effects of Odra River (Poland) floods, heavy metals, and PAHs on so…
Quantification of diffuse and concentrated pollutant loads at the watershed-scale: an Italian case study
2009
In this study, diffuse and point source pollutant loads were evaluated using an Italian case study: the Nocella catchment, which has been subject to extensive monitoring. The Nocella catchment is located in Sicily (Italy) and has an area of about 60 km2. The river receives wastewater and stormwater from two urban areas drained by combined sewers. The two sewer systems, two wastewater treatment plants and a river reach were monitored during both dry and wet weather periods. Thereafter, an integrated catchment-scale model was applied to simulate point pollutant sources, i.e., pollution coming from the urban drainage system, and nonpoint pollutant sources, i.e., pollution coming from agricultu…
Three Hours Ahead Prevision of SO2 Pollutant Concentration Using an Elman Neural based Forecaster
2008
Abstract Indoor air quality near the industrial site is tightly joined to pollutant concentration level, since outdoor pollution heavily influences air quality and, consequently, inhabitants health. A pollution management system is essential for health protection. Automatic air quality management systems have became an important research issue with strong implications for inhabitants’ health. In this paper an automatic forecaster based on neural networks for SO 2 concentration prevision is proposed. The analyzed area covers different small towns near the industrial site of Priolo, in the south of the world. Among these towns, Melilli was the first town in Italy that was evacuated for high l…
The nucleosome-remodeling ATPase ISWI is regulated by poly-ADP-ribosylation.
2008
ATP-dependent nucleosome-remodeling enzymes and covalent modifiers of chromatin set the functional state of chromatin. However, how these enzymatic activities are coordinated in the nucleus is largely unknown. We found that the evolutionary conserved nucleosome-remodeling ATPase ISWI and the poly-ADP-ribose polymerase PARP genetically interact. We present evidence showing that ISWI is target of poly-ADP-ribosylation. Poly-ADP-ribosylation counteracts ISWI function in vitro and in vivo. Our work suggests that ISWI is a physiological target of PARP and that poly-ADP-ribosylation can be a new, important post-translational modification regulating the activity of ATP-dependent nucleosome remodel…
Brittle failure in polycrystalline RVEs by a grain-scale cohesive boundary element formulation
2013
Polycrystalline materials are commonly employed in engineering structures. For modern applica- tions a deep understanding of materials degradation is of crucial relevance. It is nowadays widely recognized that the macroscopic material properties depend on the microstructure. The polycrystalline microstructure is characterized by the features of the grains and by the phys- ical and chemical properties of the intergranular interfaces, that have a direct influence on the evolution of the microstructural damage. The experimental investigation of failure mechanisms in 3D polycrystals still remains a challenging task. A viable alternative, or complement, to the experiments is Computational Microm…
A multiscale approach to polycrystalline materials damage and failure
2015
A two-scale three-dimensional approach for degradation and failure in polycrystalline materials is presented. The method involves the component level and the grain scale. The damageinduced softening at the macroscale is modelled employing an initial stress boundary element approach. The microscopic degradation is explicitly modelled associating Representative Volume Elements (RVEs) to relevant points of the macro continuum and employing a cohesive-frictional 3D grain-boundary formulation to simulate intergranular degradation and failure in the Voronoi morphology. Macro-strains are downscaled as RVEs' periodic boundary conditions, while overall macro-stresses are obtained upscaling the micro…
A cohesive boundary element approach to material degradation in three-dimensional polycrystalline aggregates
2013
A new three-dimensional grain-level formulation for intergranular degradation and failure in polycrystalline materials is presented. The polycrystalline microstructure is represented as a Voronoi tessellation and the boundary element method is used to express the elastic problem for each crystal of the aggregate. The continuity of the aggregate is enforced through suitable conditions at the intergranular interfaces. The grain-boundary model takes into account the onset and evolution of damage by means of an irreversible linear cohesive law, able to address mixed-mode failure conditions. Upon interface failure, a non-linear frictional contact analysis is introduced for addressing the contact…
A three-dimensional boundary element model for the analysis of polycrystalline materials at the microscale
2012
A three-dimensional multi-domain anisotropic boundary element formulation is presented for the analysis of polycrystalline microstructures. The formulation is naturally expressed in terms of intergranular displacements and tractions that play an important role in polycrystalline micromechanics, micro-damage and micro-cracking. The artificial morphology is generated by Hardcore Voronoi tessellation, which embodies the main statistical features of polycrystalline microstructures. Each crystal is modeled as an anisotropic elastic region and the integrity of the aggregate is restored by enforcing interface continuity and equilibrium between contiguous grains. The developed technique has been ap…