Search results for "Reliability and Quality"
showing 10 items of 386 documents
Alternated estimation in semi-parametric space-time branching-type point processes with application to seismic catalogs
2014
An estimation approach for the semi-param-etric intensity function of a class of space-time point processes is introduced. In particular we want to account for the estimation of parametric and nonparametric components simultaneously, applying a forward predictive likelihood to semi-parametric models. For each event, the probability of being a background event or an offspring is therefore estimated.
Measurement of pollution levels of N-nitroso compounds of health concern in water using ultra-performance liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrome…
2017
International audience; This paper reports the development of a highly sensitive analytical method combining solid-phase extraction (SPE) with ultra-high performance liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC–MS/MS), for the monitoring of ultra-trace levels of N-nitrosamines in water samples. Under optimized analytical conditions, chromatographic separation was performed in 3 min, in isocratic mode, using an Acquity UHPLC C18 column and a mobile phase consisting of acetonitrile, water, and formic acid (60:40:0.1, v/v/v) at a flow rate of 0.4 mL min−1. Electrospray ionization tandem interface was employed prior to mass spectrometric detection. Good linearity (R2 ≥ 0.9…
Fuzzy environmental analogy index to develop environmental similarity maps for designing air quality monitoring networks on a large-scale
2019
All activities aimed at studying the primary causes and effects of air pollution cannot disregard the fact that it is necessary to have an optimal air quality monitoring network for assessing population exposure to air pollution and predicting the magnitude of the health risks. In the framework of a cooperation between the ARPA Sicilia Organization and the Department of Engineering, University of Palermo, research was performed to develop an innovative methodology useful for defining environmental similarity maps aimed at supporting the design of air quality monitoring networks at the regional scale. This approach is based on a new index called the fuzzy environmental analogy index (FEAI) b…
Spatial pattern analysis using hybrid models: an application to the Hellenic seismicity
2016
Earthquakes are one of the most destructive natural disasters and the spatial distribution of their epi- centres generally shows diverse interaction structures at different spatial scales. In this paper, we use a multi-scale point pattern model to describe the main seismicity in the Hellenic area over the last 10 years. We analyze the interaction between events and the relationship with geo- logical information of the study area, using hybrid models as proposed by Baddeley et al. ( 2013 ). In our analysis, we find two competing suitable hybrid models, one with a full parametric structure and the other one based on nonpara- metric kernel estimators for the spatial inhomogeneity.
Sequential biological and photocatalysis based treatments for shipboard slop purification: A pilot plant investigation
2019
This study investigated the treatment of a shipboard slop containing commercial gasoline in a pilot plant scale consisting of a membrane biological reactor (MBR) and photocatalytic reactor (PCR) acting in series. The MBR contributed for approximately 70% to the overall slop purification. More precisely, the biological process was able to remove approximately 40%, on average, of the organic pollution in the slop. Nevertheless, the membrane was capable to retain a large amount of organic molecules within the system, amounting for a further 30% of the influent total organic content removal. However, this affected the membrane fouling, thus resulting in the increase of the pore blocking mechani…
Heavy Gas Dispersion Modelling Over a Topographically Complex Mesoscale
2005
Potentially dangerous events involving heavy gas dispersion and their severe consequences have been largely publicized by the media. Simplified models have been widely applied to describe the effects of these accidents. However, most simplified models deal with flat terrain scenarios and are based on quite crude simplifications of the complex phenomenology involved. In this paper the possibility of simulating the dispersion of heavy gas clouds over a large topographically complex area (tens of km) by a general purpose computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code is investigated. The aim is that of setting up a tool able to produce a realistic description of such dispersion processes, whose resul…
Alfalfa crops amended with MSW compost can compensate the effect of salty water irrigation depending on the soil texture
2018
The availability of water resources of marginal quality such as drainage water or high-saltcontaining groundwater is turning into an important issue in Tunisia and other countrieswith scarce water resources. A pot experiment was carried out to evaluate plant produc-tion, nutrient content and heavy metal bioaccumulation in agricultural soils amended withMSW compost and irrigated with salty water, by using two different soil textures (clay andsandy). Salt water supply decreased plant dry yield in both soils. Salt stress had signifi-cantly reduction in plant biomass in sandy soil compared to those in clay soil (biomass ofdry weight is significantly higher in clay soil than those in sandy soil …
Blind recovery of sources for multivariate space-time random fields
2022
AbstractWith advances in modern worlds technology, huge datasets that show dependencies in space as well as in time occur frequently in practice. As an example, several monitoring stations at different geographical locations track hourly concentration measurements of a number of air pollutants for several years. Such a dataset contains thousands of multivariate observations, thus, proper statistical analysis needs to account for dependencies in space and time between and among the different monitored variables. To simplify the consequent multivariate spatio-temporal statistical analysis it might be of interest to detect linear transformations of the original observations that result in stra…
Some properties of local weighted second-order statistics for spatio-temporal point processes
2019
Diagnostics of goodness-of-fit in the theory of point processes are often considered through the transformation of data into residuals as a result of a thinning or a rescaling procedure. We alternatively consider here second-order statistics coming from weighted measures. Motivated by Adelfio and Schoenberg (Ann Inst Stat Math 61(4):929–948, 2009) for the temporal and spatial cases, we consider an extension to the spatio-temporal context in addition to focussing on local characteristics. In particular, our proposed method assesses goodness-of-fit of spatio-temporal models by using local weighted second-order statistics, computed after weighting the contribution of each observed point by the…
QUALITY ATTRIBUTES, PECTOLYTIC ENZYME ACTIVITIES AND PHYSIOLOGICAL CHANGES DURING POSTHARVEST RIPENING OF NECTARINE
1996
The postharvest ripening at 20C and 90-95% RHfor 10 days of 'Armking' nectarine grown in a greenhouse was investigated over two seasons. Firmness, titratable acidity, ascorbic acid, pH and maturity index were all adequate to stablish the rate ofripening. However, soluble solids content and reducing and non-reducing sugars showed no significant changes. It took about 10 days for very early ripening fruit (100 g weight and 82 N firmness) and 6 days for normal early ripening fruits (115 g weight and 46 N firmness), both harvested at preclimacteric stage, to become eating ripe (near 20 N). Total weight loss and decay after 10 days was approximately 11%. During ripening there was a temporal coin…