Search results for "Trend."
showing 10 items of 394 documents
Effect of climate change on asphalt binder selection for road construction in Italy
2015
This work explores the influence of climate changes on the proper selection of asphalt binder for pavement construction purposes, according to the Performance Grade (PG) defined in the SUPERPAVE specifications. Based on temperature data at national level, it is possible to obtain thematic maps for the whole Italian territory, which is extremely useful for technicians and pavement engineers for selection of asphalt binder for road construction purposes. Furthermore, the statistical significant temperature trends’ knowledge enables deriving thematic maps which allows to include the effects of climate change in the asphalt binder design. It is argued that, due to climate change, the binders to…
Uncertainty related to climate change in the assessment of the DDF curve parameters
2017
In the context of climate change, the evaluation of the parameters of Depth-Duration-Frequency (DDF) curves has become a critical issue. Neglecting future rainfall variations could result in an overestimation/underestimation of DDF parameters and, consequently, of the design storm. In this study, uncertainty analysis was integrated into trend analysis to provide an estimate of trends that cannot actually be rigorously verified. A Bayesian procedure was suggested for the updating of DDF curve parameters and to evaluate the uncertainty related to their assessment. The proposed procedure also allowed identification of the years of a series that contributed most to the overall uncertainty relat…
Burden of injury along the development spectrum: associations between the Socio-demographic Index and disability-adjusted life year estimates from th…
2020
Incluye: Correction: Burden of injury along the development spectrum: associations between the Socio-demographic Index and disability-adjusted life year estimates from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017. Inj Prev. 2020 Oct;26(Supp 1):i164. doi: 10.1136/injuryprev-2019-043296corr1. Epub 2020 Sep 28. PMID: 32989004 Background: The epidemiological transition of non-communicable diseases replacing infectious diseases as the main contributors to disease burden has been well documented in global health literature. Less focus, however, has been given to the relationship between sociodemographic changes and injury. The aim of this study was to examine the association between disability-adjuste…
Innovations in medical care and mortality trends from four circulatory diseases between 1970 and 2005
2013
Background: Governments have identified innovation in pharmaceuticals and medical technology as a priority for health policy. Although the contribution of medical care to health has been studied extensively in clinical settings, much less is known about its contribution to population health. We examine how innovations in the management of four circulatory disorders have influenced trends in cause-specific mortality at the population level. Methods: Based on literature reviews, we selected six medical innovations with proven effectiveness against hypertension, ischaemic heart disease, heart failure and cerebrovascular disease. We combined data on the timing of these innovations and cause-spe…
New insights into the reading of Paleozoic plant fossil record discontinuities
2011
Studying the discontinuity patterns of Paleozoic vascular plants provides a global vision of these key events from the multivariate methods viewpoint. Non-metric multidimensional scaling, detrended correspondence analysis and cluster analysis have been employed together with a set of diversity and abundance measures and an evaluation of the geologic constraints from the plant fossil record data. The results reveal four clear significant discontinuities in terms of taxonomic composition and record representativeness during the early-middle Devonian, Devonian–Carboniferous, Mississippian–Pennsylvanian and early-late Permian. Due to the controversial character of the plant fossil record data a…
Persistence of temperature and precipitation: from local to global anomalies
2021
Using detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA) we find that all continents are persistent in temperature. The scaling exponents of the southern hemisphere (SH) continents, i.e., South America (0.77) and Oceania (0.72) are somewhat higher than scaling exponents of Europe (0.70), Asia (0.69) and North America (0.64), but the scaling of Africa is by far the highest (0.86). The reason for this is the location of Africa near the equator. The scaling exponents of the precipitation are much smaller, i.e. between 0.55 (Europe) and 0.68 (North America). The scaling exponent of Europe is near that of the random noise (0.5), while the other continents are slightly persistent in precipitation. We also show…
IL FALCO PELLEGRINO (Falco peregrinus) IN SICILIA
2021
having doubled in number during the period 1978-2006, the population of the Peregrine Falcon Falco peregrinus living in Sicily currently seems to be stable, and has very probably reached the carrying capacity at the current ecological conditions of the insular ecosystems. A continuous standardized census (2010-2019) estimated at least 257 pairs scattered across the main island, plus some 13-15 pairs living on the small islands around Sicily. The population is not randomly distributed, but rather it is concentrated in all the suitable habitats of the island, nesting in either small crags or large cliffs from sea level to 1,424 m asl; it is rarer in the north-eastern corner (Peloritani, Nebro…
Nano- and microplastic analysis: Focus on their occurrence in freshwater ecosystems and remediation technologies
2019
Plastic pollution is a global problem since 2016 when its production reached 322 million tonnes, excluding fibers. Daily discharges of microplastics (MPs, defined as <5 mm in size) are estimated in the range of 50,000 up to 15 million particles, whereas no information on nanoplastic (NP, <100 nm) release is available yet. Different processes further degraded these materials producing more MPs and NPs. This review attempts to fill the void of information on the state-of-art analysis of MPs and NPs (recently identified as emerging contaminants) and provides a critical overview on modern instrumentation, newly developed workflows, and promising techniques for their characterization (Raman and …
Reconfigurations in sustainability transitions : a systematic and critical review
2021
Two streams of literature have become especially prominent in understanding social change toward sustainability within the past decades: the research on socio-technical transitions and applications of social practice theory. The aim of this article is to contribute to efforts to create dialogue between these two approaches. We do this by focusing on the concept of reconfiguration, which has become a much-used, but poorly defined notion in the discussion on sustainability transitions. To understand what is defined as reconfiguration in systems and practices, and how the understanding of reconfiguration in regimes could benefit from insights about reconfiguration in practices, we conducted a …
Property loss potentials for European midlatitude storms in a changing climate
2007
[1] Winter storms of the midlatitudes are an important factor for property losses caused by natural hazards over Europe. The storm series in early 1990 and late 1999 led to enormous economic damages and insured claims. Although significant trends in North Atlantic/European storm activity have not been identified for the last few decades, recent studies provide evidence that under anthropogenic climate change the number of extreme storms could increase, whereas the total number of cyclones may be slightly reduced. In this study, loss potentials derived from an ensemble of climate models using a simple storm damage model under climate change conditions are shown. For the United Kingdom and Ge…