1,759 research outputs found
First Security Bank of Utah v. Chas. E. Bryan : Reply Brief
Appeal from an order of Summary judgment of the 5th. District Court of Iron County. The Honorable Dean Condors, Presiding
An Economic Analysis of the Environmental Impact of PM2.5 Exposure on Health Status in Three Northwestern Mexican Cities
Introduction: This study provides an economic assessment of the health effects due to exposure to particulate matter PM2.5 in three medium-size cities of northwestern Mexico: Los Mochis, Culiacan and Mazatlán. People in these cities are exposed to high pollutant concentrations that exceed limits suggested in domestic and international guidelines. PM2.5 is an air contaminant negatively associated with people’s health when is highly concentrated in the atmosphere; its diameter is below 2.5 µm and causes the air to appear hazy when levels are elevated. To account for the economic impact of air pollution, a Health Impact Assessment (HIA) was used by the means of the European Aphekom Project. We figured the cost-savings of complying with current environmental standards and computed gains in life expectancy, total avoidable premature mortality, preventable cardiovascular disease, and the economic costs of air pollution related to PM2.5. A formal analysis of air pollution epidemiology is not pursued in this paper. Results: The cost of reducing PM2.5 pollution associated with negative health outcomes was based on two different scenarios: Official Mexican Standard (NOM, Spanish acronym) and World Health Organization (WHO) environmental standards. The mean PM2.5 concentrations in 2017 were 22.8, 22.4 and 14.1 µg/m3 for Los Mochis, Mazatlán and Culiacan, respectively. Conclusions: The mean avoidable mortality for all causes associated to PM2.5 exposure in these cities was 638 for the NOM scenario (i.e., with a reduction to 12 µg/m3) compared to 739 for the WHO scenario (reduction to 10 µg/m3). Complying with the WHO guideline of 10 µg/m3 in annual PM2.5 mean would add up to 15 months of life expectancy at age 30, depending on the city. The mean economic cost per year of the PM2.5 effects on human life in these three cities was USD 600 million (NOM scenario) and USD 695 million (WHO scenario). Thus, effective public health and industrial policy interventions to improve air quality are socially advantageous and cost-saving to promote better health.S
Topside Pipeline Design for Slug Attenuation and Increased Oil Production
In oil and gas production system, slugging is frequently
encountered when gas-liquid mixtures are transported through
a common pipeline-riser system. This phenomenon usually
manifests in significant fluctuation of flow and pressure which
can impact the production system negatively. Topside choking
is usually employed as a mitigation technique but with its
attendant reduction in production capacity. The objective of
this study therefore is to investigate the optimisation of
topside pipeline diameter and choking for effective slug
attenuation and optimised oil production.
In this paper, a new method for slug flow attenuation has been
proposed. The potential of using effective topside pipeline-
diameter design for slug flow attenuation was theoretically
shown. Numerical studies were also done to show that the
concept can indeed be adapted for effective slug attenuation
using an industrial software. Experimental studies were
conducted
in
a 4” pipeline
-riser system to validate the
numerical and theoretical studies.
The results showed that the optimised design of topside pipe
diameter has potential for slug flow attenuation at larger valve
opening which effectively translates to lower pressure and
increased oil production. For the case studied, up to
49%
reduction in the pressure drop across the topside choke valve
was reported which practically implied increased flow
capacity. An optimum volume which satisfied size, system
stability and production constraints was obtained
Index to NASA Tech Briefs, 1975
This index contains abstracts and four indexes--subject, personal author, originating Center, and Tech Brief number--for 1975 Tech Briefs
Constraining the Models' Response of Tropical Clouds to SST Forcings Using CALIPSO Observations
Here we present preliminary results from the analysis of the low cloud cover (LCC) and cloud radiative effect (CRE) interannual changes in response to sea surface temperature (SST) forcings in two GISS climate models, and 12 other climate models. We further classify them as a function of their ability to reproduce the vertical structure of the cloud response to SST change against 10 years of CALIPSO observations: the constrained models, which match the observation constraint, and the unconstrained models. The constrained models replicate the observed interannual LCC change particularly well (LCC(sub con)=-3.49 1.01 %/K vs. LCC(sub obs)=-3.59 0.28 %/K) as opposed to the unconstrained models, which largely underestimate it (LCC(sub unc) = -1.32 1.28 %/K). As a result, the amount of short-wave warming simulated by the constrained models (CRE(sub con)=2.60 1.13 W/m2/K) is in better agreement with the observations (CRE(sub obs)=3.05 0.28 W/m2/K) than the unconstrained models (CRE(sub con)=0.87 2.63 W/m2/K). Depending on the type of low cloud, the observed relationship between cloud/radiation and surface temperature varies. Over the stratocumulus regions, increasing SSTs generate higher cloud top height along with a large decrease of the cloud fraction below as opposed to a slight decrease of the cloud fraction at each level over the trade cumulus regions. Our results suggest that the models must generate sustainable stratocumulus decks and moist processes in the planetary boundary layer to reproduce these observed features. Future work will focus on defining a method to objectively discriminate these cloud types that can be applied consistently in both the observations and the models
The long-term motion of artificial planetary satellites
Long term orbit evolution problem for perturbed artificial satellites of Mercury, Venus, Mars and Eart
Polymorphisms of TP53 codon 72 with breast carcinoma risk: evidence from 12226 cases and 10782 controls
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Previously, TP53 codon 72 polymorphisms have been implicated as risk factors for various cancers. A number of studies have conducted on the association of TP53 codon 72 polymorphisms with susceptibility to breast carcinoma and have yielded inconclusive results. The aim of the present study was to derive a more precise estimation of the relationship.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We conducted a search in the Medline, EMBASE, OVID, Sciencedirect, and Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) without a language limitation, covering all papers published up to Jan 2009. The associated literature was acquired through deliberate searching and selected based on the established inclusion criteria for publications.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A total of seventeen case-control studies, including 12226 cases and 10782 controls, met the included criteria and thus were selected. Ultimately, the relevant data were extracted and further analyzed using systematic meta-analyses. Overall, no associations of TP53 codon 72 polymorphisms with breast carcinoma were observed (for Arg/Arg vs Pro/Pro: OR = 1.20; 95%CI = 0.96–1.50; for dominant model: OR = 1.12; 95%CI = 0.96–1.32; for recessive model: OR = 1.13; 95%CI = 0.98–1.31). In the subgroup analysis by ethnicity, statistically similar results were obtained when the data were stratified as Asians, Caucasians and Africans.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Collectively, the results of the present study suggest that <it>TP53 codon 72 </it>polymorphisms might not be a low-penetrant risk factor for developing breast carcinoma.</p
Coherence scale of the Kondo lattice
It is shown that the large-N approach yields two energy scales for the Kondo
lattice model. The single-impurity Kondo temperature, , signals the onset
of local singlet formation, while Fermi liquid coherence sets in only below a
lower scale, . At low conduction electron density
("exhaustion" limit), the ratio is much smaller than unity, and
is shown to depend only on and not on the Kondo coupling. The physical
meaning of these two scales is demonstrated by computing several quantities as
a function of and temperature.Comment: 4 pages, 4 eps figures. Minor changes. To appear in Phys. Rev. Let
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