Digitization and Preservation of City Landmarks Using Limited and Free Web Services

This paper presents a practical approach for digitizing city landmarks based on free and limited Web resources. The digital replicas are then placed on the Web using popular services, like Google earth, and are accessible to a huge user base. The method is easily applicable and quite valuable to organizations with limited funding

Heat-related mortality in Cyprus for current and future climate scenarios

Extreme temperatures have long been associated with adverse health impacts, ranging from minor illness, to increased hospitalizations and mortality. Heat-related mortality during summer months is likely to become an increasing public health problem in future due to the effects of climate change. We performed a health impact assessment for heat-related mortality for the warm months of April–September for the years 2004 to 2009 inclusive, for the city of Nicosia and for Cyprus as a whole, based on separately derived exposure-response functions. We further estimated the potential future heat-related mortality by including climate projections for southern Europe, which suggest changes in temperature of between 1 °C and 5 °C over the next century. There were 32 heat-related deaths per year in Cyprus over the study period. When adding the projected increase in temperature due to climate change, there was a substantial increase in mortality: for a 1 °C increase in temperature, heat related mortality in Cyprus was estimated to double to 64 per year, and for a 5 °C increase, heat-related mortality was expected to be 8 times the baseline rate for the warm season (281 compared with 32). This analysis highlights the importance of preparing for potential health impacts due to heat in Cyprus, particularly under a changing climate.</p

An animation tool for exploring transactions in a de

The concept of a digital ecosystem (DE) has been used to explore scenarios in which multiple online services and resources can be accessed by users without there being a single point of control. In previous work we have described how the so-called transaction languages can express concurrent and distributed interactions between online services in a transactional environment. In this paper we outline how transaction languages capture the history of a long-running transaction and highlight the benefits of our true-concurrent approach in the context of DEs. This includes support for the recovery of a long-running transaction whenever some failure is encountered. We introduce an animation tool that has been developed to explore the behaviours of long-running transactions within our modelling environment. Further, we discuss how this work supports the declarative approach to the development of open distributed applications. © 2012 IEEE

Health impact assessment for mortality associated with high temperatures in Cyprus

Climate change is associated with extreme temperatures that can have severe effects on public health, in the form of heat-related mortality. In the present paper we perform a health impact assessment for mortality associated with extreme weather in Cyprus, during the months of April-September for the 6-year period between 2004-2009. Additionally, we estimate the potential health effects of higher summer temperatures, in line with climate change projections. The health impact assessment indicates a significant number of heat-related deaths, as well as a rapid increase in mortality for given temperature rise. Specifically, for an increase of 1°C over the baseline temperatures, heat-related mortality doubles, while for a 5 °C increase, mortality is almost 800% the baseline. It is estimated that these results can provide the necessary basis for linking accurate forecasts of extreme events with effective public health measures and interventions.</p

Educational Robotics Competitions and Involved Methodological Aspects

The present article provides perspectives on educational robotics competitions based on teaching experiences with university students as well as the organization of “Robotex Cyprus”, a widely-attended annual event. The focus is on the involved methodological aspects both from an educational and a technological/engineering viewpoint. Common approaches and good practices relevant to robot design and programming are reviewed, while selected popular competition challenges are revisited to exemplify the concepts