Tuning the Thermoelectric Performance of Complex Oxides through Multiscale Microstructure Engineering

The need for energy nowadays is causing a heated debate in our society. One way to increase the energy sustainability is to harvest waste energy from current processes. For example, industrial processes, home heating and automotive exhaust, all generate copious amounts of heat that is usually wasted. In the diesel powered automobiles, up to 65% of the chemical fuel is lost as waste heat that is mostly rejected through the cooling radiator and exhaust systems with the temperature normally exceeding 600 °C. Thermoelectric materials have the ability of converting wasted heat and temperature difference into electricity. Thermoelectric materials need to possess high energy conversion efficiency (Figure of merit (ZT)) to be viable for thermoelectric devices. Current available high performance thermoelectric materials are mostly heavy metal based materials and they are not suitable for operating at high temperatures due to oxidation, decomposition, vaporization, and harmful environmental impact.;This thesis is focused on the investigation of the oxide thermoelectric materials of Ca3Co4O9 for harvesting the waste heat, such as those from the diesel powered vehicles, at high temperatures in the air. Layered Calcium Cobalt Oxide Ca3Co4O 9 is a promising thermoelectric material for TE devices with a reported energy conversion efficiency ZT=0.83 at 700 °C for single crystal. This performance of single crystal Ca3Co4O9 is outstanding, but, producing single crystals is expensive, and not realistic for practical large scale applications. A more practical production process from the economic perspective, is the development of polycrystalline Ca 3Co4O9. Current Ca3Co4O 9 polycrystalline ceramics have low performance, achieving ZT of ∼0.10-0.20. This thesis details the multiscale microstructure engineering performed on polycrystal Ca3Co4O9 to improve its thermoelectric performance. The first part describes the approach of cation stoichiometric substitution of Ca or Co to increase the phonon scattering and improve the thermoelectric properties. The second part reports the effect of minute amount of Cation non-stoichiometric addition on the microstructure of the polycrystal Ca3Co4O9 samples and their electrical and thermal transport properties. The final part reports a novel approach to introduce metallic nano-inclusions to Ca3Co4O9 to improve the electrical conductivity of polycrystal Ca3Co4O 9

Parasitological Survey On Birds At Some Selected Brazilian Zoos

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)A parasitological survey was conducted at some zoos in the states of Sao Paulo and Parana, Brazil, from 2009 to 2011. Several groups of birds were surveyed for fecal samples, but the most important was Psittacidae. Among the parasites, Eimeria (coccidian) and Capillaria, Ascaridia and Heterakis (nematodes) were observed in almost one third of the samples. Presence of a rich parasite fauna associated with captive birds seems to be an effect of captivity, since data on free-ranging birds indicate few or virtually no parasites at all. The discovery of new coccidian species during this survey reveals the need of more research on the subject as even well-known bird species have unknown parasites, but caution must be exercised in order to avoid descriptions of pseudoparasites.2418791Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES

Scenarios for resilience and climate adaptation strategies in Tenerife (Canary Islands): Three pathways towards 2040

A participatory scenario building process for small island resilience is carried out for the Tenerife Island (Canary Islands, Spain). The plot of the scenarios is based on institutional analyses and participatory techniques where key local stakeholders and citizens were engaged. A press analysis was done in order to identify the main narratives regarding the current level of resilience and its potentialities in the future, as well as to identify the stakeholders involved in the discourse. Meanwhile, in-depth interviews, questionnaires and focus groups were carried out to engage the stakeholders and local citizens in the exploration of futures scenarios for resilience in Tenerife. The scenarios brought out three potential pathways for 2040. The first scenario prolongs the current business as usual situation where the island may be defined as highly vulnerable to external shocks, especially due to its high external dependency on food and energy production, as well as the need for energy allocated to water desalination. The second scenario relies on an active local community that encourages increasing rates of local food production and a 100% renewable energy system such that desalination may no longer depend on fossil fuels. Lastly, the third scenario depicts a pathway where several active groups of people engages in building resilience without the umbrella of local governments, due to politicians are no longer seen as part of the solution, but part of the problem. Now, collaborative community networks in bioagriculture, fog-water collection, and cooperative-based renewable energy production become increasingly important. Findings show that resilience is understood as the reinforcement of the nexus between water-energy-food sovereignty that might imply a change in the local economic model such that poverty can be reduced and climatic shocks can be buffered.JRC.E.1-Disaster Risk Managemen

Portuguese Version of the Ageing Attitudes Questionnaire (AAQ): Validation of the Psychometric Properties

The Ageing Attitudes Questionnaire—AAQ was validated for the Portuguese population to understand the importance of attitudes towards old age and their impact on the subjective wellbeing of older adults. A sample of 400 subjects (from 18 to 93 years) answered a socio-demographic questionnaire, and the AAQ, composed of three subscales (psychosocial losses, physical change, and psychological growth). The CFA confirmed the tri-factorial structure with very good adjustment of the model to the data, with the Cronbach alpha of the total scale scoring 0.84 and ranging from 0.65 to 0.77 for each factor. A total of nine items were omitted for poor factor loadings (<0.50), namely in factor 1 items 9-17-20, in factor 2 items 7 and 24 and, finally, in factor 3 we omitted items 4-18-19-21. Notwithstanding, three items below the criteria were maintained, as they conceptually fit into the factor. Of the final 15 AAQ items, 5 belong to the Psychosocial Loss Factor, 6 to Physical Change Factor, and 4 to Psychosocial Growth Factor. This tree factor model explained 50.1% of the total variance. In conclusion, this study supports that AAQ has acceptable validity, confirming the composite reliability and the discriminant validity, but not the convergent validity. Through multigroup analysis, the invariance of the scale was confirmed. This validation is of pivotal importance once it allows measuring attitudes towards ageing in the Portuguese population, thus facilitating the prevention of ageism and the promotion of well-being across the lifespan.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Covenant of Mayors: key criteria for adaptation to climate change in local plans

Global warming has been stated to be unequivocal and human influenced. The emissions and atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases have increased to a degree that they are producing disturbances to the world climatic system. Several climate change impacts have occurred, while others will occur or will be intensified in the future. Ocean acidification, sea-level rise and extreme weather events are some of the projected impacts which, in addition, might have negative effects on the environment, society and the economy. These effects need to be addressed in order to reduce vulnerability to climatic hazards by means of climate change adaptation planning. However, adaptation is a rather unknown topic for many cities that have been focusing more on climate change mitigation. The new Covenant of Mayors (CoM), launched in 2015, includes adaptation to climate change as one of the three main pillars of local action towards 2050: mitigation, adaptation and secure affordable and sustainable access to Energy. The covenant signatories share a common vision to 2050 based on: — Decarbonised territories, thus contributing to keeping average global warming well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels, in line with the international climate agreement reached at COP 21 in Paris in December 2015. — More resilient territories, thus preparing for the unavoidable adverse impacts of climate change. — Universal access to secure, sustainable and affordable energy services for all, thus enhancing quality of life and improving energy security. The JRC, as technical and scientific support actor should assure the CoM soundness and provide guidance to support climate change adaptation planning and implementation to signatory cities. The aim of this report is to stablish the rationale behind the essential requirements for successful adaptation in the frame of the CoM, based on literature review and Joint Research Centre’s knowledge on climate change adaptation. The results of this report highlight the need for identification of current and future climatic hazards, an inventory of critical infrastructure, active stakeholder and citizen participation, maladaptation avoidance, and an estimation of adaptation action costs.JRC.E.1-Disaster Risk Managemen

4DGVF-based filtering of vector-valued images

International audienceIn this paper, we propose a new method for vector-valued image restoration in order to reduce noise while simultaneously sharpening vector edges. Our approach is a coupled anisotropic diffusion and shock filtering scheme that exploits a new robust 4DGVF vector field tailored for vector-valued images. The proposed scheme sharpens edges in directions diffused from the entire spatio-spectral information available with a more precise and a more stable sharpening effect along the iterative processing. We validate our method on color images as well as on realistic simulations of dynamic PET images

Hepatitis B Virus Surface Antigen Seroconversion In Hiv-infected Individual After Pegylated Interferon-alpha Treatment: A Case Report.

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infects from 6 to 14% of HIV-infected individuals. Concurrent HIV/HBV infection occurs due to the overlapping routes of transmission, particularly sexual and parenteral. HIV-infected patients that have acute hepatitis B have six times greater risk of developing chronic hepatitis B, with higher viral replication, rapid progression to end-stage liver disease and shorter survival. The coinfection is also associated with poor response to hepatitis B treatment with interferon-alpha and increased liver toxicity to the antiretroviral therapy. Herein, we describe the case of a 35-year-old man who engages in sex with men and presented with newly diagnosed HIV-1, serological markers for acute hepatitis B and progression to chronic hepatitis B infection (HBsAg+ > 6 months, high alanine aminotransferase levels and moderate hepatitis as indicated by liver biopsy). Lacking indication of antiretroviral treatment (CD4 768 cells/mm3), he was treated with pegylated-interferon alpha2b (1.5 mg/kg/week) by subcutaneous injection for 48 weeks. Twelve weeks after treatment, the patient presented HBeAg seroconversion to anti-HBe. At the end of 48 weeks, he presented HBsAg seroconversion to anti-HBs. One year after treatment, the patient maintained sustained virological response (undetectable HBV-DNA). The initiation of antiretroviral therapy with nucleosides and nucleotides is recommended earlier for coinfected individuals. However, this report emphasizes that pegylated interferon remains an important therapeutic strategy to be considered for selected patients, in whom the initiation of HAART may be delayed.193

4DGVF segmentation of vector-valued images

International audienceIn this paper, we extend the gradient vector flow field to the vector-valued case for robust variational segmentation of 4D images with active surfaces. Instead of only exploiting scalar edge strength in order to identify vector edges, we propagate both directions and amplitudes of vector gradients computed from the analysis of a structure tensor of the vector-valued image. To reduce contributions from noise in the calculation of the structure tensor, image channels are weighted according to a blind estimator of contrast that take profit of the deformable models framework. The proposed 4DGVF vector field is validated on synthetic image datasets and applied to biological volume delineation in dynamic PET imaging