Effects of Orientations, Aspect Ratios, Pavement Materials and Vegetation Elements on Thermal Stress inside Typical Urban Canyons

The analysis of local climate conditions to test artificial urban boundaries and related climate hazards through modelling tools should become a common practice to inform public authorities about the benefits of planning alternatives. Different finishing materials and sheltering objects within urban canyons (UCs) can be tested, predicted and compared through quantitative and qualitative understanding of the relationships between the microclimatic environment and subjective thermal assessment. This process can work as support planning instrument in the early design phases as has been done in this study that aims to analyze the thermal stress within typical UCs of Bilbao (Spain) in summertime through the evaluation of Physiologically Equivalent Temperature using ENVI-met. The UCs are characterized by different orientations, height-to-width aspect ratios, pavement materials, trees’ dimensions and planting pattern. Firstly, the current situation was analyzed; secondly, the effects of asphalt and red brick stones as streets’ pavement materials were compared; thirdly, the benefits of vegetation elements were tested. The analysis demonstrated that orientation and aspect ratio strongly affect the magnitude and duration of the thermal peaks at pedestrian level; while the vegetation elements improve the thermal comfort up to two thermophysiological assessment classes. The outcomes of this study, were transferred and visualized into green planning recommendations for new and consolidated urban areas in Bilbao.The work leading to these results has received funding from COST Action TU0902, the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme under Grant Agreement No. 308497, Project RAMSES—Reconciling Adaptation, Mitigation and Sustainable Development for Cities (2012–2017) and Diputación Foral de Bizkaia Exp. 6-12-TK-2010-0027, Project SICURB-ITS- Desarrollo de Sistemas para el análisis de la Contaminación atmosférica en zonas URBanas integrados en ITS (2010–2011)

Patrón temporal de movimientos del mero Epinephelus morio en la plataforma continental norte de la Península de Yucatán, México

Los movimientos estacionales del mero Epinephelus morio en la plataforma continental de Yucatán, son un elemento muy sensible en el manejo de la pesquería de este recurso que actualmente se encuentra sobreexplotado. En este trabajo se estima el patrón de movimientos de la población utilizando un modelo dinámico espacial. Se estimaron tasas de flujo de individuos entre áreas adyacentes considerando explícitamente la estructura de la población (juveniles, preadultos y adultos). El modelo fue aplicado utilizando información de captura por unidad de esfuerzo y distribuciones de frecuencias de longitud de la flota mediana mexicana que operó en la zona durante 1973, correspondiente a la época de las más altas capturas históricas. Se consideró capturabilidad variable con la talla, tiempo y zona así como mortalidad natural variable con la edad. Los resultados muestran patrones temporales de movimientos diferenciados por sector de población. Movimientos asociados a concentraciones de adultos fueron encontrados entre invierno y primavera en el centro y oriente de la plataforma continental, en profundidades de 35 a 60 m, mientras que el movimiento de los preadultos y juveniles fue en sentido contrario dirigiéndose hacia zonas más someras. En primavera-verano la población se desplaza hacia la zona occidental de la plataforma continental. Se detectó una mayor dinámica en adultos que en juveniles, sin embargo, se encontraron movimientos importantes de juveniles hacia el norte de la plataforma continental y frente a las zonas de Dzilam de Bravo-Río Lagartos. Los resultados muestran la importancia de esta información en la orientación de medidas de manejo como la exploración de áreas marinas protegidas o zonas de exclusión a la pesca que permitan la recuperación de la población

Bioremediation and biovalorisation of olive-mill wastes

Olive-mill wastes are produced by the industry of olive oil production, which is a very important economic activity, particularly for Spain, Italy and Greece, leading to a large environmental problem of current concern in the Mediterranean basin. There is as yet no accepted treatment method for all the wastes generated during olive oil production, mainly due to technical and economical limitations but also the scattered nature of olive mills across the Mediterranean basin. The production of virgin olive oil is expanding worldwide, which will lead to even larger amounts of olive-mill waste, unless new treatment and valorisation technologies are devised. These are encouraged by the trend of current environmental policies, which favour protocols that include valorisation of the waste. This makes biological treatments of particular interest. Thus, research into different biodegradation options for olive-mill wastes and the development of new bioremediation technologies and/or strategies, as well as the valorisation of microbial biotechnology, are all currently needed. This review, whilst presenting a general overview, focus critically on the most significant recent advances in the various types of biological treatments, the bioremediation technology most commonly applied and the valorisation options, which together will form the pillar for future developments within this fiel

Numerical model of the inhomogeneous scattering by the human lens

We present in this work a numerical model for characterizing the scattering properties of the human lens. After analyzing the scattering properties of two main scattering particles actually described in the literature through FEM (finite element method) simulations, we have modified a Monte Carlo''s bulk scattering algorithm for computing ray scattering in non-sequential ray tracing. We have implemented this ray scattering algorithm in a layered model of the human lens in order to calculate the scattering properties of the whole lens. We have tested our algorithm by simulating the classic experiment carried out by Van der Berg et al for measuring "in vitro" the angular distribution of forward scattered light by the human lens. The results show the ability of our model to simulate accurately the scattering properties of the human lens. (C) 2019 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreemen

Effective Corporate Taxation, Tax Incidence and Tax Reforms: Evidence from OECD Countries

The present study provides estimates of the Effective Marginal Tax Rates (EMTRs) for a sample of 17 OECD countries and 11 manufacturing sectors in a single framework encompassing capital, labour and energy taxes. Our cross-country/cross-sector approach allows us comparing the incentives provided by the tax systems and gauging the effects of tax changes taking explicitly into account the possible substitution between factors as well as their tax incidence. Our results suggest that the OECD tax systems provide different incentives for manufacturing activity across countries and that tax systems are relatively neutral with respect to the sectoral composition of manufacturing activities. The impact of potential tax increases on firms´ activity is found to be most attenuated when shifted towards consumers and/or employees rather than energy consumption and/or capital investors. These results are robust to alternative hypotheses regarding the tax incidence parameters, elasticity of substitution between factors and mark-up on final prices. In addition, policy strategies favouring tax increases on energy consumption and lowering taxes on labour can substantially reduce the EMTRs and thus yield substantial efficiency gains for firms. These reforms should in some instances be ambitious enough to produce desired effects on firms' EMTRs, however

Voltage dip generator for testing wind turbines connected to electrical networks

This paper describes a new voltage dip generator that allows the shape of the time profile of the voltage generated to be configured. The use of this device as a tool to test the fault ride-through capability of wind turbines connected to the electricity grid can provide some remarkable benefits: First, this system offers the possibility of adapting the main features of the time–voltage profile generated (dip depth, dip duration, the ramp slope during the recovery process after clearing fault, etc.) to the specific requirements set forth by the grid operation codes, in accordance with different network electrical systems standards. Second, another remarkable ability of this system is to provide sinusoidal voltage and current wave forms during the overall testing process without the presence of harmonic components. This is made possible by the absence of electronic converters. Finally, the paper includes results and a discussion on the experimental data obtained with the use of a reduced size laboratory prototype that was constructed to validate the operating features of this new device

Measurement driven quantum evolution

We study the problem of mapping an unknown mixed quantum state onto a known pure state without the use of unitary transformations. This is achieved with the help of sequential measurements of two non-commuting observables only. We show that the overall success probability is maximized in the case of measuring two observables whose eigenstates define mutually unbiased bases. We find that for this optimal case the success probability quickly converges to unity as the number of measurement processes increases and that it is almost independent of the initial state. In particular, we show that to guarantee a success probability close to one the number of consecutive measurements must be larger than the dimension of the Hilbert space. We connect these results to quantum copying, quantum deleting and entanglement generation.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figur