The use of modern highly precise ultrasonic gas flowmeters and etalon stands to enlarge industrial resource efficiency

In this article we have described our new development that is the ultrasonic flowmeter with high dynamic range of 1 to 2000 for industrial applications. Its high accuracy of measurement can help gas consuming enterprises to save resources. Its software and the software of corresponding computing device is able to avoid gas leakage, to minimize energy consumption and to save human resources while maintaining metrological dat

Cultural ecosystem services and the well-being of refugee communities

The growing field of research into cultural ecosystem services (CES) explores nonmaterial benefits that people receive from ecosystems. These studies have, however, largely overlooked refugee communities. To reduce this gap, we systematically review academic literature on refugee interactions with ecosystems to understand what cultural ecosystem services refugees may experience, and how these services affect their well-being. The results identify a broad range of CES that refugees experience, even though studies do not use CES terminology. Benefits include social relations, mental health, cultural heritage, education, recreation, identity, sense of place, aesthetic, spirituality, perspective, and existence value. Results also show that the majority of studies of refugee—ecosystem interactions occur in agricultural ecosystems. Findings suggest that interactions with ecosystems may ease the resettlement process and overall well-being, including mental health, in many ways. These findings enrich understanding of CES experienced by people of diverse (and in this case traumatic) backgrounds and provide practical implications for those who work in the field of refugee resettlement

Polycapillary based μXRF station for 3D colour tomography

The “Rainbow X-Ray” (RXR) experimental station at XLab Frascati of the Frascati’s National Laboratories (LNF) INFN is a dedicated station for X-ray fluorescence studies based on the use of polycapillary lenses in a confocal geometry. The flexible RXR layout allows investigating specimens of the dimensions ranging from several millimeters up to half meter and weighting up to several tens of kilograms. Compared to similar existing XRF stations, apart of the possibility for investigating large samples, the main advantage of this equipment is the detection system with two spectrometers optimized to work separately at high and at low X-ray energie

Improving educational process quality in the lessons of natural and mathematical cycle by means of stem-training

Today, the educational process is focused on the development of personal characteristics that meet the requirements of a modern educated person. In this regard, the task of educational institutions is to adopt the educational process to today’s realities. To achieve this goal, STEM education is implemente

The development of solar-powered gas metering units equipped with radio or 3g based telemetry systems

In this article we have described the development of solar-powered gas metering units including modern ultrasonic and vortex flowmeters for volume and mass measurement of natural gas, associated petroleum gases, inert gases, oxygen, hydrogen, air, nitrogen, carbon dioxide and any other single and multicomponent gases that are not aggressive to the flowmeter material

Atypical reactive center Kunitz-type inhibitor from the sea anemone <i>Heteractis crispa</i>

The primary structure of a new Kunitz-type protease inhibitor InhVJ from the sea anemone Heteractis crispa (Radianthus macrodactylus) was determined by protein sequencing and cDNA cloning. InhVJ amino acid sequence was shown to share high sequence identity (up to 98%) with the other known Kunitz-type sea anemones sequences. It was determined that the P1 Thr at the reactive site resulted in a decrease of the Ki of InhVJ to trypsin and a-chymotrypsin (7.38 × 10-8 M and 9.93 × 10-7 M, respectively). By structure modeling the functional importance of amino acids at the reactive site as well as at the weak contact site were determined. The significant role of Glu45 for the orientation and stabilization of the InhVJ-trypsin complex was elucidated. We can suggest that there has been an adaptive evolution of the P1 residue at the inhibitor reactive site providing specialization or functional diversification of the paralogs. The appearance of a key so-called P1 Thr residue instead of Lys might lead to refinement of inhibitor specificity in the direction of subfamilies of serine proteases. The absence of Kv channel and TRPV1-receptor modulation activity was confirmed by electrophysiological screening tests

Design of a Polarised Positron Source Based on Laser Compton Scattering

We describe a scheme for producing polarised positrons at the ILC from polarised X-rays created by Compton scattering of a few-GeV electron beam off a CO2 or YAG laser. This scheme is very energy effective using high finesse laser cavities in conjunction with an electron storage ring.Comment: Proposal submitted to the ILC workshop, Snowmass 2005. v2: note number adde

The woods around the ivory tower: A systematic review examining the value and relevance of school forests in the United States

Throughout the United States, many institutions of higher education own forested tracts, often called school forests, which they use for teaching, research, and demonstration purposes. These school forests provide a range of benefits to the communities in which they are located. However, because administration is often decoupled from research and teaching, those benefits might not always be evident to the individuals who make decisions about the management and use of school forests, which may undervalue their services and put these areas at risk for sale, development, or over-harvesting to generate revenue. To understand what messages are being conveyed about the value and relevance of school forests, we conducted a systematic literature review and qualitatively coded the resulting literature content using an ecosystem services framework. While school forests provide many important benefits to academic and local communities, we found that most of the existing literature omits discussions about cultural ecosystem services that people may receive from school forests. We discuss the implications of this omission and make recommendations for addressing it

Efficiency of application of water-gas mixtures used to increase oil recovery and rearrange fluid flow

Current development state of the several fields in Perm region shows low oil recovery coefficient and decrease in possible flooding that could maintain residual oil production at economically reliable level. Water-gas mixtures are used in order to increase development efficiency and oil recovery. Taking into account layered heterogeneous structure of reservoirs and its little thicknesses water-gas mixture could be effectively applied to create significant flow changing barriers. That could increase flooding and, as a result, oil recovery in different geological and technological conditions of siliciclastic and carbonate reservoirs development in Perm region. One of the gas methods of reservoir stimulation is injection of water-gas mixture that contain undispersed or dispersed gas phase. Application of such mixtures increases gas saturation in washed reservoir zones, reduces its phase permeability and rearrange the flow of displacing agents both in thickness and in size. Paper reveals application of water-gas mixture that contain undispersed or dispersed gas phase in order to finish oil displacement from siliciclastic and carbonate plug reservoir models made from two layers. Each of the two-layer models was made from two parallel plug models that model interlayer with low and high permeability. The results of carried study prove the efficiency of water-gas mixtures application for increase of oil recovery from carbonate and siliciclastic reservoirs as well as in flow rearrangement in layered heterogeneous reservoirs. The use of water-gas mixture that contain undispersed or dispersed gas phase leads to increase of displacement coefficient both in low-permeable and high-permeable models. Wherein, use of water-gas mixture with dispersed gas phase leads to higher displacement coefficient and more significant flow rearrangement. Comparison of the results of water-gas mixture application in siliciclastic and carbonate models showed that dispersed water-gas mixture is efficient while injection into both siliciclastic and carbonate reservoirs, application of undispersed water-gas mixture is more efficient in carbonate reservoir