6,611 research outputs found
Ecosocioeconomics applied to urban freight by bicycle and motorcycle in the city of Curitiba, Brazil
The aim of this work is to compare the logistics of urban light weight delivery by motorcycle and bicycle. To this purpose, a case study in the city of Curitiba, Brazil, was chosen. City planning demands alternative solutions to everyday problems, among which use of urban space and mobility are relevant due to fast and rather chaotic growing. Urban mobility −a complex network comprising a variety of actors and areas; has social, economic and environmental impacts that might be underestimated in planning and implementation of actions. So far, and for the case studied here, urban planning for light weight delivery has not included externalities, but rather focused on technical issues on logistics and urban traffic. For instance, the rates of dead and disability from accidents on this mobility are currently very high. In the present research, two light weight deliveries actually used in Curitiba were compared: motorbikes and bicycles. The analysis is based on the methodology of the eco-socio-economy of organizations. This approach considers the complexity of subsystems linked, and the effectiveness beyond the organization but on the social demands in the urban territory. The use of bicycles was studied using data from EcoBike, analyzed here and compared to the generic case of deliveries by motorbikes. Indicators for accidents (with and without death), fossil energy used, CO2 emissions, and operative costs were obtained and compared. The indicators assessed favour the use of bicycles over motorbikes.Fil: García, M.. Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Paraná; BrasilFil: Sampaio, C. A. C.. Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Paraná; BrasilFil: Gonzalez, Alejandro Daniel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Patagonia Norte. Instituto de Investigación en Biodiversidad y Medioambiente; Argentina. Universidad Nacional del Comahue; Argentin
Beryllium abundances in stars hosting giant planets
We have derived beryllium abundances in a wide sample of stars hosting
planets, with spectral types in the range F7V-K0V, aimed at studying in detail
the effects of the presence of planets on the structure and evolution of the
associated stars. Predictions from current models are compared with the derived
abundances and suggestions are provided to explain the observed
inconsistencies. We show that while still not clear, the results suggest that
theoretical models may have to be revised for stars with Teff<5500K. On the
other hand, a comparison between planet host and non-planet host stars shows no
clear difference between both populations. Although preliminary, this result
favors a ``primordial'' origin for the metallicity ``excess'' observed for the
planetary host stars. Under this assumption, i.e. that there would be no
differences between stars with and without giant planets, the light element
depletion pattern of our sample of stars may also be used to further
investigate and constraint Li and Be depletion mechanisms.Comment: A&A in press -- accepted on the 22/02/2002 (11 pages, 6 figures
included
Conceptual design of the ITER fast-ion loss detector
et al.A conceptual design of a reciprocating fast-ion loss detector for ITER has been developed and is presented here. Fast-ion orbit simulations in a 3D magnetic equilibrium and up-to-date first wall have been carried out to revise the measurement requirements for the lost alpha monitor in ITER. In agreement with recent observations, the simulations presented here suggest that a pitch-angle resolution of ∼5° might be necessary to identify the loss mechanisms. Synthetic measurements including realistic lost alpha-particle as well as neutron and gamma fluxes predict scintillator signal-to-noise levels measurable with standard light acquisition systems with the detector aperture at ∼11 cm outside of the diagnostic first wall. At measurement position, heat load on detector head is comparable to that in present devices.This research was supported in part by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (Grant Nos. RYC2011-09152, FIS2015-69362-P, and ENE2012- 31087) and the Marie Curie FP7 Integration Grant (No. PCIG11-GA2012-321455).Peer Reviewe
Are beryllium abundances anomalous in stars with giant planets?
In this paper we present beryllium (Be) abundances in a large sample of 41
extra-solar planet host stars, and for 29 stars without any known
planetary-mass companion, spanning a large range of effective temperatures. The
Be abundances were derived through spectral synthesis done in standard Local
Thermodynamic Equilibrium, using spectra obtained with various instruments. The
results seem to confirm that overall, planet-host stars have ``normal'' Be
abundances, although a small, but not significant, difference might be present.
This result is discussed, and we show that this difference is probably not due
to any stellar ``pollution'' events. In other words, our results support the
idea that the high-metal content of planet-host stars has, overall, a
``primordial'' origin. However, we also find a small subset of planet-host
late-F and early-G dwarfs that might have higher than average Be abundances.
The reason for the offset is not clear, and might be related either to the
engulfment of planetary material, to galactic chemical evolution effects, or to
stellar-mass differences for stars of similar temperature.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy &
Astrophysic
Spatial distribution of small hydrocarbons in the neighborhood of the Ultra Compact HII region Monoceros R2
We study the chemistry of small hydrocarbons in the photon-dominated regions
(PDRs) associated with the ultra-compact HII region Mon R2. Our goal is to
determine the variations of the abundance of small hydrocarbons in a high-UV
irradiated PDR and investigate their chemistry. We present an observational
study of CH, CCH and c-CH in Mon R2 combining data obtained with the
IRAM 30m telescope and Herschel. We determine the column densities of these
species, and compare their spatial distributions with that of polycyclic
aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH). We compare the observational results with different
chemical models to explore the relative importance of gas-phase, grain-surface
and time-dependent chemistry in these environments. The emission of the small
hydrocarbons show different patterns. The CCH emission is extended while CH and
c-CH are concentrated towards the more illuminated layers of the PDR.
The ratio of the column densities of c-CH and CCH shows spatial
variations up to a factor of a few, increasing from
_3_2 in the envelope to a maximum of
towards the 8m emission peak. Comparing these results
with other galactic PDRs, we find that the abundance of CCH is quite constant
over a wide range of G, whereas the abundance of c-CH is higher in
low-UV PDRs. In Mon R2, the gas-phase steady-state chemistry can account
relatively well for the abundances of CH and CCH in the most exposed layers of
the PDR, but falls short by a factor of 10 to reproduce c-CH.
In the molecular envelope, time-dependent effects and grain surface chemistry
play a dominant role in determining the hydrocarbons abundances. Our study
shows that CCH and c-CH present a complex chemistry in which UV
photons, grain-surface chemistry and time dependent effects contribute to
determine their abundances.Comment: 18 pages, 11 figures, 7 tables. Proposed for acceptance in A&A.
Abstract abridge
Anemia profile in critical septic patients hospitalized in the ICU
This article is part of the supplement: 31st International Symposium on Intensive Care and Emergency MedicineThe aim was to describe the anemia profile of medical or surgical patients with severe sepsis or septic shock in the ICU, assessing severity scale, length of stay and mortality. The prevalence of microcytic anemia is more than one-half of our septic patients. There are iron metabolism disorders without significant differences between medical and surgical patients. Transferrin, a protein related to malnutrition, inflammatory response and organ dysfunction, is significantly lower in the most severe patients with higher organ dysfunction scores.Ye
Determination of the atmospheric neutrino fluxes from experimental data
The precise knowledge of the atmospheric neutrino fluxes is a key ingredient
in the interpretation of the results from any atmospheric neutrino experiment.
In the standard atmospheric neutrino data analysis, these fluxes are
theoretical inputs obtained from sophisticated numerical calculations. In this
contribution we present an alternative approach to the determination of the
atmospheric neutrino fluxes based on the direct extraction from the
experimental data on neutrino event rates.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figs, to appear in the proceedings of the Multi-Messenger
Approach to High-Energy Gamma-Ray Sources Conference, Barcelona July 200
Identifying Unconventional E Models at Colliders
Recently it was shown that, in the framework of superstring inspired \E
models, the presence of generation dependent discrete symmetries allows us to
construct a phenomenologically viable class of models in which the three
generations of fermions do not have the same embedding within the fundamental
{\bf 27} dimensional representation of E. In this scenario, these different
embeddings of the conventional fermions imply that the left-handed charged
leptons and the right-handed -type quarks are coupled in a non--universal
way to the new neutral gauge bosons present in these models. It
was also shown that a unique signature for this scenario, would be a deviation
from unity for the ratio of cross sections for the production of two different
lepton species in annihilation. However, several different scenarios
are possible, depending on the particular assignment chosen for ,
and and for the right-handed -type quarks, as well as on the type
of boson. Such scenarios can not be disentangled from one another by
means of cross section measurements alone. In this paper we examine the
possibility of identifying the pattern of embeddings through measurements of
polarized and unpolarized asymmetries for fermion pair-production at the 500
GeV Next Linear Collider (NLC). We show that it will be possible to
identify the different patterns of unconventional assignments for the
left-handed leptons and for the quark, for masses as large as
TeV.Comment: Plain Tex, 15 pages, + 9 figure available upon request
([email protected] or [email protected]), UM-TH 93--1
Detection of a putative TetR-like gene related to Mycobacterium bovis BCG growth in cholesterol using a gfp-transposon mutagenesis system
In vitro transposition is a powerful genetic tool for identifying mycobacterial virulence genes and studying virulence factors in relation to the host. Transposon shuttle mutagenesis is a method for constructing stable insertions in the genome of different microorganisms including mycobacteria. Using an IS1096 derivative, we have constructed the Tngfp, a transposon containing a promoterless green fluorescent protein (gfp) gene. This transposon was able to transpose randomly in Mycobacterium bovis BCG. Bacteria with a single copy of the gfp gene per chromosome from an M. bovis BCG::Tngfp library were analyzed and cells exhibiting high levels of fluorescence were detected by flow cytometry. Application of this approach allowed for the selection of a mutant, BCG_2177c::Tngfp (BCG-Tn), on the basis of high level of long-standing fluorescence at stationary phase. This BCG-Tn mutant showed some particular phenotypic features compared to the wild type strain, mainly during stationary phase, when cholesterol was used as a sole carbon source, thus supporting the relationships of the targeted gene with the regulation of cholesterol metabolism in this bacteria. This approach showed that Tngfp is a potentially useful tool for studying the involvement of the targeted loci in metabolic pathways of mycobacteria
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