“Culture Shock”: An Ethnographic Account of a Small Business in the Face of Change

This ethnography follows a small business in Indianapolis that was founded on a small business philosophy that embodied family-oriented, close-knit employee relationships. Aside from the small firm finding success in its established company culture, this small business found great financial success within a niche market. However, as part of new expansion plans, management began imposing a more traditional, hierarchical management styles. While this shift is predicted by contemporary management theory, the human effects and cultural costs of this process are worthy of study. This ethnography follows employees’ perceptions and reactions to the change in business philosophy and analyzes the instability that arises in the workplace as managers prepare for the next phase of expansion

Homogeneous cosmologies

Εθνικό Μετσόβιο Πολυτεχνείο--Μεταπτυχιακή Εργασία. Διεπιστημονικό-Διατμηματικό Πρόγραμμα Μεταπτυχιακών Σπουδών (Δ.Π.Μ.Σ.) “Φυσική και Τεχνολογικές Εφαρμογές

Workplace personal exposure to respirable PM fraction: a study in sixteen indoor environments

AbstractThe present paper focuses on respirable particulate matter (RPM) measurements conducted at the breathing zone of adult volunteers in sixteen different working environments: two offices, a house, a chemical laboratory, a non–smoking shop, a pharmacy store, a car garage, a hairdresser's store, a photocopy store, a taxi, a gym, a mall, a restaurant, a bar, a kiosk and a school. The sixteen different cases were categorized according to the location, the type of the activities taking place indoors, the number of occupants, the proximity to heavy traffic roads, the ventilation pattern etc. According to the results, the maximum particle concentration (in average 285μg m−3) was recorded at the hairdresser store while the minimum concentration was measured in the cases of the housewife and the employee in the non–smoking shop (in average 30μg m−3). The results indicated smoking as a factor which strongly influences the exposure levels of both smokers and passive smokers. Furthermore, it was found that the building ventilation pattern comprises an important factor influencing the exposure levels especially in cases of buildings with great number of visitors (resuspension) and smoking

Development of standardized method for the determination of the degradation of nitric oxide (NO) in the air by photocatalytic materials: Inter-laboratory validation tests

International audienceThe need of a uniform experimental procedure for assessing the performance of photocatalytic inorganic materials contained in building materials led the European Committee for Standardization (CEN/TC386/WG2) to elaborate a Technical Specification (TS).Taking into consideration the importance of the effects which will be of possible variations in the implementation of the reference method, parallel photocatalytic tests according to the TS were performed in the current study. 6 European labs were participated in an inter-laboratory exercise where the experiments had to be done in a special design CEN reactor using LED system. The experimental procedure and conditions were taken from the draft TS and were referred to the average irradiance, inlet NO & NO 2 concentration, T o C and RH inside the reactor, flow and reactor net volume. Identical photocatalytic samples were provided to all participants. The results obtained from the 6 labs showed a variation between 18% and 31% on the photocatalytic NO conversion while the mean value was 26%. The corresponding photocatalytic rate was ranged between 2600 μg/m 2 h and 4100 μg/m 2 h presenting a mean value of 3400 μg/m 2 h. The homogeneity of the lamp and the homogeneity of the deposition of TiO 2 are the main factors impacting the results

Laser-Induced Silver Nanoparticles on Titanium Oxide for Photocatalytic Degradation of Methylene Blue

Silver nanoparticles doped on titanium oxide (TiO2) were produced by laser-liquid interaction of silver nitrate (AgNO3) in isopropanol. Characteristics of Ag/TiO2 (Ag doped TiO2) nanoparticles produced by the methods presented in this article were investigated by XRD, TEM, SEM, EDX, and UV-Vis. From the UV-Vis measurements, the absorption of visible light of the Ag/TiO2 photocatalysts was improved (additional absorption at longer wavelength in visible light region) obviously. The photocatalytic efficiency of Ag/TiO2 was tested by the degradation of methylene blue (MB) in aqueous solution. A maximum of 82.3% MB degradation is achieved by 2.0 wt% Ag/TiO2 photocatalyst under 2 h illumination with a halogen lamp

NPAHs and OPAHs in the atmosphere of two central European cities: Seasonality, urban-to-background gradients, cancer risks and gas-to-particle partitioning

Derivatives of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) such as nitrated- and oxygenated-PAHs (NPAHs and OPAHs) could be even more toxic and harmful for the environment and humans than PAHs. We assessed the spatial and seasonal variations of NPAHs and OPAHs atmospheric levels, their cancer risks and their gas-to-particle partitioning. To this end, about 250 samples of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and 50 gaseous samples were collected in 2017 in central Europe in the cities of Brno and Ljubljana (two traffic and two urban background sites) as well as one rural site. The average particulate concentrations were ranging from below limit of quantification to 593 pg m-3 for Σ9NPAHs and from 1.64 to 4330 pg m-3 for Σ11OPAHs, with significantly higher concentrations in winter compared to summer. In winter, the particulate levels of NPAHs and OPAHs were higher at the traffic site compared to the urban background site in Brno while the opposite was found in Ljubljana. NPAHs and OPAHs particulate levels were influenced by the meteorological parameters and co-varied with several air pollutants. The significance of secondary formation on the occurrence of some NPAHs and OPAHs is indicated. In winter, 27-47% of samples collected at all sites were above the acceptable lifetime carcinogenic risk. The gas-particle partitioning of NPAHs and OPAHs was influenced by their physico-chemical properties, the season and the site-specific aerosol composition. Three NPAHs and five OPAHs had higher particulate mass fractions at the traffic site, suggesting they could be primarily emitted as particles from vehicle traffic and subsequently partitioning to the gas phase along air transport. This study underlines the importance of inclusion of the gas phase in addition to the particulate phase when assessing the atmospheric fate of polycyclic aromatic compounds and also when assessing the related health risk.This project was supported by the European Union's H2020 Framework Programme (ICARUS project) under grant agreement No – 690105, by the Czech Science Foundation (#P503 20-07117S) and by the RECETOX (LM2018121) and ACTRIS-CZ (LM2018122) research infrastructures funded by the Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic and the European Structural and Investment Funds (CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_013/0001761 and CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_013/0001315). Funding of the Slovenian Agency of research through a programme P1-0143 is acknowledged. H2020 ERA-PLANET (No. 689443) iGOSP project is also acknowledged.S

Harmonization and Visualization of Data from a Transnational Multi-Sensor Personal Exposure Campaign

Use of a multi-sensor approach can provide citizens with holistic insights into the air quality of their immediate surroundings and their personal exposure to urban stressors. Our work, as part of the ICARUS H2020 project, which included over 600 participants from seven European cities, discusses the data fusion and harmonization of a diverse set of multi-sensor data streams to provide a comprehensive and understandable report for participants. Harmonizing the data streams identified issues with the sensor devices and protocols, such as non-uniform timestamps, data gaps, difficult data retrieval from commercial devices, and coarse activity data logging. Our process of data fusion and harmonization allowed us to automate visualizations and reports, and consequently provide each participant with a detailed individualized report. Results showed that a key solution was to streamline the code and speed up the process, which necessitated certain compromises in visualizing the data. A thought-out process of data fusion and harmonization of a diverse set of multi-sensor data streams considerably improved the quality and quantity of distilled data that a research participant received. Though automation considerably accelerated the production of the reports, manual and structured double checks are strongly recommended