75 research outputs found
Model of Performance Indicators in Nuclear Energy Emergency Plan Assessment applied to Emergency Exercises
AbstractThis paper presents a model of performance indicators applied to nuclear emergency exercises for the assessment of a nuclear energy plan. The model was designed from the relationship between the actions forecasted in a nuclear emergency plan and the objectives challenged in emergency exercises. The nuclear emergency plan comprises a protocol that addresses structures, actions and procedures aimed at controlling and minimizing the effects of a nuclear emergency. The emergency plan is the last level of defense in depth used to ensure nuclear safety. Thus, the emergency plan must be efficient in preparing and organizing current means in order to ensure and assure an adequate protection of the population in the case of accidents in nuclear power plants. The model of performance indicators developed is based on the functional dependence observed in several different nuclear emergency plans, which facilitates the analysis of the state of preparedness of nuclear emergency response organizations. The model allows comparing different stages of preparedness of a nuclear emergency plan as well as nuclear emergency plans for different facilities
Cosmic acceleration from second order gauge gravity
We construct a phenomenological theory of gravitation based on a second order
gauge formulation for the Lorentz group. The model presents a long-range
modification for the gravitational field leading to a cosmological model
provided with an accelerated expansion at recent times. We estimate the model
parameters using observational data and verify that our estimative for the age
of the Universe is of the same magnitude than the one predicted by the standard
model. The transition from the decelerated expansion regime to the accelerated
one occurs recently (at ).Comment: RevTex4 15 pages, 1 figure. Accepted for publication in Astrophysics
& Space Scienc
On the influence of a Coulomb-like potential induced by the Lorentz symmetry breaking effects on the Harmonic Oscillator
In this work, we obtain bound states for a nonrelativistic spin-half neutral
particle under the influence of a Coulomb-like potential induced by the Lorentz
symmetry breaking effects. We present a new possible scenario of studying the
Lorentz symmetry breaking effects on a nonrelativistic quantum system defined
by a fixed space-like vector field parallel to the radial direction interacting
with a uniform magnetic field along the z-axis. Furthermore, we also discuss
the influence of a Coulomb-like potential induced by Lorentz symmetry violation
effects on the two-dimensional harmonic oscillator.Comment: 14 pages, no figure, this work has been accepted for publication in
The European Physical Journal Plu
Layer-by-layer technique to developing functional nanolaminate films with antifungal activity
The layer-by-layer (LbL) deposition method was used to build up alternating layers (five) of different polyelectrolyte solutions (alginate, zein-carvacrol nanocapsules, chitosan and chitosan-carvacrol emulsions) on an aminolysed/charged polyethylene terephthalate (A/C PET) film. These nanolaminated films were characterised by contact angle measurements and through the determination of water vapour (WVTR) and oxygen (O2TR) transmission rates. The effect of active nanolaminated films against the Alternaria sp. and Rhizopus stolonifer was also evaluated. This procedure allowed developing optically transparent nanolaminated films with tuneable water vapour and gas properties and antifungal activity. The water and oxygen transmission rate values for the multilayer films were lower than those previously reported for the neat alginate or chitosan films. The presence of carvacrol and zein nanocapsules significantly decreased the water transmission rate (up to 40 %) of the nanolaminated films. However, the O2TR behaved differently and was only improved (up to 45 %) when carvacrol was encapsulated, i.e. nanolaminated films prepared by alternating alginate with nanocapsules of zein-carvacrol layers showed better oxygen barrier properties than those prepared as an emulsion of chitosan and carvacrol. These films containing zein-carvacrol nanocapsules also showed the highest antifungal activity (30 %), which did not significantly differ from those obtained with the highest amount of carvacrol, probably due to the controlled release of the active agent (carvacrol) from the zein-carvacrol nanocapsules. Thus, this work shows that nanolaminated films prepared with alternating layers of alginate and zein-carvacrol nanocapsules can be considered to improve the shelf-life of foodstuffs.The authors acknowledge financial support from
FP7 IP project BECOBIOCAP^. M. J. Fabra is recipients of a Juan de la
Cierva contract from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and
Competitivity. Maria L. Flores-López thanks Mexican Science and Technology
Council (CONACyT, Mexico) for PhD fellowship support
(CONACyT Grant Number 215499/310847). The author Miguel A.
Cerqueira is a recipient of a fellowship (SFRH/BPD/72753/2010) supported
by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, POPH-QREN and FSE
(FCT, Portugal). The authors also thank the FCT Strategic Project of UID/
BIO/04469/2013 unit, the project RECI/BBB-EBI/0179/2012 (FCOMP-
01-0124-FEDER-027462) and the project BBioInd - Biotechnology and
Bioengineering for improved Industrial and Agro-Food processes,^ REF.
NORTE-07-0124-FEDER-000028 Co-funded by the Programa
Operacional Regional do Norte (ON.2–O Novo Norte), QREN, FEDER.
The support of EU Cost Action FA0904 is gratefully acknowledged
Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research
Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear un derstanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4
While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge
of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5–7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8–11 In
the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world’s most diverse rainforest and the primary source of
Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepre sented in biodiversity databases.13–15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may elim inate pieces of the Amazon’s biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological com munities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus
crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced
environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple or ganism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian
Amazonia, while identifying the region’s vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most ne glected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by
2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status,
much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lostinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
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