Experimental Comparison of Flat Plate and Evacuated Tube SolarThermal Collectors for Domestic Hot Water Preparation in Education Facilities

One key component of the energy demand in the built environment is the thermal energy required for domestic hot water preparation. Currently, fossil fuels are mostly used to meet the thermal energy demand in the built environment, lately, solar thermal systems have been increasingly implemented, mainly for domestic hot water preparation, enhancing the building’s sustainability. A case study is presented in the paper for a solar thermal system with six flat plate ‒ and three evacuated tube solar thermal collectors installed on the rooftop of the Renewable Energy Systems and Recycling Research Centre, in the Colina Campus of the Transilvania University of Brasov, Romania. In 2017, this system provided 17,412 kWh of thermal energy to prepare domestic hot water for a Solar House and for the Sports Hall locker rooms. Evacuated tube solar thermal collectors showed better specific thermal output than flat plate ones

National legislative systems and foreign standards and regulations: The case of International Financial Reporting Standards adoption

This study is focused on the linkages between the legislative families as descriptors of national legislative systems and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRSs) issued by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB). We consider such analysis as a case study for the more general issue of explaining the preferences of national regulators in the adoption of foreign norms, rules, standards and practices. By using a dataset of 162 jurisdictions and dummy variables designed to capture the current stage of IFRSs adoption and, respectively, the taxonomy of their legislative systems, we find that a full IFRSs adoption is more likely to occur in countries which have principles-based on legislative mono-systems. In addition, we observe that a strong rule of law, with an effective mechanism of property rights reinforcement, as well as the pre-adoption existence of a pro-growth set of public policies can contribute to the encouragement of IFRSs adoption.IFRSs adoption• Legislative families

A Case Study of Natural Frequency of the Tram Rail Due to Vibration Using Wavelets

Many vibration signals of tram rails due to tram movement are non-stationary and have highly complex time-frequency characteristics. The vibration signal of a rotating wheel involves condition monitoring and fault diagnosis. Many signal analysis methods are able to extract useful information from vibration data. In this paper, we were able to correlate non-linear independent signal acquired using acceleromets at different spots across the city and extract tram rail vibration noise and model the effect of signal noise to identify the frequency characteristics of the rail by characterizing the spectral content of the noise signal using parametric distribution and then by applying non parametric filters to characterize the signal power spectral density using Wavelet Transform (WT) and Parseval’s theorem. The fault can be detected from a given level of resolution. For this purpose, Parseval’s theorem is used as an evaluation criterion to select the optimal level. Associated to envelope analysis, it allows clear visualization of fault frequencies. on the inner rail of the railway line. The time-frequency contour map can easily show the power distribution of signal in time and frequency domain. Moreover, it is a good way to identify the rail track faults involving a breakdown change. The simulative results show that time-frequency contour map have the capabilities to identify the difference of those faults of vibration monitoring. In conclusion, the faults along the rail track can be classified by time-frequency contour map for frequency decomposition. We hereby decompose the high frequency detail of the signal without decomposition after wavelet transform, so as to improve the frequency resolution

EC-SERS detection of thiabendazole in apple juice using activated screen-printed electrodes

Thiabendazole (TBZ), a benzimidazole fungicide used for post-harvest treatment, may be a trace contaminant of food matrices. In this work, we report the first EC-SERS (electrochemical-surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy) detection of TBZ in spiked apple juice using electrochemically (EC) roughened, gold-based screen-printed electrodes (AuSPEs) and portable instrumentation. Polarizing the substrate (−0.8 V vs Ag/AgCl) improves the recorded SERS signal of TBZ, allowing to reach a limit of detection (LOD) in juice of 0.061 ppm with a relatively wide linear range (0.5–10 μM) and good intermediate precision (%RSD < 10). The recovery of TBZ from unprocessed juice was found to be more than 82 %. Furthermore, a proof-of-concept integration of AuSPEs with a miniaturized flow cell for the preconcentration of TBZ and the controlled delivery of sample and reagents has been demonstrated. This approach paves the way for integrated, portable analytical systems applicable for on-site sample collection, processing, and analysis.publishedVersio

National legislative systems and foreign standards and regulations: The case of International Financial Reporting Standards adoption

This study is focused on the linkages between the legislative families as descriptors of national legislative systems and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRSs) issued by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB). We consider such analysis as a case study for the more general issue of explaining the preferences of national regulators in the adoption of foreign norms, rules, standards and practices. By using a dataset of 162 jurisdictions and dummy variables designed to capture the current stage of IFRSs adoption and, respectively, the taxonomy of their legislative systems, we find that a full IFRSs adoption is more likely to occur in countries which have principles-based on legislative mono-systems. In addition, we observe that a strong rule of law, with an effective mechanism of property rights reinforcement, as well as the pre-adoption existence of a pro-growth set of public policies can contribute to the encouragement of IFRSs adoption