Results of measurements of PM10 at a kerbside location in Breda, the Netherlands

De gemeente Breda heeft geconstateerd dat de meetwaarden van fijn stof (PM10) bij de Tilburgseweg te Breda hoog zijn in vergelijking met de andere meetpunten van het Landelijk Meetnet Luchtkwaliteit (LML) van het RIVM. Dit is zichtbaar in de lijst met geconstateerde overschrijdingsdagen zoals die continu wordt bijgehouden op de website van het LML. Op verzoek van de gemeente Breda heeft de provincie Noord-Brabant de fijnstofconcentraties in de periode van augustus tot en met oktober 2006 gemeten. In de periode augustus tot en met oktober 2006 heeft het RIVM eveneens fijnstofreferentiemetingen verricht. Uit de referentiemetingen volgt dat de metingen van het RIVM en de provincie Noord-Brabant met elkaar in overeenstemming zijn. De meetresultaten van de automatische metingen zijn in overeenstemming met de in Europa geldende kwaliteitscriteria. Uit het equivalentieonderzoek dat in 2006 door het LML heeft plaatsgevonden, volgt dat het aantal gerapporteerde overschrijdingsdagen van het meetstation aan de Tilburgseweg te Breda is aangepast.The Breda local authority has ascertained a higher concentration of particulate matter on the kerbside of the Tilburgseweg (a road running through Breda) than concentrations measured at other locations across the country. These measurements were performed by the Dutch National Air Monitoring Network of the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), which observed the highest concentrations at a kerbside location in the city itself. On the request of the Breda local authorities, the provincial authorities measured the particulate matter concentrations (PM10) from September till October 2006. In the same period, RIVM's Laboratory for Environmental Monitoring performed measurements on particulate matter (PM10) using reference techniques from the European guideline. According to the reference measurements, the measurements done by RIVM (with uncertainties taken into consideration) and the province of Noord-Brabant turned out to be in agreement. The routine measurements performed were shown to satisfy the European quality criteria for PM10 measurement. Finally, judging from the 2006 validation and equivalence study, it was obvious that the reported number of days in which concentrations were exceeded at the kerbside location of the Tilburgseweg in Breda had been adjusted.Gemeente Bred

Multiscale non-adiabatic dynamics with radiative decay, case study on the post-ionization fragmentation of rare-gas tetramers

In this supplementary material, we recollect, for reader's convenience, the general scheme of suggested multiscale model (Sec. 1), and basic informations about approaches used for pilot study: a detailed description of the interaction model (Sec. 2) and dynamical methods used for the dark dynamics step (Sec. 3) reported previously in two preceding studies [1, 2]. In addition, a detailed description of the treatment of radiative processes is also given (Sec. 4).Comment: supplementary material for parent paper; 9 pages, 1 figure; corrected formulae and misleading notation in Sec.4 (pages 7 and 8

New Green-Kubo formulas for transport coefficients in hard sphere-, Langevin fluids and the likes

We present generalized Green-Kubo expressions for thermal transport coefficients $\mu$ in non-conservative fluid-type systems, of the generic form, $\mu$ $= \mu_\infty$ +\int^\infty_0 dt V^{-1} \av{I_\epsilon \exp(t {\cal L}) I}_0 where $\exp(t{\cal L})$ is a pseudo-streaming operator. It consists of a sum of an instantaneous transport coefficient $\mu_\infty$, and a time integral over a time correlation function in a state of thermal equilibrium between a current $I$ and its conjugate current $I_\epsilon$. This formula with $\mu_\infty \neq 0$ and $I_\epsilon \neq I$ covers vastly different systems, such as strongly repulsive elastic interactions in hard sphere fluids, weakly interacting Langevin fluids with dissipative and stochastic interactions satisfying detailed balance conditions, and "the likes", defined in the text. For conservative systems the results reduce to the standard formulas.Comment: 7 pages, no figures. Version 2: changes in the text and references adde

Evolution of displacements and strains in sheared amorphous solids

The local deformation of two-dimensional Lennard-Jones glasses under imposed shear strain is studied via computer simulations. Both the mean squared displacement and mean squared strain rise linearly with the length of the strain interval $\Delta \gamma$ over which they are measured. However, the increase in displacement does not represent single-particle diffusion. There are long-range spatial correlations in displacement associated with slip lines with an amplitude of order the particle size. Strong dependence on system size is also observed. The probability distributions of displacement and strain are very different. For small $\Delta \gamma$ the distribution of displacement has a plateau followed by an exponential tail. The distribution becomes Gaussian as $\Delta \gamma$ increases to about .03. The strain distributions consist of sharp central peaks associated with elastic regions, and long exponential tails associated with plastic regions. The latter persist to the largest $\Delta \gamma$ studied.Comment: Submitted to J. Phys. Cond. Mat. special volume for PITP Conference on Mechanical Behavior of Glassy Materials. 16 Pages, 8 figure

Dissipative Particle Dynamics with Energy Conservation

The stochastic differential equations for a model of dissipative particle dynamics with both total energy and total momentum conservation in the particle-particle interactions are presented. The corresponding Fokker-Planck equation for the evolution of the probability distribution for the system is deduced together with the corresponding fluctuation-dissipation theorems ensuring that the ab initio chosen equilibrium probability distribution for the relevant variables is a stationary solution. When energy conservation is included, the system can sustain temperature gradients and heat flow can be modeled.Comment: 7 pages, submitted to Europhys. Let

Ontwikkeling signalering / vangsysteem voor schadelijke wantsen met lokstoffen en lokplanten": Onderzoek aan geurstoffen en lokplanten in laboratorium, veld en kassen

Referaat Behaarde wants, Lygus rugulipennis, en brandnetelwants, Liocoris tripustulatis, staan bekend als plagen in uiteenlopende kasgewassen waaronder paprika, komkommer, aubergine, chrysant. In het laboratorium is bepaald welke geurstoffen mogelijk bruikbaar zouden zijn om deze wantsen te monitoren met behulp van een val in combinatie met een geurstof. Tevens is een lijst van planten opgesteld, die aantrekkelijk zijn voor deze wantsen. Uit een keuzeproef met 16 plantensoorten in een kas bleek dat behaarde wants een voorkeur heeft voor kattenstaartamarant, zonnebloem, aardappel en tuinmelde boven de eerder genoemde gewassen. In een kasproef met 2000 m2 paprika werden zowel behaarde wantsen als brandnetel wantsen losgelaten gedurende 12 weken. Zowel deltavallen, als witte en blauwe signaalplaten werden opgehangen in combinatie met verschillende geurstoffen. Geen van deze combinaties van vallen en geurstoffen resulteerde in grote vangsten van de wantsen. Hoewel duizenden gekweekte wantsen werden losgelaten, trad geen schade op in het gewas.Na het loslaten vlogen wantsen niet naar het glas maar waren uren na het loslaten terug te vinden in de planten bij de loslaatpunten. Na een week waren nog enkele exemplaren op het loslaat punt aanwezig, maar in het gewas waren ze moeilijk te vinden. In de praktijk werden zowel behaarde wantsen als brandnetelwantsen verzameld in gewassen (paprika, aubergine, komkommer, gerbera) waarin schade optrad. Deze wantsen gaven op een jonge paprikaplant in een kooi geen schade. Het blijkt dat het optreden van wantsen en het al dan niet optreden van schade vragen oproept. Uit een vervolgstudie zou moeten blijken onder welke voorwaarden schade optreedt en wanneer niet. Abstract The tarnished plant bug, Lygus ruulipennis, and the coomon nettle capsid, Liocoris tripustulatis, are pests in a variety of crops in greenhouses, including sweet pepper, cucumber, eggplant and chrysantemum. Odours which were possibly attractive to the bugs were established in the laboratory.The aim was to find pheromones, which can be used in combination with a trap for monitoring the bugs.Further a list was composed of plants which are attractive for the bugs.From a choice test with 16 plant species it appeared that the tarnished plant bug us attrackted more to Amaranthus caudatus, Helianthus annuus, Sollanum tuburosum and Atriplex hortensis than to the greenhouse crops. In a greenhouse trial planted with 2000 m2 sweet pepper both tarnished plant bugs and common nettle capsids were introduced during a period of 12 weeks. Delta traps were installed and also white or blue sticky traps in combination with several lures. None of these combinations of traps and lures resulted in large catches of bugs. Although thousands of bugs were released, no symptoms were noticed in the crop. The bugs did not fly to the top of the grennhouse when they were released, but were presemt pn the plants near the releasing point for several hours. After a week some specimens were still present on the releasing point, but they were difficult to find in the crop. In commercial greenhouses both tarnished plant bugs and common nettle bugs were sampled in sweet pepper, egg plant, cucumber and gerbera were symptoms were present. These bugs did not cause any symptoms on a young sweet pepper plant in a cage. It is obvious that the occurrence of bugs and the showing or not-showing of symptoms raises questions. Further studies are necessary in order to reveal the conditions is which symptoms will occur or not

Short-term stimulatory effect of Sertoli cell conditioned medium on Leydig cell steroidogenesis is not mediated by inhibin

Abstract Addition of concentrated rat Sertoli cell conditioned medium (rSCCM) to isolated Leydig cells from immature rats stimulated steroid production more than 13-fold within 4h. LH-stimulated steroidogenesis was not enhanced by addition of rSCCM. The biological activity of the concentrated rSCCM was higher after incubation of Sertoli cells with FSH, whereas FSH alone did not stimulate steroid production. This effect of rSCCM was not due to inhibin, since highly purified 32 kDa rat inhibin, in doses equivalent to those present in rSCCM, had no effect on steroidogenesis during the 4 h incubation period. Furthermore, inhibin could be separated from the Leydig cell stimulating factor by anion-exchange chromatography. These results indicate a short-term paracrine control of Leydig cell steroidogenesis by Sertoli cell derived factors, which differ from inhibin

DSO Road Traffic Data Report & Advice

Met de Omgevingswet komt er één integrale wet om de fysieke leefomgeving te beschermen en effectief te gebruiken. De Omgevingswet beoogt onder andere de besluitvorming te versnellen en te verbeteren. Het gebruik van de Omgevingswet zal worden ondersteund door het Digitaal Stelsel Omgevingswet (DSO). Om de besluitvorming te kunnen versnellen en verbeteren, is het van belang dat alle gegevens over de fysieke leefomgeving zowel eenvoudig beschikbaar als consistent zijn. Gegevens over wegverkeer vormen een belangrijke bron voor de domeinen Lucht en Geluid binnen de fysieke leefomgeving. Het is dan ook essentieel dat via het DSO consistente wegverkeersgegevens beschikbaar komen. Om dit te realiseren heeft het RIVM - vanuit haar verantwoordelijkheid voor de domeinen Lucht en Geluid binnen het DSO - een verkenning uitgevoerd. Het RIVM heeft de verkenning uitgevoerd samen met gebruikers en bronhouders. Deze partijen constateren dat het belangrijk is om de wegverkeersgegevens (zowel over het gebruik als eigenschappen van de weg) beter beschikbaar, toegankelijk en consistent te maken. Dit versterkt bij de inwerkingtreding van de Omgevingswet de juridische houdbaarheid van beslissingen. Ook verbetert het een integrale afweging van beslissingen over de leefomgeving. Alle partijen hebben aangegeven gezamenlijk aan verbetering te willen werken. Op basis van de verkenning heeft het RIVM een advies opgesteld, waarin een voorlopig streefbeeld en de vervolgstappen zijn geformuleerd om consistente, landsdekkende wegverkeersgegevens te realiseren.The Environment and Planning Act [Omgevingswet] brings us one integral environmental law to protect and effectively plan the living environment. Amongst others, the Environmental and Planning Act means to accelerate and improve decision making. This proces will be supported by the Digital System for the Environment and Planning Act (DSO). To accelerate and improve decision making, it is important that all data regarding the living environment are easy accessible as well as consistent. Data on road traffic are an important source for the domains air and noise within the living environment. It is therefore essential that consistent road trafic data are made available via the Digital System for the Environment and Planning Act. To realise this, RIVM, responsible for the domains air and noise in the Digital System for the Environment and Planning Act, made an investigation. In the investigation, RIVM involved both users and source data owners. These parties acknowledge the importance of improving the availibility, accessibility and consistency of road traffic data (both the use of roads as well as the properties of the roads). This enforces the legal tenability of decisions when the Environmental and Planning Act is inforced. Also, it improves a proper weighing up of decisions relating to the living environment. All parties indicated the will to work together on improvement. Based on the investigation, RIVM has drawn up specific recommendations with a temporary envisaged objective and follow-up steps to realize consistent nationwide road traffic data.Ministerie van I&

Transport coefficients of multi-particle collision algorithms with velocity-dependent collision rules

Detailed calculations of the transport coefficients of a recently introduced particle-based model for fluid dynamics with a non-ideal equation of state are presented. Excluded volume interactions are modeled by means of biased stochastic multiparticle collisions which depend on the local velocities and densities. Momentum and energy are exactly conserved locally. A general scheme to derive transport coefficients for such biased, velocity dependent collision rules is developed. Analytic expressions for the self-diffusion coefficient and the shear viscosity are obtained, and very good agreement is found with numerical results at small and large mean free paths. The viscosity turns out to be proportional to the square root of temperature, as in a real gas. In addition, the theoretical framework is applied to a two-component version of the model, and expressions for the viscosity and the difference in diffusion of the two species are given.Comment: 31 pages, 8 figures, accepted by J. Phys. Cond. Matte

Generalized Green-Kubo formulas for fluids with impulsive, dissipative, stochastic and conservative interactions

We present a generalization of the Green-Kubo expressions for thermal transport coefficients $\mu$ in complex fluids of the generic form, $\mu= \mu_\infty +\int^\infty_0 dt V^{-1} _0$, i.e. a sum of an instantaneous transport coefficient $\mu_\infty$, and a time integral over a time correlation function in a state of thermal equilibrium between a current $J$ and a transformed current $J_\epsilon$. The streaming operator $\exp(t{\cal L})$ generates the trajectory of a dynamical variable $J(t) =\exp(t{\cal L}) J$ when used inside the thermal average $_0$. These formulas are valid for conservative, impulsive (hard spheres), stochastic and dissipative forces (Langevin fluids), provided the system approaches a thermal equilibrium state. In general $\mu_\infty \neq 0$ and $J_\epsilon \neq J$, except for the case of conservative forces, where the equality signs apply. The most important application in the present paper is the hard sphere fluid.Comment: 14 pages, no figures. Version 2: expanded Introduction and section II specifying the classes of fluids covered by this theory. Some references added and typos correcte