Development and application of I_SUM : an index of sustainable urban mobility

This work describes the construction process of an Index of Sustainable Urban Mobility (I_SUM). Important aspects regarding its application as a mobility planning and management supporting tool are also discussed. The index is based on a hierarchy of criteria built essentially with data obtained from planners and technicians of eleven cities, what resulted in eighty-seven Indicators forming thirty-seven Themes, under nine Domains. Weights for the Themes and Domains were obtained through a panel of experts. A viability analysis of the index application was carried out in a city with around 220,000 inhabitants located in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. The analysis of the results has shown that a significant number of indicators could be calculated in the short term and with good quality data in the studied city. The main conclusion drawn from the application was the confirmation that I_SUM is flexible enough to be applied not only in a developing country medium-sized city, but also in cities with diverse characteristics. It is important to highlight the fact that the tool also gives the opportunity to assess the relative contribution of any specific aspects of mobility to the Social, Economic, and Environmental dimensions of sustainability. That I_SUM feature can be used to help in the formulation of either integrated or stand-alone policies per sector aiming at the development of the sustainable urban mobility. Moreover, it can help in the public participation process due to the possibility of building up scenarios based on hypothetical changes of the indicator values

Sustainable urban mobility: a comparative study and the bases for a management system in Brazil and Portugal

There is a clear need for the implementation of sustainability principles and guidelines in urban areas, as well as for strategies for controlling the elements that shape the urban environment. As a consequence, indicators become essential tools in providing the knowledge and information required for understanding particular aspects and problems of the cities. Therefore, the main objective of this work was to identify indicators that are suitable for monitoring the urban mobility conditions of selected cities in Brazil and Portugal. The first step taken in order to reach that objective was the selection and analysis of mobility indicators extracted from several national and international experiences of sustainability indicators. Those indicators were organized under a framework of Categories and Themes and also submitted to the evaluation of groups of experts in both countries, in order to determine their relative importance for monitoring urban mobility conditions. The final outcome of the analysis was a common set of mobility indicators for Brazilian and Portuguese cities, in addition to a more complete list of indicators that could better serve each country in particular. © 2005 WIT Press.(undefined

Impact of percentage and particle size of sugarcane biochar on the sorption behavior of clomazone in Red Latosol

Biochar is a carbonaceous material that has excellent potential as a fertilizer and soil conditioner. However, there is a lack of information concerning the effects of the amount and particle size of this pyrogenic material on the soil sorption capacity. In this work, evaluation was made of changes in clomazone (CMZ) sorption in a Red Latosol following soil conditioning using different percentages (0.25, 0.5, and 1% w/w) of sugarcane biochar in three particle sizes (<106, 106-508, and 508-610 μm). The conditioned soils presented apparent sorption coefficients (Kd) up to 1300 times higher than that of pure soil, besides changes in the behavior of CMZ sorption. The biochar particle size and percentage influenced sorption of the herbicide as well as its retention in the amended soil during desorption processes. Both sorption and desorption Freundlich constants were linearly correlated with the external surface area of the biochar present in the soil

Schwinger multichannel method: A study of a Feshbach resonance in e-H_2 collisions

We present results of the application of the Schwinger multichannel method to study the role of Feshbach resonances on the elastic and electronic excitation cross sections in e-H_2 collisions. Using a ^2Σ_g^+2 resonance associated with the a ^3Σ^+_g and E^1Σ^+_g states of H_2 as an example, we quantitatively illustrate the dramatic influence of open channels on the decay of such Feshbach resonances in electron-molecule collisions

Bipolar current power supply for the steering beam of the main line of the CV-28 Cyclotron

The objective of the beam transport system is to make the accelerated particles reach the targets with specific characteristics and with the desired quality optics, so it is necessary to use remotely commanded devices, such as collimators, quadrupoles lenses and steering magnets

Atividade antimicrobiana de subfrações padronizadas da planta Arrabidaea chica Verl.

Este estudo analisou o potencial terapêutico de extratos e subfrações padronizadas da planta amazônica Arrabidaea chica, visando seu uso tópico como medicamento e eficácia comprovada em doenças cutâneas

Effect of Ischemic Preconditioning on the Recovery of Cardiac Autonomic Control From Repeated Sprint Exercise

Repeated sprint exercise (RSE) acutely impairs post-exercise heart rate (HR) recovery (HRR) and time-domain heart rate variability (i. e., RMSSD), likely in part, due to lactic acidosis-induced reduction of cardiac vagal reactivation. In contrast, ischemic preconditioning (IPC) mediates cardiac vagal activation and augments energy metabolism efficiency during prolonged ischemia followed by reperfusion. Therefore, we investigated whether IPC could improve recovery of cardiac autonomic control from RSE partially via improved energy metabolism responses to RSE. Fifteen men team-sport practitioners (mean ± SD: 25 ± 5 years) were randomly exposed to IPC in the legs (3 × 5 min at 220 mmHg) or control (CT; 3 × 5 min at 20 mmHg) 48 h, 24 h, and 35 min before performing 3 sets of 6 shuttle running sprints (15 + 15 m with 180° change of direction and 20 s of active recovery). Sets 1 and 2 were followed by 180 s and set 3 by 360 s of inactive recovery. Short-term HRR was analyzed after all sets via linear regression of HR decay within the first 30 s of recovery (T30) and delta from peak HR to 60 s of recovery (HRR60s). Long-term HRR was analyzed throughout recovery from set 3 via first-order exponential regression of HR decay. Moreover, RMSSD was calculated using 30-s data segments throughout recovery from set 3. Energy metabolism responses were inferred via peak pulmonary oxygen uptake (V˙O2peak), peak carbon dioxide output (V˙O2peak), peak respiratory exchange ratio (RERpeak), first-order exponential regression of V˙O2 decay within 360 s of recovery and blood lactate concentration ([Lac-]). IPC did not change T30, but increased HRR60s after all sets (condition main effect: P = 0.03; partial eta square (η2p) = 0.27, i.e., large effect size). IPC did not change long-term HRR and RMSSD throughout recovery, nor did IPC change any energy metabolism parameter. In conclusion, IPC accelerated to some extent the short-term recovery, but did not change the long-term recovery of cardiac autonomic control from RSE, and such accelerator effect was not accompanied by any IPC effect on surrogates of energy metabolism responses to RSE

Drying kinetics of pineapple agro-industrial residues: a new approach / Cinética de secagem de resíduos agro-industriais de abacaxi: uma nova abordagem

Drying kinetics of pineapple agro-industrial residues was studied using thin-layer of product at , ,  and , and airflow rate of . The diffusion model was modified and fitted to experimental data of moisture ratio of pineapple residue to estimate the diffusion coefficient as function of temperature, and a good fitting of Arrhenius equation was obtained, with a variance explained of  Values of diffusion coefficients varied in the range from  to , approximately. A modification was implemented in the Page’s equation to include the diffusion effects explicitly, leading to a less empirical and simpler model to describe drying kinetics of pineapple residue. The model presented in this work proved to be adequate to predict drying ratio of pineapple residue, if the material layer thickness is , under the drying conditions used

Higher Order Statistics in a mmWave Propagation Environment

(c) 2019 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other users, including reprinting/ republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted components of this work in other works.[EN] A thorough measurement campaign in an indoor environment at the millimeter-wave band is carried out with an aim at characterizing the short-term fading channel in terms of its higher-order statistics. The measurements are conducted in a variety of scenarios, with frequencies ranging from 55 to 65 GHz, in line-of-sight and non-line-of-sight conditions, and combinations of horizontal and vertical polarizations at both the transmitter and the receiver. A number of fading models are tested, namely Rayleigh, Rice, Nakagami-m, alpha-mu, kappa-mu, eta-mu, and alpha-eta-kappa-mu. The main second-order statistics under analysis are the level crossing rate (LCR) and average fade duration (AFD) both given per distance unit. From the experimental data, the parameters of these statistics are estimated, and the corresponding curves of the theoretical models are compared with the empirical ones and the best model is selected. Additionally, the study of the very general distribution, namely alpha-eta-kappa-mu, is advanced, in which new expressions for time-/distance-domain LCR and Al-ll are derived using an envelope-based approach. Such an approach leads to integral-form formulations with much less computational complexity and computes rapidly compared with the already existing ones presented elsewhere, also given in the integral form. Furthermore, a series of expansion expression for the alpha-eta-kappa-mu time-/distance-domain LCR is then derived that improves even further the computational time.This work was supported in part by the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientico e Tecnologico (CNPq) under Grant 304248/2014-2 and Grant 308365/2017-8, in part by the Rede Nacional de Ensino e Pesquisa (RNP), with resources from Ministerio da Ciencia, Tecnologia, Inovacoes e Comunicacoes (MCTIC), through the Radiocommunication Reference Center [Centro de Referencia em Radiocomunicacoes (CRR)] Project of the National Institute of Telecommunications [Instituto Nacional de Telecomunicacoes (INATEL)], Brazil, under Grant 01250.075413/2018-04, and in part by the Ministerio de Economia, Industria y Competitividad of the Spanish Government through the Agencia Estatal de Investigacion (AEI) and the Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER) under Project TEC2017-86779-C2-2-R.Dos Anjos, AA.; Rufino-Marins, TR.; Nogueira Da Silva, CR.; Rodrigo Peñarrocha, VM.; Rubio Arjona, L.; Reig, J.; Amaral De Souza, RA.... (2019). Higher Order Statistics in a mmWave Propagation Environment. IEEE Access. 7:103876-103892. https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2019.2930931S103876103892