1,806 research outputs found
Costs and Benefits of Green Roof Types for Cities and Building Owners
Increasing urbanization and the effects of climate change will bring new challenges for cities, such as energy saving and supply of renewable energy, preventing urban heat islands and water retention to deal with more frequent downpours. A major urban surface, the surface of roofs, is nowadays hardly exploited and could be used to make cities more âfuture proofâ or resilient. Many Dutch municipalities have become aware
that the use of green roofs as opposed to bituminous roofs positively contributes to these challenges and are stimulating building-owners to retrofit their building with green roofs. This study aims at comparing costs and benefits of roof types, focused on green roofs (intensive and extensive) both on building- and city scale. Core question is the balance
between costs and benefits for both scales, given varying local conditions. Which policy measures might be needed in the future in order to apply green roofs strategically in regard to local demands? To answer this question the balance of costs and benefits of green roofs is divided into a public and an individual part. Both balances use a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats framework to determine the chance of success for the application of green roofs, considering that the balance for green roofs on an individual scale influences the balance on a public scale. The outcome of this combined
analyses in the conclusion verifies that a non-committal policy for green roofs is not an effective way to prepare the city sufficiently for future climate changes
Sediment management and the renewability of floodplain clay for structural ceramics
The Netherlands has vast resources of clay that are exploited for the fabrication of structural ceramic products such as bricks and roof tiles. Most clay is extracted from the so-called embanked floodplains along the rivers Rhine and Meuse, areas that are flooded during high-discharge conditions. Riverside clay extraction is-at least in theory-compensated by deposition. Based on a sediment balance (deposition versus extraction), we explore the extent to which clay can be regarded as a renewable resource, with potential for sustainable use. Beyond that, we discuss the implications for river and sediment management, especially for the large engineering works that are to be undertaken to increase the discharge capacities of the Rhine and Meuse. Extraction rates are based on production statistics for clay, as well as those for fired end-products. Deposition rates are estimated from published and unpublished geological data (clay volumes and thicknesses, datings, etc.) and from morphological modeling studies. Comparisons between extraction and deposition are made at three different time-space scales: (1) long term (post-1850)/large scale (all Dutch floodplains), (2) present/large scale, and (3) present/site scale. The year 1850 is relevant because it approximately marks the beginning of the current, fully engineered river systems, in which depositional processes are constrained by dikes and groynes. As the Industrial Revolution began in the same period, post-1850 sediments can be identified by their pollution with heavy metals. (1) We estimate the post-1850 clay volume in situ at about 0.20 km(3), and the total extracted volume in the same period at about 0.17 km(3). This puts the net long-term average deposition rate of clay at similar to 1.3 million m(3)/year and the corresponding extraction rate at similar to 1.1 million m(3)/year. (2) Current accumulation is approximately 0.4 million m(3)/year and expected to increase, and current extraction is about 0.7 million m(3)/year and expected to decrease. (3) Clay extraction creates a depression that has an increased sediment-trapping efficiency. This local effect is not considered explicitly in large-scale morphological modeling. Based on maximum observed sedimentation rates, we estimate that replenishment of a clay site takes in the order of 150 years. As clay extraction lowers some 0.5 km(2) of floodplain yearly, a surface area of approximately 75 km(2) would be required for sustainable clay extraction. This is about 1/6 of the total surface area of the embanked floodplains. On the long term, clay extraction from the embanked floodplain depositional environment has been sustainable. At strongly decreasing deposition rates, the ratio between extraction and replenishment seems to have shifted towards unsustainable. However, current sedimentation is estimated conservatively. The site-scale approach suggests that, even if extraction would currently exceed deposition, this could be resolved with sediment management, that is, with site restoration measures aimed at higher sediment-trapping efficiency. Our results have implications for river engineering, especially where substantial digging is involved (floodplain lowering, high-discharge bypass channels, obstacle removal). First, this inevitably affects the clay resources that we studied, while resource sterilization should be avoided. Secondly, the effect that any form of digging has on subsequent sedimentation-increased rates-relates to long-term river maintenance. We conclude that floodplain clay is a renewable resource, especially if managed accordingly. Beyond that, we established that clay extraction is a significant, lasting factor in floodplain evolution along the Rhine and Meuse Rivers. The interests of the extractive industry and river managers could be served jointly with sediment management plans that are based on sediment-budget analyse
Bioactivity of tempe by inhibiting adhesion of ETEC to intestinal cells, as influenced by fermentation substrates and starter pure cultures
Soya bean tempe is known for its bioactivity in reducing the severity of diarrhoea in piglets. This bioactivity is caused by an inhibition of the adhesion of enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) to intestinal cells. In this paper, we assessed the bioactive effect of soya tempe on a range of ETEC target strains, as well as the effect of a range of cereal and leguminous substrates and starter pure cultures. Soya bean tempe extracts strongly inhibited the adhesion of ETEC strains tested. All tempe made from other leguminous seeds were as bioactive as soya bean tempe, whereas tempe made from cereals showed no bioactivity. Using soya beans as substrate, fermentation with several fungi (Mucor, Rhizopus spp. and yeasts) as well as Bacillus spp. resulted in bioactive tempe, whereas fermentation with lactobacilli showed no bioactivity. The active component is releasedor formed during the fermentation and is not present in microbial biomass and only partly in unfermented substrates. The bioactivity being not specific for a single ETEC strain, makes the bioactive tempe relevant for applications in animal husbandry
Estimating a concave distribution function from data corrupted with additive noise
We consider two nonparametric procedures for estimating a concave
distribution function based on data corrupted with additive noise generated by
a bounded decreasing density on . For the maximum likelihood (ML)
estimator and least squares (LS) estimator, we state qualitative properties,
prove consistency and propose a computational algorithm. For the LS estimator
and its derivative, we also derive the pointwise asymptotic distribution.
Moreover, the rate achieved by the LS estimator is shown to be
minimax for estimating the distribution function at a fixed point.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/07-AOS579 the Annals of
Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aos/) by the Institute of Mathematical
Statistics (http://www.imstat.org
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On the effectiveness of run-time checks
Run-time checks are often assumed to be a cost-effective way of improving the dependability of software components, by checking required properties of their outputs and flagging an output as incorrect if it fails the check. However, evaluating how effective they are going to be in a future application is difficult, since the effectiveness of a check depends on the unknown faults of the program to which it is applied. A programming contest, providing thousands of programs written to the same specifications, gives us the opportunity to systematically test run-time checks to observe statistics of their effects on actual programs. In these examples, run-time checks turn out to be most effective for unreliable programs. For more reliable programs, the benefit is relatively low as compared to the gain that can be achieved by other (more expensive) measures, most notably multiple-version diversity
Surface acoustic wave modulation of single photon emission from GaN/InGaN nanowire quantum dots
On-chip quantum information processing requires controllable quantum light
sources that can be operated on-demand at high-speeds and with the possibility
of in-situ control of the photon emission wavelength and its optical
polarization properties. Here, we report on the dynamic control of the optical
emission from core-shell GaN/InGaN nanowire (NW) heterostructures using radio
frequency surface acoustic waves (SAWs). The SAWs are excited on the surface of
a piezoelectric lithium niobate crystal equipped with a SAW delay line onto
which the NWs were mechanically transferred. Luminescent quantum dot (QD)-like
exciton localization centers induced by compositional fluctuations within the
InGaN nanoshell were identified using stroboscopic micro-photoluminescence
(micro-PL) spectroscopy. They exhibit narrow and almost fully linearly
polarized emission lines in the micro-PL spectra and a pronounced anti-bunching
signature of single photon emission in the photon correlation experiments. When
the nanowire is perturbed by the propagating SAW, the embedded QD is
periodically strained and its excitonic transitions are modulated by the
acousto-mechanical coupling, giving rise to a spectral fine-tuning within a
~1.5 meV bandwidth at the acoustic frequency of ~330 MHz. This outcome can be
further combined with spectral detection filtering for temporal control of the
emitted photons. The effect of the SAW piezoelectric field on the QD charge
population and on the optical polarization degree is also observed. The
advantage of the acousto-optoelectric over other control schemes is that it
allows in-situ manipulation of the optical emission properties over a wide
frequency range (up to GHz frequencies).Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1902.0791
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