Cloud-Based Decision Support System for Air Quality Management

Air quality is important for the protection of human health, the environment and our cultural heritage and it is an issue that will acquire increased significance in the future due to the adverse effects of climate change. Thus, it is important to not simply monitor air quality, but to make information immediately available to those responsible for monitoring the networks, to policy/decision makers, but also to the general population. Moreover, the development of information technologies over the last couple of decades has allowed the proliferation of real-time pollution monitoring. The work presented herein concerns the development of an effective way of monitoring environmental parameters using dedicated software. It offers a complete suite of applications that support environmental data collection management and reporting for air quality and associated meteorology. It combines modern technologies for the proper monitoring of air quality networks, which can consist of one or more measuring stations. Innovatively, it also focuses on how to effectively present the relevant information, utilizing modern technologies, such as cloud and mobile applications, to network engineers, policy/decision managers, and to the general public at large. It also has the capability of notifying appropriate personnel in the event of failures, overruns or abnormal values. The system, in its current configuration, handles information from six networks that include over 55 air pollution monitoring stations that are located throughout Greece. This practical application has shown that the system can achieve high data availability rates, even higher than 99% during the year

Fault detection of air quality measurements using artificial intelligence

In this work we use Artificial Intelligence (AI) for the detection of faults in air quality measurements. This is crucial in large air quality monitoring networks in particular were fault detection can be a complex and time consuming process. The proposed methodology encompasses several essential steps in anomaly detection. Data preprocessing ensures the quality and relevance of the data by applying techniques like data cleaning, outlier removal, and feature selection. The Isolation Forest model is trained using the pre-processed data, and appropriate hyperparameters are determined through cross-validation. Anomaly detection is performed using the trained model, allowing the identification of abnormal events or instances. The visualization of anomalies provides a clear representation of abnormal patterns, facilitating the interpretation and understanding of air quality data. The proposed methodology can help environmental agencies, researchers, and policymakers in identifying abnormal air quality events, enhancing the accuracy of monitoring systems, and facilitating timely interventions. This methodology can be applied to other industries also, to improve operations and reduce risk

Experimental Investigation of Thermal Bridges and Heat Transfer through Window Frame Elements at Achieving Energy Saving

Windows are responsible for significant amounts of energy loss through typical building envelopes. There have been multiple studies on heat loss through the glazing unit and frame system. This study presents an experimental investigation of a window unit and focuses specifically on the conductance between the structural elements and the frame system of a conventional house in the city of Xanthi, northern Greece. It is obvious that even a perfect window system cannot reduce heat transfer between the base of the frame and the upper surface of the floor. The experimental and simulation procedure of this project includes the installation of an insulating layer in front of the window unit for a variety of frames (solid wood, aluminum, PVC, etc.) at different distances. The main objective of this paper is to determine how effective an insulating barrier can be in respect to different types of frame, glazing, and weather conditions for the control of heat loss. Through the application of this technique, in combination with an appropriate insulating frame and window unit, designers can control the temperature inside the room at close proximity to the windows, in order to contribute to energy saving, aiming towards a building with zero energy demand

Macrobenthic molluscs from a marine - lagoonal environmental transition in Lesvos Island (Greece)

This paper describes an occurence dataset, also including numerical abundance and biomass data, pertaining to the macrobenthic molluscan assemblages from a marine - lagoonal environmental transition. The study system was the soft-substrate benthoscape of the area of the Kalloni solar saltworks (Lesvos Island, Greece). Specifically, the study area extended from the infralittoral zone of the inner Kalloni Gulf (marine habitat) to the bottoms of the first two evaporation ponds of the Kalloni solar saltworks (lagoonal habitat). Bottom sediment samples (3 replicates) were collected with a Van Veen grab sampler (0.1 m2) at four sampling sites, along a 1.5 km long line transect that spanned the marine - lagoonal environmental transition. A total of four surveys were carried out seasonally in 2004. A total of 39,345 molluscan individuals were sorted out of the sediment samples and were identified to 71 species, belonging to the Gastropoda (36), Bivalvia (34) and Scaphopoda (1) classes. Numerical abundance and wet biomass (with shells) data are included in the dataset. The dataset described in the present paper partially fills a significant gap in the scientific literature: Because ecological research of coastal lagoons has seldom explicitly considered the marine - lagoonal habitats interface, there are no openly accessible datasets pertaining to the particular structural component of the transitional waters benthoscapes of the Mediterranean Sea. Such datasets could prove valuable in the research of the structure and functioning of transitional waters benthoscapes. The present dataset is available as a supplementary file (Suppl. material 1) and can also be accessed at http://ipt.medobis.eu/resource?r=kalloni_saltworks_phd

Cloud-based decision support system for air quality management

Summarization: Air quality is important for the protection of human health, the environment and our cultural heritage and it is an issue that will acquire increased significance in the future due to the adverse effects of climate change. Thus, it is important to not simply monitor air quality, but to make information immediately available to those responsible for monitoring the networks, to policy/decision makers, but also to the general population. Moreover, the development of information technologies over the last couple of decades has allowed the proliferation of real-time pollution monitoring. The work presented herein concerns the development of an effective way of monitoring environmental parameters using dedicated software. It offers a complete suite of applications that support environmental data collection management and reporting for air quality and associated meteorology. It combines modern technologies for the proper monitoring of air quality networks, which can consist of one or more measuring stations. Innovatively, it also focuses on how to effectively present the relevant information, utilizing modern technologies, such as cloud and mobile applications, to network engineers, policy/decision managers, and to the general public at large. It also has the capability of notifying appropriate personnel in the event of failures, overruns or abnormal values. The system, in its current configuration, handles information from six networks that include over 55 air pollution monitoring stations that are located throughout Greece. This practical application has shown that the system can achieve high data availability rates, even higher than 99% during the year.Παρουσιάστηκε στο: Climat

Biological Invasions in Conservation Planning: A Global Systematic Review

International audienceBiological invasions threaten biodiversity in terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems, requiring substantial conservation and management efforts. To examine how the conservation planning literature addresses biological invasions and if planning in the marine environment could benefit from experiences in the freshwater and terrestrial systems, we conducted a global systematic review. Out of 1,149 scientific articles mentioning both “conservation planning” and “alien” or any of its alternative terms, 70 articles met our selection criteria. Most of the studies were related to the terrestrial environment, while only 10% focused on the marine environment. The main conservation targets were species (mostly vertebrates) rather than habitats or ecosystems. Apart from being mentioned, alien species were considered of concern for conservation in only 46% of the cases, while mitigation measures were proposed in only 13% of the cases. The vast majority of the studies (73%) ignored alien species in conservation planning even if their negative impacts were recognized. In 20% of the studies, highly invaded areas were avoided in the planning, while in 6% of the cases such areas were prioritized for conservation. In the latter case, two opposing approaches led to the selection of invaded areas: either alien and native biodiversity were treated equally in setting conservation targets, i.e., alien species were also considered as ecological features requiring protection, or more commonly invaded sites were prioritized for the implementation of management actions to control or eradicate invasive alien species. When the “avoid” approach was followed, in most of the cases highly impacted areas were either excluded or invasive alien species were included in the estimation of a cost function to be minimized. Most of the studies that followed a “protect” or “avoid” approach dealt with terrestrial or freshwater features but in most cases the followed approach could be transferred to the marine environment. Gaps and needs for further research are discussed and we propose an 11-step framework to account for biological invasions into the systematic conservation planning design

Legislative Documents

Also, variously referred to as: House bills; House documents; House legislative documents; legislative documents; General Court documents