534 research outputs found
The effect of residential urban greenness on allergic respiratory diseases in youth: A narrative review
Background: Environmental exposures across the life course may be a contributor to the increased worldwide prevalence of respiratory and allergic diseases occurring in the last decades. Asthma and rhinoconjunctivitis especially contribute to the global burden of disease. Greenness has been suggested to have beneficial effects in terms of reduction of occurrence of allergic respiratory diseases. However, the available evidence of a relationship between urban greenness and childhood health outcomes is not yet conclusive. The current review aimed at investigating the current state of evidence, exploring the relationship between children's exposure to residential urban greenness and development of allergic respiratory diseases, jointly considering health outcomes and study design. Methods: The search strategy was designed to identify studies linking urban greenness exposure to asthma, rhinoconjunctivitis, and lung function in children and adolescents. This was a narrative review of literature following PRISMA guidelines performed using electronic search in databases of PubMed and Embase (Ovid) from the date of inception to December 2018. Results: Our search strategy identified 2315 articles; after exclusion of duplicates (n = 701), 1614 articles were screened. Following review of titles and abstracts, 162 articles were identified as potentially eligible. Of these, 148 were excluded following full-text evaluation, and 14 were included in this review. Different methods for assessing greenness exposure were found; the most used was Normalized Difference Vegetation Index. Asthma, wheezing, bronchitis, rhinoconjunctivitis, allergic symptoms, lung function, and allergic sensitization were the outcomes assessed in the identified studies; among them, asthma was the one most frequently investigated. Conclusions: The present review showed inconsistencies in the results mainly due to differences in study design, population, exposure assessment, geographic region, and ascertainment of outcome. Overall, there is a suggestion of an association between urban greenness in early life and the occurrence of allergic respiratory diseases during childhood, although the evidence is still inconsistent. It is therefore hard to draw a conclusive interpretation, so that the understanding of the impact of greenness on allergic respiratory diseases in children and adolescents remains difficult
First-principles study of the energetics of charge and cation mixing in U_{1-x} Ce_x O_2
The formalism of electronic density-functional-theory, with Hubbard-U
corrections (DFT+U), is employed in a computational study of the energetics of
U_{1-x} Ce_x O_2 mixtures. The computational approach makes use of a procedure
which facilitates convergence of the calculations to multiple self-consistent
DFT+U solutions for a given cation arrangement, corresponding to different
charge states for the U and Ce ions in several prototypical cation
arrangements. Results indicate a significant dependence of the structural and
energetic properties on the nature of both charge and cation ordering. With the
effective Hubbard-U parameters that reproduce well the measured
oxidation-reduction energies for urania and ceria, we find that charge transfer
between U(IV) and Ce(IV) ions, leading to the formation of U(V) and Ce(III),
gives rise to an increase in the mixing energy in the range of 4-14 kJ/mol of
formula unit, depending on the nature of the cation ordering. The results
suggest that although charge transfer between uranium and cerium ions is
disfavored energetically, it is likely to be entropically stabilized at the
high temperatures relevant to the processing and service of urania-based solid
solutions.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figure
Structural disjoining potential for grain boundary premelting and grain coalescence from molecular-dynamics simulations
We describe a molecular dynamics framework for the direct calculation of the
short-ranged structural forces underlying grain-boundary premelting and
grain-coalescence in solidification. The method is applied in a comparative
study of (i) a Sigma 9 120 degress twist and (ii) a Sigma 9 {411}
symmetric tilt boundary in a classical embedded-atom model of elemental Ni.
Although both boundaries feature highly disordered structures near the melting
point, the nature of the temperature dependence of the width of the disordered
regions in these boundaries is qualitatively different. The former boundary
displays behavior consistent with a logarithmically diverging premelted layer
thickness as the melting temperature is approached from below, while the latter
displays behavior featuring a finite grain-boundary width at the melting point.
It is demonstrated that both types of behavior can be quantitatively described
within a sharp-interface thermodynamic formalism involving a width-dependent
interfacial free energy, referred to as the disjoining potential. The
disjoining potential for boundary (i) is calculated to display a monotonic
exponential dependence on width, while that of boundary (ii) features a weak
attractive minimum. The results of this work are discussed in relation to
recent simulation and theoretical studies of the thermodynamic forces
underlying grain-boundary premelting.Comment: 24 pages, 8 figures, 1 tabl
Capillary force-induced structural instability in liquid infiltrated elastic circular tubes
The capillary-induced structural instability of an elastic circular tube
partially filled by a liquid is studied by combining theoretical analysis and
molecular dynamics simulations. The analysis shows that, associated with the
instability, there is a well-defined length scale (elasto-capillary length),
which exhibits a scaling relationship with the characteristic length of the
tube, regardless of the interaction details. We validate this scaling
relationship for a carbon nanotube partially filled by liquid iron. The
capillary-induced structural transformation could have potential applications
for nano-devices
Book reviews
LOW POROSITY BUILDING CERAMICS PRODUCED FROM LOCAL TECHNOGENIC RAW MATERIALS (R. MaÄiulaitis, R. Ĺ˝urauskiene. MaĹžo poringumo statybine keramika iĹĄ vietiniu ir technogeniniu Ĺžaliavu. Vilnius: Technika, 2007. 220 p. ISBN 978â9955â28â203â7)
MEHRZIELSELEKTION FĂR ENTSCHEIDUNGEN IM BAUWESENÂ (E. K. Zavadskas, A. Kaklauskas. Multiple objective selection for decisions in civil engineering) Fraunhofer IBR Verlag 2007, Schriftenreihe Planung, Technologie, Management und Automatisierung im Bauwesen, ISBN 978â3â8167â7203â3.
First Published Online:Â 14 Oct 201
Enhanced protein synthesis and secretion using a rational signal-peptide library approach as a tailored tool
Enhanced protein synthesis and secretion using a rational signal-peptide library approach as a tailored tool
publishedVersio
Self-driven lattice-model Monte Carlo simulations of alloy thermodynamic
Monte Carlo (MC) simulations of lattice models are a widely used way to
compute thermodynamic properties of substitutional alloys. A limitation to
their more widespread use is the difficulty of driving a MC simulation in order
to obtain the desired quantities. To address this problem, we have devised a
variety of high-level algorithms that serve as an interface between the user
and a traditional MC code. The user specifies the goals sought in a high-level
form that our algorithms convert into elementary tasks to be performed by a
standard MC code. For instance, our algorithms permit the determination of the
free energy of an alloy phase over its entire region of stability within a
specified accuracy, without requiring any user intervention during the
calculations. Our algorithms also enable the direct determination of
composition-temperature phase boundaries without requiring the calculation of
the whole free energy surface of the alloy system
Exposure to ambient air pollution in the first 1000 days of life and alterations in the DNA methylome and telomere length in children: A systematic review
Past, present and future global influence and technological applications of iron-bearing metastable nanominerals
Iron-bearing nanominerals such as ferrihydrite, schwertmannite, and green rust behave as metastable precursors leading to the formation of more thermodynamically stable iron mineral phases (e.g., jarosite, goethite, hematite, and magnetite). However, this transformation may last from days to tens or even hundreds of years, making them the most predominant iron-bearing minerals at environmental conditions and at the human time scale. The present review characterizes ferrihydrite, schwertmannite, and green rust nanominerals according to their main physical and chemical properties, and at both nano- and meso-scales. It also presents a comprehensive review of the multiple past and present Earth environments where these nanominerals have played, and still play, a pivotal role in the geochemistry, mineralogy and environmental nanogeosciences of these environments. Finally, the present and future technological applications of these nanominerals as well as their role in the generation of a more sustainable human-Earth relationship is discussed, with a special emphasis on their use in new circular economies and green based technologies
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