1,720,958 research outputs found
Improving recognition of odors in a waste management plant by using electronic noses with different technologies, gas chromatography–mass spectrometry/olfactometry and dynamic olfactometry
Full text linkOdor emissions from waste management plants have long been an environmental and economic issue, but only recently regional authorities in Italy are regulating this sector by imposing control and mitigation of the phenomenon. Electronic noses, initially developed as cheap, easy tools to detect volatiles, may have the required time-resolved coverage of the odor emission phenomenon in a cheap and feasible way with respect to chemical analysis of air. One crucial issue to resolve is to evaluate the discriminant capacity of a sensor array in-field and under working conditions. In this paper the authors have studied the responses of electronic noses of different technologies to odors emitted from a waste management plant, by integrating results obtained with dynamic olfactometry and gas chromatography–mass spectrometry/olfactometry, in the aim to implement a monitoring system and improve cleaner production technologies. Three most impacting odor sources in the waste management plant were detected: biogas, a by-product of mechanical treatment of municipal solid wastes, with low organic fraction and a sludge pressed and dehydrated from treatment of urban wastewater. The most odor impacting source was the sludge and the major responsible of the odor impacts were aromatics (in particular 1,3,5-trimethyl benzene), aliphatic hydrocarbons, terpenes and sulphur volatiles (methyl disulphide, carbon disulphide, dimethyltrisulphide). Ten Metal Oxide Semiconductors and 32 polymer/black carbon (Nano Composite Array) sensors in two electronic noses, were tested for discrimination source capabilities. Results of linear discriminant analysis and cross validation give 86.7% successful recognition for Metal Oxide Semiconductors, 53.3% for Nano Composite Array and 93.3% for a selection of sensors belonging to both technologies chosen according to the selectivity towards the odor active molecules. The containment of odors could also be achieved by spraying a specific product and monitoring the process using selected sensors of the arrays. The results of the in-field work demonstrate strengths and weaknesses of different construction technologies in the e-noses arrays, to characterize and monitor in-site and in real time odor emissions from waste management plants
Life Cycle Assessment of a Non-Hazardous Industrial Waste Treatment System
No full textOne of the most used tools for assessing the potential environmental impacts of waste management systems is Life Cycle
Assessment. This tool is particularly useful when it is applied to landfill waste as it aims to estimate the related long-term
emissions of the landfill over an extended time period that takes into account the years following the landfill closure. The
purpose of this work is to present the life cycle assessment of the most important production system of a multi-sector
company located in the Taranto Province, namely a Non-Hazardous Industrial Waste treatment system. For the landfill gas
modelling, data on the composition of the waste entering the landfill was used in order to calculate the amount of biogenic
carbon that will undergo a biodegradation process. The time frame for the emissions modelling includes the thirty years
following the landfill closure. More complex is the estimate of landfill leachate production for which simplified hypotheses
were made. The life cycle impact assessment of the system analysed indicates that the waste disposal phase and third-party
transport are the most impacting life cycle stages. The hotspot of the landfill management phase is represented by the
atmospheric emissions of the uncaptured landfill biogas that contributes noticeably to the potential climate change due to
biogenic methane emissions. The other critical processes of this phase are represented by the clay used to cover the landfill
waste and the third-party leachate treatment. The approach followed for the application of this LCA is that indicated by the
European Commission which entails LCA as a means to measure the environmental profile and burdens of an organisation.
The results of the present work together with future ones of the LCAs of all the organization’s production systems, will be
used to implement the Organisation Environmental Footprint tool to measure the environmental profile of the entire
organisation and to improve it through the use of possible technological solutions for environmental impact mitigation
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
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