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Topic Review
Non-Invasive Indoor Thermal Discomfort Detection
Since 1997, scientists have been trying to utilize new non-invasive approaches for thermal discomfort detection, which promise to be more effective for comparing frameworks that need direct responses from users. Due to rapid technological development in the bio-metrical field, a systematic literature review to investigate the possibility of thermal discomfort detection at the work place by non-invasive means using bio-sensing technology was performed. Firstly, the problem intervention comparison outcome context (PICOC) framework was introduced in the study to identify the main points for meta-analysis and, in turn, to provide relevant keywords for the literature search. In total, 2776 studies were found and processed using the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA) methodology. After filtering by defined criterion, 35 articles were obtained for detailed investigation with respect to facility types used in the experiment, amount of people for data collection and algorithms used for prediction of the thermal discomfort event. The given study concludes that there is potential for the creation of non-invasive thermal discomfort detection models via utilization of bio-sensing technologies, which will provide a better user interaction with the built environment, potentially decrease energy use and enable better productivity. There is definitely room for improvement within the field of non-invasive thermal discomfort detection, especially with respect to data collection, algorithm implementation and sample size, in order to have opportunities for the deployment of developed solutions in real life. Based on the literature review, the potential of novel technology is seen to utilize a more intelligent approach for performing non-invasive thermal discomfort prediction. The architecture of deep neural networks should be studied more due to the specifics of its hidden layers and its ability of hierarchical data extraction. This machine learning algorithm can provide a better model for thermal discomfort detection based on a data set with different types of bio-metrical variables.
  • 1.3K
  • 11 Feb 2021
Topic Review
Landolt Indicator Values in Modern Research
The conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem sustainability is essential for human well-being. An important tool for addressing this issue is ecological indicators. 
  • 1.3K
  • 02 Apr 2024
Topic Review
Particulate Matter Emissions from Aircraft
Particulate matter emissions from aircraft engines contribute to ambient concentrations of ultrafine particles in and around airports together with other combustion sources including road traffic. The impact of emissions on ambient concentrations from an airport, for which aircraft engine is a main source, differs from airport to airport due to the different relative contributions of other sources such as road traffic, and due to pollutant mix differences, chemical characteristics and size distribution. Particulate matter, particularly the ultrafine component made up of small particles with an aerodynamic diameter of less than 0.1 µm, is widely considered a health hazard. Aircraft gas turbine engines result in direct emissions of “non-volatile” (nvPM), also described as black carbon (BC) “soot” emissions. In addition to local air quality impacts, particles emitted from aircraft engines can affect climate and cloudiness in a number of ways. There are several on-going projects such as AVIATOR and ACACIA, that are taking measurements, linking these to modelling and assessing the particulate impacts on local air quality and climate.
  • 1.3K
  • 30 Sep 2022
Topic Review
Roger A. Pielke Jr.
Roger A. Pielke Jr. (born November 2, 1968) is an American political scientist and professor, and was the director of the Sports Governance Center within the Department of Athletics at the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado Boulder. He previously served in the Environmental Studies Program and was a Fellow of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) where he served as Director of the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado Boulder from 2001 to 2007. Pielke was a visiting scholar at Oxford University's Saïd Business School in the 2007-2008 academic year. A prolific writer, his interests include understanding the politicization of science; decision making under uncertainty; policy education for scientists in areas such as climate change, disaster mitigation, and world trade; and research on the governance of sports organizations, including FIFA and the NCAA.
  • 1.3K
  • 20 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Synthetic Progestins in Waste and Surface Waters
Synthetic progestins (PGs) are a large family of hormones used in continuously growing amounts in human and animal contraception and medicinal therapies. Because wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are unable to eradicate PGs after excretion, they are discharged into aquatic systems, where they can also be regenerated from conjugated PG metabolites. The PGs were considered of particular interest due to their wide use, activity, and hormonal derivation (from testosterone, progesterone, and spirolactone). It is concluded that PGs had been analysed in WWTPs influents and effluents and, to a lesser extent, in other matrices, including surface waters, where their concentrations range from ng/L to a few µg/L. Because of their high affinity for cell hormone receptors, PGs are endocrine disruptor compounds that may alter the reproductive fitness and development of biota.
  • 1.3K
  • 21 Apr 2022
Topic Review
Urban Built and Mixed Spaces
Natural areas are now broadly recognised as important resources to restore the cognitive and emotional resources of urban dwellers, but everyday urban environments are rarely studied for their salutogenic properties. This review collects emerging evidence of instances in which built and mixed urban environments were found to be more restorative than natural ones for the urban population. Generally, historical, recreational and panoramic places have been found to have the most restorative potential of all mixed and built urban environments. This particularly applies to teenagers and older people who value social interactions for their well-being. Vegetation and natural elements were still found to play an important role in the assessment of this restorative potential.
  • 1.3K
  • 27 Oct 2020
Topic Review
Constructed Technosols
Constructed Technosols means the creation of soils designed to mimic natural soil and suitable for vegetation growth.
  • 1.3K
  • 19 May 2021
Topic Review
Climate Change and Gender
The effects of climate change and gender do not impact equally on men and women. This results not from biological differences due to one's sex, but from the social construction of gender roles and relations, which affect the accepted behaviors of men and women. Climate change increases gender inequality, reduces women's ability to be financially independent, and has an overall negative impact on the social and political rights of women, especially in economies that are heavily based on agriculture. In many cases, gender inequality means that women are more vulnerable to the negative effects of climate change. This is due to gender roles, particularly in the developing world, which means that women are often dependent on the natural environment for subsistence and income. By further limiting women's already constrained access to physical, social, political, and fiscal resources, climate change often burdens women more than men and can magnify existing gender inequality. Gender-based differences have also been identified in relation to awareness, causation and response to climate change, and many countries have developed and implemented gender-based climate change strategies and action plans. For example, the government of Mozambique adopted a Gender, Environment and Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan in early 2010, being the first government in the world to do so. Analysis of gender in climate change, however, is not limited to women. It also means not only applying a binary male/female system of analysis on sets of quantitative data, but also scrutinizing discursive constructions that shapes power relations connected to climate change.
  • 1.3K
  • 10 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Rural Development of River Tourism Resources
Rivers have abundant freshwater resources, their general drainage areas are extensive, and alluvial plains are fertile, nourishing and enriching the ecology. Human beings have rich experience and a long history of using the advantages and foundation of river water resources to develop fishing, animal husbandry, farming, and other industries to maintain their needs, build settlements, develop cities, and create a safe and sustainable living and living environment. It can be seen that safe and stable water resources will help improve the development of human beings and villages.
  • 1.3K
  • 12 Jul 2022
Topic Review
Sustainable Development and Environmental Kuznets Curve
Under the Kyoto Protocol which is international law since 2005, 15 EU member countries (the "EU-15") committed to reducing their collective emissions of a set of six greenhouse gases in the 2008-2012 period to 8% below the 1990 level. The EU established the first cap-and-trade system for carbon dioxide emissions in the world in 2005. This entry uses the effect of the European Union Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions for the European Union using a cross-country panel data set consisting of 12 countries extracted from the EU-15 from 1980 to 2009. 
  • 1.3K
  • 18 Dec 2022
Topic Review
Big Data in Biodiversity Science
Biodiversity refers to the variety of genes, species and ecosystems of life on Earth, and is the source of many essential goods and services (e.g., food, timber, medicine, nutrient recycling, crop pollination) that support human well-being and quality of life. Despite several international treaties, efforts and commitments to curb its loss, biodiversity continues to decline at a rate above species discovery rate, largely due to anthropogenic factors. To assess the status and trends (local and global) in biodiversity requires a vast amount of relevant information on the distribution and abundance of different species across varying spatial and temporal scales. In other words, relevant data need to be collected, collated, and analyzed.
  • 1.3K
  • 30 Aug 2021
Topic Review
Land Change in Ethiopian Basins
Land Use Land Cover (LULC) changes analysis is one of the most useful methodologies to understand how the land was used in the past years, what types of detections are to be expected in the future, as well as the driving forces and processes behind these changes. In Ethiopia, Africa, the rapid variations of LULC observed in the last decades are mainly due to population pressure, resettlement programs, climate change, and other human- and nature-induced driving forces. Anthropogenic activities are the most significant factors adversely changing the natural status of the landscape and resources, which exerts unfavourable and adverse impacts on the environment and livelihood. The main goal of the present work is to review previous studies, discussing the spatiotemporal LULC changes in Ethiopian basins, to find out common points and gaps that exist in the current literature, to be eventually addressed in the future. A total of 25 articles, published from 2011 to 2020, were selected and reviewed, focusing on LULC classification using ArcGIS and ERDAS imagine software by unsupervised and maximum likelihood supervised classification methods. Key informant interview, focal group discussions, and collection of ground truth information using ground positioning systems for data validation were the major approaches applied in most of the studies. All the analysed research showed that, during the last decades, Ethiopian lands changed from natural to agricultural land use, waterbody, commercial farmland, and built-up/settlement. Some parts of forest land, grazing land, swamp/wetland, shrubland, rangeland, and bare/ rock out cropland cover class changed to other LULC class types, mainly as a consequence of the increasing anthropogenic pressure. 
  • 1.3K
  • 15 Jun 2021
Topic Review
Deep Learning-Based Building Extraction from Remote Sensing Images
Building extraction from remote sensing (RS) images is a fundamental task for geospatial applications, aiming to obtain morphology, location, and other information about buildings from RS images, which is significant for geographic monitoring and construction of human activity areas. In recent years, deep learning (DL) technology has made remarkable progress and breakthroughs in the field of RS and also become a central and state-of-the-art method for building extraction. 
  • 1.3K
  • 15 Dec 2021
Topic Review
Plant-Growth-Promoting Rhizobacteria (PGPR)-Based Biostimulants for Agricultural Production Systems
The application of biostimulants has been proven to be an advantageous tool and an appropriate form of management towards the effective use of natural resources, food security, and the beneficial effects on plant growth and yield. Plant-growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) are microbes connected with plant roots that can increase plant growth by different methods such as producing plant hormones and molecules to improve plant growth or providing increased mineral nutrition. They can colonize all ecological niches of roots to all stages of crop development, and they can affect plant growth and development directly by modulating plant hormone levels and enhancing nutrient acquisition such as of potassium, phosphorus, nitrogen, and essential minerals, or indirectly via reducing the inhibitory impacts of different pathogens in the forms of biocontrol parameters. Many plant-associated species such as Pseudomonas, Acinetobacter, Streptomyces, Serratia, Arthrobacter, and Rhodococcus can increase plant growth by improving plant disease resistance, synthesizing growth-stimulating plant hormones, and suppressing pathogenic microorganisms. The application of biostimulants is both an environmentally friendly practice and a promising method that can enhance the sustainability of horticultural and agricultural production systems as well as promote the quantity and quality of foods. They can also reduce the global dependence on hazardous agricultural chemicals. 
  • 1.3K
  • 27 Feb 2024
Topic Review
Urban Solid Waste Management
Urban solid waste management is one of the most important local services, and its effective economic regulation can be a driver for the sector toward innovation, sustainability, and efficiency. Prominent economic topics include, among others, the analysis of the market structure, the regulatory frameworks, charging models of waste management services, economic efficiency, and environmental goals.
  • 1.3K
  • 06 Jul 2021
Topic Review
Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Invasive Alien Plants
Plant invasion is significantly affected by environmental factors in the recipient habitats and affects the stability and sustainable development of society. The invasiveness of alien plants may be increased by anthropogenic-mediated disturbances, such as fluctuations in nutrients caused by excessive emissions of nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P). 
  • 1.3K
  • 07 Feb 2022
Topic Review
Properties and Applications of Geopolymer Mortar
Classic cement mortar is often utilised as a standard binding and repairing material in various engineering structures. Many scholars have addressed GPM’s viability and potential applications as a suitable replacement for regular cement mortar. Sathonsaowaphak was the first to investigate geopolymer mortar and studied the properties of bottom ash fineness, ash/liquid alkali ratio, NaOH/Na2SiO3 ratio, NaOH dosage, water to ash ratio, and superplasticiser on the behaviour in terms of workability and compressive strength of GPM. Geopolymer mortar has a mechanical strength of 24–58 MPa, and adding NaOH solution improves the workability performance of GPM without reducing strength. According to the results of Detphan and Chindaprasirt, who prepared GPC using rice husk ash and fly ash and activated by NaOH and NaSiO3 solution as a liquid for the mix, they found that the maximum strength of GPM is acquired by employing a Na2SiO3-to-NaOH mass ratio of four. Moreover, more discussion about geopolymer mortar properties is reported in the following Content.
  • 1.3K
  • 05 Dec 2022
Topic Review
Sewage Sludge Management
One of the most pressing environmental problems worldwide is sewage sludge (SS) management. Every year, wastewater volume increases and thus, the amount of SS produced increases as well. The disposal of SS in landfills, as practiced in many countries, is not a sustainable solution. Instead, SS, rich in organic matter and other nutrients, can be used as an alternative soil additive or fertilizer. The properties of these materials depend on their chemical composition and the method of treatment. Experience from a number of countries, such as the US and Europe, has shown that SS can be transformed from waste into a valuable resource, provided that the final product fulfils the relevant regulatory standards. 
  • 1.3K
  • 06 Apr 2023
Topic Review
EOR's Significance in Emission Reduction
Limiting the increase in CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere, and at the same time, meeting the increased energy demand can be achieved by applying carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) technologies, which hold potential as the bridge for energy and emission-intensive industries to decarbonization goals. At the moment, the only profitable industrial large-scale carbon sequestration projects are large-scale carbon dioxide enhanced oil recovery (CO2-EOR) projects. This paper gives a general overview of the indirect and direct use of captured CO2 in CCUS with a special focus on worldwide large-scale CO2-EOR projects. On the basis of scientific papers and technical reports, data from 23 contemporary large-scale CO2-EOR projects in different project stages were aggregated, pointing out all the specificities of the projects. The specificities of individual projects, along with the lack of standardized methodologies specific for estimating the full lifecycle emissions resulting from CO2-EOR projects, pose a challenge and contribute to uncertainties and wide flexibilities when estimating emissions from CO2-EOR projects, making the cross-referencing of CO2-EOR projects and its comparison to other climate-mitigation strategies rather difficult. Pointing out the mentioned project’s differentiations and aggregating data on the basis of an overview of large-scale CO2-EOR projects gives useful information for future work on the topic of a CO2-EOR project’s lifecycle emissions.
  • 1.3K
  • 17 Jun 2021
Topic Review
Radon Flux Characteristics
Radon is a noble radioactive gas, and almost half of the effective doses from all ionising radiation comes from exposure to radon and its short-lived decay products. Radon flux measurements provide information about how much radon rises from the ground toward the atmosphere, thus, they could serve as good predictors of indoor radon concentrations. Although there are many different mapping methods with many different input data, radon flux data are generally missing and are not included for the delineation of radon priority areas (RPA).
  • 1.3K
  • 19 Jan 2023
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