JAVA Stereo Display Toolkit

Science.gov (United States)

Edmonds, Karina

2008-01-01

This toolkit provides a common interface for displaying graphical user interface (GUI) components in stereo using either specialized stereo display hardware (e.g., liquid crystal shutter or polarized glasses) or anaglyph display (red/blue glasses) on standard workstation displays. An application using this toolkit will work without modification in either environment, allowing stereo software to reach a wider audience without sacrificing high-quality display on dedicated hardware. The toolkit is written in Java for use with the Swing GUI Toolkit and has cross-platform compatibility. It hooks into the graphics system, allowing any standard Swing component to be displayed in stereo. It uses the OpenGL graphics library to control the stereo hardware and to perform the rendering. It also supports anaglyph and special stereo hardware using the same API (application-program interface), and has the ability to simulate color stereo in anaglyph mode by combining the red band of the left image with the green/blue bands of the right image. This is a low-level toolkit that accomplishes simply the display of components (including the JadeDisplay image display component). It does not include higher-level functions such as disparity adjustment, 3D cursor, or overlays all of which can be built using this toolkit.

The reliability of the Associate Platinum digital foot scanner in measuring previously developed footprint characteristics: a technical note.

Science.gov (United States)

Papuga, M Owen; Burke, Jeanmarie R

2011-02-01

An ink pad and paper, pressure-sensitive platforms, and photography have previously been used to collect footprint data used in clinical assessment. Digital scanners have been widely used more recently to collect such data. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the intra- and interrater reliability of a flatbed digital image scanning technology to capture footprint data. This study used a repeated-measures design on 32 (16 male 16 female) healthy subjects. The following measured indices of footprint were recorded from 2-dimensional images of the plantar surface of the foot recorded with an Associate Platinum (Foot Levelers Inc, Roanoke, VA) digital foot scanner: Staheli index, Chippaux-Smirak index, arch angle, and arch index. Intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) values were calculated to evaluate intrarater, interday, and interclinician reliability. The ICC values for intrarater reliability were greater than or equal to .817, indicating an excellent level of reproducibility in assessing the collected images. Analyses of variance revealed that there were no significant differences between raters for each index (P > .05). The ICC values also indicated excellent reliability (.881-.971) between days and clinicians in all but one of the indices of footprint, arch angle (.689), with good reliability between clinicians. The full-factorial analysis of variance model did not reveal any interaction effects (P > .05), which indicated that indices of footprint were not changing across days and clinicians. Scanning technology used in this study demonstrated good intra- and interrater reliability measurements of footprint indices, as demonstrated by high ICC values. Copyright © 2011 National University of Health Sciences. Published by Mosby, Inc. All rights reserved.

Age, Sex and Stature Estimation from Footprint Dimensions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Paurbhi Singh

2017-04-01

Full Text Available Objectives: The present study was carried out to evaluate the utility and reliability of footprint dimensions in age, sex and stature determination in the North Indian population. Materials and Methods: This study was carried out using a sample of 400 people (146 female and 254 male aged 10-65 years in Uttar Pradesh, North Western state of India. Footprints of both feet were taken bilaterally, and thus a total of 800 prints were obtained. A cluster of 7 measurements were taken carefully with the help of a scientific scale ruler. Five measurements were length dimensions from the most anterior part of the toe (T1–T5 to the mid rear heel point and two were breadth dimensions from both left and right footprints: breadth at ball (BBAL, breadth at heel (BHEL and 2 indexes: heel-ball Index (HBI and footprint index (FPI. All data were analyzed statistically using Student’s t-test, regression coefficient and Pearson’s correlation for the estimation of sex on the basis of footprint dimensions. Results: The T1 in left footprints was greater than right footprints in males, while T1 and BBAL were both found to be greater in left footprints than right footprints in females. All the seven foot dimensions were higher in males than females. Conclusion: There were statistically significant differences observed in all footprint dimensions between the male and female footprints except LFPI, LHBI, and RHBI.

Toolkit Design for Interactive Structured Graphics

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Bederson, Benjamin B; Grosjean, Jesse; Meyer, Jon

2003-01-01

.... We compare hand-crafted custom code to polylithic and monolithic toolkit-based solutions. Polylithic toolkits follow a design philosophy similar to 3D scene graphs supported by toolkits including Java3D and OpenInventor...

Measuring acceptance of an assistive social robot: a suggested toolkit

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Heerink, M.; Kröse, B.; Evers, V.; Wielinga, B.

2009-01-01

The human robot interaction community is multidisciplinary by nature and has members from social science to engineering backgrounds. In this paper we aim to provide human robot developers with a straightforward toolkit to evaluate users' acceptance of assistive social robots they are designing or

Taiwan’s Ecological Footprint (1994–2011

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yung-Jaan Lee

2014-09-01

Full Text Available According to the 2011 edition of the National Footprint Accounts (NFA published by the Global Footprint Network (GFN, humankind consumed the resources and services of 1.5 planets in 2008; the corresponding number in 1961 was 0.7 planets. North Americans have an ecological footprint of 8.7 global hectares per person whereas Africans have a footprint of only 1.4 global hectares per person. The global mean biological capacity is only 1.8 global hectares per person so human beings are overshooting ecological resources. The ecological footprint measures the resources that are consumed by humans from the biosphere, and serves as an index of the sustainability of development. The NFA includes the ecological footprints of over 200 countries and regions, but not Taiwan. Hence, Taiwan must establish and update its own ecological footprint databases. Ecological footprint is one indicator of the sustainability of development, and can be compared across nations. This study extends previous studies by analyzing Taiwan’s ecological footprint from 2008–2011. With reference to the ecological footprint accounts of the Global Footprint Network and the Taiwan’s ecological footprint analysis for 1997–2007, this study presents Taiwan’s ecological footprint from 2008–2011. Most of the data that are used herein are taken from the Food and Agriculture Organization, the International Energy Agency, Taiwan’s Council of Agriculture and Taiwan’s National Development Council. The results thus obtained reveal that Taiwan’s ecological footprint from 2008–2011 exceeded that from 1997–2007. To respond to this trend toward un-sustainable development and to help Taiwan move toward sustainability, carbon reduction and energy saving policies should be implemented to effectively manage Taiwan’s ecological resources.

Footprint radius of a cosmic-ray neutron probe for measuring soil-water content and its spatiotemporal variability in an alpine meadow ecosystem

Science.gov (United States)

Zhu, Xuchao; Cao, Ruixue; Shao, Mingan; Liang, Yin

2018-03-01

Cosmic-ray neutron probes (CRNPs) have footprint radii for measuring soil-water content (SWC). The theoretical radius is much larger at high altitude, such as the northern Tibetan Plateau, than the radius at sea level. The most probable practical radius of CRNPs for the northern Tibetan Plateau, however, is not known due to the lack of SWC data in this hostile environment. We calculated the theoretical footprint of the CRNP based on a recent simulation and analyzed the practical radius of a CRNP for the northern Tibetan Plateau by measuring SWC at 113 sampling locations on 21 measuring occasions to a depth of 30 cm in a 33.5 ha plot in an alpine meadow at 4600 m a.s.l. The temporal variability and spatial heterogeneity of SWC within the footprint were then analyzed. The theoretical footprint radius was between 360 and 420 m after accounting for the influences of air humidity, soil moisture, vegetation and air pressure. A comparison of SWCs measured by the CRNP and a neutron probe from access tubes in circles with different radii conservatively indicated that the most probable experimental footprint radius was >200 m. SWC within the CRNP footprint was moderately variable over both time and space, but the temporal variability was higher. Spatial heterogeneity was weak, but should be considered in future CRNP calibrations. This study provided theoretical and practical bases for the application and promotion of CRNPs in alpine meadows on the Tibetan Plateau.

Geometric morphometric footprint analysis of young women

OpenAIRE

Domjanic, Jacqueline; Fieder, Martin; Seidler, Horst; Mitteroecker, Philipp

2013-01-01

Background Most published attempts to quantify footprint shape are based on a small number of measurements. We applied geometric morphometric methods to study shape variation of the complete footprint outline in a sample of 83 adult women. Methods The outline of the footprint, including the toes, was represented by a comprehensive set of 85 landmarks and semilandmarks. Shape coordinates were computed by Generalized Procrustes Analysis. Results The first four principal components represented t...

Business/Employers Influenza Toolkit

Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Podcasts

This podcast promotes the "Make It Your Business To Fight The Flu" toolkit for Businesses and Employers. The toolkit provides information and recommended strategies to help businesses and employers promote the seasonal flu vaccine. Additionally, employers will find flyers, posters, and other materials to post and distribute in the workplace.

NGS QC Toolkit: a toolkit for quality control of next generation sequencing data.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ravi K Patel

Full Text Available Next generation sequencing (NGS technologies provide a high-throughput means to generate large amount of sequence data. However, quality control (QC of sequence data generated from these technologies is extremely important for meaningful downstream analysis. Further, highly efficient and fast processing tools are required to handle the large volume of datasets. Here, we have developed an application, NGS QC Toolkit, for quality check and filtering of high-quality data. This toolkit is a standalone and open source application freely available at http://www.nipgr.res.in/ngsqctoolkit.html. All the tools in the application have been implemented in Perl programming language. The toolkit is comprised of user-friendly tools for QC of sequencing data generated using Roche 454 and Illumina platforms, and additional tools to aid QC (sequence format converter and trimming tools and analysis (statistics tools. A variety of options have been provided to facilitate the QC at user-defined parameters. The toolkit is expected to be very useful for the QC of NGS data to facilitate better downstream analysis.

Adding Impacts and Mitigation Measures to OpenEI's RAPID Toolkit

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Vogel, Erin

2017-05-01

The Open Energy Information platform hosts the Regulatory and Permitting Information Desktop (RAPID) Toolkit to provide renewable energy permitting information on federal and state regulatory processes. One of the RAPID Toolkit's functions is to help streamline the geothermal permitting processes outlined in the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). This is particularly important in the geothermal energy sector since each development phase requires separate land analysis to acquire exploration, well field drilling, and power plant construction permits. Using the Environmental Assessment documents included in RAPID's NEPA Database, the RAPID team identified 37 resource categories that a geothermal project may impact. Examples include impacts to geology and minerals, nearby endangered species, or water quality standards. To provide federal regulators, project developers, consultants, and the public with typical impacts and mitigation measures for geothermal projects, the RAPID team has provided overview webpages of each of these 37 resource categories with a sidebar query to reference related NEPA documents in the NEPA Database. This project is an expansion of a previous project that analyzed the time to complete NEPA environmental review for various geothermal activities. The NEPA review not only focused on geothermal projects within the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service managed lands, but also projects funded by the Department of Energy. Timeline barriers found were: extensive public comments and involvement; content overlap in NEPA documents, and discovery of impacted resources such as endangered species or cultural sites.

Resource Footprints are Good Proxies of Environmental Damage

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Steinmann, Z.J.N.; Schipper, A.M.; Hauck, M.; Giljum, S.; Wernet, G.; Huijbregts, M.A.J.

2017-01-01

Environmental footprints are increasingly used to quantify and compare environmental impacts of for example products, technologies, households, or nations. This has resulted in a multitude of footprint indicators, ranging from relatively simple measures of resource use (water, energy, materials) to

Bivariate Genomic Footprinting Detects Changes in Transcription Factor Activity

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Songjoon Baek

2017-05-01

Full Text Available In response to activating signals, transcription factors (TFs bind DNA and regulate gene expression. TF binding can be measured by protection of the bound sequence from DNase digestion (i.e., footprint. Here, we report that 80% of TF binding motifs do not show a measurable footprint, partly because of a variable cleavage pattern within the motif sequence. To more faithfully portray the effect of TFs on chromatin, we developed an algorithm that captures two TF-dependent effects on chromatin accessibility: footprinting and motif-flanking accessibility. The algorithm, termed bivariate genomic footprinting (BaGFoot, efficiently detects TF activity. BaGFoot is robust to different accessibility assays (DNase-seq, ATAC-seq, all examined peak-calling programs, and a variety of cut bias correction approaches. BaGFoot reliably predicts TF binding and provides valuable information regarding the TFs affecting chromatin accessibility in various biological systems and following various biological events, including in cases where an absolute footprint cannot be determined.

The relationship between plantar pressure and footprint shape.

Science.gov (United States)

Hatala, Kevin G; Dingwall, Heather L; Wunderlich, Roshna E; Richmond, Brian G

2013-07-01

Fossil footprints preserve the only direct evidence of the external foot morphologies and gaits of extinct hominin taxa. However, their interpretation requires an understanding of the complex interaction among foot anatomy, foot function, and soft sediment mechanics. We applied an experimental approach aimed at understanding how one measure of foot function, the distribution of plantar pressure, influences footprint topography. Thirty-eight habitually unshod and minimally shod Daasanach individuals (19 male, 19 female) walked across a pressure pad and produced footprints in sediment directly excavated from the geological layer that preserves 1.5 Ma fossil footprints at Ileret, Kenya. Calibrated pressure data were collected and three-dimensional models of all footprints were produced using photogrammetry. We found significant correlations (Spearman's rank, p plantar pressure distribution and relative footprint depths at ten anatomical regions across the foot. Furthermore, plantar pressure distributions followed a pattern similar to footprint topography, with areas of higher pressure tending to leave deeper impressions. This differs from the results of experimental studies performed in different types of sediment, supporting the hypothesis that sediment type influences the relationship between plantar pressure and footprint topography. Our results also lend support to previous interpretations that the shapes of the Ileret footprints preserve evidence of a medial transfer of plantar pressure during late stance phase, as seen in modern humans. However, the weakness of the correlations indicates that much of the variation in relative depths within footprints is not explained by pressure distributions under the foot when walking on firm ground, using the methods applied here. This warrants caution when interpreting the unique foot anatomies and foot functions of extinct hominins evidenced by their footprint structures. Further research is necessary to clarify how

Wetland Resources Action Planning (WRAP) toolkit

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bunting, Stuart W.; Smith, Kevin G.; Lund, Søren

2013-01-01

The Wetland Resources Action Planning (WRAP) toolkit is a toolkit of research methods and better management practices used in HighARCS (Highland Aquatic Resources Conservation and Sustainable Development), an EU-funded project with field experiences in China, Vietnam and India. It aims to communi......The Wetland Resources Action Planning (WRAP) toolkit is a toolkit of research methods and better management practices used in HighARCS (Highland Aquatic Resources Conservation and Sustainable Development), an EU-funded project with field experiences in China, Vietnam and India. It aims...... to communicate best practices in conserving biodiversity and sustaining ecosystem services to potential users and to promote the wise-use of aquatic resources, improve livelihoods and enhance policy information....

Water footprint and carbon footprint of the energy consumption in sunflower agroecosystems.

Science.gov (United States)

Yousefi, Mohammad; Khoramivafa, Mahmud; Damghani, Abdolmajid Mahdavi

2017-08-01

The aims of this study were to assess the energy requirements, carbon footprint, and water footprint of sunflower production in Kermanshah province, western Iran. Data were collected from 70 sunflower production agroecosystems which were selected based on random sampling method in summer 2012. Results indicated that total input and output energy in sunflower production were 26,973.87 and 64,833.92 MJha -1 , respectively. The highest share of total input energy in sunflower agroecosystems was recorded for electricity power, N fertilizer, and diesel fuel with 35, 19, and 17%, respectively. Also, energy use efficiency, water footprint, greenhouse gas (GHG) emission, and carbon footprint were calculated as 2.40, 3.41 m 3  kg -1 , 2042.091 kg CO 2eq ha -1 , and 0.875 kg CO 2eq kg -1 , respectively. 0.18 of sunflower water footprint was related to green water footprint and the remaining 82% was related to blue water footprint. Also, the highest share of carbon footprint was related to electricity power (nearby 80%). Due to the results of this study, reducing use of fossil fuel and non-renewable energy resource and application of sufficient irrigation systems by efficient use of water resource are essential in order to achieve low carbon footprint, environmental challenges, and also sustainability of agricultural production systems.

Commercial Building Energy Saver: An energy retrofit analysis toolkit

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hong, Tianzhen; Piette, Mary Ann; Chen, Yixing; Lee, Sang Hoon; Taylor-Lange, Sarah C.; Zhang, Rongpeng; Sun, Kaiyu; Price, Phillip

2015-01-01

Highlights: • Commercial Building Energy Saver is a powerful toolkit for energy retrofit analysis. • CBES provides benchmarking, load shape analysis, and model-based retrofit assessment. • CBES covers 7 building types, 6 vintages, 16 climates, and 100 energy measures. • CBES includes a web app, API, and a database of energy efficiency performance. • CBES API can be extended and integrated with third party energy software tools. - Abstract: Small commercial buildings in the United States consume 47% of the total primary energy of the buildings sector. Retrofitting small and medium commercial buildings poses a huge challenge for owners because they usually lack the expertise and resources to identify and evaluate cost-effective energy retrofit strategies. This paper presents the Commercial Building Energy Saver (CBES), an energy retrofit analysis toolkit, which calculates the energy use of a building, identifies and evaluates retrofit measures in terms of energy savings, energy cost savings and payback. The CBES Toolkit includes a web app (APP) for end users and the CBES Application Programming Interface (API) for integrating CBES with other energy software tools. The toolkit provides a rich set of features including: (1) Energy Benchmarking providing an Energy Star score, (2) Load Shape Analysis to identify potential building operation improvements, (3) Preliminary Retrofit Analysis which uses a custom developed pre-simulated database and, (4) Detailed Retrofit Analysis which utilizes real-time EnergyPlus simulations. CBES includes 100 configurable energy conservation measures (ECMs) that encompass IAQ, technical performance and cost data, for assessing 7 different prototype buildings in 16 climate zones in California and 6 vintages. A case study of a small office building demonstrates the use of the toolkit for retrofit analysis. The development of CBES provides a new contribution to the field by providing a straightforward and uncomplicated decision

BRDF profile of Tyvek and its implementation in the Geant4 simulation toolkit.

Science.gov (United States)

Nozka, Libor; Pech, Miroslav; Hiklova, Helena; Mandat, Dusan; Hrabovsky, Miroslav; Schovanek, Petr; Palatka, Miroslav

2011-02-28

Diffuse and specular characteristics of the Tyvek 1025-BL material are reported with respect to their implementation in the Geant4 Monte Carlo simulation toolkit. This toolkit incorporates the UNIFIED model. Coefficients defined by the UNIFIED model were calculated from the bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) profiles measured with a scatterometer for several angles of incidence. Results were amended with profile measurements made by a profilometer.

Supporting LGBT Communities: Police ToolKit

OpenAIRE

Vasquez del Aguila, Ernesto; Franey, Paul

2013-01-01

This toolkit provides police forces with practical educational tools, which can be used as part of a comprehensive LGBT strategy centred on diversity, equality, and non-discrimination. These materials are based on lessons learned through real life policing experiences with LGBT persons. The Toolkit is divided into seven scenarios where police awareness of LGBT issues has been identified as important. The toolkit employs a practical, scenario-based, problem-solving approach to help police offi...

Spotting Cheetahs: Identifying Individuals by Their Footprints.

Science.gov (United States)

Jewell, Zoe C; Alibhai, Sky K; Weise, Florian; Munro, Stuart; Van Vuuren, Marlice; Van Vuuren, Rudie

2016-05-01

The cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) is Africa's most endangered large felid and listed as Vulnerable with a declining population trend by the IUCN(1). It ranges widely over sub-Saharan Africa and in parts of the Middle East. Cheetah conservationists face two major challenges, conflict with landowners over the killing of domestic livestock, and concern over range contraction. Understanding of the latter remains particularly poor(2). Namibia is believed to support the largest number of cheetahs of any range country, around 30%, but estimates range from 2,905(3) to 13,520(4). The disparity is likely a result of the different techniques used in monitoring. Current techniques, including invasive tagging with VHF or satellite/GPS collars, can be costly and unreliable. The footprint identification technique(5) is a new tool accessible to both field scientists and also citizens with smartphones, who could potentially augment data collection. The footprint identification technique analyzes digital images of footprints captured according to a standardized protocol. Images are optimized and measured in data visualization software. Measurements of distances, angles, and areas of the footprint images are analyzed using a robust cross-validated pairwise discriminant analysis based on a customized model. The final output is in the form of a Ward's cluster dendrogram. A user-friendly graphic user interface (GUI) allows the user immediate access and clear interpretation of classification results. The footprint identification technique algorithms are species specific because each species has a unique anatomy. The technique runs in a data visualization software, using its own scripting language (jsl) that can be customized for the footprint anatomy of any species. An initial classification algorithm is built from a training database of footprints from that species, collected from individuals of known identity. An algorithm derived from a cheetah of known identity is then able to classify

Spotting Cheetahs: Identifying Individuals by Their Footprints

Science.gov (United States)

Jewell, Zoe C.; Alibhai, Sky K.; Weise, Florian; Munro, Stuart; Van Vuuren, Marlice; Van Vuuren, Rudie

2016-01-01

The cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) is Africa's most endangered large felid and listed as Vulnerable with a declining population trend by the IUCN1. It ranges widely over sub-Saharan Africa and in parts of the Middle East. Cheetah conservationists face two major challenges, conflict with landowners over the killing of domestic livestock, and concern over range contraction. Understanding of the latter remains particularly poor2. Namibia is believed to support the largest number of cheetahs of any range country, around 30%, but estimates range from 2,9053 to 13,5204. The disparity is likely a result of the different techniques used in monitoring. Current techniques, including invasive tagging with VHF or satellite/GPS collars, can be costly and unreliable. The footprint identification technique5 is a new tool accessible to both field scientists and also citizens with smartphones, who could potentially augment data collection. The footprint identification technique analyzes digital images of footprints captured according to a standardized protocol. Images are optimized and measured in data visualization software. Measurements of distances, angles, and areas of the footprint images are analyzed using a robust cross-validated pairwise discriminant analysis based on a customized model. The final output is in the form of a Ward's cluster dendrogram. A user-friendly graphic user interface (GUI) allows the user immediate access and clear interpretation of classification results. The footprint identification technique algorithms are species specific because each species has a unique anatomy. The technique runs in a data visualization software, using its own scripting language (jsl) that can be customized for the footprint anatomy of any species. An initial classification algorithm is built from a training database of footprints from that species, collected from individuals of known identity. An algorithm derived from a cheetah of known identity is then able to classify free

The impact of electricity consumption on CO2 emission, carbon footprint, water footprint and ecological footprint: The role of hydropower in an emerging economy.

Science.gov (United States)

Bello, Mufutau Opeyemi; Solarin, Sakiru Adebola; Yen, Yuen Yee

2018-08-01

The primary objective of this paper is to investigate the isolated impacts of hydroelectricity consumption on the environment in Malaysia as an emerging economy. We use four different measures of environmental degradation including ecological footprint, carbon footprint, water footprint and CO 2 emission as target variables, while controlling for GDP, GDP square and urbanization for the period 1971 to 2016. A recently introduced unit root test with breaks is utilized to examine the stationarity of the series and the bounds testing approach to cointegration is used to probe the long run relationships between the variables. VECM Granger causality technique is employed to examine the long-run causal dynamics between the variables. Sensitivity analysis is conducted by further including fossil fuels in the equations. The results show evidence of an inverted U-shaped relationship between environmental degradation and real GDP. Hydroelectricity is found to significantly reduce environmental degradation while urbanization is also not particularly harmful on the environment apart from its effect on air pollution. The VECM Granger causality results show evidence of unidirectional causality running from hydroelectricity and fossil fuels consumption to all measures of environmental degradation and real GDP per capita. There is evidence of feedback hypothesis between real GDP to all environmental degradation indices. The inclusion of fossil fuel did not change the behavior of hydroelectricity on the environment but fossil fuels significantly increase water footprint. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Experimentally generated footprints in sand: Analysis and consequences for the interpretation of fossil and forensic footprints.

Science.gov (United States)

D'Août, Kristiaan; Meert, L; Van Gheluwe, B; De Clercq, D; Aerts, P

2010-04-01

Fossilized footprints contain information about the dynamics of gait, but their interpretation is difficult, as they are the combined result of foot anatomy, gait dynamics, and substrate properties. We explore how footprints are generated in modern humans. Sixteen healthy subjects walked on a solid surface and in a layer of fine-grained sand. In each condition, 3D kinematics of the leg and foot were analyzed for three trials at preferred speed, using an infrared camera system. Additionally, calibrated plantar pressures were recorded. After each trial in sand, the depth of the imprint was measured under specific sites. When walking in sand, subjects showed greater toe clearance during swing and a 7 degrees higher knee yield during stance. Maximal pressure was the most influential factor for footprint depth under the heel. For other foot zones, a combination of factors correlates with imprint depth, with pressure impulse (the pressure-time integral) gaining importance distally, at the metatarsal heads and the hallux. We conclude that footprint topology cannot be related to a single variable, but that different zones of the footprint reflect different aspects of the kinesiology of walking. Therefore, an integrated approach, combining anatomical, kinesiological, and substrate-mechanical insights, is necessary for a correct interpretation. (c) 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Toolkit Design for Interactive Structured Graphics

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Bederson, Benjamin B; Grosjean, Jesse; Meyer, Jon

2003-01-01

.... We describe Jazz (a polylithic toolkit) and Piccolo (a monolithic toolkit), each of which we built to support interactive 2D structured graphics applications in general, and Zoomable User Interface applications in particular...

Heel–Ball index: An analysis of footprint dimensions for determination of sex

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tanuj Kanchan

2014-06-01

Full Text Available Determination of sex from the footprints recovered at crime scenes can help the investigation by narrowing down the pool of possible suspects. The present research studies the dimensions of the heel and the ball in footprints, and derives the Heel–Ball (HB index from these foot dimensions with the aim to find out if the foot dimensions and the HB index exhibit sexual dimorphisms. The study was carried out on 100 individuals (50 males, 50 females of Indian origin. Footprints were obtained from both feet of the study participants using standard techniques. Thus, a total of 200 footprints were obtained. The breadth of the footprint at ball (BBAL and the breadth of the footprint at heel (BHEL were measured on the footprints. The HB index was derived as (BHEL ÷ BBAL × 100. The footprint measurements at the ball and heel were significantly larger in males on both the sides. Likewise, the derived HB index was larger in males in both feet, but the sex differences were not statistically significant. The study concludes that though footprint dimensions can be used in the determination of sex, the HB index may not be utilized in sex determination from footprints.

Exceptional preservation of children's footprints from a Holocene footprint site in Namibia

Science.gov (United States)

Bennett, Matthew R.; Morse, Sarita A.; Liutkus-Pierce, Cynthia; McClymont, Juliet; Evans, Mary; Crompton, Robin H.; Francis Thackeray, J.

2014-09-01

Here we report on a Holocene inter-dune site close to Walvis Bay (Namibia) which contains exceptionally well-preserved children's footprints. The footprint surface is dated using Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) methods to approximately 1.5 ka. These dates are compared to those obtained at nearby footprint sites and used to verify a model of diachronous footprint surfaces and also add to the archaeological data available for the communities that occupied these near-coastal areas during the Holocene. This model of diachronous footprint surfaces has implications for other soft-sediment footprint sites such as the 1.5 Ma old footprints at Ileret (Kenya). The distribution of both human and animal tracks, is consistent with the passage of small flock of small ungulates (probably sheep/goats) followed by a group of approximately 9 ± 2 individuals (children or young adults). Age estimates from the tracks suggest that some of the individuals may have been as young as five years old. Variation in track topology across this sedimentologically uniform surface is explained in terms of variations in gait and weight/stature of the individual print makers and is used to corroborate a model of footprint morphology developed at a nearby site. The significance of the site within the literature on human footprints lies in the quality of the track preservation, their topological variability despite a potentially uniform substrate, and the small size of the tracks, and therefore the inferred young age of the track-makers. The site provides an emotive insight into the life of the track-makers.

Business/Employers Influenza Toolkit

Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Podcasts

2011-09-06

This podcast promotes the "Make It Your Business To Fight The Flu" toolkit for Businesses and Employers. The toolkit provides information and recommended strategies to help businesses and employers promote the seasonal flu vaccine. Additionally, employers will find flyers, posters, and other materials to post and distribute in the workplace.  Created: 9/6/2011 by Office of Infectious Diseases, Office of the Director (OD).   Date Released: 9/7/2011.

Water Footprint Symposium: where next for water footprint and water assessment methodology?

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Tillotson, M.R.; Kiu, J.; Guan, D.; Wu, P.; Zhao, Xu; Zhang, Guoping; Pfister, S.; Pahlow, Markus

2014-01-01

Recognizing the need for a comprehensive review of the tools and metrics for the quantification and assessment of water footprints, and allowing for the opportunity for open discussion on the challenges and future of water footprinting methodology, an international symposium on water footprint was

Water Footprint Symposium : where next for water footprint and water assessment methodology?

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Tillotson, Martin R.; Liu, Junguo; Guan, Dabo; Wu, Pute; Zhao, Xu; Zhang, Guoping; Pfister, Stephan; Pahlow, Markus

2014-01-01

Recognizing the need for a comprehensive review of the tools and metrics for the quantification and assessment of water footprints, and allowing for the opportunity for open discussion on the challenges and future of water footprinting methodology, an international symposium on water footprint was

Evidence-based Metrics Toolkit for Measuring Safety and Efficiency in Human-Automation Systems

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — APRIL 2016 NOTE: Principal Investigator moved to Rice University in mid-2015. Project continues at Rice with the same title (Evidence-based Metrics Toolkit for...

Solar Integration National Dataset Toolkit | Grid Modernization | NREL

Science.gov (United States)

Solar Integration National Dataset Toolkit Solar Integration National Dataset Toolkit NREL is working on a Solar Integration National Dataset (SIND) Toolkit to enable researchers to perform U.S . regional solar generation integration studies. It will provide modeled, coherent subhourly solar power data

The Reconstruction Toolkit (RTK), an open-source cone-beam CT reconstruction toolkit based on the Insight Toolkit (ITK)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Rit, S; Vila Oliva, M; Sarrut, D; Brousmiche, S; Labarbe, R; Sharp, G C

2014-01-01

We propose the Reconstruction Toolkit (RTK, http://www.openrtk.org), an open-source toolkit for fast cone-beam CT reconstruction, based on the Insight Toolkit (ITK) and using GPU code extracted from Plastimatch. RTK is developed by an open consortium (see affiliations) under the non-contaminating Apache 2.0 license. The quality of the platform is daily checked with regression tests in partnership with Kitware, the company supporting ITK. Several features are already available: Elekta, Varian and IBA inputs, multi-threaded Feldkamp-David-Kress reconstruction on CPU and GPU, Parker short scan weighting, multi-threaded CPU and GPU forward projectors, etc. Each feature is either accessible through command line tools or C++ classes that can be included in independent software. A MIDAS community has been opened to share CatPhan datasets of several vendors (Elekta, Varian and IBA). RTK will be used in the upcoming cone-beam CT scanner developed by IBA for proton therapy rooms. Many features are under development: new input format support, iterative reconstruction, hybrid Monte Carlo / deterministic CBCT simulation, etc. RTK has been built to freely share tomographic reconstruction developments between researchers and is open for new contributions.

Development of My Footprint Calculator

Science.gov (United States)

Mummidisetti, Karthik

The Environmental footprint is a very powerful tool that helps an individual to understand how their everyday activities are impacting environmental surroundings. Data shows that global climate change, which is a growing concern for nations all over the world, is already affecting humankind, plants and animals through raising ocean levels, droughts & desertification and changing weather patterns. In addition to a wide range of policy measures implemented by national and state governments, it is necessary for individuals to understand the impact that their lifestyle may have on their personal environmental footprint, and thus over the global climate change. "My Footprint Calculator" (myfootprintcalculator.com) has been designed to be one the simplest, yet comprehensive, web tools to help individuals calculate and understand their personal environmental impact. "My Footprint Calculator" is a website that queries users about their everyday habits and activities and calculates their personal impact on the environment. This website was re-designed to help users determine their environmental impact in various aspects of their lives ranging from transportation and recycling habits to water and energy usage with the addition of new features that will allow users to share their experiences and their best practices with other users interested in reducing their personal Environmental footprint. The collected data is stored in the database and a future goal of this work plans to analyze the collected data from all users (anonymously) for developing relevant trends and statistics.

Measuring Carbon Footprint of Flexible Pavement Construction Project in Indonesia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Utomo Dwi Hatmoko Jati

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Road infrastructure in Indonesia is mainly dominated by flexible pavement type. Its construction process, however, has raised concerns in terms of its environment impacts. This study aims to track and measure the carbon footprint of flexible pavement. The objectives are to map the construction process in relation to greenhouse gas (GHG emissions, to quantify them in terms of carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2e as generated by the process of production and transportation of raw materials, and the operation of plant off-site and on-site project. Data collection was done by having site observations and interviews with project stakeholders. The results show a total emissions of 70.888 tonnes CO2e, consisting of 34.248 tonnes CO2e (48.31% off-site activities and 36.640 tonnes CO2e (51.687% on-site activities. The two highest CO2e emissions were generated by the use of plant for asphalt concrete laying activities accounted 34.827 tonnes CO2e (49.130%, and material transportation accounted 24.921 (35.155%. These findings provide a new perspective of the carbon footprint in flexible pavement and suggest the urgent need for the use of more efficient and environmentally friendly plant in construction process as it shows the most significant contribution on the CO2e. This study provides valuable understanding on the environmental impact of typical flexible pavement projects in Indonesia, and further can be used for developing green road framework.

Measuring Carbon Footprint of Flexible Pavement Construction Project in Indonesia

Science.gov (United States)

Hatmoko, Jati Utomo Dwi; Hidayat, Arif; Setiawati, Apsari; Prasetyo, Stefanus Catur Adi

2018-02-01

Road infrastructure in Indonesia is mainly dominated by flexible pavement type. Its construction process, however, has raised concerns in terms of its environment impacts. This study aims to track and measure the carbon footprint of flexible pavement. The objectives are to map the construction process in relation to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, to quantify them in terms of carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2e) as generated by the process of production and transportation of raw materials, and the operation of plant off-site and on-site project. Data collection was done by having site observations and interviews with project stakeholders. The results show a total emissions of 70.888 tonnes CO2e, consisting of 34.248 tonnes CO2e (48.31%) off-site activities and 36.640 tonnes CO2e (51.687%) on-site activities. The two highest CO2e emissions were generated by the use of plant for asphalt concrete laying activities accounted 34.827 tonnes CO2e (49.130%), and material transportation accounted 24.921 (35.155%). These findings provide a new perspective of the carbon footprint in flexible pavement and suggest the urgent need for the use of more efficient and environmentally friendly plant in construction process as it shows the most significant contribution on the CO2e. This study provides valuable understanding on the environmental impact of typical flexible pavement projects in Indonesia, and further can be used for developing green road framework.

Wind Integration National Dataset Toolkit | Grid Modernization | NREL

Science.gov (United States)

Integration National Dataset Toolkit Wind Integration National Dataset Toolkit The Wind Integration National Dataset (WIND) Toolkit is an update and expansion of the Eastern Wind Integration Data Set and Western Wind Integration Data Set. It supports the next generation of wind integration studies. WIND

Measuring Urban Carbon Footprint from Carbon Flows in the Global Supply Chain.

Science.gov (United States)

Hu, Yuanchao; Lin, Jianyi; Cui, Shenghui; Khanna, Nina Zheng

2016-06-21

A global multiregional input-output (MRIO) model was built for eight Chinese cities to track their carbon flows. For in-depth understanding of urban carbon footprint from the perspectives of production, consumption, and trade balance, four kinds of footprints and four redefined measurement indicators were calculated. From the global supply chain, urban carbon inflows from Mainland China were larger than outflows, while the carbon outflows to European, principal North American countries and East Asia were much larger than inflows. With the rapid urbanization of China, Construction was the largest consumer and Utilities was the largest producer. Cities with higher consumption (such as Dalian, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Beijing) should change their consumption patterns, while cities with lower production efficiency (such as Dalian, Shanghai, Ningbo, and Chongqing) should improve their technology. The cities of net carbon consumption tended to transfer carbon emissions out of them by trading in carbon-intensive products, while the cities of net carbon production tended to produce carbon-intensive products for nonlocal consumers. Our results indicated that urban carbon abatement requires not only rational consumption and industrial symbiosis at the city level, but also tighter collaboration along all stages of the global supply chain.

Ecological footprint and food consumption in Minna, Nigeria

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Razack, N T A A; Ludin, A N M

2014-01-01

Cities all over the world are growing and will continue to grow as development is tilted toward development at the expense of the rural area. As a result of this there is need for development of housing that constructed at the urban fringes. There are many tools to measure sustainability of a city and one of them is Ecological Footprint. This paper looked at the Ecological Footprint and food consumption Minna, Nigeria. The paper evaluates the effectiveness of Ecological Footprint in the context of urban development. The survey revealed that food contributed 38.77% of the Ecological Footprint of Minna. This is as a result of the lifestyle of the people. It was concluded that the Ecological Footprint of Minna (1.096gha) is lower than the national bio-capacity (1.24gha), which therefore make city sustainable. Therefore, the people of Minna have to develop a lifestyle that will be sustainable better than the present practice

Assessment of global grey water footprint of major food crops

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, Hong; Liu, Wenfeng; Antonelli, Marta

2016-04-01

Agricultural production is one of the major sources of water pollution in the world. This is closely related to the excess application of fertilizers. Leaching of N and P to water bodies has caused serious degradation of water quality in many places. With the persistent increase in the demand for agricultural products, agricultural intensification evident during the past decades will continue in the future. This will lead to further increase in fertilizer application and consequently water pollution. Grey water footprint is a measure of the intensity of water pollution caused by water use for human activities. It is defined as the volume of water that is required to assimilate a load of pollutants to a freshwater body, based on natural background concentrations and water quality standards. This study conducts a global assessment of grey water footprint for major cereal crops, wheat, maize and rice. A crop model, Python-based EPIC (PEPIT), is applied to quantify the leaching of N and P from the fertilizer application in the three crops on a global scale with 0.5 degree spatial resolution. The hotspots of leaching are identified. The results suggest that, based on the definition and method of grey water footprint proposed by the World Water Footprint Network, the grey water footprint in many parts of the world has exceeded their total water resources availability. This indicates the seriousness of water pollution caused by agricultural production. However, the situation may also call for the development of a realistic measurement of grey water footprint which is more pertinent to water resources management. This paper proposes some alternatives in measuring grey water footprint and also discusses incorporation of grey water footprint assessment into water policy formulation and river basins plan development.

Water footprint of hydro power in Norway

Science.gov (United States)

Engeland, Kolbjørn; Tallaksen, Lena; Haakon Bakken, Tor; Killingtveit, Ånund

2015-04-01

The IPCC Special Report on Renewable Energy (IPCC, 2012) assesses the potential for renewable energy sources to replace fossil-based fuels and benchmarks the technologies with respect to a set of criteria, including their water footprint measured as m3/MWh. While most of the renewable technologies show a typical range of 1-5 m3/MWh, the very sparse data on hydropower range from a minimum of 0.04 to a maximum of 209 m3/MWh. More recent studies on water footprint from hydropower indicate that the water consumption rates could go even far beyond the numbers published by IPCC (2012). The methodological approach behind these numbers are, however, criticized as it appears over-simplistic and several issues need to be defined and clarified in order to present the 'true picture' of the water footprint of hydropower. Despite this, the rather high numbers for hydropower may imply a reputational risk for the sector and also be a direct investment risk in new projects if hydropower is considered a "large-scale water consumer". Estimation of water footprint has two important components (i) definition of water footprint (including system boundaries), and (ii) estimation of evaporation, which is assumed to constitute the main water loss from hydropower. Here we will mainly address the second topic and have chosen to use a water footprint definition based on net evapotranspiration from reservoirs. Thus, we need estimates of evapotranspiration from the land surface prior to inundation and the evaporation from the reservoir after it has been filled up. The primary objective of the study is to estimate water footprint of hydropower in Norway and in particular to answer the following questions: (i) How does different environmental variables influence water footprint estimation in Norway?, and in particular (ii) What is the total/specific water footprint from Norwegian hydropower production? To answer these questions we tested how environmental variables like climate and vegetation

A qualitative study of clinic and community member perspectives on intervention toolkits: "Unless the toolkit is used it won't help solve the problem".

Science.gov (United States)

Davis, Melinda M; Howk, Sonya; Spurlock, Margaret; McGinnis, Paul B; Cohen, Deborah J; Fagnan, Lyle J

2017-07-18

Intervention toolkits are common products of grant-funded research in public health and primary care settings. Toolkits are designed to address the knowledge translation gap by speeding implementation and dissemination of research into practice. However, few studies describe characteristics of effective intervention toolkits and their implementation. Therefore, we conducted this study to explore what clinic and community-based users want in intervention toolkits and to identify the factors that support application in practice. In this qualitative descriptive study we conducted focus groups and interviews with a purposive sample of community health coalition members, public health experts, and primary care professionals between November 2010 and January 2012. The transdisciplinary research team used thematic analysis to identify themes and a cross-case comparative analysis to explore variation by participant role and toolkit experience. Ninety six participants representing primary care (n = 54, 56%) and community settings (n = 42, 44%) participated in 18 sessions (13 focus groups, five key informant interviews). Participants ranged from those naïve through expert in toolkit development; many reported limited application of toolkits in actual practice. Participants wanted toolkits targeted at the right audience and demonstrated to be effective. Well organized toolkits, often with a quick start guide, with tools that were easy to tailor and apply were desired. Irrespective of perceived quality, participants experienced with practice change emphasized that leadership, staff buy-in, and facilitative support was essential for intervention toolkits to be translated into changes in clinic or public -health practice. Given the emphasis on toolkits in supporting implementation and dissemination of research and clinical guidelines, studies are warranted to determine when and how toolkits are used. Funders, policy makers, researchers, and leaders in primary care and

Interpreting locomotor biomechanics from the morphology of human footprints.

Science.gov (United States)

Hatala, Kevin G; Wunderlich, Roshna E; Dingwall, Heather L; Richmond, Brian G

2016-01-01

Fossil hominin footprints offer unique direct windows to the locomotor behaviors of our ancestors. These data could allow a clearer understanding of the evolution of human locomotion by circumventing issues associated with indirect interpretations of habitual locomotor patterns from fossil skeletal material. However, before we can use fossil hominin footprints to understand better the evolution of human locomotion, we must first develop an understanding of how locomotor biomechanics are preserved in, and can be inferred from, footprint morphologies. In this experimental study, 41 habitually barefoot modern humans created footprints under controlled conditions in which variables related to locomotor biomechanics could be quantified. Measurements of regional topography (depth) were taken from 3D models of those footprints, and principal components analysis was used to identify orthogonal axes that described the largest proportions of topographic variance within the human experimental sample. Linear mixed effects models were used to quantify the influences of biomechanical variables on the first five principal axes of footprint topographic variation, thus providing new information on the biomechanical variables most evidently expressed in the morphology of human footprints. The footprint's overall depth was considered as a confounding variable, since biomechanics may be linked to the extent to which a substrate deforms. Three of five axes showed statistically significant relationships with variables related to both locomotor biomechanics and substrate displacement; one axis was influenced only by biomechanics and another only by the overall depth of the footprint. Principal axes of footprint morphological variation were significantly related to gait type (walking or running), kinematics of the hip and ankle joints and the distribution of pressure beneath the foot. These results provide the first quantitative framework for developing hypotheses regarding the

SIGKit: Software for Introductory Geophysics Toolkit

Science.gov (United States)

Kruse, S.; Bank, C. G.; Esmaeili, S.; Jazayeri, S.; Liu, S.; Stoikopoulos, N.

2017-12-01

The Software for Introductory Geophysics Toolkit (SIGKit) affords students the opportunity to create model data and perform simple processing of field data for various geophysical methods. SIGkit provides a graphical user interface built with the MATLAB programming language, but can run even without a MATLAB installation. At this time SIGkit allows students to pick first arrivals and match a two-layer model to seismic refraction data; grid total-field magnetic data, extract a profile, and compare this to a synthetic profile; and perform simple processing steps (subtraction of a mean trace, hyperbola fit) to ground-penetrating radar data. We also have preliminary tools for gravity, resistivity, and EM data representation and analysis. SIGkit is being built by students for students, and the intent of the toolkit is to provide an intuitive interface for simple data analysis and understanding of the methods, and act as an entrance to more sophisticated software. The toolkit has been used in introductory courses as well as field courses. First reactions from students are positive. Think-aloud observations of students using the toolkit have helped identify problems and helped shape it. We are planning to compare the learning outcomes of students who have used the toolkit in a field course to students in a previous course to test its effectiveness.

The carbon footprint of Greek households (1995–2012)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Markaki, M.; Belegri-Roboli, A.; Sarafidis, U.; Mirasgedis, S.

2017-01-01

The goal of this paper is twofold: i) to investigate the carbon footprint of Greek households throughout the period 1995–2012, in order to identify the main socio-economic factors that affect GHG emissions, and ii) to evaluate the effectiveness of the implemented policies to tackle climate change. In this, a consumption-based emissions inventory approach is applied. The analysis is based on an environmentally-extended input-output model including direct CO_2 emissions from households, indirect CO_2 emissions from electricity consumption and indirect CO_2 emissions from energy used in the production of goods and services purchased by households, domestic or imported. Statistical analysis and appropriate regression models were developed in order to identify the main factors influencing the carbon footprint of Greek households. The results indicate that the observed trends during the period 1995–2008 can be attributed to the effect of high economic growth. This trend is partially counterbalanced by favorable weather conditions and the implementation of greenhouse mitigation policies and measures mainly in the supply side. Since 2008 the shrinking household income is the dominant driver. In addition, the effectiveness of energy conservation policies and measures in place is rather low, while the effect of imports is limited. - Highlights: • The factors influencing the carbon footprint of Greek households have been analyzed. • The analysis is based on consumption-based GHG inventories. • High economic growth resulted in carbon footprint increases during 1995–2008. • Carbon footprint reduction after 2008 is attributed to shrinking of household income. • Mitigation measures in power and manufacturing sectors reduced carbon footprint.

Network Science Research Laboratory (NSRL) Discrete Event Toolkit

Science.gov (United States)

2016-01-01

ARL-TR-7579 ● JAN 2016 US Army Research Laboratory Network Science Research Laboratory (NSRL) Discrete Event Toolkit by...Laboratory (NSRL) Discrete Event Toolkit by Theron Trout and Andrew J Toth Computational and Information Sciences Directorate, ARL...Research Laboratory (NSRL) Discrete Event Toolkit 5a. CONTRACT NUMBER 5b. GRANT NUMBER 5c. PROGRAM ELEMENT NUMBER 6. AUTHOR(S) Theron Trout

Sierra toolkit computational mesh conceptual model

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Baur, David G.; Edwards, Harold Carter; Cochran, William K.; Williams, Alan B.; Sjaardema, Gregory D.

2010-01-01

The Sierra Toolkit computational mesh is a software library intended to support massively parallel multi-physics computations on dynamically changing unstructured meshes. This domain of intended use is inherently complex due to distributed memory parallelism, parallel scalability, heterogeneity of physics, heterogeneous discretization of an unstructured mesh, and runtime adaptation of the mesh. Management of this inherent complexity begins with a conceptual analysis and modeling of this domain of intended use; i.e., development of a domain model. The Sierra Toolkit computational mesh software library is designed and implemented based upon this domain model. Software developers using, maintaining, or extending the Sierra Toolkit computational mesh library must be familiar with the concepts/domain model presented in this report.

Off-gas treatment carbon footprint calculator : form and function

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kessell, L. [Good EarthKeeping Organization Inc., Corona, CA (United States); Squire, J.; Crosby, K. [Haley and Aldrich Inc., Boston, MA (United States)

2008-07-01

Carbon footprinting is the measurement of the impact on the environment in terms of the amount of greenhouse gases produced, measured in units of carbon dioxide released directly and indirectly by an individual, organization, process, event or product. This presentation discussed an off-gas treatment carbon footprint calculator. The presentation provided a review of off-gas treatment technologies and presented a carbon footprint model. The model included: form and function; parameters; assumptions; calculations; and off-gas treatment applications. Parameters of the model included greenhouse gases listed in the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, such as carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, sulfur hexafluoride, hydrofluorocarbons, and perfluorocarbons. Assumptions of the model included stationary combustion emissions; mobile combustion emissions; indirect emissions; physical or chemical processing emissions; fugitive emissions; and de minimus emissions. The presentation also examined resource conservation and discussed three greenhouse gas footprint case studies. It was concluded that the model involved a calculator with standard calculations with clearly defined assumptions with boundaries. tabs., figs.

Within-footprint roughness measurements using ICESat/GLAS waveform and LVIS elevation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Li, Xiaolu; Xu, Kai; Xu, Lijun

2016-01-01

The surface roughness is an important characteristic over an ice sheet or glacier, since it is an identification of boundary-layer meteorology and is an important limiter on the accuracy of surface-height measurements. In this paper, we propose a simulation method to derive the within-footprint roughness (called simulation-derived roughness) using ICESat/GLAS echo waveform, laser vegetation imaging sensor (LVIS) elevations, and laser profile array (LPA) images of ICESat/GLAS. By dividing the within-footprint surface into several elements, a simulation echo waveform can be obtained as the sum of the elementary pulses reflected from each surface element. The elevation of the surface elements, which is utilized to get the return time of the elementary pulses, is implemented based on an LVIS interpolated elevation using a radial basis function (RBF) neural network. The intensity of the elementary pulses can be obtained from the thresholded LPA images. Based on the return time and the intensity of the elementary pulses, we used the particle swarm optimization (PSO) method to approximate the simulation waveform to the ICESat/GLAS echo waveform. The full width at half maximum) (FWHM) of the elementary pulse was extracted from the simulation waveform for estimating the simulation-derived roughness. By comparing with the elevation-derived roughness (derived from the elevation) and the waveform-derived roughness (derived from the ICESat/GLAS waveform), the proposed algorithm can exclude the slope effect from waveform width broadening for describing the roughness of the surface elements. (paper)

Two-dimensional electric field measurements in the ionospheric footprint of a flux transfer event

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

K. A. McWilliams

2000-12-01

Full Text Available Line-of-sight Doppler velocities from the SuperDARN CUTLASS HF radar pair have been combined to produce the first two-dimensional vector measurements of the convection pattern throughout the ionospheric footprint of a flux transfer event (a pulsed ionospheric flow, or PIF. Very stable and moderate interplanetary magnetic field conditions, along with a preceding prolonged period of northward interplanetary magnetic field, allow a detailed study of the spatial and the temporal evolution of the ionospheric response to magnetic reconnection. The flux tube footprint is tracked for half an hour across six hours of local time in the auroral zone, from magnetic local noon to dusk. The motion of the footprint of the newly reconnected flux tube is compared with the ionospheric convection velocity. Two primary intervals in the PIF's evolution have been determined. For the first half of its lifetime in the radar field of view the phase speed of the PIF is highly variable and the mean speed is nearly twice the ionospheric convection speed. For the final half of its lifetime the phase velocity becomes much less variable and slows down to the ionospheric convection velocity. The evolution of the flux tube in the magnetosphere has been studied using magnetic field, magnetopause and magnetosheath models. The data are consistent with an interval of azimuthally propagating magnetopause reconnection, in a manner consonant with a peeling of magnetic flux from the magnetopause, followed by an interval of anti-sunward convection of reconnected flux tubes.Key words: Magnetospheric physics (magnetosphere · ionosphere interactions; plasma convection; solar wind · magnetosphere interactions

Transportation librarian's toolkit

Science.gov (United States)

2007-12-01

The Transportation Librarians Toolkit is a product of the Transportation Library Connectivity pooled fund study, TPF- 5(105), a collaborative, grass-roots effort by transportation libraries to enhance information accessibility and professional expert...

A Statistical Toolkit for Data Analysis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Donadio, S.; Guatelli, S.; Mascialino, B.; Pfeiffer, A.; Pia, M.G.; Ribon, A.; Viarengo, P.

2006-01-01

The present project aims to develop an open-source and object-oriented software Toolkit for statistical data analysis. Its statistical testing component contains a variety of Goodness-of-Fit tests, from Chi-squared to Kolmogorov-Smirnov, to less known, but generally much more powerful tests such as Anderson-Darling, Goodman, Fisz-Cramer-von Mises, Kuiper, Tiku. Thanks to the component-based design and the usage of the standard abstract interfaces for data analysis, this tool can be used by other data analysis systems or integrated in experimental software frameworks. This Toolkit has been released and is downloadable from the web. In this paper we describe the statistical details of the algorithms, the computational features of the Toolkit and describe the code validation

GENFIT - a generic track-fitting toolkit

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Rauch, Johannes [Technische Universitaet Muenchen (Germany); Schlueter, Tobias [Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet Muenchen (Germany)

2014-07-01

GENFIT is an experiment-independent track-fitting toolkit, which combines fitting algorithms, track representations, and measurement geometries into a modular framework. We report on a significantly improved version of GENFIT, based on experience gained in the Belle II, PANDA, and FOPI experiments. Improvements concern the implementation of additional track-fitting algorithms, enhanced implementations of Kalman fitters, enhanced visualization capabilities, and additional implementations of measurement types suited for various kinds of tracking detectors. The data model has been revised, allowing for efficient track merging, smoothing, residual calculation and alignment.

Silk industry and carbon footprint mitigation

Science.gov (United States)

Giacomin, A. M.; Garcia, J. B., Jr.; Zonatti, W. F.; Silva-Santos, M. C.; Laktim, M. C.; Baruque-Ramos, J.

2017-10-01

Currently there is a concern with issues related to sustainability and more conscious consumption habits. The carbon footprint measures the total amount of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions produced directly and indirectly by human activities and is usually expressed in tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalents. The present study takes into account data collected in scientific literature regarding the carbon footprint, garments produced with silk fiber and the role of mulberry as a CO2 mitigation tool. There is an indication of a positive correlation between silk garments and carbon footprint mitigation when computed the cultivation of mulberry trees in this calculation. A field of them mitigates CO2 equivalents in a proportion of 735 times the weight of the produced silk fiber by the mulberry cultivated area. At the same time, additional researches are needed in order to identify and evaluate methods to advertise this positive correlation in order to contribute to a more sustainable fashion industry.

The correlation between selected measurements from footprint and radiograph of flatfoot.

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Chia-Hsin; Huang, Mao-Hsiung; Chen, Tien-Wen; Weng, Ming-Cheng; Lee, Chia-Ling; Wang, Gwo-Jaw

2006-02-01

To assess the subarch angle obtained from electronic footprints using a capacitive mat transducer system in children with flatfeet, to evaluate other foot arch indexes, and to compare the results with radiographic measurements. A cross-sectional study. Rehabilitation clinic in a municipal hospital. Thirty-two children (age range, 7-13y) diagnosed with flatfeet. Radiographic measurements and foot shape measurements obtained from feet. Talo-first metatarsal angle, talocalcaneal angle, talo-horizontal angle, and calcaneal angle were obtained from radiographs. Subarch angle, arch indexes, and long plantar angle were all captured and calculated via a capacitive transducer plate. Correlations between the subarch angle and the talo-first metatarsal angle, talo-horizontal angle, and arch height were significant, as was the correlation between midfoot arch index and talo-horizontal angle. The forefoot arch index had no significant relationship with radiographic parameters. The talo-horizontal angle and arch height had significant relationships with the long plantar angle. Measurement of the subarch angle had significant correlation with the radiographic parameters in children with flatfeet and it was accurately and easily obtained from a capacitive forceplate. Measurement of the subarch angle can be a useful tool in the assessment and diagnosis of flatfoot.

A Modular Toolkit for Distributed Interactions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Julien Lange

2011-10-01

Full Text Available We discuss the design, architecture, and implementation of a toolkit which supports some theories for distributed interactions. The main design principles of our architecture are flexibility and modularity. Our main goal is to provide an easily extensible workbench to encompass current algorithms and incorporate future developments of the theories. With the help of some examples, we illustrate the main features of our toolkit.

Standing footprint diagnostic method

Science.gov (United States)

Fan, Y. F.; Fan, Y. B.; Li, Z. Y.; Newman, T.; Lv, C. S.; Fan, Y. Z.

2013-10-01

Center of pressure is commonly used to evaluate standing balance. Even though it is incomplete, no better evaluation method has been presented. We designed our experiment with three standing postures: standing with feet together, standing with feet shoulder width apart, and standing with feet slightly wider than shoulder width. Our platform-based pressure system collected the instantaneous plantar pressure (standing footprint). A physical quantity of instantaneous standing footprint principal axis was defined, and it was used to construct an index to evaluate standing balance. Comparison between results from our newly established index and those from the center of pressure index to evaluate the stability of different standing postures revealed that the standing footprint principal axis index could better respond to the standing posture change than the existing one. Analysis indicated that the insensitive response to the relative position between feet and to the standing posture change from the center of pressure could be better detected by the standing footprint principal axis index. This predicts a wide application of standing footprint principal axis index when evaluating standing balance.

Two-dimensional electric field measurements in the ionospheric footprint of a flux transfer event

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

K. A. McWilliams

Full Text Available Line-of-sight Doppler velocities from the SuperDARN CUTLASS HF radar pair have been combined to produce the first two-dimensional vector measurements of the convection pattern throughout the ionospheric footprint of a flux transfer event (a pulsed ionospheric flow, or PIF. Very stable and moderate interplanetary magnetic field conditions, along with a preceding prolonged period of northward interplanetary magnetic field, allow a detailed study of the spatial and the temporal evolution of the ionospheric response to magnetic reconnection. The flux tube footprint is tracked for half an hour across six hours of local time in the auroral zone, from magnetic local noon to dusk. The motion of the footprint of the newly reconnected flux tube is compared with the ionospheric convection velocity. Two primary intervals in the PIF's evolution have been determined. For the first half of its lifetime in the radar field of view the phase speed of the PIF is highly variable and the mean speed is nearly twice the ionospheric convection speed. For the final half of its lifetime the phase velocity becomes much less variable and slows down to the ionospheric convection velocity. The evolution of the flux tube in the magnetosphere has been studied using magnetic field, magnetopause and magnetosheath models. The data are consistent with an interval of azimuthally propagating magnetopause reconnection, in a manner consonant with a peeling of magnetic flux from the magnetopause, followed by an interval of anti-sunward convection of reconnected flux tubes.

Key words: Magnetospheric physics (magnetosphere · ionosphere interactions; plasma convection; solar wind · magnetosphere interactions

Integrated Systems Health Management (ISHM) Toolkit

Science.gov (United States)

Venkatesh, Meera; Kapadia, Ravi; Walker, Mark; Wilkins, Kim

2013-01-01

A framework of software components has been implemented to facilitate the development of ISHM systems according to a methodology based on Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM). This framework is collectively referred to as the Toolkit and was developed using General Atomics' Health MAP (TM) technology. The toolkit is intended to provide assistance to software developers of mission-critical system health monitoring applications in the specification, implementation, configuration, and deployment of such applications. In addition to software tools designed to facilitate these objectives, the toolkit also provides direction to software developers in accordance with an ISHM specification and development methodology. The development tools are based on an RCM approach for the development of ISHM systems. This approach focuses on defining, detecting, and predicting the likelihood of system functional failures and their undesirable consequences.

Microsoft BizTalk ESB Toolkit 2.1

CERN Document Server

Benito, Andrés Del Río

2013-01-01

A practical guide into the architecture and features that make up the services and components of the ESB Toolkit.This book is for experienced BizTalk developers, administrators, and architects, as well as IT managers and BizTalk business analysts. Knowledge and experience with the Toolkit is not a requirement.

Footprint analysis during the growth period.

Science.gov (United States)

Volpon, J B

1994-01-01

Static footprints were obtained from 672 healthy white subjects ranging in age from newborn to 15 years. The length of the footprint was measured and the medial longitudinal arch was evaluated. The findings showed that the feet grew most rapidly up to 3 years of age. From age 3 onward, the feet maintained an almost constant growth rate, which was the same for both sexes until age 12 years, when girls' feet stopped growing, but boys' feet exhibited further growth. From birth up to 2 years of age, there was a higher incidence of flat feet. Rapid progression of plantar arch development was observed between 2 and 6 years of age.

An Industrial Physics Toolkit

Science.gov (United States)

Cummings, Bill

2004-03-01

Physicists possess many skills highly valued in industrial companies. However, with the exception of a decreasing number of positions in long range research at large companies, job openings in industry rarely say "Physicist Required." One key to a successful industrial career is to know what subset of your physics skills is most highly valued by a given industry and to continue to build these skills while working. This combination of skills from both academic and industrial experience becomes your "Industrial Physics Toolkit" and is a transferable resource when you change positions or companies. This presentation will describe how one builds and sells your own "Industrial Physics Toolkit" using concrete examples from the speaker's industrial experience.

CRISPR-Cas9 Toolkit for Actinomycete Genome Editing

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Tong, Yaojun; Robertsen, Helene Lunde; Blin, Kai

2018-01-01

engineering approaches for boosting known and discovering novel natural products. In order to facilitate the genome editing for actinomycetes, we developed a CRISPR-Cas9 toolkit with high efficiency for actinomyces genome editing. This basic toolkit includes a software for spacer (sgRNA) identification......, a system for in-frame gene/gene cluster knockout, a system for gene loss-of-function study, a system for generating a random size deletion library, and a system for gene knockdown. For the latter, a uracil-specific excision reagent (USER) cloning technology was adapted to simplify the CRISPR vector...... construction process. The application of this toolkit was successfully demonstrated by perturbation of genomes of Streptomyces coelicolor A3(2) and Streptomyces collinus Tü 365. The CRISPR-Cas9 toolkit and related protocol described here can be widely used for metabolic engineering of actinomycetes....

Land, carbon and water footprints in Taiwan

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lee, Yung-Jaan

2015-01-01

The consumer responsibility approach uses footprints as indicators of the total direct and indirect effects of a product or consumption activity. This study used a time-series analysis of three environmental pressures to quantify the total environmental pressures caused by consumption in Taiwan: land footprint, carbon footprint, and water footprint. Land footprint is the pressure from appropriation of biologically productive land and water area. Carbon footprint is the pressure from greenhouse gas emissions. Water footprint is the pressure from freshwater consumption. Conventional carbon footprint is the total CO 2 emitted by a certain activity or the CO 2 accumulation during a product life cycle. This definition cannot be used to convert CO 2 emissions into land units. This study responds to the needs of “CO 2 land” in the footprint family by applying the carbon footprint concept used by GFN. The analytical results showed that consumption by the average Taiwan citizen in 2000 required appropriation of 5.39 gha (hectares of land with global-average biological productivity) and 3.63 gha in 2011 in terms of land footprint. The average Taiwan citizen had a carbon footprint of 3.95 gha in 2000 and 5.94 gha in 2011. These results indicate that separately analyzing the land and carbon footprints enables their trends to be compared and appropriate policies and strategies for different sectors to be proposed accordingly. The average Taiwan citizen had a blue water footprint of 801 m 3 in 2000 and 784 m 3 in 2011. By comparison, their respective global averages were 1.23 gha, 2.36 gha and 163 m 3 blue water in 2011, respectively. Overall, Taiwan revealed higher environmental pressures compared to the rest of the world, demonstrating that Taiwan has become a high footprint state and has appropriated environmental resources from other countries. That is, through its imports of products with embodied pressures and its exports, Taiwan has transferred the environmental

Land, carbon and water footprints in Taiwan

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lee, Yung-Jaan, E-mail: yungjaanlee@gmail.com

2015-09-15

The consumer responsibility approach uses footprints as indicators of the total direct and indirect effects of a product or consumption activity. This study used a time-series analysis of three environmental pressures to quantify the total environmental pressures caused by consumption in Taiwan: land footprint, carbon footprint, and water footprint. Land footprint is the pressure from appropriation of biologically productive land and water area. Carbon footprint is the pressure from greenhouse gas emissions. Water footprint is the pressure from freshwater consumption. Conventional carbon footprint is the total CO{sub 2} emitted by a certain activity or the CO{sub 2} accumulation during a product life cycle. This definition cannot be used to convert CO{sub 2} emissions into land units. This study responds to the needs of “CO{sub 2} land” in the footprint family by applying the carbon footprint concept used by GFN. The analytical results showed that consumption by the average Taiwan citizen in 2000 required appropriation of 5.39 gha (hectares of land with global-average biological productivity) and 3.63 gha in 2011 in terms of land footprint. The average Taiwan citizen had a carbon footprint of 3.95 gha in 2000 and 5.94 gha in 2011. These results indicate that separately analyzing the land and carbon footprints enables their trends to be compared and appropriate policies and strategies for different sectors to be proposed accordingly. The average Taiwan citizen had a blue water footprint of 801 m{sup 3} in 2000 and 784 m{sup 3} in 2011. By comparison, their respective global averages were 1.23 gha, 2.36 gha and 163 m{sup 3} blue water in 2011, respectively. Overall, Taiwan revealed higher environmental pressures compared to the rest of the world, demonstrating that Taiwan has become a high footprint state and has appropriated environmental resources from other countries. That is, through its imports of products with embodied pressures and its exports, Taiwan has

Carbon Footprints

OpenAIRE

Rahel Aichele; Gabriel Felbermayr

2011-01-01

Lässt sich der Beitrag eines Landes zum weltweiten Klimaschutz an der Veränderung seines CO2-Ausstoßes messen, wie es im Kyoto-Abkommen implizit unterstellt wird? Oder ist aufgrund der Bedeutung des internationalen Güterhandels der Carbon Footprint – der alle CO2-Emissionen erfasst, die durch die Absorption (d.h. Konsum und Investitionen) eines Landes entstehen – das bessere Maß? Die Autoren erstellen eine Datenbank mit den Footprints von 40 Ländern für den Zeitraum 1995–2007. Die deskriptive...

Development of an Online Toolkit for Measuring Commercial Building Energy Efficiency Performance -- Scoping Study

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Wang, Na

2013-03-13

This study analyzes the market needs for building performance evaluation tools. It identifies the existing gaps and provides a roadmap for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to develop a toolkit with which to optimize energy performance of a commercial building over its life cycle.

Hydropower Regulatory and Permitting Information Desktop (RAPID) Toolkit

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Levine, Aaron L [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)

2017-12-19

Hydropower Regulatory and Permitting Information Desktop (RAPID) Toolkit presentation from the WPTO FY14-FY16 Peer Review. The toolkit is aimed at regulatory agencies, consultants, project developers, the public, and any other party interested in learning more about the hydropower regulatory process.

AcquisitionFootprintAttenuationDrivenbySeismicAttributes

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Cuellar-Urbano Mayra

2014-04-01

Full Text Available Acquisition footprint, one of the major problems that PEMEX faces in seismic imaging, is noise highly correlated to the geometric array of sources and receivers used for onshore and offshore seismic acquisitions. It prevails in spite of measures taken during acquisition and data processing. This pattern, throughout the image, is easily confused with geological features and misguides seismic attribute computation. In this work, we use seismic data from PEMEX Exploración y Producción to show the conditioning process for removing random and coherent noise using linear filters. Geometric attributes used in a workflow were computed for obtaining an acquisition footprint noise model and adaptively subtract it from the seismic data.

Risk assessment of chemicals in foundries: The International Chemical Toolkit pilot-project

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ribeiro, Marcela G.; Filho, Walter R.P.

2006-01-01

In Brazil, problems regarding protection from hazardous substances in small-sized enterprises are similar to those observed in many other countries. Looking for a simple tool to assess and control such exposures, FUNDACENTRO has started in 2005 a pilot-project to implement the International Chemical Control Toolkit. During the series of visits to foundries, it was observed that although many changes have occurred in foundry technology, occupational exposures to silica dust and metal fumes continue to occur, due to a lack of perception of occupational exposure in the work environment. After introducing the Chemical Toolkit concept to the foundry work group, it was possible to show that the activities undertaken to improve the management of chemicals, according to its concept, will support companies in fulfilling government legislations related to chemical management, occupational health and safety, and environmental impact. In the following meetings, the foundry work group and FUNDACENTRO research team will identify 'inadequate work situations'. Based on the Chemical Toolkit, improvement measures will be proposed. Afterwards, a survey will verify the efficency of those measures in the control of hazards and consequently on the management of chemicals. This step is now in course

Web based tools for visualizing imaging data and development of XNATView, a zero footprint image viewer.

Science.gov (United States)

Gutman, David A; Dunn, William D; Cobb, Jake; Stoner, Richard M; Kalpathy-Cramer, Jayashree; Erickson, Bradley

2014-01-01

Advances in web technologies now allow direct visualization of imaging data sets without necessitating the download of large file sets or the installation of software. This allows centralization of file storage and facilitates image review and analysis. XNATView is a light framework recently developed in our lab to visualize DICOM images stored in The Extensible Neuroimaging Archive Toolkit (XNAT). It consists of a PyXNAT-based framework to wrap around the REST application programming interface (API) and query the data in XNAT. XNATView was developed to simplify quality assurance, help organize imaging data, and facilitate data sharing for intra- and inter-laboratory collaborations. Its zero-footprint design allows the user to connect to XNAT from a web browser, navigate through projects, experiments, and subjects, and view DICOM images with accompanying metadata all within a single viewing instance.

A Backward-Lagrangian-Stochastic Footprint Model for the Urban Environment

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Chenghao; Wang, Zhi-Hua; Yang, Jiachuan; Li, Qi

2018-02-01

Built terrains, with their complexity in morphology, high heterogeneity, and anthropogenic impact, impose substantial challenges in Earth-system modelling. In particular, estimation of the source areas and footprints of atmospheric measurements in cities requires realistic representation of the landscape characteristics and flow physics in urban areas, but has hitherto been heavily reliant on large-eddy simulations. In this study, we developed physical parametrization schemes for estimating urban footprints based on the backward-Lagrangian-stochastic algorithm, with the built environment represented by street canyons. The vertical profile of mean streamwise velocity is parametrized for the urban canopy and boundary layer. Flux footprints estimated by the proposed model show reasonable agreement with analytical predictions over flat surfaces without roughness elements, and with experimental observations over sparse plant canopies. Furthermore, comparisons of canyon flow and turbulence profiles and the subsequent footprints were made between the proposed model and large-eddy simulation data. The results suggest that the parametrized canyon wind and turbulence statistics, based on the simple similarity theory used, need to be further improved to yield more realistic urban footprint modelling.

Estimation of foot pressure from human footprint depths using 3D scanner

Science.gov (United States)

Wibowo, Dwi Basuki; Haryadi, Gunawan Dwi; Priambodo, Agus

2016-03-01

The analysis of normal and pathological variation in human foot morphology is central to several biomedical disciplines, including orthopedics, orthotic design, sports sciences, and physical anthropology, and it is also important for efficient footwear design. A classic and frequently used approach to study foot morphology is analysis of the footprint shape and footprint depth. Footprints are relatively easy to produce and to measure, and they can be preserved naturally in different soils. In this study, we need to correlate footprint depth with corresponding foot pressure of individual using 3D scanner. Several approaches are used for modeling and estimating footprint depths and foot pressures. The deepest footprint point is calculated from z max coordinate-z min coordinate and the average of foot pressure is calculated from GRF divided to foot area contact and identical with the average of footprint depth. Evaluation of footprint depth was found from importing 3D scanner file (dxf) in AutoCAD, the z-coordinates than sorted from the highest to the lowest value using Microsoft Excel to make footprinting depth in difference color. This research is only qualitatif study because doesn't use foot pressure device as comparator, and resulting the maximum pressure on calceneus is 3.02 N/cm2, lateral arch is 3.66 N/cm2, and metatarsal and hallux is 3.68 N/cm2.

Pyradi: an open-source toolkit for infrared calculation and data processing

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Willers, CJ

2012-09-01

Full Text Available of such a toolkit facilitates and increases productivity during subsequent tool development: “develop once and use many times”. The concept of an extendible toolkit lends itself naturally to the open-source philosophy, where the toolkit user-base develops...

The carbon footprint of an Australian satellite haemodialysis unit.

Science.gov (United States)

Lim, Allan E K; Perkins, Anthony; Agar, John W M

2013-06-01

This study aimed to better understand the carbon emission impact of haemodialysis (HD) throughout Australia by determining its carbon footprint, the relative contributions of various sectors to this footprint, and how contributions from electricity and water consumption are affected by local factors. Activity data associated with HD provision at a 6-chair suburban satellite HD unit in Victoria in 2011 was collected and converted to a common measurement unit of tonnes of CO2 equivalents (t CO2-eq) via established emissions factors. For electricity and water consumption, emissions factors for other Australian locations were applied to assess the impact of local factors on these footprint contributors. In Victoria, the annual per-patient carbon footprint of satellite HD was calculated to be 10.2t CO2-eq. The largest contributors were pharmaceuticals (35.7%) and medical equipment (23.4%). Throughout Australia, the emissions percentage attributable to electricity consumption ranged from 5.2% to 18.6%, while the emissions percentage attributable to water use ranged from 4.0% to 11.6%. State-by-state contributions of energy and water use to the carbon footprint of satellite HD appear to vary significantly. Performing emissions planning and target setting at the state level may be more appropriate in the Australian context. What is known about the topic? Healthcare provision carries a significant environmental footprint. In particular, conventional HD uses substantial amounts of electricity and water. In the UK, provision of HD and peritoneal dialysis was found to have an annual per-patient carbon footprint of 7.1t CO2-eq. What does this paper add? This is the first carbon-footprinting study of HD in Australia. In Victoria, the annual per-patient carbon footprint of satellite conventional HD is 10.2t CO2-eq. Notably, the contributions of electricity and water consumption to the carbon footprint varies significantly throughout Australia when local factors are taken into

The self-describing data sets file protocol and Toolkit

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Borland, M.; Emery, L.

1995-01-01

The Self-Describing Data Sets (SDDS) file protocol continues to be used extensively in commissioning the Advanced Photon Source (APS) accelerator complex. SDDS protocol has proved useful primarily due to the existence of the SDDS Toolkit, a growing set of about 60 generic commandline programs that read and/or write SDDS files. The SDDS Toolkit is also used extensively for simulation postprocessing, giving physicists a single environment for experiment and simulation. With the Toolkit, new SDDS data is displayed and subjected to complex processing without developing new programs. Data from EPICS, lab instruments, simulation, and other sources are easily integrated. Because the SDDS tools are commandline-based, data processing scripts are readily written using the user's preferred shell language. Since users work within a UNIX shell rather than an application-specific shell or GUI, they may add SDDS-compliant programs and scripts to their personal toolkits without restriction or complication. The SDDS Toolkit has been run under UNIX on SUN OS4, HP-UX, and LINUX. Application of SDDS to accelerator operation is being pursued using Tcl/Tk to provide a GUI

Implementing a user-driven online quality improvement toolkit for cancer care.

Science.gov (United States)

Luck, Jeff; York, Laura S; Bowman, Candice; Gale, Randall C; Smith, Nina; Asch, Steven M

2015-05-01

Peer-to-peer collaboration within integrated health systems requires a mechanism for sharing quality improvement lessons. The Veterans Health Administration (VA) developed online compendia of tools linked to specific cancer quality indicators. We evaluated awareness and use of the toolkits, variation across facilities, impact of social marketing, and factors influencing toolkit use. A diffusion of innovations conceptual framework guided the collection of user activity data from the Toolkit Series SharePoint site and an online survey of potential Lung Cancer Care Toolkit users. The VA Toolkit Series site had 5,088 unique visitors in its first 22 months; 5% of users accounted for 40% of page views. Social marketing communications were correlated with site usage. Of survey respondents (n = 355), 54% had visited the site, of whom 24% downloaded at least one tool. Respondents' awareness of the lung cancer quality performance of their facility, and facility participation in quality improvement collaboratives, were positively associated with Toolkit Series site use. Facility-level lung cancer tool implementation varied widely across tool types. The VA Toolkit Series achieved widespread use and a high degree of user engagement, although use varied widely across facilities. The most active users were aware of and active in cancer care quality improvement. Toolkit use seemed to be reinforced by other quality improvement activities. A combination of user-driven tool creation and centralized toolkit development seemed to be effective for leveraging health information technology to spread disease-specific quality improvement tools within an integrated health care system. Copyright © 2015 by American Society of Clinical Oncology.

SlideToolkit: an assistive toolset for the histological quantification of whole slide images.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bastiaan G L Nelissen

Full Text Available The demand for accurate and reproducible phenotyping of a disease trait increases with the rising number of biobanks and genome wide association studies. Detailed analysis of histology is a powerful way of phenotyping human tissues. Nonetheless, purely visual assessment of histological slides is time-consuming and liable to sampling variation and optical illusions and thereby observer variation, and external validation may be cumbersome. Therefore, within our own biobank, computerized quantification of digitized histological slides is often preferred as a more precise and reproducible, and sometimes more sensitive approach. Relatively few free toolkits are, however, available for fully digitized microscopic slides, usually known as whole slides images. In order to comply with this need, we developed the slideToolkit as a fast method to handle large quantities of low contrast whole slides images using advanced cell detecting algorithms. The slideToolkit has been developed for modern personal computers and high-performance clusters (HPCs and is available as an open-source project on github.com. We here illustrate the power of slideToolkit by a repeated measurement of 303 digital slides containing CD3 stained (DAB abdominal aortic aneurysm tissue from a tissue biobank. Our workflow consists of four consecutive steps. In the first step (acquisition, whole slide images are collected and converted to TIFF files. In the second step (preparation, files are organized. The third step (tiles, creates multiple manageable tiles to count. In the fourth step (analysis, tissue is analyzed and results are stored in a data set. Using this method, two consecutive measurements of 303 slides showed an intraclass correlation of 0.99. In conclusion, slideToolkit provides a free, powerful and versatile collection of tools for automated feature analysis of whole slide images to create reproducible and meaningful phenotypic data sets.

The Water Footprint of Food Aid

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nicole Jackson

2015-05-01

Full Text Available Food aid is a critical component of the global food system, particularly when emergency situations arise. For the first time, we evaluate the water footprint of food aid. To do this, we draw on food aid data from theWorld Food Programme and virtual water content estimates from WaterStat. We find that the total water footprint of food aid was 10 km3 in 2005, which represents approximately 0.5% of the water footprint of food trade and 2.0% of the water footprint of land grabbing (i.e., water appropriation associated with large agricultural land deals. The United States is by far the largest food aid donor and contributes 82% of the water footprint of food aid. The countries that receive the most water embodied in aid are Ethiopia, Sudan, North Korea, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. Notably, we find that there is significant overlap between countries that receive food aid and those that have their land grabbed. Multivariate regression results indicate that donor water footprints are driven by political and environmental variables, whereas recipient water footprints are driven by land grabbing and food indicators.

Evaluating Teaching Development Activities in Higher Education: A Toolkit

Science.gov (United States)

Kneale, Pauline; Winter, Jennie; Turner, Rebecca; Spowart, Lucy; Hughes, Jane; McKenna, Colleen; Muneer, Reema

2016-01-01

This toolkit is developed as a resource for providers of teaching-related continuing professional development (CPD) in higher education (HE). It focuses on capturing the longer-term value and impact of CPD for teachers and learners, and moving away from immediate satisfaction measures. It is informed by the literature on evaluating higher…

Casting Footprints for Eternity

Science.gov (United States)

1999-01-01

Apollo 11 Astronaut Buzz Aldrin has his footprints casted during the dedication ceremony of the rocket fountain at Building 4200 at Marshall Space Flight Center. The casts of Aldrin's footprints will be placed in the newly constructed Von Braun courtyard representing the accomplishments of the Apollo 11 lunar landing.

Testing Video and Social Media for Engaging Users of the U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit

Science.gov (United States)

Green, C. J.; Gardiner, N.; Niepold, F., III; Esposito, C.

2015-12-01

We developed a custom video production stye and a method for analyzing social media behavior so that we may deliberately build and track audience growth for decision-support tools and case studies within the U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit. The new style of video focuses quickly on decision processes; its 30s format is well-suited for deployment through social media. We measured both traffic and engagement with video using Google Analytics. Each video included an embedded tag, allowing us to measure viewers' behavior: whether or not they entered the toolkit website; the duration of their session on the website; and the number pages they visited in that session. Results showed that video promotion was more effective on Facebook than Twitter. Facebook links generated twice the number of visits to the toolkit. Videos also increased Facebook interaction overall. Because most Facebook users are return visitors, this campaign did not substantially draw new site visitors. We continue to research and apply these methods in a targeted engagement and outreach campaign that utilizes the theory of social diffusion and social influence strategies to grow our audience of "influential" decision-makers and people within their social networks. Our goal is to increase access and use of the U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit.

The 2016 ACCP Pharmacotherapy Didactic Curriculum Toolkit.

Science.gov (United States)

Schwinghammer, Terry L; Crannage, Andrew J; Boyce, Eric G; Bradley, Bridget; Christensen, Alyssa; Dunnenberger, Henry M; Fravel, Michelle; Gurgle, Holly; Hammond, Drayton A; Kwon, Jennifer; Slain, Douglas; Wargo, Kurt A

2016-11-01

The 2016 American College of Clinical Pharmacy (ACCP) Educational Affairs Committee was charged with updating and contemporizing ACCP's 2009 Pharmacotherapy Didactic Curriculum Toolkit. The toolkit has been designed to guide schools and colleges of pharmacy in developing, maintaining, and modifying their curricula. The 2016 committee reviewed the recent medical literature and other documents to identify disease states that are responsive to drug therapy. Diseases and content topics were organized by organ system, when feasible, and grouped into tiers as defined by practice competency. Tier 1 topics should be taught in a manner that prepares all students to provide collaborative, patient-centered care upon graduation and licensure. Tier 2 topics are generally taught in the professional curriculum, but students may require additional knowledge or skills after graduation (e.g., residency training) to achieve competency in providing direct patient care. Tier 3 topics may not be taught in the professional curriculum; thus, graduates will be required to obtain the necessary knowledge and skills on their own to provide direct patient care, if required in their practice. The 2016 toolkit contains 276 diseases and content topics, of which 87 (32%) are categorized as tier 1, 133 (48%) as tier 2, and 56 (20%) as tier 3. The large number of tier 1 topics will require schools and colleges to use creative pedagogical strategies to achieve the necessary practice competencies. Almost half of the topics (48%) are tier 2, highlighting the importance of postgraduate residency training or equivalent practice experience to competently care for patients with these disorders. The Pharmacotherapy Didactic Curriculum Toolkit will continue to be updated to provide guidance to faculty at schools and colleges of pharmacy as these academic pharmacy institutions regularly evaluate and modify their curricula to keep abreast of scientific advances and associated practice changes. Access the

Land surface Verification Toolkit (LVT)

Science.gov (United States)

Kumar, Sujay V.

2017-01-01

LVT is a framework developed to provide an automated, consolidated environment for systematic land surface model evaluation Includes support for a range of in-situ, remote-sensing and other model and reanalysis products. Supports the analysis of outputs from various LIS subsystems, including LIS-DA, LIS-OPT, LIS-UE. Note: The Land Information System Verification Toolkit (LVT) is a NASA software tool designed to enable the evaluation, analysis and comparison of outputs generated by the Land Information System (LIS). The LVT software is released under the terms and conditions of the NASA Open Source Agreement (NOSA) Version 1.1 or later. Land Information System Verification Toolkit (LVT) NOSA.

A better carbon footprint label

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Thøgersen, John; Nielsen, Kristian S.

2016-01-01

, participants saw the original Carbon Trust label and in the other condition they saw the same label, but with traffic light colors added to communicate the product’s relative performance in terms of carbon footprint. All included attributes were found to have a significant impact on consumer choices....... As expected, price and carbon footprint were negatively related to choice. Further, participants preferred organic to non-organic coffee and certification by a public authority. The effect of the carbon label is significantly stronger the more environmentally concerned the consumer is. Using colors...... to indicate relative carbon footprint significantly increases carbon label effectiveness. Hence, a carbon footprint label is more effective if it uses traffic light colors to communicate the product’s relative performance....

Income-carbon footprint relationships for urban and rural households of Iskandar Malaysia

Science.gov (United States)

Majid, M. R.; Moeinzadeh, S. N.; Tifwa, H. Y.

2014-02-01

Iskandar Malaysia has a vision to achieve sustainable development and a low carbon society status by decreasing the amount of CO2 emission as much as 60% by 2025. As the case is in other parts of the world, households are suspected to be a major source of carbon emission in Iskandar Malaysia. At the global level, 72% of greenhouse gas emission is a consequence of household activities, which is influenced by lifestyle. Income is the most important indicator of lifestyle and consequently may influence the amount of households' carbon footprint. The main objective of this paper is to illustrate the carbon-income relationships in Iskandar Malaysia's urban and rural areas. Data were gathered through a questionnaire survey of 420 households. The households were classified into six categories based on their residential area status. Both direct and indirect carbon footprints of respondents were calculated using a carbon footprint model. Direct carbon footprint includes domestic energy use, personal travel, flight and public transportation while indirect carbon footprint is the total secondary carbon emission measurement such as housing operations, transportation operations, food, clothes, education, cultural and recreational services. Analysis of the results shows a wide range of carbon footprint values and a significance correlation between income and carbon footprint. The carbon footprints vary in urban and rural areas, and also across different urban areas. These identified carbon footprint values can help the authority target its carbon reduction programs.

Income-carbon footprint relationships for urban and rural households of Iskandar Malaysia

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Majid, M R; Moeinzadeh, S N; Tifwa, H Y

2014-01-01

Iskandar Malaysia has a vision to achieve sustainable development and a low carbon society status by decreasing the amount of CO 2 emission as much as 60% by 2025. As the case is in other parts of the world, households are suspected to be a major source of carbon emission in Iskandar Malaysia. At the global level, 72% of greenhouse gas emission is a consequence of household activities, which is influenced by lifestyle. Income is the most important indicator of lifestyle and consequently may influence the amount of households' carbon footprint. The main objective of this paper is to illustrate the carbon-income relationships in Iskandar Malaysia's urban and rural areas. Data were gathered through a questionnaire survey of 420 households. The households were classified into six categories based on their residential area status. Both direct and indirect carbon footprints of respondents were calculated using a carbon footprint model. Direct carbon footprint includes domestic energy use, personal travel, flight and public transportation while indirect carbon footprint is the total secondary carbon emission measurement such as housing operations, transportation operations, food, clothes, education, cultural and recreational services. Analysis of the results shows a wide range of carbon footprint values and a significance correlation between income and carbon footprint. The carbon footprints vary in urban and rural areas, and also across different urban areas. These identified carbon footprint values can help the authority target its carbon reduction programs

Simulations of seismic acquisition footprint

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Cooper, J.; Margrave, G.; Lawton, D. [Calgary Univ., AB (Canada)

2008-07-01

Numerical simulations were performed to investigate the causes of commonly observed artefacts in seismic field data. These seismic acquisition footprints typically consist of modulations in recorded amplitudes that are spatially correlated to the surface locations of sources and receivers used in a survey. Two broad classes of footprint were considered, notably amplitude variations related to the edges of the survey and the amplitude variations in the interior of the survey. The variations in amplitude obscure the true reflection response of the subsurface. The MATLAB numerical modelling code was used to produce the synthetic seismic data and create a thorough dataset using a survey design incorporating dense grids of sources and receivers. The footprint consisting of periodic amplitude variations in the interior of the surveys, similar to that observed in field data and likely produced by poor sampling, was observed in the decimated dataset. This type of footprint varied in strength between images produced with different processing algorithms. The observed footprint in these simulations was most organized in the unmigrated stack and was somewhat randomized after poststack. 2 refs., 1 tab., 3 figs.

AgSat Imagery Collection Footprints

Data.gov (United States)

Farm Service Agency, Department of Agriculture — The AgSat Imagery Collection Footprints map shows the imagery footprints which have been collected under the USDA satellite blanket purchase agreement. Click on a...

Pybel: a Python wrapper for the OpenBabel cheminformatics toolkit

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Morley Chris

2008-03-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Scripting languages such as Python are ideally suited to common programming tasks in cheminformatics such as data analysis and parsing information from files. However, for reasons of efficiency, cheminformatics toolkits such as the OpenBabel toolkit are often implemented in compiled languages such as C++. We describe Pybel, a Python module that provides access to the OpenBabel toolkit. Results Pybel wraps the direct toolkit bindings to simplify common tasks such as reading and writing molecular files and calculating fingerprints. Extensive use is made of Python iterators to simplify loops such as that over all the molecules in a file. A Pybel Molecule can be easily interconverted to an OpenBabel OBMol to access those methods or attributes not wrapped by Pybel. Conclusion Pybel allows cheminformaticians to rapidly develop Python scripts that manipulate chemical information. It is open source, available cross-platform, and offers the power of the OpenBabel toolkit to Python programmers.

An open source toolkit for medical imaging de-identification

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Rodriguez Gonzalez, David; Carpenter, Trevor; Wardlaw, Joanna; Hemert, Jano I. van

2010-01-01

Medical imaging acquired for clinical purposes can have several legitimate secondary uses in research projects and teaching libraries. No commonly accepted solution for anonymising these images exists because the amount of personal data that should be preserved varies case by case. Our objective is to provide a flexible mechanism for anonymising Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) data that meets the requirements for deployment in multicentre trials. We reviewed our current de-identification practices and defined the relevant use cases to extract the requirements for the de-identification process. We then used these requirements in the design and implementation of the toolkit. Finally, we tested the toolkit taking as a reference those requirements, including a multicentre deployment. The toolkit successfully anonymised DICOM data from various sources. Furthermore, it was shown that it could forward anonymous data to remote destinations, remove burned-in annotations, and add tracking information to the header. The toolkit also implements the DICOM standard confidentiality mechanism. A DICOM de-identification toolkit that facilitates the enforcement of privacy policies was developed. It is highly extensible, provides the necessary flexibility to account for different de-identification requirements and has a low adoption barrier for new users. (orig.)

Small Footprint Solar/Wind-powered CASTNET System Dataset

Data.gov (United States)

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — In this Research Effort “Small Footprint Solar/Wind-Powered CASTNET System” there are two data sets. One data set contains atmospheric concentration measurements, at...

Veterinary Immunology Committee Toolkit Workshop 2010: Progress and plans

Science.gov (United States)

The Third Veterinary Immunology Committee (VIC) Toolkit Workshop took place at the Ninth International Veterinary Immunology Symposium (IVIS) in Tokyo, Japan on August 18, 2020. The Workshop built on previous Toolkit Workshops and covered various aspects of reagent development, commercialisation an...

Implementation of the Good School Toolkit in Uganda: a quantitative process evaluation of a successful violence prevention program.

Science.gov (United States)

Knight, Louise; Allen, Elizabeth; Mirembe, Angel; Nakuti, Janet; Namy, Sophie; Child, Jennifer C; Sturgess, Joanna; Kyegombe, Nambusi; Walakira, Eddy J; Elbourne, Diana; Naker, Dipak; Devries, Karen M

2018-05-09

The Good School Toolkit, a complex behavioural intervention designed by Raising Voices a Ugandan NGO, reduced past week physical violence from school staff to primary students by an average of 42% in a recent randomised controlled trial. This process evaluation quantitatively examines what was implemented across the twenty-one intervention schools, variations in school prevalence of violence after the intervention, factors that influence exposure to the intervention and factors associated with students' experience of physical violence from staff at study endline. Implementation measures were captured prospectively in the twenty-one intervention schools over four school terms from 2012 to 2014 and Toolkit exposure captured in the student (n = 1921) and staff (n = 286) endline cross-sectional surveys in 2014. Implementation measures and the prevalence of violence are summarised across schools and are assessed for correlation using Spearman's Rank Correlation Coefficient. Regression models are used to explore individual factors associated with Toolkit exposure and with physical violence at endline. School prevalence of past week physical violence from staff against students ranged from 7% to 65% across schools at endline. Schools with higher mean levels of teacher Toolkit exposure had larger decreases in violence during the study. Students in schools categorised as implementing a 'low' number of program school-led activities reported less exposure to the Toolkit. Higher student Toolkit exposure was associated with decreased odds of experiencing physical violence from staff (OR: 0.76, 95%CI: 0.67-0.86, p-valueEffectiveness of the Toolkit may be increased by further targeting and supporting teachers' engagement with girls and students with mental health difficulties. The trial is registered at clinicaltrials.gov , NCT01678846, August 24th 2012.

Carbon footprint of shopping (grocery) bags in China, Hong Kong and India

Science.gov (United States)

Muthu, Subramanian Senthilkannan; Li, Y.; Hu, J. Y.; Mok, P. Y.

2011-01-01

Carbon footprint has become a term often used by the media in recent days. The human carbon footprint is professed to be a very serious global threat and every nation is looking at the possible options to reduce it since its consequences are alarming. A carbon footprint is a measure of the impact of human activities on earth and in particular on the environment; more specifically it relates to climate change and to the total amount of greenhouse gases produced, measured in units of carbon dioxide emitted. Effort of individuals in minimizing the carbon footprint is vital to save our planet. This article reports a study of the carbon footprint of various types of shopping bags (plastic, paper, non-woven and woven) using life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) technique in two stages. The first stage (baseline study), comprised the study of the impact of different types of shopping bags in the manufacturing phase, without considering their usage and disposal phases (cradle to gate stage). The LCIA was accomplished by the IPCC 2007 method, developed by the Inter Panel on Climate Change in SIMAPRO 7.2. The GWP (Global Warming Potential) values calculated by the IPCC 2007 method for 100 years were considered as a directive to compare the carbon footprint made by the different types of shopping bags under consideration. The next stage was the study of the carbon footprint of these bags including their usage and disposal phases (cradle to grave stage) and the results derived were compared with the results derived from the baseline study, which is the major focus of this research work. The values for usage and end-of-life phases were obtained from the survey questionnaire performed amongst different user groups of shopping bags in China, Hong Kong and India. The results show that the impact of different types of shopping bags in terms of their carbon footprint potential is very high if no usage and disposal options were provided. When the carbon footprint values from different

Human footprint variation while performing load bearing tasks.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Cara M Wall-Scheffler

Full Text Available Human footprint fossils have provided essential evidence about the evolution of human bipedalism as well as the social dynamics of the footprint makers, including estimates of speed, sex and group composition. Generally such estimates are made by comparing footprint evidence with modern controls; however, previous studies have not accounted for the variation in footprint dimensions coming from load bearing activities. It is likely that a portion of the hominins who created these fossil footprints were carrying a significant load, such as offspring or foraging loads, which caused variation in the footprint which could extend to variation in any estimations concerning the footprint's maker. To identify significant variation in footprints due to load-bearing tasks, we had participants (N = 30, 15 males and 15 females walk at a series of speeds carrying a 20kg pack on their back, side and front. Paint was applied to the bare feet of each participant to create footprints that were compared in terms of foot length, foot width and foot area. Female foot length and width increased during multiple loaded conditions. An appreciation of footprint variability associated with carrying loads adds an additional layer to our understanding of the behavior and morphology of extinct hominin populations.

ASSESSMENT OF HOUSEHOLD CARBON FOOTPRINT REDUCTION POTENTIALS

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kramer, Klaas Jan; Homan, Greg; Brown, Rich; Worrell, Ernst; Masanet, Eric

2009-04-15

The term ?household carbon footprint? refers to the total annual carbon emissions associated with household consumption of energy, goods, and services. In this project, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory developed a carbon footprint modeling framework that characterizes the key underlying technologies and processes that contribute to household carbon footprints in California and the United States. The approach breaks down the carbon footprint by 35 different household fuel end uses and 32 different supply chain fuel end uses. This level of end use detail allows energy and policy analysts to better understand the underlying technologies and processes contributing to the carbon footprint of California households. The modeling framework was applied to estimate the annual home energy and supply chain carbon footprints of a prototypical California household. A preliminary assessment of parameter uncertainty associated with key model input data was also conducted. To illustrate the policy-relevance of this modeling framework, a case study was conducted that analyzed the achievable carbon footprint reductions associated with the adoption of energy efficient household and supply chain technologies.

An evaluation capacity building toolkit for principal investigators of undergraduate research experiences: A demonstration of transforming theory into practice.

Science.gov (United States)

Rorrer, Audrey S

2016-04-01

This paper describes the approach and process undertaken to develop evaluation capacity among the leaders of a federally funded undergraduate research program. An evaluation toolkit was developed for Computer and Information Sciences and Engineering(1) Research Experiences for Undergraduates(2) (CISE REU) programs to address the ongoing need for evaluation capacity among principal investigators who manage program evaluation. The toolkit was the result of collaboration within the CISE REU community with the purpose being to provide targeted instructional resources and tools for quality program evaluation. Challenges were to balance the desire for standardized assessment with the responsibility to account for individual program contexts. Toolkit contents included instructional materials about evaluation practice, a standardized applicant management tool, and a modulated outcomes measure. Resulting benefits from toolkit deployment were having cost effective, sustainable evaluation tools, a community evaluation forum, and aggregate measurement of key program outcomes for the national program. Lessons learned included the imperative of understanding the evaluation context, engaging stakeholders, and building stakeholder trust. Results from project measures are presented along with a discussion of guidelines for facilitating evaluation capacity building that will serve a variety of contexts. Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Measuring flood footprint of a regional economy - A case study for the UK flooding

Science.gov (United States)

Guan, D.

2013-12-01

Analysis of the urban economy and society is central to understanding the broad impacts of flooding and to identify cost-effective adaptation and mitigation measures. Assessments of the flooding impacts on cities have traditionally focused on the initial impact on people and assets. These initial estimates (so-called ';direct damage') are useful both in understanding the immediate implications of damage, and in marshalling the pools of capital and supplies required for re-building after an event. Since different economies as well as societies are coupled, especially under the current economic crisis, any small-scale damage may be multiplied and cascaded throughout wider economic systems and social networks. The direct and indirect damage is currently not evaluated well and could be captured by quantification of what we call the flood footprint. Flooding in one location can impact the whole UK economy. Neglecting these knock-on costs (i.e. the true footprint of the flood) means we might be ignoring the economic benefits and beneficiaries of flood risk management interventions. In 2007, for example, floods cost the economy about £3.2 bn directly, but the wider effect might actually add another 50% to 250% to that. Flood footprint is a measure of the exclusive total socioeconomic impact that is directly and indirectly caused by a flood event to the flooding region and wider economic systems and social networks. We adopt the UK 2012 flooding. An input-output basic dynamic inequalities (BDI) model is used to assess the impact of the floodings on the level of a Yorkshire economy, accounting for interactions between industries through demand and supply of intermediate consumption goods with a circular flow. After the disaster the economy will be unbalanced. The recovery process finishes when the economy is completely balance, i.e., when labour production capacity equals demands and production and all the variables reach pre-disaster levels. The analysis is carried out

Assessing Chinese coach drivers' fitness to drive: The development of a toolkit based on cognition measurements.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Huarong; Mo, Xian; Wang, Ying; Liu, Ruixue; Qiu, Peiyu; Dai, Jiajun

2016-10-01

Road traffic accidents resulting in group deaths and injuries are often related to coach drivers' inappropriate operations and behaviors. Thus, the evaluation of coach drivers' fitness to drive is an important measure for improving the safety of public transportation. Previous related research focused on drivers' age and health condition. Comprehensive studies about commercial drivers' cognitive capacities are limited. This study developed a toolkit consisting of nine cognition measurements across driver perception/sensation, attention, and reaction. A total of 1413 licensed coach drivers in Jiangsu Province, China were investigated and tested. Results indicated that drivers with accident history within three years performed overwhelmingly worse (panalysis, in which the eliminated 5% tail was calculated from on integrated index. Methods to categorizing qualified, good, and excellent coach drivers and criteria for evaluating and training Chinese coach drivers' fitness to drive were also proposed. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Application experiences with the Globus toolkit.

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Brunett, S.

1998-06-09

The Globus grid toolkit is a collection of software components designed to support the development of applications for high-performance distributed computing environments, or ''computational grids'' [14]. The Globus toolkit is an implementation of a ''bag of services'' architecture, which provides application and tool developers not with a monolithic system but rather with a set of stand-alone services. Each Globus component provides a basic service, such as authentication, resource allocation, information, communication, fault detection, and remote data access. Different applications and tools can combine these services in different ways to construct ''grid-enabled'' systems. The Globus toolkit has been used to construct the Globus Ubiquitous Supercomputing Testbed, or GUSTO: a large-scale testbed spanning 20 sites and included over 4000 compute nodes for a total compute power of over 2 TFLOPS. Over the past six months, we and others have used this testbed to conduct a variety of application experiments, including multi-user collaborative environments (tele-immersion), computational steering, distributed supercomputing, and high throughput computing. The goal of this paper is to review what has been learned from these experiments regarding the effectiveness of the toolkit approach. To this end, we describe two of the application experiments in detail, noting what worked well and what worked less well. The two applications are a distributed supercomputing application, SF-Express, in which multiple supercomputers are harnessed to perform large distributed interactive simulations; and a tele-immersion application, CAVERNsoft, in which the focus is on connecting multiple people to a distributed simulated world.

Toward a nitrogen footprint calculator for Tanzania

Science.gov (United States)

Hutton, Mary Olivia; Leach, Allison M.; Leip, Adrian; Galloway, James N.; Bekunda, Mateete; Sullivan, Clare; Lesschen, Jan Peter

2017-03-01

We present the first nitrogen footprint model for a developing country: Tanzania. Nitrogen (N) is a crucial element for agriculture and human nutrition, but in excess it can cause serious environmental damage. The Sub-Saharan African nation of Tanzania faces a two-sided nitrogen problem: while there is not enough soil nitrogen to produce adequate food, excess nitrogen that escapes into the environment causes a cascade of ecological and human health problems. To identify, quantify, and contribute to solving these problems, this paper presents a nitrogen footprint tool for Tanzania. This nitrogen footprint tool is a concept originally designed for the United States of America (USA) and other developed countries. It uses personal resource consumption data to calculate a per-capita nitrogen footprint. The Tanzania N footprint tool is a version adapted to reflect the low-input, integrated agricultural system of Tanzania. This is reflected by calculating two sets of virtual N factors to describe N losses during food production: one for fertilized farms and one for unfertilized farms. Soil mining factors are also calculated for the first time to address the amount of N removed from the soil to produce food. The average per-capita nitrogen footprint of Tanzania is 10 kg N yr-1. 88% of this footprint is due to food consumption and production, while only 12% of the footprint is due to energy use. Although 91% of farms in Tanzania are unfertilized, the large contribution of fertilized farms to N losses causes unfertilized farms to make up just 83% of the food production N footprint. In a developing country like Tanzania, the main audiences for the N footprint tool are community leaders, planners, and developers who can impact decision-making and use the calculator to plan positive changes for nitrogen sustainability in the developing world.

Fine-resolution Modeling of Urban-Energy Systems' Water Footprint in River Networks

Science.gov (United States)

McManamay, R.; Surendran Nair, S.; Morton, A.; DeRolph, C.; Stewart, R.

2015-12-01

Characterizing the interplay between urbanization, energy production, and water resources is essential for ensuring sustainable population growth. In order to balance limited water supplies, competing users must account for their realized and virtual water footprint, i.e. the total direct and indirect amount of water used, respectively. Unfortunately, publicly reported US water use estimates are spatially coarse, temporally static, and completely ignore returns of water to rivers after use. These estimates are insufficient to account for the high spatial and temporal heterogeneity of water budgets in urbanizing systems. Likewise, urbanizing areas are supported by competing sources of energy production, which also have heterogeneous water footprints. Hence, a fundamental challenge of planning for sustainable urban growth and decision-making across disparate policy sectors lies in characterizing inter-dependencies among urban systems, energy producers, and water resources. A modeling framework is presented that provides a novel approach to integrate urban-energy infrastructure into a spatial accounting network that accurately measures water footprints as changes in the quantity and quality of river flows. River networks (RNs), i.e. networks of branching tributaries nested within larger rivers, provide a spatial structure to measure water budgets by modeling hydrology and accounting for use and returns from urbanizing areas and energy producers. We quantify urban-energy water footprints for Atlanta, GA and Knoxville, TN (USA) based on changes in hydrology in RNs. Although water intakes providing supply to metropolitan areas were proximate to metropolitan areas, power plants contributing to energy demand in Knoxville and Atlanta, occurred 30 and 90km outside the metropolitan boundary, respectively. Direct water footprints from urban landcover primarily comprised smaller streams whereas indirect footprints from water supply reservoirs and energy producers included

TRSkit: A Simple Digital Library Toolkit

Science.gov (United States)

Nelson, Michael L.; Esler, Sandra L.

1997-01-01

This paper introduces TRSkit, a simple and effective toolkit for building digital libraries on the World Wide Web. The toolkit was developed for the creation of the Langley Technical Report Server and the NASA Technical Report Server, but is applicable to most simple distribution paradigms. TRSkit contains a handful of freely available software components designed to be run under the UNIX operating system and served via the World Wide Web. The intended customer is the person that must continuously and synchronously distribute anywhere from 100 - 100,000's of information units and does not have extensive resources to devote to the problem.

Baseline ecological footprint of Sandia National Laboratories, New Mexico.

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Coplen, Amy K.; Mizner, Jack Harry,; Ubechel, Norion M.

2009-01-01

The Ecological Footprint Model is a mechanism for measuring the environmental effects of operations at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico (SNL/NM). This analysis quantifies environmental impact associated with energy use, transportation, waste, land use, and water consumption at SNL/NM for fiscal year 2005 (FY05). Since SNL/NMs total ecological footprint (96,434 gha) is greater than the waste absorption capacity of its landholdings (338 gha), it created an ecological deficit of 96,096 gha. This deficit is equal to 886,470lha, or about 3,423 square miles of Pinyon-Juniper woodlands and desert grassland. 89% of the ecological footprint can be attributed to energy use, indicating that in order to mitigate environmental impact, efforts should be focused on energy efficiency, energy reduction, and the incorporation of additional renewable energy alternatives at SNL/NM.

Carbon footprinting in supply chains

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Boukherroub, T.; Bouchery, Y.; Corbett, C.J.; Fransoo, J.C.; Tan, T.; Bouchery, Y.; Corbett, C.J.; Fransoo, J.C.; Tan, T.

2017-01-01

This chapter presents an overview of the methods and challenges behind carbon footprinting at the supply chain level. We start by providing some information about the scientific background on climate change. This information is necessary to clarify the overall methodology behind carbon footprinting

Impacts of software and its engineering on the carbon footprint of ICT

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kern, Eva, E-mail: e.kern@umwelt-campus.de [Institute for Software Systems, Environmental Campus Birkenfeld, Campusallee, D-55761 Birkenfeld (Germany); Dick, Markus, E-mail: sustainablesoftwareblog@gmail.com [Fritz-Wunderlich-Straße 14, D-66869 Kusel (Germany); Naumann, Stefan, E-mail: s.naumann@umwelt-campus.de [Institute for Software Systems, Environmental Campus Birkenfeld, Campusallee, D-55761 Birkenfeld (Germany); Hiller, Tim, E-mail: tim.hiller@gmx.com [Institute for Software Systems, Environmental Campus Birkenfeld, Campusallee, D-55761 Birkenfeld (Germany)

2015-04-15

The energy consumption of information and communication technology (ICT) is still increasing. Even though several solutions regarding the hardware side of Green IT exist, the software contribution to Green IT is not well investigated. The carbon footprint is one way to rate the environmental impacts of ICT. In order to get an impression of the induced CO{sub 2} emissions of software, we will present a calculation method for the carbon footprint of a software product over its life cycle. We also offer an approach on how to integrate some aspects of carbon footprint calculation into software development processes and discuss impacts and tools regarding this calculation method. We thus show the relevance of energy measurements and the attention to impacts on the carbon footprint by software within Green Software Engineering.

Impacts of software and its engineering on the carbon footprint of ICT

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kern, Eva; Dick, Markus; Naumann, Stefan; Hiller, Tim

2015-01-01

The energy consumption of information and communication technology (ICT) is still increasing. Even though several solutions regarding the hardware side of Green IT exist, the software contribution to Green IT is not well investigated. The carbon footprint is one way to rate the environmental impacts of ICT. In order to get an impression of the induced CO 2 emissions of software, we will present a calculation method for the carbon footprint of a software product over its life cycle. We also offer an approach on how to integrate some aspects of carbon footprint calculation into software development processes and discuss impacts and tools regarding this calculation method. We thus show the relevance of energy measurements and the attention to impacts on the carbon footprint by software within Green Software Engineering

Barriers to Mitigate Carbon Footprint in a Selected Academic Institution in Bacoor City, Cavite, Philippines

Science.gov (United States)

Adanza, Jonathan R.

2016-01-01

Carbon footprint is an environmental menace that needs to be addressed at once. Various mitigating measures were proposed and yet manifestations of its proliferation are very much observable. This study seeks to determine primarily the barriers of non-adherence to identified measures to mitigate carbon footprint in the environment. Using the mixed…

Communities and Spontaneous Urban Planning: A Toolkit for Urban ...

International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Digital Library (Canada)

State-led urban planning is often absent, which creates unsustainable environments and hinders the integration of migrants. Communities' prospects of ... This toolkit is expected to be a viable alternative for planning urban expansion wherever it cannot be carried out through traditional means. The toolkit will be tested in ...

Research on the influencing factors of reverse logistics carbon footprint under sustainable development.

Science.gov (United States)

Sun, Qiang

2017-10-01

With the concerns of ecological and circular economy along with sustainable development, reverse logistics has attracted the attention of enterprise. How to achieve sustainable development of reverse logistics has important practical significance of enhancing low carbon competitiveness. In this paper, the system boundary of reverse logistics carbon footprint is presented. Following the measurement of reverse logistics carbon footprint and reverse logistics carbon capacity is provided. The influencing factors of reverse logistics carbon footprint are classified into five parts such as intensity of reverse logistics, energy structure, energy efficiency, reverse logistics output, and product remanufacturing rate. The quantitative research methodology using ADF test, Johansen co-integration test, and impulse response is utilized to interpret the relationship between reverse logistics carbon footprint and the influencing factors more accurately. This research finds that energy efficiency, energy structure, and product remanufacturing rate are more capable of inhibiting reverse logistics carbon footprint. The statistical approaches will help practitioners in this field to structure their reverse logistics activities and also help academics in developing better decision models to reduce reverse logistics carbon footprint.

Carbon footprinting. An introduction for organisations

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2007-08-01

To some degree or other, every person and every organisation, either directly or indirectly, is responsible for producing carbon dioxide gas which finds its way into the atmosphere and therefore contributes to the greenhouse effect. The amount of carbon dioxide produced by a person, an organisation, a company, an industry, an event, or even a population can be quantified in what is now described as a carbon footprint. Gases other than carbon dioxide are also released to the atmosphere through man's activities and these can also be evaluated in terms of the carbon footprint. This document explains the meaning of the expression 'carbon footprint' and aims to assist businesses and organisations to determine collective and individual carbon footprints

Holocene footprints in Namibia: the influence of substrate on footprint variability.

Science.gov (United States)

Morse, Sarita A; Bennett, Matthew R; Liutkus-Pierce, Cynthia; Thackeray, Francis; McClymont, Juliet; Savage, Russell; Crompton, Robin H

2013-06-01

We report a Holocene human and animal footprint site from the Namib Sand Sea, south of Walvis Bay, Namibia. Using these data, we explore intratrail footprint variability associated with small variations in substrate properties using a "whole foot" analytical technique developed for the studies in human ichnology. We demonstrate high levels of intratrail variability as a result of variations in grain size, depositional moisture content, and the degree of sediment disturbance, all of which determine the bearing capacity of the substrate. The two principal trails were examined, which had consistent stride and step lengths, and as such variations in print typology were primarily controlled by substrate rather than locomotor mechanics. Footprint typology varies with bearing capacity such that firm substrates show limited impressions associated with areas of peak plantar pressure, whereas softer substrates are associated with deep prints with narrow heels and reduced medial longitudinal arches. Substrates of medium bearing capacity give displacement rims and proximal movement of sediment, which obscures the true form of the medial longitudinal arch. A simple conceptual model is offered which summarizes these conclusions and is presented as a basis for further investigation into the control of substrate on footprint typology. The method, model, and results presented here are essential in the interpretation of any sites of greater paleoanthropological significance, such as recently reported from Ileret (1.5 Ma, Kenya; Bennett et al.: Science 323 (2009) 1197-1201). Copyright © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Does footprint depth correlate with foot motion and pressure?

Science.gov (United States)

Bates, K T; Savage, R; Pataky, T C; Morse, S A; Webster, E; Falkingham, P L; Ren, L; Qian, Z; Collins, D; Bennett, M R; McClymont, J; Crompton, R H

2013-06-06

Footprints are the most direct source of evidence about locomotor biomechanics in extinct vertebrates. One of the principal suppositions underpinning biomechanical inferences is that footprint geometry correlates with dynamic foot pressure, which, in turn, is linked with overall limb motion of the trackmaker. In this study, we perform the first quantitative test of this long-standing assumption, using topological statistical analysis of plantar pressures and experimental and computer-simulated footprints. In computer-simulated footprints, the relative distribution of depth differed from the distribution of both peak and pressure impulse in all simulations. Analysis of footprint samples with common loading inputs and similar depths reveals that only shallow footprints lack significant topological differences between depth and pressure distributions. Topological comparison of plantar pressures and experimental beach footprints demonstrates that geometry is highly dependent on overall print depth; deeper footprints are characterized by greater relative forefoot, and particularly toe, depth than shallow footprints. The highlighted difference between 'shallow' and 'deep' footprints clearly emphasizes the need to understand variation in foot mechanics across different degrees of substrate compliance. Overall, our results indicate that extreme caution is required when applying the 'depth equals pressure' paradigm to hominin footprints, and by extension, those of other extant and extinct tetrapods.

Design-based learning in classrooms using playful digital toolkits

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Scheltenaar, K.J.; van der Poel, J.E.C.; Bekker, Tilde

2015-01-01

The goal of this paper is to explore how to implement Design Based Learning (DBL) with digital toolkits to teach 21st century skills in (Dutch) schools. It describes the outcomes of a literature study and two design case studies in which such a DBL approach with digital toolkits was iteratively

An Overview of the Geant4 Toolkit

CERN Document Server

Apostolakis, John

2007-01-01

Geant4 is a toolkit for the simulation of the transport of radiation trough matter. With a flexible kernel and choices between different physics modeling choices, it has been tailored to the requirements of a wide range of applications. With the toolkit a user can describe a setup's or detector's geometry and materials, navigate inside it, simulate the physical interactions using a choice of physics engines, underlying physics cross-sections and models, visualise and store results. Physics models describing electromagnetic and hadronic interactions are provided, as are decays and processes for optical photons. Several models, with different precision and performance are available for many processes. The toolkit includes coherent physics model configurations, which are called physics lists. Users can choose an existing physics list or create their own, depending on their requirements and the application area. A clear structure and readable code, enable the user to investigate the origin of physics results. App...

The Lean and Environment Toolkit

Science.gov (United States)

This Lean and Environment Toolkit assembles practical experience collected by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and partner companies and organizations that have experience with coordinating Lean implementation and environmental management.

National water footprint accounts: the green, blue and grey water footprint of production and consumption

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Mekonnen, Mesfin; Hoekstra, Arjen Ysbert

2011-01-01

This study quantifies and maps the water footprints of nations from both a production and consumption perspective and estimates international virtual water flows and national and global water savings as a result of trade. The entire estimate includes a breakdown of water footprints, virtual water

A flux footprint analysis to understand ecosystem fluxes in an intensively managed landscape

Science.gov (United States)

Hernandez Rodriguez, L. C.; Goodwell, A. E.; Kumar, P.

2017-12-01

Flux tower studies in agricultural sites have mainly been done at plot scale, where the footprint of the instruments is small such that the data reveals the behaviour of the nearby crop on which the study is focused. In the Midwestern United States, the agricultural ecosystem and its associated drainage, evapotranspiration, and nutrient dynamics are dominant influences on interactions between the soil, land, and atmosphere. In this study, we address large-scale ecohydrologic fluxes and states in an intensively managed landscape based on data from a 25m high eddy covariance flux tower. We show the calculated upwind distance and flux footprint for a flux tower located in Central Illinois as part of the Intensively Managed Landscapes Critical Zone Observatory (IMLCZO). In addition, we calculate the daily energy balance during the summer of 2016 from the flux tower measurements and compare with the modelled energy balance from a representative corn crop located in the flux tower footprint using the Multi-Layer Canopy model, MLCan. The changes in flux footprint over the course of hours, days, and the growing season have significant implications for the measured fluxes of carbon and energy at the flux tower. We use MLCan to simulate these fluxes under land covers of corn and soybeans. Our results demonstrate how the instrument heights impact the footprint of the captured eddy covariance fluxes, and we explore the implication for hydrological analysis. The convective turbulent atmosphere during the daytime shows a wide footprint of more than 10 km2, which reaches 3km length for the 90% contribution, where buoyancy is the dominant mechanism driving turbulence. In contrast, the stable atmosphere during the night-time shows a narrower footprint that goes beyond 8km2 and grows in the direction of the prevalent wind, which exceeds 4 km in length. This study improves our understanding of agricultural ecosystem behaviour in terms of the magnitude and variability of fluxes and

Distal Insertional Footprint of the Brachialis Muscle: 3D Morphometric Study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Srinath Kamineni

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Objective. The purpose of this study is to describe the three-dimensional morphometry of the brachialis muscle at its distal attachment to the ulna. Methods. Fifty cadaveric elbows were dissected and the brachialis distal insertion was isolated on the ulna bone and probed with a three-dimensional digitizer, to create a three-dimensional model of the footprint. Measurements and analysis of each footprint shape were recorded and compared based on gender and size. Results. There was significant gender difference in the surface length (P= 0.002 and projected length (P= 0.001 of the brachialis footprint. The shapes of the footprint also differed among the specimens. Conclusion. The shape of the brachialis muscle insertion differed among all the specimens without significant variation in gender or sides. There was also a significant difference in muscle length between males and females with little difference in the width and surface area. Significance. The information obtained from this study is important for kinematic understanding and surgical procedures around the elbow joint as well as the understanding of the natural age related anatomy of the brachialis footprint morphology.

Income-based projections of water footprint of food consumption in Uzbekistan

Science.gov (United States)

Djanibekov, Nodir; Frohberg, Klaus; Djanibekov, Utkur

2013-11-01

Assessing future water requirements for feeding the growing population of Central Asia can improve understanding of the projected water supply scenarios in the region. Future water requirements will be partially determined by the dietary habits of the populations, and are thus responsive to significant variation of income levels. Using Uzbekistan as an example, this study projects the water footprints of income driven changes on the population's diet in Central Asia. To reveal the influence of large income changes on dietary habits a Normalized Quadratic-Quadratic Expenditure System was calibrated and applied to data from 2009. The national water footprints of food consumption in Uzbekistan were projected until 2034 by applying the parameterized demand system to estimate the respective water footprint values. The results showed that for Uzbekistan the projected increase in the food consumption water footprint would be primarily linked to income growth rather than population growth. Due to the high water footprint of common food products, the composition of the population's diet, and responsiveness to income, economic growth is expected to put greater pressure on water resources in Uzbekistan unless proper measures are undertaken.

Human Decisions: Nitrogen Footprints and Environmental Effects

Science.gov (United States)

Leach, A. M.; Bleeker, A.; Galloway, J. N.; Erisman, J.

2012-12-01

Human consumption choices are responsible for growing losses of reactive nitrogen (Nr) to the environment. Once in the environment, Nr can cause a cascade of negative impacts such as smog, acid rain, coastal eutrophication, climate change, and biodiversity loss. Although all humans must consume nitrogen as protein, the food production process releases substantial Nr to the environment. This dilemma presents a challenge: how do we feed a growing population while reducing Nr? Although top-down strategies to reduce Nr losses (e.g., emissions controls) are necessary, the bottom-up strategies focusing on personal consumption patterns will be imperative to solve the nitrogen challenge. Understanding the effects of different personal choices on Nr losses and the environment is an important first step for this strategy. This paper will utilize information and results from the N-Calculator, a per capita nitrogen footprint model (www.N-Print.org), to analyze the impact of different food consumption patterns on a personal food nitrogen footprint and the environment. Scenarios will analyze the impact of the following dietary patterns on the average United States (28 kg Nr/cap/yr) food nitrogen footprint: 1) Consuming only the recommended protein as defined by the WHO and the USDA; 2) Reducing food waste by 50%; 3) Consuming a vegetarian diet; 4) Consuming a vegan diet; 5) Consuming a demitarian diet (replacing half of animal protein consumption with vegetable protein); 6) Substituting chicken (a more efficient animal protein) with beef (a less efficient animal protein); 7) Consuming sustainably-produced food; and 8) Using advanced wastewater treatment. Preliminary results suggest that widespread advanced wastewater treatment with nutrient removal technology and halving food waste would each reduce the US personal food nitrogen footprint by 13%. In addition, reducing protein consumption to the recommended levels would reduce the footprint by about 42%. Combining these measures

The Footprint Database and Web Services of the Herschel Space Observatory

Science.gov (United States)

Dobos, László; Varga-Verebélyi, Erika; Verdugo, Eva; Teyssier, David; Exter, Katrina; Valtchanov, Ivan; Budavári, Tamás; Kiss, Csaba

2016-10-01

Data from the Herschel Space Observatory is freely available to the public but no uniformly processed catalogue of the observations has been published so far. To date, the Herschel Science Archive does not contain the exact sky coverage (footprint) of individual observations and supports search for measurements based on bounding circles only. Drawing on previous experience in implementing footprint databases, we built the Herschel Footprint Database and Web Services for the Herschel Space Observatory to provide efficient search capabilities for typical astronomical queries. The database was designed with the following main goals in mind: (a) provide a unified data model for meta-data of all instruments and observational modes, (b) quickly find observations covering a selected object and its neighbourhood, (c) quickly find every observation in a larger area of the sky, (d) allow for finding solar system objects crossing observation fields. As a first step, we developed a unified data model of observations of all three Herschel instruments for all pointing and instrument modes. Then, using telescope pointing information and observational meta-data, we compiled a database of footprints. As opposed to methods using pixellation of the sphere, we represent sky coverage in an exact geometric form allowing for precise area calculations. For easier handling of Herschel observation footprints with rather complex shapes, two algorithms were implemented to reduce the outline. Furthermore, a new visualisation tool to plot footprints with various spherical projections was developed. Indexing of the footprints using Hierarchical Triangular Mesh makes it possible to quickly find observations based on sky coverage, time and meta-data. The database is accessible via a web site http://herschel.vo.elte.hu and also as a set of REST web service functions, which makes it readily usable from programming environments such as Python or IDL. The web service allows downloading footprint data

Lean and Information Technology Toolkit

Science.gov (United States)

The Lean and Information Technology Toolkit is a how-to guide which provides resources to environmental agencies to help them use Lean Startup, Lean process improvement, and Agile tools to streamline and automate processes.

Outage Risk Assessment and Management (ORAM) thermal-hydraulics toolkit

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Denny, V.E.; Wassel, A.T.; Issacci, F.; Pal Kalra, S.

2004-01-01

A PC-based thermal-hydraulic toolkit for use in support of outage optimization, management and risk assessment has been developed. This mechanistic toolkit incorporates simple models of key thermal-hydraulic processes which occur during an outage, such as recovery from or mitigation of outage upsets; this includes heat-up of water pools following loss of shutdown cooling, inadvertent drain down of the RCS, boiloff of coolant inventory, heatup of the uncovered core, and reflux cooling. This paper provides a list of key toolkit elements, briefly describes the technical basis and presents illustrative results for RCS transient behavior during reflux cooling, peak clad temperatures for an uncovered core and RCS response to loss of shutdown cooling. (author)

Low Computational-Cost Footprint Deformities Diagnosis Sensor through Angles, Dimensions Analysis and Image Processing Techniques

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

J. Rodolfo Maestre-Rendon

2017-11-01

Full Text Available Manual measurements of foot anthropometry can lead to errors since this task involves the experience of the specialist who performs them, resulting in different subjective measures from the same footprint. Moreover, some of the diagnoses that are given to classify a footprint deformity are based on a qualitative interpretation by the physician; there is no quantitative interpretation of the footprint. The importance of providing a correct and accurate diagnosis lies in the need to ensure that an appropriate treatment is provided for the improvement of the patient without risking his or her health. Therefore, this article presents a smart sensor that integrates the capture of the footprint, a low computational-cost analysis of the image and the interpretation of the results through a quantitative evaluation. The smart sensor implemented required the use of a camera (Logitech C920 connected to a Raspberry Pi 3, where a graphical interface was made for the capture and processing of the image, and it was adapted to a podoscope conventionally used by specialists such as orthopedist, physiotherapists and podiatrists. The footprint diagnosis smart sensor (FPDSS has proven to be robust to different types of deformity, precise, sensitive and correlated in 0.99 with the measurements from the digitalized image of the ink mat.

Cinfony – combining Open Source cheminformatics toolkits behind a common interface

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hutchison Geoffrey R

2008-12-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Open Source cheminformatics toolkits such as OpenBabel, the CDK and the RDKit share the same core functionality but support different sets of file formats and forcefields, and calculate different fingerprints and descriptors. Despite their complementary features, using these toolkits in the same program is difficult as they are implemented in different languages (C++ versus Java, have different underlying chemical models and have different application programming interfaces (APIs. Results We describe Cinfony, a Python module that presents a common interface to all three of these toolkits, allowing the user to easily combine methods and results from any of the toolkits. In general, the run time of the Cinfony modules is almost as fast as accessing the underlying toolkits directly from C++ or Java, but Cinfony makes it much easier to carry out common tasks in cheminformatics such as reading file formats and calculating descriptors. Conclusion By providing a simplified interface and improving interoperability, Cinfony makes it easy to combine complementary features of OpenBabel, the CDK and the RDKit.

chemf: A purely functional chemistry toolkit.

Science.gov (United States)

Höck, Stefan; Riedl, Rainer

2012-12-20

Although programming in a type-safe and referentially transparent style offers several advantages over working with mutable data structures and side effects, this style of programming has not seen much use in chemistry-related software. Since functional programming languages were designed with referential transparency in mind, these languages offer a lot of support when writing immutable data structures and side-effects free code. We therefore started implementing our own toolkit based on the above programming paradigms in a modern, versatile programming language. We present our initial results with functional programming in chemistry by first describing an immutable data structure for molecular graphs together with a couple of simple algorithms to calculate basic molecular properties before writing a complete SMILES parser in accordance with the OpenSMILES specification. Along the way we show how to deal with input validation, error handling, bulk operations, and parallelization in a purely functional way. At the end we also analyze and improve our algorithms and data structures in terms of performance and compare it to existing toolkits both object-oriented and purely functional. All code was written in Scala, a modern multi-paradigm programming language with a strong support for functional programming and a highly sophisticated type system. We have successfully made the first important steps towards a purely functional chemistry toolkit. The data structures and algorithms presented in this article perform well while at the same time they can be safely used in parallelized applications, such as computer aided drug design experiments, without further adjustments. This stands in contrast to existing object-oriented toolkits where thread safety of data structures and algorithms is a deliberate design decision that can be hard to implement. Finally, the level of type-safety achieved by Scala highly increased the reliability of our code as well as the productivity of

The carbon footprint of Australian health care.

Science.gov (United States)

Malik, Arunima; Lenzen, Manfred; McAlister, Scott; McGain, Forbes

2018-01-01

Carbon footprints stemming from health care have been found to be variable, from 3% of the total national CO 2 equivalent (CO 2 e) emissions in England to 10% of the national CO 2 e emissions in the USA. We aimed to measure the carbon footprint of Australia's health-care system. We did an observational economic input-output lifecycle assessment of Australia's health-care system. All expenditure data were obtained from the 15 sectors of the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare for the financial year 2014-15. The Australian Industrial Ecology Virtual Laboratory (IELab) data were used to obtain CO 2 e emissions per AUS$ spent on health care. In 2014-15 Australia spent $161·6 billion on health care that led to CO 2 e emissions of about 35 772 (68% CI 25 398-46 146) kilotonnes. Australia's total CO 2 e emissions in 2014-15 were 494 930 kilotonnes, thus health care represented 35 772 (7%) of 494 930 kilotonnes total CO 2 e emissions in Australia. The five most important sectors within health care in decreasing order of total CO 2 e emissions were: public hospitals (12 295 [34%] of 35 772 kilotonnes CO 2 e), private hospitals (3635 kilotonnes [10%]), other medications (3347 kilotonnes [9%]), benefit-paid drugs (3257 kilotonnes [9%]), and capital expenditure for buildings (2776 kilotonnes [8%]). The carbon footprint attributed to health care was 7% of Australia's total; with hospitals and pharmaceuticals the major contributors. We quantified Australian carbon footprint attributed to health care and identified health-care sectors that could be ameliorated. Our results suggest the need for carbon-efficient procedures, including greater public health measures, to lower the impact of health-care services on the environment. None. Copyright © 2018 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an Open Access article under the CC BY 4.0 license. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

An enigmatic, diminutive theropod footprint in the shallow marine Pliensbachian Hasle Formation, Bornholm, Denmark

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Milàn, Jesper; Surlyk, Finn

2015-01-01

A well-preserved three-toed footprint, measuring 34 mm in length from a very small predatory dinosaur with an estimated hip height of 153 mm and a total body length around 50 cm including tail, is reported from the type section of the marine Lower Jurassic (Pliensbachian), Hasle Formation...... on the Danish island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea. The morphology of the footprint is similar to the ichnogenus Stenonyx Lull 1904 from the contemporaneous Pliensbachian Szydlowek site in Poland. Apart from the Polish material, footprints from diminutive dinosaurs are rare and reported from few other...... localities around the world. The occurrence of a diminutive dinosaur footprint in a shallow marine sandstone is enigmatic. The well-defined morphology of the footprint, together with the very small size of the trackmaker, excludes the possibility that the track was emplaced by a swimming or wading animal...

Provider perceptions of an integrated primary care quality improvement strategy: The PPAQ toolkit.

Science.gov (United States)

Beehler, Gregory P; Lilienthal, Kaitlin R

2017-02-01

The Primary Care Behavioral Health (PCBH) model of integrated primary care is challenging to implement with high fidelity. The Primary Care Behavioral Health Provider Adherence Questionnaire (PPAQ) was designed to assess provider adherence to essential model components and has recently been adapted into a quality improvement toolkit. The aim of this pilot project was to gather preliminary feedback on providers' perceptions of the acceptability and utility of the PPAQ toolkit for making beneficial practice changes. Twelve mental health providers working in Department of Veterans Affairs integrated primary care clinics participated in semistructured interviews to gather quantitative and qualitative data. Descriptive statistics and qualitative content analysis were used to analyze data. Providers identified several positive features of the PPAQ toolkit organization and structure that resulted in high ratings of acceptability, while also identifying several toolkit components in need of modification to improve usability. Toolkit content was considered highly representative of the (PCBH) model and therefore could be used as a diagnostic self-assessment of model adherence. The toolkit was considered to be high in applicability to providers regardless of their degree of prior professional preparation or current clinical setting. Additionally, providers identified several system-level contextual factors that could impact the usefulness of the toolkit. These findings suggest that frontline mental health providers working in (PCBH) settings may be receptive to using an adherence-focused toolkit for ongoing quality improvement. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Knowledge information management toolkit and method

Science.gov (United States)

Hempstead, Antoinette R.; Brown, Kenneth L.

2006-08-15

A system is provided for managing user entry and/or modification of knowledge information into a knowledge base file having an integrator support component and a data source access support component. The system includes processing circuitry, memory, a user interface, and a knowledge base toolkit. The memory communicates with the processing circuitry and is configured to store at least one knowledge base. The user interface communicates with the processing circuitry and is configured for user entry and/or modification of knowledge pieces within a knowledge base. The knowledge base toolkit is configured for converting knowledge in at least one knowledge base from a first knowledge base form into a second knowledge base form. A method is also provided.

Mapping the Carbon Footprint of Nations.

Science.gov (United States)

Kanemoto, Keiichiro; Moran, Daniel; Hertwich, Edgar G

2016-10-04

Life cycle thinking asks companies and consumers to take responsibility for emissions along their entire supply chain. As the world economy becomes more complex it is increasingly difficult to connect consumers and other downstream users to the origins of their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Given the important role of subnational entities-cities, states, and companies-in GHG abatement efforts, it would be advantageous to better link downstream users to facilities and regulators who control primary emissions. We present a new spatially explicit carbon footprint method for establishing such connections. We find that for most developed countries the carbon footprint has diluted and spread: for example, since 1970 the U.S. carbon footprint has grown 23% territorially, and 38% in consumption-based terms, but nearly 200% in spatial extent (i.e., the minimum area needed to contain 90% of emissions). The rapidly growing carbon footprints of China and India, however, do not show such a spatial expansion of their consumption footprints in spite of their increasing participation in the world economy. In their case, urbanization concentrates domestic pollution and this offsets the increasing importance of imports.

Kekule.js: An Open Source JavaScript Chemoinformatics Toolkit.

Science.gov (United States)

Jiang, Chen; Jin, Xi; Dong, Ying; Chen, Ming

2016-06-27

Kekule.js is an open-source, object-oriented JavaScript toolkit for chemoinformatics. It provides methods for many common tasks in molecular informatics, including chemical data input/output (I/O), two- and three-dimensional (2D/3D) rendering of chemical structure, stereo identification, ring perception, structure comparison, and substructure search. Encapsulated widgets to display and edit chemical structures directly in web context are also supplied. Developed with web standards, the toolkit is ideal for building chemoinformatics applications over the Internet. Moreover, it is highly platform-independent and can also be used in desktop or mobile environments. Some initial applications, such as plugins for inputting chemical structures on the web and uses in chemistry education, have been developed based on the toolkit.

Carbon footprint of cartons in Europe - Carbon Footprint methodology and biogenic carbon sequestration

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Eriksson, Elin; Karlsson, Per-Erik; Hallberg, Lisa; Jelse, Kristian

2010-05-15

A methodology for carbon sequestration in forests used for carton production has been developed and applied. The average Carbon Footprint of converted cartons sold in Europe has been calculated and summarised. A methodology for a EU27 scenario based assessment of end of life treatment has been developed and applied. The average Carbon Footprint represents the total Greenhouse Gas emissions from one average tonne of virgin based fibres and recycled fibres produced, converted and printed in Europe

Validation of Power Output for the WIND Toolkit

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

King, J.; Clifton, A.; Hodge, B. M.

2014-09-01

Renewable energy integration studies require wind data sets of high quality with realistic representations of the variability, ramping characteristics, and forecast performance for current wind power plants. The Wind Integration National Data Set (WIND) Toolkit is meant to be an update for and expansion of the original data sets created for the weather years from 2004 through 2006 during the Western Wind and Solar Integration Study and the Eastern Wind Integration Study. The WIND Toolkit expands these data sets to include the entire continental United States, increasing the total number of sites represented, and it includes the weather years from 2007 through 2012. In addition, the WIND Toolkit has a finer resolution for both the temporal and geographic dimensions. Three separate data sets will be created: a meteorological data set, a wind power data set, and a forecast data set. This report describes the validation of the wind power data set.

The carbon footprint of exported Brazilian yellow melon

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Brito de Figueirêdo, M.C.; Kroeze, C.; Potting, J.; Silva Barros, da V.; Sousa de Aragão, A.; Sonsol Gondim, R.; Boer, de I.J.M.

2013-01-01

The carbon footprint of food has become important for producers worldwide as consumers and retail companies increasingly base their purchase decisions on carbon footprint labels. In this context, our objectives is to assess the carbon footprint (CF) of Brazilian yellow melon exported from the Low

A Software Toolkit to Study Systematic Uncertainties of the Physics Models of the Geant4 Simulation Package

Science.gov (United States)

Genser, Krzysztof; Hatcher, Robert; Kelsey, Michael; Perdue, Gabriel; Wenzel, Hans; Wright, Dennis H.; Yarba, Julia

2017-10-01

The Geant4 simulation toolkit is used to model interactions between particles and matter. Geant4 employs a set of validated physics models that span a wide range of interaction energies. These models rely on measured cross-sections and phenomenological models with the physically motivated parameters that are tuned to cover many application domains. To study what uncertainties are associated with the Geant4 physics models we have designed and implemented a comprehensive, modular, user-friendly software toolkit that allows the variation of one or more parameters of one or more Geant4 physics models involved in simulation studies. It also enables analysis of multiple variants of the resulting physics observables of interest in order to estimate the uncertainties associated with the simulation model choices. Based on modern event-processing infrastructure software, the toolkit offers a variety of attractive features, e.g. flexible run-time configurable workflow, comprehensive bookkeeping, easy to expand collection of analytical components. Design, implementation technology, and key functionalities of the toolkit are presented in this paper and illustrated with selected results.

ARC Code TI: Crisis Mapping Toolkit

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — The Crisis Mapping Toolkit (CMT) is a collection of tools for processing geospatial data (images, satellite data, etc.) into cartographic products that improve...

The carbon footprint of cataract surgery.

Science.gov (United States)

Morris, D S; Wright, T; Somner, J E A; Connor, A

2013-04-01

Climate change is predicted to be one of the largest global health threats of the 21st century. Health care itself is a large contributor to carbon emissions. Determining the carbon footprint of specific health care activities such as cataract surgery allows the assessment of associated emissions and identifies opportunities for reduction. To assess the carbon footprint of a cataract pathway in a British teaching hospital. This was a component analysis study for one patient having first eye cataract surgery in the University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff. Activity data was collected from three sectors, building and energy use, travel and procurement. Published emissions factors were applied to this data to provide figures in carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2eq). The carbon footprint for one cataract operation was 181.8 kg CO2eq. On the basis that 2230 patients were treated for cataracts during 2011 in Cardiff, this has an associated carbon footprint of 405.4 tonnes CO2eq. Building and energy use was estimated to account for 36.1% of overall emissions, travel 10.1% and procurement 53.8%, with medical equipment accounting for the most emissions at 32.6%. This is the first published carbon footprint of cataract surgery and acts as a benchmark for other studies as well as identifying areas for emissions reduction. Within the procurement sector, dialogue with industry is important to reduce the overall carbon footprint. Sustainability should be considered when cataract pathways are designed as there is potential for reduction in all sectors with the possible side effects of saving costs and improving patient care.

Sealed radioactive sources toolkit

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mac Kenzie, C.

2005-09-01

The IAEA has developed a Sealed Radioactive Sources Toolkit to provide information to key groups about the safety and security of sealed radioactive sources. The key groups addressed are officials in government agencies, medical users, industrial users and the scrap metal industry. The general public may also benefit from an understanding of the fundamentals of radiation safety

The ECVET toolkit customization for the nuclear energy sector

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ceclan, Mihail; Ramos, Cesar Chenel; Estorff, Ulrike von [European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Petten (Netherlands). Inst. for Energy and Transport

2015-04-15

As part of its support to the introduction of ECVET in the nuclear energy sector, the Institute for Energy and Transport (IET) of the Joint Research Centre (JRC), European Commission (EC), through the ECVET Team of the European Human Resources Observatory for the Nuclear energy sector (EHRO-N), developed in the last six years (2009-2014) a sectorial approach and a road map for ECVET implementation in the nuclear energy sector. In order to observe the road map for the ECVET implementation, the toolkit customization for nuclear energy sector is required. This article describes the outcomes of the toolkit customization, based on ECVET approach, for nuclear qualifications design. The process of the toolkit customization took into account the fact that nuclear qualifications are mostly of higher levels (five and above) of the European Qualifications Framework.

The ECVET toolkit customization for the nuclear energy sector

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ceclan, Mihail; Ramos, Cesar Chenel; Estorff, Ulrike von

2015-01-01

As part of its support to the introduction of ECVET in the nuclear energy sector, the Institute for Energy and Transport (IET) of the Joint Research Centre (JRC), European Commission (EC), through the ECVET Team of the European Human Resources Observatory for the Nuclear energy sector (EHRO-N), developed in the last six years (2009-2014) a sectorial approach and a road map for ECVET implementation in the nuclear energy sector. In order to observe the road map for the ECVET implementation, the toolkit customization for nuclear energy sector is required. This article describes the outcomes of the toolkit customization, based on ECVET approach, for nuclear qualifications design. The process of the toolkit customization took into account the fact that nuclear qualifications are mostly of higher levels (five and above) of the European Qualifications Framework.

Assessing Water and Carbon Footprints for Green Water Resource Management

Science.gov (United States)

This slide presentation will focus on the following points: (1) Water footprint and carbon footprint are two criteria evaluating the greenness in urban development, (2) Two cases are examined and presented: water footprints in energy productions and carbon footprints in water ...

Multimethod evaluation of the VA's peer-to-peer Toolkit for patient-centered medical home implementation.

Science.gov (United States)

Luck, Jeff; Bowman, Candice; York, Laura; Midboe, Amanda; Taylor, Thomas; Gale, Randall; Asch, Steven

2014-07-01

Effective implementation of the patient-centered medical home (PCMH) in primary care practices requires training and other resources, such as online toolkits, to share strategies and materials. The Veterans Health Administration (VA) developed an online Toolkit of user-sourced tools to support teams implementing its Patient Aligned Care Team (PACT) medical home model. To present findings from an evaluation of the PACT Toolkit, including use, variation across facilities, effect of social marketing, and factors influencing use. The Toolkit is an online repository of ready-to-use tools created by VA clinic staff that physicians, nurses, and other team members may share, download, and adopt in order to more effectively implement PCMH principles and improve local performance on VA metrics. Multimethod evaluation using: (1) website usage analytics, (2) an online survey of the PACT community of practice's use of the Toolkit, and (3) key informant interviews. Survey respondents were PACT team members and coaches (n = 544) at 136 VA facilities. Interview respondents were Toolkit users and non-users (n = 32). For survey data, multivariable logistic models were used to predict Toolkit awareness and use. Interviews and open-text survey comments were coded using a "common themes" framework. The Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR) guided data collection and analyses. The Toolkit was used by 6,745 staff in the first 19 months of availability. Among members of the target audience, 80 % had heard of the Toolkit, and of those, 70 % had visited the website. Tools had been implemented at 65 % of facilities. Qualitative findings revealed a range of user perspectives from enthusiastic support to lack of sufficient time to browse the Toolkit. An online Toolkit to support PCMH implementation was used at VA facilities nationwide. Other complex health care organizations may benefit from adopting similar online peer-to-peer resource libraries.

Solar Powered Automated Pipe Water Management System, Water Footprint and Carbon Footprint in Soybean Production

Science.gov (United States)

Satyanto, K. S.; Abang, Z. E.; Arif, C.; Yanuar, J. P. M.

2018-05-01

An automatic water management system for agriculture land was developed based on mini PC as controller to manage irrigation and drainage. The system was integrated with perforated pipe network installed below the soil surface to enable water flow in and out through the network, and so water table of the land can be set at a certain level. The system was operated by using solar power electricity supply to power up water level and soil moisture sensors, Raspberry Pi controller and motorized valve actuator. This study aims to implement the system in controlling water level at a soybean production land, and further to observe water footprint and carbon footprint contribution of the soybean production process with application of the automated system. The water level of the field can be controlled around 19 cm from the base. Crop water requirement was calculated using Penman-Monteith approach, with the productivity of soybean 3.57t/ha, total water footprint in soybean production is 872.01 m3/t. Carbon footprint was calculated due to the use of solar power electric supply system and during the soybean production emission was estimated equal to 1.85 kg of CO2.

Urban planning and industry in Spain: A novel methodology for calculating industrial carbon footprints

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zubelzu, Sergio; Álvarez, Roberto

2015-01-01

In this paper we present a methodology for calculating the carbon footprint of the industrial sector during the urban planning stage in order to clearly develop and implement preventive measures. The methodology created focuses on industrial urban planning procedures and takes into account urban infrastructure in the characterization of GHG emissions. It allows for the implementation of preventive measures based on sustainability design criteria. The methodology was derived for specific industrial activity categories and was tested on a group of municipalities in a province south of Madrid, Spain. The results indicate that the average carbon footprint of industrial activities varies between 137.36 kgCO 2eq /m 2 e and 607.25 kgCO 2eq /m 2 e depending on the activity. Gas and electricity are the most important emissions sources for the most polluting industrial activities (chemical and nonmetal mineral products), while transportation is the most important source for every other activity. Municipalities can have a decisive influence on the industrial carbon footprint because, except for waste management and two industrial activities related to electricity, the majority of reductions can be achieved through urban planning decision variables. -- Highlights: •Model to calculate industrial carbon footprint in urban planning stage is proposed. •Specific industrial activities planned have a strong effect on carbon footprint. •Gas and electricity are the most relevant sources for the most pollutant industries. •Transport is relevant source for the less pollutant industries. •Municipalities can decisively influence on industrial carbon footprint

Antenna toolkit

CERN Document Server

Carr, Joseph

2006-01-01

Joe Carr has provided radio amateurs and short-wave listeners with the definitive design guide for sending and receiving radio signals with Antenna Toolkit 2nd edition.Together with the powerful suite of CD software, the reader will have a complete solution for constructing or using an antenna - bar the actual hardware! The software provides a simple Windows-based aid to carrying out the design calculations at the heart of successful antenna design. All the user needs to do is select the antenna type and set the frequency - a much more fun and less error prone method than using a con

Terrain-Toolkit

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Wang, Qi; Kaul, Manohar; Long, Cheng

2014-01-01

, as will be shown, is used heavily for query processing in spatial databases; and (3) they do not provide the surface distance operator which is fundamental for many applications based on terrain data. Motivated by this, we developed a tool called Terrain-Toolkit for terrain data which accepts a comprehensive set......Terrain data is becoming increasingly popular both in industry and in academia. Many tools have been developed for visualizing terrain data. However, we find that (1) they usually accept very few data formats of terrain data only; (2) they do not support terrain simplification well which...

An Overview of the GEANT4 Toolkit

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Apostolakis, John; CERN; Wright, Dennis H.

2007-01-01

Geant4 is a toolkit for the simulation of the transport of radiation through matter. With a flexible kernel and choices between different physics modeling choices, it has been tailored to the requirements of a wide range of applications. With the toolkit a user can describe a setup's or detector's geometry and materials, navigate inside it, simulate the physical interactions using a choice of physics engines, underlying physics cross-sections and models, visualize and store results. Physics models describing electromagnetic and hadronic interactions are provided, as are decays and processes for optical photons. Several models, with different precision and performance are available for many processes. The toolkit includes coherent physics model configurations, which are called physics lists. Users can choose an existing physics list or create their own, depending on their requirements and the application area. A clear structure and readable code, enable the user to investigate the origin of physics results. Application areas include detector simulation and background simulation in High Energy Physics experiments, simulation of accelerator setups, studies in medical imaging and treatment, and the study of the effects of solar radiation on spacecraft instruments

Carbon footprint estimation of municipal water cycle

Science.gov (United States)

Bakhshi, Ali A.

2009-11-01

This research investigates the embodied energy associated with water use. A geographic information system (GIS) was tested using data from Loudoun County, Virginia. The objective of this study is to estimate the embodied energy and carbon emission levels associated with water service at a geographical location and to improve for sustainability planning. Factors that affect the carbon footprint were investigated and the use of a GIS based model as a sustainability planning framework was evaluated. The carbon footprint metric is a useful tool for prediction and measurement of a system's sustainable performance over its expected life cycle. Two metrics were calculated: tons of carbon dioxide per year to represent the contribution to global warming and watt-hrs per gallon to show the embodied energy associated with water consumption. The water delivery to the building, removal of wastewater from the building and associated treatment of water and wastewater create a sizable carbon footprint; often the energy attributed to this water service is the greatest end use of electrical energy. The embodied energy in water depends on topographical characteristics of the area's local water supply, the efficiency of the treatment systems, and the efficiency of the pumping stations. The questions answered by this research are: What is the impact of demand side sustainable water practices on the embodied energy as represented by a comprehensive carbon footprint? What are the major energy consuming elements attributed to the system? What is a viable and visually identifiable tool to estimate the carbon footprint attributed to those Greenhouse Gas (GHG) producing elements? What is the embodied energy and emission associated with water use delivered to a building? Benefits to be derived from a standardized GIS applied carbon footprint estimation approach include: (1) Improved environmental and economic information for the developers, water and wastewater processing and municipal

Product carbon footprint assessment supporting the green supply chain construction in household appliance manufacturers

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Jianhua; Sun, Liang; Guo, Huiting

2017-11-01

Supply chain carbon emission is one of the factors considered in the green supply chain management. A method was designed to support the green supply chain measures based on the carbon footprint assessment for products. A research for 3 typical household appliances carbon footprint assessment was conducted to explore using product carbon footprint assessment method to guide the green supply chain management of the manufacturers. The result could reflect the differences directions on green supply chain management of manufacturers of washing machine, air conditioner and microwave, respectively That is, the washing machine manufacturer should pay attention to the low carbon activities in upstream suppliers in highest priority, and also the promotion of product energy efficiency. The air conditioner manufacturer should pay attention to the product energy efficiency increasing in highest priority, and the improvement of refrigerant to decrease its GWP. And the microwave manufacture could only focus on the energy efficiency increasing because it contributes most of the carbon emission to its carbon footprint. Besides, the representativeness of product and the applicability of the method were also discussed. As the manufacturer could master the technical information on raw material and components of its products to conduct the product carbon footprint assessment, this method could help the manufacturer to identify the effective green supply chain measures in the preliminary stage.

The development of an artificial organic networks toolkit for LabVIEW.

Science.gov (United States)

Ponce, Hiram; Ponce, Pedro; Molina, Arturo

2015-03-15

Two of the most challenging problems that scientists and researchers face when they want to experiment with new cutting-edge algorithms are the time-consuming for encoding and the difficulties for linking them with other technologies and devices. In that sense, this article introduces the artificial organic networks toolkit for LabVIEW™ (AON-TL) from the implementation point of view. The toolkit is based on the framework provided by the artificial organic networks technique, giving it the potential to add new algorithms in the future based on this technique. Moreover, the toolkit inherits both the rapid prototyping and the easy-to-use characteristics of the LabVIEW™ software (e.g., graphical programming, transparent usage of other softwares and devices, built-in programming event-driven for user interfaces), to make it simple for the end-user. In fact, the article describes the global architecture of the toolkit, with particular emphasis in the software implementation of the so-called artificial hydrocarbon networks algorithm. Lastly, the article includes two case studies for engineering purposes (i.e., sensor characterization) and chemistry applications (i.e., blood-brain barrier partitioning data model) to show the usage of the toolkit and the potential scalability of the artificial organic networks technique. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

PsyToolkit: a software package for programming psychological experiments using Linux.

Science.gov (United States)

Stoet, Gijsbert

2010-11-01

PsyToolkit is a set of software tools for programming psychological experiments on Linux computers. Given that PsyToolkit is freely available under the Gnu Public License, open source, and designed such that it can easily be modified and extended for individual needs, it is suitable not only for technically oriented Linux users, but also for students, researchers on small budgets, and universities in developing countries. The software includes a high-level scripting language, a library for the programming language C, and a questionnaire presenter. The software easily integrates with other open source tools, such as the statistical software package R. PsyToolkit is designed to work with external hardware (including IoLab and Cedrus response keyboards and two common digital input/output boards) and to support millisecond timing precision. Four in-depth examples explain the basic functionality of PsyToolkit. Example 1 demonstrates a stimulus-response compatibility experiment. Example 2 demonstrates a novel mouse-controlled visual search experiment. Example 3 shows how to control light emitting diodes using PsyToolkit, and Example 4 shows how to build a light-detection sensor. The last two examples explain the electronic hardware setup such that they can even be used with other software packages.

NOAA Weather and Climate Toolkit (WCT)

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — The NOAA Weather and Climate Toolkit is an application that provides simple visualization and data export of weather and climatological data archived at NCDC. The...

A User Interface Toolkit for a Small Screen Device.

OpenAIRE

UOTILA, ALEKSI

2000-01-01

The appearance of different kinds of networked mobile devices and network appliances creates special requirements for user interfaces that are not met by existing widget based user interface creation toolkits. This thesis studies the problem domain of user interface creation toolkits for portable network connected devices. The portable nature of these devices places great restrictions on the user interface capabilities. One main characteristic of the devices is that they have small screens co...

Geant4 - A Simulation Toolkit

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2002-01-01

Geant4 is a toolkit for simulating the passage of particles through matter. It includes a complete range of functionality including tracking, geometry, physics models and hits. The physics processes offered cover a comprehensive range, including electromagnetic, hadronic and optical processes, a large set of long-lived particles, materials and elements, over a wide energy range starting, in some cases, from 250 eV and extending in others to the TeV energy range. it has been designed and constructed to expose the physics models utilized, to handle complex geometries, and to enable its easy adaptation for optimal use in different sets of applications. The toolkit is the result of a worldwide collaboration of physicists and software engineers. It has been created exploiting software engineering and object-oriented technology and implemented in the C++ programming language. It has been used in applications in particle physics, nuclear physics, accelerator design, space engineering and medical physics

GEANT4 A Simulation toolkit

CERN Document Server

Agostinelli, S; Amako, K; Apostolakis, John; Araújo, H M; Arce, P; Asai, M; Axen, D A; Banerjee, S; Barrand, G; Behner, F; Bellagamba, L; Boudreau, J; Broglia, L; Brunengo, A; Chauvie, S; Chuma, J; Chytracek, R; Cooperman, G; Cosmo, G; Degtyarenko, P V; Dell'Acqua, A; De Paola, G O; Dietrich, D D; Enami, R; Feliciello, A; Ferguson, C; Fesefeldt, H S; Folger, G; Foppiano, F; Forti, A C; Garelli, S; Giani, S; Giannitrapani, R; Gibin, D; Gómez-Cadenas, J J; González, I; Gracía-Abríl, G; Greeniaus, L G; Greiner, W; Grichine, V M; Grossheim, A; Gumplinger, P; Hamatsu, R; Hashimoto, K; Hasui, H; Heikkinen, A M; Howard, A; Hutton, A M; Ivanchenko, V N; Johnson, A; Jones, F W; Kallenbach, Jeff; Kanaya, N; Kawabata, M; Kawabata, Y; Kawaguti, M; Kelner, S; Kent, P; Kodama, T; Kokoulin, R P; Kossov, M; Kurashige, H; Lamanna, E; Lampen, T; Lara, V; Lefébure, V; Lei, F; Liendl, M; Lockman, W; Longo, F; Magni, S; Maire, M; Mecking, B A; Medernach, E; Minamimoto, K; Mora de Freitas, P; Morita, Y; Murakami, K; Nagamatu, M; Nartallo, R; Nieminen, P; Nishimura, T; Ohtsubo, K; Okamura, M; O'Neale, S W; O'Ohata, Y; Perl, J; Pfeiffer, A; Pia, M G; Ranjard, F; Rybin, A; Sadilov, S; Di Salvo, E; Santin, G; Sasaki, T; Savvas, N; Sawada, Y; Scherer, S; Sei, S; Sirotenko, V I; Smith, D; Starkov, N; Stöcker, H; Sulkimo, J; Takahata, M; Tanaka, S; Chernyaev, E; Safai-Tehrani, F; Tropeano, M; Truscott, P R; Uno, H; Urbàn, L; Urban, P; Verderi, M; Walkden, A; Wander, W; Weber, H; Wellisch, J P; Wenaus, T; Williams, D C; Wright, D; Yamada, T; Yoshida, H; Zschiesche, D

2003-01-01

Geant4 is a toolkit for simulating the passage of particles through matter. It includes a complete range of functionality including tracking, geometry, physics models and hits. The physics processes offered cover a comprehensive range, including electromagnetic, hadronic and optical processes, a large set of long-lived particles, materials and elements, over a wide energy range starting, in some cases, from 250 eV and extending in others to the TeV energy range. It has been designed and constructed to expose the physics models utilised, to handle complex geometries, and to enable its easy adaptation for optimal use in different sets of applications. The toolkit is the result of a worldwide collaboration of physicists and software engineers. It has been created exploiting software engineering and object-oriented technology and implemented in the C++ programming language. It has been used in applications in particle physics, nuclear physics, accelerator design, space engineering and medical physics.

Geant4 - A Simulation Toolkit

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Wright, Dennis H

2002-08-09

GEANT4 is a toolkit for simulating the passage of particles through matter. it includes a complete range of functionality including tracking, geometry, physics models and hits. The physics processes offered cover a comprehensive range, including electromagnetic, hadronic and optical processes, a large set of long-lived particles, materials and elements, over a wide energy range starting, in some cases, from 250 eV and extending in others to the TeV energy range. it has been designed and constructed to expose the physics models utilized, to handle complex geometries, and to enable its easy adaptation for optimal use in different sets of applications. The toolkit is the result of a worldwide collaboration of physicists and software engineers. It has been created exploiting software engineering and object-oriented technology and implemented in the C++ programming language. It has been used in applications in particle physics, nuclear physics, accelerator design, space engineering and medical physics.

Nitrogen footprints: past, present and future

Science.gov (United States)

Galloway, James N.; Winiwarter, Wilfried; Leip, Adrian; Leach, Allison M.; Bleeker, Albert; Willem Erisman, Jan

2014-11-01

The human alteration of the nitrogen cycle has evolved from minimal in the mid-19th century to extensive in the present time. The consequences to human and environmental health are significant. While much attention has been given to the extent and impacts of the alteration, little attention has been given to those entities (i.e., consumers, institutions) that use the resources that result in extensive reactive nitrogen (Nr) creation. One strategy for assessment is the use of nitrogen footprint tools. A nitrogen footprint is generally defined as the total amount of Nr released to the environment as a result of an entity’s consumption patterns. This paper reviews a number of nitrogen footprint tools (N-Calculator, N-Institution, N-Label, N-Neutrality, N-Indicator) that are designed to provide that attention. It reviews N-footprint tools for consumers as a function of the country that they live in (N-Calculator, N-Indicator) and the products they buy (N-Label), for the institutions that people work in and are educated in (N-Institution), and for events and decision-making regarding offsets (N-Neutrality). N footprint tools provide a framework for people to make decisions about their resource use and show them how offsets can be coupled with behavior change to decrease consumer/institution contributions to N-related problems.

Carbon footprint of a music festival

Science.gov (United States)

Schafer, K. V.

2009-12-01

In an effort to curb CO2 and by extension, greenhouse gas emissions various initiatives have been taken statewide, nationally and internationally. However, benchmarks and metrics are not clearly defined for CO2 and CO2 equivalent accounting. The objective of this study is to estimate the carbon footprint of the Lincoln Park Music Festival which occurs annually in Newark, NJ. This festival runs for three days each summer and consists of music, food vendors, merchandise and a green marketplace. In order to determine the carbon footprint generated by transportation, surveys of participants were analyzed. Of the approximately 40,000 participants in 2009, 3.3% were surveyed. About 30% of respondents commuted to the festival by car with an average of 10 miles traveling distance. Transportation emission amounted to an estimated CO2 emission of 188 metric tons for all three days combined. Trash at the music festival was weighed, components estimated, and potential CO2 emission calculated if incinerated. 63% of the trash was found to be carbon based, which is the equivalent of three metric tons of CO2 if incinerated. The majority of the trash (>60%) could have been recycled, thus significantly reducing the carbon footprint. In order to limit the carbon footprint of this festival, alternative transport options would be advisable as transport accounted for the largest proportion of the carbon footprint at this festival.

Nitrogen footprints: past, present and future

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Galloway, James N; Leach, Allison M; Winiwarter, Wilfried; Leip, Adrian; Bleeker, Albert; Erisman, Jan Willem

2014-01-01

The human alteration of the nitrogen cycle has evolved from minimal in the mid-19th century to extensive in the present time. The consequences to human and environmental health are significant. While much attention has been given to the extent and impacts of the alteration, little attention has been given to those entities (i.e., consumers, institutions) that use the resources that result in extensive reactive nitrogen (Nr) creation. One strategy for assessment is the use of nitrogen footprint tools. A nitrogen footprint is generally defined as the total amount of Nr released to the environment as a result of an entity’s consumption patterns. This paper reviews a number of nitrogen footprint tools (N-Calculator, N-Institution, N-Label, N-Neutrality, N-Indicator) that are designed to provide that attention. It reviews N-footprint tools for consumers as a function of the country that they live in (N-Calculator, N-Indicator) and the products they buy (N-Label), for the institutions that people work in and are educated in (N-Institution), and for events and decision-making regarding offsets (N-Neutrality). N footprint tools provide a framework for people to make decisions about their resource use and show them how offsets can be coupled with behavior change to decrease consumer/institution contributions to N-related problems. (paper)

Field tests of a participatory ergonomics toolkit for Total Worker Health.

Science.gov (United States)

Nobrega, Suzanne; Kernan, Laura; Plaku-Alakbarova, Bora; Robertson, Michelle; Warren, Nicholas; Henning, Robert

2017-04-01

Growing interest in Total Worker Health ® (TWH) programs to advance worker safety, health and well-being motivated development of a toolkit to guide their implementation. Iterative design of a program toolkit occurred in which participatory ergonomics (PE) served as the primary basis to plan integrated TWH interventions in four diverse organizations. The toolkit provided start-up guides for committee formation and training, and a structured PE process for generating integrated TWH interventions. Process data from program facilitators and participants throughout program implementation were used for iterative toolkit design. Program success depended on organizational commitment to regular design team meetings with a trained facilitator, the availability of subject matter experts on ergonomics and health to support the design process, and retraining whenever committee turnover occurred. A two committee structure (employee Design Team, management Steering Committee) provided advantages over a single, multilevel committee structure, and enhanced the planning, communication, and teamwork skills of participants. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Field tests of a participatory ergonomics toolkit for Total Worker Health

Science.gov (United States)

Kernan, Laura; Plaku-Alakbarova, Bora; Robertson, Michelle; Warren, Nicholas; Henning, Robert

2018-01-01

Growing interest in Total Worker Health® (TWH) programs to advance worker safety, health and well-being motivated development of a toolkit to guide their implementation. Iterative design of a program toolkit occurred in which participatory ergonomics (PE) served as the primary basis to plan integrated TWH interventions in four diverse organizations. The toolkit provided start-up guides for committee formation and training, and a structured PE process for generating integrated TWH interventions. Process data from program facilitators and participants throughout program implementation were used for iterative toolkit design. Program success depended on organizational commitment to regular design team meetings with a trained facilitator, the availability of subject matter experts on ergonomics and health to support the design process, and retraining whenever committee turnover occurred. A two committee structure (employee Design Team, management Steering Committee) provided advantages over a single, multilevel committee structure, and enhanced the planning, communication, and team-work skills of participants. PMID:28166897

Mapping the carbon footprint of EU regions

Science.gov (United States)

Ivanova, Diana; Vita, Gibran; Steen-Olsen, Kjartan; Stadler, Konstantin; Melo, Patricia C.; Wood, Richard; Hertwich, Edgar G.

2017-05-01

While the EU Commission has encouraged Member States to combine national and international climate change mitigation measures with subnational environmental policies, there has been little harmonized effort towards the quantification of embodied greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from household consumption across European regions. This study develops an inventory of carbon footprints associated with household consumption for 177 regions in 27 EU countries, thus, making a key contribution for the incorporation of consumption-based accounting into local decision-making. Footprint calculations are based on consumer expenditure surveys and environmental and trade detail from the EXIOBASE 2.3 multiregional input-output database describing the world economy in 2007 at the detail of 43 countries, 5 rest-of-the-world regions and 200 product sectors. Our analysis highlights the spatial heterogeneity of embodied GHG emissions within multiregional countries with subnational ranges varying widely between 0.6 and 6.5 tCO2e/cap. The significant differences in regional contribution in terms of total and per capita emissions suggest notable differences with regards to climate change responsibility. The study further provides a breakdown of regional emissions by consumption categories (e.g. housing, mobility, food). In addition, our region-level study evaluates driving forces of carbon footprints through a set of socio-economic, geographic and technical factors. Income is singled out as the most important driver for a region’s carbon footprint, although its explanatory power varies significantly across consumption domains. Additional factors that stand out as important on the regional level include household size, urban-rural typology, level of education, expenditure patterns, temperature, resource availability and carbon intensity of the electricity mix. The lack of cross-national region-level studies has so far prevented analysts from drawing broader policy conclusions that hold

Pyrite footprinting of RNA

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Schlatterer, Jörg C.; Wieder, Matthew S.; Jones, Christopher D.; Pollack, Lois; Brenowitz, Michael

2012-01-01

Highlights: ► RNA structure is mapped by pyrite mediated · OH footprinting. ► Repetitive experiments can be done in a powdered pyrite filled cartridge. ► High · OH reactivity of nucleotides imply dynamic role in Diels–Alderase catalysis. -- Abstract: In RNA, function follows form. Mapping the surface of RNA molecules with chemical and enzymatic probes has revealed invaluable information about structure and folding. Hydroxyl radicals ( · OH) map the surface of nucleic acids by cutting the backbone where it is accessible to solvent. Recent studies showed that a microfluidic chip containing pyrite (FeS 2 ) can produce sufficient · OH to footprint DNA. The 49-nt Diels–Alder RNA enzyme catalyzes the C–C bond formation between a diene and a dienophile. A crystal structure, molecular dynamics simulation and atomic mutagenesis studies suggest that nucleotides of an asymmetric bulge participate in the dynamic architecture of the ribozyme’s active center. Of note is that residue U42 directly interacts with the product in the crystallized RNA/product complex. Here, we use powdered pyrite held in a commercially available cartridge to footprint the Diels–Alderase ribozyme with single nucleotide resolution. Residues C39 to U42 are more reactive to · OH than predicted by the solvent accessibility calculated from the crystal structure suggesting that this loop is dynamic in solution. The loop’s flexibility may contribute to substrate recruitment and product release. Our implementation of pyrite-mediated · OH footprinting is a readily accessible approach to gleaning information about the architecture of small RNA molecules.

Newnes electronics toolkit

CERN Document Server

Phillips, Geoff

2013-01-01

Newnes Electronics Toolkit brings together fundamental facts, concepts, and applications of electronic components and circuits, and presents them in a clear, concise, and unambiguous format, to provide a reference book for engineers. The book contains 10 chapters that discuss the following concepts: resistors, capacitors, inductors, semiconductors, circuit concepts, electromagnetic compatibility, sound, light, heat, and connections. The engineer's job does not end when the circuit diagram is completed; the design for the manufacturing process is just as important if volume production is to be

The Python ARM Radar Toolkit (Py-ART, a Library for Working with Weather Radar Data in the Python Programming Language

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jonathan J Helmus

2016-07-01

Full Text Available The Python ARM Radar Toolkit is a package for reading, visualizing, correcting and analysing data from weather radars. Development began to meet the needs of the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Climate Research Facility and has since expanded to provide a general-purpose framework for working with data from weather radars in the Python programming language. The toolkit is built on top of libraries in the Scientific Python ecosystem including NumPy, SciPy, and matplotlib, and makes use of Cython for interfacing with existing radar libraries written in C and to speed up computationally demanding algorithms. The source code for the toolkit is available on GitHub and is distributed under a BSD license.

The blue water footprint of electricity from hydropower

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

M. M. Mekonnen

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Hydropower accounts for about 16% of the world's electricity supply. It has been debated whether hydroelectric generation is merely an in-stream water user or whether it also consumes water. In this paper we provide scientific support for the argument that hydroelectric generation is in most cases a significant water consumer. The study assesses the blue water footprint of hydroelectricity – the water evaporated from manmade reservoirs to produce electric energy – for 35 selected sites. The aggregated blue water footprint of the selected hydropower plants is 90 Gm³ yr⁻¹, which is equivalent to 10% of the blue water footprint of global crop production in the year 2000. The total blue water footprint of hydroelectric generation in the world must be considerably larger if one considers the fact that this study covers only 8% of the global installed hydroelectric capacity. Hydroelectric generation is thus a significant water consumer. The average water footprint of the selected hydropower plants is 68 m³ GJ⁻¹. Great differences in water footprint among hydropower plants exist, due to differences in climate in the places where the plants are situated, but more importantly as a result of large differences in the area flooded per unit of installed hydroelectric capacity. We recommend that water footprint assessment is added as a component in evaluations of newly proposed hydropower plants as well as in the evaluation of existing hydroelectric dams, so that the consequences of the water footprint of hydroelectric generation on downstream environmental flows and other water users can be evaluated.

The environmental cost of subsistence: Optimizing diets to minimize footprints

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gephart, Jessica A.; Davis, Kyle F.; Emery, Kyle A.; Leach, Allison M.; Galloway, James N.; Pace, Michael L.

2016-01-01

The question of how to minimize monetary cost while meeting basic nutrient requirements (a subsistence diet) was posed by George Stigler in 1945. The problem, known as Stigler's diet problem, was famously solved using the simplex algorithm. Today, we are not only concerned with the monetary cost of food, but also the environmental cost. Efforts to quantify environmental impacts led to the development of footprint (FP) indicators. The environmental footprints of food production span multiple dimensions, including greenhouse gas emissions (carbon footprint), nitrogen release (nitrogen footprint), water use (blue and green water footprint) and land use (land footprint), and a diet minimizing one of these impacts could result in higher impacts in another dimension. In this study based on nutritional and population data for the United States, we identify diets that minimize each of these four footprints subject to nutrient constraints. We then calculate tradeoffs by taking the composition of each footprint's minimum diet and calculating the other three footprints. We find that diets for the minimized footprints tend to be similar for the four footprints, suggesting there are generally synergies, rather than tradeoffs, among low footprint diets. Plant-based food and seafood (fish and other aquatic foods) commonly appear in minimized diets and tend to most efficiently supply macronutrients and micronutrients, respectively. Livestock products rarely appear in minimized diets, suggesting these foods tend to be less efficient from an environmental perspective, even when nutrient content is considered. The results' emphasis on seafood is complicated by the environmental impacts of aquaculture versus capture fisheries, increasing in aquaculture, and shifting compositions of aquaculture feeds. While this analysis does not make specific diet recommendations, our approach demonstrates potential environmental synergies of plant- and seafood-based diets. As a result, this study

The environmental cost of subsistence: Optimizing diets to minimize footprints

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Gephart, Jessica A.; Davis, Kyle F. [University of Virginia, Department of Environmental Sciences, 291 McCormick Road, Charlottesville, VA 22904 (United States); Emery, Kyle A. [University of Virginia, Department of Environmental Sciences, 291 McCormick Road, Charlottesville, VA 22904 (United States); University of California, Santa Barbara. Marine Science Institute, Santa Barbara, CA 93106 (United States); Leach, Allison M. [University of New Hampshire, 107 Nesmith Hall, 131 Main Street, Durham, NH, 03824 (United States); Galloway, James N.; Pace, Michael L. [University of Virginia, Department of Environmental Sciences, 291 McCormick Road, Charlottesville, VA 22904 (United States)

2016-05-15

The question of how to minimize monetary cost while meeting basic nutrient requirements (a subsistence diet) was posed by George Stigler in 1945. The problem, known as Stigler's diet problem, was famously solved using the simplex algorithm. Today, we are not only concerned with the monetary cost of food, but also the environmental cost. Efforts to quantify environmental impacts led to the development of footprint (FP) indicators. The environmental footprints of food production span multiple dimensions, including greenhouse gas emissions (carbon footprint), nitrogen release (nitrogen footprint), water use (blue and green water footprint) and land use (land footprint), and a diet minimizing one of these impacts could result in higher impacts in another dimension. In this study based on nutritional and population data for the United States, we identify diets that minimize each of these four footprints subject to nutrient constraints. We then calculate tradeoffs by taking the composition of each footprint's minimum diet and calculating the other three footprints. We find that diets for the minimized footprints tend to be similar for the four footprints, suggesting there are generally synergies, rather than tradeoffs, among low footprint diets. Plant-based food and seafood (fish and other aquatic foods) commonly appear in minimized diets and tend to most efficiently supply macronutrients and micronutrients, respectively. Livestock products rarely appear in minimized diets, suggesting these foods tend to be less efficient from an environmental perspective, even when nutrient content is considered. The results' emphasis on seafood is complicated by the environmental impacts of aquaculture versus capture fisheries, increasing in aquaculture, and shifting compositions of aquaculture feeds. While this analysis does not make specific diet recommendations, our approach demonstrates potential environmental synergies of plant- and seafood-based diets. As a result

On Touristic Ecological Footprint of Macau

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

Zhang Meng; Yang Yu

2012-01-01

Despite its tiny territory, Macau boasts a large volume of tourist activities, which serves as the pillar of its economy. En- vironment and natural resources are the cornerstone of tourism, but are also subject to the negative impact of tourism. Based on the theory and methodology of ecological footprint analysis, this paper calculated the touristic ecological footprint and deficit of Macau in 2009, in an effort to bring to light the current status of excessive consumption of resources by tourism. As the findings show, the non-h＇ansferable touristic ecological footprint and touristic ecologi- cal deficit of Macau in 2009 are respectively 18 300.891 gha and 12 737.584 gha, and the former is 3.29 times as large as the tour- istic ecological carrying capacity. Touristic ecological footprint of Macau is highly efficient in economic sense but currently tourism is developing in an unsustainable manner, so appropriate initiatives are in need to strike a balance between tourism development and resource conservation and to promote the sustainability of tourism industry of Macau.

A Qualitative Evaluation of Web-Based Cancer Care Quality Improvement Toolkit Use in the Veterans Health Administration.

Science.gov (United States)

Bowman, Candice; Luck, Jeff; Gale, Randall C; Smith, Nina; York, Laura S; Asch, Steven

2015-01-01

Disease severity, complexity, and patient burden highlight cancer care as a target for quality improvement (QI) interventions. The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) implemented a series of disease-specific online cancer care QI toolkits. To describe characteristics of the toolkits, target users, and VHA cancer care facilities that influenced toolkit access and use and assess whether such resources were beneficial for users. Deductive content analysis of detailed notes from 94 telephone interviews with individuals from 48 VHA facilities. We evaluated toolkit access and use across cancer types, participation in learning collaboratives, and affiliation with VHA cancer care facilities. The presence of champions was identified as a strong facilitator of toolkit use, and learning collaboratives were important for spreading information about toolkit availability. Identified barriers included lack of personnel and financial resources and complicated approval processes to support tool use. Online cancer care toolkits are well received across cancer specialties and provider types. Clinicians, administrators, and QI staff may benefit from the availability of toolkits as they become more reliant on rapid access to strategies that support comprehensive delivery of evidence-based care. Toolkits should be considered as a complement to other QI approaches.

Unrealistic phylogenetic trees may improve phylogenetic footprinting.

Science.gov (United States)

Nettling, Martin; Treutler, Hendrik; Cerquides, Jesus; Grosse, Ivo

2017-06-01

The computational investigation of DNA binding motifs from binding sites is one of the classic tasks in bioinformatics and a prerequisite for understanding gene regulation as a whole. Due to the development of sequencing technologies and the increasing number of available genomes, approaches based on phylogenetic footprinting become increasingly attractive. Phylogenetic footprinting requires phylogenetic trees with attached substitution probabilities for quantifying the evolution of binding sites, but these trees and substitution probabilities are typically not known and cannot be estimated easily. Here, we investigate the influence of phylogenetic trees with different substitution probabilities on the classification performance of phylogenetic footprinting using synthetic and real data. For synthetic data we find that the classification performance is highest when the substitution probability used for phylogenetic footprinting is similar to that used for data generation. For real data, however, we typically find that the classification performance of phylogenetic footprinting surprisingly increases with increasing substitution probabilities and is often highest for unrealistically high substitution probabilities close to one. This finding suggests that choosing realistic model assumptions might not always yield optimal predictions in general and that choosing unrealistically high substitution probabilities close to one might actually improve the classification performance of phylogenetic footprinting. The proposed PF is implemented in JAVA and can be downloaded from https://github.com/mgledi/PhyFoo. : martin.nettling@informatik.uni-halle.de. Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press.

Overview and Meteorological Validation of the Wind Integration National Dataset toolkit

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Draxl, C. [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Hodge, B. M. [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Clifton, A. [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); McCaa, J. [3TIER by VAisala, Seattle, WA (United States)

2015-04-13

The Wind Integration National Dataset (WIND) Toolkit described in this report fulfills these requirements, and constitutes a state-of-the-art national wind resource data set covering the contiguous United States from 2007 to 2013 for use in a variety of next-generation wind integration analyses and wind power planning. The toolkit is a wind resource data set, wind forecast data set, and wind power production and forecast data set derived from the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) numerical weather prediction model. WIND Toolkit data are available online for over 116,000 land-based and 10,000 offshore sites representing existing and potential wind facilities.

Compendium of Environmental Sustainability Indicator Collections: 2006 National Footprint Accounts (NFA)

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — The 2006 National Footprint Accounts (NFA) portion of the Compendium of Environmental Sustainability Indicator Collections, version 1.1 is a data set that measures...

Practical computational toolkits for dendrimers and dendrons structure design

Science.gov (United States)

Martinho, Nuno; Silva, Liana C.; Florindo, Helena F.; Brocchini, Steve; Barata, Teresa; Zloh, Mire

2017-09-01

Dendrimers and dendrons offer an excellent platform for developing novel drug delivery systems and medicines. The rational design and further development of these repetitively branched systems are restricted by difficulties in scalable synthesis and structural determination, which can be overcome by judicious use of molecular modelling and molecular simulations. A major difficulty to utilise in silico studies to design dendrimers lies in the laborious generation of their structures. Current modelling tools utilise automated assembly of simpler dendrimers or the inefficient manual assembly of monomer precursors to generate more complicated dendrimer structures. Herein we describe two novel graphical user interface toolkits written in Python that provide an improved degree of automation for rapid assembly of dendrimers and generation of their 2D and 3D structures. Our first toolkit uses the RDkit library, SMILES nomenclature of monomers and SMARTS reaction nomenclature to generate SMILES and mol files of dendrimers without 3D coordinates. These files are used for simple graphical representations and storing their structures in databases. The second toolkit assembles complex topology dendrimers from monomers to construct 3D dendrimer structures to be used as starting points for simulation using existing and widely available software and force fields. Both tools were validated for ease-of-use to prototype dendrimer structure and the second toolkit was especially relevant for dendrimers of high complexity and size.

Carbon and environmental footprinting of global biofuel production

OpenAIRE

Hammond, Geoff P.; Seth, S.M.

2013-01-01

The carbon and environmental footprints associated with the global production of biofuels have been computed from a baseline of 2007-2009 out until 2019. Estimates of future global biofuel production were adopted from OECD-FAO and related projections. In order to determine the footprints associated with these (essentially 'first generation') biofuel resources, the overall environmental footprint was disaggregated into bioproductive land, built land, carbon, embodied energy, materials and wast...

The Populist Toolkit

OpenAIRE

Ylä-Anttila, Tuukka Salu Santeri

2017-01-01

Populism has often been understood as a description of political parties and politicians, who have been labelled either populist or not. This dissertation argues that it is more useful to conceive of populism in action: as something that is done rather than something that is. I propose that the populist toolkit is a collection of cultural practices, which politicians and citizens use to make sense of and do politics, by claiming that ‘the people’ are opposed by a corrupt elite – a powerful cl...

Product carbon footprint developments and gaps

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kronborg Jensen, Jesper

2012-01-01

Purpose - Over the last decade, multiple initiatives have been undertaken to learn how to capture the carbon footprint of a supply chain at a product level. The purpose of this paper is to focus on the process of standardization to secure consistency of product carbon footprinting (PCF) and to ou....../value - Papers that outline the standardization process for PCF have been examined, but this paper adds value by categorizing the field, outlining the latest standards, and by being the first paper to compare standards for PCF on selected criteria and identify gaps....... when conducting a PCF, and a paradox exists concerning methods for securing future standardization of PCF. Research limitations/implications - Standards for evaluating emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in supply chains are evaluated without consideration of other environmental impacts. In addition......, the research only compares international standards, thereby excluding national initiatives. Practical implications - Standardization efforts can be expected to shape the future practice of measuring emission of GHGs in companies and supply chains which provides a framework for reducing impacts. Originality...

Trends and Consumption Structures of China’s Blue and Grey Water Footprint

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Huixiao Wang

2018-04-01

Full Text Available Water footprint has become a common method to study the water resources utilization in recent years. By using input–output analysis and dilution theory, the internal water footprint, blue water footprint and grey water footprint of China from 2002 to 2012 were estimated, and the consumption structure of water footprint and virtual water trade were analyzed. The results show: (1 From 2002 to 2012, the average annual internal water footprint was 3.83 trillion m3 in China, of which the blue water footprint was 0.25 trillion m3, and the grey water footprint was 3.58 trillion m3 (with Grade III water standard accounting; both the internal water footprint and grey water footprint experienced decreasing trends from 2002 to 2012, except for a dramatic increase in 2010; (2 Average annual virtual blue water footprint was the greatest in agriculture (39.2%, while tertiary industry (27.5% and food and tobacco processing (23.7% were the top two highest for average annual virtual grey water footprint; (3 Virtual blue water footprint in most sectors showed increasing trends due to the increase of final demand, while virtual grey water footprint in most sectors showed decreasing trends due to the decreases of total return water coefficients and conversion coefficients of virtual grey water footprint; (4 For water resources, China was self-reliant: the water used for producing the products and services to meet domestic consumption was taken domestically; meanwhile, China exported virtual water to other countries, which aggravated the water stress in China.

Factors that affect the ecological footprint depending on the different income levels

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sheng-Tung Chen

2016-05-01

Full Text Available The ecological footprint provides a method for measuring how much lands can support the consumption of the natural resources. Development and biocapacity debates revolve mainly around the factors that affect the ecological footprint and the approaches to improve the environmental quality. Therefore, we conducted the panel analysis of data for 99 countries from 1981 to 2006 to determine what factors affect the ecological footprint. The empirical results show that the effect of GDP per capita on the ecological footprint varies for different income levels. The effect of urbanization is significantly positive across income levels, which means that the higher the rate of urbanization in high or low income country, the higher the ecological footprint. As developing countries pursue economic development, there will be an impact on the environment. The developed countries may seek to develop their economies through activities that are more detrimental to the environment. Additionally, the export of goods and services divided by GDP is significant, which means that the higher the volume of exports, the greater the burden on the environment. However, this effect is not significant across different income level models. The income effect may explain the diverse effects of export on the environment. Therefore, panel data analysis and income classification are necessary to discuss the effect of export on the environment.

Spatially Explicit Analysis of Water Footprints in the UK

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

John Barrett

2010-12-01

Full Text Available The Water Footprint, as an indicator of water consumption has become increasingly popular for analyzing environmental issues associated with the use of water resources in the global supply chain of consumer goods. This is particularly relevant for countries like the UK, which increasingly rely on products produced elsewhere in the world and thus impose pressures on foreign water resources. Existing studies calculating water footprints are mostly based on process analysis, and results are mainly available at the national level. The current paper assesses the domestic and foreign water requirements for UK final consumption by applying an environmentally extended multi-regional input-output model in combination with geo-demographic consumer segmentation data. This approach allows us to calculate water footprints (both direct and indirect for different products as well as different geographies within the UK. We distinguished between production and consumption footprints where the former is the total water consumed from the UK domestic water resources by the production activities in the UK and the latter is the total water consumed from both domestic and global water resources to satisfy the UK domestic final consumption. The results show that the production water footprint is 439 m3/cap/year, 85% of which is for the final consumption in the UK itself. The average consumption water footprint of the UK is more than three times bigger than the UK production water footprint in 2006. About half of the UK consumption water footprints were associated with imports from Non-OECD countries (many of which are water-scarce, while around 19% were from EU-OECD countries, and only 3% from Non-EU-OECD countries. We find that the water footprint differs considerably across sub-national geographies in the UK, and the differences are as big as 273 m3/cap/year for the internal water footprint and 802 m3/cap/year for the external water footprint. Our results suggest

A toolkit for promoting healthy ageing

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Jeroen Knevel; Aly Gruppen

2016-01-01

This toolkit therefore focusses on self-management abilities. That means finding and maintaining effective, positive coping methods in relation to our health. We included many common and frequently discussed topics such as drinking, eating, physical exercise, believing in the future, resilience,

Fragment Impact Toolkit (FIT)

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Shevitz, Daniel Wolf [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Key, Brian P. [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Garcia, Daniel B. [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

2017-09-05

The Fragment Impact Toolkit (FIT) is a software package used for probabilistic consequence evaluation of fragmenting sources. The typical use case for FIT is to simulate an exploding shell and evaluate the consequence on nearby objects. FIT is written in the programming language Python and is designed as a collection of interacting software modules. Each module has a function that interacts with the other modules to produce desired results.

Water footprint as a tool for integrated water resources management

Science.gov (United States)

Aldaya, Maite; Hoekstra, Arjen

2010-05-01

In a context where water resources are unevenly distributed and, in some regions precipitation and drought conditions are increasing, enhanced water management is a major challenge to final consumers, businesses, water resource users, water managers and policymakers in general. By linking a large range of sectors and issues, virtual water trade and water footprint analyses provide an appropriate framework to find potential solutions and contribute to a better management of water resources. The water footprint is an indicator of freshwater use that looks not only at direct water use of a consumer or producer, but also at the indirect water use. The water footprint of a product is the volume of freshwater used to produce the product, measured over the full supply chain. It is a multi-dimensional indicator, showing water consumption volumes by source and polluted volumes by type of pollution; all components of a total water footprint are specified geographically and temporally. The water footprint breaks down into three components: the blue (volume of freshwater evaporated from surface or groundwater systems), green (water volume evaporated from rainwater stored in the soil as soil moisture) and grey water footprint (the volume of polluted water associated with the production of goods and services). Closely linked to the concept of water footprint is that of virtual water trade, which represents the amount of water embedded in traded products. Many nations save domestic water resources by importing water-intensive products and exporting commodities that are less water intensive. National water saving through the import of a product can imply saving water at a global level if the flow is from sites with high to sites with low water productivity. Virtual water trade between nations and even continents could thus be used as an instrument to improve global water use efficiency and to achieve water security in water-poor regions of the world. The virtual water trade

Place oriented ecological footprint analysis. The case of Israel's grain supply

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kissinger, Meidad; Gottlieb, Dan

2010-01-01

In today's world, any nation's ecological footprint is spread all over the globe. Still, most footprint studies are not yet sensitive to the specific locations on which the footprint falls and to the unique production characteristics of each supporting region. In recent years some studies have acknowledged the need to quantify the 'real land' footprints and particularly the share of the footprint embodied in trade. Our goal is to analyse the ecological footprint of grain-based consumption in the state of Israel during the last two decades. We present a detailed, place oriented calculation procedure of Israel's grain footprint on specific locations around the world. We document modes of production, major energy inputs in specific sources of supply, the energy required for shipping from each source, and the CO 2 emissions from those operations. Our research reveals that most of Israel's grain footprint falls on North America followed by the Black Sea region. It also shows that while the overall consumption of grain products has increased throughout the research period, the size of the footprint has been dropping in recent years as a consequence of changing sources of supply and grain composition. Finally, we discuss some of the implications of the method presented here for future footprint calculations and environmental resource management. (author)

The pectoralis major footprint: An anatomical study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Eduardo Antonio de Figueired

2013-12-01

Full Text Available Objective: To study the insertion of the pectoralis major tendon to the humerus, through knowledge of its dimensions in the coronal and sagittal planes. Methods: Twenty shoulders from 10 cadavers were dissected and the pectoralis major tendon insertion on the humerus was identified and isolated. The dimensions of its "footprint" (proximal to distal and medial to lateral borders and the distance from the top edge of the pectoralis major tendon to apex of the humeral head structures were measured. Results: The average proximal to distal border length was 80.8 mm (range: 70 -90 and the medial-to-lateral border length was 6.1 mm (5 -7. The average distance (and range from the apex of the pectoralis major tendon to the humeral head was 59.3 mm. Conclusions: We demonstrate that the insertion of the pectoralis major tendon is laminar, and the pectoralis major tendon has an average footprint height and width of 80.8 mm and 6.1 mm, respectively.

Water footprinting of dairy farming in Ireland

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Murphy, E.; Boer, de I.J.M.; Middelaar, van C.E.; Holden, N.M.; Shalloo, L.; Curran, T.P.; Upton, J.

2017-01-01

In the context of global water scarcity, water footprints have become an important sustainability indicator for food production systems. To improve the water footprint of the dairy sector, insight into freshwater consumption of individual farms is required. The objective of this study was to

Sustainability of meat production beyond carbon footprint: a synthesis of case studies from grazing systems in Uruguay

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Picasso, V.D.; Modernel Hristoff, P.D.; Becona, G.; Salvo, L.; Gutierrez, L.; Astigarraga, L.

2014-01-01

Livestock production has been challenged as a large contributor to climate change, and carbon footprint has become a widely used measure of cattle environmental impact. This analysis of fifteen beef grazing systems in Uruguay quantifies the range of variation of carbon footprint, and the trade-offs

Web-based Toolkit for Dynamic Generation of Data Processors

Science.gov (United States)

Patel, J.; Dascalu, S.; Harris, F. C.; Benedict, K. K.; Gollberg, G.; Sheneman, L.

2011-12-01

All computation-intensive scientific research uses structured datasets, including hydrology and all other types of climate-related research. When it comes to testing their hypotheses, researchers might use the same dataset differently, and modify, transform, or convert it to meet their research needs. Currently, many researchers spend a good amount of time performing data processing and building tools to speed up this process. They might routinely repeat the same process activities for new research projects, spending precious time that otherwise could be dedicated to analyzing and interpreting the data. Numerous tools are available to run tests on prepared datasets and many of them work with datasets in different formats. However, there is still a significant need for applications that can comprehensively handle data transformation and conversion activities and help prepare the various processed datasets required by the researchers. We propose a web-based application (a software toolkit) that dynamically generates data processors capable of performing data conversions, transformations, and customizations based on user-defined mappings and selections. As a first step, the proposed solution allows the users to define various data structures and, in the next step, can select various file formats and data conversions for their datasets of interest. In a simple scenario, the core of the proposed web-based toolkit allows the users to define direct mappings between input and output data structures. The toolkit will also support defining complex mappings involving the use of pre-defined sets of mathematical, statistical, date/time, and text manipulation functions. Furthermore, the users will be allowed to define logical cases for input data filtering and sampling. At the end of the process, the toolkit is designed to generate reusable source code and executable binary files for download and use by the scientists. The application is also designed to store all data

User's manual for the two-dimensional transputer graphics toolkit

Science.gov (United States)

Ellis, Graham K.

1988-01-01

The user manual for the 2-D graphics toolkit for a transputer based parallel processor is presented. The toolkit consists of a package of 2-D display routines that can be used for the simulation visualizations. It supports multiple windows, double buffered screens for animations, and simple graphics transformations such as translation, rotation, and scaling. The display routines are written in occam to take advantage of the multiprocessing features available on transputers. The package is designed to run on a transputer separate from the graphics board.

Estimation of calcaneal loading during standing from human footprint depths using 3D scanner

Science.gov (United States)

Wibowo, Dwi Basuki; Haryadi, Gunawan Dwi; Widodo, Achmad; Rahayu, Sri Puji

2017-01-01

This research studies the relationship between footprint depths and load in the calcaneal area when human standing in an upright posture. Footprint depths are deformation in the calcaneal area obtained from the z-value extraction of the Boolean operation acquired from unloaded foot scanning using 3D scanner and loaded foot using foot plantar scanner. To compare peak loads estimated from footprint depth maximum, force sensing resistor (FSR) sensor is attached over the shoe insole with zero heel height in the calcaneal area. Twenty participants were selected from students of Mechanical Engineering Department Diponegoro University with the average the age and the body weight 19.5 years and 55.27 kg respectively. Results that were relatively accurate was found on the calcaneal loading estimation by footprint depth is presented by curve and data distribution which are in good agreement with the result of the measurement. A significant difference in estimating calcaneal loading is mainly caused by plantar foot position of research subjects which is not perpendicular to foot ankle and hallux. In addition, plantar foot position which bends to front/back/side affects the result of footprint depths.

A graphical user interface (GUI) toolkit for the calculation of three-dimensional (3D) multi-phase biological effective dose (BED) distributions including statistical analyses.

Science.gov (United States)

Kauweloa, Kevin I; Gutierrez, Alonso N; Stathakis, Sotirios; Papanikolaou, Niko; Mavroidis, Panayiotis

2016-07-01

A toolkit has been developed for calculating the 3-dimensional biological effective dose (BED) distributions in multi-phase, external beam radiotherapy treatments such as those applied in liver stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) and in multi-prescription treatments. This toolkit also provides a wide range of statistical results related to dose and BED distributions. MATLAB 2010a, version 7.10 was used to create this GUI toolkit. The input data consist of the dose distribution matrices, organ contour coordinates, and treatment planning parameters from the treatment planning system (TPS). The toolkit has the capability of calculating the multi-phase BED distributions using different formulas (denoted as true and approximate). Following the calculations of the BED distributions, the dose and BED distributions can be viewed in different projections (e.g. coronal, sagittal and transverse). The different elements of this toolkit are presented and the important steps for the execution of its calculations are illustrated. The toolkit is applied on brain, head & neck and prostate cancer patients, who received primary and boost phases in order to demonstrate its capability in calculating BED distributions, as well as measuring the inaccuracy and imprecision of the approximate BED distributions. Finally, the clinical situations in which the use of the present toolkit would have a significant clinical impact are indicated. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

ADDRESSING WATER FOOTPRINT CONCEPT: A DEMONSTRABLE STRATEGY FOR PAPERMAKING INDUSTRY

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jing Shen,

2012-05-01

Full Text Available Since the introduction of the water footprint concept in 2002, in the context of humankind’s ever-increasing awareness of the valuable global freshwater resources, it has received more and more attention. The application of this relatively new concept has been expected to provide ecological and environmental benefits. For the water-intensive papermaking industry, it seems that water footprint needs to be addressed. The water footprint of cellulosic paper can be divided into three components, including its green water footprint, blue water footprint, and grey water footprint, which may be accounted for by considering the individual contributions of wood or non-wood materials, pulp production processes, effluent discharge to the receiving water bodies, process chemicals and additives, energy consumption, etc. In the literature, the accounting of water footprint during the whole production chain of cellulosic paper is already available, and relevant research findings can provide useful insights into the application of the concept; however, further development of the accounting methodologies is much needed, so that the quantitative and qualitative evaluation of water footprint can be internationally recognized, certified, and standardized. Although there are ongoing or upcoming debates and challenges associated with the concept, its application to papermaking industry may be expected to provide various encouraging possibilities and impacts.

Product carbon footprints and their uncertainties in comparative decision contexts.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Patrik J G Henriksson

Full Text Available In response to growing awareness of climate change, requests to establish product carbon footprints have been increasing. Product carbon footprints are life cycle assessments restricted to just one impact category, global warming. Product carbon footprint studies generate life cycle inventory results, listing the environmental emissions of greenhouse gases from a product's lifecycle, and characterize these by their global warming potentials, producing product carbon footprints that are commonly communicated as point values. In the present research we show that the uncertainties surrounding these point values necessitate more sophisticated ways of communicating product carbon footprints, using different sizes of catfish (Pangasius spp. farms in Vietnam as a case study. As most product carbon footprint studies only have a comparative meaning, we used dependent sampling to produce relative results in order to increase the power for identifying environmentally superior products. We therefore argue that product carbon footprints, supported by quantitative uncertainty estimates, should be used to test hypotheses, rather than to provide point value estimates or plain confidence intervals of products' environmental performance.

The Python ARM Radar Toolkit (Py-ART), a Library for Working with Weather Radar Data in the Python Programming Language

OpenAIRE

Helmus, Jonathan J; Collis, Scott M

2016-01-01

The Python ARM Radar Toolkit is a package for reading, visualizing, correcting and analysing data from weather radars. Development began to meet the needs of the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Climate Research Facility and has since expanded to provide a general-purpose framework for working with data from weather radars in the Python programming language. The toolkit is built on top of libraries in the Scientific Python ecosystem including NumPy, SciPy, and matplotlib, and makes use of Cy...

A toolkit for detecting technical surprise.

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Trahan, Michael Wayne; Foehse, Mark C.

2010-10-01

The detection of a scientific or technological surprise within a secretive country or institute is very difficult. The ability to detect such surprises would allow analysts to identify the capabilities that could be a military or economic threat to national security. Sandia's current approach utilizing ThreatView has been successful in revealing potential technological surprises. However, as data sets become larger, it becomes critical to use algorithms as filters along with the visualization environments. Our two-year LDRD had two primary goals. First, we developed a tool, a Self-Organizing Map (SOM), to extend ThreatView and improve our understanding of the issues involved in working with textual data sets. Second, we developed a toolkit for detecting indicators of technical surprise in textual data sets. Our toolkit has been successfully used to perform technology assessments for the Science & Technology Intelligence (S&TI) program.

Uma medida de sustentabilidade ambiental: pegada hídrica A measure of environmental sustainability: water footprint

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Vicente de P. R. da Silva

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Recentemente, o conceito da pegada hídrica foi introduzido como um indicador importante de consumo de água para a humanidade. A pegada hídrica é definida como o volume total de água utilizado durante a produção de bens e serviços, bem como o consumo direto de água pelos seres humanos. A água não é consumida só diretamente mas também indiretamente, nos processos de produção. Portanto, o cálculo da pegada hídrica permite quantificar o total de água consumida ao longo da cadeia de fornecimento global. Esta revisão de literatura analisa o estado da arte da pegada hídrica desde a sua criação, no encontro internacional de especialista em comércio de água virtual realizado em dezembro de 2002 na Holanda, até os dias atuais. Os principais resultados encontrados na literatura consultada indicam consenso de que a pegada hídrica é capaz de monitorar o impacto humano sobre o meio ambiente. Além do mais, esta metodologia tem uma vasta gama de aplicações que pode ser empregada em escalas que vão desde um único produto, um processo, setor, individuo, cidades, até mesmo nações e todo o planeta.The concept of the water footprint has been recently introduced as an important indicator for human induced water consumption. The water footprint is defined as the total volume of water used during production and consumption of goods and services as well as direct water consumption by human beings. Water is not only consumed directly but also indirectly in production processes. Therefore, calculating the water footprint enables to quantify total water consumed along the whole global supply chain. This review surveys the state of the art on water footprint since the International Expert Meeting on Virtual Water Trade, held in Delft, The Netherlands, in December 2002, until current days. The major findings linked to the consulted literature indicated that the water footprint is suitable for monitoring the human impact on the environment

Anatomical masking of pressure footprints based on the Oxford Foot Model: validation and clinical relevance.

Science.gov (United States)

Giacomozzi, Claudia; Stebbins, Julie A

2017-03-01

Plantar pressure analysis is widely used in the assessment of foot function. In order to assess regional loading, a mask is applied to the footprint to sub-divide it into regions of interest (ROIs). The most common masking method is based on geometric features of the footprint (GM). Footprint masking based on anatomical landmarks of the foot has been implemented more recently, and involves the integration of a 3D motion capture system, plantar pressure measurement device, and a multi-segment foot model. However, thorough validation of anatomical masking (AM) using pathological footprints has not yet been presented. In the present study, an AM method based on the Oxford Foot Model (OFM) was compared to an equivalent GM. Pressure footprints from 20 young healthy subjects (HG) and 20 patients with clubfoot (CF) were anatomically divided into 5 ROIs using a subset of the OFM markers. The same foot regions were also identified by using a standard GM method. Comparisons of intra-subject coefficient of variation (CV) showed that the OFM-based AM was at least as reliable as the GM for all investigated pressure parameters in all foot regions. Clinical relevance of AM was investigated by comparing footprints from HG and CF groups. Contact time, maximum force, force-time integral and contact area proved to be sensitive parameters that were able to distinguish HG and CF groups, using both AM and GM methods However, the AM method revealed statistically significant differences between groups in 75% of measured variables, compared to 62% using a standard GM method, indicating that the AM method is more sensitive for revealing differences between groups. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Progress on Footprint Reduction at the Hanford Site - 12406

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

McKenney, Dale E. [CH2M HILL, Plateau Remediation Company, Richland, Washington 99352 (United States); Seeley, Paul [Cenibark International, Inc., Richland, Washington 99352 (United States); Farabee, Al [U.S. Department of Energy, Richland Operations Office, Richland, Washington 99352 (United States)

2012-07-01

The Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Environmental Management (EM) continues to reduce the footprint of legacy sites throughout the EM complex. Footprint reduction is being accomplished by focusing cleanup activities on decontamination and demolition of excess contaminated facilities, soil and groundwater remediation, and solid waste disposition. All of these initiatives are being accomplished with established technologies in proven regulatory frameworks. Ultimately, completion of these environmental cleanup activities will reduce the monitoring and maintenance costs associated with managing large federal facilities, allowing EM to place more focus on other high priority cleanup efforts and facilitate a successful transition to land-term stewardship of these sites. Through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) investment, the Department's cleanup footprint has been reduced by 45 percent to date, from 2411 km{sup 2} (931 mi{sup 2}) to 1336 km{sup 2} (516 mi{sup 2}s). With this significant progress on footprint reduction, the Department is on track towards their goal to reduce its overall footprint by approximately 90 percent by 2015. In addition, some areas cleaned up may become available for alternate uses (i.e. recreation, conservation, preservation, industrialization or development). Much of the work to reduce the complex's footprint occurred at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina and the Hanford Site in Washington, but cleanup continues across the complex. Footprint reduction is progressing well at the Hanford Site, supported predominantly through ARRA investment. To date, 994 km{sup 2} (384 mi{sup 2}) (65%) of footprint reduction have been achieved at Hanford, with a goal to achieve a 90% reduction by Fiscal Year 2015. The DOE EM and DOE Richland Operations Office, continue to make great progress to reduce the legacy footprint of the Hanford Site. Footprint reduction is being accomplished by focusing cleanup activities on

Assessing Water and Carbon Footprints for Sustainable Water Resource Management

Science.gov (United States)

The key points of this presentation are: (1) Water footprint and carbon footprint as two sustainability attributes in adaptations to climate and socioeconomic changes, (2) Necessary to evaluate carbon and water footprints relative to constraints in resource capacity, (3) Critical...

Double-counting in supply chain carbon footprinting

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Caro, F.; Corbett, C.J.; Tan, T.; Zuidwijk, R.A.

2013-01-01

Carbon footprinting is a tool for firms to determine the total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with their supply chain or with a unit of final product or service. Carbon footprinting typically aims to identify where best to invest in emission reduction efforts, and/or to determine the

Water footprint assessment of oil palm in Malaysia: A preliminary study

Science.gov (United States)

Muhammad-Muaz, A.; Marlia, M. H.

2014-09-01

This study evaluates the water footprint of growing oil palm in Malaysia based on the water footprint method. The crop water use was determined using the CROPWAT 8.0 model developed by the Land and Water Development Division of FAO. The total water footprint for growing oil palm is 243 m3/ton. The result of this study showed that the green water footprint is 1.5 orders of magnitude larger compared to the blue water footprint. Besides providing updated status of total water used from the oil palm plantation, our result also shows that this baseline information helps in identifying which areas need to be conserved and what type of recommendation that should be drawn. As the results of the water footprint can differ between locations, the inclusion of local water stress index should be considered in the calculation of water footprint.

The advanced computational testing and simulation toolkit (ACTS)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Drummond, L.A.; Marques, O.

2002-01-01

During the past decades there has been a continuous growth in the number of physical and societal problems that have been successfully studied and solved by means of computational modeling and simulation. Distinctively, a number of these are important scientific problems ranging in scale from the atomic to the cosmic. For example, ionization is a phenomenon as ubiquitous in modern society as the glow of fluorescent lights and the etching on silicon computer chips; but it was not until 1999 that researchers finally achieved a complete numerical solution to the simplest example of ionization, the collision of a hydrogen atom with an electron. On the opposite scale, cosmologists have long wondered whether the expansion of the Universe, which began with the Big Bang, would ever reverse itself, ending the Universe in a Big Crunch. In 2000, analysis of new measurements of the cosmic microwave background radiation showed that the geometry of the Universe is flat, and thus the Universe will continue expanding forever. Both of these discoveries depended on high performance computer simulations that utilized computational tools included in the Advanced Computational Testing and Simulation (ACTS) Toolkit. The ACTS Toolkit is an umbrella project that brought together a number of general purpose computational tool development projects funded and supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). These tools, which have been developed independently, mainly at DOE laboratories, make it easier for scientific code developers to write high performance applications for parallel computers. They tackle a number of computational issues that are common to a large number of scientific applications, mainly implementation of numerical algorithms, and support for code development, execution and optimization. The ACTS Toolkit Project enables the use of these tools by a much wider community of computational scientists, and promotes code portability, reusability, reduction of duplicate efforts

The advanced computational testing and simulation toolkit (ACTS)

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Drummond, L.A.; Marques, O.

2002-05-21

During the past decades there has been a continuous growth in the number of physical and societal problems that have been successfully studied and solved by means of computational modeling and simulation. Distinctively, a number of these are important scientific problems ranging in scale from the atomic to the cosmic. For example, ionization is a phenomenon as ubiquitous in modern society as the glow of fluorescent lights and the etching on silicon computer chips; but it was not until 1999 that researchers finally achieved a complete numerical solution to the simplest example of ionization, the collision of a hydrogen atom with an electron. On the opposite scale, cosmologists have long wondered whether the expansion of the Universe, which began with the Big Bang, would ever reverse itself, ending the Universe in a Big Crunch. In 2000, analysis of new measurements of the cosmic microwave background radiation showed that the geometry of the Universe is flat, and thus the Universe will continue expanding forever. Both of these discoveries depended on high performance computer simulations that utilized computational tools included in the Advanced Computational Testing and Simulation (ACTS) Toolkit. The ACTS Toolkit is an umbrella project that brought together a number of general purpose computational tool development projects funded and supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). These tools, which have been developed independently, mainly at DOE laboratories, make it easier for scientific code developers to write high performance applications for parallel computers. They tackle a number of computational issues that are common to a large number of scientific applications, mainly implementation of numerical algorithms, and support for code development, execution and optimization. The ACTS Toolkit Project enables the use of these tools by a much wider community of computational scientists, and promotes code portability, reusability, reduction of duplicate efforts

The nitrogen footprint tool network: a multi-institution program ...

Science.gov (United States)

Anthropogenic sources of reactive nitrogen have local and global impacts on air and water quality and detrimental effects on human and ecosystem health. This paper uses the nitrogen footprint tool (NFT) to determine the amount of nitrogen (N) released as a result of institutional consumption. The sectors accounted for include food (consumption and the upstream production), energy, transportation, fertilizer, research animals, and agricultural research. The NFT is then used for scenario analysis to manage and track reductions to institution N footprints, which are driven by the consumption behaviors of both the institution itself and its constituent individuals. In this paper, the first seven institution N footprint results are presented. The institution NFT network aims to develop footprints for many institutions to encourage widespread upper-level management strategies that will create significant reductions in reactive N released to the environment. Energy use and food purchases are the two largest contributors to institution N footprints. Ongoing efforts by institutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions also help to reduce the N footprint, but the impact of food production on N pollution has not been directly addressed by the higher-ed sustainability community. The NFT Network found that institutions could reduce their N footprints by optimizing food purchasing to reduce consumption of animal products and minimize food waste, as well as reducing dependence o

Partitioning carbon fluxes from a Midwestern corn and soybean rotation system using footprint analysis

Science.gov (United States)

Dold, C.; Hatfield, J.; Prueger, J. H.; Wacha, K.

2017-12-01

Midwestern US agriculture is dominated by corn and soybean production. Corn has typically higher Net Ecosystem Exchange (NEE) than soybean due to increased carboxylation efficiency and different crop management. The conjoined NEE may be measured with eddy covariance (EC) stations covering both crops, however, it is often unclear what the contribution of each crop is, as the CO2 source area remains unknown. The aim of this study was to quantify the contribution of CO2 fluxes from each crop for a conventional corn-soybean rotation system from 2007 - 2015. Therefore, the combined CO2 flux of three adjacent fields with annual corn-soybean rotation was measured with a 9.1 m EC tower (Flux 30). In the center of two of these fields, additional EC towers (Flux 10 and Flux 11) were positioned above the corn and soybean canopy to validate Flux 30 NEE. For each EC system the annual 90% NEE footprint area was calculated, footprints were partitioned among fields, and NEE separated accordingly. The average annual 90% footprint area of Flux 30, and Flux 10/11 corn and soybean was estimated to 206, 11 and 7 ha, respectively. The annual average (±SE) NEE of Flux 30 was -693 ± 47 g CO2 m-2 yr-1, of which 83% out of 90% originated from the three adjacent fields. Corn and soybean NEE measured at Flux 10 and 11 was -1124 ± 95 and 173 ± 73 g CO2 m-2 yr-1, respectively, and 89% and 90% originated from these fields. That demonstrates, that Flux 30 represents the combined NEE of a corn-soybean rotation, and Flux 10 and 11 measured NEE from a single crop. However, the share of Flux 30 NEE originating from corn and soybean grown on the Flux 10/11 fields was -192 ± 16 and -205 ± 18 g CO2 m-2 yr-1, indicating a substantial difference to single crop NEE. While it was possible to measure the NEE of a corn-soybean rotation with a tall EC tower, footprint partitioning could not retrieve NEE for each crop, probably due to differences in measurement height and footprint source area.

Reliability and Validity of the Footprint Assessment Method Using Photoshop CS5 Software in Young People with Down Syndrome.

Science.gov (United States)

Gutiérrez-Vilahú, Lourdes; Massó-Ortigosa, Núria; Rey-Abella, Ferran; Costa-Tutusaus, Lluís; Guerra-Balic, Myriam

2016-05-01

People with Down syndrome present skeletal abnormalities in their feet that can be analyzed by commonly used gold standard indices (the Hernández-Corvo index, the Chippaux-Smirak index, the Staheli arch index, and the Clarke angle) based on footprint measurements. The use of Photoshop CS5 software (Adobe Systems Software Ireland Ltd, Dublin, Ireland) to measure footprints has been validated in the general population. The present study aimed to assess the reliability and validity of this footprint assessment technique in the population with Down syndrome. Using optical podography and photography, 44 footprints from 22 patients with Down syndrome (11 men [mean ± SD age, 23.82 ± 3.12 years] and 11 women [mean ± SD age, 24.82 ± 6.81 years]) were recorded in a static bipedal standing position. A blinded observer performed the measurements using a validated manual method three times during the 4-month study, with 2 months between measurements. Test-retest was used to check the reliability of the Photoshop CS5 software measurements. Validity and reliability were obtained by intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). The reliability test for all of the indices showed very good values for the Photoshop CS5 method (ICC, 0.982-0.995). Validity testing also found no differences between the techniques (ICC, 0.988-0.999). The Photoshop CS5 software method is reliable and valid for the study of footprints in young people with Down syndrome.

[Measuring water ecological carrying capacity with the ecosystem-service-based ecological footprint (ESEF) method: Theory, models and application].

Science.gov (United States)

Jiao, Wen-jun; Min, Qing-wen; Li, Wen-hua; Fuller, Anthony M

2015-04-01

Integrated watershed management based on aquatic ecosystems has been increasingly acknowledged. Such a change in the philosophy of water environment management requires recognizing the carrying capacity of aquatic ecosystems for human society from a more general perspective. The concept of the water ecological carrying capacity is therefore put forward, which considers both water resources and water environment, connects socio-economic development to aquatic ecosystems and provides strong support for integrated watershed management. In this paper, the authors proposed an ESEF-based measure of water ecological carrying capacity and constructed ESEF-based models of water ecological footprint and capacity, aiming to evaluate water ecological carrying capacity with footprint methods. A regional model of Taihu Lake Basin was constructed and applied to evaluate the water ecological carrying capacity in Changzhou City which located in the upper reaches of the basin. Results showed that human demand for water ecosystem services in this city had exceeded the supply capacity of local aquatic ecosystems and the significant gap between demand and supply had jeopardized the sustainability of local aquatic ecosystems. Considering aqua-product provision, water supply and pollutant absorption in an integrated way, the scale of population and economy aquatic ecosystems in Changzhou could bear only 54% of the current status.

Carbon footprint of grain production in China.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Dan; Shen, Jianbo; Zhang, Fusuo; Li, Yu'e; Zhang, Weifeng

2017-06-29

Due to the increasing environmental impact of food production, carbon footprint as an indicator can guide farmland management. This study established a method and estimated the carbon footprint of grain production in China based on life cycle analysis (LCA). The results showed that grain production has a high carbon footprint in 2013, i.e., 4052 kg ce/ha or 0.48 kg ce/kg for maize, 5455 kg ce/ha or 0.75 kg ce/kg for wheat and 11881 kg ce/ha or 1.60 kg ce/kg for rice. These footprints are higher than that of other countries, such as the United States, Canada and India. The most important factors governing carbon emissions were the application of nitrogen fertiliser (8-49%), straw burning (0-70%), energy consumption by machinery (6-40%), energy consumption for irrigation (0-44%) and CH 4 emissions from rice paddies (15-73%). The most important carbon sequestration factors included returning of crop straw (41-90%), chemical nitrogen fertiliser application (10-59%) and no-till farming practices (0-10%). Different factors dominated in different crop systems in different regions. To identity site-specific key factors and take countermeasures could significantly lower carbon footprint, e.g., ban straw burning in northeast and south China, stopping continuous flooding irrigation in wheat and rice production system.

An Integrated Tool for Calculating and Reducing Institution Carbon and Nitrogen Footprints

Science.gov (United States)

Galloway, James N.; Castner, Elizabeth A.; Andrews, Jennifer; Leary, Neil; Aber, John D.

2017-01-01

Abstract The development of nitrogen footprint tools has allowed a range of entities to calculate and reduce their contribution to nitrogen pollution, but these tools represent just one aspect of environmental pollution. For example, institutions have been calculating their carbon footprints to track and manage their greenhouse gas emissions for over a decade. This article introduces an integrated tool that institutions can use to calculate, track, and manage their nitrogen and carbon footprints together. It presents the methodology for the combined tool, describes several metrics for comparing institution nitrogen and carbon footprint results, and discusses management strategies that reduce both the nitrogen and carbon footprints. The data requirements for the two tools overlap substantially, although integrating the two tools does necessitate the calculation of the carbon footprint of food. Comparison results for five institutions suggest that the institution nitrogen and carbon footprints correlate strongly, especially in the utilities and food sectors. Scenario analyses indicate benefits to both footprints from a range of utilities and food footprint reduction strategies. Integrating these two footprints into a single tool will account for a broader range of environmental impacts, reduce data entry and analysis, and promote integrated management of institutional sustainability. PMID:29350217

Ecological Footprint in relation to Climate Change Strategy in Cities

Science.gov (United States)

Belčáková, Ingrid; Diviaková, Andrea; Belaňová, Eliška

2017-10-01

Ecological footprint determines how much natural resources are consumed by an individual, city, region, state or all inhabitants of our planet in order to ensure their requirements and needs. It includes all activities, from food consumption, housing, transport to waste produced and allows us to compare particular activities and their impacts on the environment and natural resources. Ecological footprint is important issue for making sustainable development concept more popular using simplifications, which provide the public with basic information on situation on our planet. Today we know calculations of global (worldwide), national and local ecological footprints. During our research in cities, we were concentrated on calculation of city’s ecological footprint. The article tries to outline theoretical and assumptions and practical results of climate change consequences in cities of Bratislava and Nitra (Slovakia), to describe potential of mitigating adverse impacts of climate change and to provide information for general and professional public on theoretical assumptions in calculating ecological footprint. The intention is to present innovation of ecological footprint calculation, taking into consideration ecological stability of a city (with a specific focus on micro-climate functions of green areas). Present possibilities to reduce ecological footprint are presented.

Sustainability of the city and its ecological footprint

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Petrić Jasna

2004-01-01

Full Text Available There are some agreed sustainability indicators, even some agreed target values regarding a sustainable city, but they still have to be underpinned by empirical evidence. The common starting point of definitions is generally the destructive impact of the city on its regional and global environment which can be observed in form of the depletion of natural resources and the pollution of soil, water and air. A sustainable city is therefore generally regarded to be the one that is compact and preserves land, has mixed use to increase access and reduce need to travel, is socially and economically balanced, uses clean and renewable energy and recycles all its waste. However, the sustainable city cannot exist as a self-sufficient unit, in ignorance of relationship with its hinterland. The ecological footprint which is the amount of land required to produce resources to sustain our quality of life is a yardstick for measuring the ecological bottom line of sustainability. With a sustainable city target to relieve pressure on the countryside, there is an increasing awareness of the importance of calculating city’s ecological footprint and see how it relates to the target global average. Although problem of reducing ecological footprints primarily concerns the wealthiest countries, it has to be fully acknowledged in the less economically developed part of the world, while recognising that cities themselves provide many potential solutions.

Texas Team: Academic Progression and IOM Toolkit.

Science.gov (United States)

Reid, Helen; Tart, Kathryn; Tietze, Mari; Joseph, Nitha Mathew; Easley, Carson

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) Future of Nursing report, identified eight recommendations for nursing to improve health care for all Americans. The Texas Team for Advancing Health Through Nursing embraced the challenge of implementing the recommendations through two diverse projects. One group conducted a broad, online survey of leadership, practice, and academia, focusing on the IOM recommendations. The other focused specifically on academic progression through the use of CABNET (Consortium for Advancing Baccalaureate Nursing Education in Texas) articulation agreements. The survey revealed a lack of knowledge and understanding of the IOM recommendations, prompting development of an online IOM toolkit. The articulation agreements provide a clear pathway for students to the RN-to-BSN degree students. The toolkit and articulation agreements provide rich resources for implementation of the IOM recommendations.

promoting sustainability by curtailing ecological footprints of

African Journals Online (AJOL)

The need to regulate land use and the exploitation of natural resources has led to the concept of sustainability, and by extension, ecological footprint (the total amount of land required by an individual to grow his/her needs). This paper examines ecological footprint savings in urban growth and housing development in ...

LAIT: a local ancestry inference toolkit.

Science.gov (United States)

Hui, Daniel; Fang, Zhou; Lin, Jerome; Duan, Qing; Li, Yun; Hu, Ming; Chen, Wei

2017-09-06

Inferring local ancestry in individuals of mixed ancestry has many applications, most notably in identifying disease-susceptible loci that vary among different ethnic groups. Many software packages are available for inferring local ancestry in admixed individuals. However, most of these existing software packages require specific formatted input files and generate output files in various types, yielding practical inconvenience. We developed a tool set, Local Ancestry Inference Toolkit (LAIT), which can convert standardized files into software-specific input file formats as well as standardize and summarize inference results for four popular local ancestry inference software: HAPMIX, LAMP, LAMP-LD, and ELAI. We tested LAIT using both simulated and real data sets and demonstrated that LAIT provides convenience to run multiple local ancestry inference software. In addition, we evaluated the performance of local ancestry software among different supported software packages, mainly focusing on inference accuracy and computational resources used. We provided a toolkit to facilitate the use of local ancestry inference software, especially for users with limited bioinformatics background.

ECCE Toolkit: Prototyping Sensor-Based Interaction

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Andrea Bellucci

2017-02-01

Full Text Available Building and exploring physical user interfaces requires high technical skills and hours of specialized work. The behavior of multiple devices with heterogeneous input/output channels and connectivity has to be programmed in a context where not only the software interface matters, but also the hardware components are critical (e.g., sensors and actuators. Prototyping physical interaction is hindered by the challenges of: (1 programming interactions among physical sensors/actuators and digital interfaces; (2 implementing functionality for different platforms in different programming languages; and (3 building custom electronic-incorporated objects. We present ECCE (Entities, Components, Couplings and Ecosystems, a toolkit for non-programmers that copes with these issues by abstracting from low-level implementations, thus lowering the complexity of prototyping small-scale, sensor-based physical interfaces to support the design process. A user evaluation provides insights and use cases of the kind of applications that can be developed with the toolkit.

Wind Integration National Dataset (WIND) Toolkit; NREL (National Renewable Energy Laboratory)

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Draxl, Caroline; Hodge, Bri-Mathias

2015-07-14

A webinar about the Wind Integration National Dataset (WIND) Toolkit was presented by Bri-Mathias Hodge and Caroline Draxl on July 14, 2015. It was hosted by the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. The toolkit is a grid integration data set that contains meteorological and power data at a 5-minute resolution across the continental United States for 7 years and hourly power forecasts.

Software Energy Footprint Lab (SEFlab). Towards the use of energy efficient software applications; Software Energy Footprint Lab (SEFlab). Naar toepassing van energiezuinige softwareapplicaties

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Merkus, B.; Hoekstra, E.; Van den Hoed, R. [Hogeschool van Amsterdam HvA, Amsterdam (Netherlands)

2012-12-15

The Energy Footprint Software Lab (SEFLab) allows researchers to give a detailed overview of the energy consumption of the hardware and software with a combination of advanced techniques in a controlled environment. The project comprised four main activities: (1) professionalization of measurement setup and test protocol; (2) Concrete calculation of two software applications as case studies; (3) an (internal) stakeholder analysis; and (4) dissemination of results [Dutch] Het Software Energy Footprint Lab (SEFLab) stelt onderzoekers in staat met een combinatie van geavanceerde technieken in een gecontroleerde omgeving een gedetailleerd beeld van het energieverbruik van de hardware n.a.v. software-gebruik te meten. Binnen het project stonden vier activiteiten centraal: (1) professionalisering van meetopstelling en testprotocol; (2) concrete doorrekening van twee softwareapplicaties als cases; (3) een (interne) stakeholder-analyse; en (4) disseminatie van resultaten.

Carbon and water footprints of irrigated corn and non-irrigated wheat in Northeast Spain.

Science.gov (United States)

Abrahão, Raphael; Carvalho, Monica; Causapé, Jesús

2017-02-01

Irrigation increases yields and allows several crops to be produced in regions where it would be naturally impossible due to limited rainfall. However, irrigation can cause several negative environmental impacts, and it is important to understand these in depth for the correct application of mitigation measures. The life cycle assessment methodology was applied herein to compare the main irrigated and non-irrigated crops in Northeast Spain (corn and wheat, respectively), identifying those processes with greater contribution to environmental impacts (carbon and water footprint categories) and providing scientifically-sound information to facilitate government decisions. Due to concerns about climate change and water availability, the methods selected for evaluation of environmental impacts were IPCC 2013 GWP (carbon footprint) and water scarcity indicator (water footprint). The area studied, a 7.38-km 2 basin, was monitored for 12 years, including the period before, during, and after the implementation of irrigation. The functional unit, to which all material and energy flows were associated with, was the cultivation of 1 ha, throughout 1 year. The overall carbon footprint for irrigated corn was higher, but when considering the higher productivity achieved with irrigation, the emissions per kilogram of corn decrease and finally favor this irrigated crop. When considering the water footprint, the volumes of irrigation water applied were so high that productivity could not compensate for the negative impacts associated with water use in the case of corn. Nevertheless, consideration of productivities and gross incomes brings the results closer. Fertilizer use (carbon footprint) and irrigation water (water footprint) were the main contributors to the negative impacts detected.

Sustainability of meat production beyond carbon footprint: a synthesis of case studies from grazing systems in Uruguay.

Science.gov (United States)

Picasso, Valentín D; Modernel, Pablo D; Becoña, Gonzalo; Salvo, Lucía; Gutiérrez, Lucía; Astigarraga, Laura

2014-11-01

Livestock production has been challenged as a large contributor to climate change, and carbon footprint has become a widely used measure of cattle environmental impact. This analysis of fifteen beef grazing systems in Uruguay quantifies the range of variation of carbon footprint, and the trade-offs with other relevant environmental variables, using a partial life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology. Using carbon footprint as the primary environmental indicator has several limitations: different metrics (GWP vs. GTP) may lead to different conclusions, carbon sequestration from soils may drastically affect the results, and systems with lower carbon footprint may have higher energy use, soil erosion, nutrient imbalance, pesticide ecotoxicity, and impact on biodiversity. A multidimensional assessment of sustainability of meat production is therefore needed to inform decision makers. There is great potential to improve grazing livestock systems productivity while reducing carbon footprint and other environmental impacts, and conserving biodiversity. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Quality analysis applied on eddy covariance measurements at complex forest sites using footprint modelling

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Rebmann, C.; Göckede, M.; Foken, T.; Aubinet, M.; Aurela, M.; Berbigier, P.; Bernhofer, C.; Buchmann, N.; Carrara, A.; Cescatti, A.; Ceulemans, R.; Clement, R.; Elbers, J. A.; Granier, A.; Grünwald, T.; Guyon, D.; Havránková, Kateřina; Heinesch, B.; Knohl, A.; Laurila, T.; Longdoz, B.; Marcolla, B.; Markkanen, T.; Miglietta, F.; Moncrieff, J.; Montagnani, L.; Moors, E.; Nardino, M.; Ourcival, J.-M.; Rambal, S.; Rannik, Ü.; Rotenberg, E.; Sedlák, Pavel; Unterhuber, G.; Vesala, T.; Yakir, D.

2005-01-01

Roč. 80, - (2005), s. 121-141 ISSN 0177-798X Grant - others:Carboeuroflux(XE) EVK-2-CT-1999-00032 Institutional research plan: CEZ:AV0Z30420517; CEZ:AV0Z6087904 Keywords : Eddy covariance * Quality assurance * Quality control * Footprint modelling * Heterogeneity Subject RIV: DG - Athmosphere Sciences, Meteorology Impact factor: 1.295, year: 2005

Study of Biometric Identification Method Based on Naked Footprint

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Raji Rafiu King

2013-10-01

Full Text Available The scale of deployment of biometric identity-verification systems has recently seen an enormous increase owing to the need for more secure and reliable way of identifying people. Footprint identification which can be defined as the measurement of footprint features for recognizing the identity of a user has surfaced recently. This study is based on a biometric personal identification method using static footprint features viz. friction ridge / texture and foot shape / silhouette. To begin with, naked footprints of users are captured; images then undergo pre processing followed by the extraction of two features; shape using Gradient Vector Flow （GVF） snake model and minutiae extraction respectively. Matching is then effected based on these two features followed by a fusion of these two results for either a reject or accept decision. Our shape matching feature is based on cosine similarity while the texture one is based on miniature score matching. The results from our research establish that the naked footprint is a credible biometric feature as two barefoot impressions of an individual match perfectly while that of two different persons shows a great deal of dissimilarity. Normal 0 false false false IN X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Doi: 10.12777/ijse.5.2.29-35 How to cite this article: King

Designing a ticket to ride with the Cognitive Work Analysis Design Toolkit.

Science.gov (United States)

Read, Gemma J M; Salmon, Paul M; Lenné, Michael G; Jenkins, Daniel P

2015-01-01

Cognitive work analysis has been applied in the design of numerous sociotechnical systems. The process used to translate analysis outputs into design concepts, however, is not always clear. Moreover, structured processes for translating the outputs of ergonomics methods into concrete designs are lacking. This paper introduces the Cognitive Work Analysis Design Toolkit (CWA-DT), a design approach which has been developed specifically to provide a structured means of incorporating cognitive work analysis outputs in design using design principles and values derived from sociotechnical systems theory. This paper outlines the CWA-DT and describes its application in a public transport ticketing design case study. Qualitative and quantitative evaluations of the process provide promising early evidence that the toolkit fulfils the evaluation criteria identified for its success, with opportunities for improvement also highlighted. The Cognitive Work Analysis Design Toolkit has been developed to provide ergonomics practitioners with a structured approach for translating the outputs of cognitive work analysis into design solutions. This paper demonstrates an application of the toolkit and provides evaluation findings.

FY17Q4 Ristra project: Release Version 1.0 of a production toolkit

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Hungerford, Aimee L. [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Daniel, David John [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

2017-09-21

The Next Generation Code project will release Version 1.0 of a production toolkit for multi-physics application development on advanced architectures. Features of this toolkit will include remap and link utilities, control and state manager, setup, visualization and I/O, as well as support for a variety of mesh and particle data representations. Numerical physics packages that operate atop this foundational toolkit will be employed in a multi-physics demonstration problem and released to the community along with results from the demonstration.

Carbon footprint: a head-teaser

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chandes, C.; Cahuzac, A.; Deniel, P.

2011-01-01

The author outlines the difficulties faced by industries to assess the impact of their activities on the environment, and more particularly their carbon footprint which is to be reduced, as well as greenhouse gas emissions. One of these difficulties for these companies is to choose among many methods and service providers to perform this carbon footprint assessment. Even if the result of this assessment could therefore be a matter of discussion, some companies may use this assessment as a marketing tool, whereas the ADEME notices that many requirements in terms of emission reduction actions are not met

Mathematical Footprints Discovering Mathematics Everywhere

CERN Document Server

Pappas, Theoni

1999-01-01

MATHEMATICAL FOOTPRINTS takes a creative look at the role mathematics has played since prehistoric times, and will play in the future, and uncovers mathematics where you least expect to find it from its many uses in medicine, the sciences, and its appearance in art to its patterns in nature and its central role in the development of computers. Pappas presents mathematical ideas in a readable non-threatening manner. MATHEMATICAL FOOTPRINTS is another gem by the creator of THE MATHEMATICS CALENDAR and author of THE JOY OF MATHEMATICS. "Pappas's books have been gold mines of mathematical ent

Development of a Multimedia Toolkit for Engineering Graphics Education

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Moudar Zgoul

2009-09-01

Full Text Available This paper focuses upon the development of a multimedia toolkit to support the teaching of Engineering Graphics Course. The project used different elements for the toolkit; animations, videos and presentations which were then integrated in a dedicated internet website. The purpose of using these elements is to assist the students building and practicing the needed engineering skills at their own pace as a part of an e-Learning solution. Furthermore, this kit allows students to repeat and view the processes and techniques of graphical construction, and visualization as much as needed, allowing them to follow and practice on their own.

AutoMicromanager: A microscopy scripting toolkit for LABVIEW and other programming environments

Science.gov (United States)

Ashcroft, Brian Alan; Oosterkamp, Tjerk

2010-11-01

We present a scripting toolkit for the acquisition and analysis of a wide variety of imaging data by integrating the ease of use of various programming environments such as LABVIEW, IGOR PRO, MATLAB, SCILAB, and others. This toolkit is designed to allow the user to quickly program a variety of standard microscopy components for custom microscopy applications allowing much more flexibility than other packages. Included are both programming tools as well as graphical user interface classes allowing a standard, consistent, and easy to maintain scripting environment. This programming toolkit allows easy access to most commonly used cameras, stages, and shutters through the Micromanager project so the scripter can focus on their custom application instead of boilerplate code generation.

AutoMicromanager: a microscopy scripting toolkit for LABVIEW and other programming environments.

Science.gov (United States)

Ashcroft, Brian Alan; Oosterkamp, Tjerk

2010-11-01

We present a scripting toolkit for the acquisition and analysis of a wide variety of imaging data by integrating the ease of use of various programming environments such as LABVIEW, IGOR PRO, MATLAB, SCILAB, and others. This toolkit is designed to allow the user to quickly program a variety of standard microscopy components for custom microscopy applications allowing much more flexibility than other packages. Included are both programming tools as well as graphical user interface classes allowing a standard, consistent, and easy to maintain scripting environment. This programming toolkit allows easy access to most commonly used cameras, stages, and shutters through the Micromanager project so the scripter can focus on their custom application instead of boilerplate code generation.

Reliability and Validity of the Footprint Assessment Method Using Photoshop CS5 Software.

Science.gov (United States)

Gutiérrez-Vilahú, Lourdes; Massó-Ortigosa, Núria; Costa-Tutusaus, Lluís; Guerra-Balic, Myriam

2015-05-01

Several sophisticated methods of footprint analysis currently exist. However, it is sometimes useful to apply standard measurement methods of recognized evidence with an easy and quick application. We sought to assess the reliability and validity of a new method of footprint assessment in a healthy population using Photoshop CS5 software (Adobe Systems Inc, San Jose, California). Forty-two footprints, corresponding to 21 healthy individuals (11 men with a mean ± SD age of 20.45 ± 2.16 years and 10 women with a mean ± SD age of 20.00 ± 1.70 years) were analyzed. Footprints were recorded in static bipedal standing position using optical podography and digital photography. Three trials for each participant were performed. The Hernández-Corvo, Chippaux-Smirak, and Staheli indices and the Clarke angle were calculated by manual method and by computerized method using Photoshop CS5 software. Test-retest was used to determine reliability. Validity was obtained by intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). The reliability test for all of the indices showed high values (ICC, 0.98-0.99). Moreover, the validity test clearly showed no difference between techniques (ICC, 0.99-1). The reliability and validity of a method to measure, assess, and record the podometric indices using Photoshop CS5 software has been demonstrated. This provides a quick and accurate tool useful for the digital recording of morphostatic foot study parameters and their control.

Windows forensic analysis toolkit advanced analysis techniques for Windows 7

CERN Document Server

Carvey, Harlan

2012-01-01

Now in its third edition, Harlan Carvey has updated "Windows Forensic Analysis Toolkit" to cover Windows 7 systems. The primary focus of this edition is on analyzing Windows 7 systems and on processes using free and open-source tools. The book covers live response, file analysis, malware detection, timeline, and much more. The author presents real-life experiences from the trenches, making the material realistic and showing the why behind the how. New to this edition, the companion and toolkit materials are now hosted online. This material consists of electronic printable checklists, cheat sheets, free custom tools, and walk-through demos. This edition complements "Windows Forensic Analysis Toolkit, 2nd Edition", (ISBN: 9781597494229), which focuses primarily on XP. It includes complete coverage and examples on Windows 7 systems. It contains Lessons from the Field, Case Studies, and War Stories. It features companion online material, including electronic printable checklists, cheat sheets, free custom tools, ...

VIDE: The Void IDentification and Examination toolkit

Science.gov (United States)

Sutter, P. M.; Lavaux, G.; Hamaus, N.; Pisani, A.; Wandelt, B. D.; Warren, M.; Villaescusa-Navarro, F.; Zivick, P.; Mao, Q.; Thompson, B. B.

2015-03-01

We present VIDE, the Void IDentification and Examination toolkit, an open-source Python/C++ code for finding cosmic voids in galaxy redshift surveys and N-body simulations, characterizing their properties, and providing a platform for more detailed analysis. At its core, VIDE uses a substantially enhanced version of ZOBOV (Neyinck 2008) to calculate a Voronoi tessellation for estimating the density field and performing a watershed transform to construct voids. Additionally, VIDE provides significant functionality for both pre- and post-processing: for example, VIDE can work with volume- or magnitude-limited galaxy samples with arbitrary survey geometries, or dark matter particles or halo catalogs in a variety of common formats. It can also randomly subsample inputs and includes a Halo Occupation Distribution model for constructing mock galaxy populations. VIDE uses the watershed levels to place voids in a hierarchical tree, outputs a summary of void properties in plain ASCII, and provides a Python API to perform many analysis tasks, such as loading and manipulating void catalogs and particle members, filtering, plotting, computing clustering statistics, stacking, comparing catalogs, and fitting density profiles. While centered around ZOBOV, the toolkit is designed to be as modular as possible and accommodate other void finders. VIDE has been in development for several years and has already been used to produce a wealth of results, which we summarize in this work to highlight the capabilities of the toolkit. VIDE is publicly available at http://bitbucket.org/cosmicvoids/vide_public and http://www.cosmicvoids.net.

The Customer Flow Toolkit: A Framework for Designing High Quality Customer Services.

Science.gov (United States)

New York Association of Training and Employment Professionals, Albany.

This document presents a toolkit to assist staff involved in the design and development of New York's one-stop system. Section 1 describes the preplanning issues to be addressed and the intended outcomes that serve as the framework for creation of the customer flow toolkit. Section 2 outlines the following strategies to assist in designing local…

The Outward Extension of an Ecological Footprint in City Expansion: The Case of Beijing

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gaodi Xie

2014-12-01

Full Text Available A biologically productive area was used in the ecological footprint method to measure the demand and impact of human activities on the natural capital, and further, to judge whether the impact is within the scope of the regional bio-capacity. In this presentation, an indicator “ecological footprint distance (Def” is proposed. The results indicated that the proposed indicator Def could identify the outward extension of a city’s ecological footprint with the city’s rapid expansion. From 2008 to 2012, the proportion of imported bio-capacity increased approximately from 48% to 64%, which implied that the ecological impact of Beijing had expanded year by year. The Def of Beijing increased from 567 km in 2008 to 677 km in 2012, with an average annual increase of about 25 km. From the perspective of seasonal change, Beijing’s ecological footprint distance in winter and spring was much higher than in summer and fall. The main features of provincial-spatial distribution of Beijing’s Def were as follows: grain and oil and meat and eggs were mainly supplied by Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning, Hebei and Inner Mongolia; yet vegetable and fruit were mainly supplied by Hainan, Guangdong, Hebei and Shandong. Measures should be taken to decentralize the sources of imported bio-capacity, so as to ensure a sustainable development in Metropolitan cities.

Cooperative water network system to reduce carbon footprint.

Science.gov (United States)

Lim, Seong-Rin; Park, Jong Moon

2008-08-15

Much effort has been made in reducing the carbon footprint to mitigate climate change. However, water network synthesis has been focused on reducing the consumption and cost of freshwater within each industrial plant. The objective of this study is to illustrate the necessity of the cooperation of industrial plants to reduce the total carbon footprint of their water supply systems. A mathematical optimization model to minimize global warming potentials is developed to synthesize (1) a cooperative water network system (WNS) integrated over two plants and (2) an individual WNS consisting of two WNSs separated for each plant. The cooperative WNS is compared to the individual WNS. The cooperation reduces their carbon footprint and is economically feasible and profitable. A strategy for implementing the cooperation is suggested for the fair distribution of costs and benefits. As a consequence, industrial plants should cooperate with their neighbor plants to further reduce the carbon footprint.

Carbon footprint of premium quality export bananas: case study in Ecuador, the world's largest exporter.

Science.gov (United States)

Iriarte, Alfredo; Almeida, Maria Gabriela; Villalobos, Pablo

2014-02-15

Nowadays, the new international market demands challenge the food producing countries to include the measurement of the environmental impact generated along the production process for their products. In order to comply with the environmentally responsible market requests the measurement of the greenhouse gas emissions of Ecuadorian agricultural goods has been promoted employing the carbon footprint concept. Ecuador is the largest exporter of bananas in the world. Within this context, this study is a first assessment of the carbon footprint of the Ecuadorian premium export banana (Musa AAA) using a considerable amount of field data. The system boundaries considered from agricultural production to delivery in a European destination port. The data collected over three years permitted identifying the hot spot stages. For the calculation, the CCaLC V3.0 software developed by the University of Manchester is used. The carbon footprint of the Ecuadorian export banana ranged from 0.45 to 1.04 kg CO2-equivalent/kg banana depending on the international overseas transport employed. The principal contributors to the carbon footprint are the on farm production and overseas transport stages. Mitigation and reduction strategies were suggested for the main emission sources in order to achieve sustainable banana production. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Water footprint, extended water footprint and virtual water trade of the Cantabria region, Spain. A critical appraisal of results, uncertainties and methods.

Science.gov (United States)

Diaz-Alcaide, Silvia; Martinez-Santos, Pedro; Willaarts, Barbara; Hernández-Moreno, Enrique; Llamas, M. Ramon

2015-04-01

Water footprint assessments have gradually gained recognition as valuable tools for water management, to the point that they have been officially incorporated to water planning in countries such as Spain. Adequate combinations of the virtual water and water footprint concepts present the potential to link a broad range of sectors and issues, thus providing appropriate frameworks to support optimal water allocation and to inform production and trade decisions from the water perspective. We present the results of a regional study carried out in Cantabria, a 5300 km2 autonomous region located in northern Spain. Our approach deals with the municipal, shire and regional scales, combining different methods to assess each of the main components of Cantabria's water footprint (agriculture, livestock, forestry, industry, mining, tourism, domestic use and reservoirs), as well as exploring the significance of different approaches, assumptions and databases in the overall outcomes. The classic water footprint method is coupled with extended water footprint analyses in order to provide an estimate of the social and economic value of each sector. Finally, virtual water imports and exports are computed between Cantabria and the rest of Spain and between Cantabria and the world. The outcome of our work (a) highlights the paramount importance of green water (mostly embedded in pastures) in the region's water footprint and virtual water exports; (b) establishes the role of the region as a net virtual water exporter; (c) shows the productivity of water (euro/m3 and jobs/m3) to be highest in tourism and lowest in agriculture and livestock; and (d) demonstrates that statistical databases are seldom compiled with water footprint studies in mind, which is likely to introduce uncertainties in the results. Although our work shows that there is still plenty of room for improvement in regional-scale water footprint assessments, we contend that the available information is sufficient to

BAT - The Bayesian Analysis Toolkit

CERN Document Server

Caldwell, Allen C; Kröninger, Kevin

2009-01-01

We describe the development of a new toolkit for data analysis. The analysis package is based on Bayes' Theorem, and is realized with the use of Markov Chain Monte Carlo. This gives access to the full posterior probability distribution. Parameter estimation, limit setting and uncertainty propagation are implemented in a straightforward manner. A goodness-of-fit criterion is presented which is intuitive and of great practical use.

Sustainable Colombia : A Comprehensive Colombian Footprint Review

OpenAIRE

Brad Ewing

2010-01-01

During the past several months, the Ministry of Environment, Housing and Territorial Development of Colombia has been researching potential indicators that would be useful to assess and possibly adopt among which included the ecological footprint. This work was commissioned in order to provide the Ministry with a deeper understanding of the ecological footprint and to train a number of its...

Can dendrochronology procedures estimate historical Tree Water Footprint?

Science.gov (United States)

Fernandes, Tarcísio J. G.; Del Campo, Antonio D.; Molina, Antonio J.

2013-04-01

Whole estimates of tree water use are becoming increasingly important in forest science and forest scientists have long sought to develop reliable techniques to estimate tree water use. In this sense accurately determining or estimate the quantity of water transpired by trees and forests is important and can be used to determine "green" water footprint. The use of dendrochronology is relative common in the study of effects and interactions between growth and climatic variables, but few studies deal with the relationship with water footprint. The main objective of this study is determining the historical tree water-use in a planted stand by dendrochronological approaches. This study was performed in South-eastern Spain, in an area covered by 50-60 years old Pinus halepensis Mil. plantations with high tree density (ca.1288/ha) due to low forest management. The experimental set-up consisted of two plots (30x30m), one corresponding to a thinning treatment performed in 2008 (t10) and the other thinned in 1998 (t1) to assess the mid-term effects of thinning. After one year of thinning four representative trees were select in each plot to measure transpiration by heat pulse sensor (sapflow velocity, vs). The accumulated daily values of transpiration (L day-1) were estimated multiplying the values of vs by sapwood area of each selected tree. After transpiration measurements two cores per tree were taken for establishing the tree-rings chronologies. The cores were prepared, their ring-width were measured and standardised in basal area increment index (BAI-i) following usual dendrochronological methods. The dendrochronology analyses showed a general variability in ring width during the initial growth (15 years), while in the following years the width rings were very small, conditioned by climate. The year after thinning (1999 or 2009) all trees in the treatments showed significant increases in ring width. The average vs for t1 and t10 were 3.59 cm h-1 and 1.95 cm h-1, and

Water Use and Quality Footprints of Biofuel Crops in Florida

Science.gov (United States)

Shukla, S.; Hendricks, G.; Helsel, Z.; Knowles, J.

2013-12-01

The use of biofuel crops for future energy needs will require considerable amounts of water inputs. Favorable growing conditions for large scale biofuel production exist in the sub-tropical environment of South Florida. However, large-scale land use change associated with biofuel crops is likely to affect the quantity and quality of water within the region. South Florida's surface and ground water resources are already stressed by current allocations. Limited data exists to allocate water for growing the energy crops as well as evaluate the accompanying hydrologic and water quality impacts of large-scale land use changes. A three-year study was conducted to evaluate the water supply and quality impacts of three energy crops: sugarcane, switchgrass, and sweet sorghum (with a winter crop). Six lysimeters were used to collect the data needed to quantify crop evapotranspiration (ETc), and nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) levels in groundwater and discharge (drainage and runoff). Each lysimeter (4.85 x 3.65 x 1.35 m) was equipped to measure water input, output, and storage. The irrigation, runoff, and drainage volumes were measured using flow meters. Groundwater samples were collected bi-weekly and drainage/runoff sampling was event based; samples were analyzed for nitrogen (N) and phosphorous (P) species. Data collected over the three years revealed that the average annual ETc was highest for sugarcane (1464 mm) followed by switchgrass and sweet sorghum. Sweet sorghum had the highest total N (TN) concentration (7.6 mg/L) in groundwater and TN load (36 kg/ha) in discharge. However, sweet sorghum had the lowest total P (TP) concentration (1.2 mg/L) in groundwater and TP load (9 kg/ha) in discharge. Water use footprint for ethanol (liter of water used per liter of ethanol produced) was lowest for sugarcane and highest for switchgrass. Switchgrass had the highest P-load footprint for ethanol. No differences were observed for the TN load footprint for ethanol. This is the

A Geospatial Decision Support System Toolkit, Phase II

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — We propose to build and commercialize a working prototype Geospatial Decision Support Toolkit (GeoKit). GeoKit will enable scientists, agencies, and stakeholders to...

Three-dimensional analysis of elbow soft tissue footprints and anatomy.

Science.gov (United States)

Capo, John T; Collins, Christopher; Beutel, Bryan G; Danna, Natalie R; Manigrasso, Michaele; Uko, Linda A; Chen, Linda Y

2014-11-01

Tendinous and ligamentous injuries commonly occur in the elbow. This study characterized the location, surface areas, and origin and insertional footprints of major elbow capsuloligamentous and tendinous structures in relation to bony landmarks with the use of a precision 3-dimensional modeling system. Nine unpaired cadaveric elbow specimens were dissected and mounted on a custom jig. Mapping of the medial collateral ligament (MCL), lateral ulnar collateral ligament (LUCL), triceps, biceps, brachialis, and capsular reflections was then performed with 3-dimensional digitizing technology. The location, surface areas, and footprints of the soft tissues were calculated. The MCL had a mean origin (humeral) footprint of 216 mm(2), insertional footprint of 154 mm(2), and surface area of 421 mm(2). The LUCL had a mean origin footprint of 136 mm(2), an insertional footprint of 142 mm(2), and a surface area of 532 mm(2). Of the tendons, the triceps maintained the largest insertional footprint, followed by the brachialis and the biceps (P anatomy of key elbow capsuloligamentous and tendinous structures is crucial for effective reconstruction after bony or soft tissue trauma. This study provides the upper extremity surgeon with information that may aid in restoring elbow biomechanics and preserving range of motion in these patients. Copyright © 2014 Journal of Shoulder and Elbow Surgery Board of Trustees. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

A spatially detailed blue water footprint of the United States economy

Science.gov (United States)

Rushforth, Richard R.; Ruddell, Benjamin L.

2018-05-01

This paper quantifies and maps a spatially detailed and economically complete blue water footprint for the United States, utilizing the National Water Economy Database version 1.1 (NWED). NWED utilizes multiple mesoscale (county-level) federal data resources from the United States Geological Survey (USGS), the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), the US Department of Transportation (USDOT), the US Department of Energy (USDOE), and the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) to quantify water use, economic trade, and commodity flows to construct this water footprint. Results corroborate previous studies in both the magnitude of the US water footprint (F) and in the observed pattern of virtual water flows. Four virtual water accounting scenarios were developed with minimum (Min), median (Med), and maximum (Max) consumptive use scenarios and a withdrawal-based scenario. The median water footprint (FCUMed) of the US is 181 966 Mm3 (FWithdrawal: 400 844 Mm3; FCUMax: 222 144 Mm3; FCUMin: 61 117 Mm3) and the median per capita water footprint (F'CUMed) of the US is 589 m3 per capita (F'Withdrawal: 1298 m3 per capita; F'CUMax: 720 m3 per capita; F'CUMin: 198 m3 per capita). The US hydroeconomic network is centered on cities. Approximately 58 % of US water consumption is for direct and indirect use by cities. Further, the water footprint of agriculture and livestock is 93 % of the total US blue water footprint, and is dominated by irrigated agriculture in the western US. The water footprint of the industrial, domestic, and power economic sectors is centered on population centers, while the water footprint of the mining sector is highly dependent on the location of mineral resources. Owing to uncertainty in consumptive use coefficients alone, the mesoscale blue water footprint uncertainty ranges from 63 to over 99 % depending on location. Harmonized region-specific, economic-sector-specific consumption coefficients are

The carbon footprint of global tourism

Science.gov (United States)

Lenzen, Manfred; Sun, Ya-Yen; Faturay, Futu; Ting, Yuan-Peng; Geschke, Arne; Malik, Arunima

2018-06-01

Tourism contributes significantly to global gross domestic product, and is forecast to grow at an annual 4%, thus outpacing many other economic sectors. However, global carbon emissions related to tourism are currently not well quantified. Here, we quantify tourism-related global carbon flows between 160 countries, and their carbon footprints under origin and destination accounting perspectives. We find that, between 2009 and 2013, tourism's global carbon footprint has increased from 3.9 to 4.5 GtCO2e, four times more than previously estimated, accounting for about 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Transport, shopping and food are significant contributors. The majority of this footprint is exerted by and in high-income countries. The rapid increase in tourism demand is effectively outstripping the decarbonization of tourism-related technology. We project that, due to its high carbon intensity and continuing growth, tourism will constitute a growing part of the world's greenhouse gas emissions.

A Toolkit to Study Sensitivity of the Geant4 Predictions to the Variations of the Physics Model Parameters

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Fields, Laura [Fermilab; Genser, Krzysztof [Fermilab; Hatcher, Robert [Fermilab; Kelsey, Michael [SLAC; Perdue, Gabriel [Fermilab; Wenzel, Hans [Fermilab; Wright, Dennis H. [SLAC; Yarba, Julia [Fermilab

2017-08-21

Geant4 is the leading detector simulation toolkit used in high energy physics to design detectors and to optimize calibration and reconstruction software. It employs a set of carefully validated physics models to simulate interactions of particles with matter across a wide range of interaction energies. These models, especially the hadronic ones, rely largely on directly measured cross-sections and phenomenological predictions with physically motivated parameters estimated by theoretical calculation or measurement. Because these models are tuned to cover a very wide range of possible simulation tasks, they may not always be optimized for a given process or a given material. This raises several critical questions, e.g. how sensitive Geant4 predictions are to the variations of the model parameters, or what uncertainties are associated with a particular tune of a Geant4 physics model, or a group of models, or how to consistently derive guidance for Geant4 model development and improvement from a wide range of available experimental data. We have designed and implemented a comprehensive, modular, user-friendly software toolkit to study and address such questions. It allows one to easily modify parameters of one or several Geant4 physics models involved in the simulation, and to perform collective analysis of multiple variants of the resulting physics observables of interest and comparison against a variety of corresponding experimental data. Based on modern event-processing infrastructure software, the toolkit offers a variety of attractive features, e.g. flexible run-time configurable workflow, comprehensive bookkeeping, easy to expand collection of analytical components. Design, implementation technology, and key functionalities of the toolkit are presented and illustrated with results obtained with Geant4 key hadronic models.

Heart Failure: Self-care to Success: Development and evaluation of a program toolkit.

Science.gov (United States)

Bryant, Rebecca

2017-08-17

The Heart Failure: Self-care to Success toolkit was developed to assist NPs in empowering patients with heart failure (HF) to improve individual self-care behaviors. This article details the evolution of this toolkit for NPs, its effectiveness with patients with HF, and recommendations for future research and dissemination strategies.

Ichnotaxonomy of the Laetoli trackways: The earliest hominin footprints

Science.gov (United States)

Meldrum, D. J.; Lockley, Martin G.; Lucas, Spencer G.; Musiba, Charles

2011-04-01

At 3.6 Ma, the Laetoli Pliocene hominin trackways are the earliest direct evidence of hominin bipedalism. Three decades since their discovery, not only is the question of their attribution still discussed, but marked differences in interpretation concerning the footprints' qualitative features and the inferred nature of the early hominin foot morphology remain. Here, we establish a novel ichnotaxon, Praehominipes laetoliensis, for these tracks and clarify the distinctions of these footprints from those of later hominins, especially modern humans. We also contrast hominin, human, and ape footprints to establish morphological features of these footprints correlated with a midtarsal break versus a stiff longitudinal arch. Original photos, including stereo photographs, and casts of footprints from the 1978 Laetoli excavation, confirm midtarsal flexibility, and repeatedly indicate an associated midfoot pressure ridge. In contrast, the modern human footprint reflects the derived arched-foot architecture, combined with a stiff-legged striding gait. Fossilized footprints of unshod modern human pedestrians in Hawaii and Nicaragua unambiguously illustrate these contrasts. Some points of comparisons with ape footprints are complicated by a variable hallucal position and the distinct manner of ape facultative bipedalism. In contrast to the comparatively rigid platform of the modern human foot, midtarsal flexibility is present in the chimpanzee foot. In ape locomotion, flexion at the transverse tarsal joint, referred to as the "midtarsal break," uncouples the respective functions of the prehensile forefoot and the propulsive hindfoot during grasp-climbing. At some point after the transition to habitual bipedalism, these grasp-climb adaptations, presumed to be present in the last common ancestor of apes and humans, were initially compromised by the loss of divergence of the hallux. An analogous trajectory is evident along an array of increasingly terrestrial extant ape species

Marine Debris and Plastic Source Reduction Toolkit

Science.gov (United States)

Many plastic food service ware items originate on college and university campuses—in cafeterias, snack rooms, cafés, and eateries with take-out dining options. This Campus Toolkit is a detailed “how to” guide for reducing plastic waste on college campuses.

Matlab based Toolkits used to Interface with Optical Design Software for NASA's James Webb Space Telescope

Science.gov (United States)

Howard, Joseph

2007-01-01

The viewgraph presentation provides an introduction to the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). The first part provides a brief overview of Matlab toolkits including CodeV, OSLO, and Zemax Toolkits. The toolkit overview examines purpose, layout, how Matlab gets data from CodeV, function layout, and using cvHELP. The second part provides examples of use with JWST, including wavefront sensitivities and alignment simulations.

Footprint Representation of Planetary Remote Sensing Data

Science.gov (United States)

Walter, S. H. G.; Gasselt, S. V.; Michael, G.; Neukum, G.

The geometric outline of remote sensing image data, the so called footprint, can be represented as a number of coordinate tuples. These polygons are associated with according attribute information such as orbit name, ground- and image resolution, solar longitude and illumination conditions to generate a powerful base for classification of planetary experiment data. Speed, handling and extended capabilites are the reasons for using geodatabases to store and access these data types. Techniques for such a spatial database of footprint data are demonstrated using the Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) PostgreSQL, spatially enabled by the PostGIS extension. Exemplary, footprints of the HRSC and OMEGA instruments, both onboard ESA's Mars Express Orbiter, are generated and connected to attribute information. The aim is to provide high-resolution footprints of the OMEGA instrument to the science community for the first time and make them available for web-based mapping applications like the "Planetary Interactive GIS-on-the-Web Analyzable Database" (PIG- WAD), produced by the USGS. Map overlays with HRSC or other instruments like MOC and THEMIS (footprint maps are already available for these instruments and can be integrated into the database) allow on-the-fly intersection and comparison as well as extended statistics of the data. Footprint polygons are generated one by one using standard software provided by the instrument teams. Attribute data is calculated and stored together with the geometric information. In the case of HRSC, the coordinates of the footprints are already available in the VICAR label of each image file. Using the VICAR RTL and PostgreSQL's libpq C library they are loaded into the database using the Well-Known Text (WKT) notation by the Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC). For the OMEGA instrument, image data is read using IDL routines developed and distributed by the OMEGA team. Image outlines are exported together with relevant attribute

Water footprints as an indicator for the equitable utilization of shared water resources. (Case study: Egypt and Ethiopia shared water resources in Nile Basin)

Science.gov (United States)

Sallam, Osama M.

2014-12-01

The question of "equity." is a vague and relative term in any event, criteria for equity are particularly difficult to determine in water conflicts, where international water law is ambiguous and often contradictory, and no mechanism exists to enforce principles which are agreed-upon. The aim of this study is using the water footprints as a concept to be an indicator or a measuring tool for the Equitable Utilization of shared water resources. Herein Egypt and Ethiopia water resources conflicts in Nile River Basin were selected as a case study. To achieve this study; water footprints, international virtual water flows and water footprint of national consumption of Egypt and Ethiopia has been analyzed. In this study, some indictors of equitable utilization has been gained for example; Egypt water footprint per capita is 1385 CM/yr/cap while in Ethiopia is 1167 CM/yr/cap, Egypt water footprint related to the national consumption is 95.15 BCM/yr, while in Ethiopia is 77.63 BCM/yr, and the external water footprints of Egypt is 28.5%, while in Ethiopia is 2.3% of the national consumption water footprint. The most important conclusion of this study is; natural, social, environmental and economical aspects should be taken into account when considering the water footprints as an effective measurable tool to assess the equable utilization of shared water resources, moreover the water footprints should be calculated using a real data and there is a necessity to establishing a global water footprints benchmarks for commodities as a reference.

Natural cycles and agricultural inputs: a farm gate Ecological Footprint analysis

Science.gov (United States)

Passeri, Nicolo; Blasi, Emanuele; Borucke, Michael; Galli, Alessandro; Franco, Silvio

2014-05-01

Land suitability for different crops depends on soil, water and climate conditions, as well as farmers' cultivation choices. Moreover, the use of agricultural inputs affects the natural cycles of crops and impacts their production. By assessing the ecological performance of farms as influenced by crop types, cultivation choices and land suitability one can therefore evaluate the effectiveness of agricultural practices and governance's options. Ecological Footprint accounts can be used to measure such ecological performance. These accounts track human demand for natural resources and ecological services and compare this demand with nature ability to regenerate these resource and services. This regenerative capacity is called biocapacity. Both demand (Footprint) and supply (biocapacity) are expressed in global hectares. Farming different from most other human activities, not only uses natural resources, but also enhances or erodes ecological supply. It therefore affects all factors that determine both Footprint and biocapacity. Climate, farmers' skills and choices (fertilizers, pesticides, machines) determine crop productivity, and to what extent crops preserve or compromise soils. The aim of this work is to evaluate how farmer's choices affect resources overexploitation. The study analysed how the use of inputs influences natural cycles within farm boundaries. This result from a pilot case study will show how particular farming practices affect both the farm's biocapacity and Ecological Footprint. Such analysis is relevant for informing involved stakeholders, namely the farmers on more sustainable agricultural practices and the policy makers on more suitable agricultural policies.

Carbon footprint reductions via grid energy storage systems

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Hale, Trevor S. [Naval Facilities Engineering Service Center, 1100 23rd Avenue, Port Huenem, CA 93043 (United States); Department of Management, Marketing, and Business Administration, University of Houston - Downtown, Houston, Texas (United States); Weeks, Kelly [Department of Maritime Administration, Texas A and M University at Galveston, Galveston, TX 77553 (United States); Tucker, Coleman [Department of Management, Marketing, and Business Administration, University of Houston - Downtown, Houston, Texas 77002 (United States)

2011-07-01

This effort presents a framework for reducing carbon emissions through the use of large-scale grid-energy-storage (GES) systems. The specific questions under investigation herein are as follows: Is it economically sound to invest in a GES system and is the system at least carbon footprint neutral? This research will show the answer to both questions is in the affirmative. Scilicet, when utilized judiciously, grid energy storage systems can be both net present value positive as well as be total carbon footprint negative. The significant contribution herein is a necessary and sufficient condition for achieving carbon footprint reductions via grid energy storage systems.

Guide to Using the WIND Toolkit Validation Code

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lieberman-Cribbin, W.; Draxl, C.; Clifton, A.

2014-12-01

In response to the U.S. Department of Energy's goal of using 20% wind energy by 2030, the Wind Integration National Dataset (WIND) Toolkit was created to provide information on wind speed, wind direction, temperature, surface air pressure, and air density on more than 126,000 locations across the United States from 2007 to 2013. The numerical weather prediction model output, gridded at 2-km and at a 5-minute resolution, was further converted to detail the wind power production time series of existing and potential wind facility sites. For users of the dataset it is important that the information presented in the WIND Toolkit is accurate and that errors are known, as then corrective steps can be taken. Therefore, we provide validation code written in R that will be made public to provide users with tools to validate data of their own locations. Validation is based on statistical analyses of wind speed, using error metrics such as bias, root-mean-square error, centered root-mean-square error, mean absolute error, and percent error. Plots of diurnal cycles, annual cycles, wind roses, histograms of wind speed, and quantile-quantile plots are created to visualize how well observational data compares to model data. Ideally, validation will confirm beneficial locations to utilize wind energy and encourage regional wind integration studies using the WIND Toolkit.

Carbon footprint as environmental performance indicator for the manufacturing industry

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Laurent, Alexis; Olsen, Stig Irving; Hauschild, Michael Zwicky

2010-01-01

With the current focus on our climate change impacts, the embodied CO2 emission or "Carbon footprint" is often used as an environmental performance indicator for our products or production activities. The ability of carbon footprint to represent other types of impact like human toxicity, and hence...... the overall environmental impact is investigated based on life cycle assessments of several materials of major relevance to manufacturing industries. The dependence of the carbon footprint on the assumed scenarios for generation of thermal and electrical energy in the life cycle of the materials is analyzed......, and the appropriateness of carbon footprint as an overall indicator of the environmental performance is discussed....

Innovations and Challenges of Implementing a Glucose Gel Toolkit for Neonatal Hypoglycemia.

Science.gov (United States)

Hammer, Denise; Pohl, Carla; Jacobs, Peggy J; Kaufman, Susan; Drury, Brenda

2018-05-24

Transient neonatal hypoglycemia occurs most commonly in newborns who are small for gestational age, large for gestational age, infants of diabetic mothers, and late preterm infants. An exact blood glucose value has not been determined for neonatal hypoglycemia, and it is important to note that poor neurologic outcomes can occur if hypoglycemia is left untreated. Interventions that separate mothers and newborns, as well as use of formula to treat hypoglycemia, have the potential to disrupt exclusive breastfeeding. To determine whether implementation of a toolkit designed to support staff in the adaptation of the practice change for management of newborns at risk for hypoglycemia, that includes 40% glucose gel in an obstetric unit with a level 2 nursery will decrease admissions to the Intermediate Care Nursery, and increase exclusive breastfeeding. This descriptive study used a retrospective chart review for pre/postimplementation of the Management of Newborns at Risk for Hypoglycemia Toolkit (Toolkit) using a convenience sample of at-risk newborns in the first 2 days of life to evaluate the proposed outcomes. Following implementation of the Toolkit, at-risk newborns had a clinically but not statistically significant 6.5% increase in exclusive breastfeeding and a clinically but not statistically significant 5% decrease in admissions to the Intermediate Care Nursery. The Toolkit was designed for ease of staff use and to improve outcomes for the at-risk newborn. Future research includes replication at other level 2 and level 1 obstetric centers and investigation into the number of 40% glucose gel doses that can safely be administered.

Estimation of Stature from Footprint Anthropometry Using Regression Analysis: A Study on the Bidayuh Population of East Malaysia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

T. Nataraja Moorthy

2015-05-01

Full Text Available The human foot has been studied for a variety of reasons, i.e., for forensic as well as non-forensic purposes by anatomists, forensic scientists, anthropologists, physicians, podiatrists, and numerous other groups. An aspect of human identification that has received scant attention from forensic anthropologists is the study of human feet and the footprints made by the feet. The present study, conducted during 2013-2014, aimed to derive population specific regression equations to estimate stature from the footprint anthropometry of indigenous adult Bidayuhs in the east of Malaysia. The study sample consisted of 480 bilateral footprints collected using a footprint kit from 240 Bidayuhs (120 males and 120 females, who consented to taking part in the study. Their ages ranged from 18 to 70 years. Stature was measured using a portable body meter device (SECA model 206. The data were analyzed using PASW Statistics version 20. In this investigation, better results were obtained in terms of correlation coefficient (R between stature and various footprint measurements and regression analysis in estimating the stature. The (R values showed a positive and statistically significant (p < 0.001 relationship between the two parameters. The correlation coefficients in the pooled sample (0.861–0.882 were comparatively higher than those of an individual male (0.762-0.795 and female (0.722-0.765. This study provided regression equations to estimate stature from footprints in the Bidayuh population. The result showed that the regression equations without sex indicators performed significantly better than models with gender indications. The regression equations derived for a pooled sample can be used to estimate stature, even when the sex of the footprint is unknown, as in real crime scenes.

Potentials and limitations of footprints for gauging environmental sustainability

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Laurent, Alexis; Owsianiak, Mikolaj

2017-01-01

To address the sustainability challenge, a large variety of footprints, aiming at capturing specific impacts of human activities on natural environment, have emerged. But, how do they fit into our addressing of environmental sustainability? Here, we build on a critical literature review to (1......) provide an overview of existing footprints; (2) define their roles; (3) position them within the broad spectrum of known environmental problems and control variables of the planetary boundaries; and (4) argue for the need of consistent thresholds to benchmark footprint scores against absolute...

Integrated System Health Management Development Toolkit

Science.gov (United States)

Figueroa, Jorge; Smith, Harvey; Morris, Jon

2009-01-01

This software toolkit is designed to model complex systems for the implementation of embedded Integrated System Health Management (ISHM) capability, which focuses on determining the condition (health) of every element in a complex system (detect anomalies, diagnose causes, and predict future anomalies), and to provide data, information, and knowledge (DIaK) to control systems for safe and effective operation.

pypet: A Python Toolkit for Data Management of Parameter Explorations.

Science.gov (United States)

Meyer, Robert; Obermayer, Klaus

2016-01-01

pypet (Python parameter exploration toolkit) is a new multi-platform Python toolkit for managing numerical simulations. Sampling the space of model parameters is a key aspect of simulations and numerical experiments. pypet is designed to allow easy and arbitrary sampling of trajectories through a parameter space beyond simple grid searches. pypet collects and stores both simulation parameters and results in a single HDF5 file. This collective storage allows fast and convenient loading of data for further analyses. pypet provides various additional features such as multiprocessing and parallelization of simulations, dynamic loading of data, integration of git version control, and supervision of experiments via the electronic lab notebook Sumatra. pypet supports a rich set of data formats, including native Python types, Numpy and Scipy data, Pandas DataFrames, and BRIAN(2) quantities. Besides these formats, users can easily extend the toolkit to allow customized data types. pypet is a flexible tool suited for both short Python scripts and large scale projects. pypet's various features, especially the tight link between parameters and results, promote reproducible research in computational neuroscience and simulation-based disciplines.

Ecological footprint as indicator of students environmental awareness level at Faculties of Organizational Sciences, University of Belgrade and University of Maribor

OpenAIRE

Petrović, Nataša; Išljamović, Sonja; Jeremić, Veljko; Vuk, Drago; Senegačnik, Marjan

2017-01-01

The Ecological Footprint is a complex sustainability indicator that answers a simple question: How much of the Earth’s resources is demanded to support humankind lifestyle and activities? Ecological Footprint translates consumption and waste flow data into a measurement of the biologically productive area required to sustain that flow. We used Ecological Footprint as input feature that provides an effective heuristic and pedagogic tool for capturing current human resource use. The key aspect ...

The Liquid Argon Software Toolkit (LArSoft): Goals, Status and Plan

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Pordes, Rush [Fermilab; Snider, Erica [Fermilab

2016-08-17

LArSoft is a toolkit that provides a software infrastructure and algorithms for the simulation, reconstruction and analysis of events in Liquid Argon Time Projection Chambers (LArTPCs). It is used by the ArgoNeuT, LArIAT, MicroBooNE, DUNE (including 35ton prototype and ProtoDUNE) and SBND experiments. The LArSoft collaboration provides an environment for the development, use, and sharing of code across experiments. The ultimate goal is to develop fully automatic processes for reconstruction and analysis of LArTPC events. The toolkit is based on the art framework and has a well-defined architecture to interface to other packages, including to GEANT4 and GENIE simulation software and the Pandora software development kit for pattern recognition. It is designed to facilitate and support the evolution of algorithms including their transition to new computing platforms. The development of the toolkit is driven by the scientific stakeholders involved. The core infrastructure includes standard definitions of types and constants, means to input experiment geometries as well as meta and event- data in several formats, and relevant general utilities. Examples of algorithms experiments have contributed to date are: photon-propagation; particle identification; hit finding, track finding and fitting; electromagnetic shower identification and reconstruction. We report on the status of the toolkit and plans for future work.

Redesigning Manufacturing Footprint from Dynamic Perspective

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Yang, Cheng; Farooq, Sami; Johansen, John

2009-01-01

footprint to address the constantly emerging new challenges by giving a holistic approach from dynamic perspective. Three Danish companies are presented. The way they developed their international manufacturing networks is analysed historically, and their redesigning of manufacturing footprint is expressed...... as how to re-assign portfolios of products and processes between specific plants within the same manufacturing network at one point in time. The strategic factors that have impact on such decisions are discussed and classified into two groups. Last, a holistic framework and a process model is presented...

Evaluation of a plot-scale methane emission model using eddy covariance observations and footprint modelling

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

A. Budishchev

2014-09-01

Full Text Available Most plot-scale methane emission models – of which many have been developed in the recent past – are validated using data collected with the closed-chamber technique. This method, however, suffers from a low spatial representativeness and a poor temporal resolution. Also, during a chamber-flux measurement the air within a chamber is separated from the ambient atmosphere, which negates the influence of wind on emissions. Additionally, some methane models are validated by upscaling fluxes based on the area-weighted averages of modelled fluxes, and by comparing those to the eddy covariance (EC flux. This technique is rather inaccurate, as the area of upscaling might be different from the EC tower footprint, therefore introducing significant mismatch. In this study, we present an approach to validate plot-scale methane models with EC observations using the footprint-weighted average method. Our results show that the fluxes obtained by the footprint-weighted average method are of the same magnitude as the EC flux. More importantly, the temporal dynamics of the EC flux on a daily timescale are also captured (r2 = 0.7. In contrast, using the area-weighted average method yielded a low (r2 = 0.14 correlation with the EC measurements. This shows that the footprint-weighted average method is preferable when validating methane emission models with EC fluxes for areas with a heterogeneous and irregular vegetation pattern.

Twelve metropolitan carbon footprints. A preliminary comparative global assessment

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sovacool, Benjamin K.; Brown, Marilyn A.

2010-01-01

A dearth of available data on carbon emissions and comparative analysis between metropolitan areas make it difficult to confirm or refute best practices and policies. To help provide benchmarks and expand our understanding of urban centers and climate change, this article offers a preliminary comparison of the carbon footprints of 12 metropolitan areas. It does this by examining emissions related to vehicles, energy used in buildings, industry, agriculture, and waste. The carbon emissions from these sources - discussed here as the metro area's partial carbon footprint - provide a foundation for identifying the pricing, land use, help metropolitan areas throughout the world respond to climate change. The article begins by exploring a sample of the existing literature on urban morphology and climate change and explaining the methodology used to calculate each area's carbon footprint. The article then depicts the specific carbon footprints for Beijing, Jakarta, London, Los Angeles, Manila, Mexico City, New Delhi, New York, Sao Paulo, Seoul, Singapore, and Tokyo and compares these to respective national averages. It concludes by offering suggestions for how city planners and policymakers can reduce the carbon footprint of these and possibly other large urban areas. (author)

Automated prototyping tool-kit (APT)

OpenAIRE

Nada, Nader; Shing, M.; Berzins, V.; Luqi

2002-01-01

Automated prototyping tool-kit (APT) is an integrated set of software tools that generate source programs directly from real-time requirements. The APT system uses a fifth-generation prototyping language to model the communication structure, timing constraints, 1/0 control, and data buffering that comprise the requirements for an embedded software system. The language supports the specification of hard real-time systems with reusable components from domain specific component libraries. APT ha...

ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT ANALYSIS OF CANNED SWEET CORN

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Phairat Usubharatana

2016-07-01

Full Text Available There has been a notable increase in both consumer knowledge and awareness regarding the ecological benefits of green products and services. Manufacturers now pay more attention to green, environmentally friendly production processes. Two significant tools that can facilitate such a goal are life cycle assessment (LCA and ecological footprint (EF. This study aimed to analyse and determine the damage to the environment, focusing on the canned fruit and vegetable processing. Canned sweet corn (340 g was selected for the case study. All inputs and outputs associated with the product system boundary were collected through field surveys. The acquired inventory was then analysed and evaluated using both LCA and EF methodology. The results were converted into an area of biologically productive land and presented as global hectares (gha. The ecological footprint of one can of sweet corn was calculated as 6.51E-04 gha. The three factors with the highest impact on ecological footprint value were the corn kernels used in the process, the packaging and steam, equivalent to 2.93E-04 gha, 1.19E-04 gha and 1.17E-04 gha respectively. To promote the sustainable development, the company should develop new technology or utilize better management techniques to reduce the ecological footprint of canned food production.

How to Calculate Your Institution's Nitrogen Footprint ...

Science.gov (United States)

The Nitrogen Footprint Tool (NFT) allows institutions to estimate and manage their nitrogen footprint, and EPA’s Sustainable and Healthy Communities program is supporting an effort to test and expand this approach at multiple colleges, universities and institutions across the US. The growing awareness of sustainability has prompted many institutions of higher education to assess and manage their environmental impact. Many universities have programs to decrease their carbon footprint, but carbon represents just one facet of an institution’s environmental impact. Nitrogen is also important because a university’s nitrogen loss to the environment contributes to smog, soil acidification, eutrophication, biodiversity loss, the enhanced greenhouse effect, stratospheric ozone depletion, and more. The attached data template and user’s manual was based on the first NFT created for a university (University of Virginia), and tested in 6 additional institutions (including University of New Hampshire, Brown University, Eastern Mennonite University, Colorado State University). The footprint includes nitrogen released to the environment due to: 1) food consumption; 2) food production, reported by specific food categories (vegetable products, seafood, dairy and eggs, meat); 3) research animals; 4) transportation, including fleet vehicles and commuter vehicles; 5) fertilizer application; and 6) utilities, separated into electricity and heating. The data template and

Embedded Volttron specification - benchmarking small footprint compute device for Volttron

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Sanyal, Jibonananda [Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Fugate, David L. [Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Woodworth, Ken [Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Nutaro, James J. [Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Kuruganti, Teja [Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)

2015-08-17

An embedded system is a small footprint computing unit that typically serves a specific purpose closely associated with measurements and control of hardware devices. These units are designed for reasonable durability and operations in a wide range of operating conditions. Some embedded systems support real-time operations and can demonstrate high levels of reliability. Many have failsafe mechanisms built to handle graceful shutdown of the device in exception conditions. The available memory, processing power, and network connectivity of these devices are limited due to the nature of their specific-purpose design and intended application. Industry practice is to carefully design the software for the available hardware capability to suit desired deployment needs. Volttron is an open source agent development and deployment platform designed to enable researchers to interact with devices and appliances without having to write drivers themselves. Hosting Volttron on small footprint embeddable devices enables its demonstration for embedded use. This report details the steps required and the experience in setting up and running Volttron applications on three small footprint devices: the Intel Next Unit of Computing (NUC), the Raspberry Pi 2, and the BeagleBone Black. In addition, the report also details preliminary investigation of the execution performance of Volttron on these devices.

The green, blue and grey water footprint of crops and derived crop products

Science.gov (United States)

Mekonnen, M. M.; Hoekstra, A. Y.

2011-05-01

This study quantifies the green, blue and grey water footprint of global crop production in a spatially-explicit way for the period 1996-2005. The assessment improves upon earlier research by taking a high-resolution approach, estimating the water footprint of 126 crops at a 5 by 5 arc minute grid. We have used a grid-based dynamic water balance model to calculate crop water use over time, with a time step of one day. The model takes into account the daily soil water balance and climatic conditions for each grid cell. In addition, the water pollution associated with the use of nitrogen fertilizer in crop production is estimated for each grid cell. The crop evapotranspiration of additional 20 minor crops is calculated with the CROPWAT model. In addition, we have calculated the water footprint of more than two hundred derived crop products, including various flours, beverages, fibres and biofuels. We have used the water footprint assessment framework as in the guideline of the Water Footprint Network. Considering the water footprints of primary crops, we see that the global average water footprint per ton of crop increases from sugar crops (roughly 200 m3 ton-1), vegetables (300 m3 ton-1), roots and tubers (400 m3 ton-1), fruits (1000 m3 ton-1), cereals (1600 m3 ton-1), oil crops (2400 m3 ton-1) to pulses (4000 m3 ton-1). The water footprint varies, however, across different crops per crop category and per production region as well. Besides, if one considers the water footprint per kcal, the picture changes as well. When considered per ton of product, commodities with relatively large water footprints are: coffee, tea, cocoa, tobacco, spices, nuts, rubber and fibres. The analysis of water footprints of different biofuels shows that bio-ethanol has a lower water footprint (in m3 GJ-1) than biodiesel, which supports earlier analyses. The crop used matters significantly as well: the global average water footprint of bio-ethanol based on sugar beet amounts to 51 m3 GJ-1

Evaluating the parent-adolescent communication toolkit: Usability and preliminary content effectiveness of an online intervention.

Science.gov (United States)

Toombs, Elaine; Unruh, Anita; McGrath, Patrick

2018-01-01

This study aimed to assess the Parent-Adolescent Communication Toolkit, an online intervention designed to help improve parent communication with their adolescents. Participant preferences for two module delivery systems (sequential and unrestricted module access) were identified. Usability assessment of the PACT intervention was completed using pre-test and posttest comparisons. Usability data, including participant completion and satisfaction ratings were examined. Parents ( N  =   18) of adolescents were randomized to a sequential or unrestricted chapter access group. Parent participants completed pre-test measures, the PACT intervention and posttest measures. Participants provided feedback for the intervention to improve modules and provided usability ratings. Adolescent pre- and posttest ratings were evaluated. Usability ratings were high and parent feedback was positive. The sequential module access groups rated the intervention content higher and completed more content than the unrestricted chapter access group, indicating support for the sequential access design. Parent mean posttest communication scores were significantly higher ( p  Communication Toolkit has potential to improve parent-adolescent communication but further effectiveness assessment is required.

Monitoring the grid with the Globus Toolkit MDS4

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Schopf, Jennifer M; Pearlman, Laura; Miller, Neill; Kesselman, Carl; Foster, Ian; D'Arcy, Mike; Chervenak, Ann

2006-01-01

The Globus Toolkit Monitoring and Discovery System (MDS4) defines and implements mechanisms for service and resource discovery and monitoring in distributed environments. MDS4 is distinguished from previous similar systems by its extensive use of interfaces and behaviors defined in the WS-Resource Framework and WS-Notification specifications, and by its deep integration into essentially every component of the Globus Toolkit. We describe the MDS4 architecture and the Web service interfaces and behaviors that allow users to discover resources and services, monitor resource and service states, receive updates on current status, and visualize monitoring results. We present two current deployments to provide insights into the functionality that can be achieved via the use of these mechanisms

Integrating existing software toolkits into VO system

Science.gov (United States)

Cui, Chenzhou; Zhao, Yong-Heng; Wang, Xiaoqian; Sang, Jian; Luo, Ze

2004-09-01

Virtual Observatory (VO) is a collection of interoperating data archives and software tools. Taking advantages of the latest information technologies, it aims to provide a data-intensively online research environment for astronomers all around the world. A large number of high-qualified astronomical software packages and libraries are powerful and easy of use, and have been widely used by astronomers for many years. Integrating those toolkits into the VO system is a necessary and important task for the VO developers. VO architecture greatly depends on Grid and Web services, consequently the general VO integration route is "Java Ready - Grid Ready - VO Ready". In the paper, we discuss the importance of VO integration for existing toolkits and discuss the possible solutions. We introduce two efforts in the field from China-VO project, "gImageMagick" and "Galactic abundance gradients statistical research under grid environment". We also discuss what additional work should be done to convert Grid service to VO service.

Energy Savings Performance Contract Energy Sales Agreement Toolkit

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

None

2017-08-14

FEMP developed the Energy Savings Performance Contracting Energy Sales Agreement (ESPC ESA) Toolkit to provide federal agency contracting officers and other acquisition team members with information that will facilitate the timely execution of ESPC ESA projects.

[Carbon footprint of buildings in the urban agglomeration of central Liaoning, China].

Science.gov (United States)

Shi, Yu; Yun, Ying Xia; Liu, Chong; Chu, Ya Qi

2017-06-18

With the development of urbanization in China, buildings consumed lots of material and energy. How to estimate carbon emission of buildings is an important scientific problem. Carbon footprint of the central Liaoning agglomeration was studied with carbon footprint approach, geographic information system (GIS) and high-resolution remote sensing (HRRS) technology. The results showed that the construction carbon footprint coefficient of central Liaoning urban agglomeration was 269.16 kg·m -2 . The approach of interpreting total building area and spatial distribution with HRRS was effective, and the accuracy was 89%. The extraction approach was critical for total carbon footprint and spatial distribution estimation. The building area and total carbon footprint of central Liaoning urban agglomeration in descending order was Shenyang, Anshan, Fushun, Liao-yang, Yingkou, Tieling and Benxi. The annual average increment of footprint from 2011 to 2013 in descending order was Shenyang, Benxi, Fushun, Anshan, Tieling, Yingkou and Liaoyang. The accurate estimation of construction carbon footprint spatial and its distribution was of significance for the planning and optimization of carbon emission reduction.

Advanced entry guidance algorithm with landing footprint computation

Science.gov (United States)

Leavitt, James Aaron

The design and performance evaluation of an entry guidance algorithm for future space transportation vehicles is presented. The algorithm performs two functions: on-board trajectory planning and trajectory tracking. The planned longitudinal path is followed by tracking drag acceleration, as is done by the Space Shuttle entry guidance. Unlike the Shuttle entry guidance, lateral path curvature is also planned and followed. A new trajectory planning function for the guidance algorithm is developed that is suitable for suborbital entry and that significantly enhances the overall performance of the algorithm for both orbital and suborbital entry. In comparison with the previous trajectory planner, the new planner produces trajectories that are easier to track, especially near the upper and lower drag boundaries and for suborbital entry. The new planner accomplishes this by matching the vehicle's initial flight path angle and bank angle, and by enforcing the full three-degree-of-freedom equations of motion with control derivative limits. Insights gained from trajectory optimization results contribute to the design of the new planner, giving it near-optimal downrange and crossrange capabilities. Planned trajectories and guidance simulation results are presented that demonstrate the improved performance. Based on the new planner, a method is developed for approximating the landing footprint for entry vehicles in near real-time, as would be needed for an on-board flight management system. The boundary of the footprint is constructed from the endpoints of extreme downrange and crossrange trajectories generated by the new trajectory planner. The footprint algorithm inherently possesses many of the qualities of the new planner, including quick execution, the ability to accurately approximate the vehicle's glide capabilities, and applicability to a wide range of entry conditions. Footprints can be generated for orbital and suborbital entry conditions using a pre

XPIWIT--an XML pipeline wrapper for the Insight Toolkit.

Science.gov (United States)

Bartschat, Andreas; Hübner, Eduard; Reischl, Markus; Mikut, Ralf; Stegmaier, Johannes

2016-01-15

The Insight Toolkit offers plenty of features for multidimensional image analysis. Current implementations, however, often suffer either from a lack of flexibility due to hard-coded C++ pipelines for a certain task or by slow execution times, e.g. caused by inefficient implementations or multiple read/write operations for separate filter execution. We present an XML-based wrapper application for the Insight Toolkit that combines the performance of a pure C++ implementation with an easy-to-use graphical setup of dynamic image analysis pipelines. Created XML pipelines can be interpreted and executed by XPIWIT in console mode either locally or on large clusters. We successfully applied the software tool for the automated analysis of terabyte-scale, time-resolved 3D image data of zebrafish embryos. XPIWIT is implemented in C++ using the Insight Toolkit and the Qt SDK. It has been successfully compiled and tested under Windows and Unix-based systems. Software and documentation are distributed under Apache 2.0 license and are publicly available for download at https://bitbucket.org/jstegmaier/xpiwit/downloads/. johannes.stegmaier@kit.edu Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online. © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Manufacturing footprint optimisation: a necessity for manufacturing network in changing business environment

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Yang, Cheng; Farooq, Sami; Johansen, John

2010-01-01

Facing the unpredictable financial crisis, optimising the footprint can be the biggest and most important transformation a manufacturer can undertake. In order to realise the optimisation, fundamental understanding on manufacturing footprint is required. Different elements of manufacturing...... footprint have been investigated independently in the existing literature. In this paper, for the purpose of relationship exploration between different elements, manufacturing footprints of three industrial companies are traced historically. Based on them, four reasons for the transformation...

Development and formative evaluation of the e-Health Implementation Toolkit (e-HIT

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mair Frances

2010-10-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background The use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT or e-Health is seen as essential for a modern, cost-effective health service. However, there are well documented problems with implementation of e-Health initiatives, despite the existence of a great deal of research into how best to implement e-Health (an example of the gap between research and practice. This paper reports on the development and formative evaluation of an e-Health Implementation Toolkit (e-HIT which aims to summarise and synthesise new and existing research on implementation of e-Health initiatives, and present it to senior managers in a user-friendly format. Results The content of the e-HIT was derived by combining data from a systematic review of reviews of barriers and facilitators to implementation of e-Health initiatives with qualitative data derived from interviews of "implementers", that is people who had been charged with implementing an e-Health initiative. These data were summarised, synthesised and combined with the constructs from the Normalisation Process Model. The software for the toolkit was developed by a commercial company (RocketScience. Formative evaluation was undertaken by obtaining user feedback. There are three components to the toolkit - a section on background and instructions for use aimed at novice users; the toolkit itself; and the report generated by completing the toolkit. It is available to download from http://www.ucl.ac.uk/pcph/research/ehealth/documents/e-HIT.xls Conclusions The e-HIT shows potential as a tool for enhancing future e-Health implementations. Further work is needed to make it fully web-enabled, and to determine its predictive potential for future implementations.

PAGANI Toolkit: Parallel graph-theoretical analysis package for brain network big data.

Science.gov (United States)

Du, Haixiao; Xia, Mingrui; Zhao, Kang; Liao, Xuhong; Yang, Huazhong; Wang, Yu; He, Yong

2018-05-01

The recent collection of unprecedented quantities of neuroimaging data with high spatial resolution has led to brain network big data. However, a toolkit for fast and scalable computational solutions is still lacking. Here, we developed the PArallel Graph-theoretical ANalysIs (PAGANI) Toolkit based on a hybrid central processing unit-graphics processing unit (CPU-GPU) framework with a graphical user interface to facilitate the mapping and characterization of high-resolution brain networks. Specifically, the toolkit provides flexible parameters for users to customize computations of graph metrics in brain network analyses. As an empirical example, the PAGANI Toolkit was applied to individual voxel-based brain networks with ∼200,000 nodes that were derived from a resting-state fMRI dataset of 624 healthy young adults from the Human Connectome Project. Using a personal computer, this toolbox completed all computations in ∼27 h for one subject, which is markedly less than the 118 h required with a single-thread implementation. The voxel-based functional brain networks exhibited prominent small-world characteristics and densely connected hubs, which were mainly located in the medial and lateral fronto-parietal cortices. Moreover, the female group had significantly higher modularity and nodal betweenness centrality mainly in the medial/lateral fronto-parietal and occipital cortices than the male group. Significant correlations between the intelligence quotient and nodal metrics were also observed in several frontal regions. Collectively, the PAGANI Toolkit shows high computational performance and good scalability for analyzing connectome big data and provides a friendly interface without the complicated configuration of computing environments, thereby facilitating high-resolution connectomics research in health and disease. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

NNCTRL - a CANCSD toolkit for MATLAB(R)

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nørgård, Peter Magnus; Ravn, Ole; Poulsen, Niels Kjølstad

1996-01-01

A set of tools for computer-aided neuro-control system design (CANCSD) has been developed for the MATLAB environment. The tools can be used for construction and simulation of a variety of neural network based control systems. The design methods featured in the toolkit are: direct inverse control...

Air-source heat pump carbon footprints: HFC impacts and comparison to other heat sources

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Johnson, Eric P.

2011-01-01

European governments see that heat pumps could reduce carbon emissions in space- and hot-water heating. EU's Renewable Energy Directive designates heat pumps as renewable - eligible for various subsidies - if their carbon footprints are below an implied, average threshold. This threshold omits carbon generated by manufacture and emission of a heat-pump's fluorocarbon refrigerant. It also omits the footprint of the heat pump's hardware. To see if these omissions are significant, this study calculated carbon footprints of representative, residential heat pumps in the UK. Three findings emerged. First, in relation to power generation, which accounts for most of a heat-pump's greenhouse-gas emissions, fluorocarbons add another 20% to the footprint. Second, at UK efficiencies a heat-pump footprint (in kg CO 2 e emitted per kWh delivered) is comparable or higher than footprints of gaseous fuels used in heating. It is lower than the footprint of heating oil and far lower than the footprints of solid fuels. Third, production and disposal of a heat pump's hardware is relatively insignificant, accounting for only 2-3% of the overall heat-pump footprint. Sensitivities to the results were assessed: key factors are footprint of electricity generation, F-gas composition and leak rates and type of wall construction. - Research highlights: → Refrigerant emissions add 20% to a UK air-source heat pump's carbon footprint. → This contribution is so far ignored by regulations. → UK heat pump footprints are comparable to those of gaseous fuels.

Ethnography in design: Tool-kit or analytic science?

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bossen, Claus

2002-01-01

The role of ethograpyh in system development is discussed through the selective application of an ethnographic easy-to-use toolkit, Contextual design, by a computer firm in the initial stages of the development of a health care system....

Spatially and temporally explicit water footprint accounting

OpenAIRE

Mekonnen, Mesfin

2011-01-01

The earth’s freshwater resources are subject to increasing pressure in the form of consumptive water use and pollution (Postel, 2000; WWAP, 2003, 2006, 2009). Quantitative assessment of the green, blue and grey water footprint of global production and consumption can be regarded as a key in understanding the pressure put on the global freshwater resources. The overall objective of this thesis is, therefore, to analyse the spatial and temporal pattern of the water footprint of humans from both...

Integrating ecological, carbon and water footprint into a "footprint family" of indicators: Definition and role in tracking human pressure on the planet

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Galli, A.; Wiedmann, T.O.; Ercin, Ertug; Knoblauch, D.; Ewing, B.R.; Giljum, S.

2012-01-01

In recent years, attempts have been made to develop an integrated Footprint approach for the assessment of the environmental impacts of production and consumption. In this paper, we provide for the first time a definition of the “Footprint Family” as a suite of indicators to track human pressure on

The nursing human resource planning best practice toolkit: creating a best practice resource for nursing managers.

Science.gov (United States)

Vincent, Leslie; Beduz, Mary Agnes

2010-05-01

Evidence of acute nursing shortages in urban hospitals has been surfacing since 2000. Further, new graduate nurses account for more than 50% of total nurse turnover in some hospitals and between 35% and 60% of new graduates change workplace during the first year. Critical to organizational success, first line nurse managers must have the knowledge and skills to ensure the accurate projection of nursing resource requirements and to develop proactive recruitment and retention programs that are effective, promote positive nursing socialization, and provide early exposure to the clinical setting. The Nursing Human Resource Planning Best Practice Toolkit project supported the creation of a network of teaching and community hospitals to develop a best practice toolkit in nursing human resource planning targeted at first line nursing managers. The toolkit includes the development of a framework including the conceptual building blocks of planning tools, manager interventions, retention and recruitment and professional practice models. The development of the toolkit involved conducting a review of the literature for best practices in nursing human resource planning, using a mixed method approach to data collection including a survey and extensive interviews of managers and completing a comprehensive scan of human resource practices in the participating organizations. This paper will provide an overview of the process used to develop the toolkit, a description of the toolkit contents and a reflection on the outcomes of the project.

Analysis of the carbon footprint of coastal protection systems

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Labrujere, A.L.; Verhagen, H.J.

2012-01-01

When calculating the Carbon Footprint for a product or service, a direct link is made between the total amount of consumed energy and the produced amount of carbon dioxide during production. For that reason calculating the carbon footprint of various alternatives is a very straightforward method to

The green, blue and grey water footprint of crops and derived crop products

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

M. M. Mekonnen

2011-05-01

Full Text Available This study quantifies the green, blue and grey water footprint of global crop production in a spatially-explicit way for the period 1996–2005. The assessment improves upon earlier research by taking a high-resolution approach, estimating the water footprint of 126 crops at a 5 by 5 arc minute grid. We have used a grid-based dynamic water balance model to calculate crop water use over time, with a time step of one day. The model takes into account the daily soil water balance and climatic conditions for each grid cell. In addition, the water pollution associated with the use of nitrogen fertilizer in crop production is estimated for each grid cell. The crop evapotranspiration of additional 20 minor crops is calculated with the CROPWAT model. In addition, we have calculated the water footprint of more than two hundred derived crop products, including various flours, beverages, fibres and biofuels. We have used the water footprint assessment framework as in the guideline of the Water Footprint Network.

Considering the water footprints of primary crops, we see that the global average water footprint per ton of crop increases from sugar crops (roughly 200 m³ ton⁻¹, vegetables (300 m³ ton⁻¹, roots and tubers (400 m³ ton⁻¹, fruits (1000 m³ ton⁻¹, cereals (1600 m³ ton⁻¹, oil crops (2400 m³ ton⁻¹ to pulses (4000 m³ ton⁻¹. The water footprint varies, however, across different crops per crop category and per production region as well. Besides, if one considers the water footprint per kcal, the picture changes as well. When considered per ton of product, commodities with relatively large water footprints are: coffee, tea, cocoa, tobacco, spices, nuts, rubber and fibres. The analysis of water footprints of different biofuels shows that bio-ethanol has a lower water footprint (in m

pypet: A Python Toolkit for Data Management of Parameter Explorations

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Robert Meyer

2016-08-01

Full Text Available pypet (Python parameter exploration toolkit is a new multi-platform Python toolkit for managing numerical simulations. Sampling the space of model parameters is a key aspect of simulations and numerical experiments. pypet is designed to allow easy and arbitrary sampling of trajectories through a parameter space beyond simple grid searches.pypet collects and stores both simulation parameters and results in a single HDF5 file.This collective storage allows fast and convenient loading of data for further analyses.pypet provides various additional features such as multiprocessing and parallelization of simulations, dynamic loading of data, integration of git version control, and supervision of experiments via the electronic lab notebook Sumatra. pypet supports a rich set of data formats, including native Python types, Numpy and Scipy data, Pandas DataFrames, and BRIAN(2 quantities. Besides these formats, users can easily extend the toolkit to allow customized data types. pypet is a flexible tool suited for both short Python scripts and large scale projects. pypet's various features, especially the tight link between parameters and results, promote reproducible research in computational neuroscience and simulation-based disciplines.

The Effect of Learning Cycle Model on Students’ Reducing Ecological Footprints

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Özgül Keleş

2011-12-01

Full Text Available The objective of this study is to investigate effect of ecological footprint education, in which 5E learning cycle model is used, in reducing primary school students’ ecological footprints. The working group of the study is composed of 124 primary school students studying in 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th classes. In this study, 5E learning model is used in teaching a course in order to increase the participating students’ knowledge about ecological footprints and to calculate ecological footprints. Experimental method is used in this study. In data analysis, the paired samples t-test is used in for relevant samplings. The findings gathered indicate that ecological footprints of the participating students to the study decreased at the end of the study. It is determined that the mean of primary students’ ecological footprints differ from meaningfully according to level of the class and sex. Prospective solution offers are developed by handling the prospective effects of conclusions of the study on sustainable life and environmental education and conclusions’ importance in terms of learning and developing learning programmes with a critical point of view

Building Emergency Contraception Awareness among Adolescents. A Toolkit for Schools and Community-Based Organizations.

Science.gov (United States)

Simkin, Linda; Radosh, Alice; Nelsesteun, Kari; Silverstein, Stacy

This toolkit presents emergency contraception (EC) as a method to help adolescent women avoid pregnancy and abortion after unprotected sexual intercourse. The sections of this toolkit are designed to help increase your knowledge of EC and stay up to date. They provide suggestions for increasing EC awareness in the workplace, whether it is a school…

Update of a footprint-based approach for the characterisation of complex measurement sites

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Goeckede, M.; Markkanen, T.; Hasager, C.B.

2006-01-01

, and the determination of effective roughness lengths with a flux aggregation model in a pre-processing step. Detailed terrain data gathered by remote sensing methods are included. This approach determines spatial structures in the quality of flux data for varying meteorological conditions. The results help to identify...... terrain influences affecting the quality of flux data, such as dominating obstacles upwind of the site, or slopes biasing the wind field, so that the most suitable footprint regions for the collection of high-quality datasets can be identified. Additionally, the approach can be used to evaluate...

FLORIDA TOWER FOOTPRINT EXPERIMENTS

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

WATSON,T.B.; DIETZ, R.N.; WILKE, R.; HENDREY, G.; LEWIN, K.; NAGY, J.; LECLERC, M.

2007-01-01

The Florida Footprint experiments were a series of field programs in which perfluorocarbon tracers were released in different configurations centered on a flux tower to generate a data set that can be used to test transport and dispersion models. These models are used to determine the sources of the CO{sub 2} that cause the fluxes measured at eddy covariance towers. Experiments were conducted in a managed slash pine forest, 10 km northeast of Gainesville, Florida, in 2002, 2004, and 2006 and in atmospheric conditions that ranged from well mixed, to very stable, including the transition period between convective conditions at midday to stable conditions after sun set. There were a total of 15 experiments. The characteristics of the PFTs, details of sampling and analysis methods, quality control measures, and analytical statistics including confidence limits are presented. Details of the field programs including tracer release rates, tracer source configurations, and configuration of the samplers are discussed. The result of this experiment is a high quality, well documented tracer and meteorological data set that can be used to improve and validate canopy dispersion models.

Estimating Biofuel Feedstock Water Footprints Using System Dynamics

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Inman, Daniel; Warner, Ethan; Stright, Dana; Macknick, Jordan; Peck, Corey

2016-07-01

Increased biofuel production has prompted concerns about the environmental tradeoffs of biofuels compared to petroleum-based fuels. Biofuel production in general, and feedstock production in particular, is under increased scrutiny. Water footprinting (measuring direct and indirect water use) has been proposed as one measure to evaluate water use in the context of concerns about depleting rural water supplies through activities such as irrigation for large-scale agriculture. Water footprinting literature has often been limited in one or more key aspects: complete assessment across multiple water stocks (e.g., vadose zone, surface, and ground water stocks), geographical resolution of data, consistent representation of many feedstocks, and flexibility to perform scenario analysis. We developed a model called BioSpatial H2O using a system dynamics modeling and database framework. BioSpatial H2O could be used to consistently evaluate the complete water footprints of multiple biomass feedstocks at high geospatial resolutions. BioSpatial H2O has the flexibility to perform simultaneous scenario analysis of current and potential future crops under alternative yield and climate conditions. In this proof-of-concept paper, we modeled corn grain (Zea mays L.) and soybeans (Glycine max) under current conditions as illustrative results. BioSpatial H2O links to a unique database that houses annual spatially explicit climate, soil, and plant physiological data. Parameters from the database are used as inputs to our system dynamics model for estimating annual crop water requirements using daily time steps. Based on our review of the literature, estimated green water footprints are comparable to other modeled results, suggesting that BioSpatial H2O is computationally sound for future scenario analysis. Our modeling framework builds on previous water use analyses to provide a platform for scenario-based assessment. BioSpatial H2O's system dynamics is a flexible and user

An open-source LabVIEW application toolkit for phasic heart rate analysis in psychophysiological research.

Science.gov (United States)

Duley, Aaron R; Janelle, Christopher M; Coombes, Stephen A

2004-11-01

The cardiovascular system has been extensively measured in a variety of research and clinical domains. Despite technological and methodological advances in cardiovascular science, the analysis and evaluation of phasic changes in heart rate persists as a way to assess numerous psychological concomitants. Some researchers, however, have pointed to constraints on data analysis when evaluating cardiac activity indexed by heart rate or heart period. Thus, an off-line application toolkit for heart rate analysis is presented. The program, written with National Instruments' LabVIEW, incorporates a variety of tools for off-line extraction and analysis of heart rate data. Current methods and issues concerning heart rate analysis are highlighted, and how the toolkit provides a flexible environment to ameliorate common problems that typically lead to trial rejection is discussed. Source code for this program may be downloaded from the Psychonomic Society Web archive at www.psychonomic.org/archive/.

Carbon footprints of cities and other human settlements in the UK

Science.gov (United States)

Minx, Jan; Baiocchi, Giovanni; Wiedmann, Thomas; Barrett, John; Creutzig, Felix; Feng, Kuishuang; Förster, Michael; Pichler, Peter-Paul; Weisz, Helga; Hubacek, Klaus

2013-09-01

A growing body of literature discusses the CO2 emissions of cities. Still, little is known about emission patterns across density gradients from remote rural places to highly urbanized areas, the drivers behind those emission patterns and the global emissions triggered by consumption in human settlements—referred to here as the carbon footprint. In this letter we use a hybrid method for estimating the carbon footprints of cities and other human settlements in the UK explicitly linking global supply chains to local consumption activities and associated lifestyles. This analysis comprises all areas in the UK, whether rural or urban. We compare our consumption-based results with extended territorial CO2 emission estimates and analyse the driving forces that determine the carbon footprint of human settlements in the UK. Our results show that 90% of the human settlements in the UK are net importers of CO2 emissions. Consumption-based CO2 emissions are much more homogeneous than extended territorial emissions. Both the highest and lowest carbon footprints can be found in urban areas, but the carbon footprint is consistently higher relative to extended territorial CO2 emissions in urban as opposed to rural settlement types. The impact of high or low density living remains limited; instead, carbon footprints can be comparatively high or low across density gradients depending on the location-specific socio-demographic, infrastructural and geographic characteristics of the area under consideration. We show that the carbon footprint of cities and other human settlements in the UK is mainly determined by socio-economic rather than geographic and infrastructural drivers at the spatial aggregation of our analysis. It increases with growing income, education and car ownership as well as decreasing household size. Income is not more important than most other socio-economic determinants of the carbon footprint. Possibly, the relationship between lifestyles and infrastructure only

Carbon footprints of cities and other human settlements in the UK

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Minx, Jan; Pichler, Peter-Paul; Weisz, Helga; Baiocchi, Giovanni; Wiedmann, Thomas; Barrett, John; Creutzig, Felix; Feng, Kuishuang; Hubacek, Klaus; Förster, Michael

2013-01-01

A growing body of literature discusses the CO 2 emissions of cities. Still, little is known about emission patterns across density gradients from remote rural places to highly urbanized areas, the drivers behind those emission patterns and the global emissions triggered by consumption in human settlements—referred to here as the carbon footprint. In this letter we use a hybrid method for estimating the carbon footprints of cities and other human settlements in the UK explicitly linking global supply chains to local consumption activities and associated lifestyles. This analysis comprises all areas in the UK, whether rural or urban. We compare our consumption-based results with extended territorial CO 2 emission estimates and analyse the driving forces that determine the carbon footprint of human settlements in the UK. Our results show that 90% of the human settlements in the UK are net importers of CO 2 emissions. Consumption-based CO 2 emissions are much more homogeneous than extended territorial emissions. Both the highest and lowest carbon footprints can be found in urban areas, but the carbon footprint is consistently higher relative to extended territorial CO 2 emissions in urban as opposed to rural settlement types. The impact of high or low density living remains limited; instead, carbon footprints can be comparatively high or low across density gradients depending on the location-specific socio-demographic, infrastructural and geographic characteristics of the area under consideration. We show that the carbon footprint of cities and other human settlements in the UK is mainly determined by socio-economic rather than geographic and infrastructural drivers at the spatial aggregation of our analysis. It increases with growing income, education and car ownership as well as decreasing household size. Income is not more important than most other socio-economic determinants of the carbon footprint. Possibly, the relationship between lifestyles and infrastructure

Carbon footprinting of electronic products

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Vasan, Arvind; Sood, Bhanu; Pecht, Michael

2014-01-01

Highlights: • Challenges in adopting existing CF standards for electronic products are discussed. • Carbon footprint of electronic products is underestimated using existing standards. • Multipronged approach is presented to overcome the identified challenges. • Multipronged approach demonstrated on commercial and military grade DC–DC converter system. - Abstract: In order to mitigate the effects of global warming, companies are being compelled by governments, investors, and customers to control their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Similar to the European Union’s legislation on the airline industry, legislation is expected to require the electronics industry to assess their product’s carbon footprint before sale or use, as the electronics industry’s contribution to global GHG emissions is comparable to the airline industry’s contribution. Thus, it is necessary for members of the electronics industry to assess their current GHG emission rates and identify methods to reduce environmental impacts. Organizations use Carbon Footprint (CF) analysis methods to identify and quantify the GHG emissions associated with the life cycle stages of their product or services. This paper discusses the prevailing methods used by organizations to estimate the CF of their electronics products and identifies the challenges faced by the electronics industry when adopting these methods in an environment of decreasing product development cycles with complex and diffuse supply chains. We find that, as a result of the inconsistencies arising from the system boundary selection methods and databases, the use of outdated LCA approaches, and the lack of supplier’s emissions-related data, the CFs of electronic products are typically underestimated. To address these challenges, we present a comprehensive approach to the carbon footprinting of electronic products that involves the use of product-group-oriented standards, hybrid life cycle assessment techniques, and the

Guest editors' introduction to the 4th issue of Experimental Software and Toolkits (EST-4)

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Brand, van den M.G.J.; Kienle, H.M.; Mens, K.

2014-01-01

Experimental software and toolkits play a crucial role in computer science. Elsevier’s Science of Computer Programming special issues on Experimental Software and Toolkits (EST) provide a means for academic tool builders to get more visibility and credit for their work, by publishing a paper along

Surveying the Environmental Footprint of Urban Food Consumption

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Goldstein, Benjamin Paul; Birkved, Morten; Fernandez, John

2017-01-01

Assessments of urban metabolism (UM) are well situated to identify the scale, components, and direction of urban and energy flows in cities and have been instrumental in benchmarking and monitoring the key levers of urban environmental pressure, such as transport, space conditioning......, and electricity. Hitherto, urban food consumption has garnered scant attention both in UM accounting (typically lumped with “biomass”) and on the urban policy agenda, despite its relevance to local and global environmental pressures. With future growth expected in urban population and wealth, an accounting...... of the environmental footprint from urban food demand (“foodprint”) is necessary. This article reviews 43 UM assessments including 100 cities, and a total of 132 foodprints in terms of mass, carbon footprint, and ecological footprint and situates it relative to other significant environmental drivers (transport...

Numerical relativity in spherical coordinates with the Einstein Toolkit

Science.gov (United States)

Mewes, Vassilios; Zlochower, Yosef; Campanelli, Manuela; Ruchlin, Ian; Etienne, Zachariah B.; Baumgarte, Thomas W.

2018-04-01

Numerical relativity codes that do not make assumptions on spatial symmetries most commonly adopt Cartesian coordinates. While these coordinates have many attractive features, spherical coordinates are much better suited to take advantage of approximate symmetries in a number of astrophysical objects, including single stars, black holes, and accretion disks. While the appearance of coordinate singularities often spoils numerical relativity simulations in spherical coordinates, especially in the absence of any symmetry assumptions, it has recently been demonstrated that these problems can be avoided if the coordinate singularities are handled analytically. This is possible with the help of a reference-metric version of the Baumgarte-Shapiro-Shibata-Nakamura formulation together with a proper rescaling of tensorial quantities. In this paper we report on an implementation of this formalism in the Einstein Toolkit. We adapt the Einstein Toolkit infrastructure, originally designed for Cartesian coordinates, to handle spherical coordinates, by providing appropriate boundary conditions at both inner and outer boundaries. We perform numerical simulations for a disturbed Kerr black hole, extract the gravitational wave signal, and demonstrate that the noise in these signals is orders of magnitude smaller when computed on spherical grids rather than Cartesian grids. With the public release of our new Einstein Toolkit thorns, our methods for numerical relativity in spherical coordinates will become available to the entire numerical relativity community.

Understanding the LCA and ISO water footprint: A response to Hoekstra (2016) “A critique on the water-scarcity weighted water footprint in LCA”

Science.gov (United States)

Water footprinting has emerged as an important approach to assess water use related effects from consumption of goods and services. Assessment methods are proposed by two different communities, the Water Footprint Network (WFN) and the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) community. The p...

Sugarcane ethanol production in Malawi: Measures to optimize the carbon footprint and to avoid indirect emissions

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dunkelberg, Elisa; Finkbeiner, Matthias; Hirschl, Bernd

2014-01-01

Sugarcane ethanol is considered to be one of the most efficient first-generation biofuels in terms of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The carbon footprint (CF), however, increases significantly when taking into account emissions induced by indirect land-use changes (ILUC). This case study investigates sugarcane ethanol production in the Republic of Malawi, in Sub-Sahara Africa (SSA); the research objectives were to identify and quantify direct and indirect emissions and to identify measures to optimize the CF. The CF has been calculated with a life cycle approach and with data obtained from the involved companies; our estimations with regard to ILUC take into account further expansion plans for sugarcane crop production. Under existing production conditions ethanol produced in Malawi leads to GHG emissions expressed as CO 2eq of 116 g MJ −1 of ethanol. However, high optimization potentials exist when the vinasse is used as an input for biogas production and the harvesting switches from pre-harvest burning to green harvesting. ILUC induced by prospective sugarcane expansions in the Southern Region will, according to current planning, probably not occur since these expansions are linked to the implementation of a large-scale irrigation project. However if ILUC takes place, high levels of additional CO 2 emissions of about 77 g MJ −1 of ethanol are to be expected. Although the case study results are only valid for a specific region, some of the findings, such as the high compensation potential regarding ILUC through investments in irrigation systems, may be transferable to other regions in SSA. - Highlights: • We conducted a case study on sugarcane ethanol production in Malawi and calculated its carbon footprint (CF). • The current CF of sugarcane ethanol produced in the Southern Region in Malawi amounts for 116 g MJ −1 of ethanol. • The usage of vinasse in biogas plants would significantly improve the CF. • Another optimization measure is to

Understanding the LCA and ISO water footprint: A response to ...

Science.gov (United States)

Water footprinting has emerged as an important approach to assess water use related effects from consumption of goods and services. Assessment methods are proposed by two different communities, the Water Footprint Network (WFN) and the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) community. The proposed methods are broadly similar and encompass both the computation of water use and its impacts, but differ in communication of a water footprint result. In this paper, we explain the role and goal of LCA and ISO-compatible water footprinting and resolve the six issues raised by Hoekstra (2016) in “A critique on the water-scarcity weighted water footprint in LCA”. By clarifying the concerns, we identify both the overlapping goals in the WFN and LCA water footprint assessments and discrepancies between them. The main differing perspective between the WFN and LCA-based approach seems to relate to the fact that LCA aims to account for environmental impacts, while the WFN aims to account for water productivity of global fresh water as a limited resource. We conclude that there is potential to use synergies in research for the two approaches and highlight the need for proper declaration of the methods applied. This paper advances efforts to understand ways to accurately capture use of water in life cycle analysis in other contexts. As the paper indicates, there is a discussion about whether quantities of water should be weighted by some local stress factor. This paper attempts to brid

Carbon footprint evaluation at industrial park level: A hybrid life cycle assessment approach

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dong, Huijuan; Geng, Yong; Xi, Fengming; Fujita, Tsuyoshi

2013-01-01

Industrial parks have become the effective strategies for government to promote sustainable economic development due to the following advantages: shared infrastructure and concentrated industrial activities within planned areas. However, due to intensive energy consumption and dependence on fossil fuels, industrial parks have become the main areas for greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, it is critical to quantify their carbon footprints so that appropriate emission reduction policies can be raised. The objective of this paper is to seek an appropriate method on evaluating the carbon footprint of one industrial park. The tiered hybrid LCA method was selected due to its advantages over other methods. Shenyang Economic and Technological Development Zone (SETDZ), a typical comprehensive industrial park in China, was chosen as a case study park. The results show that the total life cycle carbon footprint of SETDZ was 15.29 Mt, including 6.81 Mt onsite (direct) carbon footprint, 8.47 Mt upstream carbon footprint, and only 3201 t downstream carbon footprint. Analysis from industrial sector perspectives shows that chemical industry and manufacture of general purpose machinery and special purposes machinery sector were the two largest sectors for life cycle carbon footprint. Such a sector analysis may be useful for investigation of appropriate emission reduction policies. - Highlights: ► A hybrid LCA model was employed to calculate industrial park carbon footprint. ► A case study on SETDZ is done. ► Life cycle carbon footprint of SETDZ is 15.29 Mt. ► Upstream and onsite carbon footprints account for 55.40% and 44.57%, respectively. ► Chemical industry and machinery manufacturing sectors are the two largest sectors

Comparison of the carbon footprint of different patient diets in a Spanish hospital.

Science.gov (United States)

Vidal, Rosario; Moliner, Enrique; Pikula, Andrej; Mena-Nieto, Angel; Ortega, Agustín

2015-01-01

Mitigating climate change requires management strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in any sector, including the health system. Carbon footprint calculations should play a key role in quantifying and communicating these emissions. Food is among the categories with low accuracy because the carbon footprint for food is still under development. We aimed to quantify the carbon footprint of different diets. Average carbon footprint for a normal diet was based on detailed composition data in Juan Ramón Jiménez Hospital (Huelva, Spain). In addition, the carbon footprints of 17 other therapeutic diets were estimated using a streamlined variation of each diet published by Benidorm Clinical Hospital (Spain). The carbon footprint was calculated for 18 hospital diets for a variety of patients. The reference menu corresponds to the normal diet provided to patients who do not have special dietary requirements. This menu has a low carbon footprint of 5.083 CO₂ eq/day. Hospital diets contribute to the carbon footprint of a hospital. The type of diet has a significant impact on the greenhouse gas emissions. A Mediterranean diet is associated with lower environmental impact than diets with more meat, in particular red meat. © The Author(s) 2014 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav.

A toolkit for promoting healthy ageing

OpenAIRE

Knevel, Jeroen; Gruppen, Aly

2016-01-01

This toolkit therefore focusses on self-management abilities. That means finding and maintaining effective, positive coping methods in relation to our health. We included many common and frequently discussed topics such as drinking, eating, physical exercise, believing in the future, resilience, preventing loneliness and social participation. Besides some concise background information, we offer you a great diversity of exercises per theme which can help you discuss, assess, change or strengt...

Clinical Trial of a Home Safety Toolkit for Alzheimer’s Disease

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kathy J. Horvath

2013-01-01

Full Text Available This randomized clinical trial tested a new self-directed educational intervention to improve caregiver competence to create a safer home environment for persons with dementia living in the community. The sample included 108 patient/caregiver dyads: the intervention group (n=60 received the Home Safety Toolkit (HST, including a new booklet based on health literacy principles, and sample safety items to enhance self-efficacy to make home safety modifications. The control group (n=48 received customary care. Participants completed measures at baseline and at twelve-week follow-up. Multivariate Analysis of Covariance (MANCOVA was used to test for significant group differences. All caregiver outcome variables improved in the intervention group more than in the control. Home safety was significant at P≤0.001, caregiver strain at P≤0.001, and caregiver self-efficacy at P=0.002. Similarly, the care receiver outcome of risky behaviors and accidents was lower in the intervention group (P≤0.001. The self-directed use of this Home Safety Toolkit activated the primary family caregiver to make the home safer for the person with dementia of Alzheimer's type (DAT or related disorder. Improving the competence of informal caregivers is especially important for patients with DAT in light of all stakeholders reliance on their unpaid care.

Using stakeholder perspectives to develop an ePrescribing toolkit for NHS Hospitals: a questionnaire study.

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, Lisa; Cresswell, Kathrin; Slee, Ann; Slight, Sarah P; Coleman, Jamie; Sheikh, Aziz

2014-10-01

To evaluate how an online toolkit may support ePrescribing deployments in National Health Service hospitals, by assessing the type of knowledge-based resources currently sought by key stakeholders. Questionnaire-based survey of attendees at a national ePrescribing symposium. 2013 National ePrescribing Symposium in London, UK. Eighty-four delegates were eligible for inclusion in the survey, of whom 70 completed and returned the questionnaire. Estimate of the usefulness and type of content to be included in an ePrescribing toolkit. Interest in a toolkit designed to support the implementation and use of ePrescribing systems was high (n = 64; 91.4%). As could be expected given the current dearth of such a resource, few respondents (n = 2; 2.9%) had access or used an ePrescribing toolkit at the time of the survey. Anticipated users for the toolkit included implementation (n = 62; 88.6%) and information technology (n = 61; 87.1%) teams, pharmacists (n = 61; 87.1%), doctors (n = 58; 82.9%) and nurses (n = 56; 80.0%). Summary guidance for every stage of the implementation (n = 48; 68.6%), planning and monitoring tools (n = 47; 67.1%) and case studies of hospitals' experiences (n = 45; 64.3%) were considered the most useful types of content. There is a clear need for reliable and up-to-date knowledge to support ePrescribing system deployments and longer term use. The findings highlight how a toolkit may become a useful instrument for the management of knowledge in the field, not least by allowing the exchange of ideas and shared learning.

Development of a Human Physiologically Based Pharmacokinetic (PBPK Toolkit for Environmental Pollutants

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Patricia Ruiz

2011-10-01

Full Text Available Physiologically Based Pharmacokinetic (PBPK models can be used to determine the internal dose and strengthen exposure assessment. Many PBPK models are available, but they are not easily accessible for field use. The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR has conducted translational research to develop a human PBPK model toolkit by recoding published PBPK models. This toolkit, when fully developed, will provide a platform that consists of a series of priority PBPK models of environmental pollutants. Presented here is work on recoded PBPK models for volatile organic compounds (VOCs and metals. Good agreement was generally obtained between the original and the recoded models. This toolkit will be available for ATSDR scientists and public health assessors to perform simulations of exposures from contaminated environmental media at sites of concern and to help interpret biomonitoring data. It can be used as screening tools that can provide useful information for the protection of the public.

Skallerup Klit's carbon footprint

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Zacho, Kristina Overgaard; Ørnstrup, Niels Holm; Zimmermann, Tine Marquard

by offsetting and without making actual emission reductions. Therefore the purpose of this study is to present recommendations on how Skallerup Klit can build up their business strategy using Carbon Footprint (CFP) as a tool. The CPF is calculated and assessed by using financial data in an Input-output LCA...

Adding a nitrogen footprint to Colorado State University’s sustainability plan

Science.gov (United States)

Kimiecik, Jacob; Baron, Jill S.; Weinmann, Timothy; Taylor, Emily

2017-01-01

As a large land grant university with more than 32,000 students, Colorado State University has both on-campus non-agricultural and agricultural sources of nitrogen (N) released to the environment. We used the Nitrogen Footprint Tool to estimate the amount of N released from different sectors of the university for the CSU 2014 academic year. The largest on campus sources were food production, utilities (heating, cooling, electricity), and research animals. The total on-campus N footprint in 2014 was 287 metric tons. This value was equivalent to the nitrogen footprint of agricultural experiment stations and other agricultural facilities, whose nitrogen footprint was 273 metric tons. CSU has opportunities to reduce its on-campus footprint through educational programs promoting low-meat diets and commuting by bicycle or bus. There is also an opportunity to advance ideas of agricultural best management practices, including precision farming and better livestock management. This article describes the planned and ongoing efforts to educate CSU about how societal activities release nitrogen to the environment, contributing to global change. It offers personal and institutional options for taking action, which would ultimately reduce CSU’s excess reactive nitrogen loss to the environment. The N-footprint for CSU, including scenarios of possible future nitrogen reductions, is also discussed.

77 FR 73022 - U.S. Environmental Solutions Toolkit

Science.gov (United States)

2012-12-07

... relevant to reducing air pollution from oil and natural gas production and processing. The Department of... environmental officials and foreign end-users of environmental technologies that will outline U.S. approaches to.... technologies. The Toolkit will support the President's National Export Initiative by fostering export...

Developing Mixed Reality Educational Applications: The Virtual Touch Toolkit.

Science.gov (United States)

Mateu, Juan; Lasala, María José; Alamán, Xavier

2015-08-31

In this paper, we present Virtual Touch, a toolkit that allows the development of educational activities through a mixed reality environment such that, using various tangible elements, the interconnection of a virtual world with the real world is enabled. The main goal of Virtual Touch is to facilitate the installation, configuration and programming of different types of technologies, abstracting the creator of educational applications from the technical details involving the use of tangible interfaces and virtual worlds. Therefore, it is specially designed to enable teachers to themselves create educational activities for their students in a simple way, taking into account that teachers generally lack advanced knowledge in computer programming and electronics. The toolkit has been used to develop various educational applications that have been tested in two secondary education high schools in Spain.

Developing Mixed Reality Educational Applications: The Virtual Touch Toolkit

Science.gov (United States)

Mateu, Juan; Lasala, María José; Alamán, Xavier

2015-01-01

In this paper, we present Virtual Touch, a toolkit that allows the development of educational activities through a mixed reality environment such that, using various tangible elements, the interconnection of a virtual world with the real world is enabled. The main goal of Virtual Touch is to facilitate the installation, configuration and programming of different types of technologies, abstracting the creator of educational applications from the technical details involving the use of tangible interfaces and virtual worlds. Therefore, it is specially designed to enable teachers to themselves create educational activities for their students in a simple way, taking into account that teachers generally lack advanced knowledge in computer programming and electronics. The toolkit has been used to develop various educational applications that have been tested in two secondary education high schools in Spain. PMID:26334275

Five propositions to harmonize environmental footprints of food and beverages

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Ponsioen, Tommie; Werf, Van Der H.M.G.

2017-01-01

Several attempts have been made to harmonize guidelines for environmental footprints of food and beverages. For example, the food Sustainable Consumption and Production Roundtable, the Leap partnership, and the Environmental Footprint project, in particular within the Cattle Model Working Group.

Klimaregnskab og Carbon Footprint beregning for Kommunekemi a/s

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Leinikka Dall, Ole; Wenzel, Henrik

2009-01-01

Klimaregnskab for anlægget i Nyborg og carbon footprint for: -forbrænding -uorganisk behandling -halmaskeanlæg Afrapporteret på tryk og indtastet i Simapro......Klimaregnskab for anlægget i Nyborg og carbon footprint for: -forbrænding -uorganisk behandling -halmaskeanlæg Afrapporteret på tryk og indtastet i Simapro...

The Automatic Parallelisation of Scientific Application Codes Using a Computer Aided Parallelisation Toolkit

Science.gov (United States)

Ierotheou, C.; Johnson, S.; Leggett, P.; Cross, M.; Evans, E.; Jin, Hao-Qiang; Frumkin, M.; Yan, J.; Biegel, Bryan (Technical Monitor)

2001-01-01

The shared-memory programming model is a very effective way to achieve parallelism on shared memory parallel computers. Historically, the lack of a programming standard for using directives and the rather limited performance due to scalability have affected the take-up of this programming model approach. Significant progress has been made in hardware and software technologies, as a result the performance of parallel programs with compiler directives has also made improvements. The introduction of an industrial standard for shared-memory programming with directives, OpenMP, has also addressed the issue of portability. In this study, we have extended the computer aided parallelization toolkit (developed at the University of Greenwich), to automatically generate OpenMP based parallel programs with nominal user assistance. We outline the way in which loop types are categorized and how efficient OpenMP directives can be defined and placed using the in-depth interprocedural analysis that is carried out by the toolkit. We also discuss the application of the toolkit on the NAS Parallel Benchmarks and a number of real-world application codes. This work not only demonstrates the great potential of using the toolkit to quickly parallelize serial programs but also the good performance achievable on up to 300 processors for hybrid message passing and directive-based parallelizations.

Baseline effects on carbon footprints of biofuels: The case of wood

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Johnson, Eric; Tschudi, Daniel

2012-01-01

As biofuel usage has boomed over the past decade, so has research and regulatory interest in its carbon accounting. This paper examines one aspect of that carbon accounting: the baseline, i.e. the reference case against which other conditions or changes can be compared. A literature search and analysis identified four baseline types: no baseline; reference point; marginal fossil fuel; and biomass opportunity cost. The fourth one, biomass opportunity cost, is defined in more detail, because this is not done elsewhere in the literature. The four baselines are then applied to the carbon footprint of a wood-fired power plant. The footprint of the resulting wood-fired electricity varies dramatically, according to the type of baseline. Baseline type is also found to be the footprint's most significant sensitivity. Other significant sensitivities are: efficiency of the power plant; the growth (or re-growth) rate of the forest that supplies the wood; and the residue fraction of the wood. Length of the policy horizon is also an important factor in determining the footprint. The paper concludes that because of their significance and variability, baseline choices should be made very explicit in biofuel carbon footprints. - Highlights: ► Four baseline types for biofuel footprinting are identified. ► One type, ‘biomass opportunity cost’, is defined mathematically and graphically. ► Choice of baseline can dramatically affect the footprint result. ► The ‘no baseline’ approach is not acceptable. ► Choice between the other three baselines depends on the question being addressed.

A carbon footprint simulation model for the cork oak sector

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Demertzi, Martha; Paulo, Joana Amaral; Arroja, Luís; Dias, Ana Cláudia

2016-01-01

In the present study, a simulation model for the calculation of the carbon footprint of the cork oak sector (CCFM) is developed for the first time. A life cycle approach is adopted including the forest management, manufacturing, use and end-of-life stages. CCFM allows the user to insert the cork type used as raw material and its respective quantity and the distances in-between the various stages. The user can choose among different end-of-life destination options for the used cork products. The option of inserting different inputs, allows the use of the present simulation model for different cork oak systems, in different countries and with different conditions. CCFM allows the identification of the stages and products with the greatest carbon footprint and thus, a better management of the sector from an environmental perspective. The Portuguese cork oak sector is used as an application example of the model. The results obtained showed that the agglomeration industry is the hotspot for the carbon footprint of the cork sector mainly due to the production of the resins that are mixed with the cork granules for the production of agglomerated cork products. The consideration of the biogenic carbon emissions and sequestration of carbon at the forest in the carbon footprint, resulted to a great decrease of the sector's carbon footprint. Future actions for improvement are suggested in order to decrease the carbon footprint of the entire cork sector. It was found that by decreasing by 10% the emission factor of the agglomeration and transformation industries, substituting the transport trucks by more recent ones and by decreasing by 10% the cork products reaching the landfilling end-of-life destinations (while increasing the quantities reaching incineration and recycling), a decrease of the total CF (excluding the biogenic emissions and sequestration) of the entire cork industry by 10% can be achieved. - Highlights: • A carbon footprint simulation model (CCFM) for the

A carbon footprint simulation model for the cork oak sector

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Demertzi, Martha, E-mail: marthademertzi@ua.pt [Center for Environmental and Marine Studies (CESAM), Department of Environment and Planning, University of Aveiro, Campus Universitário de Santiago, 3810-193 Aveiro (Portugal); Paulo, Joana Amaral, E-mail: joanaap@isa.ulisboa.pt [Center of Forest Studies (CEF), Superior Institute of Agronomy (ISA), Tapada da Ajuda, University of Lisbon, 1349-017 Lisbon (Portugal); Arroja, Luís, E-mail: arroja@ua.pt [Center for Environmental and Marine Studies (CESAM), Department of Environment and Planning, University of Aveiro, Campus Universitário de Santiago, 3810-193 Aveiro (Portugal); Dias, Ana Cláudia, E-mail: acdias@ua.pt [Center for Environmental and Marine Studies (CESAM), Department of Environment and Planning, University of Aveiro, Campus Universitário de Santiago, 3810-193 Aveiro (Portugal)

2016-10-01

In the present study, a simulation model for the calculation of the carbon footprint of the cork oak sector (CCFM) is developed for the first time. A life cycle approach is adopted including the forest management, manufacturing, use and end-of-life stages. CCFM allows the user to insert the cork type used as raw material and its respective quantity and the distances in-between the various stages. The user can choose among different end-of-life destination options for the used cork products. The option of inserting different inputs, allows the use of the present simulation model for different cork oak systems, in different countries and with different conditions. CCFM allows the identification of the stages and products with the greatest carbon footprint and thus, a better management of the sector from an environmental perspective. The Portuguese cork oak sector is used as an application example of the model. The results obtained showed that the agglomeration industry is the hotspot for the carbon footprint of the cork sector mainly due to the production of the resins that are mixed with the cork granules for the production of agglomerated cork products. The consideration of the biogenic carbon emissions and sequestration of carbon at the forest in the carbon footprint, resulted to a great decrease of the sector's carbon footprint. Future actions for improvement are suggested in order to decrease the carbon footprint of the entire cork sector. It was found that by decreasing by 10% the emission factor of the agglomeration and transformation industries, substituting the transport trucks by more recent ones and by decreasing by 10% the cork products reaching the landfilling end-of-life destinations (while increasing the quantities reaching incineration and recycling), a decrease of the total CF (excluding the biogenic emissions and sequestration) of the entire cork industry by 10% can be achieved. - Highlights: • A carbon footprint simulation model (CCFM) for

Variability of footprint ridge density and its use in estimation of sex in forensic examinations.

Science.gov (United States)

Krishan, Kewal; Kanchan, Tanuj; Pathania, Annu; Sharma, Ruchika; DiMaggio, John A

2015-10-01

The present study deals with a comparatively new biometric parameter of footprints called footprint ridge density. The study attempts to evaluate sex-dependent variations in ridge density in different areas of the footprint and its usefulness in discriminating sex in the young adult population of north India. The sample for the study consisted of 160 young adults (121 females) from north India. The left and right footprints were taken from each subject according to the standard procedures. The footprints were analysed using a 5 mm × 5 mm square and the ridge density was calculated in four different well-defined areas of the footprints. These were: F1 - the great toe on its proximal and medial side; F2 - the medial ball of the footprint, below the triradius (the triradius is a Y-shaped group of ridges on finger balls, palms and soles which forms the basis of ridge counting in identification); F3 - the lateral ball of the footprint, towards the most lateral part; and F4 - the heel in its central part where the maximum breadth at heel is cut by a perpendicular line drawn from the most posterior point on heel. This value represents the number of ridges in a 25 mm(2) area and reflects the ridge density value. Ridge densities analysed on different areas of footprints were compared with each other using the Friedman test for related samples. The total footprint ridge density was calculated as the sum of the ridge density in the four areas of footprints included in the study (F1 + F2 + F3 + F4). The results show that the mean footprint ridge density was higher in females than males in all the designated areas of the footprints. The sex differences in footprint ridge density were observed to be statistically significant in the analysed areas of the footprint, except for the heel region of the left footprint. The total footprint ridge density was also observed to be significantly higher among females than males. A statistically significant correlation

The Best Ever Alarm System Toolkit

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kasemir, Kay; Chen, Xihui; Danilova, Ekaterina N.

2009-01-01

Learning from our experience with the standard Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System (EPICS) alarm handler (ALH) as well as a similar intermediate approach based on script-generated operator screens, we developed the Best Ever Alarm System Toolkit (BEAST). It is based on Java and Eclipse on the Control System Studio (CSS) platform, using a relational database (RDB) to store the configuration and log actions. It employs a Java Message Service (JMS) for communication between the modular pieces of the toolkit, which include an Alarm Server to maintain the current alarm state, an arbitrary number of Alarm Client user interfaces (GUI), and tools to annunciate alarms or log alarm related actions. Web reports allow us to monitor the alarm system performance and spot deficiencies in the alarm configuration. The Alarm Client GUI not only gives the end users various ways to view alarms in tree and table, but also makes it easy to access the guidance information, the related operator displays and other CSS tools. It also allows online configuration to be simply modified from the GUI. Coupled with a good 'alarm philosophy' on how to provide useful alarms, we can finally improve the configuration to achieve an effective alarm system.

A Genetic Toolkit for Dissecting Dopamine Circuit Function in Drosophila

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tingting Xie

2018-04-01

Full Text Available Summary: The neuromodulator dopamine (DA plays a key role in motor control, motivated behaviors, and higher-order cognitive processes. Dissecting how these DA neural networks tune the activity of local neural circuits to regulate behavior requires tools for manipulating small groups of DA neurons. To address this need, we assembled a genetic toolkit that allows for an exquisite level of control over the DA neural network in Drosophila. To further refine targeting of specific DA neurons, we also created reagents that allow for the conversion of any existing GAL4 line into Split GAL4 or GAL80 lines. We demonstrated how this toolkit can be used with recently developed computational methods to rapidly generate additional reagents for manipulating small subsets or individual DA neurons. Finally, we used the toolkit to reveal a dynamic interaction between a small subset of DA neurons and rearing conditions in a social space behavioral assay. : The rapid analysis of how dopaminergic circuits regulate behavior is limited by the genetic tools available to target and manipulate small numbers of these neurons. Xie et al. present genetic tools in Drosophila that allow rational targeting of sparse dopaminergic neuronal subsets and selective knockdown of dopamine signaling. Keywords: dopamine, genetics, behavior, neural circuits, neuromodulation, Drosophila

X-CSIT: a toolkit for simulating 2D pixel detectors

Science.gov (United States)

Joy, A.; Wing, M.; Hauf, S.; Kuster, M.; Rüter, T.

2015-04-01

A new, modular toolkit for creating simulations of 2D X-ray pixel detectors, X-CSIT (X-ray Camera SImulation Toolkit), is being developed. The toolkit uses three sequential simulations of detector processes which model photon interactions, electron charge cloud spreading with a high charge density plasma model and common electronic components used in detector readout. In addition, because of the wide variety in pixel detector design, X-CSIT has been designed as a modular platform so that existing functions can be modified or additional functionality added if the specific design of a detector demands it. X-CSIT will be used to create simulations of the detectors at the European XFEL, including three bespoke 2D detectors: the Adaptive Gain Integrating Pixel Detector (AGIPD), Large Pixel Detector (LPD) and DePFET Sensor with Signal Compression (DSSC). These simulations will be used by the detector group at the European XFEL for detector characterisation and calibration. For this purpose, X-CSIT has been integrated into the European XFEL's software framework, Karabo. This will further make it available to users to aid with the planning of experiments and analysis of data. In addition, X-CSIT will be released as a standalone, open source version for other users, collaborations and groups intending to create simulations of their own detectors.

Water Footprint and Virtual Water Trade of Brazil

OpenAIRE

da Silva, Vicente de Paulo R.; de Oliveira, Sonaly D.; Hoekstra, Arjen Ysbert; Neto, Jose Dantas; Campos, João Hugo B.C.; Braga, Celia C.; Araújo, Lincoln Eloi; Oliveira Aleixo, Danilo; de Brito, Jose Ivaldo B.; de Souza, Marcio Dionisio; de Holanda, Romildo M.

2016-01-01

Freshwater scarcity has increased at an alarming rate worldwide; improved water management plays a vital role in increasing food production and security. This study aims to determine the water footprint of Brazil’s national food consumption, the virtual water flows associated with international trade in the main agricultural commodities, as well as water scarcity, water self-sufficiency and water dependency per Brazilian region. While previous country studies on water footprints and virtual w...

Local Safety Toolkit: Enabling safe communities of opportunity

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Holtmann, B

2010-08-31

Full Text Available remain inadequate to achieve safety. The Local Safety Toolkit supports a strategy for a Safe South Africa through the implementation of a model for a Safe Community of Opportunity. The model is the outcome of work undertaken over the course of the past...

Accounting for forest carbon pool dynamics in product carbon footprints: Challenges and opportunities

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Newell, Joshua P.; Vos, Robert O.

2012-01-01

Modification and loss of forests due to natural and anthropogenic disturbance contribute an estimated 20% of annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions worldwide. Although forest carbon pool modeling rarely suggests a ‘carbon neutral’ flux profile, the life cycle assessment community and associated product carbon footprint protocols have struggled to account for the GHG emissions associated with forestry, specifically, and land use generally. Principally, this is due to underdeveloped linkages between life cycle inventory (LCI) modeling for wood and forest carbon modeling for a full range of forest types and harvest practices, as well as a lack of transparency in globalized forest supply chains. In this paper, through a comparative study of U.S. and Chinese coated freesheet paper, we develop the initial foundations for a methodology that rescales IPCC methods from the national to the product level, with reference to the approaches in three international product carbon footprint protocols. Due to differences in geographic origin of the wood fiber, the results for two scenarios are highly divergent. This suggests that both wood LCI models and the protocols need further development to capture the range of spatial and temporal dimensions for supply chains (and the associated land use change and modification) for specific product systems. The paper concludes by outlining opportunities to measure and reduce uncertainty in accounting for net emissions of biogenic carbon from forestland, where timber is harvested for consumer products. - Highlights: ► Typical life cycle assessment practice for consumer products often excludes significant land use change emissions when estimating carbon footprints. ► The article provides a methodology to rescale IPCC guidelines for product-level carbon footprints. ► Life cycle inventories and product carbon footprint protocols need more comprehensive land use-related accounting. ► Interdisciplinary collaboration linking the LCA and

Effect of irrigation techniques and strategies on water footprint of growing crops

Science.gov (United States)

Chukalla, A. D.; Krol, M. S.; Hoekstra, A. Y. Y.

2014-12-01

Reducing the water footprint (WF) of growing crops, the largest water user and a significant contributor to the WF of many consumer products, plays a significant role in integrated and sustainable water management. The water footprint for growing crop is accounted by relating the crop yield with the corresponding consumptive water use (CWU), which both can be adjusted by measures that affect the crop growth and root-zone soil water balance. This study explored the scope for reducing the water footprint of irrigated crops by experimenting set of field level technical and managerial measures: (i) irrigation technologies (Furrow, sprinkler, drip and sub-surface drip), (ii) irrigation strategies (full and a range of sustained and controlled deficit) and (iii) field management options (zero, organic and synthetic mulching). Ranges of cases were also considered: (a) Arid and semi-arid environment (b) Loam and Sandy-loam soil types and (c) for Potato, Wheat and Maize crops; under (c) wet, normal and dry years. AquaCrop, the water driven crop growth and soil water balance model, offered the opportunity to systematically experiment these measures on water consumption and yield. Further, the green and blue water footprints of growing crop corresponding to each measure were computed by separating the root zone fluxes of the AquaCrop output into the green and blue soil water stocks and their corresponding fluxes. Results showed that in arid environment reduction in irrigation supply, CWU and WF up to 300 mm, 80 mm and 75 m3/tonne respectively can be achieved for Maize by a combination of organic mulching and drip technology with controlled deficit irrigation strategies (10-20-30-40% deficit with reference to the full irrigation requirement). These reductions come with a yield drop of 0.54 tonne/ha. In the same environment under the absence of mulching practice, the sub-surface drip perform better in reducing CWU and WF of irrigated crops followed by drip and furrow irrigation

The connectome viewer toolkit: an open source framework to manage, analyze, and visualize connectomes.

Science.gov (United States)

Gerhard, Stephan; Daducci, Alessandro; Lemkaddem, Alia; Meuli, Reto; Thiran, Jean-Philippe; Hagmann, Patric

2011-01-01

Advanced neuroinformatics tools are required for methods of connectome mapping, analysis, and visualization. The inherent multi-modality of connectome datasets poses new challenges for data organization, integration, and sharing. We have designed and implemented the Connectome Viewer Toolkit - a set of free and extensible open source neuroimaging tools written in Python. The key components of the toolkit are as follows: (1) The Connectome File Format is an XML-based container format to standardize multi-modal data integration and structured metadata annotation. (2) The Connectome File Format Library enables management and sharing of connectome files. (3) The Connectome Viewer is an integrated research and development environment for visualization and analysis of multi-modal connectome data. The Connectome Viewer's plugin architecture supports extensions with network analysis packages and an interactive scripting shell, to enable easy development and community contributions. Integration with tools from the scientific Python community allows the leveraging of numerous existing libraries for powerful connectome data mining, exploration, and comparison. We demonstrate the applicability of the Connectome Viewer Toolkit using Diffusion MRI datasets processed by the Connectome Mapper. The Connectome Viewer Toolkit is available from http://www.cmtk.org/

The Connectome Viewer Toolkit: an open source framework to manage, analyze and visualize connectomes

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Stephan eGerhard

2011-06-01

Full Text Available Abstract Advanced neuroinformatics tools are required for methods of connectome mapping, analysis and visualization. The inherent multi-modality of connectome datasets poses new challenges for data organization, integration and sharing. We have designed and implemented the Connectome Viewer Toolkit --- a set of free and extensible open-source neuroimaging tools written in Python. The key components of the toolkit are as follows: 1. The Connectome File Format is an XML-based container format to standardize multi-modal data integration and structured metadata annotation. 2. The Connectome File Format Library enables management and sharing of connectome files. 3. The Connectome Viewer is an integrated research and development environment for visualization and analysis of multi-modal connectome data. The Connectome Viewer's plugin architecture supports extensions with network analysis packages and an interactive scripting shell, to enable easy development and community contributions. Integration with tools from the scientific Python community allows the leveraging of numerous existing libraries for powerful connectome data mining, exploration and comparison. We demonstrate the applicability of the Connectome Viewer Toolkit using Diffusion MRI datasets processed by the Connectome Mapper. The Connectome Viewer Toolkit is available from http://www.cmtk.org/.

The Data Warehouse Lifecycle Toolkit

CERN Document Server

Kimball, Ralph; Thornthwaite, Warren; Mundy, Joy; Becker, Bob

2011-01-01

A thorough update to the industry standard for designing, developing, and deploying data warehouse and business intelligence systemsThe world of data warehousing has changed remarkably since the first edition of The Data Warehouse Lifecycle Toolkit was published in 1998. In that time, the data warehouse industry has reached full maturity and acceptance, hardware and software have made staggering advances, and the techniques promoted in the premiere edition of this book have been adopted by nearly all data warehouse vendors and practitioners. In addition, the term "business intelligence" emerge

National eHealth strategy toolkit

CERN Document Server

2012-01-01

Worldwide the application of information and communication technologies to support national health-care services is rapidly expanding and increasingly important. This is especially so at a time when all health systems face stringent economic challenges and greater demands to provide more and better care especially to those most in need. The National eHealth Strategy Toolkit is an expert practical guide that provides governments their ministries and stakeholders with a solid foundation and method for the development and implementation of a national eHealth vision action plan and monitoring fram

Energy Development in Colorado's Pawnee National Grasslands: Mapping and Measuring the Disturbance Footprint of Renewables and Non-Renewables

Science.gov (United States)

Baynard, Chris W.; Mjachina, Ksenya; Richardson, Robert D.; Schupp, Robert W.; Lambert, J. David; Chibilyev, Alexander A.

2017-06-01

This paper examines the pattern and extent of energy development in steppe landscapes of northeast Colorado, United States. We compare the landscape disturbance created by oil and gas production to that of wind energy inside the Pawnee National Grasslands eastern side. This high-steppe landscape consists of a mosaic of federal, state, and private lands where dominant economic activities include ranching, agriculture, tourism, oil and gas extraction, and wind energy generation. Utilizing field surveys, remote sensing data and geographic information systems techniques, we quantify and map the footprint of energy development at the landscape level. Findings suggest that while oil and gas and wind energy development have resulted in a relatively small amount of habitat loss within the study area, the footprint stretches across the entire zone, fragmenting this mostly grassland habitat. Futhermore, a third feature of this landscape, the non-energy transportation network, was also found to have a significant impact. Combined, these three features fragment the entire Pawnee National Grasslands eastern side, leaving very few large intact core, or roadless areas. The primary objective of this ongoing work is to create a series of quantifiable and replicable surface disturbance indicators linked to energy production in semi-arid grassland environments. Based on these, and future results, we aim to work with industry and regulators to shape energy policy as it relates to environmental performance, with the aim of reducing the footprint and thus increasing the sustainability of these extractive activities.

Effects of a Short Video-Based Resident-as-Teacher Training Toolkit on Resident Teaching.

Science.gov (United States)

Ricciotti, Hope A; Freret, Taylor S; Aluko, Ashley; McKeon, Bri Anne; Haviland, Miriam J; Newman, Lori R

2017-10-01

To pilot a short video-based resident-as-teacher training toolkit and assess its effect on resident teaching skills in clinical settings. A video-based resident-as-teacher training toolkit was previously developed by educational experts at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School. Residents were recruited from two academic hospitals, watched two videos from the toolkit ("Clinical Teaching Skills" and "Effective Clinical Supervision"), and completed an accompanying self-study guide. A novel assessment instrument for evaluating the effect of the toolkit on teaching was created through a modified Delphi process. Before and after the intervention, residents were observed leading a clinical teaching encounter and scored using the 15-item assessment instrument. The primary outcome of interest was the change in number of skills exhibited, which was assessed using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test. Twenty-eight residents from two academic hospitals were enrolled, and 20 (71%) completed all phases of the study. More than one third of residents who volunteered to participate reported no prior formal teacher training. After completing two training modules, residents demonstrated a significant increase in the median number of teaching skills exhibited in a clinical teaching encounter, from 7.5 (interquartile range 6.5-9.5) to 10.0 (interquartile range 9.0-11.5; P<.001). Of the 15 teaching skills assessed, there were significant improvements in asking for the learner's perspective (P=.01), providing feedback (P=.005), and encouraging questions (P=.046). Using a resident-as-teacher video-based toolkit was associated with improvements in teaching skills in residents from multiple specialties.

Nitrogen footprints: Regional realities and options to reduce nitrogen loss to the environment.

Science.gov (United States)

Shibata, Hideaki; Galloway, James N; Leach, Allison M; Cattaneo, Lia R; Cattell Noll, Laura; Erisman, Jan Willem; Gu, Baojing; Liang, Xia; Hayashi, Kentaro; Ma, Lin; Dalgaard, Tommy; Graversgaard, Morten; Chen, Deli; Nansai, Keisuke; Shindo, Junko; Matsubae, Kazuyo; Oita, Azusa; Su, Ming-Chien; Mishima, Shin-Ichiro; Bleeker, Albert

2017-03-01

Nitrogen (N) management presents a sustainability dilemma: N is strongly linked to energy and food production, but excess reactive N causes environmental pollution. The N footprint is an indicator that quantifies reactive N losses to the environment from consumption and production of food and the use of energy. The average per capita N footprint (calculated using the N-Calculator methodology) of ten countries varies from 15 to 47 kg N capita -1 year -1 . The major cause of the difference is the protein consumption rates and food production N losses. The food sector dominates all countries' N footprints. Global connections via trade significantly affect the N footprint in countries that rely on imported foods and feeds. The authors present N footprint reduction strategies (e.g., improve N use efficiency, increase N recycling, reduce food waste, shift dietary choices) and identify knowledge gaps (e.g., the N footprint from nonfood goods and soil N process).

Educator Toolkits on Second Victim Syndrome, Mindfulness and Meditation, and Positive Psychology: The 2017 Resident Wellness Consensus Summit

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jon Smart

2018-02-01

Full Text Available Introduction: Burnout, depression, and suicidality among residents of all specialties have become a critical focus of attention for the medical education community. Methods: As part of the 2017 Resident Wellness Consensus Summit in Las Vegas, Nevada, resident participants from 31 programs collaborated in the Educator Toolkit workgroup. Over a seven-month period leading up to the summit, this workgroup convened virtually in the Wellness Think Tank, an online resident community, to perform a literature review and draft curricular plans on three core wellness topics. These topics were second victim syndrome, mindfulness and meditation, and positive psychology. At the live summit event, the workgroup expanded to include residents outside the Wellness Think Tank to obtain a broader consensus of the evidence-based toolkits for these three topics. Results: Three educator toolkits were developed. The second victim syndrome toolkit has four modules, each with a pre-reading material and a leader (educator guide. In the mindfulness and meditation toolkit, there are three modules with a leader guide in addition to a longitudinal, guided meditation plan. The positive psychology toolkit has two modules, each with a leader guide and a PowerPoint slide set. These toolkits provide educators the necessary resources, reading materials, and lesson plans to implement didactic sessions in their residency curriculum. Conclusion: Residents from across the world collaborated and convened to reach a consensus on high-yield—and potentially high-impact—lesson plans that programs can use to promote and improve resident wellness. These lesson plans may stand alone or be incorporated into a larger wellness curriculum.

Educator Toolkits on Second Victim Syndrome, Mindfulness and Meditation, and Positive Psychology: The 2017 Resident Wellness Consensus Summit.

Science.gov (United States)

Chung, Arlene S; Smart, Jon; Zdradzinski, Michael; Roth, Sarah; Gende, Alecia; Conroy, Kylie; Battaglioli, Nicole

2018-03-01

Burnout, depression, and suicidality among residents of all specialties have become a critical focus of attention for the medical education community. As part of the 2017 Resident Wellness Consensus Summit in Las Vegas, Nevada, resident participants from 31 programs collaborated in the Educator Toolkit workgroup. Over a seven-month period leading up to the summit, this workgroup convened virtually in the Wellness Think Tank, an online resident community, to perform a literature review and draft curricular plans on three core wellness topics. These topics were second victim syndrome, mindfulness and meditation, and positive psychology. At the live summit event, the workgroup expanded to include residents outside the Wellness Think Tank to obtain a broader consensus of the evidence-based toolkits for these three topics. Three educator toolkits were developed. The second victim syndrome toolkit has four modules, each with a pre-reading material and a leader (educator) guide. In the mindfulness and meditation toolkit, there are three modules with a leader guide in addition to a longitudinal, guided meditation plan. The positive psychology toolkit has two modules, each with a leader guide and a PowerPoint slide set. These toolkits provide educators the necessary resources, reading materials, and lesson plans to implement didactic sessions in their residency curriculum. Residents from across the world collaborated and convened to reach a consensus on high-yield-and potentially high-impact-lesson plans that programs can use to promote and improve resident wellness. These lesson plans may stand alone or be incorporated into a larger wellness curriculum.

Cartographic modeling of heterogeneous landscape for footprint analysis of Eddy Covariance Measurements (Central Forest and Central Chernozem reserves, Russia)

Science.gov (United States)

Kozlov, Daniil

2014-05-01

The topographical, soil and vegetation maps of FLUXNET study areas are widely used for interpretation of eddy covariance measurements, for calibration of biogeochemical models and for making regional assessments of carbon balance. The poster presents methodological problems and results of ecosystem mapping using GIS, remote sensing, statistical and field methods on the example of two RusFluxNet sites in the Central Forest (33° E, 56°30'N) and Central Chernozem (36°10' E, 51°36'N) reserves. In the Central Forest reserve tacheometric measurements were used for topographical and peat surveys of bogged sphagnum spruce forest of 20-hectare area. Its common borders and its areas affected by windfall were determined. The supplies and spatial distribution of organic matter were obtained. The datasets of groundwater monitoring measurements on ten wells were compared with each other and the analysis of spatial and temporal groundwater variability was performed. The map of typical ecosystems of the reserve and its surroundings was created on the basis of analysis of multi-temporal Landsat images. In the Central Chernozem reserve the GNSS topographical survey was used for flux tower footprint mapping (22 ha). The features of microrelief predetermine development of different soils within the footprint. Close relationship between soil (73 drilling site) and terrain attributes (DEM with 2.5 m) allowed to build maps of soils and soil properties: carbon content, bulk density, upper boundary of secondary carbonates. Position for chamber-based soil respiration measurements was defined on the basis of these maps. The detailed geodetic and soil surveys of virgin lands and plowland were performed in order to estimate the effect of agrogenic processes such as dehumification, compaction and erosion on soils during the whole period of agricultural use of Central Chernozem reserve area and around. The choice of analogous soils was based on the similarity of their position within the

Baseline effects on carbon footprints of biofuels: The case of wood

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Johnson, Eric, E-mail: johnsonatlantic@gmail.com [Atlantic Consulting, 8136 Gattikon (Switzerland); Tschudi, Daniel [ETH, Berghaldenstrasse 46, 8800 Thalwil (Switzerland)

2012-11-15

As biofuel usage has boomed over the past decade, so has research and regulatory interest in its carbon accounting. This paper examines one aspect of that carbon accounting: the baseline, i.e. the reference case against which other conditions or changes can be compared. A literature search and analysis identified four baseline types: no baseline; reference point; marginal fossil fuel; and biomass opportunity cost. The fourth one, biomass opportunity cost, is defined in more detail, because this is not done elsewhere in the literature. The four baselines are then applied to the carbon footprint of a wood-fired power plant. The footprint of the resulting wood-fired electricity varies dramatically, according to the type of baseline. Baseline type is also found to be the footprint's most significant sensitivity. Other significant sensitivities are: efficiency of the power plant; the growth (or re-growth) rate of the forest that supplies the wood; and the residue fraction of the wood. Length of the policy horizon is also an important factor in determining the footprint. The paper concludes that because of their significance and variability, baseline choices should be made very explicit in biofuel carbon footprints. - Highlights: Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Four baseline types for biofuel footprinting are identified. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer One type, 'biomass opportunity cost', is defined mathematically and graphically. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Choice of baseline can dramatically affect the footprint result. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer The 'no baseline' approach is not acceptable. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Choice between the other three baselines depends on the question being addressed.

Developing Mixed Reality Educational Applications: The Virtual Touch Toolkit

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Juan Mateu

2015-08-01

Full Text Available In this paper, we present Virtual Touch, a toolkit that allows the development of educational activities through a mixed reality environment such that, using various tangible elements, the interconnection of a virtual world with the real world is enabled. The main goal of Virtual Touch is to facilitate the installation, configuration and programming of different types of technologies, abstracting the creator of educational applications from the technical details involving the use of tangible interfaces and virtual worlds. Therefore, it is specially designed to enable teachers to themselves create educational activities for their students in a simple way, taking into account that teachers generally lack advanced knowledge in computer programming and electronics. The toolkit has been used to develop various educational applications that have been tested in two secondary education high schools in Spain.

ProtoMD: A prototyping toolkit for multiscale molecular dynamics

Science.gov (United States)

Somogyi, Endre; Mansour, Andrew Abi; Ortoleva, Peter J.

2016-05-01

ProtoMD is a toolkit that facilitates the development of algorithms for multiscale molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. It is designed for multiscale methods which capture the dynamic transfer of information across multiple spatial scales, such as the atomic to the mesoscopic scale, via coevolving microscopic and coarse-grained (CG) variables. ProtoMD can be also be used to calibrate parameters needed in traditional CG-MD methods. The toolkit integrates 'GROMACS wrapper' to initiate MD simulations, and 'MDAnalysis' to analyze and manipulate trajectory files. It facilitates experimentation with a spectrum of coarse-grained variables, prototyping rare events (such as chemical reactions), or simulating nanocharacterization experiments such as terahertz spectroscopy, AFM, nanopore, and time-of-flight mass spectroscopy. ProtoMD is written in python and is freely available under the GNU General Public License from github.com/CTCNano/proto_md.

The carbon footprint of French people's consumption: evolution from 1990 to 2007

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pasquier, Jean-Louis; Moreau, Sylvain; Bottin, Anne; Boitard, Corinne

2012-03-01

The carbon footprint calculated by the statistical service of the French ministry in charge of sustainable development represents the amount of greenhouse gases emitted in order to satisfy French consumption, including emissions connected to imports. In 2007, the carbon footprint per capita in France amounted to 12 tons of CO 2 -equivalent per year, compared to 8 tons per person emitted from the French metropolitan territory. From 1990 to 2007, the carbon footprint per capita increased by 5%, whereas the average per capita emissions on the territory decreased by 15%. During this period, emissions connected to imports increased by 64%, reaching almost 50% of the French carbon footprint in 2007. (author)

Personal Water Footprint in Taiwan: A Case Study of Yunlin County

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yung-Jaan Lee

2016-10-01

Full Text Available Extreme weather events have affected the environment and water resources in Taiwan for the last two decades. Heavy rainfall, typhoons, and rising sea levels have caused severe flooding along the Southwest Coast in Taiwan. Yunlin County, an important agricultural region, will be significantly affected by climate changes, especially in coastal areas with severe land subsidence. Therefore, using the concept of the water footprint and questionnaire surveys, this study examines personal water footprints in townships in Yunlin County to explore the effectiveness and sustainability of water management. The purpose of the water footprint concept is to quantify environmental burdens imposed by individuals’ demand for water. An individual water footprint involves direct and indirect water usage that is associated with personal habits. Analytical results show that the most individual water consumption is highest along coastal areas, such as Kouhu and Taixi, and mountainous areas, such as Gukeng, Douliu, and Linnei. Furthermore, one-way ANOVA of individuals’ daily water footprint reveals that individual water footprints vary significantly among Douliu, Gukeng, and Mailiao. The mean daily water footprint per capita in Douliu and Gukeng significantly exceeds that in Mailiao. This study considers the location quotients of industries in these three townships, which indicate that the location quotients of the accommodation and food and beverage industries in Douliu and Gukeng significantly exceed those of Mailiao. The individual virtual water use that is associated with the aforementioned industries is large. Clearly, individual water use habits in townships are related to the industry type. Douliu and Gukeng are major centers of the tertiary industry, which has a higher location quotient than in Mailiao. Mailiao is a major center of manufacturing as a secondary industry. Therefore, flourishing regions with tertiary industries have high virtual water

Carbon and environmental footprinting of low carbon UK electricity futures to 2050

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Alderson, Helen; Cranston, Gemma R.; Hammond, Geoffrey P.

2012-01-01

Electricity generation contributes a large proportion of the total greenhouse gas emissions in the United Kingdom (UK), due to the predominant use of fossil fuel (coal and natural gas) combustion for this purpose. A range of future UK energy scenarios has been employed to determine their resulting environmental and carbon footprints. Methodologies have been established to calculate these footprints for the UK electricity supply industry on both a historic timescale and in accordance with the three selected scenarios. The latter scenarios, developed by the UK SUPERGEN Consortium on ‘Highly Distributed Power Systems’ (HDPS), were characterised as ‘Business As Usual’ (BAU), ‘Low Carbon’ (LC) and ‘Deep Green’ (DG) futures, and yielded possible electricity demands out to 2050. It was found that the environmental footprint of the current power network is 41 million (M) global hectares (gha). If future trends follow a ‘Business As Usual’ scenario, then this footprint is observed to fall to about 25 Mgha in 2050. The LC scenario implies an extensive penetration of micro-generators in the home to satisfy heat and power demands. However, these energy requirements are minimised by way of improved insulation of the building fabric and other demand reduction measures. In contrast, the DG scenario presupposes a network where centralised renewable energy technologies – mainly large-scale onshore and offshore wind turbines - have an important role in the power generation. However, both the LC and DG scenarios were found to lead to footprints of less than 4 Mgha by 2050. These latter two scenarios were found to give rise to quite similar trajectories over the period 2010–2050. They are therefore more likely to reflect an effective transition pathway in terms of meeting the 2050 UK CO 2 reduction targets associated with decarbonisation of its power network. However, this appears unlikely to be achieved by 2030–2040 as advocated by the UK Government

How China’s nitrogen footprint of food has changed from 1961 to 2010

Science.gov (United States)

Guo, Mengchu; Chen, Xiaohui; Bai, Zhaohai; Jiang, Rongfeng; Galloway, James N.; Leach, Allison M.; Cattaneo, Lia R.; Oenema, Oene; Ma, Lin; Zhang, Fusuo

2017-10-01

People have increased the amount of reactive nitrogen (Nr) in the environment as a result of food production methods and consumption choices. However, the connection between dietary choices and environmental impacts over time has not yet been studied in China. Here we combine a nitrogen footprint tool, the N-Calculator, with a food chain model, NUFER (NUtrient flows in Food chains, Environment and Resources use), to analyze the N footprint of food in China. We use the NUFER model to provide a detailed estimation of the amounts and forms of Nr released to the environment during food production, which is then used to calculate virtual nitrogen factors (VNFs, unit: kg N released/kg N in product) of major food items. The food N footprint consists of the food consumption N footprint and food production N footprint. The average per capita food N footprint increased from 4.7 kg N capita-1 yr-1 in the 1960s to 21 kg N capita-1 yr-1 in the 2000s, and the national food N footprint in China increased from 3.4 metric tons (MT) N yr-1 in the 1960s to 28 MT N yr-1 in the 2000s. The proportion of the food N footprint that is animal-derived increased from 37% to 54% during this period. The food production N footprint accounted for 84% of the national food N footprint in the 2000s, compared to 62% in the 1960s. More Nr has been added to the food production systems to produce enough food for a growing population that is increasing its per-capita food consumption. The increasing VNFs in China indicate that an increasing amount of Nr is being lost per unit of N embedded in food products consumed by humans in the past five decades. National N losses from food production increased from 6 MT N yr-1 in the 1960s to 23 MT N yr-1 in the 2000s. N was lost to the environment in four ways: ammonia (NH3) emissions and dinitrogen (N2) emissions through denitrification (each account for nearly 40%), N losses to water systems (20%), and nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions (1%). The average per

Water footprints and 'pozas'

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Domínguez Guzmán, Carolina; Verzijl, Andres; Zwarteveen, Margreet

2017-01-01

In this article we present two logics of water efficiency: that of the Water Footprint and that of mango smallholder farmers on the desert coast of Peru (in Motupe). We do so in order to explore how both can learn from each other and to discuss what happens when the two logics meet. Rather than

North and south: Regional footprints on the transition pathway towards a low carbon, global economy

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cranston, G.R.; Hammond, G.P.

2010-01-01

Environmental or 'ecological' footprints are indicators of resource consumption and waste absorption transformed on the basis of biologically productive land area required per capita with prevailing technology. They represent a partial measure of the extent to which the planet, its regions, or nations are moving along a sustainable development pathway. Such footprints vary between countries at different stages of economic development and varying geographic characteristics. A correlation equation for national environmental footprints is used, alongside international projections of population growth and gross regional income, to estimate the relative contributions of the peoples of the industrialised North and populous South that would be needed in order to secure climate-stabilising carbon reductions out to about 2100. The four so-called 'marker scenarios' produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are used to estimate the degree of energy efficiency improvement and carbon mitigation that is feasible. The present footprint projections suggest that a reduction in the consumption of biophysical assets across both the developing and industrialised world is indeed possible. However, the developing world's footprint is shown to overshoot that of the industrialised countries by around 2010-2015. It then levels out and starts to fall, on the most optimistic scenario, by about 2050. In order to achieve global sustainability in the 21st Century a serious commitment to environmental protection is required in both the industrialised North and the 'majority South'. That implies balancing population growth, economic well-being, and environmental impacts in the interests of all the people and wildlife on 'Spaceship Earth'.

Teaching Quantitative Reasoning for Nonscience Majors through Carbon Footprint Analysis

Science.gov (United States)

Boose, David L.

2014-01-01

Quantitative reasoning is a key intellectual skill, applicable across disciplines and best taught in the context of authentic, relevant problems. Here, I describe and assess a laboratory exercise that has students calculate their "carbon footprint" and evaluate the impacts of various behavior choices on that footprint. Students gather…

Carbon footprint of construction using industrialised building system

Science.gov (United States)

Lim, P. Y.; Yahya, K.; Aminudin, E.; Zakaria, R.; Haron, Z.; Mohamad Zin, R.; Redzuan, A. A. H.

2017-11-01

Industrialised Building System (IBS) is more sustainable to the environment as compared to the conventional construction methods. However, the construction industry in Malaysia has low acceptance towards IBS due to the resistance to change and also lack of awareness towards sustainability development. Therefore, it is important to study the amount carbon footprint produced by IBS during its manufacturing and construction stage, and also the amount of carbon footprint produced by one meter square of gross floor area of IBS construction using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to ease future research through the comparison of the carbon footprint of IBS with the conventional building system. As a result, a case study on a residential type of construction in the vicinity of Johor Bahru, Malaysia was carried out to obtain the necessary data and result. From the data analysis, the amount of greenhouse gases (GHG) for a residential type IBS construction based on the raw materials and resources involved to manufacture and construct IBS components is 0.127 tonnes fossil CO2Eq per meter square. Raw material that contributed to the most amount of carbon footprint is Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC), followed by steel bars, autoclaved aerated blocks and diesel. The LCA data acquired will be very useful in implementing IBS in the residential type construction. As a result, the awareness towards sustainable construction using IBS can be improved.

An assessment toolkit to increase the resilience of NWE catchments to periods of drought

Science.gov (United States)

La Jeunesse, Isabelle; Larrue, Corinne

2013-04-01

In many North Western Europe (NWE) areas the balance between water demand and availability is under pressure, thus under water scarcity. In addition, NWE areas are adversely affected by changes in the hydrological cycle and precipitation patterns, thus droughts periods. Over the past thirty years, droughts have dramatically increased and NWE are not immune. The summer of 2003 caused 10 billion euro damage to agriculture. In April 2012 the South West of the UK has moved to environmental drought status. Water scarcity and drought problems in the EU are increasing: 11% of the European population and 17% of its territory have been affected to date. Climate change is likely to exacerbate these adverse impacts. 50% of the NWE area are planned to be affected in 2050. Although the problems caused by drought in NWE are currently not overwhelmingly visible early action should be taken to reduce costs and prevent damage. Adapting to drought in NWE is the transnational challenge of the DROP (governance in DROught adaPtation) project. The Commission's recent "Blue Print on European Waters" states that existing policies are good but the problem lays in implementation. So the future challenge for NWE regions is to improve the implementation, meaning both governance and measures. The problem of drought is relatively new in comparison with flooding for these Regions. This demands another approach with the interaction of different stakeholders. NWE countries have proven strategies for flood prevention; no such strategies exist for drought adaptation. To do this, DROP combines science, practitioners and decisions makers, realizing the science-policy window. Thus, the aim of the DROP project is to increase the resilience of NWE catchments to periods of drought. To tackle these issues DROP will develop a governance toolkit to be used by NWE regional water authorities and will test a few pilot measures on drought adaptation. The objectives of the project are 1) to promote the use of a

Scaling of the Urban Water Footprint: An Analysis of 65 Mid- to Large-Sized U.S. Metropolitan Areas

Science.gov (United States)

Mahjabin, T.; Garcia, S.; Grady, C.; Mejia, A.

2017-12-01

Scaling laws have been shown to be relevant to a range of disciplines including biology, ecology, hydrology, and physics, among others. Recently, scaling was shown to be important for understanding and characterizing cities. For instance, it was found that urban infrastructure (water supply pipes and electrical wires) tends to scale sublinearly with city population, implying that large cities are more efficient. In this study, we explore the scaling of the water footprint of cities. The water footprint is a measure of water appropriation that considers both the direct and indirect (virtual) water use of a consumer or producer. Here we compute the water footprint of 65 mid- to large-sized U.S. metropolitan areas, accounting for direct and indirect water uses associated with agricultural and industrial commodities, and residential and commercial water uses. We find that the urban water footprint, computed as the sum of the water footprint of consumption and production, exhibits sublinear scaling with an exponent of 0.89. This suggests the possibility of large cities being more water-efficient than small ones. To further assess this result, we conduct additional analysis by accounting for international flows, and the effects of green water and city boundary definition on the scaling. The analysis confirms the scaling and provides additional insight about its interpretation.

FOOTPRINTS FOR SUSTAINABILITY: THE NEXT STEPS

Science.gov (United States)

This paper discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the ecological footprint as an ecological accounting method, points out research needs for improvement of the analysis, and suggests potential new applications.

Graph algorithms in the titan toolkit.

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

McLendon, William Clarence, III; Wylie, Brian Neil

2009-10-01

Graph algorithms are a key component in a wide variety of intelligence analysis activities. The Graph-Based Informatics for Non-Proliferation and Counter-Terrorism project addresses the critical need of making these graph algorithms accessible to Sandia analysts in a manner that is both intuitive and effective. Specifically we describe the design and implementation of an open source toolkit for doing graph analysis, informatics, and visualization that provides Sandia with novel analysis capability for non-proliferation and counter-terrorism.

The history of dinosaur footprint discoveries in Wyoming with emphasis on the Bighorn Basin

Science.gov (United States)

Kvale, Erik P.; Mickelson, Debra L.; Hasiotis, Stephen T; Johnson, Gary D.

2003-01-01

Dinosaur traces are well known from the western United States in the Colorado Plateau region (Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona). Utah contains the greatest abundance of known and documented dinosaur footprints and trackways. Far less well known, however, is the occurrence and distribution of dinosaur footprint-bearing horizons in Wyoming. Scientific studies over the past 10 years have shown that three of the four Middle and Upper Jurassic formations in northern Wyoming contain dinosaur footprints. Two of the footprint-bearing horizons are located in geologic intervals that were once thought to have been deposited in offshore to nearshore marine settings and represent rare North American examples of Middle Jurassic (Bajocian and Bathonian) dinosaur remains. Some of these new Wyoming sites can be correlated to known dinosaur footprint-bearing horizons or intervals in Utah. Wyoming has a great potential for additional discoveries of new dinosaur footprint-bearing horizons, and further prospecting and study is warranted and will ultimately lead to a much better understanding of the geographic distribution and behavior of the potential footprint-makers.

Applications toolkit for accelerator control and analysis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Borland, M.

1997-01-01

The Advanced Photon Source (APS) has taken a unique approach to creating high-level software applications for accelerator operation and analysis. The approach is based on self-describing data, modular program toolkits, and scripts. Self-describing data provide a communication standard that aids the creation of modular program toolkits by allowing compliant programs to be used in essentially arbitrary combinations. These modular programs can be used as part of an arbitrary number of high-level applications. At APS, a group of about 70 data analysis, manipulation, and display tools is used in concert with about 20 control-system-specific tools to implement applications for commissioning and operations. High-level applications are created using scripts, which are relatively simple interpreted programs. The Tcl/Tk script language is used, allowing creating of graphical user interfaces (GUIs) and a library of algorithms that are separate from the interface. This last factor allows greater automation of control by making it easy to take the human out of the loop. Applications of this methodology to operational tasks such as orbit correction, configuration management, and data review will be discussed

Tracking the global footprint of fisheries

Science.gov (United States)

Kroodsma, David A.; Mayorga, Juan; Hochberg, Timothy; Miller, Nathan A.; Boerder, Kristina; Ferretti, Francesco; Wilson, Alex; Bergman, Bjorn; White, Timothy D.; Block, Barbara A.; Woods, Paul; Sullivan, Brian; Costello, Christopher; Worm, Boris

2018-02-01

Although fishing is one of the most widespread activities by which humans harvest natural resources, its global footprint is poorly understood and has never been directly quantified. We processed 22 billion automatic identification system messages and tracked >70,000 industrial fishing vessels from 2012 to 2016, creating a global dynamic footprint of fishing effort with spatial and temporal resolution two to three orders of magnitude higher than for previous data sets. Our data show that industrial fishing occurs in >55% of ocean area and has a spatial extent more than four times that of agriculture. We find that global patterns of fishing have surprisingly low sensitivity to short-term economic and environmental variation and a strong response to cultural and political events such as holidays and closures.

EasyInterface: A toolkit for rapid development of GUIs for research prototype tools

OpenAIRE

Doménech, Jesús; Genaim, Samir; Johnsen, Einar Broch; Schlatte, Rudolf

2017-01-01

In this paper we describe EasyInterface, an open-source toolkit for rapid development of web-based graphical user interfaces (GUIs). This toolkit addresses the need of researchers to make their research prototype tools available to the community, and integrating them in a common environment, rapidly and without being familiar with web programming or GUI libraries in general. If a tool can be executed from a command-line and its output goes to the standard output, then in few minutes one can m...

Post No Photos, Leave No Trace: Children's Digital Footprint Management Strategies

Science.gov (United States)

Buchanan, Rachel; Southgate, Erica; Smith, Shamus P.; Murray, Tiana; Noble, Brittany

2017-01-01

Given that today's children are prolific users of the internet, concern has been raised about the future impact of the digital footprints they are currently generating. Here, we report on the "Best Footprint Forward" project which utilised focus groups to investigate the digital footprint awareness of 33 children (ranging in age from 10…

Evaluating a small footprint, waveform-resolving lidar over coastal vegetation communities

Science.gov (United States)

Nayegandhl, A.; Brock, J.C.; Wright, C.W.; O'Connell, M. J.

2006-01-01

NASA's Experimental Advanced Airborne Research Lidar (EAARL) is a raster-scanning, waveform-resolving, green-wavelength (532 nm) lidar designed to map near-shore bathymetry, topography, and vegetation structure simultaneously. The EAARL sensor records the time history of the return waveform within a small footprint (20 cm diameter) for each laser pulse, enabling characterization of vegetation canopy structure and "bare earth" topography under a variety of vegetation types. A collection of individual waveforms combined within a synthesized large footprint was used to define three metrics: canopy height (CH), canopy reflection ratio (CRR), and height of median energy (HOME). Bare Earth Elevation (BEE) metric was derived using the individual small-footprint waveforms. All four metrics were tested for reproducibility, which resulted in an average of 95 percent correspondence within two standard deviations of the mean. CH and BEE values were also tested for accuracy using ground-truth data. The results presented in this paper show that combining several individual small-footprint laser pulses to define a composite "large-footprint" waveform is a possible method to depict the vertical structure of a vegetation canopy. ?? 2006 American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing.

Quantifying carbon footprint reduction opportunities for U.S. households and communities.

Science.gov (United States)

Jones, Christopher M; Kammen, Daniel M

2011-05-01

Carbon management is of increasing interest to individuals, households, and communities. In order to effectively assess and manage their climate impacts, individuals need information on the financial and greenhouse gas benefits of effective mitigation opportunities. We use consumption-based life cycle accounting techniques to quantify the carbon footprints of typical U.S. households in 28 cities for 6 household sizes and 12 income brackets. The model includes emissions embodied in transportation, energy, water, waste, food, goods, and services. We further quantify greenhouse gas and financial savings from 13 potential mitigation actions across all household types. The model suggests that the size and composition of carbon footprints vary dramatically between geographic regions and within regions based on basic demographic characteristics. Despite these differences, large cash-positive carbon footprint reductions are evident across all household types and locations; however, realizing this potential may require tailoring policies and programs to different population segments with very different carbon footprint profiles. The results of this model have been incorporated into an open access online carbon footprint management tool designed to enable behavior change at the household level through personalized feedback.

[Dynamic changes of ecological footprint and ecological capacity in Fujian Province].

Science.gov (United States)

Weng, Boqi; Wang, Yixiang; Huang, Yibin; Ying, Zhaoyang; Huang, Qinlou

2006-11-01

The analysis on the dynamic changes of ecological footprint and ecological capacity in Fujian Province showed that in 1999-2003, the ecological footprint per capita in the Province increased from 1.428 hm2 to 1.658 hm2, while the ecological capacity per capita decreased from 0.683 hm2 to 0.607 hm2, with an increased ecological deficit year after year. The contradiction between the ecological footprint and ecological capacity pricked up gradually, and the ecological environment was at risk. There existed a severe imbalance in the supply and demand of ecological footprint per capita. The main body of the demands was grassland and fossil fuel, accouting for 55.74% - 63.43% of the total, while their supply only occupied 0.77% - 0.82% and next to nothing of the ecological capacity per capita, respectively. As a whole, the ecological footprint per ten thousand yuan GDP declined in the five years, indicating that the resources use efficiency in the Province was improved gradually. Based on the analysis of the present situation of the economic development and resources distribution in the Province, the strategies on reducing ecological deficit were put forward.

NeuroPigPen: A Scalable Toolkit for Processing Electrophysiological Signal Data in Neuroscience Applications Using Apache Pig.

Science.gov (United States)

Sahoo, Satya S; Wei, Annan; Valdez, Joshua; Wang, Li; Zonjy, Bilal; Tatsuoka, Curtis; Loparo, Kenneth A; Lhatoo, Samden D

2016-01-01

The recent advances in neurological imaging and sensing technologies have led to rapid increase in the volume, rate of data generation, and variety of neuroscience data. This "neuroscience Big data" represents a significant opportunity for the biomedical research community to design experiments using data with greater timescale, large number of attributes, and statistically significant data size. The results from these new data-driven research techniques can advance our understanding of complex neurological disorders, help model long-term effects of brain injuries, and provide new insights into dynamics of brain networks. However, many existing neuroinformatics data processing and analysis tools were not built to manage large volume of data, which makes it difficult for researchers to effectively leverage this available data to advance their research. We introduce a new toolkit called NeuroPigPen that was developed using Apache Hadoop and Pig data flow language to address the challenges posed by large-scale electrophysiological signal data. NeuroPigPen is a modular toolkit that can process large volumes of electrophysiological signal data, such as Electroencephalogram (EEG), Electrocardiogram (ECG), and blood oxygen levels (SpO2), using a new distributed storage model called Cloudwave Signal Format (CSF) that supports easy partitioning and storage of signal data on commodity hardware. NeuroPigPen was developed with three design principles: (a) Scalability-the ability to efficiently process increasing volumes of data; (b) Adaptability-the toolkit can be deployed across different computing configurations; and (c) Ease of programming-the toolkit can be easily used to compose multi-step data processing pipelines using high-level programming constructs. The NeuroPigPen toolkit was evaluated using 750 GB of electrophysiological signal data over a variety of Hadoop cluster configurations ranging from 3 to 30 Data nodes. The evaluation results demonstrate that the toolkit

A flexible open-source toolkit for lava flow simulations

Science.gov (United States)

Mossoux, Sophie; Feltz, Adelin; Poppe, Sam; Canters, Frank; Kervyn, Matthieu

2014-05-01

Lava flow hazard modeling is a useful tool for scientists and stakeholders confronted with imminent or long term hazard from basaltic volcanoes. It can improve their understanding of the spatial distribution of volcanic hazard, influence their land use decisions and improve the city evacuation during a volcanic crisis. Although a range of empirical, stochastic and physically-based lava flow models exists, these models are rarely available or require a large amount of physical constraints. We present a GIS toolkit which models lava flow propagation from one or multiple eruptive vents, defined interactively on a Digital Elevation Model (DEM). It combines existing probabilistic (VORIS) and deterministic (FLOWGO) models in order to improve the simulation of lava flow spatial spread and terminal length. Not only is this toolkit open-source, running in Python, which allows users to adapt the code to their needs, but it also allows users to combine the models included in different ways. The lava flow paths are determined based on the probabilistic steepest slope (VORIS model - Felpeto et al., 2001) which can be constrained in order to favour concentrated or dispersed flow fields. Moreover, the toolkit allows including a corrective factor in order for the lava to overcome small topographical obstacles or pits. The lava flow terminal length can be constrained using a fixed length value, a Gaussian probability density function or can be calculated based on the thermo-rheological properties of the open-channel lava flow (FLOWGO model - Harris and Rowland, 2001). These slope-constrained properties allow estimating the velocity of the flow and its heat losses. The lava flow stops when its velocity is zero or the lava temperature reaches the solidus. Recent lava flows of Karthala volcano (Comoros islands) are here used to demonstrate the quality of lava flow simulations with the toolkit, using a quantitative assessment of the match of the simulation with the real lava flows. The

Human footprints on greenhouse gas fluxes in cryogenic ecosystems

Science.gov (United States)

Karelin, D. V.; Goryachkin, S. V.; Zamolodchikov, D. G.; Dolgikh, A. V.; Zazovskaya, E. P.; Shishkov, V. A.; Kraev, G. N.

2017-12-01

Various human footprints on the flux of biogenic greenhouse gases from permafrost-affected soils in Arctic and boreal domains in Russia are considered. Tendencies of significant growth or suppression of soil CO2 fluxes change across types of human impact. Overall, the human impacts increase the mean value and variance of local soil CO2 flux. Human footprint on methane exchange between soil and atmosphere is mediated by drainage. However, all the types of human impact suppress the sources and increase sinks of methane to the land ecosystems. N2O flux grew under the considered types of human impact. Based on the results, we suggest that human footprint on soil greenhouse gases fluxes is comparable to the effect of climate change at an annual to decadal timescales.

The SpeX Prism Library Analysis Toolkit: Design Considerations and First Results

Science.gov (United States)

Burgasser, Adam J.; Aganze, Christian; Escala, Ivana; Lopez, Mike; Choban, Caleb; Jin, Yuhui; Iyer, Aishwarya; Tallis, Melisa; Suarez, Adrian; Sahi, Maitrayee

2016-01-01

Various observational and theoretical spectral libraries now exist for galaxies, stars, planets and other objects, which have proven useful for classification, interpretation, simulation and model development. Effective use of these libraries relies on analysis tools, which are often left to users to develop. In this poster, we describe a program to develop a combined spectral data repository and Python-based analysis toolkit for low-resolution spectra of very low mass dwarfs (late M, L and T dwarfs), which enables visualization, spectral index analysis, classification, atmosphere model comparison, and binary modeling for nearly 2000 library spectra and user-submitted data. The SpeX Prism Library Analysis Toolkit (SPLAT) is being constructed as a collaborative, student-centered, learning-through-research model with high school, undergraduate and graduate students and regional science teachers, who populate the database and build the analysis tools through quarterly challenge exercises and summer research projects. In this poster, I describe the design considerations of the toolkit, its current status and development plan, and report the first published results led by undergraduate students. The combined data and analysis tools are ideal for characterizing cool stellar and exoplanetary atmospheres (including direct exoplanetary spectra observations by Gemini/GPI, VLT/SPHERE, and JWST), and the toolkit design can be readily adapted for other spectral datasets as well.This material is based upon work supported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration under Grant No. NNX15AI75G. SPLAT code can be found at https://github.com/aburgasser/splat.

Toolkit for healthcare facility design evaluation - some case studies

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

De Jager, Peta

2007-10-01

Full Text Available themes in approach. Further study is indicated, but preliminary research shows that, whilst these toolkits can be applied to the South African context, there are compelling reasons for them to be adapted. This paper briefly outlines these three case...

Toolkit for healthcare facility design evaluation - some case studies.

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

De Jager, Peta

2007-10-01

Full Text Available themes in approach. Further study is indicated, but preliminary research shows that, whilst these toolkits can be applied to the South African context, there are compelling reasons for them to be adapted. This paper briefly outlines these three case...

New Careers in Nursing Scholar Alumni Toolkit: Development of an Innovative Resource for Transition to Practice.

Science.gov (United States)

Mauro, Ann Marie P; Escallier, Lori A; Rosario-Sim, Maria G

2016-01-01

The transition from student to professional nurse is challenging and may be more difficult for underrepresented minority nurses. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation New Careers in Nursing (NCIN) program supported development of a toolkit that would serve as a transition-to-practice resource to promote retention of NCIN alumni and other new nurses. Thirteen recent NCIN alumni (54% male, 23% Hispanic/Latino, 23% African Americans) from 3 schools gave preliminary content feedback. An e-mail survey was sent to a convenience sample of 29 recent NCIN alumni who evaluated the draft toolkit using a Likert scale (poor = 1; excellent = 5). Twenty NCIN alumni draft toolkit reviewers (response rate 69%) were primarily female (80%) and Hispanic/Latino (40%). Individual chapters' mean overall rating of 4.67 demonstrated strong validation. Mean scores for overall toolkit content (4.57), usability (4.5), relevance (4.79), and quality (4.71) were also excellent. Qualitative comments were analyzed using thematic content analysis and supported the toolkit's relevance and utility. A multilevel peer review process was also conducted. Peer reviewer feedback resulted in a 6-chapter document that offers resources for successful transition to practice and lays the groundwork for continued professional growth. Future research is needed to determine the ideal time to introduce this resource. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

RGtk2: A Graphical User Interface Toolkit for R

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Duncan Temple Lang

2011-01-01

Full Text Available Graphical user interfaces (GUIs are growing in popularity as a complement or alternative to the traditional command line interfaces to R. RGtk2 is an R package for creating GUIs in R. The package provides programmatic access to GTK+ 2.0, an open-source GUI toolkit written in C. To construct a GUI, the R programmer calls RGtk2 functions that map to functions in the underlying GTK+ library. This paper introduces the basic concepts underlying GTK+ and explains how to use RGtk2 to construct GUIs from R. The tutorial is based on simple and pratical programming examples. We also provide more complex examples illustrating the advanced features of the package. The design of the RGtk2 API and the low-level interface from R to GTK+ are discussed at length. We compare RGtk2 to alternative GUI toolkits for R.

Water Footprints and Sustainable Water Allocation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Arjen Y. Hoekstra

2015-12-01

Full Text Available Water Footprint Assessment (WFA is a quickly growing research field. This Special Issue contains a selection of papers advancing the field or showing innovative applications. The first seven papers are geographic WFA studies, from an urban to a continental scale; the next five papers have a global scope; the final five papers focus on water sustainability from the business point of view. The collection of papers shows that the historical picture of a town relying on its hinterland for its supply of water and food is no longer true: the water footprint of urban consumers is global. It has become clear that wise water governance is no longer the exclusive domain of government, even though water is and will remain a public resource with government in a primary role. With most water being used for producing our food and other consumer goods, and with product supply chains becoming increasingly complex and global, there is a growing awareness that consumers, companies and investors also have a key role. The interest in sustainable water use grows quickly, in both civil society and business communities, but the poor state of transparency of companies regarding their direct and indirect water use implies that there is still a long way to go before we can expect that companies effectively contribute to making water footprints more sustainable at a relevant scale.

A methodological toolkit for field assessments of artisanally mined alluvial diamond deposits

Science.gov (United States)

Chirico, Peter G.; Malpeli, Katherine C.

2014-01-01

This toolkit provides a standardized checklist of critical issues relevant to artisanal mining-related field research. An integrated sociophysical geographic approach to collecting data at artisanal mine sites is outlined. The implementation and results of a multistakeholder approach to data collection, carried out in the assessment of Guinea’s artisanally mined diamond deposits, also are summarized. This toolkit, based on recent and successful field campaigns in West Africa, has been developed as a reference document to assist other government agencies or organizations in collecting the data necessary for artisanal diamond mining or similar natural resource assessments.

Characteristics of the water footprint of rice production under different rainfall years in Jilin Province, China.

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Hongying; Qin, Lijie; He, Hongshi

2018-06-01

Rice is a special crop, and its production differs from that of other crops because it requires a thin layer of water coverage for a long period. The calculation of the water footprint of rice production should differ from that of other crops owing to the rice growing process. This study improved the calculation of blue and grey water footprints of rice production and analyzed the variations in the water footprints for rice production under different rainfall years in Jilin Province. In the drought year, the green water footprint was the lowest and the blue water footprint was the highest among the three years, while in the humid year, the green water footprint was the highest and the blue water footprint was not the lowest. The areas with higher water footprints were found in the east and west regions of Jilin Province, while the areas with lower water footprints were found in the middle east and middle regions of Jilin Province. Blue water was the primary water resource for rice production, although more precipitation provided the highest green water in the humid year; also, the spatial distributions of water footprints were not the same under different rainfall years. © 2017 Society of Chemical Industry. © 2017 Society of Chemical Industry.

Penetration Tester's Open Source Toolkit

CERN Document Server

Faircloth, Jeremy

2011-01-01

Great commercial penetration testing tools can be very expensive and sometimes hard to use or of questionable accuracy. This book helps solve both of these problems. The open source, no-cost penetration testing tools presented do a great job and can be modified by the user for each situation. Many tools, even ones that cost thousands of dollars, do not come with any type of instruction on how and in which situations the penetration tester can best use them. Penetration Tester's Open Source Toolkit, Third Edition, expands upon existing instructions so that a professional can get the most accura

Google Web Toolkit for Ajax

CERN Document Server

Perry, Bruce

2007-01-01

The Google Web Toolkit (GWT) is a nifty framework that Java programmers can use to create Ajax applications. The GWT allows you to create an Ajax application in your favorite IDE, such as IntelliJ IDEA or Eclipse, using paradigms and mechanisms similar to programming a Java Swing application. After you code the application in Java, the GWT's tools generate the JavaScript code the application needs. You can also use typical Java project tools such as JUnit and Ant when creating GWT applications. The GWT is a free download, and you can freely distribute the client- and server-side code you c

Does footprint depth correlate with foot motion and pressure?

OpenAIRE

Bates, K. T.; Savage, R.; Pataky, T. C.; Morse, S. A.; Webster, E.; Falkingham, P. L.; Ren, L.; Qian, Z.; Collins, D.; Bennett, M. R.; McClymont, J.; Crompton, R. H.

2013-01-01

Footprints are the most direct source of evidence about locomotor biomechanics in extinct vertebrates. One of the principal suppositions underpinning biomechanical inferences is that footprint geometry correlates with dynamic foot pressure, which, in turn, is linked with overall limb motion of the trackmaker. In this study, we perform the first quantitative test of this long-standing assumption, using topological statistical analysis of plantar pressures and experimental and computer-simulate...

The Knowledge Translation Toolkit: Bridging the Know–Do Gap: A ...

International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Digital Library (Canada)

2011-06-06

Jun 6, 2011 ... It presents the theories, tools, and strategies required to encourage and enable ... Toolkit: Bridging the Know–Do Gap: A Resource for Researchers ... violence, and make digital platforms work for inclusive development.

Metal footprint linked to economy

Science.gov (United States)

Burke, Paul J.

2018-04-01

The annual quantity of metal being used by humans has been on the rise. A new analysis of 43 major economies reveals the extent to which year-to-year fluctuations in metal footprints have been in lockstep with countries' economic growth and changes in investment spending.

Developing Climate Resilience Toolkit Decision Support Training Sectio

Science.gov (United States)

Livezey, M. M.; Herring, D.; Keck, J.; Meyers, J. C.

2014-12-01

The Climate Resilience Toolkit (CRT) is a Federal government effort to address the U.S. President's Climate Action Plan and Executive Order for Climate Preparedness. The toolkit will provide access to tools and products useful for climate-sensitive decision making. To optimize the user experience, the toolkit will also provide access to training materials. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has been building a climate training capability for 15 years. The target audience for the training has historically been mainly NOAA staff with some modified training programs for external users and stakeholders. NOAA is now using this climate training capacity for the CRT. To organize the CRT training section, we collaborated with the Association of Climate Change Officers to determine the best strategy and identified four additional complimentary skills needed for successful decision making: climate literacy, environmental literacy, risk assessment and management, and strategic execution and monitoring. Developing the climate literacy skills requires knowledge of climate variability and change, as well as an introduction to the suite of available products and services. For the development of an environmental literacy category, specific topics needed include knowledge of climate impacts on specific environmental systems. Climate risk assessment and management introduces a process for decision making and provides knowledge on communication of climate information and integration of climate information in planning processes. The strategic execution and monitoring category provides information on use of NOAA climate products, services, and partnership opportunities for decision making. In order to use the existing training modules, it was necessary to assess their level of complexity, catalog them, and develop guidance for users on a curriculum to take advantage of the training resources to enhance their learning experience. With the development of this CRT

The DLESE Evaluation Toolkit Project

Science.gov (United States)

Buhr, S. M.; Barker, L. J.; Marlino, M.

2002-12-01

The Evaluation Toolkit and Community project is a new Digital Library for Earth System Education (DLESE) collection designed to raise awareness of project evaluation within the geoscience education community, and to enable principal investigators, teachers, and evaluators to implement project evaluation more readily. This new resource is grounded in the needs of geoscience educators, and will provide a virtual home for a geoscience education evaluation community. The goals of the project are to 1) provide a robust collection of evaluation resources useful for Earth systems educators, 2) establish a forum and community for evaluation dialogue within DLESE, and 3) disseminate the resources through the DLESE infrastructure and through professional society workshops and proceedings. Collaboration and expertise in education, geoscience and evaluation are necessary if we are to conduct the best possible geoscience education. The Toolkit allows users to engage in evaluation at whichever level best suits their needs, get more evaluation professional development if desired, and access the expertise of other segments of the community. To date, a test web site has been built and populated, initial community feedback from the DLESE and broader community is being garnered, and we have begun to heighten awareness of geoscience education evaluation within our community. The web site contains features that allow users to access professional development about evaluation, search and find evaluation resources, submit resources, find or offer evaluation services, sign up for upcoming workshops, take the user survey, and submit calendar items. The evaluation resource matrix currently contains resources that have met our initial review. The resources are currently organized by type; they will become searchable on multiple dimensions of project type, audience, objectives and evaluation resource type as efforts to develop a collection-specific search engine mature. The peer review

[Spatial and temporal patterns of the ecological compensation criterion in Jiangxi Province, China based on carbon footprint.

Science.gov (United States)

Hu, Xiao Fei; Zou, Yan; Fu, Chun

2017-02-01

Carbon footprint is a new method to measure carbon emissions, and the ecological compensation criterion can be determined according to the regional carbon footprint and carbon carrying capacity. The spatial and temporal patterns of ecological compensation criterion were studied among 11 cities in Jiangxi Province using carbon footprint, carbon capacity and carbon surplus/deficit models. Our results found that carbon footprint in Jiangxi Province showed a rapid growth trend from 2000 to 2013, with an average annual growth rate of 8.7%. The carbon carrying capacity always remained surplus, but the net carbon surplus amount decreased from 2000 to 2013. Among the 11 cities, Nanchang and Jiujiang made the biggest contribution to total carbon emission, and Ganzhou, Ji'an and Shangrao had provided the largest contribution to carbon total absorption. In 2013, the total carbon surplus amount was 2.273 billion yuan in Jiangxi Province. Ganzhou, Ji'an, Fuzhou and Shangrao should be given priority to ecological compensation money. These results could provide a scientific basis for the establishment of ecological compensation mechanism in Jiangxi Province and the transfer of CO 2 emission rights.

Effect of an educational toolkit on quality of care: a pragmatic cluster randomized trial.

Science.gov (United States)

Shah, Baiju R; Bhattacharyya, Onil; Yu, Catherine H Y; Mamdani, Muhammad M; Parsons, Janet A; Straus, Sharon E; Zwarenstein, Merrick

2014-02-01

Printed educational materials for clinician education are one of the most commonly used approaches for quality improvement. The objective of this pragmatic cluster randomized trial was to evaluate the effectiveness of an educational toolkit focusing on cardiovascular disease screening and risk reduction in people with diabetes. All 933,789 people aged ≥40 years with diagnosed diabetes in Ontario, Canada were studied using population-level administrative databases, with additional clinical outcome data collected from a random sample of 1,592 high risk patients. Family practices were randomly assigned to receive the educational toolkit in June 2009 (intervention group) or May 2010 (control group). The primary outcome in the administrative data study, death or non-fatal myocardial infarction, occurred in 11,736 (2.5%) patients in the intervention group and 11,536 (2.5%) in the control group (p = 0.77). The primary outcome in the clinical data study, use of a statin, occurred in 700 (88.1%) patients in the intervention group and 725 (90.1%) in the control group (p = 0.26). Pre-specified secondary outcomes, including other clinical events, processes of care, and measures of risk factor control, were also not improved by the intervention. A limitation is the high baseline rate of statin prescribing in this population. The educational toolkit did not improve quality of care or cardiovascular outcomes in a population with diabetes. Despite being relatively easy and inexpensive to implement, printed educational materials were not effective. The study highlights the need for a rigorous and scientifically based approach to the development, dissemination, and evaluation of quality improvement interventions. http://www.ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01411865 and NCT01026688.

A survey exploring National Health Service ePrescribing Toolkit use and perceived usefulness amongst English hospitals

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kathrin Cresswell

2017-06-01

Conclusions: Interactive elements and learning lessons from early adopter sites that had accumulated experiences of implementing systems was viewed as the most helpful aspect of the ePrescribing Toolkit. The Toolkit now needs to be further developed to facilitate the continuing implementation/optimisation of ePrescribing and other health information technology across the NHS.

Hydropower's Biogenic Carbon Footprint.

Science.gov (United States)

Scherer, Laura; Pfister, Stephan

2016-01-01

Global warming is accelerating and the world urgently needs a shift to clean and renewable energy. Hydropower is currently the largest renewable source of electricity, but its contribution to climate change mitigation is not yet fully understood. Hydroelectric reservoirs are a source of biogenic greenhouse gases and in individual cases can reach the same emission rates as thermal power plants. Little is known about the severity of their emissions at the global scale. Here we show that the carbon footprint of hydropower is far higher than previously assumed, with a global average of 173 kg CO2 and 2.95 kg CH4 emitted per MWh of electricity produced. This results in a combined average carbon footprint of 273 kg CO2e/MWh when using the global warming potential over a time horizon of 100 years (GWP100). Nonetheless, this is still below that of fossil energy sources without the use of carbon capture and sequestration technologies. We identified the dams most promising for capturing methane for use as alternative energy source. The spread among the ~1500 hydropower plants analysed in this study is large and highlights the importance of case-by-case examinations.

Hydropower's Biogenic Carbon Footprint

Science.gov (United States)

Pfister, Stephan

2016-01-01

Global warming is accelerating and the world urgently needs a shift to clean and renewable energy. Hydropower is currently the largest renewable source of electricity, but its contribution to climate change mitigation is not yet fully understood. Hydroelectric reservoirs are a source of biogenic greenhouse gases and in individual cases can reach the same emission rates as thermal power plants. Little is known about the severity of their emissions at the global scale. Here we show that the carbon footprint of hydropower is far higher than previously assumed, with a global average of 173 kg CO2 and 2.95 kg CH4 emitted per MWh of electricity produced. This results in a combined average carbon footprint of 273 kg CO2e/MWh when using the global warming potential over a time horizon of 100 years (GWP100). Nonetheless, this is still below that of fossil energy sources without the use of carbon capture and sequestration technologies. We identified the dams most promising for capturing methane for use as alternative energy source. The spread among the ~1500 hydropower plants analysed in this study is large and highlights the importance of case-by-case examinations. PMID:27626943

Measuring Completeness of Building Footprints in OpenStreetMap over Space and Time

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Carola Kunze

2013-11-01

Full Text Available Due to financial or administrative constraints, access to official spatial base data is currently limited to a small subset of all potential users in the field of spatial planning and research. This increases the usefulness of Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI, in particular OpenStreetMap (OSM, as supplementary datasets or, in some cases, alternative sources of primary data. In contrast to the OSM street network, which has already been thoroughly investigated and found to be practically complete in many areas, the degree of completeness of OSM data on buildings is still unclear. In this paper we describe methods to analyze building completeness and apply these to various test areas in Germany. Official data from national mapping and cadastral agencies is used as a basis for comparison. The results show that unit-based completeness measurements (e.g., total number or area of buildings are highly sensitive to disparities in modeling between official data and VGI. Therefore, we recommend object-based methods to study the completeness of OSM building footprint data. An analysis from November 2011 in Germany indicated a completeness of 25% in the federal states of North Rhine-Westphalia and 15% in Saxony. Although further analyses from 2012 confirm that data completeness in Saxony has risen to 23%, the rate of new data input was slowing in the year 2012.

Water Footprint Assessment in the Agro-industry: A Case Study of Soy Sauce Production

Science.gov (United States)

Firda, Alfiana Aulia; Purwanto

2018-02-01

In terms of global water scarcity, the water footprint is an indicator of the use of water resources that given knowledge about the environmental impact of consuming a product. The sustainable use of water resources nowadays bring challenges related to the production and consumption phase of water intensive related goods such as in the agro-industry. The objective of the study was to assessment the total water footprint from soy sauce production in Grobogan Regency. The total water footprint is equal to the sum of the supply chain water footprint and the operational water footprint. The assessment is based on the production chain diagram of soy sauce production which presenting the relevant process stages from the source to the final product. The result of this research is the total water footprint of soy sauce production is 1.986,35 L/kg with fraction of green water 78,43%, blue water 21,4% and gray water 0,17%.

Water Footprint Assessment in the Agro-industry: A Case Study of Soy Sauce Production

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Aulia Firda Alfiana

2018-01-01

Full Text Available In terms of global water scarcity, the water footprint is an indicator of the use of water resources that given knowledge about the environmental impact of consuming a product. The sustainable use of water resources nowadays bring challenges related to the production and consumption phase of water intensive related goods such as in the agro-industry. The objective of the study was to assessment the total water footprint from soy sauce production in Grobogan Regency. The total water footprint is equal to the sum of the supply chain water footprint and the operational water footprint. The assessment is based on the production chain diagram of soy sauce production which presenting the relevant process stages from the source to the final product. The result of this research is the total water footprint of soy sauce production is 1.986,35 L/kg with fraction of green water 78,43%, blue water 21,4% and gray water 0,17%.

Patient-Centered Personal Health Record and Portal Implementation Toolkit for Ambulatory Clinics: A Feasibility Study.

Science.gov (United States)

Nahm, Eun-Shim; Diblasi, Catherine; Gonzales, Eva; Silver, Kristi; Zhu, Shijun; Sagherian, Knar; Kongs, Katherine

2017-04-01

Personal health records and patient portals have been shown to be effective in managing chronic illnesses. Despite recent nationwide implementation efforts, the personal health record and patient portal adoption rates among patients are low, and the lack of support for patients using the programs remains a critical gap in most implementation processes. In this study, we implemented the Patient-Centered Personal Health Record and Patient Portal Implementation Toolkit in a large diabetes/endocrinology center and assessed its preliminary impact on personal health record and patient portal knowledge, self-efficacy, patient-provider communication, and adherence to treatment plans. Patient-Centered Personal Health Record and Patient Portal Implementation Toolkit is composed of Patient-Centered Personal Health Record and Patient Portal Implementation Toolkit-General, clinic-level resources for clinicians, staff, and patients, and Patient-Centered Personal Health Record and Patient Portal Implementation Toolkit Plus, an optional 4-week online resource program for patients ("MyHealthPortal"). First, Patient-Centered Personal Health Record and Patient Portal Implementation Toolkit-General was implemented, and all clinicians and staff were educated about the center's personal health record and patient portal. Then general patient education was initiated, while a randomized controlled trial was conducted to test the preliminary effects of "MyHealthPortal" using a small sample (n = 74) with three observations (baseline and 4 and 12 weeks). The intervention group showed significantly greater improvement than the control group in patient-provider communication at 4 weeks (t56 = 3.00, P = .004). For other variables, the intervention group tended to show greater improvement; however, the differences were not significant. In this preliminary study, Patient-Centered Personal Health Record and Patient Portal Implementation Toolkit showed potential for filling the gap in the current

Using features of local densities, statistics and HMM toolkit (HTK for offline Arabic handwriting text recognition

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

El Moubtahij Hicham

2017-12-01

Full Text Available This paper presents an analytical approach of an offline handwritten Arabic text recognition system. It is based on the Hidden Markov Models (HMM Toolkit (HTK without explicit segmentation. The first phase is preprocessing, where the data is introduced in the system after quality enhancements. Then, a set of characteristics (features of local densities and features statistics are extracted by using the technique of sliding windows. Subsequently, the resulting feature vectors are injected to the Hidden Markov Model Toolkit (HTK. The simple database “Arabic-Numbers” and IFN/ENIT are used to evaluate the performance of this system. Keywords: Hidden Markov Models (HMM Toolkit (HTK, Sliding windows

An evaluation of a toolkit for the early detection, management, and control of carbapenemase-producing Enterobacteriaceae: a survey of acute hospital trusts in England.

Science.gov (United States)

Coope, C M; Verlander, N Q; Schneider, A; Hopkins, S; Welfare, W; Johnson, A P; Patel, B; Oliver, I

2018-03-09

Following hospital outbreaks of carbapenemase-producing Enterobacteriaceae (CPE), Public Health England published a toolkit in December 2013 to promote the early detection, management, and control of CPE colonization and infection in acute hospital settings. To examine awareness, uptake, implementation and usefulness of the CPE toolkit and identify potential barriers and facilitators to its adoption in order to inform future guidance. A cross-sectional survey of National Health Service (NHS) acute trusts was conducted in May 2016. Descriptive analysis and multivariable regression models were conducted, and narrative responses were analysed thematically and informed using behaviour change theory. Most (92%) acute trusts had a written CPE plan. Fewer (75%) reported consistent compliance with screening and isolation of CPE risk patients. Lower prioritization and weaker senior management support for CPE prevention were associated with poorer compliance. Awareness of the CPE toolkit was high and all trusts with patients infected or colonized with CPE had used the toolkit either as provided (32%), or to inform (65%) their own local CPE plan. Despite this, many respondents (80%) did not believe that the CPE toolkit guidance offered an effective means to prevent CPE or was practical to follow. CPE prevention and control requires robust IPC measures. Successful implementation can be hindered by a complex set of factors related to their practical execution, insufficient resources and a lack of confidence in the effectiveness of the guidance. Future CPE guidance would benefit from substantive user involvement, processes for ongoing feedback, and regular guidance updates. Copyright © 2018 The Healthcare Infection Society. All rights reserved.

Foot-printing of Protein Interactions by Tritium Labeling

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mousseau, Guillaume; Thomas, Olivier P.; Agez, Morgane; Thai, Robert; Cintrat, Jean-Christophe; Rousseau, Bernard; Raffy, Quentin; Renault, Jean Philippe; Pin, Serge; Ochsenbein, Francoise

2010-01-01

A new foot-printing method for mapping protein interactions has been developed, using tritium as a radioactive label. As residues involved in an interaction are less labeled when the complex is formed, they can be identified via comparison of the tritium incorporation of each residue of the bound protein with that of the unbound one. Application of this foot-printing method to the complex formed by the histone H3 fragment H3 122-135 and the protein hAsflA 1-156 afforded data in good agreement with NMR results. (authors)

The human footprint in the west: a large-scale analysis of anthropogenic impacts.

Science.gov (United States)

Leu, M.; Hanser, S.E.; Knick, S.T.

2008-01-01

Anthropogenic features such as urbanization, roads, and power lines, are increasing in western United States landscapes in response to rapidly growing human populations. However, their spatial effects have not been evaluated. Our goal was to model the human footprint across the western United States. We first delineated the actual area occupied by anthropogenic features, the physical effect area. Next, we developed the human footprint model based on the ecological effect area, the zone influenced by features beyond their physical presence, by combining seven input models: three models quantified top-down anthropogenic influences of synanthropic predators (avian predators, domestic dog and cat presence risk), and four models quantified bottom-up anthropogenic influences on habitat (invasion of exotic plants, human-caused fires, energy extraction, and anthropogenic wildland fragmentation). Using independent bird population data, we found bird abundance of four synanthropic species to correlate positively with human footprint intensity and negatively for three of the six species influenced by habitat fragmentation. We then evaluated the extent of the human footprint in relation to terrestrial (ecoregions) and aquatic systems (major rivers and lakes), regional management and conservation status, physical environment, and temporal changes in human actions. The physical effect area of anthropogenic features covered 13% of the western United States with agricultural land (9.8%) being most dominant. High-intensity human footprint areas (class 8–10) overlapped highly productive low-elevation private landholdings and covered 7% of the western United States compared to 48% for low-intensity areas (class 1–3), which were confined to low-productivity high-elevation federal landholdings. Areas within 1 km of rivers were more affected by the human footprint compared to lakes. Percentage human population growth was higher in low-intensity human footprint areas. The

Computational Chemistry Toolkit for Energetic Materials Design

Science.gov (United States)

2006-11-01

industry are aggressively engaged in efforts to develop multiscale modeling and simulation methodologies to model and analyze complex phenomena across...energetic materials design. It is hoped that this toolkit will evolve into a collection of well-integrated multiscale modeling methodologies...Experimenta Theoreticala This Work 1-5-Diamino-4- methyl- tetrazolium nitrate 8.4 41.7 47.5 1-5-Diamino-4- methyl- tetrazolium azide 138.1 161.6

Reply to Ridoutt and Huang: From water footprint assessment to policy

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hoekstra, Arjen Y.; Mekonnen, Mesfin

2012-01-01

According to Ridoutt and Huang (1), “environmental relevance must be taken into consideration if water footprints are to inform wise decision making and policy development.” Indeed, reduction targets regarding water footprints (WFs) within catchments should be formulated on the basis of relative

Spatial Footprints of Human Perceptual Experience in Geo-Social Media

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jun Lee

2018-02-01

Full Text Available Analyses of social media have increased in importance for understanding human behaviors, interests, and opinions. Business intelligence based on social media can reduce the costs of managing customer trend complexities. This paper focuses on analyzing sensation information representing human perceptual experiences in social media through the five senses: sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste. First a measurement is defined to estimate social sensation intensities, and subsequently sensation characteristics on geo-social media are identified using geo-spatial footprints. Finally, we evaluate the accuracy and F-measure of our approach by comparing with baselines.

Future electricity: the challenge of reducing both carbon and water footprint

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Mekonnen, Mesfin; Gerbens-Leenes, Winnie; Hoekstra, Arjen Ysbert

2016-01-01

We estimate the consumptive water footprint (WF) of electricity and heat in 2035 for the four energy scenarios of the International Energy Agency (IEA) and a fifth scenario with a larger percentage of solar energy. Counter-intuitively, the ‘greenest’ IEA scenario (with the smallest carbon footprint)

What Is My Carbon Footprint?

Science.gov (United States)

Galluzzo, Benjamin J.; McGivney-Burelle, Jean; Wagstrom, Rikki B.

2016-01-01

Human beings are having a profound impact on the environment. The opportunity to investigate this timely issue during one or two class periods gives algebra and precalculus students insight into a sustainability topic of great international concern--carbon footprints. Students use mathematical thinking in matters that are pertinent to their…

Ecotourism versus Mass Tourism. A Comparison of Environmental Impacts Based on Ecological Footprint Analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jérôme Ballet

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Academic and policy interest in ecological footprint analysis has grown rapidly in recent years. To date, however, the application of ecological footprint analysis to tourism has been limited. This article aims to discuss the potential of ecological footprint analysis to assess sustainability in tourism. It is about a comparison of the global environmental impacts of different forms of tourism in southern countries where tourism is a major source of foreign exchange earnings. It illustrates how an ecotourism destination has a larger ecological footprint than a “mass” tourism destination.

A first empirical comparison of energy Footprints embodied in trade. MRIO versus PLUM

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wiedmann, Thomas

2009-01-01

The Ecological Footprint as an indicator that accounts for human demand on global bioproductivity sets out to quantify the impacts associated with consumption in a given country, including the impacts associated with trade. The National Footprint Accounts (NFA) by Global Footprint Network (GFN) calculate trade-embodied Footprints by multiplying yield and embodied energy factors with mass volumes of traded goods in a 'Product Land Use Matrix (PLUM)'. This article compares energy Footprints embodied in trade from and to the United Kingdom in 2002 as calculated by the NFA-PLUM with the results from a recently developed multi-region input-output model (MRIO) for the UK. Although totals for imports and exports are comparable, breaking down the results by economic sectors reveals large differences and hardly any correlation between the two methods. The omission of trade in services (especially transport services) and upstream impacts of energy goods (fossil fuels) and the use of inappropriate embodied energy factors in the NFA-PLUM method are identified as the main reasons for these differences. In the light of the results it seems that a comprehensive Footprint account of trade can better be achieved with an input-output based approach. I conclude that MRIO models - once fully developed - will be particularly suitable in the future to estimate the Ecological Footprints of imports and exports of nations with the possibility to track their origin via inter-industry linkages, international supply chains and multi-national trade flows. (author)

Field trials of a novel toolkit for evaluating 'intangible' values-related dimensions of projects.

Science.gov (United States)

Burford, Gemma; Velasco, Ismael; Janoušková, Svatava; Zahradnik, Martin; Hak, Tomas; Podger, Dimity; Piggot, Georgia; Harder, Marie K

2013-02-01

A novel toolkit has been developed, using an original approach to develop its components, for the purpose of evaluating 'soft' outcomes and processes that have previously been generally considered 'intangible': those which are specifically values based. This represents a step-wise, significant, change in provision for the assessment of values-based achievements that are of absolutely key importance to most civil society organisations (CSOs) and values-based businesses, and fills a known gap in evaluation practice. In this paper, we demonstrate the significance and rigour of the toolkit by presenting an evaluation of it in three diverse scenarios where different CSOs use it to co-evaluate locally relevant outcomes and processes to obtain results which are both meaningful to them and potentially comparable across organisations. A key strength of the toolkit is its original use of a prior generated, peer-elicited 'menu' of values-based indicators which provides a framework for user CSOs to localise. Principles of participatory, process-based and utilisation-focused evaluation are embedded in this toolkit and shown to be critical to its success, achieving high face-validity and wide applicability. The emerging contribution of this next-generation evaluation tool to other fields, such as environmental values, development and environmental sustainable development, shared values, business, education and organisational change is outlined. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Toolkit for local decision makers aims to strengthen environmental sustainability

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Murambadoro, M

2011-11-01

Full Text Available Members of the South African Risk and Vulnerability Atlas were involved in a meeting aimed at the development of a toolkit towards improved integration of climate change into local government's integrated development planning (IDP) process....

Open source tools and toolkits for bioinformatics: significance, and where are we?

Science.gov (United States)

Stajich, Jason E; Lapp, Hilmar

2006-09-01

This review summarizes important work in open-source bioinformatics software that has occurred over the past couple of years. The survey is intended to illustrate how programs and toolkits whose source code has been developed or released under an Open Source license have changed informatics-heavy areas of life science research. Rather than creating a comprehensive list of all tools developed over the last 2-3 years, we use a few selected projects encompassing toolkit libraries, analysis tools, data analysis environments and interoperability standards to show how freely available and modifiable open-source software can serve as the foundation for building important applications, analysis workflows and resources.

The IGUANA interactive graphics toolkit with examples from CMS and D0

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Alverson, G.; Osborne, I.; Taylor, L.; Tuura, L.

2001-01-01

IGUANA (Interactive Graphics for User ANAlysis) is a C++ toolkit for developing graphical user interfaces and high performance 2-D and 3-D graphics applications, such as data browsers and detector and event visualisation programs. The IGUANA strategy is to use freely available software (e.g. Qt, SoQt, OpenInventor, OpenGL, HEPVis) and package and extend it to provide a general-purpose and experiment-independent toolkit. The authors describe the evaluation and choices of publicly available GUI/graphics software and the additional functionality currently provided by IGUANA. The authors demonstrate the use of IGUANA with several applications built for CMS and D0

Toolkit for Conceptual Modeling (TCM): User's Guide and Reference

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Dehne, F.; Wieringa, Roelf J.

1997-01-01

The Toolkit for Conceptual Modeling (TCM) is a suite of graphical editors for a number of graphical notation systems that are used in software specification methods. The notations can be used to represent the conceptual structure of the software - hence the name of the suite. This manual describes

Dinosaur footprint assemblage from the Lower Cretaceous Khok Kruat Formation, Khorat Group, northeastern Thailand

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Shohei Kozu

2017-11-01

Full Text Available The Khok Kruat Formation is the upper part of the Khorat Group, which consists of upper Lower Cretaceous non-marine sedimentary rocks in northeastern Thailand. Many dinosaur footprints have been known from the upper Lower Cretaceous (Aptian–Albian Khok Kruat Formation at the Huai Dam Chum (Tha Uthen site, northeastern Thailand. Approximately 600 tracks occur in thin mudstone layer of the northern part of the outcrop at the Huai Dam Chum track site. Two types of footprints, small-sized theropod and crocodylomorph are imprinted with mud cracks and ripple marks on the thin mud layer. Most of footprints are referred to cf. Asianopodus, and are imprinted by small-sized theropoda, probably ornithomimosauria. Theropod tracks are mainly separated into two groups, Group A and Group B. From ichnological viewpoints, the small-sized theropod track assemblage indicates the herd behaviour and its idiosyncratic group composition. In particular, the histogram of size-frequency measurements of Group A shows the anomalous bimodal distribution. We consider that there are two hypotheses; the first one is due to the male-female difference, and the second is a result of the different growing stage.

Cradle-to-farm gate analysis of milk carbon footprint: a descriptive review

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Giacomo Pirlo

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Twenty-four life cycle assessment studies which estimated the carbon footprint of milk production in countries with modern dairy farming were examined. It proved difficult to compare the studies because of the strong discrepancies between them. The aim of this review was to examine the characteristics of LCA studies on milk production in order to understand how the variability of results can be explained. The main reason is the different methodologies adopted. However, other variables were considered: production system, stocking rate, milk productivity, mitigation strategies. Life Cycle Assessment is a promising tool for benchmarking carbon footprint among different countries or production systems. This approach could also be used as a mitigation indicator in the enforcement of political decision. Two major factors are needed for a practical application: i a widely accepted methodology and ii direct measurements of greenhouse gases in specific contests.

Improving safety on rural local and tribal roads safety toolkit.

Science.gov (United States)

2014-08-01

Rural roadway safety is an important issue for communities throughout the country and presents a challenge for state, local, and Tribal agencies. The Improving Safety on Rural Local and Tribal Roads Safety Toolkit was created to help rural local ...

PEA: an integrated R toolkit for plant epitranscriptome analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhai, Jingjing; Song, Jie; Cheng, Qian; Tang, Yunjia; Ma, Chuang

2018-05-29

The epitranscriptome, also known as chemical modifications of RNA (CMRs), is a newly discovered layer of gene regulation, the biological importance of which emerged through analysis of only a small fraction of CMRs detected by high-throughput sequencing technologies. Understanding of the epitranscriptome is hampered by the absence of computational tools for the systematic analysis of epitranscriptome sequencing data. In addition, no tools have yet been designed for accurate prediction of CMRs in plants, or to extend epitranscriptome analysis from a fraction of the transcriptome to its entirety. Here, we introduce PEA, an integrated R toolkit to facilitate the analysis of plant epitranscriptome data. The PEA toolkit contains a comprehensive collection of functions required for read mapping, CMR calling, motif scanning and discovery, and gene functional enrichment analysis. PEA also takes advantage of machine learning technologies for transcriptome-scale CMR prediction, with high prediction accuracy, using the Positive Samples Only Learning algorithm, which addresses the two-class classification problem by using only positive samples (CMRs), in the absence of negative samples (non-CMRs). Hence PEA is a versatile epitranscriptome analysis pipeline covering CMR calling, prediction, and annotation, and we describe its application to predict N6-methyladenosine (m6A) modifications in Arabidopsis thaliana. Experimental results demonstrate that the toolkit achieved 71.6% sensitivity and 73.7% specificity, which is superior to existing m6A predictors. PEA is potentially broadly applicable to the in-depth study of epitranscriptomics. PEA Docker image is available at https://hub.docker.com/r/malab/pea, source codes and user manual are available at https://github.com/cma2015/PEA. chuangma2006@gmail.com. Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

The Virtual Physiological Human ToolKit.

Science.gov (United States)

Cooper, Jonathan; Cervenansky, Frederic; De Fabritiis, Gianni; Fenner, John; Friboulet, Denis; Giorgino, Toni; Manos, Steven; Martelli, Yves; Villà-Freixa, Jordi; Zasada, Stefan; Lloyd, Sharon; McCormack, Keith; Coveney, Peter V

2010-08-28

The Virtual Physiological Human (VPH) is a major European e-Science initiative intended to support the development of patient-specific computer models and their application in personalized and predictive healthcare. The VPH Network of Excellence (VPH-NoE) project is tasked with facilitating interaction between the various VPH projects and addressing issues of common concern. A key deliverable is the 'VPH ToolKit'--a collection of tools, methodologies and services to support and enable VPH research, integrating and extending existing work across Europe towards greater interoperability and sustainability. Owing to the diverse nature of the field, a single monolithic 'toolkit' is incapable of addressing the needs of the VPH. Rather, the VPH ToolKit should be considered more as a 'toolbox' of relevant technologies, interacting around a common set of standards. The latter apply to the information used by tools, including any data and the VPH models themselves, and also to the naming and categorizing of entities and concepts involved. Furthermore, the technologies and methodologies available need to be widely disseminated, and relevant tools and services easily found by researchers. The VPH-NoE has thus created an online resource for the VPH community to meet this need. It consists of a database of tools, methods and services for VPH research, with a Web front-end. This has facilities for searching the database, for adding or updating entries, and for providing user feedback on entries. Anyone is welcome to contribute.

Business plans--tips from the toolkit 6.

Science.gov (United States)

Steer, Neville

2010-07-01

General practice is a business. Most practices can stay afloat by having appointments, billing patients, managing the administration processes and working long hours. What distinguishes the high performance organisation from the average organisation is a business plan. This article examines how to create a simple business plan that can be applied to the general practice setting and is drawn from material contained in The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners' 'General practice management toolkit'.

Rotorwash Operational Footprint Modeling

Science.gov (United States)

2014-07-01

I-13. Francis, J. K., and Gillespie, A., “Relating Gust Speed to Tree Damage in Hurricane Hugo , 1989,” Journal of Arboriculture, November 1993...statement has been Rotorwash Operational Footprint Modeling 72 found to be correct. In many parts of the United States, the requirements for hurricane ...On August 18, 1983, Hurricane Alicia struck downtown Houston, Texas. Researchers were allowed into downtown Houston the following day to help survey

Methods for characterizing magnetic footprints of perpendicular magnetic recording writer heads

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Li, Shaoping, E-mail: shaoping.li@wdc.com; Lin, Ed; George, Zach; Terrill, Dave; Mendez, H.; Santucci, J.; Yie, Derek [Western Digital Corp., 44100 Osgood Road, Fremont, California 94539 (United States)

2014-05-07

In this work, the magnetic footprints, along with some of its dynamic features in recording process, of perpendicular magnetic recording writer heads have been characterized by using three different techniques. Those techniques are the spin-stand stationary footprint technique, the spin-stand dynamic footprint technique, and the coherent writing technique combined with magnetic force microscope imaging method. The characteristics of those techniques have been compared to one another. It was found experimentally that the spin-stand stationary method could not precisely catch some peculiar recording dynamics of the write heads in certain conditions. The advantages and disadvantages among all those techniques are also examined and discussed in detail.

Methods for characterizing magnetic footprints of perpendicular magnetic recording writer heads

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Li, Shaoping; Lin, Ed; George, Zach; Terrill, Dave; Mendez, H.; Santucci, J.; Yie, Derek

2014-01-01

In this work, the magnetic footprints, along with some of its dynamic features in recording process, of perpendicular magnetic recording writer heads have been characterized by using three different techniques. Those techniques are the spin-stand stationary footprint technique, the spin-stand dynamic footprint technique, and the coherent writing technique combined with magnetic force microscope imaging method. The characteristics of those techniques have been compared to one another. It was found experimentally that the spin-stand stationary method could not precisely catch some peculiar recording dynamics of the write heads in certain conditions. The advantages and disadvantages among all those techniques are also examined and discussed in detail

Methods for characterizing magnetic footprints of perpendicular magnetic recording writer heads

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Shaoping; Lin, Ed; George, Zach; Terrill, Dave; Mendez, H.; Santucci, J.; Yie, Derek

2014-01-01

In this work, the magnetic footprints, along with some of its dynamic features in recording process, of perpendicular magnetic recording writer heads have been characterized by using three different techniques. Those techniques are the spin-stand stationary footprint technique, the spin-stand dynamic footprint technique, and the coherent writing technique combined with magnetic force microscope imaging method. The characteristics of those techniques have been compared to one another. It was found experimentally that the spin-stand stationary method could not precisely catch some peculiar recording dynamics of the write heads in certain conditions. The advantages and disadvantages among all those techniques are also examined and discussed in detail. PMID:24753633

Transition Toolkit 3.0: Meeting the Educational Needs of Youth Exposed to the Juvenile Justice System. Third Edition

Science.gov (United States)

Clark, Heather Griller; Mathur, Sarup; Brock, Leslie; O'Cummings, Mindee; Milligan, DeAngela

2016-01-01

The third edition of the National Technical Assistance Center for the Education of Neglected or Delinquent Children and Youth's (NDTAC's) "Transition Toolkit" provides updated information on existing policies, practices, strategies, and resources for transition that build on field experience and research. The "Toolkit" offers…

Carbon footprint hotspots of prefabricated sandwich panels for hostel construction in Perlis

Science.gov (United States)

Razali, Norashikin; Ayob, Afizah; Chandra, Muhammad Erwan Shah; Zaki, Mohd Faiz Mohammad; Ahmad, Abdul Ghapar

2017-10-01

Sustainable design and construction have gained increasing research interest, and reduction of carbon from building construction has become the main focus of environmental strategies in Malaysia. This study uses life cycle assessment and life cycle inventory analysis frameworks to estimate the amount of carbon footprint expressed in carbon dioxide equivalent tons (CO2e) produced by manufacturing prefabricated Industrialized Building System sandwich panels and its installation for a five-story hostel in Perlis, Malaysia. Results show that the carbon footprint hotspots were centered on boiler machine operation and cement with 4.52 and 369.04 tons CO2e, respectively. This finding is due to the extensive energy used for steam heating and high engine rating for the boiler. However, for cement, the carbon footprint hotspots are caused by the large quantity of cement applied in shotcrete mixture and its high extraction and production CO2 emission values. The overall onsite materials generated 96.36% of the total carbon footprint. These carbon footprint hotspot results constitute a necessary base for the Malaysian government in accomplishing an adequate dimensioning of carbon emissions in the building sector.

Quantifying environmental performance using an environmental footprint calculator

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Smith, D.B.; Loney, A.C.; Chan, V. [Conestoga-Rovers & Associates, Waterloo, Ontario (Canada)

2009-07-01

This paper provides a case study using relevant key performance indicators (KPIs) to evaluate the environmental performance of a business. Using recognized calculation and reporting frameworks, Conestoga-Rovers & Associates (CRA) designed the Environmental Footprint Calculator to quantify the environmental performance of a Canadian construction materials company. CRA designed the Environmental Footprint calculator for our client to track and report their environmental performance in accordance with their targets, based on requirements of relevant guidance documents. The objective was to design a tool that effectively manages, calculates, and reports environmental performance to various stakeholders in a user-friendly format. (author)

Quantifying environmental performance using an environmental footprint calculator

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Smith, D.B.; Loney, A.C.; Chan, V.

2009-01-01

This paper provides a case study using relevant key performance indicators (KPIs) to evaluate the environmental performance of a business. Using recognized calculation and reporting frameworks, Conestoga-Rovers & Associates (CRA) designed the Environmental Footprint Calculator to quantify the environmental performance of a Canadian construction materials company. CRA designed the Environmental Footprint calculator for our client to track and report their environmental performance in accordance with their targets, based on requirements of relevant guidance documents. The objective was to design a tool that effectively manages, calculates, and reports environmental performance to various stakeholders in a user-friendly format. (author)

Monte Carlo application based on GEANT4 toolkit to simulate a laser–plasma electron beam line for radiobiological studies

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lamia, D., E-mail: debora.lamia@ibfm.cnr.it [Institute of Molecular Bioimaging and Physiology IBFM CNR – LATO, Cefalù (Italy); Russo, G., E-mail: giorgio.russo@ibfm.cnr.it [Institute of Molecular Bioimaging and Physiology IBFM CNR – LATO, Cefalù (Italy); Casarino, C.; Gagliano, L.; Candiano, G.C. [Institute of Molecular Bioimaging and Physiology IBFM CNR – LATO, Cefalù (Italy); Labate, L. [Intense Laser Irradiation Laboratory (ILIL) – National Institute of Optics INO CNR, Pisa (Italy); National Institute for Nuclear Physics INFN, Pisa Section and Frascati National Laboratories LNF (Italy); Baffigi, F.; Fulgentini, L.; Giulietti, A.; Koester, P.; Palla, D. [Intense Laser Irradiation Laboratory (ILIL) – National Institute of Optics INO CNR, Pisa (Italy); Gizzi, L.A. [Intense Laser Irradiation Laboratory (ILIL) – National Institute of Optics INO CNR, Pisa (Italy); National Institute for Nuclear Physics INFN, Pisa Section and Frascati National Laboratories LNF (Italy); Gilardi, M.C. [Institute of Molecular Bioimaging and Physiology IBFM CNR, Segrate (Italy); University of Milano-Bicocca, Milano (Italy)

2015-06-21

We report on the development of a Monte Carlo application, based on the GEANT4 toolkit, for the characterization and optimization of electron beams for clinical applications produced by a laser-driven plasma source. The GEANT4 application is conceived so as to represent in the most general way the physical and geometrical features of a typical laser-driven accelerator. It is designed to provide standard dosimetric figures such as percentage dose depth curves, two-dimensional dose distributions and 3D dose profiles at different positions both inside and outside the interaction chamber. The application was validated by comparing its predictions to experimental measurements carried out on a real laser-driven accelerator. The work is aimed at optimizing the source, by using this novel application, for radiobiological studies and, in perspective, for medical applications. - Highlights: • Development of a Monte Carlo application based on GEANT4 toolkit. • Experimental measurements carried out with a laser-driven acceleration system. • Validation of Geant4 application comparing experimental data with the simulated ones. • Dosimetric characterization of the acceleration system.

A GIS Software Toolkit for Monitoring Areal Snow Cover and Producing Daily Hydrologic Forecasts using NASA Satellite Imagery, Phase I

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — Aniuk Consulting, LLC, proposes to create a GIS software toolkit for monitoring areal snow cover extent and producing streamflow forecasts. This toolkit will be...

NBII-SAIN Data Management Toolkit

Science.gov (United States)

Burley, Thomas E.; Peine, John D.

2009-01-01

percent of the cost of a spatial information system is associated with spatial data collection and management (U.S. General Accounting Office, 2003). These figures indicate that the resources (time, personnel, money) of many agencies and organizations could be used more efficiently and effectively. Dedicated and conscientious data management coordination and documentation is critical for reducing such redundancy. Substantial cost savings and increased efficiency are direct results of a pro-active data management approach. In addition, details of projects as well as data and information are frequently lost as a result of real-world occurrences such as the passing of time, job turnover, and equipment changes and failure. A standardized, well documented database allows resource managers to identify issues, analyze options, and ultimately make better decisions in the context of adaptive management (National Land and Water Resources Audit and the Australia New Zealand Land Information Council on behalf of the Australian National Government, 2003). Many environmentally focused, scientific, or natural resource management organizations collect and create both spatial and non-spatial data in some form. Data management appropriate for those data will be contingent upon the project goal(s) and objectives and thus will vary on a case-by-case basis. This project and the resulting Data Management Toolkit, hereafter referred to as the Toolkit, is therefore not intended to be comprehensive in terms of addressing all of the data management needs of all projects that contain biological, geospatial, and other types of data. The Toolkit emphasizes the idea of connecting a project's data and the related management needs to the defined project goals and objectives from the outset. In that context, the Toolkit presents and describes the fundamental components of sound data and information management that are common to projects involving biological, geospatial, and other related data

Inter- and intra-examiner reliability of footprint pattern analysis obtained from diabetics using the Harris mat.

Science.gov (United States)

Cisneros, Lígia de Loiola; Fonseca, Tiago H S; Abreu, Vivianni C

2010-01-01

High plantar pressure is a proven risk factor for ulceration among individuals with diabetes mellitus. The Harris and Beath footprinting mat is one of the tools used in screening for foot ulceration risk among these subjects. There are no reports in the literature on the reliability of footprint analysis using print pattern criteria. The aim of this study was to evaluate the inter- and intra-examiner reliability of the analysis of footprint patterns obtained using the Harris and Beath footprinting mat. Footprints were taken from 41 subjects using the footprinting mat. The images were subjected to analysis by three independent examiners. To investigate the intra-examiner reliability, the analysis was repeated by one of the examiners one week later. The weighted kappa coefficient was excellent (K(w) > 0.80) for the inter- and intra-examiner analyses for most of the points studied on both feet. The criteria for analyzing footprint patterns obtained using the Harris and Beath footprinting mat presented good reliability and high to excellent inter- and intra-examiner agreement. This method is reliable for analyses involving one or more examiners. Article registered in the Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (ANZCTR) under the number ACTRN12609000693224.

A carbon footprint simulation model for the cork oak sector.

Science.gov (United States)

Demertzi, Martha; Paulo, Joana Amaral; Arroja, Luís; Dias, Ana Cláudia

2016-10-01

In the present study, a simulation model for the calculation of the carbon footprint of the cork oak sector (CCFM) is developed for the first time. A life cycle approach is adopted including the forest management, manufacturing, use and end-of-life stages. CCFM allows the user to insert the cork type used as raw material and its respective quantity and the distances in-between the various stages. The user can choose among different end-of-life destination options for the used cork products. The option of inserting different inputs, allows the use of the present simulation model for different cork oak systems, in different countries and with different conditions. CCFM allows the identification of the stages and products with the greatest carbon footprint and thus, a better management of the sector from an environmental perspective. The Portuguese cork oak sector is used as an application example of the model. The results obtained showed that the agglomeration industry is the hotspot for the carbon footprint of the cork sector mainly due to the production of the resins that are mixed with the cork granules for the production of agglomerated cork products. The consideration of the biogenic carbon emissions and sequestration of carbon at the forest in the carbon footprint, resulted to a great decrease of the sector's carbon footprint. Future actions for improvement are suggested in order to decrease the carbon footprint of the entire cork sector. It was found that by decreasing by 10% the emission factor of the agglomeration and transformation industries, substituting the transport trucks by more recent ones and by decreasing by 10% the cork products reaching the landfilling end-of-life destinations (while increasing the quantities reaching incineration and recycling), a decrease of the total CF (excluding the biogenic emissions and sequestration) of the entire cork industry by 10% can be achieved. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Assessing the Blue and Green Water Footprint of Lucerne for Milk Production in South Africa

OpenAIRE

Morne E. Scheepers; Henry Jordaan

2016-01-01

The Global Water Footprint Standard approach was used to calculate the volumetric blue and green water footprint indicator for lucerne production as important feed for dairy cows in a major lucerne production region in South Africa. The degree of sustainability of water use then was assessed by comparing water use to water availability for the region. The results show a volumetric water footprint indicator of 378 m3/tonne of lucerne. Of the total blue and green water footprint, 55% is green w...

Monte carlo simulations of the n_TOF lead spallation target with the Geant4 toolkit: A benchmark study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lerendegui-Marco J.

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Monte Carlo (MC simulations are an essential tool to determine fundamental features of a neutron beam, such as the neutron flux or the γ-ray background, that sometimes can not be measured or at least not in every position or energy range. Until recently, the most widely used MC codes in this field had been MCNPX and FLUKA. However, the Geant4 toolkit has also become a competitive code for the transport of neutrons after the development of the native Geant4 format for neutron data libraries, G4NDL. In this context, we present the Geant4 simulations of the neutron spallation target of the n_TOF facility at CERN, done with version 10.1.1 of the toolkit. The first goal was the validation of the intra-nuclear cascade models implemented in the code using, as benchmark, the characteristics of the neutron beam measured at the first experimental area (EAR1, especially the neutron flux and energy distribution, and the time distribution of neutrons of equal kinetic energy, the so-called Resolution Function. The second goal was the development of a Monte Carlo tool aimed to provide useful calculations for both the analysis and planning of the upcoming measurements at the new experimental area (EAR2 of the facility.

Monte carlo simulations of the n_TOF lead spallation target with the Geant4 toolkit: A benchmark study

Science.gov (United States)

Lerendegui-Marco, J.; Cortés-Giraldo, M. A.; Guerrero, C.; Quesada, J. M.; Meo, S. Lo; Massimi, C.; Barbagallo, M.; Colonna, N.; Mancussi, D.; Mingrone, F.; Sabaté-Gilarte, M.; Vannini, G.; Vlachoudis, V.; Aberle, O.; Andrzejewski, J.; Audouin, L.; Bacak, M.; Balibrea, J.; Bečvář, F.; Berthoumieux, E.; Billowes, J.; Bosnar, D.; Brown, A.; Caamaño, M.; Calviño, F.; Calviani, M.; Cano-Ott, D.; Cardella, R.; Casanovas, A.; Cerutti, F.; Chen, Y. H.; Chiaveri, E.; Cortés, G.; Cosentino, L.; Damone, L. A.; Diakaki, M.; Domingo-Pardo, C.; Dressler, R.; Dupont, E.; Durán, I.; Fernández-Domínguez, B.; Ferrari, A.; Ferreira, P.; Finocchiaro, P.; Göbel, K.; Gómez-Hornillos, M. B.; García, A. R.; Gawlik, A.; Gilardoni, S.; Glodariu, T.; Gonçalves, I. F.; González, E.; Griesmayer, E.; Gunsing, F.; Harada, H.; Heinitz, S.; Heyse, J.; Jenkins, D. G.; Jericha, E.; Käppeler, F.; Kadi, Y.; Kalamara, A.; Kavrigin, P.; Kimura, A.; Kivel, N.; Kokkoris, M.; Krtička, M.; Kurtulgil, D.; Leal-Cidoncha, E.; Lederer, C.; Leeb, H.; Lonsdale, S. J.; Macina, D.; Marganiec, J.; Martínez, T.; Masi, A.; Mastinu, P.; Mastromarco, M.; Maugeri, E. A.; Mazzone, A.; Mendoza, E.; Mengoni, A.; Milazzo, P. M.; Musumarra, A.; Negret, A.; Nolte, R.; Oprea, A.; Patronis, N.; Pavlik, A.; Perkowski, J.; Porras, I.; Praena, J.; Radeck, D.; Rauscher, T.; Reifarth, R.; Rout, P. C.; Rubbia, C.; Ryan, J. A.; Saxena, A.; Schillebeeckx, P.; Schumann, D.; Smith, A. G.; Sosnin, N. V.; Stamatopoulos, A.; Tagliente, G.; Tain, J. L.; Tarifeño-Saldivia, A.; Tassan-Got, L.; Valenta, S.; Variale, V.; Vaz, P.; Ventura, A.; Vlastou, R.; Wallner, A.; Warren, S.; Woods, P. J.; Wright, T.; Žugec, P.

2017-09-01

Monte Carlo (MC) simulations are an essential tool to determine fundamental features of a neutron beam, such as the neutron flux or the γ-ray background, that sometimes can not be measured or at least not in every position or energy range. Until recently, the most widely used MC codes in this field had been MCNPX and FLUKA. However, the Geant4 toolkit has also become a competitive code for the transport of neutrons after the development of the native Geant4 format for neutron data libraries, G4NDL. In this context, we present the Geant4 simulations of the neutron spallation target of the n_TOF facility at CERN, done with version 10.1.1 of the toolkit. The first goal was the validation of the intra-nuclear cascade models implemented in the code using, as benchmark, the characteristics of the neutron beam measured at the first experimental area (EAR1), especially the neutron flux and energy distribution, and the time distribution of neutrons of equal kinetic energy, the so-called Resolution Function. The second goal was the development of a Monte Carlo tool aimed to provide useful calculations for both the analysis and planning of the upcoming measurements at the new experimental area (EAR2) of the facility.

The added value of water footprint assessment for national water policy: a case study for Morocco.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Joep F Schyns

Full Text Available A Water Footprint Assessment is carried out for Morocco, mapping the water footprint of different activities at river basin and monthly scale, distinguishing between surface- and groundwater. The paper aims to demonstrate the added value of detailed analysis of the human water footprint within a country and thorough assessment of the virtual water flows leaving and entering a country for formulating national water policy. Green, blue and grey water footprint estimates and virtual water flows are mainly derived from a previous grid-based (5 × 5 arc minute global study for the period 1996-2005. These estimates are placed in the context of monthly natural runoff and waste assimilation capacity per river basin derived from Moroccan data sources. The study finds that: (i evaporation from storage reservoirs is the second largest form of blue water consumption in Morocco, after irrigated crop production; (ii Morocco's water and land resources are mainly used to produce relatively low-value (in US$/m3 and US$/ha crops such as cereals, olives and almonds; (iii most of the virtual water export from Morocco relates to the export of products with a relatively low economic water productivity (in US$/m3; (iv blue water scarcity on a monthly scale is severe in all river basins and pressure on groundwater resources by abstractions and nitrate pollution is considerable in most basins; (v the estimated potential water savings by partial relocation of crops to basins where they consume less water and by reducing water footprints of crops down to benchmark levels are significant compared to demand reducing and supply increasing measures considered in Morocco's national water strategy.

The Added Value of Water Footprint Assessment for National Water Policy: A Case Study for Morocco

Science.gov (United States)

Schyns, Joep F.; Hoekstra, Arjen Y.

2014-01-01

A Water Footprint Assessment is carried out for Morocco, mapping the water footprint of different activities at river basin and monthly scale, distinguishing between surface- and groundwater. The paper aims to demonstrate the added value of detailed analysis of the human water footprint within a country and thorough assessment of the virtual water flows leaving and entering a country for formulating national water policy. Green, blue and grey water footprint estimates and virtual water flows are mainly derived from a previous grid-based (5×5 arc minute) global study for the period 1996–2005. These estimates are placed in the context of monthly natural runoff and waste assimilation capacity per river basin derived from Moroccan data sources. The study finds that: (i) evaporation from storage reservoirs is the second largest form of blue water consumption in Morocco, after irrigated crop production; (ii) Morocco’s water and land resources are mainly used to produce relatively low-value (in US$/m3 and US$/ha) crops such as cereals, olives and almonds; (iii) most of the virtual water export from Morocco relates to the export of products with a relatively low economic water productivity (in US$/m3); (iv) blue water scarcity on a monthly scale is severe in all river basins and pressure on groundwater resources by abstractions and nitrate pollution is considerable in most basins; (v) the estimated potential water savings by partial relocation of crops to basins where they consume less water and by reducing water footprints of crops down to benchmark levels are significant compared to demand reducing and supply increasing measures considered in Morocco’s national water strategy. PMID:24919194

The Identification of Potential Resilient Estuary-based Enterprises to Encourage Economic Empowerment in South Africa: a Toolkit Approach

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rebecca Bowd

2012-09-01

Full Text Available It has been argued that ecosystem services can be used as the foundation to provide economic opportunities to empower the disadvantaged. The Ecosystem Services Framework (ESF approach for poverty alleviation, which balances resource conservation and human resource use, has received much attention in the literature. However, few projects have successfully achieved both conservation and economic objectives. This is partly due to there being a hiatus between theory and practice, due to the absence of tools that help make the transition between conceptual frameworks and theory, to practical integration of ecosystem services into decision making. To address this hiatus, an existing conceptual framework for analyzing the robustness of social-ecological systems was translated into a practical toolkit to help understand the complexity of social-ecological systems (SES. The toolkit can be used by a diversity of stakeholders as a decision making aid for assessing ecosystem services supply and demand and associated enterprise opportunities. The toolkit is participatory and combines both a generic "top-down" scientific approach with a case-specific "bottom-up" approach. It promotes a shared understanding of the utilization of ecosystem services, which is the foundation of identifying resilient enterprises. The toolkit comprises four steps: (i ecosystem services supply and demand assessment; (ii roles identification; (iii enterprise opportunity identification; and (vi enterprise risk assessment, and was tested at two estuary study sites. Implementation of the toolkit requires the populating of preprogrammed Excel worksheets through the holding of workshops that are attended by stakeholders associated with the ecosystems. It was concluded that for an enterprise to be resilient, it must be resilient at an external SES level,which the toolkit addresses, and at an internal business functioning level, e.g., social dynamics among personnel, skills, and literacy

The doctor-patient relationship as a toolkit for uncertain clinical decisions.

Science.gov (United States)

Diamond-Brown, Lauren

2016-06-01

Medical uncertainty is a well-recognized problem in healthcare, yet how doctors make decisions in the face of uncertainty remains to be understood. This article draws on interdisciplinary literature on uncertainty and physician decision-making to examine a specific physician response to uncertainty: using the doctor-patient relationship as a toolkit. Additionally, I ask what happens to this process when the doctor-patient relationship becomes fragmented. I answer these questions by examining obstetrician-gynecologists' narratives regarding how they make decisions when faced with uncertainty in childbirth. Between 2013 and 2014, I performed 21 semi-structured interviews with obstetricians in the United States. Obstetricians were selected to maximize variation in relevant physician, hospital, and practice characteristics. I began with grounded theory and moved to analytical coding of themes in relation to relevant literature. My analysis renders it evident that some physicians use the doctor-patient relationship as a toolkit for dealing with uncertainty. I analyze how this process varies for physicians in different models of care by comparing doctors' experiences in models with continuous versus fragmented doctor-patient relationships. My key findings are that obstetricians in both models appealed to the ideal of patient-centered decision-making to cope with uncertain decisions, but in practice physicians in fragmented care faced a number of challenges to using the doctor-patient relationship as a toolkit for decision-making. These challenges led to additional uncertainties and in some cases to poor outcomes for doctors and/or patients; they also raised concerns about the reproduction of inequality. Thus organization of care delivery mitigates the efficacy of doctors' use of the doctor-patient relationship toolkit for uncertain decisions. These findings have implications for theorizing about decision-making under conditions of medical uncertainty, for understanding

A Fast Track approach to deal with the temporal dimension of crop water footprint

Science.gov (United States)

Tuninetti, Marta; Tamea, Stefania; Laio, Francesco; Ridolfi, Luca

2017-07-01

Population growth, socio-economic development and climate changes are placing increasing pressure on water resources. Crop water footprint is a key indicator in the quantification of such pressure. It is determined by crop evapotranspiration and crop yield, which can be highly variable in space and time. While the spatial variability of crop water footprint has been the objective of several investigations, the temporal variability remains poorly studied. In particular, some studies approached this issue by associating the time variability of crop water footprint only to yield changes, while considering evapotranspiration patterns as marginal. Validation of this Fast Track approach has yet to be provided. In this Letter we demonstrate its feasibility through a comprehensive validation, an assessment of its uncertainty, and an example of application. Our results show that the water footprint changes are mainly driven by yield trends, while evapotranspiration plays a minor role. The error due to considering constant evapotranspiration is three times smaller than the uncertainty of the model used to compute the crop water footprint. These results confirm the suitability of the Fast Track approach and enable a simple, yet appropriate, evaluation of time-varying crop water footprint.

Development of an evidence-informed leisure time physical activity resource for adults with spinal cord injury: the SCI Get Fit Toolkit.

Science.gov (United States)

Arbour-Nicitopoulos, K P; Martin Ginis, K A; Latimer-Cheung, A E; Bourne, C; Campbell, D; Cappe, S; Ginis, S; Hicks, A L; Pomerleau, P; Smith, K

2013-06-01

To systematically develop an evidence-informed leisure time physical activity (LTPA) resource for adults with spinal cord injury (SCI). Canada. The Appraisal of Guidelines, Research and Evaluation (AGREE) II protocol was used to develop a toolkit to teach and encourage adults with SCI how to make smart and informed choices about being physically active. A multidisciplinary expert panel appraised the evidence and generated specific recommendations for the content of the toolkit. Pilot testing was conducted to refine the toolkit's presentation. Recommendations emanating from the consultation process were that the toolkit be a brief, evidence-based resource that contains images of adults with tetraplegia and paraplegia, and links to more detailed online information. The content of the toolkit should include the physical activity guidelines (PAGs) for adults with SCI, activities tailored to manual and power chair users, the benefits of LTPA, and strategies to overcome common LTPA barriers for adults with SCI. The inclusion of action plans and safety tips was also recommended. These recommendations have resulted in the development of an evidence-informed LTPA resource to assist adults with SCI in meeting the PAGs. This toolkit will have important implications for consumers, health care professionals and policy makers for encouraging LTPA in the SCI community.

Genomic footprinting in mammalian cells with ultraviolet light

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Becker, M.M.; Wang, Z.; Grossmann, G.; Becherer, K.A.

1989-01-01

A simple and accurate genomic primer extension method has been developed to detect ultraviolet footprinting patterns of regulatory protein-DNA interactions in mammalian genomic DNA. The technique can also detect footprinting or sequencing patterns introduced into genomic DNA by other methods. Purified genomic DNA, containing either damaged bases or strand breaks introduced by footprinting or sequencing reactions, is first cut with a convenient restriction enzyme to reduce its molecular weight. A highly radioactive single-stranded DNA primer that is complementary to a region of genomic DNA whose sequence or footprint one wishes to examine is then mixed with 50 micrograms of restriction enzyme-cut genomic DNA. The primer is approximately 100 bases long and contains 85 radioactive phosphates, each of specific activity 3000 Ci/mmol (1 Ci = 37 GBq). A simple and fast method for preparing such primers is described. Following brief heat denaturation at 100 degrees C, the solution of genomic DNA and primer is cooled to 74 degrees C and a second solution containing Taq polymerase (Thermus aquaticus DNA polymerase) and the four deoxynucleotide triphosphates is added to initiate primer extension of genomic DNA. Taq polymerase extends genomic hybridized primer until its polymerization reaction is terminated either by a damaged base or strand break in genomic DNA or by the addition of dideoxynucleotide triphosphates in the polymerization reaction. The concurrent primer hybridization-extension reaction is terminated after 5 hr and unhybridized primer is digested away by mung bean nuclease. Primer-extended genomic DNA is then denatured and electrophoresed on a polyacrylamide sequencing gel, and radioactive primer extension products are revealed by autoradiography

Reply to Pfister and Hellweg: Water footprint accounting, impact assessment, and life-cycle assessment

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hoekstra, Arjen Y.; Gerbens-Leenes, Winnie; van der Meer, Theo H.

2009-01-01

In response to our article on the blue and green water footprint (WF) of bioenergy (1), others propose to multiply each blue WF component by a water-stress index and neglect green WFs, because impacts would be nil (2). They propose to redefine the WF from a volumetric measure to an index resulting

Corporate Carbon Footprint Arla Foods amba

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Birkved, Morten; Poulsen, Jan; Shonfield, Peter

2009-01-01

to affect consumers’ purchasing decisions Recognising the potentially important impact of climate change on its business, as well as its wider social responsibility to effectively manage its GHG emissions, Arla Foods has commissioned PE North West Europe to carry out a corporate carbon footprint analysis...

Pydpiper: A Flexible Toolkit for Constructing Novel Registration Pipelines

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Miriam eFriedel

2014-07-01

Full Text Available Using neuroimaging technologies to elucidate the relationship between genotype and phenotype and brain and behavior will be a key contribution to biomedical research in the twenty-first century. Among the many methods for analyzing neuroimaging data, image registration deserves particular attention due to its wide range of applications. Finding strategies to register together many images and analyze the differences between them can be a challenge, particularly given that different experimental designs require different registration strategies. Moreover, writing software that can handle different types of image registration pipelines in a flexible, reusable and extensible way can be challenging. In response to this challenge, we have created Pydpiper, a neuroimaging registration toolkit written in Python. Pydpiper is an open-source, freely available pipeline framework that provides multiple modules for various image registration applications. Pydpiper offers five key innovations. Specifically: (1 a robust file handling class that allows access to outputs from all stages of registration at any point in the pipeline; (2 the ability of the framework to eliminate duplicate stages; (3 reusable, easy to subclass modules; (4 a development toolkit written for non-developers; (5 four complete applications that run complex image registration pipelines ``out-of-the-box.'' In this paper, we will discuss both the general Pydpiper framework and the various ways in which component modules can be pieced together to easily create new registration pipelines. This will include a discussion of the core principles motivating code development and a comparison of Pydpiper with other available toolkits. We also provide a comprehensive, line-by-line example to orient users with limited programming knowledge and highlight some of the most useful features of Pydpiper. In addition, we will present the four current applications of the code.

Pydpiper: a flexible toolkit for constructing novel registration pipelines.

Science.gov (United States)

Friedel, Miriam; van Eede, Matthijs C; Pipitone, Jon; Chakravarty, M Mallar; Lerch, Jason P

2014-01-01

Using neuroimaging technologies to elucidate the relationship between genotype and phenotype and brain and behavior will be a key contribution to biomedical research in the twenty-first century. Among the many methods for analyzing neuroimaging data, image registration deserves particular attention due to its wide range of applications. Finding strategies to register together many images and analyze the differences between them can be a challenge, particularly given that different experimental designs require different registration strategies. Moreover, writing software that can handle different types of image registration pipelines in a flexible, reusable and extensible way can be challenging. In response to this challenge, we have created Pydpiper, a neuroimaging registration toolkit written in Python. Pydpiper is an open-source, freely available software package that provides multiple modules for various image registration applications. Pydpiper offers five key innovations. Specifically: (1) a robust file handling class that allows access to outputs from all stages of registration at any point in the pipeline; (2) the ability of the framework to eliminate duplicate stages; (3) reusable, easy to subclass modules; (4) a development toolkit written for non-developers; (5) four complete applications that run complex image registration pipelines "out-of-the-box." In this paper, we will discuss both the general Pydpiper framework and the various ways in which component modules can be pieced together to easily create new registration pipelines. This will include a discussion of the core principles motivating code development and a comparison of Pydpiper with other available toolkits. We also provide a comprehensive, line-by-line example to orient users with limited programming knowledge and highlight some of the most useful features of Pydpiper. In addition, we will present the four current applications of the code.

Carbon footprint of urban source separation for nutrient recovery.

Science.gov (United States)

Kjerstadius, H; Bernstad Saraiva, A; Spångberg, J; Davidsson, Å

2017-07-15

Source separation systems for the management of domestic wastewater and food waste has been suggested as more sustainable sanitation systems for urban areas. The present study used an attributional life cycle assessment to investigate the carbon footprint and potential for nutrient recovery of two sanitation systems for a hypothetical urban area in Southern Sweden. The systems represented a typical Swedish conventional system and a possible source separation system with increased nutrient recovery. The assessment included the management chain from household collection, transport, treatment and final return of nutrients to agriculture or disposal of the residuals. The results for carbon footprint and nutrient recovery (phosphorus and nitrogen) concluded that the source separation system could increase nutrient recovery (0.30-0.38 kg P capita -1 year -1 and 3.10-3.28 kg N capita -1 year -1 ), while decreasing the carbon footprint (-24 to -58 kg CO 2 -eq. capita -1 year -1 ), compared to the conventional system. The nutrient recovery was increased by the use of struvite precipitation and ammonium stripping at the wastewater treatment plant. The carbon footprint decreased, mainly due to the increased biogas production, increased replacement of mineral fertilizer in agriculture and less emissions of nitrous oxide from wastewater treatment. In conclusion, the study showed that source separation systems could potentially be used to increase nutrient recovery from urban areas, while decreasing the climate impact. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Water footprints of nations: water use by people as a function of their consumption pattern

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hoekstra, Arjen Ysbert; Chapagain, Ashok

2007-01-01

The water footprint shows the extent of water use in relation to consumption of people. The water footprint of a country is defined as the volume of water needed for the production of the goods and services consumed by the inhabitants of the country. The internal water footprint is the volume of

Carbon Footprint Calculator | Climate Change | US EPA

Science.gov (United States)

2016-12-12

An interactive calculator to estimate your household's carbon footprint. This tool will estimate carbon pollution emissions from your daily activities and show how to reduce your emissions and save money through simple steps.

The “Bad Labor” Footprint: Quantifying the Social Impacts of Globalization

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Moana S. Simas

2014-10-01

Full Text Available The extent to what bad labor conditions across the globe are associated with international trade is unknown. Here, we quantify the bad labor conditions associated with consumption in seven world regions, the “bad labor” footprint. In particular, we analyze how much occupational health damage, vulnerable employment, gender inequality, share of unskilled workers, child labor, and forced labor is associated with the production of internationally traded goods. Our results show that (i as expected, there is a net flow of bad labor conditions from developing to developed regions; (ii the production of exported goods in lower income regions contributes to more than half of the bad labor footprints caused by the wealthy lifestyles of affluent regions; (iii exports from Asia constitute the largest global trade flow measured in the amount bad labor, while exports from Africa carry the largest burden of bad labor conditions per unit value traded and per unit of total labor required; and (IV the trade of food products stands out in both volume and intensity of bad labor conditions.

Integration of water footprint accounting and costs for optimal pulp supply mix in paper industry

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Manzardo, Alessandro; Ren, Jingzheng; Piantella, Antonio

2014-01-01

studies have focused on these aspects, but there have been no previous reports on the integrated application of raw material water footprint accounting and costs in the definition of the optimal supply mix of chemical pulps from different countries. The current models that have been applied specifically...... that minimizes the water footprint accounting results and costs of chemical pulp, thereby facilitating the assessment of the water footprint by accounting for different chemical pulps purchased from various suppliers, with a focus on the efficiency of the production process. Water footprint accounting...... was adapted to better represent the efficiency of pulp and paper production. A multi-objective model for supply mix optimization was also developed using multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA). Water footprint accounting confirmed the importance of the production efficiency of chemical pulp, which affected...

Supercollider: Footprint approved

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Anon.

1990-01-01

With the 'footprint' - the precise location of the 87-kilometre US Superconducting Supercollider, SSC, and its ancillary buildings - now approved, teams of specialists commissioned by the State of Texas swing into action to procure the 17,000 acres (69 million square metres) of land covered by the project. With the SSC Laboratory in Ellis County and the US Department of Energy (DoE, the overseeing government agency) both hiring manpower for this project to collide 20 TeV (20,000 GeV) proton beams before the end of the century, the host State of Texas is providing a helping hand

The PyRosetta Toolkit: a graphical user interface for the Rosetta software suite.

Science.gov (United States)

Adolf-Bryfogle, Jared; Dunbrack, Roland L

2013-01-01

The Rosetta Molecular Modeling suite is a command-line-only collection of applications that enable high-resolution modeling and design of proteins and other molecules. Although extremely useful, Rosetta can be difficult to learn for scientists with little computational or programming experience. To that end, we have created a Graphical User Interface (GUI) for Rosetta, called the PyRosetta Toolkit, for creating and running protocols in Rosetta for common molecular modeling and protein design tasks and for analyzing the results of Rosetta calculations. The program is highly extensible so that developers can add new protocols and analysis tools to the PyRosetta Toolkit GUI.

An Ethical Toolkit for Food Companies: Reflection on its Use

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Deblonde, M.K.; Graaff, R.; Brom, F.W.A.

2007-01-01

Nowadays many debates are going on that relate to the agricultural and food sector. It looks as if present technological and organizational developments within the agricultural and food sector are badly geared to societal needs and expectations. In this article we briefly present a toolkit for moral

Tracking urban carbon footprints from production and consumption perspectives

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lin, Jianyi; Hu, Yuanchao; Cui, Shenghui; Kang, Jiefeng; Ramaswami, Anu

2015-01-01

Cities are hotspots of socio-economic activities and greenhouse gas emissions. The aim of this study was to extend the research range of the urban carbon footprint (CF) to cover emissions embodied in products traded among regions and intra-city sectors. Using Xiamen City as a study case, the total urban-related emissions were evaluated, and the carbon flows among regions and intra-city sectors were tracked. Then five urban CF accountings were evaluated, including purely geographic accounting (PGA), community-wide infrastructure footprint (CIF), and consumption-based footprint (CBF) methods, as well as the newly defined production-based footprint (PBF) and purely production footprint (PPF). Research results show that the total urban-related emissions of Xiamen City in 2010 were 55.2 Mt CO 2 e/y, of which total carbon flow among regions or intra-city sectors accounted for 53.7 Mt CO 2 e/y. Within the total carbon flow, import and export respectively accounted for 59 and 65%, highlighting the importance of emissions embodied in trade. By regional trade balance, North America and Europe were the largest net carbon exported-to regions, and Mainland China and Taiwan the largest net carbon imported-from regions. Among intra-sector carbon flows, manufacturing was the largest emission-consuming sector of the total urban carbon flow, accounting for 77.4, and 98% of carbon export was through industrial products trade. By the PBF, PPF, CIF, PGA and CBF methods, the urban CFs were respectively 53.7 Mt CO 2 e/y, 44.8 Mt CO 2 e/y, 28.4 Mt CO 2 e/y, 23.7 Mt CO 2 e/y, and 19.0 Mt CO 2 e/y, so all of the other four CFs were higher than the CBF. All of these results indicate that urban carbon mitigation must consider the supply chain management of imported goods, the production efficiency within the city, the consumption patterns of urban consumers, and the responsibility of the ultimate consumers outside the city. (letter)

Tracking urban carbon footprints from production and consumption perspectives

Science.gov (United States)

Lin, Jianyi; Hu, Yuanchao; Cui, Shenghui; Kang, Jiefeng; Ramaswami, Anu

2015-05-01

Cities are hotspots of socio-economic activities and greenhouse gas emissions. The aim of this study was to extend the research range of the urban carbon footprint (CF) to cover emissions embodied in products traded among regions and intra-city sectors. Using Xiamen City as a study case, the total urban-related emissions were evaluated, and the carbon flows among regions and intra-city sectors were tracked. Then five urban CF accountings were evaluated, including purely geographic accounting (PGA), community-wide infrastructure footprint (CIF), and consumption-based footprint (CBF) methods, as well as the newly defined production-based footprint (PBF) and purely production footprint (PPF). Research results show that the total urban-related emissions of Xiamen City in 2010 were 55.2 Mt CO2e/y, of which total carbon flow among regions or intra-city sectors accounted for 53.7 Mt CO2e/y. Within the total carbon flow, import and export respectively accounted for 59 and 65%, highlighting the importance of emissions embodied in trade. By regional trade balance, North America and Europe were the largest net carbon exported-to regions, and Mainland China and Taiwan the largest net carbon imported-from regions. Among intra-sector carbon flows, manufacturing was the largest emission-consuming sector of the total urban carbon flow, accounting for 77.4, and 98% of carbon export was through industrial products trade. By the PBF, PPF, CIF, PGA and CBF methods, the urban CFs were respectively 53.7 Mt CO2e/y, 44.8 Mt CO2e/y, 28.4 Mt CO2e/y, 23.7 Mt CO2e/y, and 19.0 Mt CO2e/y, so all of the other four CFs were higher than the CBF. All of these results indicate that urban carbon mitigation must consider the supply chain management of imported goods, the production efficiency within the city, the consumption patterns of urban consumers, and the responsibility of the ultimate consumers outside the city.

Toolkit for US colleges/schools of pharmacy to prepare learners for careers in academia.

Science.gov (United States)

Haines, Seena L; Summa, Maria A; Peeters, Michael J; Dy-Boarman, Eliza A; Boyle, Jaclyn A; Clifford, Kalin M; Willson, Megan N

2017-09-01

The objective of this article is to provide an academic toolkit for use by colleges/schools of pharmacy to prepare student pharmacists/residents for academic careers. Through the American Association of Colleges of Pharmac (AACP) Section of Pharmacy Practice, the Student Resident Engagement Task Force (SRETF) collated teaching materials used by colleges/schools of pharmacy from a previously reported national survey. The SRETF developed a toolkit for student pharmacists/residents interested in academic pharmacy. Eighteen institutions provided materials; five provided materials describing didactic coursework; over fifteen provided materials for an academia-focused Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experiences (APPE), while one provided materials for an APPE teaching-research elective. SRETF members created a syllabus template and sample lesson plan by integrating submitted resources. Submissions still needed to complete the toolkit include examples of curricular tracks and certificate programs. Pharmacy faculty vacancies still exist in pharmacy education. Engaging student pharmacists/residents about academia pillars of teaching, scholarship and service is critical for the future success of the academy. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Footprint-weighted tile approach for a spruce forest and a nearby patchy clearing using the ACASA model

Science.gov (United States)

Gatzsche, Kathrin; Babel, Wolfgang; Falge, Eva; Pyles, Rex David; Tha Paw U, Kyaw; Raabe, Armin; Foken, Thomas

2018-05-01

The ACASA (Advanced Canopy-Atmosphere-Soil Algorithm) model, with a higher-order closure for tall vegetation, has already been successfully tested and validated for homogeneous spruce forests. The aim of this paper is to test the model using a footprint-weighted tile approach for a clearing with a heterogeneous structure of the underlying surface. The comparison with flux data shows a good agreement with a footprint-aggregated tile approach of the model. However, the results of a comparison with a tile approach on the basis of the mean land use classification of the clearing is not significantly different. It is assumed that the footprint model is not accurate enough to separate small-scale heterogeneities. All measured fluxes are corrected by forcing the energy balance closure of the test data either by maintaining the measured Bowen ratio or by the attribution of the residual depending on the fractions of sensible and latent heat flux to the buoyancy flux. The comparison with the model, in which the energy balance is closed, shows that the buoyancy correction for Bowen ratios > 1.5 better fits the measured data. For lower Bowen ratios, the correction probably lies between the two methods, but the amount of available data was too small to make a conclusion. With an assumption of similarity between water and carbon dioxide fluxes, no correction of the net ecosystem exchange is necessary for Bowen ratios > 1.5.

A Toolkit For Storage Qos Provisioning For Data-Intensive Applications

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Renata Słota

2012-01-01

Full Text Available This paper describes a programming toolkit developed in the PL-Grid project, named QStorMan, which supports storage QoS provisioning for data-intensive applications in distributed environments. QStorMan exploits knowledge-oriented methods for matching storage resources to non-functional requirements, which are defined for a data-intensive application. In order to support various usage scenarios, QStorMan provides two interfaces, such as programming libraries or a web portal. The interfaces allow to define the requirements either directly in an application source code or by using an intuitive graphical interface. The first way provides finer granularity, e.g., each portion of data processed by an application can define a different set of requirements. The second method is aimed at legacy applications support, which source code can not be modified. The toolkit has been evaluated using synthetic benchmarks and the production infrastructure of PL-Grid, in particular its storage infrastructure, which utilizes the Lustre file system.

Srijan: a graphical toolkit for sensor network macroprogramming

OpenAIRE

Pathak , Animesh; Gowda , Mahanth K.

2009-01-01

International audience; Macroprogramming is an application development technique for wireless sensor networks (WSNs) where the developer specifies the behavior of the system, as opposed to that of the constituent nodes. In this proposed demonstration, we would like to present Srijan, a toolkit that enables application development for WSNs in a graphical manner using data-driven macroprogramming. It can be used in various stages of application development, viz. i) specification of application ...

The Added Value of Water Footprint Assessment for National Water Policy: A Case Study for Morocco

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Schyns, Joseph Franciscus; Hoekstra, Arjen Ysbert

2014-01-01

A Water Footprint Assessment is carried out for Morocco, mapping the water footprint of different activities at river basin and monthly scale, distinguishing between surface- and groundwater. The paper aims to demonstrate the added value of detailed analysis of the human water footprint within a

Mocapy++ - a toolkit for inference and learning in dynamic Bayesian networks

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Paluszewski, Martin; Hamelryck, Thomas Wim

2010-01-01

Background Mocapy++ is a toolkit for parameter learning and inference in dynamic Bayesian networks (DBNs). It supports a wide range of DBN architectures and probability distributions, including distributions from directional statistics (the statistics of angles, directions and orientations...

Estimation of the carbon footprint of the Galician fishing activity (NW Spain)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Iribarren, Diego; Vazquez-Rowe, Ian; Hospido, Almudena; Moreira, Maria Teresa; Feijoo, Gumersindo

2010-01-01

The food production system as a whole is recognized as one of the major contributors to environmental impacts. Accordingly, food production, processing, transport and consumption account for a relevant portion of the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with any country. In this context, there is an increasing market demand for climate-relevant information regarding the global warming impact of consumer food products throughout the supply chains. This article deals with the assessment of the carbon footprint of seafood products as a key subgroup in the food sector. Galicia (NW Spain) was selected as a case study. The analysis is based on a representative set of species within the Galician fishing sector, including species obtained from coastal fishing (e.g. horse mackerel, Atlantic mackerel, European pilchard and blue whiting), offshore fishing (e.g. European hake, megrim and anglerfish), deep-sea fishing (skipjack and yellowfin tuna), extensive aquaculture (mussels) and intensive aquaculture (turbot). The carbon footprints associated with the production-related activities of each selected species were quantified following a business-to-business approach on the basis of 1 year of fishing activity. These individual carbon footprints were used to calculate the carbon footprint for each of the different Galician fisheries and culture activities. Finally, the lump sum of the carbon footprints for coastal, offshore and deep-sea fishing and extensive and intensive aquaculture brought about the carbon footprint of the Galician fishing activity (i.e., capture and culture). A benchmark for quantifying and communicating emission reductions was then provided, and opportunities to reduce the GHG emissions associated with the Galician fishing activity could be prioritized.

Estimation of the carbon footprint of the Galician fishing activity (NW Spain).

Science.gov (United States)

Iribarren, Diego; Vázquez-Rowe, Ian; Hospido, Almudena; Moreira, María Teresa; Feijoo, Gumersindo

2010-10-15

The food production system as a whole is recognized as one of the major contributors to environmental impacts. Accordingly, food production, processing, transport and consumption account for a relevant portion of the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with any country. In this context, there is an increasing market demand for climate-relevant information regarding the global warming impact of consumer food products throughout the supply chains. This article deals with the assessment of the carbon footprint of seafood products as a key subgroup in the food sector. Galicia (NW Spain) was selected as a case study. The analysis is based on a representative set of species within the Galician fishing sector, including species obtained from coastal fishing (e.g. horse mackerel, Atlantic mackerel, European pilchard and blue whiting), offshore fishing (e.g. European hake, megrim and anglerfish), deep-sea fishing (skipjack and yellowfin tuna), extensive aquaculture (mussels) and intensive aquaculture (turbot). The carbon footprints associated with the production-related activities of each selected species were quantified following a business-to-business approach on the basis of 1year of fishing activity. These individual carbon footprints were used to calculate the carbon footprint for each of the different Galician fisheries and culture activities. Finally, the lump sum of the carbon footprints for coastal, offshore and deep-sea fishing and extensive and intensive aquaculture brought about the carbon footprint of the Galician fishing activity (i.e., capture and culture). A benchmark for quantifying and communicating emission reductions was then provided, and opportunities to reduce the GHG emissions associated with the Galician fishing activity could be prioritized. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

How much water is required for coal power generation: An analysis of gray and blue water footprints.

Science.gov (United States)

Ma, Xiaotian; Yang, Donglu; Shen, Xiaoxu; Zhai, Yijie; Zhang, Ruirui; Hong, Jinglan

2018-04-28

Although water resource shortage is closely connected with coal-based electricity generation, relevant water footprint analyses remain limited. This study aims to address this limitation by conducting a water footprint analysis of coal-based electricity generation in China for the first time to inform decision-makers about how freshwater consumption and wastewater discharge can be reduced. In China, 1 kWh of electricity supply obtained 1.78 × 10 -3  m 3 of gray water footprint in 2015, and the value is 1.3 times the blue water footprint score of 1.35 × 10 -3  m 3 /kWh. Although water footprint of 1 kWh of electricity supply decreased, the national total gray water footprint increased significantly from 2006 to 2015 with increase in power generating capacity. An opposite trend was observed for blue water footprint. Indirect processes dominated the influence of gray water footprint, whereas direct freshwater consumption contributed 63.6% to blue water footprint. Ameliorating key processes, including transportation, direct freshwater consumption, direct air emissions, and coal washing could thus bring substantial environmental benefits. Moreover, phosphorus, mercury, hexavalent chromium, arsenic, COD, and BOD 5 were key substances of gray water footprint. Results indicated that the combination of railway and water transportation should be prioritized. The targeted transition toward high coal washing rate and pithead power plant development provides a possibility to relieve environmental burdens, but constraints on water resources in coal production sites have to be considered. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.