scholarly journals Hazardous Substance Detection in Water Environments using Neutron Beams: the SABAT Project

Author(s):  
Michał SILARSKI

The ever-increasing risk of terrorist attacks is a stimulus for seeking new, more effective danger detection methods. The article describes new methods of detecting hazardous materials based on the interaction between neutrons and matter. The status of the design of the device for detecting hazardous materials in water environments based on these methods, currently in development at the Jagiellonian University (Kraków, Poland), will be presented as well.

Nanomaterials ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 224
Author(s):  
Seok Ki Choi

Unintended exposure to harmful reactive organophosphates (OP), which comprise a group of nerve agents and agricultural pesticides, continues to pose a serious threat to human health and ecosystems due to their toxicity and prolonged stability. This underscores an unmet need for developing technologies that will allow sensitive OP detection, rapid decontamination and effective treatment of OP intoxication. Here, this article aims to review the status and prospect of emerging nanotechnologies and multifunctional nanomaterials that have shown considerable potential in advancing detection methods and treatment modalities. It begins with a brief introduction to OP types and their biochemical basis of toxicity followed by nanomaterial applications in two topical areas of primary interest. One topic relates to nanomaterial-based sensors which are applicable for OP detection and quantitative analysis by electrochemical, fluorescent, luminescent and spectrophotometric methods. The other topic is directed on nanotherapeutic platforms developed as OP remedies, which comprise nanocarriers for antidote drug delivery and nanoscavengers for OP inactivation and decontamination. In summary, this article addresses OP-responsive nanomaterials, their design concepts and growing impact on advancing our capability in the development of OP sensors, decontaminants and therapies.


Author(s):  
Guobin CHENG

LANGUAGE NOTE | Document text in Chinese; abstract also in English.新型冠狀病毒疫情所帶來的巨大的、彌散的、不確定的威脅,使社會公共生活中人們熟悉和信賴的闢係與界限變得糢糊。在這種情沉下,人們最需要的就是發現“敵人”,重新為人際闢係和公共生活找到確定性。在精準、高效的科學檢測手段獲得普及之前,人們不得不選擇簡易的標籤化方法進行區 分。疫區標籤是通過清潔與污染的劃分來保護現有的正常生活秩序,但在找到敵人的過程中有可能造成對無辜者的誤傷;口罩標數的使用則首先指向了人群的區分與界限,是想要在混亂之中先找到群體邊界和歸屬感,但有可能會轉變為主動去創造敵人。這些手段的根本目的都是為了實現自我保護,但在這樣的利害關係考量之外,還存在著某種個人對他人和公共生活的普遍義務,只有我們能夠在生存危機的巨大壓力下選擇堅持這一道德義務,才能為戰勝疫情奠定真正的希望。當代的公共生活是一個緊密地彼此闢聯、密切交通、相互滲入和共生性的整體,但這個共同體本身是十分脆弱的,在巨大的安全壓力之下很容易滑向分裂與隔離。新型冠狀病毒疫情既是一次嚴峻的挑戰,又是一次重要的演習,我們需要在其中學到足夠多的經驗,為未來可能出現的更大危機做好準備。The huge, diffuse, and uncertain threat brought about by the Covid-19 epidemic has blurred familiar and trusted relationships and the boundaries of public life. Under such circumstances, what people need most is to uncover the “enemy” and regain certainty in interpersonal relations and the public sphere. Before the popularization of accurate and efficient scientific detection methods, people used simple labeling methods to tell concepts apart. Labeling epidemic areas protects the status quo by demarcating cleanliness from pollution, but in finding the enemy, doing so may cause accidental injury to the innocent. Labeling masks allows distinctions in the crowd so that group boundaries and senses of belonging can be found in chaos. However, such labeling may lead to the creation of enemies. The fundamental goal of these methods is self-protection. Nevertheless, in addition to such considerations, individuals have a wider moral obligation to others and to public life. Only by choosing to adhere to our moral obligations under the enormous pressure of a survival crisis can we find true hope to defeat the epidemic. Contemporary public life is a symbiotic community that is closely related, in close communication, and mutually enmeshed. Such a community is very fragile, and it can easily slip into divisiveness and become isolated under huge security pressures. The Covid-19 epidemic is not only a serious challenge, but also an important exercise. We need to learn enough to prepare for greater crisis that may arise in the future.DOWNLOAD HISTORY | This article has been downloaded 31 times in Digital Commons before migrating into this platform.


2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (s1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Rosseel ◽  
Stefan Grondelaers

AbstractThis special issue brings together research that reflects on the status and role of different types of language attitudes, and the methods required to study them. Many linguists distinguish between explicit and implicit attitudes towards language, but more often than not it remains unclear how these constructs are defined, and what their potential significance is for the study of language variation and change. The contributions to this issue address this question by critically reflecting on theory and methodology, by highlighting (and clarifying) the terminological confusion, and by showcasing new methods and tools. It is hoped that this special issue can inspire theoretical and methodological convergence in a notoriously fragmented field, so that attitude researchers can identify the underlying structure of language attitudes, and the theoretical significance of language evaluation to processes of language variation and change.


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Tumukunde ◽  
G. Ma ◽  
D. Li ◽  
J. Yuan ◽  
L. Qin ◽  
...  

Since their discovery in the 1960s, aflatoxins were found to have a considerable impact on the health of humans and animals as well as the country’s economy and international trade. Aflatoxins are often found in nuts, cereals and animal feeds, which has a significant danger to the food industry. Over the years, several steps have been undertaken worldwide to minimise their contamination in crops and their exposure to humans and animals. China is one of the largest exporters and importers of food and animal feed. As a result, many studies have been carried out in China related to aflatoxins, including their distribution, pollution, detection methods, monitoring, testing and managing. Chinese scientists studied aflatoxins in microbiological, toxicological, ecological effects as well as policies relating to their controlling. China has thus put into practice a number of strategies aiming at the prevention and control of aflatoxins in order to protect consumers and ensure a safe trade of food and feed, and the status and enlargement of these strategies are very important and useful for many consumers and stakeholders in China. Therefore, this article aims at the detriment assessments, regulations, distribution, detection methods, prevention and control of aflatoxins in China. It equally provides useful information about the recent safety management systems in place to fight the contamination of aflatoxins in food and feed in China.


Author(s):  
R. Qin ◽  
A. Gruen

There is a great demand for studying the changes of buildings over time. The current trend for building change detection combines the orthophoto and DSM (Digital Surface Models). The pixel-based change detection methods are very sensitive to the quality of the images and DSMs, while the object-based methods are more robust towards these problems. In this paper, we propose a supervised method for building change detection. After a segment-based SVM (Support Vector Machine) classification with features extracted from the orthophoto and DSM, we focus on the detection of the building changes of different periods by measuring their height and texture differences, as well as their shapes. A decision tree analysis is used to assess the probability of change for each building segment and the traffic lighting system is used to indicate the status "change", "non-change" and "uncertain change" for building segments. The proposed method is applied to scanned aerial photos of the city of Zurich in 2002 and 2007, and the results have demonstrated that our method is able to achieve high detection accuracy.


Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (10) ◽  
pp. 2983
Author(s):  
Marie Sapone ◽  
Pauline Martin ◽  
Khalil Ben Mansour ◽  
Henry Château ◽  
Frédéric Marin

The development of on-board sensors, such as inertial measurement units (IMU), has made it possible to develop new methods for analyzing horse locomotion to detect lameness. The detection of spatiotemporal events is one of the keystones in the analysis of horse locomotion. This study assesses the performance of four methods for detecting Foot on and Foot off events. They were developed from an IMU positioned on the canon bone of eight horses during trotting recording on a treadmill and compared to a standard gold method based on motion capture. These methods are based on accelerometer and gyroscope data and use either thresholding or wavelets to detect stride events. The two methods developed from gyroscopic data showed more precision than those developed from accelerometric data with a bias less than 0.6% of stride duration for Foot on and 0.1% of stride duration for Foot off. The gyroscope is less impacted by the different patterns of strides, specific to each horse. To conclude, methods using the gyroscope present the potential of further developments to investigate the effects of different gait paces and ground types in the analysis of horse locomotion.


2016 ◽  
Vol 46 (185) ◽  
pp. 561-581 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lukas Oberndorfer

In France, the state of emergency (declared in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of November 2015) has been used against the Nuit-Debout- and the strike movement: fundamental rights were set aside in order to push through the deregulation of the labour market. An approach informed by hegemony theory can demonstrate that these developments and their point in time are articulated with the political and economic position of France within the European ensemble of state apparatuses. Because of its Eurocentric and liberal set-up, mainstream state theory tends to identify authoritarianism only in the periphery or as a threat connected with right wing populism. But an authoritarian turn is already happening within Western liberal institutions. The crisis has pushed the neoliberal mode of integration into a crisis of hegemony. The status quo can no longer be maintained through consensus and is instead upheld through coercion and racism.


1980 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 264-272
Author(s):  
J. Glynn Henry

Following a brief outline of the status of pollution control in Ontario, the paper examines recent developments in wastewater technology as applied to plant performance, secondary treatment, and sludge processing.Modelling, automatic control, addition of pure oxygen, land disposal, and sludge dewatering are among the new approaches to the design of treatment facilities that are described; their limitations are noted and their application in Canada is considered.Increasing public concern and decreasing resources will force serious consideration of new methods to improve treatment reliability and efficiency. Technology, judiciously employed, can be one of the most effective ways of protecting our environment.


1969 ◽  
Vol 1969 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
John R. Hyland

Abstract The National Multiagency Contingency Plan, prepared at the Direction of the President, provides a mechanism for coordinating the Federal response to a spill of oil or other hazardous materials. Agencies signatory to the Plan are: Department of the Interior; Department of Transportation; Department of Defense; Department of Health, Education and Welfare; and Office of Emergency Preparedness. The objectives of this Plan are: to develop appropriate preventive and preparedness measures and effective systems for discovering and reporting the existence of a pollution spill; to institute, promptly, measures to restrict the further spread of the pollutant; to assure that the public health and welfare are provided adequate protection; to apply techniques to cleanup and dispose of the collected pollutants; and to institute actions to recover cleanup costs and to effect enforcement of existing Federal statutes. The Plan is effective for all United States navigable waters and contiguous zone. The President has established the policy that appropriate Federal resources will be used for dealing with the pollution aspects of oil or hazardous substance spill problems and to protect our natural resources from their consequences. A primary thrust of regional plans is to encourage the person responsible for the discharge of oil or other hazardous substances to remove the pollutant or adequately mitigate its effects. The National Response Team (NRT) consists of representatives of the signatory agencies and acts as an emergency response team to be activated in the event of a pollution incident involving oil or other hazardous materials. The Regional Response Center (RRC) is the regional headquarters site for pollution control activities under this Plan. Coordination and direction of Federal pollution control efforts at the scene of a pollution incident is accomplished through an On-Scene Commander (OSC). The OSC is the single executive agent predesignated by the regional plan to coordinate and direct such pollution control activities in each area of the region. The actions taken to respond to a spill or pollution incident can be separated into five relatively distinct phases. For descriptive purposes these are: Phase I. Discovery and Notification; Phase II. Containment and Counter-measures; Phase III. Cleanup and Disposal; Phase IV. Restoration; and Phase V. Recovery of Damages and Enforcement.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document