Management Strategies and Stakeholders Analysis to Strengthen the Management and Use of Biosolids in a Colombian Municipality

The difficulties in the management and use of biosolids in Colombia make it necessary to evaluate and analyze the factors involved through various methodologies to achieve the effective management and recycling of this type of waste. The objective of this study was to evaluate the management of sludge and biosolids from a WWTP in a Colombian municipality through the application of three methodologies (SWOT/TOWS, surveys, and stakeholder (player) weighing) for their subsequent use in agriculture. As a result, strategies were proposed at the regulatory, organizational policy, and entity integration levels, among others. It was identified that about 93.6% of the people surveyed had a positive attitude towards the use of biosolids in agriculture, despite recognizing the existence of a risk (27.3%) in this type of practice. On the other hand, regarding the communication of WWTP management of these wastes, they perceived that it to be absent (65%) and the lack of knowledge regarding the destination of these wastes was even greater (72.7%). Through the weighting of actors, 16 players were classified with whom it is necessary to work closely, regularly, or occasionally. The methodologies proposed will allow similar WWTPs to optimize their processes through continuous improvement and joint work between the different entities and communities. It is recommended that other methodologies be used to evaluate player position level in relation to planned strategies, as well as the level of associations of one player with another, independent of power and influence.

Investigation of Timing Behavior and Jitter in a Smart Inertial Sensor Debugging Architecture

Due to upcoming higher integration levels of microprocessors, the market of inertial sensors has changed in the last few years. Smart inertial sensors are becoming more and more important. This type of sensor offers the benefit of implementing sensor-processing tasks directly on the sensor hardware. The software development on such sensors is quite challenging. In this article, we propose an approach for using prerecorded sensor data during the development process to test and evaluate the functionality and timing of the sensor firmware in a repeatable and reproducible way on the actual hardware. Our proposed Sensor-in-the-Loop architecture enables the developer to inject sensor data during the debugging process directly into the sensor hardware in real time. As the timing becomes more critical in future smart sensor applications, we investigate the timing behavior of our approach with respect to timing and jitter. The implemented approach can inject data of three 3-DOF sensors at 1.6 kHz. Furthermore, the jitter shown in our proposed sampling method is at least three times lower than using real sensor data. To prove the statistical significance of our experiments, we use a Gage R&R analysis, extended by the assessment of confidence intervals of our data.

Switchable Multimode Microlaser based on AIE Microsphere

<p><a>Switchable multimode microlasers are of great significance to the development of photonic devices with high integration levels.</a> <a>Herein, we demonstrate an acid/alkaline gas responsive multimode AIEgen@starch microsphere-based microlaser. The aggregation-induced emission (AIE) active fluorescent dye ASCPI is used as the gain medium in this study. ASCPI was weakly emissive in water but became highly emissive when introduced to the starch microsphere as a guest molecule. The resultant ASCPI@starch microsphere worked well as a typical whispering-gallery-mode microlaser. The laser mode wavelengths were size dependent. Due to the sensitivity of ASCPI to pH, the output wavelength of the microlaser could be switched to shorter wavelength by acetic acid vapor treatment or longer wavelength by NH₃ vapor treatment. This work will provide a useful enlightenment for the rational design of effective switchable lasers using AIE materials with a simple preparation procedure.</a></p>

Switchable Multimode Microlaser based on AIE Microsphere

<p><a>Switchable multimode microlasers are of great significance to the development of photonic devices with high integration levels.</a> <a>Herein, we demonstrate an acid/alkaline gas responsive multimode AIEgen@starch microsphere-based microlaser. The aggregation-induced emission (AIE) active fluorescent dye ASCPI is used as the gain medium in this study. ASCPI was weakly emissive in water but became highly emissive when introduced to the starch microsphere as a guest molecule. The resultant ASCPI@starch microsphere worked well as a typical whispering-gallery-mode microlaser. The laser mode wavelengths were size dependent. Due to the sensitivity of ASCPI to pH, the output wavelength of the microlaser could be switched to shorter wavelength by acetic acid vapor treatment or longer wavelength by NH₃ vapor treatment. This work will provide a useful enlightenment for the rational design of effective switchable lasers using AIE materials with a simple preparation procedure.</a></p>

Switchable Multimode Microlaser based on AIE Microsphere

Switchable multimode microlasers are of great significance to the development of photonic devices with high integration levels. Herein, we demonstrate an acid/alkaline gas responsive multimode AIEgen@starch microsphere-based microlaser. The aggregation-induced...

Integration of ethical considerations into HTA reports: an analysis of integration levels using a systematic review

Objective To describe the type and level of ethical integration in published health technology assessment (HTA) reports and systematically identify the ethical approaches utilized. Methods A literature search was conducted with the Google™ search engine using the keyword “ethic” between 1 January 2015 and 20 August 2019. Only HTA assessment reports with a section on ethics were retained and classified according to their level of ethical integration: no ethical analysis, ethical issues highlighted, assessments according to legal or social norms, and assessments from a moral or axiological perspective—using a qualitative methodology to distinguish such integration. Results This review yielded 188 reports with a section identified as being on ethics, produced by seventeen HTA agencies in eleven countries. One hundred and thirty-six reports did not develop an ethical analysis, thirty-one highlighted ethical issues, seventeen conducted a norm-based ethical assessment using a descriptive approach grounded in social norms, and four developed an assessment grounded in a moral or axiological perspective. The bioethical “four-principles” framework was used, but mainly for presenting ethical issues and not as a moral framework. Conclusions The majority of reports featuring a section on ethics mention ethical considerations without ethical analysis. Ethical issues are grouped with legal, social, and organizational issues and treated as contextual considerations that decision makers should be aware of. When reports present systematic norm-based ethical assessments from a descriptive perspective or ethical assessment based on a moral or axiological perspective, there is a tendency to ground these analyses in frameworks created for the purpose and reliant on a concept of ethics supporting them.

Satirical news from left to right: Discursive integration in written online satire

Previous research suggests that a defining characteristic of satirical news shows (e.g. The Daily Show) is discursive integration: a creative blend of genre conventions of regular news and fiction. This study aimed to extend the concept of discursive integration to another popular form of satirical news: written satirical news. We focused on both liberal (e.g. The Onion) and conservative (e.g. The Babylon Bee) online outlets of satire. We collected texts published in 2018 by a total of 36 satirical news, regular news and fiction websites (65,530,647 words). Discursive integration was measured by means of linguistic register, because genres can be effectively identified through patterns of linguistic features. Four linguistic register dimensions were identified. Findings showed that written satirical news is indeed characterised by discursive integration because written satirical news’ register scored in between the registers of written regular news and written fiction. No differences in discursive integration levels were found between liberal and conservative satirical news. This study demonstrates the value of discursive integration for understanding the genre of satirical news across partisan lines.

Assessing Financial Market Integration in Vietnam: A Price – Based Approach

This paper investigates the existence of financial market integration between Vietnam and the region (ASEAN, ASIAN) as well as the world using price-based indicators. Our paper is the first to assess the overall integration of the Vietnam financial market based on two different datasets for different sub-capital markets, the bond market and stock market, during the period of 2009 - 2018. The empirical results show that Vietnam, compared to other countries in research, holds lower regional and international integration levels in both the bond market and the stock market, but demonstrates considerably strong signs of progressing regional and global stock market integration over the period. Especially, the absolute values estimated from the beta coefficient and beta convergence approaches for the Vietnamese stock market are larger than for the bond market, proving better convergence degree and speed of Vietnamese stock market over the bond market. These bring policymakers and regulators new thoughts and more challenges in designing appropriate policies towards the development of the financial markets in the future.