This paper presents the NUBASE2012 evaluation that contains the recommended values for nuclear and decay properties of nuclides in their ground and excited isomeric （T1/2≥ 100 ns） states. All ...nuclides for which some experimental information is known are considered. NUBASE2012 covers all up to date experimental data published in primary （journal articles） and secondary （mainly laboratory reports and conference proceedings） references, together with the corresponding bibliographical information. During the development of NUBASE2012, the data available in the ＂Evaluated Nuclear Structure Data File＂ （ENSDF） database were consulted, and critically assessed of their validity and completeness. Furthermore, a large amount of new and somewhat older experimental results that were missing in ENSDF were compiled, evaluated and included in NUI3ASE2012. The atomic mass values were taken from the ＂Atomic Mass Evaluation＂ （AME2012, second and third parts of the present issue）. In cases where no experimental data were available for a particular nuclide, trends in the behavior of specific properties in neighboring nuclei （TNN） were examined. This approach allowed to estimate, whenever possible, values for a range of properties, and are labeled in NUBASE2012 as ＂non-experimental＂ （flagged ＂#＂）. Evaluation procedures and policies that were used during the development of this database are presented, together with a detailed table of recommended values and their uncertainties.
•Isotonitazene quantification in human post-mortem tissues, blood and hair.•Isotonitazene accumulation in brain and hearth and very low concentration in liver.•Isotonitazene powder determination ...using GC-MS, NMR.•Very low isotonitazene concentration in blood can be fatal.
The paper describes the first three deaths reported in Europe involved in isotonitazene consumption, a potent benzimidazole derivate opioid consumed in the recreational drug scene. Isotonitazene powder and purity determination was performed on the sample collected in the first death scene by NMR, HRMS, GC-FTIR, ATR-FTIR and GC–MS. Isotonitazene purity was determined by GC–MS analysis and proton NMR, and was defined to be above 95 % and 98 %, respectively.
Quantification of isotonitazene in biological samples was performed using a targeted analysis based on SPE extraction and ultra-high performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry.
The isotonitazene median concentration in femoral whole blood was 1.20ng/mL. Isotonitazene concentration in hair was similar or even lower compared to that seen in fentanyl abusers. Isotonitazene distribution in tissues converges in the brain, lungs and heart, respectively. Surprisingly, isotonitazene concentration in liver is the lowest measured for all tissues and fluids analyzed.
Based on circumstantial evidence, autopsy findings and the results of the toxicological analysis, the medical examiner concluded that the cause of all three deaths was an acute intoxication with isotonitazene.
Since isotonitazene toxic concentration levels are very low, the consumption of this new psychoactive drug is a real hazard for human health.
We report an abundance analysis for the highly r-process-enhanced (r-II) star CS 29497-004, a very metal-poor giant with solar system Teff = 5013 K and Fe/H = −2.85, whose nature was initially ...discovered in the course of the HERES project. Our analysis is based on high signal-to-noise ratio, high-resolution (R ~ 75 000) VLT/UVES spectra and MARCS model atmospheres under the assumption of local thermodynamic equilibrium, and obtains abundance measurements for a total of 46 elements, 31 of which are neutron-capture elements. As is the case for the other ~25 r-II stars currently known, the heavy-element abundance pattern of CS 29497-004 well-matches a scaled solar system second peak r-process-element abundance pattern. We confirm our previous detection of Th, and demonstrate that this star does not exhibit an “actinide boost”. Uranium is also detected (log ϵ(U) = −2.20 ± 0.30), albeit with a large measurement error that hampers its use as a precision cosmo-chronometer. Combining the various elemental chronometer pairs that are available for this star, we derive a mean age of 12.2 ± 3.7 Gyr using the theoretical production ratios from published waiting-point approximation models. We further explore the high-entropy wind model (Farouqi et al. 2010, ApJ, 712, 1359) production ratios arising from different neutron richness of the ejecta (Ye), and derive an age of 13.7 ± 4.4 Gyr for a best-fitting Ye = 0.447. The U/Th nuclei-chronometer is confirmed to be the most resilient to theoretical production ratios and yields an age of 16.5 ± 6.6 Gyr. Lead (Pb) is also tentatively detected in CS 29497-004, at a level compatible with a scaled solar r-process, or with the theoretical expectations for a pure r-process in this star.
This paper is the second part of the new evaluation of atomic masses, Ame2012. From the results of a least- squares calculation, described in Part I, for all accepted experimental data, we derive ...here tables and graphs to replace those of Ame2003. The first table lists atomic masses. It is followed by a table of the influences of data on primary nuclides, a table of separation energies and reaction energies, and finally, a series of graphs of separation and decay energies. The last section in this paper lists all references to the input data uaad in Part I of this Ame2012 and also to the data includad in the Nubase2012 evaluation (first paper in this issue).
Visible and thermal images acquired from drones (unoccupied aircraft systems) have substantially improved animal monitoring. Combining complementary information from both image types provides a ...powerful approach for automating detection and classification of multiple animal species to augment drone surveys. We compared eight image fusion methods using thermal and visible drone images combined with two supervised deep learning models, to evaluate the detection and classification of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), domestic cow (Bos taurus), and domestic horse (Equus caballus). We classified visible and thermal images separately and compared them with the results of image fusion. Fused images provided minimal improvement for cows and horses compared to visible images alone, likely because the size, shape, and color of these species made them conspicuous against the background. For white-tailed deer, which were typically cryptic against their backgrounds and often in shadows in visible images, the added information from thermal images improved detection and classification in fusion methods from 15 to 85%. Our results suggest that image fusion is ideal for surveying animals inconspicuous from their backgrounds, and our approach uses few image pairs to train compared to typical machine-learning methods. We discuss computational and field considerations to improve drone surveys using our fusion approach.
Collisions between birds and military aircraft are common and can have catastrophic effects. Knowledge of relative wildlife hazards to aircraft (the likelihood of aircraft damage when a species is ...struck) is needed before estimating wildlife strike risk (combined frequency and severity component) at military airfields. Despite annual reviews of wildlife strike trends with civil aviation since the 1990s, little is known about wildlife strike trends for military aircraft. We hypothesized that species relative hazard scores would correlate positively with aircraft type and avian body mass. Only strike records identified to species that occurred within the U.S. (n = 36,979) and involved United States Navy or United States Air Force aircraft were used to calculate relative hazard scores. The most hazardous species to military aircraft was the snow goose (Anser caerulescens), followed by the common loon (Gavia immer), and a tie between Canada goose (Branta canadensis) and black vulture (Coragyps atratus). We found an association between avian body mass and relative hazard score (r2 = 0.76) for all military airframes. In general, relative hazard scores per species were higher for military than civil airframes. An important consideration is that hazard scores can vary depending on aircraft type. We found that avian body mass affected the probability of damage differentially per airframe. In the development of an airfield wildlife management plan, and absent estimates of species strike risk, airport wildlife biologists should prioritize management of species with high relative hazard scores.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Cities are major drivers of energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions--the sources of anthropocentric climate change, whilst also concentrating people, buildings, and infrastructures and ...therefore potential risk and impacts of the latter. As a consequence, planning for climate change in urban areas does not only provide the opportunity but should necessitate considering interactions between mitigation and adaptation actions. However, existing research found that only a minority of urban areas consider both mitigation and adaptation in their climate action plans, i.e. 147 Climate Change Action Plans (CCAPs) were identified among a representative sample of 885 European cities. We investigate these 147 CCAPs to understand the degree of integration of adaptation and mitigation and draw implications for the maximization of synergies and co-benefits of such a combined approach. Using the developed scoring framework to evaluate the level of integration of CCAPs, the research finds that most of the plans reveal a ‘moderate’ level of integration. Moderate integration characterizes a plan that identifies sources of emissions and vulnerabilities to climate change, as well as some qualitative consideration of the synergies, but one that lacks a systematic consideration of potential integration opportunities. Furthermore, the analysis reveals that one of the main gaps of the evaluation and implementation of more integrated climate change actions in cities is the insufficient quantitative evaluation of the costs and funding schemes for adaptation and mitigation action implementation.
•Review and assessment of the level of integration of adaptation and mitigation in 147 EU urban climate change action plans.•Development and application of the Urban Climate Change Integration Index (UCCII).•Review and analysis of synergies and co-benefits of climate mitigation and adaptation actions.•Mitigation objectives are still more prominent than adaptation objectives in integrated urban climate change plans.•Discussion on capacity gaps and needs of local governments to understand, plan and implement integrated approaches.
In recent years, small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS) have been used widely to monitor animals because of their customizability, ease of operating, ability to access difficult to navigate places, ...and potential to minimize disturbance to animals. Automatic identification and classification of animals through images acquired using a sUAS may solve critical problems such as monitoring large areas with high vehicle traffic for animals to prevent collisions, such as animal-aircraft collisions on airports. In this research we demonstrate automated identification of four animal species using deep learning animal classification models trained on sUAS collected images. We used a sUAS mounted with visible spectrum cameras to capture 1288 images of four different animal species: cattle (Bos taurus), horses (Equus caballus), Canada Geese (Branta canadensis), and white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus). We chose these animals because they were readily accessible and white-tailed deer and Canada Geese are considered aviation hazards, as well as being easily identifiable within aerial imagery. A four-class classification problem involving these species was developed from the acquired data using deep learning neural networks. We studied the performance of two deep neural network models, convolutional neural networks (CNN) and deep residual networks (ResNet). Results indicate that the ResNet model with 18 layers, ResNet 18, may be an effective algorithm at classifying between animals while using a relatively small number of training samples. The best ResNet architecture produced a 99.18% overall accuracy (OA) in animal identification and a Kappa statistic of 0.98. The highest OA and Kappa produced by CNN were 84.55% and 0.79 respectively. These findings suggest that ResNet is effective at distinguishing among the four species tested and shows promise for classifying larger datasets of more diverse animals.
This paper is the first of two articles (Part I and Part II) that presents the results of the new atomic mass evaluation, Ame2012. It includes complete information on the experinrental input data ...(including not used and rejected ones), as well as details on the evaluation procedures used to derive the tables with recommended values given in the second part. This article describes the evaluation philosophy and procedures that were implemented in the selection of specific nuclear reaction, decay and mass-spectrometer results. These input values were entered in the least-squares adjustment procedure for determining the best values for the atomic masses and their uncertainties. Calculation procedures and particularities of the Ame are then described. All accepted and rejected data, including outweighed ones, are presented in a tabular format and compared with the adjusted values (obtained using the adjustment procedure). Differences with the previous Ame2003 evaluation are also discussed and specific information is presented for several cases that may be of interest to various Ame users. The second Ame2012 article, the last one in this issue, gives a table with recommended values of atomic masses, as well as tables and graphs of derived quantities, along with the list of references used in both this Ame2012 evaluation and the Nubase2012 one (the first paper in this issue).
Several studies showed that seeding of solutions of monomeric fibril proteins with ex vivo amyloid fibrils accelerated the kinetics of fibril formation in vitro but did not necessarily replicate the ...seed structure. In this research we use cryo-electron microscopy and other methods to analyze the ability of serum amyloid A (SAA)1.1-derived amyloid fibrils, purified from systemic AA amyloidosis tissue, to seed solutions of recombinant SAA1.1 protein. We show that 98% of the seeded fibrils remodel the full fibril structure of the main ex vivo fibril morphology, which we used for seeding, while they are notably different from unseeded in vitro fibrils. The seeded fibrils show a similar proteinase K resistance as ex vivo fibrils and are substantially more stable to proteolytic digestion than unseeded in vitro fibrils. Our data support the view that the fibril morphology contributes to determining proteolytic stability and that pathogenic amyloid fibrils arise from proteolytic selection.
PDF
