This article analyses Cold War Romania's conceptualization of its relations with the European Economic Community (EEC) and its struggle to influence the policy of the Council for Mutual Economic ...Assistance (CMEA) towards the EEC in a way compatible with Bucharest's interests. Addressing a significant historiographical gap, in a sense, this study investigates the origins of Romania-EU relations. Multi-archival in approach, it argues that the period between 1969 and 1974 represents the formative years of Romania-EEC relations. Exploring the political rationale behind Romania's attitude towards the Common Market, the article finds that the country's 'strategy' in this respect had three main characteristics: it was pragmatic, active and, to some point, adaptive; drawing heavily from Romania's previous position, it took shape in the early 1970s; and, although it seemed to focus on the commercial aspects of relations, it reflected a far more complex interaction between the two political and social systems than previously acknowledged.
Radon exposure is the second-leading environmental cause of lung cancer, therefore finding ways to reduce the radon inhalation dose is a priority objective. Inhalation dose is calculated considering ...two contributions, the radon gas on the one hand and its progeny on the other. This paper studies the effectiveness of face masks (surgical masks, FFP2 and FFP3) to reduce the contribution of radon descendants that pass into the respiratory tract and thus reduce associated inhalation doses. To analyze the radon filtering potential of these masks, a continuous radon monitor has been used to estimate the radon concentration and the Potential Alpha Energy Concentration with and without facial masks. The data registered by this monitor, together with an error minimization algorithm developed in Matlab®, allow the Equilibrium Equivalent Concentration to be calculated. These results make it possible to compare the inhalation doses received by a person not wearing or wearing different types of masks, obtaining a dose reduction of 64% for surgical masks compared to the study without mask, a reduction of 71% for FFP2 and 72% for FFP3 masks.
•Reduction in the inhalation dose of radon progeny with the use of commercial face masks.•Developed different methodologies to measure radon progeny.•Use of a continuous air monitor for the determination of PAEC and EEC.•Determination of EEC of radon progeny through alpha decays.
Notch role in multipotency or cell fateMultipotent Drosophila intestinal stem cells (ISCs) generate either nutrient-absorbing enterocytes (ECs) or secretory enteroendocrine cells (EECs). Guo and ...Ohlstein investigated the role of Notch signaling in this process. They tracked ISC asymmetric divisions and found that EEC daughter cells, which have a low level of Notch, signal back to the ISC in order to keep it multipotent. However, during EC production, ISCs activate strong Notch signaling in daughters. Thus, Notch signaling functions in two directions to achieve stem cell multipotency.Science, this issue p. 10.1126/science.aab0988 Drosophila intestinal stem cells (ISCs) generate enterocytes (ECs) and enteroendocrine (ee) cells. Previous work suggests that different levels of the Notch ligand Delta (Dl) in ISCs unidirectionally activate Notch in daughters to control multipotency. However, the mechanisms driving different outcomes remain unknown. We found that during ee cell formation, the ee cell marker Prospero localizes to the basal side of dividing ISCs. After asymmetric division, the ee daughter cell acts as a source of Dl that induces low Notch activity in the ISC to maintain identity. Alternatively, ISCs expressing Dl induce high Notch activity in daughter cells to promote EC formation. Our data reveal a conserved role for Notch in Drosophila and mammalian ISC maintenance and suggest that bidirectional Notch signaling may regulate multipotency in other systems.
•High temperature air combustion (called HiTAC) provided significant energy savings.•HiTAC technology provided significant pollution reduction, as much as 50% reduction.•HiTAC have uniform thermal ...field in entire combustion zone as isothermal reactor.•HiAC is green flame technology now used worldwide in industrial and process furnaces.
Over the last three decades, High Temperature Air Combustion (HiTAC) has contributed much to become the leading technology for fossil fuel conversion in industrial furnaces. Since then several other researchers have termed it MILD, Flameless or Distributed combustion and they all show much similarities with the HiTAC. This review underlines that the technology was developed through a cooperation between the Japanese government (NEDO, METI) and Nippon Furnace Kogyo (Japan) as well as the key role played by the University of Maryland (USA) and the International Flame Research Foundation (IFRF – the Netherlands). Tokyo Gas (Japan) also provided an important role, although indirect, in the development. The HiTAC technology development was revolutionary with simultaneous demonstration on significant energy savings (some 25%), reduced equipment size, much reduced pollution (50%, including CO2), and noise in industrial furnaces. The technology is now widely used in many modern industrial furnaces worldwide. Per METI some 39,000 HiTAC burners in 7867 industrial furnaces were installed worldwide that showed fuel savings of 1721 billion liters of crude oil/year. It is estimated that 68 Billion liters/year of fuel oil savings and 180 Billion tons/year of CO2 reduction will be realized by 2030 through the use of HiTAC technology in industrial furnaces. This revolutionary technology continues to be adapted by many countries worldwide. The authors provide a brief review on the HiTAC technology development and give their views on its potential applications on the horizon that will also contribute to cleaner and efficient combustion in many other applications, besides industrial furnaces. These include high intensity gas turbine combustion, portable power, and engines. We do not discuss MILD and Flameless combustion as they have been reviewed previously with proliferation of numerous scientific publications available in the literature on the subject.
We compute the transverse energy-energy correlation (EEC) and its asymmetry (AEEC) at next-to-leading order (NLO) in αs in pp collisions at the LHC for the nominal center-of-mass energies of 7, 8 and ...13 TeV. We show that the transverse EEC and the AEEC distributions have small sensitivity to the QCD factorisation and renormalisation scales and are almost insensitive to the structure functions of the proton. Hence, they can be used to precisely test QCD in hadron colliders and determine the strong coupling αs.
The long-term goals achievement of sustainable development based on consumption of electrical energy is possible through the use of renewable energy sources. The objectives of this study include (a) ...long-term forecasting of Electrical Energy consumption (EEC) for sample countries with developed and developing economies, and (b) analyzing of different scenarios based on the use of solar and wind energy sources with 1%, 2% and 3% of the EEC. Artificial neural network (ANN) modeling with socio-economics data of the energy balance sheet last 30 years (1990–2019) as input data contain Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Population (POP), Import (IMP), Export (EXP), and EEC are used in order to forecast the EEC in the long-term (2020–2050). The United States and the OECD as developed economies and China, India, and Iran as developing economies are the countries under study. The structure of ANN is optimized for long-term EEC forecasting based on PSO and E-PSO algorithms. For both types of inputs and economies, the results demonstrate that E-PSO – ANN model can be used by SRE-3% scenario, which finally leads to a reduction of 55% and 54% in the EEC and amount of CO2 emissions in average according to the Paris Agreement (PA) goals, respectively.
•Long-term EEC forecasting by ANN model for developed and developing economies.•Optimization of the forecasted data based on PSO and E-PSO algorithms.•Development of scenarios for diffusion of solar and wind renewable energy.•Impacts of renewable energy on long-term EEC forecasting and CO2 emission reduction.
•Accident rate in the construction sector is showing a very high after 30 years of Directive 92/57/EEC.•Ensuring health and safety (H&S) during the early stages of projects remains a challenge.•The ...appointment of Coordinator for S&H matters during the project preparation often occurs too late.•S&H management remains a challenge for SMEs.•New construction procedures emphasize the need for adapting work methods.
The construction sector is a key industry in the economy of the European Union (EU), with a significant impact on the Gross Domestic Product and employs approximately 30 % of the industrial workforce. Despite this positive economic impact, the construction sector suffers from high accident rates which result in significant economic costs. In 1992, the EU introduced the Directive 92/57/EEC, which aimed to establish minimum Safety and Health (S&H) requirements for construction sites. The Directive lists a number of premises that justify the need to incorporate risk prevention from the design stage of a project and to strengthen coordination throughout the project’s life. For these reasons, the Directive created the role of the Coordinators for S&H matters during the project preparation stage and execution stage, as well as the definition of a S&H Plan. The current paper analyses the state of the accident rate in the construction sector 30 years after publication of the Directive, the changes that have been made to the original text, as well as the identification of the difficulties that have been detected, both in terms of lack of definition and problems in implementation. It is possible to conclude that the management of prevention in the early stages of a project remains a persistent challenge for the industry. Additionally, it is essential to address the sector's adaptation to the new working methods required for its transition to Construction 4.0. This discussion can serve as a valuable tool for future decision-making aimed at improving the regulatory framework.
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•Automatic differentiation in Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm.•Application of PyTorch open-source machine learning framework.•Joint application of the limits and the exact Jacobian ...matrix.•Decreased impact of poor starting parameters.•Superior convergence properties.
The Electrochemical Spectroscopy Impedance (EIS) data are usually analyzed by solving different Complex Nonlinear Least Squares (CNLS) problems. These problems are generally solved by using the Levenberg–Marquardt algorithm (LMA), which is a self-adaptive regularization technique that applies the first derivatives values stored in the Jacobian matrix. The LMA convergence can be amplified by the application of both the limit tactics and the exact first derivative values. These exact values can be obtained by using the automatic differentiation (AD) algorithm embedded in PyTorch, which is an open-source machine learning framework. However, the joint application of AD, self-adapting regularization, and the limits has not been reported as a part of CNLS strategy yet.
Herein, we have designed and developed a new CNLS strategy that applies the limits tactics, AD, and self-adapting regularization. Also, we claim that the new strategy can be straightforwardly employed as the exact first derivative values can be obtained by EEC and AD, which simplifies developing tasks. The results in this work clearly reveal that the LMA convergence is boosted when using the exact Jacobian matrix constructed by both the limits and AD. In addition to that, the new strategy decreases the impact of the poor starting parameters. The tests in this work, conducted by analyzing ZARCs and FRACs synthetic data, show a superior performance of the newly developed CNLS strategy.
This Special Issue includes 14 empirical, theoretical, methodological research articles and reviews in various fields considering EEC. It provided a platform for researchers to share their research ...work on the field of education for environmental citizenship, including aspects of civic engagement and civic participation, democratic action, social and environmental change, individual and collective actions, environmental actions, socio-political actions, environmental justice, inter- and intra-generational justice, and connectedness to nature.
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