An investigation of the drivers,barriers, and incentives for environmental management systems in the Malaysian food and beverage industry

Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy - Food production and consumption is one of the major causes of global environmental degradation. One way to address environmental impacts in the food...     

Parental background and housing outcomes in young adulthood

Abstract

Scholars and policy-makers are concerned that young adults’ housing opportunities are becoming more dependent on their family background. This could hinder social mobility and exacerbate inequality. Using data from three cohorts of young people drawn from the Office for National Statistics Longitudinal Study of England and Wales, this study examines how parental attributes in childhood are linked to young adults’ housing outcomes two decades later. The results show that young adults’ housing outcomes have changed considerably over time and are persistently stratified by parental class and tenure in ways that vary by gender. Housing outcomes have become somewhat more polarised by parental tenure over time as the children of renters became relatively less likely to enter homeownership and more likely to rent privately. This suggests that renters became an increasingly ‘marginalised minority’ in the late twentieth century, with consequences for their children’s housing careers and future social inequality.     

Survey on communication architectures for wind energy integration with the smart grid

Communication systems are needed to integrate generated power from wind farms with the electrical grid. This paper provides a comprehensive review of available communication technologies, protocols and objectives related to wind energy and electrical grid integration. This paper summarizes the communication system solutions for wind generation. A major obstacle is an absence of unified communication architectures and standards.     

Control Systems on Three-Dimensional Lie Groups: Equivalence and Controllability

We consider left-invariant control affine systems, evolving on three-dimensional matrix Lie groups. Equivalence and controllability are investigated. All full-rank systems are classified, under detached feedback equivalence. A representative is identified for each equivalence class. The controllability nature of these representatives is determined.     

Design,Synthesis, and Characterization of Macrocyclic Inhibitors of the Proprotein Convertase Furin

The activation of viral glycoproteins by the host protease furin is an essential step in the replication of numerous pathogenic viruses. Thus, effective inhibitors of furin could serve as broad-spectrum antiviral drugs. A crystal structure of an inhibitory hexapeptide derivative in complex with furin served as template for the rational design of various types of new cyclic inhibitors. Most of the prepared derivatives are relatively potent furin inhibitors with inhibition constants in the low nanomolar or even sub-nanomolar range. For seven derivatives the crystal structures in complex with furin could be determined. In three complexes, electron density was found for the entire inhibitor. In the other cases the structures could be determined only for the P6/P5-P1 segments, which directly interact with furin. The cyclic derivatives together with two non-cyclic reference compounds were tested as inhibitors of the proteolytic activation and replication of respiratory syncytial virus in cells. Significant antiviral activity was found for both linear reference inhibitors, whereas a negligible efficacy was determined for the cyclic derivatives.     

Towards an end-to-end airborne remote-sensing system for post-hazard assessment of damage to hyper-critical infrastructure: research progress and needs

The objective of this article is to synthesize research findings and requirements pertaining to development of time-sensitive remote-sensing systems (TSRSS) that support decision-making pertaining to post-hazard assessment of damage to what we define as hyper-critical infrastructure (HCI), based on an aerial imaging approach known as repeat station imaging (RSI). The following TSRSS components are addressed and related findings are reported: (1) understanding information requirements of emergency managers pertaining to damage of HCI; (2) flight planning and data capture requirements for supporting bi-temporal RSI pairs; (3) automatic image registration and shadow classification and normalization routines applied to RSI pairs; (4) damage detection and delineation approach that exploits simple temporal differences in image brightness to automatically, reliably, and robustly delineates new cracks associated with damage; and (5) rapid data and information transfer to emergency managers. The highest priority follow-on research topics are: (1) integrating small unmanned aerial systems (sUAS) with the RSI approach, while enabling multiple view perspectives other than vertical (i.e. nadir pointing) and (2) developing and testing of machine learning routines for automatic identification of damage features from RSI pairs, particularly those captured from integrated sUAS–RSI.     

Nutrient release from integrated constructed wetlands sediment receiving farmyard run‐off and domestic wastewater

Constructed wetland sediments are frequently contaminated with nitrogen and phosphorus. There is a risk that accumulated pollutants can either be remobilised or reach the groundwater. Five identical mesocosms, which were filled with subsoil collected from full‐scale integrated constructed wetland (the first cell receives the most contaminated influent), were set up to examine nutrient removal within sediment layers. The results indicated that accumulated nutrients leached out into inflow water and that the sediment capacity of nutrient retention decreased as the wetlands aged. Furthermore, the mesocosm planted with Phragmites australis achieved better treatment results compared with the one planted with Agrostis stolonifera. The risk of contamination to groundwater does not exist because none of the treated water reached the bottom outlet during the study period. Both the bentonite (clay) and biogeochemical processes taking place within sediments proved to be efficient in preventing polluted water from infiltrating into lower lying soils.     

Ignition of Combustible Fuel Beds by Hot Particles: An Experimental and Theoretical Study

The process of spotting occurs in wildland fires when fire-lofted embers or hot particles land downwind, leading to ignition of new, discrete fires. This common mechanism of wildland fire propagation can result in rapid spread of the fire, potentially causing property damage and increased risk to life safety of both fire fighters and civilians. Despite the increasing frequency and losses in wildland fires, there has been relatively little research on ignition of fuel beds by embers and hot particles. In this work, an experimental and theoretical study of ignition of homogeneous cellulose fuel beds by hot metal particles is undertaken. This type of well-characterized laboratory fuel provides a more controllable fuel bed than natural fuels, and the use of hot metal particles simplifies interpretation of the experiments by reducing uncertainty due to unknown effects of the ember combustion reaction. Spherical steel particles with diameters in the range from 0.8 mm to 19.1 mm heated to temperatures between 500°C and 1300°C are used in the experiments. A relationship between the size of the particle and temperature required for flaming or smoldering ignition is found. These results are used to assess a simplified analysis based on hot-spot ignition theory to determine the particle size-temperature relationship required for ignition of a cellulose fuel bed.