Low-cost air pollution monitoring system—an opportunity for reducing the health risk associated with physical activity in polluted air

The issue of air pollution by particulate matter (PM) concerns many places in the world. At the same time, many residents undertake physical activity (recreation, rehabilitation, sport) in the open air. Generally, the amount of dust concentration depends on both the place (center or periphery of the city) and the time of day. In the present study we describe the outcome of monitoring of the state of air pollution by particle matter (PM10) in the Kraków agglomeration area in order to show that it can provide information concerning air quality in the area where people practice varied kinds of sports in the open air. The measurements of PM10 have been made by a few stations with identical construction working as one network. The details of the air pollution monitoring system and its data quality verification have been described. The network stations made multipoint observations across the Kraków Metropolitan Area during the year 2017 in eight locations. The locations selected represent a diverse spectrum of terrain conditions in which the Kraków agglomeration community undertakes physical activity. For most months of 2017, the minimum monthly average 4-hour PM10 concentrations were recorded between 10–14 h, regardless of location, whereas the maximum was between 18–22. We also noticed a huge differences in the average monthly value of PM10 in some locations within the Kraków agglomeration—ranging between 4.9–339.0 µg m−3. This indicates that some regions of the city are more suitable for performance of physical activity in the open air than others. In conclusion, we postulate that a low-cost air pollution monitoring system is capable of providing valuable information concerning air quality in a given region, which seems to be of importance also to people who practice varied sports activities in the open air.

Kisikongo (Bantu, H16a) present-future isomorphism

The North-Angolan Bantu language Kisikongo has a present tense (Ø-R-ang-a; R = root) that is morphologically more marked than the future tense (Ø-R-a). We reconstruct how this typologically uncommon tense-marking feature came about by drawing on both historical and comparative evidence. Our diachronic corpus covers four centuries that can be subdivided in three periods, viz. (1) mid-17th, (2) late-19th/early-20th, and (3) late-20th/​early-21st centuries. The comparative data stem from several present-day languages of the “Kikongo Language Cluster.” We show that mid-17th century Kisikongo had three distinct constructions: Ø-R-a (with present progressive, habitual and generic meaning), Ø-R-ang-a (with present habitual meaning), and ku-R-a (with future meaning). By the end of the 19th century the last construction is no longer attested, and both present and future time reference are expressed by a segmentally identical construction, namely Ø-R-a. We argue that two seemingly independent but possibly interacting diachronic evolutions conspired towards such present-future isomorphism: (1) the semantic extension of an original present-tense construction from present to future leading to polysemy, and (2) the loss of the future prefix ku-, as part of a broader phenomenon of prefix reduction, inducing homonymy. To resolve the ambiguity, the Ø-R-ang-a construction evolved into the main present-tense construction.

An incremental approach to gapping in Japanese

Gapping in Japanese, which is an SOV language, differs from gapping in SVO languages in that the conjuncts with the elided verbs appear in non-final position. In this paper I present an incremental approach to gapping in Japanese, where it is assumed that an argument structure type is constructed in the non-final clause(s) in the gapping construction. This type is unified with the construction type created by the final clause resulting in identical construction types for all conjuncts in the construction.

Effects of Varying Tobacco Rod Circumference on Cigarette Combustion: An Experimental Investigation

SummaryTo study the effects of tobacco rod circumference on cigarette combustion status, cigarettes were made with three different circumferences of 24 mm, 20 mm, 17 mm and otherwise identical construction. Their combustion characteristics, including combustion coal volume, characteristic temperature distribution, heating rate, instantaneous burn rate, and yields of selected mainstream smoke chemicals, were systematically measured. The results indicated that the cigarettes with the lowest circumference of 17 mm showed higher combustion temperatures with a smaller coal volume. The maximum instantaneous burn rate was distinctly different for the three cigarettes, from 1.84 mm/s to 2.48 mm/s, when their circumference was reduced from 24 mm to 17 mm. The tobacco mass consumption per puff showed a negative trend when the circumference decreased. The majority of the chemical compounds (16 of 21) measured in mainstream smoke decreased when the circumference was reduced, except for formaldehyde, while the yields of the chemical compounds produced per weight of cut tobacco, consumed during puffing, showed an obverse trend.

A triple-point Whitney trick

We use a triple-point version of the Whitney trick to show that ornaments of three orientable [Formula: see text]-manifolds in [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text], are classified by the [Formula: see text]-invariant. A very similar (but not identical) construction was found independently by I. Mabillard and U. Wagner, who also made it work in a much more general situation and obtained impressive applications. The present note is, by contrast, focused on a minimal working case of the construction.

Industry Revolution IR 4.0: Future Opportunities and Challenges in Construction Industry

The future of construction industry development is the approach of the component-industrialization, the construction-breakdown, design-identical, construction-assembled, operation-data technique to maximize the life cycle value. This paper presents a general idea of Industrial Revolution (IR) 4.0 with the introduction descriptions of important aspects in Construction Industry (CI) development. The aim is to define and show possible research areas connected with the IR 4.0 into the CI. For this purpose, an analysis was made, based on the most recent literature, to point out actual needs in the CI in terms of its evolution into IR 4.0 level. It is shown that multidiscipline approaches are not investigated to create special rules, procedures and methods and know-how designed for introducing the principles of IR 4.0 in the CI. A popular from stakeholders in the CI understand how digitization is affecting each part of their trade, however, its practical applications are still in infancy stage. IR 4.0 concepts should be combined with construction production, novel expertise must be applied to the intellectual engineering of modern construction, enhance the level of incorporation, to achieve the sustainable development.

Post Mortem of a Feedwater Heater With Drains Cooler Failures

The Paradise Generation Station Unit 3 is a supercritical fossil plant with a 1,078 MW rated capacity. The #3B feedwater heater (FWH) is a two-zone (condensing and subcooling) horizontal FWH and is the second of four high pressure (HP) FWHs after the boiler feed pump in the “B” string, one of two HP FWH strings (See Figure A2 at the end of this paper for an outline drawing of the heater. The heater has 1447 SA-556-C2 Carbon Steel tubes, 3/4” OD × 0.085 min wall. The heater was built in late 2006/early 2007 and was installed in summer 2007. After just a few years of operation, the #3B FWH experienced several failures at the entrance to the drain cooler (DC) zone. The #3A FWH, of identical construction and built and installed at the same time, did not show the same level of damage. In order to determine the failure mechanisms involved, a post-mortem of the heater was performed. This paper shall discuss the post-mortem inspection conducted as well as the suspected and confirmed causes of failure in the heater.

Attributive adjectives, infinitival relatives, and the semantics of inappropriateness

I investigate the syntax and semantics of a previously unexamined English adjective construction, exemplified by sentences like Middlemarch is a long book to assign. The construction, which I call the nominal attributive-with-infinitive construction (nominal AIC), is of interest for the semantics of gradability and modality. I argue that the major interpretive characteristic of the nominal AIC – the interpretation of inappropriateness associated with it – arises from the interaction between the positive degree operator associated with the gradable adjective and the modality of the infinitival relative clause, which contributes to the computation of the standard of comparison. Nominal AICs are compared and contrasted with a surface-identical construction I call the clausal AIC, with attributive too, and with attributive comparatives; they are shown to exhibit major syntactic and semantic differences from all of these. The paper serves both as a contribution to the semantic literature on gradability and as a contribution to the descriptive grammar of English, as it is, to the best of my knowledge, the first systematic description and analysis of the nominal AIC.

Contact-induced spread of the rare Type 5 clitic

Peterson 2001 shows that the Ingush (Nakh-Daghestanian; Caucasus) chaining particle is a Type 5 clitic: positioned relative to the final word in its domain, preceding that word, enclitic to the word before that. The host is the absolutive argument if there is one; otherwise the preverb; otherwise a dedicated reduplicate of the verb root. So far this remains the only firm example of a Type 5 clitic. We show that an identical construction, with a functionally identical clitic and reduplication, occurs in several nearby lanuages of the Avar-Andic branch. Diffusion, though unexpected, is the only explanation.