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Immigrant workers often commute by transit more than other workers. Although immigrants' reliance on transit is often attributed to the same factors as women's reliance on transit: low incomes, limited access to cars, and a tendency to work close to home, gender differences are discussed rarely in analyses of immigrant commuting. Using 2016 Census of Canada microdata, we examine the use of four commute modes: driving, transit, active commuting in the form of walking and biking and being driven to work by immigrant men and women. Multinomial logistic regression indicates how economic, social, housing and metropolitan characteristics influence the use of each commute mode. Immigrant women, especially recent immigrants, are more likely to use alternative modes than immigrant men in all metropolitan areas. The findings underscore the importance of rapid and reliable transit to ensure equitable geographical access to employment for immigrant women, particularly during their first 10 years in Canada.

Urban beekeeping has become increasingly popular, despite having different objectives than the large-scale professional/commercial one. Not so much focused on financial profit, urban apiculture provides valuable educational opportunities, promotes the greening of cities, and creates environmental awareness. Many companies and institutions make it a valuable component of their public relations strategy. Urban beekeeping benefits may be enhanced by applying specialized technical infrastructure. In particular, the use of modern technologies attracts the younger generation to be involved in beekeeping. This paper aims to present the abilities of the automatic monitoring system, which meets the goals of urban beekeeping. The set of equipment consists of a sensor module, video cameras, a unit for data acquisition, and a system for data transmission, presentation, and visualization. The monitoring system allows for real-time observation of the beehive interior and entrance. It continuously measures selected physical and chemical parameters of the beehive atmosphere and provides a record of the beehive’s weight. Additionally, ambient air is monitored for reference. The video streaming and measurement results are available to the public online through the dedicated webpage. System performance was evaluated regarding the interactions with honey bees, sensor measurement characteristics, and data collection efficiency. Three months of operation in the urban apiary confirmed that the system is fully functional and fulfills its objectives. System development continues.

The impetus for the research presented in this article was the fact that universities have changed their mode of operation into distance learning as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. This shift was universal and forced, and triggered significant changes in the way the classes were carried out. Therefore, questions arose about how the main actors of this scene, namely teachers and students, cope with the new educational reality. The course conducted by the author of this article, covering the fundamentals of evaluation, under which students each year accomplish evaluation research projects addressing important issues related to education at the Faculty, has provided an excellent opportunity to reflect in this regard. To this end, students prepared and accomplished self-evaluation projects, the subject of which was their functioning in the remote education mode. The analysis of the collected data made it possible to distinguish the elements of remote education, which are particularly important from the perspective of young people studying in new, atypical conditions.

Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu CEX2019-000940-M Background: Many cities are putting cycling at the centre of their sustainable transportation policies after the COVID pandemic. Cycling is seen as a desirable mode of transport in dense and compact areas and needs to be promoted accordingly. However, to date, only a handful of different bikeability indexes exist attempting to map biking conditions and the built environment's potential to promote biking as a modal choice on a city scale. Methods: In this article, we use objective GIS data to map bikeability potential in the city of Barcelona. To do so we extracted the main bikeability components from an adhoc cycling survey and then create an index using ten spatial indicators. This bikeability index is mapped at a 100 × 100 m scale in the city of Barcelona. We then use actual travel behavior data extracted from a local representative travel survey to test the reliability of the index in predicting daily bike use. Results: Results confirm the validity of the bikeability index as a predictor of the frequency of cycling. People living in areas with higher levels of built environment features associated with bikeability such as dedicated infrastructure, low accident rates and small slopes are more likely to use the bike more often. Conclusions: Results validate our approach providing new methods to be used in further biking studies and a useful tool for policy and decision making. The use of our new bikeaiblity index is especially indicated for highly-dense, compact, Mediterranean-style cities.

The inappropriate combustion of furniture-industry waste can be a source of serious environmental problems. We proposed a method which is capable to distinguish the emission resulting from the combustion of wood-based materials, the essential component of such waste. The originality of the approach consists in the classification of gas mixtures instead of focussing on the individual pollutants emitted to the atmosphere. The classification of emission was based on the measurements applying differential ion mobility spectrometry (DMS) and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectrometry, for comparison. There were successfully distinguished emissions associated with combustion of wood-based materials: OSB board, MDF board and plywood (≥95% correct classifications in the class (ccc)) and wood: pellet and kindling wood (≥92% ccc). Results of classification based on DMS and FTIR measurements were similar. Emissions from the combustion of individual materials were best distinguished using DMS (100% ccc), as compared with FTIR, which offered lower performance, mostly >90% ccc. Regarding pairwise classification, the most distinctive were emissions from the combustion of plywood (DMS: 99% ccc; FTIR: 99% ccc), MDF board (DMS: 99% ccc; FTIR: 99% ccc) and OSB board (DMS: 99% ccc; FTIR: 98% ccc). Emissions form kindling wood (DMS: 100% ccc; FTIR: 95% ccc) and pellet (DMS: 97% ccc; FTIR: 98% ccc) caused a bit more confusion. In most cases, results of classification based on DMS and FTIR measurements were comparable. The success of classification based on DMS measurements proved that it is possible to detect the harmful emission without determining the chemical composition of the flue gas. This solution represents a new approach to air quality monitoring, which recently attracts increasing attention.

Artykuł odnosi się do jednej z potencjalnych ścieżek działania w zakresie kształcenia pedagogów i nawiązuje do możliwości wykorzystania badań stosowanych w procesie rozpoznawania problemów społecznych przez studentów. Jest próbą odpowiedzi na pytania o to, w jaki sposób przygotowywać absolwentów studiów wyższych do rozpoznawania w pracy zawodowej zupełnie nowych sytuacji i rozstrzygania nieznanych im dotąd dylematów, wynikających z szybkiego rozwoju cywilizacyjnego. Struktura prezentowanego opracowania odzwierciedla kolejne etapy poszukiwania możliwości rozwiązywania zarysowanego powyżej problemu metodycznego. Część pierwsza obejmuje podstawowe założenia etnografii wizualnej ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem fotoetnografii oraz podstawy teorii ekspansywnego uczenia się Yjro Engeströma, na których oparto pomysł działania. W części drugiej zarysowano schemat podstawowego działania, zaś szczególną uwagę zwrócono na przedmiot działalności, w którym zastosowane zostały elementy etnografii wizualnej jako sposób na zmianę aktywności i wykorzystanie potencjału obu podmiotów (nauczyciela i studentów) biorących w niej udział.

La ubicació suburbana del campus de la UAB implica que el 94,2% de la comunitat universitària fa servir el transport motoritzat en el desplaçament quotidià al seu lloc d’estudi o treball. En tractar-se d’uns desplaçaments definits per un mateix motiu i una única destinació, es facilita l’anàlisi de la influència que el gènere i l’edat exerceixen en la utilització dels mitjans de transport, especialment l’elecció entre el transport públic i el privat. Aquest article analitza el repartiment modal i els principals motius d’elecció del mitjà de transport d’accés al campus universitari de la UAB. Es troben evidències significatives entre alumnat i personal (docent i administratiu), i també entre homes i dones. Una comprensió profunda de l’ús dels diferents mitjans de transport motoritzat amb relació a diferents grups poblacionals és fonamental per al disseny i la implementació de polítiques públiques dirigides a la reducció dels transports menys sostenibles.

A serious factor that limits the environmental applications of drones is the disturbance of the air pollution concentration field by the drone propulsion system. This work presents a gas-sensing drone offering measurements that are unaffected by this phenomenon. The novel development was based on the idea that, during measurements, the sensing device should be spatially separated from a zone influenced by the drone’s rotors. To attain this goal, special equipment was designed that allows one to undock and lower the sensing device for measurement, lift it and dock for flight. The field experiments demonstrated the full functionality of the developed system and its superiority compared to a sensing platform mounted at the bottom of the drone. Higher measurement sensitivity and resolution were attained by lowering the sensing platform to the measurement point. This solution minimizes the rotor flow effect, ground effect, and pollution concentration field flattening. The test in real conditions confirmed that the designed construction assures drone stability. The presented technology may be an important step in developing effective mobile measurement tools that allow one to reach poorly accessible or dangerous places and perform measurements at a low cost and with high efficiency.

Elemental carbon (EC) content in air is considered a proxy for the diesel exhaust impact at workplaces. This paper examines the possibility of estimating EC content in mine air on the basis of measurements of volatile organic compounds (VOC). The measurement study was carried out in an underground metal mine. Gas chromatography with mass spectrometry (GC/MS) was applied for VOC determination, and thermal-optical analysis (TOA) with an FID detector was utilized for EC measurements. A correlation was found between the measurements of EC and total VOC (TVOC) as well as the content of individual hydrocarbons C12–C14 in the air of an extraction zone in the mine. A regression model was developed which predicts EC based on C12, C13, and C14, considered individually, and the remaining VOCs detected with GC/MS taken in total. The model was statistically significant (p = 0.053), and it offered an EC prediction error of RMSE = 4.60 µg/sample. The obtained result confirms the possibility of using VOC measurements for the preliminary estimation of EC concentrations in mine air. This approach is feasible given the availability of portable GC/MS and offers easy and fast measurements providing qualitative and quantitative information.

The basis of effective beekeeping is the information about the state of the bee colony. A rich source of respective information is beehive air. This source may be explored by applying gas sensing. It allows for classifying bee colony states based on beehive air measurements. In this work, we discussed the essential aspects of beehive air sampling and sensing device operation in apicultural applications. They are the sampling method (diffusive vs. dynamic, temporal aspects), sampling system (sample probe, sampling point selection, sample conditioning unit and sample delivery system) and device operation mode (‘exposure-cleaning’ operation). It was demonstrated how factors associated with the beehive, bee colony and ambient environment define prerequisites for these elements of the measuring instrument. These requirements have to be respected in order to assure high accuracy of measurement and high-quality information. The presented results are primarily based on the field measurement study performed in summer 2020, in three apiaries, in various meteorological conditions. Two exemplars of a prototype gas sensing device were used. These sensor devices were constructed according to our original concept.

In order to design strategies focused on reducing car use and favoring alternative modes of transportation, it is first necessary to analyze and understand the current use of transport. While current discussions on modal share is present in Polish media and political debate in the context of class conflict, the gender aspect that we propose in this article, provides a completely new perspective. The present study analyzes the diverse relationship that men and women establish with different modes in a post-socialist capital city, such as Warsaw, Poland. The study explores how gender disparities are mitigated or exacerbated when interacted with other variables, such as age, access to private transport, and the presence of children in the household and seeks to understand its impact in terms of sustainability. The results show that Warsaw women have a greater willingness to use transit or active modes of transport, despite having cars available. In contrast, middle-aged women, with preschoolers in the household,are characterized by a high automobile dependency, in comparison to other women. Therefore, they should be especially targeted in future policy making.

Our attention was focused on the identification of activities affecting air quality, which occur in quick-service restaurants (QSR). The work was based on a measurement study of selected kebab stores in the Polish city of Wrocław. It demonstrated that activities taking place in kebabs altered air quality. The associated changes in air parameters such as temperature, relative humidity, CO2 concentration, and the content of volatile organic compounds could be detected by utilizing a simple, multi-sensor device. In the measurement data, there were identified multidimensional patterns, which proved to be specific for the following categories of activities: Night Hours, Outlet Preparation, Food Preparation, Operation Hours, and Cleaning. Their occurrence was recognized by pattern recognition methods with a true positive rate greater than 99%. We demonstrated that the recognition may be based on measurements performed in various locations within the kebab store. Although patterns of the individual categories of activities largely varied between kebab stores, a similar performance of recognition was achieved for all restaurants. The obtained results entitled us to conclude that it is possible to detect activities of QSR, which influenced air quality, with the application of sensor technique and pattern recognition. The proposed approach may be applied to this type of object in general.

Protein kinase CK2 is a highly pleiotropic protein kinase capable of phosphorylating hundreds of protein substrates. It is involved in numerous cellular functions, including cell viability, apoptosis, cell proliferation and survival, angiogenesis, or ER-stress response. As CK2 activity is found perturbed in many pathological states, including cancers, it becomes an attractive target for the pharma. A large number of low-mass ATP-competitive inhibitors have already been developed, the majority of them halogenated. We tested the binding of six series of halogenated heterocyclic ligands derived from the commercially available 4,5-dihalo-benzene-1,2-diamines. These ligand series were selected to enable the separation of the scaffold effect from the hydrophobic interactions attributed directly to the presence of halogen atoms. In silico molecular docking was initially applied to test the capability of each ligand for binding at the ATP-binding site of CK2. HPLC-derived ligand hydrophobicity data are compared with the binding affinity assessed by low-volume differential scanning fluorimetry (nanoDSF). We identified three promising ligand scaffolds, two of which have not yet been described as CK2 inhibitors but may lead to potent CK2 kinase inhibitors. The inhibitory activity against CK2α and toxicity against four reference cell lines have been determined for eight compounds identified as the most promising in nanoDSF assay.

In underground mines, mobile mining equipment is critical for the production system. The microenvironment inside the mobile machine may cause exposure to strongly polluted mine air, which adversely affects the health and working performance of the operator. Harmful pollutants may access the cabin together with the ventilation air delivered from the machine&rsquo, s surroundings. This work proposes a solution that is able to ensure that the air for the machine operator is of proper quality. The proposal emerged from an analysis of the compliance of cabins of mobile machines working underground in mines with occupational health and safety (H&amp, S) standards. An analytical model of air quality in a well-mixed zone was utilized for this purpose. The cabin atmosphere was investigated with regard to the concentration of gaseous species in the surrounding air, the cabin ventilation rate, and human breathing parameters. The analysis showed that if currently available ventilation approaches are used, compliance with multiple H&amp, S standards cannot be attained inside the cabin if standards are exceeded in the surroundings of the machine. The proposed solution overcomes this problem by combining elements that are already in place, i.e., ventilation, air-conditioning, and filtration with a personal supply of clean air. The concept is generic and may be adapted to various specific requirements.

Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) is an environmental threat on a global scale due to the irreplaceable role of bees in crop pollination. Varroa destructor (V.d.), a parasite that attacks honeybee colonies, is one of the primary causes of honey bee population decline and the most serious threat to the beekeeping sector. This work demonstrates the possibility of quantitatively determining bee colony infestation by V.d. using gas sensing. The results are based on analysing the experimental data acquired for eighteen bee colonies in field conditions. Their infestation rate was in the 0 to 24.76% range. The experimental data consisted of measurements of beehive air with a semiconductor gas sensor array and the results of bee colony V.d. infestation assessment using a flotation method. The two kinds of data were collected in parallel. Partial Least Square regression was applied to identify the relationship between the highly multivariate measurement data provided by the gas sensor array and the V.d. infestation rate. The quality of the developed quantitative models was very high, as demonstrated by the coefficient of determination exceeding R2 = 0.99. Moreover, the prediction error was

El objetivo de este estudio es el de explorar la influencia de las características del entorno residencial en los patrones de caminar de hombres y mujeres, mediante la utilización de datos de movimiento geolocalizados o tracking. Para ello, se ha seleccionado un grupo de jóvenes adultos que estudian o trabajan en la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona y cuyo desplazamiento al lugar de estudio/trabajo se realiza fuera de su municipio de residencia, requiriendo así el uso de un medio de transporte motorizado. A través de una aplicación de geolocalización para smartphone se han analizado datos de movilidad de 1.194 días de participación correspondientes a 199 personas. Los resultados obtenidos indican que los territorios urbanos densos y compactos favorecen el caminar de ambos géneros, pero presentan un mayor impacto en el comportamiento de las mujeres, en comparación con territorios menos densos y de carácter suburbano. Estos hallazgos resaltan la importancia de la configuración del territorio para facilitar un modelo de movilidad más sostenible, equitativo y saludable.

W debatach podejmowanych w obszarze pedagogiki ogólnej istotne miejsce zajmują kwestie metodologiczne, związane z poszukiwaniem nowych możliwości wytwarzania wiedzy pedagogicznej. Wynika to z kilku przesłanek. Przede wszystkim jest odpowiedzią na zmiany zachodzące w szeroko rozumianej edukacji i stawianych na nowo pytań o użyteczność wiedzy pedagogicznej. Stanowi też istotny fragment budowania tożsamości dyscypliny, wpisujący się w dynamiczny proces jej wewnętrznych zmian i rozwoju. Pojawiają się nowe pytania w obszarze konceptualizacji przedmiotu badań, zarysowywane są również nowe sposoby formułowania problemów badawczych, a to wymaga nowych rozwiązań metodologicznych. Prezentowane opracowanie pomyślane zostało jako głos w dyskusji nad usytuowaniem badań określanych jako praktyczne/stosowane w odniesieniu do pojawiających się potrzeb praktyki i teorii pedagogicznej. Szczególną uwagę zwrócono na badania ewaluacyjne w edukacji, które zdaniem autorki generują wiele możliwości rozpoznawania ważkich kwestii pedagogicznych.

Altres ajuts: Fundació "la Caixa" ID 100010434 Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu CEX2019-000940-M Walking is the most accessible form for seniors to engage in daily light or moderate physical activity. Walking activity depends on both individual and environmental factors, the latter including how walkable a given setting is. Recent papers have pointed at the relevance of also considering meteorological conditions in relation to the walking behavior of older adults. This paper explores the combined effect of neighborhood walkability, temperature and rain on daily walking time among seniors residing in Barcelona. Daily walking time was extracted from 7-day GPS (Global Positioning System) devices and accelerometer data of 227 seniors residing in the Barcelona Metropolitan Region (Spain). Temperature and rain data were extracted from official governmental weather stations. Mixed-effects linear regression models were adjusted to test the combined association between weather and walkability on daily walking time. Neighborhood walkability is positively associated with walking time among seniors, while rain generally deters it. Additionally, this study demonstrates that temperature and rain modify the effect of residential walkability on senior walking activity: low temperatures are particularly associated with lower walking activity among those residing in low walkable areas, while the presence of rain presents a negative association with walking time in high walkable environments. The combined effect of walkability and weather should be considered both in design actions that aim at improving walking infrastructure and also in prevention programs aimed at encouraging daily walking among seniors.

The study focused on a method of detection for bee colony infestation with the Varroa destructor mite, based on the measurements of the chemical properties of beehive air. The efficient detection of varroosis was demonstrated. This method of detection is based on a semiconductor gas sensor array and classification module. The efficiency of detection was characterized by the true positive rate (TPR) and true negative rate (TNR). Several factors influencing the performance of the method were determined. They were: (1) the number and kind of sensors, (2) the classifier, (3) the group of bee colonies, and (4) the balance of the classification data set. Gas sensor array outperformed single sensors. It should include at least four sensors. Better results of detection were attained with a support vector machine (SVM) as compared with the k-nearest neighbors (k-NN) algorithm. The selection of bee colonies was important. TPR and TNR differed by several percent for the two examined groups of colonies. The balance of the classification data was crucial. The average classification results were, for the balanced data set: TPR = 0.93 and TNR = 0.95, and for the imbalanced data set: TP = 0.95 and FP = 0.53. The selection of bee colonies and the balance of classification data set have to be controlled in order to attain high performance of the proposed detection method.

Single mothers are an important and growing segment of the U.S. workforce. As primary breadwinners and caregivers, they shoulder a 'double burden' that often constrains their access to job opportunities and reinforces their commuting challenges. In the urban areas where most single mothers live, ongoing transformations of the built environment associated with gentrification and uneven transit investment may exacerbate their commuting challenges. We examine the impacts of built environment characteristics on single mothers' reliance on various transportation modes for their commuting trips in the New York metropolitan region. Our analysis focuses on changes in mode use during the 2000s, a period of rapid change in the region's built environment. Using microdata from the 2000 and 2008–2012 U.S. Census PUMS, we analyse geographic and racial/ethnic inequalities in single mothers' mode choices and the socioeconomic and contextual factors that influence transit dependence. Our results show that transit use is increasing both among single and married mothers, as working mothers shift away from commuting by car. At the same time, single mothers increasingly live in suburban and peripheral areas where access to transit is limited. Although only a relatively small percentage of suburban single mothers commute via transit, that percentage increased from 2000 to 2010. Transit dependence is especially high among minority single mothers and that disparity persists after controlling residential location, transit access, hourly earnings and sociodemographic characteristics.

In the study we present results of two research projects conducted simultaneously at the Faculty of Social Sciences, UWM in Olsztyn referring to the place digital technologies have in the learning processes in the opinions of Early Education students. The results show that the group of surveyed students might be situated on the borderline of digital natives and digital immigrants’ worlds. The conducted survey demonstrated limited trust to digital sources of knowledge amongst students and discrepancy between their personal experiences with using new technology, on a daily basis, and traditional ways of learning proposed by the University. The analysis of the case study indicated that for preparing future teachers to work with children (digital natives), it is important to organize a learning environment in which both worlds – digital and analogue – are connected.

Particulate matter (PM) is an important component of air. Nowadays, major attention is payed to fine dust. It has considerable environmental impact, including adverse effect on human health. One of important issues regarding PM is the temporal variation of its concentration. The variation contains information about factors influencing this quantity in time. The work focuses on the character of PM concentration dynamics indoors, in the vicinity of emission source. The objective was to recognize between the homogeneous or heterogeneous dynamics. The goal was achieved by detecting normal and anomalous diffusion in fluctuations of PM concentration. For this purpose we used anomalous diffusion exponent, β which was derived from Mean Square Displacement (MSD) analysis. The information about PM concentration dynamics may be used to design sampling strategy, which serves to attain representative information about PM behavior in time. The data analyzed in this work was collected from single-point PM concentration monitoring in the vicinity of seven emission sources in industrial environment. In majority of cases we observed heterogeneous character of PM concentration dynamics. It confirms the complexity of interactions between the emission sources and indoor environment. This result also votes against simplistic approach to PM concentration measurement indoors, namely their occasional character, short measurement periods and long term averaging.

Indoor air quality (IAQ) in residential buildings is an issue of increasing importance. IAQ has a serious impact on human wellbeing, performance and health. In order to minimize negative consequences, considerable efforts are made to assure high quality of indoor air. Yet, attention should be payed to the fact that occupants, in particular their activities, heavily influence this component of environment. Therefore, the aim of this work was to develop a method, which allows to characterise the impact of occupant activity on indoor air. The method is based on a semi-quantitative measure called occupant activity impact (OAI) profile. It is individually created for each activity. The profile is prepared using indoor air parameters, which are significantly affected by the activity of occupants. The profile displays how these measurable parameters change due to the occurrence of the activity. The main elements of the method of occupant activity impact characterization are: 1) measurements of multiple indoor air parameters, 2) recording the occurrence of indoor activities, and 3) evaluation of the relation between indoor air parameters and occupant activities. The first task is realized using sensor technique. The second goal is attained by observation. The third aim is achieved using Fisher’s discriminant ratio. The method presented in this work allows to evaluate the character of impact, its range, direction and magnitude. Using an experimental data collected in an exemplary household, we demonstrated that OAI profile is effective in quantifying and analysing the impact of human activity on indoor microclimate.

Benzene, toluene, and xylene, called BTX compounds, are broadly distributed in the environment. They frequently co-occur in air, water and soil because of common emission sources. However, these compounds differ considerably in terms of impact, in particular on human health. Due to this fact, measurement techniques are needed, which allow for identification of individual BTX compounds in the environment. The aim of the work was to show that differential ion mobility spectrometry (DMS) is capable of recognizing benzene, toluene or xylene in filtered air containing various amount of water vapor. For this purpose, the compounds recognition was represented as the classification problem. The discriminative power of DMS spectra, obtained for negative and positive ions, were explored as the basis for classification. We demonstrated that benzene, toluene, or xylene may be recognized with 100% success rate, in filtered air with varying humidity (from 0 to 77% RH). The best results, achieved with a relatively simple k -nearest neighbor classifier, were based on DMS spectrum for negative ions, recorded in full range of separation and compensation voltages. We believe, that the demonstration of a successful coupling of DMS and classification technique will contribute to further development of this analytical technique as well as its application in the environmental assessment.

Particulate matter (PM) is one of the criteria pollutants which has been determined as harmful to public health and the environment. For this reason the ability to recognize its emission sources is very important. There are a number of measurement methods which allow to characterize PM in terms of concentration, particles size distribution, and chemical composition. All these information are useful to establish a link between the dust found in the air, its emission sources and influence on human as well as the environment. However, the methods are typically quite sophisticated and not applicable outside laboratories. In this work, we considered PM emission source discrimination method which is based on continuous measurements of PM concentration with a relatively cheap instrument and stochastic analysis of the obtained data. The stochastic analysis is focused on the temporal variation of PM concentration and it involves two steps: (1) recognition of the category of distribution for the data i.e. stable or the domain of attraction of stable distribution and (2) finding best matching distribution out of Gaussian, stable and normal-inverse Gaussian (NIG). We examined six PM emission sources. They were associated with material processing in industrial environment, namely machining and welding aluminum, forged carbon steel and plastic with various tools. As shown by the obtained results, PM emission sources may be distinguished based on statistical distribution of PM concentration variations. Major factor responsible for the differences detectable with our method was the type of material processing and the tool applied. In case different materials were processed by the same tool the distinction of emission sources was difficult. For successful discrimination it was crucial to consider size-segregated mass fraction concentrations. In our opinion the presented approach is very promising. It deserves further study and development.

The aim of this study is to understand the modal choice of mothers who commute to a suburban destination. The analysis, takes into account trips related to all daily activities they are engaged in, and not just the commuting. However, the fact of having an intermunicipal trip to work is crucial since it conditions other travels. Using 15 in-depth interviews, we focus on feelings, perceptions and beliefs expressed by the respondents about their regular modal choice and the existing transportation alternatives. All participants commute to a suburban activity node in the Barcelona Metropolitan Region (Spain). Understanding the experience of this particular population segment may be useful to policymakers in creating effective programs and policies aimed at replacing car usage with more sustainable modes of transport., Finisterra, Vol 54 No 110 (2019)

The problem of indoor air quality (IAQ) has attracted a great deal of attention recently. One of interesting aspects of this problem is the characterization of human impact on IAQ. This work presents a method which allows to determine the diversity of building occupants influence on indoor air. The method is based on the supervised clustering of the indoor air measurement data in domains of various indoor air parameters. The introduced approach was applied to examine the exemplary data set. The diversity of impact was studied in the domain of air parameters which characterize thermal conditions indoors and in the domain of chemical parameters of indoor air. The obtained results showed that the diversity of impact was greatly related to the fact that occupants’ activities occurred in combinations, rather than individually. It was also demonstrated that the diversity of impact was domain dependent. Most of examined activities showed greater diversity of influence in the domain of parameters which characterize thermal conditions. This shows that the activity-specific impacts would be rather associated with the domain of chemical parameters of indoor air. The proposed method allows to obtain information which can be useful in the diagnostics of IAQ and for the control of ventilation.

This work was focussed on the recognition of the emission of volatile compounds resulting from the combustion of engineered wood products waste. This kind of waste is broadly used for heating purposes in an unauthorised way, giving rise to unorganised emissions. The recognition of such events is very difficult due to the complexity of the produced gas mixture. We proposed to apply differential ion mobility spectrometry (DMS). This is a promising technique in terms of complex gas mixtures measurements. The recognition was based on the measurements of ambient air in the vicinity of the emission source and classification. The ensemble of classification trees was chosen as the classier. The obtained results showed that volatile compounds resulting from the combustion of wood based boards waste produced the distinctive DMS spectra, which could be used as the basis for the effective recognition. We achieved almost 100 % successful recognition of: 1) ambient air which contained volatile compounds resulting from OSB board waste combustion, 2) ambient air which contained volatile compounds resulting from MDF board waste combustion, and 3) ambient air, which was did not contain volatile compounds of this kind. The presented results have a considerable practical value. The DMS spectrometer was successfully applied to recognize wood-based boards waste combustion in field conditions.

The motif of ancient beliefs about afterlife and contemporary idea of them appears increasingly in contemporary works directed to young audience. The combination of mythology and history known from ancient sources and popular culture works is essential for reception studies. The paper presents three cases of transformation of characters connected with ancient beliefs about afterlife as protagonists or villains in works directed to youth; Hades as a villain known from Disney’s works, especially Hercules; Persephone and Hades’s love story in three web comics: Underworld Love Story and Hades & Persephone Shorts by Gau Meo and Hades’ Holiday by Elvishness; and the way the Cleopatra VII Philopator’s image in Scooby Doo! in Where’s My Mummy? is different than others representations of the queen.

The objective of this work was to propose a way of preparing information about in-cabin air quality for the car driver or passenger. It was assumed that information should be objective, relevant, current, complete and useful. The major elements of our concept were: (1) monitoring of selected air parameters inside the cabin, (2) determination of indicators that characterise indoor air, based on measurements, and (3) the method of information extraction. We proposed to realise the first task with a sensor system. The second and third goals were reached by categorisation. The basis for defining categories were ranges of values of measured parameters or their combinations. In a way, the categories were used to quantify indicators of air quality. Shannon entropy and mutual information were applied to find the best categorisation. The concept was investigated using experimental data from car cabin air monitoring in various driving conditions. We conclude that information about air quality in car cabins may be successfully conveyed using the following indicators: thermal conditions – determined based on temperature and relative humidity measurements; air exchange – determined based on CO 2 concentration; and air freshness – determined based on volatile organic compounds (VOCs) content in car cabin air. Each indicator has three categories: bad, intermediate and good.

Benzene, toluene and xylene (BTX compounds) are chemicals of greatest concern due to their impact on humans and the environment. In many cases, quantitative information about each of these compounds is required. Continuous, fast-response analysis, performed on site would be desired for this purpose. Several methods have been developed to detect and quantify these compounds in this way. Methods vary considerably in sensitivity, accuracy, ease of use and cost-effectiveness. The aim of this work is to show that differential ion mobility spectrometry (DMS) may be applied for determining concentration of BTX compounds in humid air. We demonstrate, this goal is achievable by applying multivariate analysis of the measurement data using partial least squares (PLS) regression. The approach was tested at low concentrations of these compounds in the range of 5-20 ppm and for air humidity in a range 0-12 g/kg. These conditions correspond to the foreseeable application of the developed approach in occupational health and safety measurements. The average concentration assessment error was about 1 ppm for each: benzene, toluene and xylene. We also successfully determined water vapor content in air. The error achieved was 0.2 g/kg. The obtained results are very promising regarding further development of DMS technique as well as its application.

In this work, we focus on a transient state of sensor as a source of chemical information. This problem deserves attention for many reasons. As an example, utilization of transient states may allow for faster and more accurate information acquisition. We have considered a transient state gas sensor response to test analyte applied for quantitative gas determination. We examined the inflection point which is a promising feature of a signal resulting from transient sensor responses. This particular feature was found to be linearly dependent on the target gas concentration. However, the applicability of inflection point method is dependent on the precision of its determination. It raises a number of issues related to signal regularization. The regularization problem was studied from a theoretical point of view. A number of a-priori estimates for regularization strategies were obtained yielding some practical algorithms for calculating the inflection point in a stable way. Next, they were validated using nume...

Honey bees are subject to a number of stressors. In recent years, there has been a worldwide decline in the population of these insects. Losses raise a serious concern, because bees have an indispensable role in the food supply of humankind. This work is focused on the method of assessment of honey bee colony infestation by Varroa destructor. The approach allows to detect several categories of infestation: &ldquo, Low&rdquo, &ldquo, Medium&rdquo, and &ldquo, High&rdquo, The method of detection consists of two components: (1) the measurements of beehive air using a gas sensor array and (2) classification, which is based on the measurement data. In this work, we indicate the sensitivity of the bee colony infestation assessment to the timing of measurement data collection. It was observed that the semiconductor gas sensor responses to the atmosphere of a defined beehive, collected during 24 h, displayed temporal variation. We demonstrated that the success rate of the bee colony infestation assessment also altered depending on the time of day when the gas sensor array measurement was done. Moreover, it was found that different times of day were the most favorable to detect the particular infestation category. This result could indicate that the representation of the disease in the beehive air may be confounded during the day, due to some interferences. More studies are needed to explain this fact and determine the best measurement periods. The problem addressed in this work is very important for scheduling the beekeeping practices aimed at Varroa destructor infestation assessment, using the proposed method.

This article indicates that university-based mobility programmes enable communication between students and academics from different countries, creating potentially favourable circumstances to distance themselves from the hitherto-accepted habits and, as a result, can lead to transformative learning. The theoretical basis is J. Mezirow’s theory of transformative learning. The results of research conducted among the students participating in the Erasmus+ programme are analyzed. A survey questionnaire was used to assess the changes in selected mental habits observed by the above-mentioned students. According to the collected data, more than half of the respondents reported strengthening as many as 13 out of the 16 listed mental habits.

Formaldehyde is an important indoor air pollutant. It is released mainly from building materials and consumer products. This contaminant has been recognized as having negative effect on humans. Recently, there are developed methods of reducing its emission as well as removal from indoor air. An example of the last approach is the functionalisation of interior wall paints. The influence of such paint on indoor air was preliminarily examined in this work. The obtained results show that, during intermittent exposures, responses of formaldehyde measurement device were lower in the room painted with functionalised paint compared with the room painted using traditional formula paint. This outcome was statistically significant in 67% of the examined cases at the significance level α=0.01. It was found that the serious problem associated with determining the influence of functionalised paint on indoor air, in real conditions, is the low level of formaldehyde concentrations, compared with the detection limit and accuracy of the available measurement devices.

This work examined the acquisition of information about gases using a virtual sensor array and classification. We were particularly interested in the approach in which classes are defined in a qualitative–quantitative manner, that is, by identifying the gas and concentration range. This type of information will be of interest for air pollution assessment purposes. In this field of application, it is often not necessary to provide very precise information. The idea of the virtual sensor array exploits the dependence of a gas sensor’s response on operating conditions. Originally it was developed as a means to improve the selectivity of an electronic nose when energy consumption by this device was a serious limitation. If the response of one sensor is measured in n time points, and each time point is characterised by different controlled exposure conditions, the sensor becomes analogous to an n-dimensional virtual sensor array. Compared with conventional approaches, a virtual sensor array based on a single s...

Carbon dioxide is an indicator of indoor air quality. A number of factors influence its concentration. Due to the fact that they all present time variability, CO2 concentration indoors considerably varies over time. In this work we focus on the dynamics of indoor CO2 concentration changes. We examine the dynamics of CO2 variation and use it as a source of information on the character of collective impact of factors on indoor air. The proposed method is based on mean square displacement analysis (MSD) applied to the segments of the time series of CO2 monitoring data. The segments are determined based on the introduced criterion for optimal sample size selection. The method was validated by showing that it reproduces the known stochastic dynamics of the simulated data set properly. From the real data analysis, we found that indoors the stochastic dynamics of CO2 concentration in time was mainly nonlinear. Moreover, it exhibited a cycle of change which could be associated with the daily variation of the collective influence of factors on indoor air. We intend to apply the method to other parameters of indoor air, aiming at developing a capability of describing the dynamics of indoor air as a complex system.

This work focussed on thermal comfort as the basis to control indoor conditions. Its objective is a method to determine thermal preferences of office occupants. The method is based on detection of thermal events. They occur when indoor conditions are under control of occupants. Thermal events are associated with the use of local heating/cooling sources which have user-adjustable settings. The detection is based on Fourier analysis of indoor temperature time series. The relevant data is collected by temperature sensor. We achieved thermal events recognition rate of 86 %. Conditions when indoor conditions were beyond control were detected with 95.6 % success rate. Using experimental data it was demonstrated that the method allows to reproduce key elements of temperature statistics associated with conditions when occupants are in control of thermal comfort.

The authors describe a case of a 29-year-old man with rare granular cell tumor of the larynx. Surgical treatment was performed. The article includes etiology, diagnostic problems and treatment methods.

The aim of the present study is to analyze the interrelation between daily mobility and gender in the context of economic change. The financial crisis that has affected Spain from 2008 has witnessed significant shifts in daily mobility, which have not been equal for all socio-demographic groups. This study was undertaken in the Barcelona Metropolitan Region and it seeks to understand whether or not, during those economically difficult circumstances of the Great Recession, more equal travel patterns between men and women have emerged or, by contrast, whether or not the already existent gendered differences have deepened, paying special attention to which gender has travel habits that have changed the most. Using a quantitative approach, based on mobility data from the Working Day Mobility Surveys (EMEF) from the years 2007 and 2012, the analysis examines the changing trends in several mobility indicators such as men's and women's immobility rate, their average number of daily trips, their main mobility purposes, their modal choice habits and the time they invest in traveling.

Differential mobility spectrometry (DMS) is a promising measurement technique. It is used in the detection of chemical warfare agents, explosives, drugs, and volatile organic compounds. The measurement principle is based on separation of gas-phase ions according to their differential mobility in alternating low and high electric fields. The DMS measurement result is a two dimensional spectrum of ion current displayed as a function of separation voltage and compensation voltage. The DMS spectral peaks, in terms of their height, location and width, are affected by gas sample composition, separation field and the gas flow rate. In this work, there is presented the calibration procedure which utilises the univariate and multivariate approach to differential ion mobility spectrum. We demonstrated the possibility of a successful retrieval of quantitative information using partial least squares regression as well as univariate linear regression. However, the multivariate approach outperformed the univariate one in terms of the quality of the model and the concentration prediction accuracy.

A gas classification method based on a Multiple Classifiers System (MCS) is presented in this paper. The novelty of the approach consists in utilizing a signal of one sensor as the information source of a single member of the classifier ensemble. The size of the committee is delimited by the number of sensors applied for solving gas identification problems. The following base classifiers were considered: Support Vector Machine (SVM), the k -Nearest Neighbor ( k -NN) method and two kinds of decision trees — CART and C4.5. Additionally, three fusion strategies were examined: majority voting, weight assignment based on the individual accuracy of the committee member and optimal weights combination found by the genetic algorithm. The MCSs performance was compared with the effectiveness of single classifiers which operated on the data set containing the response of the entire sensor array. The sensor signal compression by means of granulation was applied as the data pre-processing step. The classification problem consisted in recognizing volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in air, based on measurements performed by the array composed of fifteen semiconductor gas sensors. These devices were operated in the stop flow mode. Thus their signals were affected by many factors associated with altering exposure conditions, which enhanced the discrimination abilities of the sensors.