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The paper aims to assess the macrobenthic diversity and habitats distribution in front of the Danube mouth along a depth gradient on the Romanian Black Sea shelf. During the reference 60 - 70’s period the benthic community diversity accounted for 75 species. In the 80’s (starting of eutrophication period) this has sharply decreased to 45 species as result of the ecological collapse due to economic development of the riverine Black Sea countries’. However, the area is naturally under the influence of the riverine inputs and also under anthropogenic pressure, which create permanent stressing conditions on the benthic habitats. The study was performed within the framework of the WAPCOAST Project in 2012. The results is based on the data obtained from 16 quantitative stations distributed from coast (17 m) to 80 m depth. Five broad-scale circalittoral habitats were evinced in the area based on the similarity of biomass of macrobenthic populations: terrigenous mud within Danube plume area, circalittoral mud with Melinna, circalittoral mixed sediments with Dipolydora and Mytilus biogenic reefs, offshore circalittoral mud with Terebellides and offshore circalittoral mixed sediment with Modiolula. A total of 68 taxa were found. An average density of 3,096.9 indv.m-2 and a biomass of 29.22 g.m-2, respectively were recorded. The circalittoral mixed sediments with invasive polychaete Dipolydora quadrilobata and the biogenic reefs of Mytilus galloprovincialis were the richest in terms of diversity and abundance (59 taxa with an average density and biomass of 7,151 indv.m-2 and 62.7 g.m-2 respectively). This new habitat has formed after Dipolydora had established a permanent population on the Romanian shelf and became an engineering species on the mixed circalittoral soft bottom sediments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global warming that occurred over the last century led to the increase in surface temperature of the earth. The increase of the temperature affects the physiological adaptations of the organism. Bali cattle (Bos sondaicus) is one of the native Indonesian cattle that have high adaptability in response to the changing of environmental conditions, such as the increase of temperature. The aim of this study is to understand the correlation between environmental conditions and physiological response of Bali cattle in Bogor district and West Sumbawa district. Environmental parameters from each location, which consist of air temperature, solar radiation, wind speed, and relative humidity, were measured every hour. Physiological profiles such as body temperature, skin temperature, rectal temperature, and respiration rate within one minute were measured for five days in August 2016. The statistical analysis with Pearson Correlation test (p<0.05) showed that the physiological profiles of Bali cattle in Bogor district was affected by air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, and solar radiation, while the physiological profiles of Bali cattle in West Sumbawa district was affected by air temperature and wind speed. This result indicated that environmental conditions affect the physiological response of Bali cattle in both districts and Bali cattle have good adaptability to response the changing of environmental conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an improved generalized physical model for photovoltaic, PV cells, panels and arrays taking into account the behavior of these devices when considering their biasing existing in direct and reverse modes. Existing PV physical models generally are very efficient for simulating influence of irradiation changes on the short circuit current but they could not visualize the influences of temperature changes. The Enhanced Direct and Reverse Mode model, named EDRM model, enlightens the influence on the short-circuit current of both temperature and irradiation in the reverse mode of the considered PV devices. Due to its easy implementation, the proposed model can be a useful power tool for the development of new photovoltaic systems taking into account and in a more exhaustive manner, environmental conditions. The developed model was tested on a marketed PV panel and it gives a satisfactory results compared with parameters given in the manufacturer datasheet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though the construction industry is believed to be one among major contributors towards economic progress, it also inflicts negative impact to the environment and ecology causing health and safety hazards. Such degradation mainly takes place owing to unplanned construction activities and high amount of waste generated throughout the construction process. Particulate matter generated during operational construction activities cause a series of on-site and off-site significant impacts on the environment. However, all type of pollutions at construction sites and in the neighboring communities may be reduced by adopting guidelines and principals designed for constructions sites and by taking modern precautionary measures. The present study aims at comparing environmental parameters in light of National Environmental Quality Standards (NEQS) at the two construction sites - one without and another complying such guidelines, principals and preventive protocols. Two construction sites A and B were identified for comparing the environmental parameters associated with air, water and noise. At the site A, guidelines, principles and precautionary measures for control and reduction of environmental pollution were being employed, while no such compliance was being observed at site B. All the parameters of air, noise and drinking and wastewater, determined at the site A were found in compliance with NEQS, whereas , at the Site B, a few parameters including PM10 concentration, noise level and COD and BOD5 were found beyond the permissible limits and standards set by the Pakistan Environmental Protection Agency (Pak EPA). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental parameters can be seen as underlying forces of land-use change. Their physical expression in land use-change depends on many factors such as landscape heterogeneity, land-use intensity and socio-economic variables. This paper focuses on the role of four particular environmental parameters - aspect, elevation, slope and soiltrophy - within three separate study areas in cultural landscape of Trkmanka watershed. The research was based on combination of spatial analysis and advanced multivariate statistics. Although the time span covers more than 150 years the results showed a significant role of environmental parameters in land-use changes. The transformation of landscape towards more extensive types of land-use was associated with steeper slopes and higher elevation. On the other hand intensification of land-use correlates with lower values of inclination and elevation and the higher soil trophy. The environmental parameters of slope and elevation were significant in all three case studies regardless the differences in their topographical heterogeneity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Internet and computer networks development led to the development of data acquisition and monitoring systems, becoming nowadays a necessity. This paper proposes the development of applications to monitoring parameters, both local and remote; the parameters' values are derived from a micro-weather station. Two interfaces are implemented for monitoring parameters' values: the first one is a part of a wireless sensors network (named eKoView), and the second one is implemented in C# and running on a color operating panel with touch-screen. All parameters' values are purchased on a data server. These values become time series of a data prediction algorithm whose implementation is proposed. Weather forecast issue is of great interest to the public. At present, the predictions of increasingly closer to reality, thanks to advancing technology and predictive algorithms that are increasingly more complex. What interests us is to predict the weather for longer to help make decisions regarding environment process control, applicable to greenhouses farms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper describes development of environmental parameters (sun intensity and outside temperature time distribution) model which is designed on the basis of passive experiment method and regression analysis. The model is noted for approximative polynomial order definition by minimization of combined target function on the basis of root-mean-square error and quadratic estimate. The problem of polinomial degree optimal value calculation was solved using numerical methods based on the MathCad software. The model is used for the calculation of heat-transfer agent flow velocity of thermal solar power plant with adaptive regulator. The use of the calculation of heattransfer agent flow velocity allows reducing stimulus adaptation time to the environmental condition up to two times. Application of the proposed approach allows increasing the quality of the model conformance to real processes up to 5% compared to typical methods. Using of suggested method allows modeling other environmental parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thanks to miniaturization of the sensors as well as developments in the realm of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN), the wireless technologies are becoming integral to a number of applications, including environmental monitoring. This paper presents the design and implementation of ZigBee enabled wireless data acquisition system for monitoring of temperature, relative humidity and illuminance. The presented system collects the signals of a number of sensors using the National Instruments' gateway and WSN modules. Finally system interface is designed on the graphical programming software platform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]