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Urban green spaces have gained attention because of their increasing relevance to human well-being in the context of challenges related to urbanization and climate change. Detailed, systematic, citywide assessments of specific urban green space characteristics that provide a sufficient understanding of resident interactions with green spaces and respective ecosystem service flows are lacking. We chose the city of Leipzig, one of the fastest growing cities in Germany, as a case study to assess the quality of publicly available green spaces by incorporating spatial context as a key dimension in determining their actual quality. We established 33 indicators that describe (1) natural elements, e.g., the types and configuration of vegetation and the proportion of water bodies; (2) built elements, e.g., various recreational facilities and path density; and (3) the embeddedness of green spaces within the built, social, and natural environment (context), e.g., the number of neighboring residents, nearby green or blue elements, and exposure to traffic. Based on these indicators, we developed a scoring approach that provides an evaluation of green space quality in terms of the potential to provide recreational ecosystem services. We identified and discussed spatial gaps and deficits in the quality of green space supply as well as leverage points for making operational improvements at the individual green space level. Our study provides urban planning guidance for identifying untapped potential for ecosystem services provision, e.g., because of usage barriers, and may help to balance the tradeoffs between benefits for citizens and ecology and thus improve green spaces for both people and nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of fluorescent metal ion sensing with an easily tunable emission wavelength is described and its principle is demonstrated by detection of Cu(super 2+) ions. The intensity of sensor emission at 624 nm is strongly dependent on the Cu(super 2+) concentration, with a 20 nM detection limit.

The Cu complexes with free coordination sites efficiently quench fluorophores with ligating properties in molecular beacon oligonucleotide probes. Chemosensing ensembles of Cu coordinated fluorophores is applied to the sensing of competing binders such as amino acids.

Research has been conducted on DNA-templated metal catalysis. The authors describe this first example of the nucleic acid-templated metal complex catalysis, and analyze its versatility.

Abstract To enable intelligent design of fire resistant polymeric materials, it is highly important to have a quantitative understanding of the relation between the composition of these materials and chemical and physical properties that control the process of fire growth. This paper presents a methodology that provides a capability to determine the core subset of these properties including the kinetics and thermodynamics of the thermal decomposition of the condensed-phase constituents and enthalpy of combustion of gaseous pyrolyzates. This methodology is based on three experimental techniques – Thermogravimetric Analysis, Differential Scanning Calorimetry and Microscale Combustion Calorimetry – and inverse numerical modeling of the results of these tests. The material system analyzed in this study is polyamide 66 reinforced with chopped glass fiber and flame retarded with red phosphorous. This system shows a complex decomposition behavior that is highly dependent on the phosphorus concentration. First, a semi-global thermal decomposition mechanism consisting of a set of first- and second-order (two components) reactions was developed using three material specimens containing different phosphorus concentrations. Subsequently, the extrapolative power of the developed reaction model was demonstrated by accurately predicting the experimental measurements obtained for several compositions not used in the model development process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the face of rapid global change it is imperative to preserve geodiversity for the overall conservation of biodiversity. Geodiversity is important for understanding complex biogeochemical and physical processes and is directly and indirectly linked to biodiversity on all scales of ecosystem organization. Despite the great importance of geodiversity, there is a lack of suitable monitoring methods. Compared to conventional in-situ techniques, remote sensing (RS) techniques provide a pathway towards cost-effective, increasingly more available, comprehensive, and repeatable, as well as standardized monitoring of continuous geodiversity on the local to global scale. This paper gives an overview of the state-of-the-art approaches for monitoring soil characteristics and soil moisture with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and air- and spaceborne remote sensing techniques. Initially, the definitions for geodiversity along with its five essential characteristics are provided, with an explanation for the latter. Then, the approaches of spectral traits (ST) and spectral trait variations (STV) to record geodiversity using RS are defined. LiDAR (light detection and ranging), thermal and microwave sensors, multispectral, and hyperspectral RS technologies to monitor soil characteristics and soil moisture are also presented. Furthermore, the paper discusses current and future satellite-borne sensors and missions as well as existing data products. Due to the prospects and limitations of the characteristics of different RS sensors, only specific geotraits and geodiversity characteristics can be recorded. The paper provides an overview of those geotraits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new organophosphorus, zinc‐containing polyacrylate is synthesized that has potential use as flame retardant for polyamides. To achieve this goal, the Phospha‐Michael addition is utilized to selectively add 9,10‐dihydro‐9‐oxa‐10‐phospha‐phenanthrene‐10‐oxide (DOPO) to one acrylate group of zinc acrylate followed up by radical polymerization of the remaining acrylate group in a one‐pot approach. To verify the effectiveness of the synthesis method, it is compared to a second two‐step approach via diethyl zinc. In order to investigate the influence of molecular weight as well as phosphorus content on the flame retardant properties, the small‐molecule complex zinc bis(3‐(6‐oxidodibenzo[c,e][1,2]oxaphosphinin‐6‐yl)propionate) and the nonphosphorus thermoset poly(zinc diacrylate) are synthesized as well. All three substances are investigated as flame retardants for pure and glass‐fiber (GF) reinforced polyamide 6 (PA 6) and 66 (PA 66) in different compounds with and without melamine polyphosphate (MPP). Most of the samples show excessive dripping in the vertical burning test UL‐94 V. However, V‐1 classification is achieved in GF‐reinforced PA 66 with the DOPO‐ and zinc‐containing polyacrylate in combination with MPP. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2019, 136, 47586. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work details a methodology for parameterization of the kinetics and thermodynamics of the thermal decomposition of polymers blended with reactive additives. This methodology employs Thermogravimetric Analysis, Differential Scanning Calorimetry, Microscale Combustion Calorimetry, and inverse numerical modeling of these experiments. Blends of glass-fiber-reinforced polybutylene terephthalate (PBT) with aluminum diethyl phosphinate and melamine polyphosphate were used to demonstrate this methodology. These additives represent a potent solution for imparting flame retardancy to PBT. The resulting lumped-species reaction model consisted of a set of first- and second-order (two-component) reactions that defined the rate of gaseous pyrolyzate production. The heats of reaction, heat capacities of the condensed-phase reactants and products, and heats of combustion of the gaseous products were also determined. The model was shown to reproduce all aforementioned experiments with a high degree of detail. The model also captured changes in the material behavior with changes in the additive concentrations. Second-order reactions between the material constituents were found to be necessary to reproduce these changes successfully. The development of such models is an essential milestone toward the intelligent design of flame retardant materials and solid fuels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]