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This inaugural article delineates the vision and scope of the new section "Qualitative Comparative Policy Studies" of the Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis. The co-editors present the five key features of the section: the comparative, the transnational, the relational, the global, and the self-reflective. Concretely, they invite contributions on qualitative empirical research that (i) is comparative in its methods and interpretive framework, (ii) draws on the transnational dimension, (iii) considers the relational dimension of network governance, (iv) recognizes an unequal global setting, and (v) is self-reflective and interrogates international comparison as a governance tool. By definition, qualitative comparison is contextual comparison that differentiates between place and space and the temporalities of comparative policy analysis (period, timing, tempo, sequence, lifespan, and age). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors argue that hitherto separate methodological conversations about abduction and comparison can be fruitfully brought together to generate novel, well-founded insights and retheorize an object of study in multiple-case qualitative inquiry. The authors call this abductive cross-case comparison and illustrate it by way of a collective study of how professional boundary work is changing under transnational conditions. In this study, the authors faced a common challenge in qualitative-comparative research: what to do when initial observations generate "surprises" that seem to confound the theoretical frameworks undergirding the comparison? To discuss how abductive inferences supported the authors' response to this challenge, they explicate the acts of discovery and (re)conceptualization involved through various steps in a team-based research process. Building on the existing qualitative comparison literature, the authors suggest that such procedures fill a methodological gap and may hold great promise for overcoming obstacles in designing and implementing comparative research. Overall, the authors explicate and illustrate the method of abductive cross-case comparison, including their work as a research team. The aim of this article is thus to help sociologists implement better qualitative research that leverages a fuller potential of comparative designs to push beyond established knowledge and frameworks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

IntroductionAccording to China’s Food Safety Law of 2015, the filing of food safety enterprise standards is a policy innovation led by p9rovincial governments in China. However, there are significant differences in the development of the “Food Safety Enterprise Standard Filing Policy” between provincial governments across the country. This study aims to explore the internal mechanisms driving autonomous innovation by provincial governments in the absence of administrative pressure from the central government, to better understand the policy innovation mechanism in the Chinese context.MethodsCrispy Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (csQCA) method is used to identify the innovation mechanism.ResultsThis study found that provinces with good provincial economic resources and strong government capabilities are prone to policy innovation, and the influence of internal factors of provincial governments is stronger than that of external factors.DiscussionWhen provincial economic resources and capacity are weak, endogenous factors in the province also help achieve proactive policy innovation by provincial governments. The research results reveal how provincial governments construct local policies in the absence of administrative pressure from the central government.

Ageing Europeans are today healthier than previous generations and often manage to live independently up to a high age. The proportion of people 80 years of age and older has increased significantly, and with high age the risk of multi-illness and dementia increases. Strong urbanisation processes have changed the demographic structure in rural areas, and young women and men have migrated towards the urban areas to study and work, while older persons have remained behind. This demographic challenge of increasing numbers of persons older than 80 years with care needs living in remote rural areas has become a major European social problem. In tackling this dilemma, many European countries have high expectations for eHealth, digitalisation and welfare technology. In this comparative study of policy debates in Italy, Finland and Sweden, we analyse how – between 2009 and 2019 – the issues of eHealth have been articulated in national and regional policies of the three countries with deep differences in terms of digitalisation and health systems, but with similar ageing populations. We identify in the documents three core topics – the role of technology, the rural issue and responsibility for care. These topics are treated in the documents with differences and similarities between the three countries. Beyond the differences and similarities, the documents reveal both a certain techno-enthusiasm about the role of eHealth in the life of the older adults as well as a limited understanding of the complexity (relationally as well as spatially) of the digital landscape of caring for older adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many interest point detectors have been designed so far to work in two dimensional (2-D) images. However, expansion of these detectors into the third dimension for three dimensional (3-D) images can refine their representational power. This paper presents how the Harris corner, LoG filtering-based blob, and salient regions detectors can be expanded to find interest points in volumetric images handling multiple slices collectively. Performances of 2-D and 3-D detector implementations were assessed both qualitatively and quantitatively with value combinations of different parameters using metrics such as F1-score, localization error, and repeatability in binary images of twenty 3-D object models from the Princeton Shape Benchmark (PSB). Computation of F1-score and localization error depended on some manually marked ground truth points, while repeatability measurement was according to the proximity of the detected point sets. The 3-D detectors were evaluated as more successful in capturing distinctive and sparse interest points on 3-D object surfaces in qualitative analyses. Despite having greater computational complexities, most of the 3-D detectors yielded better average F1-score, localization accuracy, and repeatability given uniqueness constraint on the matched points in quantitative analyses. Therefore, the 3-D detectors appear preferable when longer working durations or sparser representations would not constitute any disadvantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Background While dementia is a common problem in Japan and the US, primary care physicians' practices and perspectives about diagnosing dementia in these different healthcare systems are unknown. Methods Qualitative research was conducted in an ethnographic tradition using semi-structured interviews and thematic analysis in primary care settings across Japan and in the Midwest State of Michigan, US. Participants were a total of 48 primary care physicians, 24 each from Japan and the US participated. Both groups contained a mixture of geographic areas (rural/urban), gender, age, and years of experience as primary care physicians. Results Participants in Japan and the US voiced similar practices for making the diagnosis of dementia and held similar views about the desired benefits of diagnosing dementia. Differences were found in attitudes about the appropriate timing of formally diagnosing dementia. Japanese physicians tended to make a formal diagnosis when problems that would benefit from long-term care services emerged for family members. US physicians were more proactive in diagnosing dementia in the early stages by screening for dementia in health check-ups and promoting advance directives when the patients were still capable of decision-making. Views about appropriate timing of diagnostic testing for dementia in the two systems reflect what medical or nursing care services physicians can use to support dementia patients and caregivers. Conclusions Benefits of making the diagnosis included the need to activate the long-term care services in Japan and for early intervention and authoring advance directives in the US. Testing to establish an early diagnosis of dementia by primary care physicians only partly relates to testing and treatment options available. Benefits of making the diagnosis included the need to activate the long-term care services in Japan and for early intervention and authoring advance directives in the US.

Purpose: Youth and young adults are particularly vulnerable to the socio-economic impacts of Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19). The purpose of this study was to explore barriers to school and employment for youth with and without a disability during the pandemic. Methods: This qualitative comparison study involved in-depth interviews with 35 youth and young adults (18 with a disability; 17 without), aged 16–29 (mean age 23). An interpretive, thematic analysis of the transcripts was conducted. Results: Our findings revealed several similarities and some differences between youth and young adults with and without disabilities regarding barriers to school and employment during the COVID-19 pandemic. Key themes related to these barriers involved: (1) difficult transition to online school and working from home (i.e., the expense of setting up a home office, technical challenges, impact on mental health), (2) uncertainty about employment (i.e., under-employment, difficult working conditions, difficulty finding work, disability-related challenges) and (3) missed career development opportunities (i.e., canceled or reduced internships or placements, lack of volunteer opportunities, uncertainties about career pathway, the longer-term impact of the pandemic). Conclusion: Our findings highlight that youth and young adults with disabilities may need further support in engaging in meaningful and accessible vocational activities that align with their career pathway.

In comparative philosophy, there arises the problem of ground for comparison. Qualitative comparison is based on a certain qualitative ground for comparison, e.g., weight. Quantitative comparison brings more clarity into the qualitative comparison, introducing discrete and homogeneous units: how much does it weigh? How much does it cost? Both qualitative and quantitative comparison start from a ground that is already given and clear; they simply apply it to the case at hand (Is this one heavier than the other? If so, by how much?). In other—and more interesting—cases, the common ground is obscure: we have the feeling that A and B can be compared, but how exactly? The inability to immediately proceed to application creates a tension, and this opens the intensive dimension of comparison. The intensity has two sides: obscure and clear. The obscure side has its articulations, but they interpenetrate each other. Our task is to unfold, unravel, unpack. Then we will bring something to clarity where the elements do not interpenetrate so much but are juxtaposed (in different qualities and quantities). This will give rise to new tensions and new unfolding. The obscure articulations do not resemble the clear ones, and their unfolding is a creative process.

Background and purpose: Many indicators can be used in evaluating and comparing any software, but, currently there are no indicators to compare software applications that separate tumor tissue from healthy tissue in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain. The aim of this study was to determine appropriate criteria for selecting a proper software for tumor diagnosis in brain MRI. Materials and methods: A qualitative applied research was designed and performed in 10 stages. Appropriate criteria for selecting the software were determined using Delphi technique and expert opinions (30 people). They were then weighted and prioritized. Results: In this study, a questionnaire was developed which was completed by Information Technology (IT) specialists and software engineers. We extracted 15 criteria, among which the "possibility of using the results in education" was the most agreed (93%) criterion and the "possibility of using software in medical environments" was the least agreed (47%) criterion. Also, these two criteria had the highest and lowest relative weights (0.1443 and 0.011, respectively). Conclusion: : According to this study, IT specialists and software engineers believe that current software applications are more suitable for education and research than diagnosis and treatment. Therefore, they will categorize software applications according to their efficiency in research and education.

The validation of a computational fluid dynamics model for a proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) is normally conducted by the experimental I–V performance curve. However, it seems this method is not solid enough. In the meantime, it's difficult to conduct the item-to-item quantitative comparisons between the internal distributions acquired from numerical and testing results. Therefore, in this paper, as the first attempt, qualitative comparisons between the modeling and experimental results are conducted based on the three important parameters of an air-cooled PEMFC (air stoichiometric ratio, air relative humidity, cathode flow field design) to explore the trends of the related fuel cell I–V performance curves and internal resistances. The internal resistances are tested using the EIS technique and differentiated by an equivalent circuit model. Conclusions show that the qualitative comparisons between the numerical and testing results support each other well and new results are found based on the comparisons. Finally, discussions on the sensitivity based on the experimental EIS results are conducted to explore the response degree of the total resistance to the air stoichiometric ratio, the air relative humidity and the cathode flow field design. • Qualitative comparisons between modeling and testing results support each other. • Proton transport is the dominant factor affecting the reaction rate and resistance. • Sensitivity is defined to compare different parametric series. • Air relative humidity could lead to "Strong" sensitivity in the case of dry air. • Air stoichiometric ratio has the strongest effect most of the time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the challenges of effective channel estimation for the lognormal-Rician turbulence model are addressed. We present a novel maximum likelihood estimation algorithm involving a saddlepoint approximation (SAP) method to estimate the shaping parameters of the lognormal-Rician distribution. An additional parameter k needs to be estimated in addition to r and σz2 under the SAP representation. The accuracy of the proposed estimator is investigated by using the mean square error and normalized mean square error. The simulated results show that the proposed estimator exhibits satisfactory performance over a wide range of turbulence conditions, and it can be easily applied to both noiseless and noisy situations. The effect of the estimated shaping parameters errors on the bit error rate (BER) for the on-off key (OOK) modulation is also investigated; it is shown that the BER performance derived with the SAP estimator becomes closer to the system performance with perfect shaping parameters as r increases. In particular, we present a qualitative comparison between the proposed SAP estimator and other algorithms available in the literature.

Background: While dementia is a common problem in Japan and the US, primary care physicians' practices and perspectives about diagnosing dementia in these different healthcare systems are unknown.Methods: Qualitative research was conducted in an ethnographic tradition using semi-structured interviews and thematic analysis in primary care settings across Japan and in the Midwest State of Michigan, US. Participants were a total of 48 primary care physicians, 24 each from Japan and the US participated. Both groups contained a mixture of geographic areas (rural/urban), gender, age, and years of experience as primary care physicians.Results: Participants in Japan and the US voiced similar practices for making the diagnosis of dementia and held similar views about the desired benefits of diagnosing dementia. Differences were found in attitudes about the appropriate timing of formally diagnosing dementia. Japanese physicians tended to make a formal diagnosis when problems that would benefit from long-term care services emerged for family members. US physicians were more proactive in diagnosing dementia in the early stages by screening for dementia in health check-ups and promoting advance directives when the patients were still capable of decision-making. Views about appropriate timing of diagnostic testing for dementia in the two systems reflect what medical or nursing care services physicians can use to support dementia patients and caregivers.Conclusions: Benefits of making the diagnosis included the need to activate the long-term care services in Japan and for early intervention and authoring advance directives in the US. Testing to establish an early diagnosis of dementia by primary care physicians only partly relates to testing and treatment options available. Benefits of making the diagnosis included the need to activate the long-term care services in Japan and for early intervention and authoring advance directives in the US. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Denmark and Sweden are rather similar in most societal dimensions, but differ markedly with regard to the employment rate among older workers, which in 2015 was 65 per cent in Denmark and 75 per cent in Sweden. Using a qualitative (or case-oriented) comparative approach, this article seeks to identify configurations or combinations of conditions that have produced these differences in older workers' work patterns. From an inter-disciplinary perspective, the article draws on the conceptual framework of push (e.g. involuntary retirement due to poor health), pull (e.g. voluntary retirement because of generous welfare benefits), jump (e.g. exit due to a search for life conditions that are more fulfilling than paid work), stay (e.g. older workers remain voluntarily in the labour market because work is fulfilling and well paid) and stuck (e.g. older workers remain involuntarily in the labour market because they cannot afford to retire). Findings are that low employment rates in Denmark are an outcome of a relatively strong combination of push–pull–jump factors, while Sweden, with its high employment rate, exhibits a combination of stay–stuck conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Root cause analysis (RCA) is a sequentially structured process that can be used for identifying the potential root causes for a particular accident, failure of which can lead to the recurrence of a similar event. Several techniques have emerged over the years as generic standards for identifying the root causes; each RCA tool and methodology has its pros and cons in its application. However, there has been no objective comparison between these various techniques for their applicability apart from the stated qualitative differences; this research gap forms as the base motivation for this research work. This study has identified five RCA tools based on popularity, the complexity of use, industrial application, and structure with the ultimate aim of providing extensive comparative results based on fundamental characteristics, flexibility and robustness, and finally, the scoring sheet. To provide objective results, the comparative study was focused on the catastrophic Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The results from the reality charting and fault tree analysis proved to be more derivative and explanatory in isolating the root causes; however, it was also found to be complicated in comparison with the other tools. On the other hand, fishbone provided results that were easier to infer but not entirely satisfactory for scenarios involving a complex interaction of multiple contributory factors. Selecting the right causal analysis tool is vital for obtaining relevant results with no excessive time consumption and less distractive factors in both proactive and reactive studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Top-down and bottom-up processes are important for transformative policy change. • Timing of knowledge generation and sharing in transformations should be considered. • Information in transformative policy change is transmitted by a diversity of actors. Co-management is often put forward as a way to foster sustainability and improve the adaptive capacity of small-scale fisheries. Transformations towards co-management are enabled by processes that support social change, such as nurturing leadership, collective action and learning, as well as political processes that change legislative frameworks from centralized to decentralized decision-making. However, major policy changes can be difficult and change-actors often fail to overcome barriers created by institutional friction, dominant policy discourses or powerful interests supporting the status quo. In the literature, special attention has been paid to social processes that foster cooperation, the role of bridging-actors on the path towards co-management, or conditions that influence its effective implementation. In this paper we shift the attention to political decision-making and changes in policy discourse as an integral part of fisheries' transformations. We use the well-studied cases of co-management transformations in small-scale fisheries to identify how interactions among political actors and stakeholders, as well as social-ecological interactions, shaped the policy discourse and influenced policy change during the transformation process. By comparing how policy change emerged across four fishery transformation cases, we illustrate the importance of (cross-scale and cross-type) coordination and collaboration among diverse political actors in creating conditions for adoption of legislation, as well as its timing during the policy process. The paper contributes to the literature on sustainability transformations by explaining how policy changes supporting such transformations may emerge, in addition to providing insight on political conditions and processes that could be fostered in order to support policy change towards decentralization in fisheries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and purpose: Many indicators can be used in evaluating and comparing any software, but, currently there are no indicators to compare software applications that separate tumor tissue from healthy tissue in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain. The aim of this study was to determine appropriate criteria for selecting a proper software for tumor diagnosis in brain MRI. Materials and methods: A qualitative applied research was designed and performed in 10 stages. Appropriate criteria for selecting the software were determined using Delphi technique and expert opinions (30 people). They were then weighted and prioritized. Results: In this study, a questionnaire was developed which was completed by Information Technology (IT) specialists and software engineers. We extracted 15 criteria, among which the "possibility of using the results in education" was the most agreed (93%) criterion and the "possibility of using software in medical environments" was the least agreed (47%) criterion. Also, these two criteria had the highest and lowest relative weights (0.1443 and 0.011, respectively). Conclusion: : According to this study, IT specialists and software engineers believe that current software applications are more suitable for education and research than diagnosis and treatment. Therefore, they will categorize software applications according to their efficiency in research and education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One overarching question in scholarly methodological discussions on qualitative comparative approaches concerns how it is possible to compare and generalise deep insider knowledge across (nationally) specific contexts. The aim of this article is to propose a research strategy that both facilitates the comparison and theorisation of such knowledge across nations and limits the risks of reproducing naturalised national 'truths'. The strategy is developed within a feminist, cross-national, qualitative comparative analysis of how European countries addressed military deaths in connection with the ISAF mission in Afghanistan. The article underlines the importance of collective analytical work and of strategies that allow continuous movement between insider and outsider positions throughout the research process. A number of analytical strategies are presented: collective project design, alternating between analytical closeness and distance, and de-familiarising writing practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most of research on destination governance focuses on reporting the results of single case studies, whose findings are often related to the particularities of the specific destinations considered. As a result, there is little (empirical) consistency in underlying principles and dimensions of destination governance. To overcome this gap, this paper presents a combined (re-)analysis of multiple qualitative case studies and empirically develops destination governance dimensions from a practitioner point of view. Findings show that theoretical conceptualisation of destination governance and practical foci differ in some respects: In contrast to governance theory, practitioners refer more to context, process and change.

Cities are responding to their growing transportation demands in different ways. We interviewed city dwellers in two cities, Singapore and London, with highly developed transport infrastructure to understand individual transport decisions and experiences in the context of two different city cultures that support distinct transport policies. Compared to London, cars and other private transport are valued and priced beyond the reach of most in Singapore. Seventeen adults from London and sixteen from Singapore were interviewed and presented with an overview of the other city's transportation system to elicit their opinions on the differences and whether an alternate system could be applied in their city. Differences were observed in perceptions of, and beliefs concerning, private transport. In Singapore, cars served more than utilitarian purposes and were viewed as socially desirable status and success symbols. In London, car ownership and usage were viewed as a necessity due to a perceived lack of accessible, alternative transport. Both samples valued accessibility, affordability and comfort in relation to transport mode choice. There was also general acknowledgement and support for managing the car population and use in both cities, though how it should be done remains highly context-specific. Our findings suggest that public engagement and effective communication are important components when interventions and policies are introduced to better manage the car population and use in cities.

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Background and objective A rough estimate indicated that use of samples of size not larger than ten is not uncommon in biomedical research and that many of such studies are limited to strong effects due to sample sizes smaller than six. For data collected from biomedical experiments it is also often unknown if mathematical requirements incorporated in the sample comparison methods are satisfied. Methods Computer simulated experiments were used to examine performance of methods for qualitative sample comparison and its dependence on the effectiveness of exposure, effect intensity, distribution of studied parameter values in the population, and sample size. The Type I and Type II errors, their average, as well as the maximal errors were considered. Results The sample size 9 and the t - test method with p  = 5% ensured error smaller than 5% even for weak effects. For sample sizes 6–8 the same method enabled detection of weak effects with errors smaller than 20%. If the sample sizes were 3–5, weak effects could not be detected with an acceptable error; however, the smallest maximal error in the most general case that includes weak effects is granted by the standard error of the mean method. The increase of sample size from 5 to 9 led to seven times more accurate detection of weak effects. Strong effects were detected regardless of the sample size and method used. Conclusions The minimal recommended sample size for biomedical experiments is 9. Use of smaller sizes and the method of their comparison should be justified by the objective of the experiment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the recent years, wireless applications and services have grown tremendously, resulting to a shortage of radio spectrum. On one hand, most of the available radio spectrum has already been allocated to different users and service providers. On another hand, research and statistics have revealed that the spectrum utilization usability is very limited. To address this dilemma, the concept of cognitive radio has emerged, which promotes the use of overlay and underlay transmission techniques to boost the utilization of radio spectrum resources. This paper provides a comprehensive survey of these 2 techniques and compares them qualitatively based on several network parameters. Next, this paper simulates overlay and underlay transmission techniques in OMNeT++ simulator on different network parameters, namely, Primary user arrival rate, throughput, sensing duration, and energy consumption. Our findings reveal that neither the overlay nor the underlay technique is sufficient itself to fulfill the demands for future wireless systems, and adopting a hybrid access technique consisting of a joint utilization of overlay and underlay approaches is desirable. Furthermore, the key challenges and open research issues in radio spectrum resources utilization are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies on the Malay homeland (Austronesian) have never been ceased to discuss by neither scholars of cultural studies nor linguistics. There were claims that the Malays came from China and Taiwan, and nowhere else in the world but this archipelago. In this regard, we argue that the relation among Malay dialects has not been studied thoroughly. Therefore this study focuses on the existence of Malay dialects in the southwest territory of the South China Sea covering Tioman Island-Aur-Pemanggil. This study attempts to discuss the status of joint innovation inherent in the Tioman Island-Aur-Pemanggil dialects. The discussion on the joint innovation of the Tioman Island-Aur-Pemanggil dialects uses qualitative comparative methods. In order to obtain the joint innovation features, comparison of vowels, diphthongs and consonants between ancient Malay and Tioman Island-Aur-Pemanggil dialectswas conducted. The discussion shows there are innovation and retention features inherited in the Tioman Island-Aur-Pemanggil dialects of Malay in Tekek, Juara and Salang variants. By having the linguistics data, it reveals that Malays or Austronesian people had made the archipelago as their residential area. Thus, Austronesian people were originally from the north (China and Taiwan) as claimed by western linguists is untrue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is to reconstruct the vocal and diphthongs Melanau language ancient (BMLP) that exist in Sarawak. BMP reconstruction was done using qualitative comparison method. Reconstruction of the vowels and diphthongs was done by employing internal reconstruction. Reconstruction criteria were used to determine the cognate words, find the correspondence of phonemes, determine recurrence of phonemes and phoneme ancient gain. Thirteen Melanau variants (VM) of Sarawak has been investigated, namely Bintulu (BT), Balingian (BLGN), Mukah (MKH), Oya (OA), Igan (IGN), Dalat (DLT), Matu (MT), Daro (DO ), Medong (MDG), Sungai UD (SG UD), Rajang (RJG), Kanowit (KNWT) and Tanjong (TJG). The study proves that reconstructed that BMLP has 5 vowel phonemes, ie * i, * u, * o, *ǝ, and *α and 6 diphthongs, ie * -ǝw, * -αw, * -αj, * -ej , * uj, and * -oj. The presence of these ancient phonemes, ie phonemes vowel or diphthong phonemes occur regularly and predictably. The phoneme sporadic like BMLP *i, *u, *o, *ǝ, and *α, and diphthong phoneme, namely *-ǝw, *-αw, *-αj, *-ej, *uj, and *-oj in particular distribution indicates that this feature is still new and is difficult to explain. However, our initial assumption is that the occurrence of sporadic innovation is likely caused by local migration factor. The new migration process occurs, thus, realizing the innovation characteristics. BMLP reconstruction process is reconstructed at a low level. Therefore, this study can be pioneer in the study of BMLP at a higher level, especially by comparing the vowel phonemes and diphthongs with the ancient Polynesian Malay language (PMP). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Small portable rainfall simulators are considered a useful tool to analyze soil erosion processes in cultivated lands. European research groups in Spain (Valencia, Málaga, Lleida, Madrid and La Rioja), France (Reims) and Germany (Trier) have used different rainfall simulators (varying in drop size distribution and fall velocities, kinetic energy, plot forms and sizes, and field of application) to study soil loss, surface flow, runoff and infiltration coefficients in different experimental plots (Valencia, Montes de Málaga, Penedès, Campo Real and La Rioja in Spain, Champagne in France and Mosel-Ruwer valley in Germany). The measurements and experiments developed by these research teams give an overview of the variety of methodologies used in rainfall simulations to study the problem of soil erosion and describe the erosion features in different climatic environments, management practices and soil types. The aims of this study are: (i) to investigate where, how and why researchers from different wine-growing regions applied rainfall simulations with successful results as a tool to measure soil erosion processes; (ii) to make a qualitative comparison about the general soil erosion processes in European terroirs; (iii) to demonstrate the importance of the development of standard method for measurement of soil erosion processes in vineyards, using rainfall simulators; and (iv) and to analyze the key factors that should be taken into account to carry out rainfall simulations. The rainfall simulations in all cases allowed infiltration capacity, susceptibility of the soil to detachment and generation of sediment loads to runoff to be determined. Despite using small plots, the experiments were useful to analyze the influence of soil cover to reduce soil erosion, to make comparisons between different locations, and to evaluate the influence of different soil characteristics. The comparative analysis of the studies performed in different study areas points out the need to define an operational methodology to carry out rainfall simulations, which allows us to obtain representative and comparable results and to avoid errors in the interpretation in order to achieve comparable information about runoff and soil loss.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a paradigm that facilitates the proliferation of different devices such as sensors and Radio Frequency Identification (RFIDs) for real-time applications such as healthcare and sustainable cities. The growing popularity of IoT opens up new possibilities, and one of the most notable applications is related to the evolving sustainable city paradigm. A sustainable city is normally designed in such a way to consider the environmental impact and a social, economic, and resilient habitat for existing populations without compromising the ability of future generations to experience the same, while the process of managing project requirements is known as requirements management. To design a high-quality project, effective requirements management is imperative. A number of techniques are already available to perform the requirement gathering process, and software developers apply them to collect the requirements. Nevertheless, they are facing many issues in gathering requirements due to a lack of literature on the selection of appropriate methods, which affects the quality of the software. The software design quality can be improved by using requirements capture and management techniques. Some tools are used to comprehend the system accurately. In this paper, a qualitative comparison of requirements-gathering tools using Artificial Intelligence (AI) and requirements-management tools is presented for sustainable cities. With all the tools and techniques available for capturing and managing requirements, it has been proven that software developers have a wide range of alternatives for selecting the best tool that fits their needs, such as chosen by the AI agent. This effort will aid in the development of requirements for IoT-enabled sustainable cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In order to reduce the analysis time and maintain good efficiency in liquid chromatography (LC), several solutions are currently being investigated. The focus of this study was to compare, both qualitatively and quantitatively, the chromatographic performance of a conventional LC with selected approaches, namely monolithic supports, high temperature LC (up to 90°C), and sub-2μm particles combined with high pressure (up to 1000bar). This comparison was achieved from a qualitative point of view with a special attention paid to the analysis of time reduction, efficiency improvement, and pressure constraint. For this purpose, the different approaches were discussed using Knox curves and other kinetic plots. It appeared that columns packed with sub-2μm particles under high-pressure conditions (UPLC) were well adapted and this option represents an attractive alternative to conventional LC; however, the other alternative approaches should not be neglected. The quantitative evaluation of these techniques was performed on the basis of the validation of results of a pharmaceutical formulation (Rapidocaïne), following SFSTP 2003 guidelines. Fast-LC approaches demonstrated equivalent performance to conventional LC in terms of trueness, precision, and accuracy profile, with a significant time reduction (up to 8×) according to the selected methodology. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Background : The current study investigated the moderating role of the school context on the effects of a Dutch health promoting school initiative on children's health and health behaviors. Methods : The study used a mixed-methods design. The school context ( n = 4) was assessed by the characteristics of the school population, teacher's health-promoting (HP) practices, implementers' perceived barriers, school's HP elements, and dominating organizational issues. Outcomes included objectively assessed BMI z-scores and physical activity (PA), and parent and child-reported dietary intake. Analyses included linear mixed models (four intervention schools versus four control schools), and qualitative comparisons between intervention schools with similar HP changes. Results : Effects on outcomes varied considerably across schools (e.g., range in effect size on light PA of 0.01-0.26). Potentially moderating contextual aspects were the child's socioeconomic background and baseline health behaviors; practices and perceived barriers of employees; and organizational issues at a school level. Conclusions : Similar HP changes lead to different outcomes across schools due to differences in the school context. The adoption of a complex adaptive systems perspective contributes to a better understanding of the variation in effects and it can provide insight on which contextual aspects to focus on or intervene in to optimize the effects of HP initiatives.