Current air quality analytics and monitoring: A review

This review summarizes the different tools and concepts that are commonly applied in air quality monitoring. The monitoring of atmosphere is extremely important as the air quality is an important problem for large communities. Main requirements for analytical devices used for monitoring include a long period of autonomic operation and portability. These instruments, however, are often characterized by poor analytical performance. Monitoring networks are the most common tools used for monitoring, so large-scale monitoring programmes are summarized here. Biomonitoring, as a cheap and convenient alternative to traditional sample collection, is becoming more and more popular, although its main drawback is the lack of standard procedures. Telemonitoring is another approach to air monitoring, which offers some interesting opportunities, such as ease of coverage of large or remote areas, constituting a complementary approach to traditional strategies; however, it requires huge costs.     

空气/水界面水分子的取向和运动

对四种不同的实验构型下空气／水界面自由O-H键在3700cm~(-1)的和频振动光谱的分析表明,水分子在空气／水界面的取向运动只可能是在平衡位置附近有限角度之内的受限转动。界面水分子的自由O-H键取向距界面法线约33°,而取向分布或运动的宽度不超过15°。这一图像显著地不同于Wei等人(Phys. Rev. Lett.86,4799(2001))只通过单一的SFG实验构型所得出结论,即：空气／水界面的水分子在超快的振动弛豫时间内在很大的角度范围内运动。     

A Variable Neighborhood Search for the Multi Depot Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows

The aim of this paper is to propose an algorithm based on the philosophy of the Variable Neighborhood Search (VNS) to solve Multi Depot Vehicle Routing Problems with Time Windows. The paper has two main contributions. First, from a technical point of view, it presents the first application of a VNS for this problem and several design issues of VNS algorithms are discussed. Second, from a problem oriented point of view the computational results show that the approach is competitive with an existing Tabu Search algorithm with respect to both solution quality and computation times.     

Catalytic air oxidation of ambient temperature hydrocarbons

Catalytic air oxidation of the aliphatic hydrocarbons n-decane, hexanes, gasoline and diesel fuel was conducted at ambient temperature with novel iron catalysts. The concentration of n-decane in water was reduced from 1.42 g in 100 ml to 0.07 g in 100 ml in 5 h at room temperature forming carbon monoxide and water by means of intermediate aldehydes. Results of FT–IR and GC–MS analyses demonstrated formation of aldehydes and unsaturated alcohols. Carbon monoxide was detected on catalyst residues and in the vapor phase. The indicated catalytic reaction mechanisms are discussed.     

Nitrated polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons in ambient air in Italy. A brief overview

When nitrated polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (NPAH) were recognised as long‐term toxic compounds and were also identified in several anthropogenic emissions and among the by‐products of photochemical smog they became objects of investigation in ambient air in both polluted and clean environments. In Italy the first investigations focussing on atmospheric NPAH were performed in the early eighties and encompassed both the canyon streets and dwelling areas of Rome. Because NPAH were indicated as markers of vehicle emission, new investigations were performed in other cities and also in rural and (nominally) unpolluted locations. In general, the first measurements of NPAH were episodic and could not be assumed to be strictly representative of the sites investigated. In contrast, nowadays consistent data bases on NPAH have been built up and are discussed in the technical literature, so that both neat concentrations and the yearly timed variation of the most important NPAH congeners have been measured in Italian air. Although concentrations of NPAH in air are usually much lower than those of PAH, owing to their very high potency in inducing mutations and tumours NPAH are regarded as having an important health impact on populations living in Italian urban areas. In this regard the genotoxicity of atmospheric aerosols is partly associated with nitrofluoranthenes and nitropyrenes whereas nitronaphthalenes and methylnitronaphthalenes seem to contribute to that of the gaseous organic fraction. Several civic and regional administrations are introducing control of atmospheric NPAH among ways of improving air quality in cities.     

Investigation on chaotic motion in hysteretic non-linear suspension system with multi-frequency excitations

This paper presents the investigation on possible chaotic motion in a vehicle suspension system with hysteretic non-linearity, which is subjected to the multi-frequency excitation from road surface. The Melnikov’s function is used to derive the critical condition for the chaotic motion, and then it is investigated that the effects of parameters in non-linear damping on the chaotic field. The path from quasi-periodic to chaotic motion is found via Poincaré map and Lyapunov exponents.     

Vehicle and personnel routing optimization in the service sector: application to water distribution and treatment

We present an overview of the author’s Ph.D. thesis, supervised by P. Dejax and N. Bostel, which was defended in February 2006 at école des Mines de Nantes, France. The thesis is written in French, and is available at . It was conducted in the context of a research contract with a water distribution company. In a first section, we define multiperiod routing problems for service technicians. In a second section, we present some heuristics and a memetic algorithm used to solve these problems. The third section introduces optimal and near-optimal approaches based on column generation. Finally, we present some applications to the real-life case. The methods presented in Sects. 2, 3 and 4 were tested over several sets of problems, based on real-life statistics provided by the company.      

Neutral oxygen atom density in the MESOX air plasma solar furnace facility

The density of neutral oxygen atoms in the MESOX set-up, one device of the PROMES-CNRS solar facilities, was determined by a fiber-optics catalytic probe (FOCP). Plasma was created in a flowing air within a quartz tube with the outer diameter of 5 cm by a 2.45 GHz microwave generator with the output power up to 1000 W. The flow of air was varied between 4 and 20 l/h. The O-atom density was found to increase monotonously with the increasing discharge power, and it decreased with the increasing flow rate. The degree of dissociation of oxygen molecules in the plasma column depended largely on the flow rate. At the air flow of 4 l/h it was about 80% but it decreased to about 20% at the flow of 20 l/h.     

Air microwave-induced plasma: Relation between ion density and atomic oxygen density

Electron temperature and ion density are measured in an air microwave-induced plasma (2450 MHz) by means of a floating double probe. A 'cinetic scheme for ion formation and decay is set up, and a relationship between atomic oxygen and ion densities is obtained. From this relationship an order-of-magnitude of atomic oxygen concentration in the discharge is derived and compared with results obtained by optical actinometry in another work.