Ellislindgaard8643

The effect that the physical characteristics of urban design have on the pedestrian's perceptions of safety is a fundamental aspect of city planning. This is particularly so with street crossings, where the pedestrian has to make a decision. This paper analyses how pedestrians are affected by number of traffic lanes, lighting colour temperature, and nearby vegetation as they cross roads. Perceptions of safety were quantified by means of the psychological and neurophysiological responses of 60 participants to 16 virtual reality scenarios (4 day and 12 night), based on existing urban design variables. The results showed differences between night-time and daytime scenarios, which suggests that there is a need to analyse both situations. As to the design guidelines, it was observed that safety is improved by reducing the number of traffic lanes and nearby vegetation, and by using a lighting colour temperature of 4500 K. However, the analysis of the variables showed that combined effects produce different results to those obtained from the analysis of individual elements. This result is essential information for urban managers in their assessments of whether particular interventions will improve crossing points.The growing popularity of heated tobacco products (HTPs) among youth may act as a gateway for smoking and jeopardize youth health. We aimed to describe the use of HTPs among youth smokers in Hong Kong and examine their risk awareness of HTPs as well as awareness of the proposed legislation. We conducted retrospective data analyses on the Youth Quitline Cohort (n = 731). We extracted participants' sociodemographic data, smoking profiles, and HTP use from 1 January 2017. Participants' HTP use increased from 5.7% in 2017 to 37.9% in 2020. Among the 731 participants, 175 were HTP users and 556 were HTP nonusers. Compared with nonusers, a significantly higher proportion of HTP users had tried using other tobacco products at least once. The most common reason for using HTPs was curiosity. HTP users were more likely than nonusers to misclassify HTPs as e-cigarettes; agree that HTPs were healthier and contained fewer harmful substances than conventional cigarettes; consider HTPs as a smoking cessation aid; and believe that HTPs could reduce conventional cigarette consumption. Overall, 61.2% of youth smokers disagreed with banning HTPs. Risk awareness of HTPs among youth might affect their likelihood of using these products. Stricter regulations on advertising and intensive health education are imperative to avoid misleading information and limit youth exposure to such harmful products.Polymer nanofibers have the ability to replace expensive materials, such as metals, ceramics and composites, in specific areas, such as heat exchangers, energy storage and biomedical applications. These properties have caused polymer nanofibers to be explored as solutions to a growing list of thermal management problems, driving an even greater need to better measure and understand the thermal properties of these nanofibers. This study intends to further the understanding of the thermal properties of polymer nanofibers through the use of a novel Probe-to-Probe measurement method. Polycaprolactone nanofibers fabricated using the electrospinning method can be easily collected and loaded into a traditional atomic force microscope through a mechanical design for thermal measurement. Selleck MRTX849 This Probe-to-Probe method demonstrates the ability to accurately measure the thermal boundary conditions about a polymer nanofiber with a heating prong temperature up to 400 ∘C and assists in characterizing its thermal properties.Membrane electrode assemblies (MEAs) with palladium catalysts were successfully prepared by using a home-made manual pressing system with Nafion glue application that contributed to a decrease of additional energy consumption. The catalyst coated membranes were prepared with supported palladium on activated carbon (PdC) and unsupported palladium black (PdB) for comparison. The performance of passive, air breathing, functioning under ambient conditions and with low concentration (1 M) formate/formic acid fuel cell was evaluated. Based on polarization curves, the best result was obtained with carbon supported catalyst and HCOOK fuel, achieving 21.01 mW/mgPd. Still, constant current discharge with PdC showed an energy generation efficiency of 14% with HCOOH over 3% with HCOOK caused by lower potassium ion conductivity and its permeability through the proton exchange membrane. The faradic efficiency of conversion in the cell is equal to the overall energy efficiency and makes the cell self-sufficient.Many theoretical and experimental studies have shown that the addition of nanoparticles into conventional fluids may generate nanofluids with significantly improved heat transfer properties. In the present work, the effect of nanoparticle aggregation on the thermal conductivity of nanofluids is studied, considering also the effect of surfactants that are typically added to stabilise the nanofluid. A method for simulating aggregate formation is developed here that allows tailoring of the fractal dimension and the number density of the nanoparticles to desired values. The method is shown to be computationally simple and fast. Data that are extracted from electron microscope images are compared with simulation results regarding surface porosity and the autocorrelation function. The surfactants are modelled as a layer around the particles, and the effective thermal conductivity is calculated with a meshless numerical technique. Significant increase in conductivity is observed for small values of the fractal dimension and for large number density of particles in the aggregate. The simulations are in good agreement with experimental results. It is also concluded that prediction of the conductivity of such nanofluids requires the knowledge of the type and the amount of the surfactant added.Clostridium difficile colitis is caused by a cytotoxin produced by the anaerobic bacteria C. difficile in the epithelial cells of the large intestine, particularly C. difficile toxin B (TcdB). However, the sensitivity of currently utilized C. difficile endotoxin determination methods has been called into question, and, therefore, more accurate and convenient detection methods are needed. Our study is the first to systematically compare fluorescent submicrosphere-based and quantum-dot nanobead-based lateral fluidity measurement methods (FMs-LFA and QDNBs-LFA) with toxin B quantification in fecal samples via sandwich analysis. The limits of detection (LOD) of FMs-LFA and QDNBs-LFA in the fecal samples were 0.483 and 0.297 ng/mL, respectively. TcdB analyses of the fecal samples indicated that the results of QDNBs-LFA and FMs-LFA were consistent with those of a commercial enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) test kit. The sensitivity of QDNBs-LFA was highly correlated with clinical diagnoses. Therefore, quantum dot nanobeads (QDNBs) are deemed highly suitable for lateral fluidity analyses, which would facilitate the implementation of portable and rapid on-the-spot applications, such as food hygiene and safety tests and onsite medical testing.