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Mathematical modeling was employed for automatic, real-time interrogation and correction of amperometric electrochemical gas sensors (AES) deployed in instruments for industrial hygiene applications. The interrogation involved two steps which were analyzed using various mathematical modeling techniques to determine the “goodness” of the sensor and to correct its output for small changes due to aging and environmental conditions. The first interrogation was a physical interrogation of the flow path into the sensor by supplying a driving force at the face of the sensor, either by exhaled human breath, or by acoustic sound pressure applied to diffusion barriers protecting the sensor, ensuring that the flow path was sufficiently open for detection of hazardous gases. The second interrogation was an electronic interrogation of the sensor itself, achieved by applying a small potential or current pulse to the working electrode of the sensor and deconvoluting its response to make small corrections to the sensor signal. These two steps provide periodic, real-time, and automatic surveillance and correction of AES, increasing robustness, reliability and accuracy, and user confidence, while decreasing calibration frequency, maintenance, and cost-of-ownership. Validation testing over sensors of various designs indicated a greater than 98% reliability of the sensor/instrument interrogation technique.

The Fridays for Future strikes involve students striking for increased action on climate change, and this movement has spread to 185 countries and received widespread media attention. This exploratory study investigates motives for participating or not in the climate strikes and future participation among students in Switzerland. In a sample ofN= 638 university students, we found that trust in climate scientists, low trust in governments, response efficacy, protest enjoyment and the perceived success of the strikes predicted participation. Contrary to statements in the public media but consistent with the literature, students who participated in the climate strikes reported consuming less meat, flying less and taking more steps to compensate the CO2emissions from flights compared to students who did not participate. We discuss how the insights from this study help reveal the determinants of youth collective action on climate change.

This study provides a tool by means of which a road planner, usually a civil engineer, can achieve a durable infrastructure of high quality, acceptable to all parties concerned. The various elements which facilitate the work of planning are united into a modernized methodology for the elaboration of road projects, called a methodology of concert. After analysing the sort of problems encountered in the planning of road infrastructure (Chapter 1), the author classifies the main causes of these into a hierarchy. This brings to light many factors which may stem from the structure of the project, the environment or from the various participants. The modernization of the working methods of road planners is a highly practical idea based on case studies (Chapter 2). The particular study on which this work is based is the "Comparaison de variantes 1999", made on the A 144 road between the cities of Villeneuve and Le Bouveret. From an initial group of four variants, which were a source of much contention between the interested parties, an optimal and consensual solution, called "Solution COPIL", was evolved in seven months, by means of this study. The choice of this solution was based on a method of multicriteria decision analysis of a completely aggregational form. This used the weightings defined by all the political partners in the study. The present author was allowed to sit in on about fifteen working sessions of the Technical Group and of the Guiding Committee, which consists of the political partners. The examination of this particular case provided him with much valuable information about the process of elaboration of a road plan. The requirements and aims of road infrastructure are analysed (Chapter 3). Here, the focus is on the definition of individual and collective needs and the evolution of social expectation of the general public. The implementation of public policy is then examined. Particular emphasis is laid on the principal public policies whose spatial incidence affects the road plan : land distribution, transport and environment. Some attention is paid to the consideration of mobility, its value, characteristics and future developments. The difference between the standard and the norm of road infrastructure is described explicitly. The various stages of the process of elaboration of a road plan are analysed in depth. (Chapter 4) Particular attention is paid to the initial stages of impulsion for the elaboration of the project and of the identification of needs, since these influence strongly the quality and the acceptability of the project. The author then proposes that the various stages of road infrastructure be presented in the form of a life cycle of which the present study only concerns some aspects. Various special procedures are then analysed critically in order to extract propositions to be integrated into the methodology of concert. The type of partners in the road project and the characteristics of the relationships between them are discussed. (Chapter 5) The set of weightings made by the political partners in the case study "Comparaison de variantes 1999" are used to analyze the relations between the various participants in this study. A "representative profile of a participant" is defined from the examination of their individual weighting profiles. The notion of sustainability is presented (Chapter 6). After a recapitulation of definitions and of the reasons for this new idea, the principles of a durable mobility are presented. The practical aspects of this new paradigm of society for the planner are defined and discussed. They concern the inclusion of the life cycle in the analysis of the effects of a project, the weighing of interests from the three points of view of economy, social utility and the environment, public participation and the use of consultation right from the start of the study. Public participation (Chapter 7) is an important element in the elaboration of a road plan as it ensures its acceptation by the public. It may even allow the phenomenon of appropriation of a project by peripheral partners to develop. The various forms of public participation are presented in a table showing almost seventy which can affect a road project. The detailed description of some of these methods are given in appendix. Rules for applying the methodology of concert are then presented and the advantages and limits of this are discussed. After in-depth consideration of the decision procedure and its participants, with details of the various subjective and objective factors which may influence it, the study describes the methods of multicriteria decision analysis. (Chapter 8) Terminology is defined and the main types of these methods are presented. In this study, partial aggregation methods have been applied to the road infrastructure projects. These methods may be divided into three categories according to whether they are applicable to a situation of choice, of sorting or of order. A complete presentation is then given of the principles and ways of using the various methods of partial aggregation of the Electre family (I, II, III, IV, IS and Tri). For projects of road infrastructure, the method of partial aggregation Electre III is suggested. This method is based on the idea of fuzzy criteria, defined by thresholds of preference, indifference or of veto. It can be used with computer software which greatly simplifies the work of the planner. To illustrate the use of this method, Electre III have been applied to the case of "Comparaison de variantes 1999". The method was used on the set of weightings defined by the members of the Guiding Committee. The specific software is convivial and intuitively simple to use, so that the author was able to recommend it to the road planner. Information systems of spatial reference are described and their relevance for road projects in the establishment of optimal corridors or as a support for a method of multicriteria decision analysis. The methodology of concert for the elaboration of road plans is presented in detail (Chapter 9) in the form of successive flow diagrams illustrating the various stages of the procedure. These diagrams, based on an iterative process of study, provide the basis of the methodology of concert. They are intended for the road planner who follows them through and orients his planning according to his answers to the various questions contained there. In conclusion (Chapter 10), various prospects for the utilization of the proposed modernized methodology are indicated, together with the lines of possible future research suggested by the results and ideas contained in this study.

This deliverable presents a key part of the content used in the training modules for the ENCLUDE Academy for Energy Citizen Leadership. It enables future Energy Citizen Leaders to understand ‘how’ and ‘why’ collective actions for social and societal transformation take place. Moreover, this deliverable can be seen as a resource base of past collective actions that can be used to understand how future collective actions can be carried out in the context of the energy transition. As such, this report may easily be used both within and outside of the project, by researchers interested in the topic of collective actions and energy transition.

This contribution illustrates the training evaluation system developed within the Master’s Program in Family and Community Mediation at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan. This is an interim evaluation which focuses on the training process and which considers the collaboration with the subjects of the training to be fundamental. The peculiarity of this work concerns the possibility of inserting research within the training process, following a logic of mutual enrichment both in terms of content and learning. The contribution illustrates in detail the outcome and the process evaluation system, defining the perspective, the objectives, and the methodology of implementation. In particular, the outcome evaluation focuses on the distal and proximal outcomes of the training, while the process analysis focuses on the dynamics within the group of participants. Preliminary findings from 33 participants highlighted that the majority of participants (19) have a “regular” profile, that is, they appreciate both the theoretical contents, as well as the practical activities proposed during the training program. As for the process, the findings showed the importance of reflexivity as a major factor of change. Although these findings are referred to the specific experience of a particular group, and so further evaluations involving different training groups and other training processes are needed, this training evaluation system sheds light on both the topic and the context in which training is delivered. The integration between different points of view and several levels of analysis allows the researchers to deepen the individual path of each participant as well as to obtain feedbacks on the progress of the training group as a whole and allows participants to better understand their contexts of work thanks to the use of reflexivity. This can guarantee a sustainable growth both at individual and interpersonal level.

Municipal mergers are typically contentious and polarizing issues among both citizens and politicians. In deciding on these, municipal-level referendums are often commissioned by municipal councils. Referendums, though, are also per se polarizing processes that only exacerbate an already polarizing issue. Adding deliberation to referendum processes has been shown in previous studies to be a more democratically sustainable process than mere referendums. In this study, we explore the use of mixed deliberation between citizens and politicians within a municipal merger process in the municipality of Korsholm in Finland, one year before a referendum on the issue occurred. The deliberations were two-hour sessions in February 2018, with local politicians present in each discussion group. Using pre- and post-deliberation surveys, we trace how citizens (n = 117) engaging in deliberation developed their social trust, political trust, and political efficacy during deliberation. Generally, we expected that all of these would be strengthened in deliberation. The results, however, reveal only a few statistically significant effects, some of which ran contrary to expectations.

The drop in crude oil price during late 2014 has had a significant impact on all nations. While some countries have reaped the benefits of low oil prices, others have suffered greatly. As a result, it is no surprise that many academics have attempted to develop reliable models to forecast crude oil price. In the age of information and social media, the role of Twitter and Facebook has become increasingly more relevant in understanding our environment. Many academics have exploited this wealth of data to extract features including sentiment and word frequency to build reliable forecasting models for financial instruments such as stocks. These methodologies, however, remain unexplored for the prediction of crude oil prices. The purpose of this investigation to develop a novel model that uses sentiment of United States foreign policy and oil companies' to forecast the direction of weekly WTI crude oil prices. The investigation is divided into three parts: 1) a methodology of collecting tweets relevant to US foreign policy and oil companies'; 2) a statistical analysis of the novel features using Granger Causality Test; 3) the development and evaluation of three machine learning classifiers including Naive Bayes, ANNs, and SVM to predict the direction of weekly WTI crude oil. The findings of the statistical analysis showed strong correlation between the novel inputs and WTI crude oil price. The results of the statistical tests were then used in the development of the predictive model. SVM was found to provide best forecasting performance. Furthermore, using these novel features, the predictive accuracy exceeded that of existing models mentioned in literature

Micronutrient requirements do not scale linearly with physical activity-related energy expenditure (AEE). Inactive persons may have insufficient micronutrient intake because of low energy intake (EI). We extracted data from NHANES 2003–2006 on 4015 adults (53 ± 18 years (mean ± SD), 29 ± 6 kg/m2, 48% women) with valid physical activity (accelerometry) and food intake (2 × 24 h-dietary recall) measures. Total energy expenditure (TEE) was estimated by summing the basal metabolic rate (BMR, Harris-Benedict), AEE, and 10% of TEE for the thermic effect of food, to calculate the physical activity levels (PAL = TEE/BMR). Energy intake (EI) was scaled to match TEE assuming energy balance. Adjusted food intake was then analyzed for energy and micronutrient content and compared to estimated average requirements. The NHANES population was physically insufficiently active. There were 2440 inactive (PAL < 1.4), 1469 lightly to moderately active (PAL1.4 < 1.7), 94 sufficiently active (PAL1.7 < 2.0), and 12 very active participants (PAL ≥ 2.0). The inactive vs. active had significantly lower intake for all micronutrients apart from vitamin A, B12, C, K, and copper (p < 0.05). The inactive participants had insufficient intake for 6/19 micronutrients, while the active participants had insufficient intake for 5/19 (p < 0.05) micronutrients. Multiple linear regression indicated a lower risk for insufficient micronutrient intake for participants with higher PAL and BMI (p < 0.001). Symmetrical up-scaling of PAL and EI to recommended physical activity levels reduced the frequency of micronutrient insufficiencies. It follows that prevalence of insufficient micronutrient intake from food in NHANES might be partly determined by low energy turnover from insufficient PAL.