Spatial variability of air pollution in the vicinity of a permanent monitoring station in central Paris

The strong spatial and temporal variability of traffic-related air pollution detected at roadside locations in a number of European cities has raised the question of how representative the site and time period of air quality measurements actually can be. To address this question, a 7-month sampling campaign was carried out on a major road axis (Avenue Leclerc) leading to a very busy intersection (Place Basch) in central Paris, covering the surroundings of a permanent air quality monitoring station. This station has recorded the highest CO and NOx concentrations during recent years in the region of Paris. Diffusive BTX samplers as well as a mobile monitoring unit equipped with real-time CO, NOx and O3 analysers and meteorological instruments were used to reveal the small-scale pollution gradients and their temporal trends near the permanent monitoring station. The diffusive measurements provided 7-day averages of benzene, toluene, xylene and other hydrocarbons at different heights above the ground and distances from the kerb covering summer and winter periods. Relevant traffic and meteorological data were also obtained on an hourly basis. Furthermore, three semiempirical dispersion models (STREET-SRI, OSPM and AEOLIUS) were tested for an asymmetric canyon location in Av. Leclerc. The analysis of this comprehensive data set has helped to assess the representativeness of air quality monitoring information.

The development of parallel implementation for a CFD based fire field model utilising conventional office based PCs

Parallel processing techniques have been used in the past to provide high performance computing resources for activities such as fire-field modelling. This has traditionally been achieved using specialized hardware and software, the expense of which would be difficult to justify for many fire engineering practices. In this article we demonstrate how typical office-based PCs attached to a Local Area Network has the potential to offer the benefits of parallel processing with minimal costs associated with the purchase of additional hardware or software. It was found that good speedups could be achieved on homogeneous networks of PCs, for example a problem composed of ~100,000 cells would run 9.3 times faster on a network of 12 800MHz PCs than on a single 800MHz PC. It was also found that a network of eight 3.2GHz Pentium 4 PCs would run 7.04 times faster than a single 3.2GHz Pentium computer. A dynamic load balancing scheme was also devised to allow the effective use of the software on heterogeneous PC networks. This scheme also ensured that the impact between the parallel processing task and other computer users on the network was minimized.

Parallel CFD fire modelling on office PCs with dynamic load balancing

Parallel processing techniques have been used in the past to provide high performance computing resources for activities such as Computational Fluid Dynamics. This is normally achieved using specialized hardware and software, the expense of which would be difficult to justify for many fire engineering practices. In this paper, we demonstrate how typical office-based PCs attached to a local area network have the potential to offer the benefits of parallel processing with minimal costs associated with the purchase of additional hardware or software. A dynamic load balancing scheme was devised to allow the effective use of the software on heterogeneous PC networks. This scheme ensured that the impact between the parallel processing task and other computer users on the network was minimized thus allowing practical parallel processing within a conventional office environment. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Central nervous system drugs: Low temperature X-ray structures of (I) the base 5-(2,3-dichlorophenyl)-2,4-diamino-6-fluoromethyl-pyrimidine (4030W92) and (II) 5-(2,6-dichlorophenyl)-1-H-2,4-diamino-6-methyl-pyrimidine methanesulphonic acid salt (227C89)

The X-ray crystal structures of (I), the base 4030W92, 5-(2,3-dichlorophenyl)-2,4-diamino-6-fluoromethyl-pyrimidine, C11H9Cl2FN4, and (II) 227C89, the methanesulphonic acid salt of 5-(2,6-dichlorophenyl)-1-H-2,4-diamino-6-methyl-pyrimidine, C11H11Cl2N4 center dot CH3O3S, have been carried out at low temperature. A detailed comparison of the two structures is given. Structure (I) is non-centrosymmetric, crystallizing in space group P2(1) with unit cell a = 10.821(3), b = 8.290(3), c = 13.819(4) angstrom, beta = 105.980(6)degrees, V = 1191.8(6) angstrom(3), Z = 4 (two molecules per asymmetric unit) and density (calculated) = 1.600 mg/m(3). Structure (II) crystallizes in the triclinic space group P (1) over bar with unit cell a = 7.686(2), b = 8.233(2), c = 12.234(2) angstrom, alpha = 78.379(4), beta = 87.195(4), gamma = 86.811(4)degrees, V = 756.6(2) angstrom(3), Z = 2, density (calculated) = 1.603 mg/m(3). Final R indices [I > 2sigma(I)] are R1 = 0.0572, wR2 = 0.1003 for (I) and R1 = 0.0558, wR2 = 0.0982 for (II). R indices (all data) are R1 = 0.0983, wR2 = 0.1116 for (I) and R1 = 0.1009, wR2 = 0.1117 for (II). 5- Phenyl-2,4 diaminopyrimidine and 6-phenyl-1,2,4 triazine derivatives, which include lamotrigine (3,5-diamino-6-(2,3-dichlorophenyl)-1,2,4-triazine), have been investigated for some time for their effects on the central nervous system. The three dimensional structures reported here form part of a newly developed data base for the detailed investigation of members of this structural series and their biological activities.

Healthcare: rejection of privatisation and patient fees in Central Europe

Since 2006, there have been successful campaigns against commercialisation of public health services in the four central European countries – Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia.

Local public finance in Central and Eastern Europe: assessing the first decade

[Taken from book jacket] This book explores the system of financing local governments in selected countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Using evidence from the last two decades, the authors, experts on their particular countries, describe the development of the current local government finance system in each nation, and the major challenges and policy options they face. The contributions in this book provide comprehensive coverage of a transitional Europe that encompasses both modern local public finance theory and specific applications in the target countries.

A change in the zooplankton of the central North Sea (55 degree to 58 degree N): A possible consequence of changes in the benthos

The mesozooplankton taken in continuous plankton recorder samples from the Central North Sea has changed from being numerically dominated by holoplanktonic calanoid copepod species from 1958 to the late 1970s to a situation where pluteus larvae of echinoid and ophiuroid echinoderms have been more abundant than any single holoplanktonic species in the 1980s and early 1990s. The abundance of the echinoderm larvae as a proportion of the zooplankton taken in the samples has followed a continuous increasing trend over the Dogger Bank, but off the eastern coast of northern England and southern Scotland the increase did not become obvious until the 1980s. This trend is consistent with reported increases in abundance of the macrobenthos. It is proposed that changes in the benthos have influenced the composition of the plankton.

Chlorophyll enhancement in the central region of the Bay of Biscay as a result of internal tidal wave interaction

A multi-sensor satellite approach based on ocean colour, sunglint and Synthetic Aperture Radar imagery is used to study the impact of interacting internal tidal (IT) waves on near-surface chlorophyll-a distribution, in the central Bay of Biscay. Satellite imagery was initially used to characterize the internal solitary wave (ISW) field in the study area, where the “local generation mechanism” was found to be associated with two distinct regions of enhanced barotropic tidal forcing. IT beams formed at the French shelf-break, and generated from critical bathymetry in the vicinities of one of these regions, were found to be consistent with “locally generated” ISWs. Representative case studies illustrate the existence of two different axes of IT propagation originating from the French shelf-break, which intersect close to 46°N, − 7°E, where strong IT interaction has been previously identified. Evidence of constructive interference between large IT waves is then presented and shown to be consistent with enhanced levels of chlorophyll-a concentration detected by means of ocean colour satellite sensors. Finally, the results obtained from satellite climatological mean chlorophyll-a concentration from late summer (i.e. September, when ITs and ISWs can meet ideal propagation conditions) suggest that elevated IT activity plays a significant role in phytoplankton vertical distribution, and therefore influences the late summer ecology in the central Bay of Biscay.