Development of burn prescriptions using quantitative expert judgement.

In the northern dry sclerophyll jarrah (Eucalyptus marginata Sm.) forests of South-west of Western Australia abundant germination of soil-stored seed of leguminous species commonly occurs following wildfire. Broad scale regeneration of legumes does not occur following normal low to moderate intensity prescription burning. Regeneration of leguminous species has been achieved on several sites by high intensity prescription burning without significant damage to the boles of crop trees. Leguminous seed is redistributed both vertically and horizontally by ants following seed-fall. The bulk of the seed occurs at depths at which there is no heat pre-treatment during normal prescription burns. Promotion of native legume species by modification of prescription burning techniques could be used to improve the health of the forest.

Epidemiology and outcome of burns: Early experience at the country's first national burns Centre

Long term outcome and follow up of electrical injury

This chapter describes the development of a collaborative digital storytelling research project for exploring the lives of disabled people. Literature on the geographies of emotion and affect informs an analysis of vignettes of three workshop participants whose co-created digital stories demonstrate workshops as performed spaces of care and empathy. Digital storytelling workshops are important collaborative research spaces for conceptualising the lived experience of disability. Attention to digital storytelling workshops as performance spaces illustrates the ways in which emotion and affect shape understandings of disability. In this research, workshop participants’ embodied performances created an emotional and affective atmosphere of care and empathy where alternative understandings of disability were constructed. This collaborative research project upset the traditional gap between researchers, community practitioners and people with disabilities by acknowledging knowledge creation and expertise as collective achievements.

Introduction: the emergence of pandemic of COVID19 raised many concerns in medical approaches. One of these issues was whether medical staffs are able to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) safely regarding the transmission of the infection. So the aim of this study was to evaluate knowledge of the medical experts in Sabzevar University of Medical Sciences about CPR of COVID-19 patients. Methods: In this study, 129 people working in the hospital of Sabzevar University of Medical Sciences, including nurses, physicians, operating room experts and medical emergencies were assessed. The checklist consists of 21 questions that assess the knowledge of the medical experts about CPR of COVID19 patients and the content validity of this checklist was confirmed by 10 specialist physicians. Also information on demographic variables are measured including age, sex, work experience by year, history of participation in CPR workshops for COVID19 patients, number of attendance at the workshop, hospital of work, field of study and degree. The association between these variables and the score of each person in the test has been assessed. Results: The study showed that the Score of answering the questions was directly related to the workshops held on resuscitation of COVID19 patients, age and work experience. And questions that were not answered correctly by most participants were related to ventilation and intubation of COVID19. Vaseei and Emdadi hospitals received higher scores than other hospitals. Conclusion: The role of participating in the workshop is directly related to the level of knowledge of the treatment experts and getting a better score. Mobini and Heshmatiyeh hospitals, which had lower scores than other hospitals and should pay more attention to the issue of training and workshops.

Early detection and diagnosis of potentially fatal physiological conditions such as heart attacks, require continuous monitoring of patient health following transfer from hospital to home. In response to this need, wireless home-based health monitoring systems (WHMS) are being proposed as a low-cost solution. A WHMS (Figure 1) consists of physiological sensors that store, process, and communicate physiological data through a wireless communication network to a local manager (LM) such as a smartphone, which in turn uses cloud services for diagnosis. Such WHMS should satisfy strict safety, security, reliability, and long-term real-time operation requirements, as mandated by regulatory agencies such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and by policies such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Development of a WHMS that satisfies these requirements is a challenging task, and several tools have been proposed for this purpose. However, such tools are often lacking in several aspects of the WHMS life cycle, including design, development, and maintenance. The principal challenge in developing a holistic, wireless, home-based health monitoring tool comes from its potential diverse set of users. A WHMS life-cycle management tool should be usable by the following set of users each having their own needs and knowledge base: a) Physicians have expert knowledge on diagnosis of a patient using WHMS. In this regard, they might need monitoring and display of physiological signals, usage of signal processing algorithms for diagnosis, and storage of medical records. However, we do not expect them to have knowledge of intricate engineering processes in a WHMS, such as architectural details of sensor hardware and programming languages. b) Developers possess the required technical skills to implement WHMS hardware and software. They need to perform platform A Holistic Tool for Developing a Wireless Home-Based Health Monitoring System

There is a consensus that fire should be actively managed in tropical savannas to decrease wildfire risks, firefighting costs, and social conflicts as well as to promote ecosystem conservation. Selection and participatory monitoring of the effects of fire on cultural keystone species may be an efficient way to involve local stakeholders and inform management decisions. In this study, we investigated the effects of different fire regimes on a cultural keystone species in Central Brazil. With the support of diverse multiethnic groups of local fire brigades, we sampled Hancornia speciosa (Apocynaceae) populations across a vast regional range of 18 traditional territories (Indigenous Lands and Quilombola Territories) as well as four restricted Protected Areas. We considered areas under wildfires (WF), prescribed burns (PB) and fire exclusion (FE) and quantified tree mortality, canopy damage, loss of reproductive structures and fruit production following a simplified field protocol. Areas with H. speciosa populations were identified and classified according to their fire history, and in each sampled area, adult plants were evaluated. We hypothesized that WF would have larger negative impact on the population parameters measured, while FE would increase plant survival and fruit production. We found that tree mortality, canopy damage, and loss of reproductive structures were higher in areas affected by wildfires, which also had the lowest fruit production per plant compared to PB and FE areas, corroborating our hypotheses. However, we also found higher mortality in FE areas compared to PB ones, probably due to plant diseases in areas with longer FE. Considering these results and that the attempts to exclude fire from fire-prone ecosystems commonly lead to periodic wildfires, we argue that the Integrated Fire Management program in course in federal Protected Areas in Brazil—based on early dry season prescribed fires—is a good management option for this, and likely other, cultural keystone species in the Brazilian savanna.

Two concepts for downhole production of steam for drive operations have been selected for comparative development. The two designs differ in method of transferring heat from hot combustion gases to produce steam. A low pressure combustion design transfers energy to water through a heat exchanger thus enabling the combustion process to be conducted at a pressure less than the injection pressure; a high pressure combustion design mixes the combustion gases directly with water, resulting in the injection of steam and combustion gases into the reservoir. The comparative development program has included analysis of energy efficiency, computational examination of recovery, core recovery experiments, and field evaluation. Field tests have been conducted under low reservoir injection pressure (2.76 MPa). The tests were carried out in a 260 m (800 ft) deep reservoir utilizing a 2.5 acre five spot pattern. Data collected from injection and production wells included fluid flow rates, fluid compositions, and energy content. The reservoir conditions were monitored by a combination of global flow measurements and simultaneous core flow tests. Test results have demonstrated that the recovery with the high pressure combustion design is equivalent to the low pressure design at low reservoir pressure. The injection of combustion gases with steam have reduced the quantity of air contaminents released to the atmosphere.

Optimal control of a heat pump-based energy system for space heating and hot water provision in buildings: Results from a field test

<div class="section abstract"><div class="htmlview paragraph">It can be said that the greatest engineering challenge of mobility it is not related to the energy shortage, but to its generation and sustainable use. In this context, the growing use of biofuels by high performance internal combustion engines represents a sustainable alternative from the economic, technological, social and environmental point of view. In some regions of the planet, the modern electric and hybrid vehicles may not be the most sustainable choice, since they face many obstacles regarding clean energy generation, reduced recharging station network, limited autonomy, expensive vehicle prices, and battery recycling.</div><div class="htmlview paragraph">In Brazil since its launching in 2003, the fleet of Flex-Fuel vehicles moved by either ethanol or gasoline is ever increasing. It is worth mentioning that the biofuel has physical and chemical properties that could make its use more efficient than it is nowadays. To take advantage of the anti-knocking properties of ethanol and to reduce significantly the fuel consumption it is also necessary to optimize the engine design. A successful way to achieve this goal is the employment of high volumetric compression ratio (CR), optimized for ethanol. However, that may be harmful to the engine when running on gasoline due to the knocking phenomena. To overcome this problem, engine research should focus on finding ways to reduce the temperature at the end of the compression stroke and thus allowing safe operation with gasoline. Among the most promising technologies are the exhaust gas recirculation, water injection and Atkinson/Miller cycles.</div><div class="htmlview paragraph">The objective of the work here described is to increase the efficiency of Flex-Fuel engines running on ethanol, without affecting the engine performance with gasoline. The influence of the volumetric compression ratio on the fuel conversion efficiency was investigated in comparative tests with CRs of 11.5 and 15:1 in a standard engine equipped with PFI injection system using E25 and E100. The VVT inlet system was modified in order to study the possibility of applying the strategy of late intake valve closing (LIVC), known as Atkinson cycle, to reduce the effective compression ratio and allow the safe engine operation with gasoline. The results have shown that the use of ethanol in high compression ratio (HCR) engines is a technological efficient alternative and very attractive from the sustainability point of view. That becomes more evident when the CO<sub>2</sub> emission is taken into account during the complete fuel production life cycle (Well to Wheel), in line with the proposed goals of the RenovaBio policy.</div></div>

Urban stormwater management ponds (SWMPs) are widely employed for stormwater control, but knowledge about their contributions to urban ecosystem function and service delivery remains unclear. We organized a workshop that brought together researchers, managers and students to assess and discuss current information on SWMP ecosystem function and services, identify perceived knowledge gaps and prioritize research needs, to advance understanding and management of SWMPs in Ontario, Canada. Workshop participants identified habitat provisioning and regulation of water quality and quantity as key ecosystem functions in SWMPs. They also recognized carbon sequestration, flood prevention, water purification, educational potential, human health promotion and community engagement as important ecosystem services provided by SWMPs. Despite the availability of engineering information and practitioner knowledge, workshop participants suggested that information on the impacts of maintenance operations, biological condition, water quality, costs and benefits and impact on surrounding landscape are important gaps that hinder a modern approach to design and management of SWMPs for multiple co‐benefits. Participants suggested current gaps can be tackled with a combination of continuous water‐quality monitoring, field, laboratory and mesocosm experiments. They also suggested that future SWMP studies take advantage of existing community and governmental databases using meta‐analyses to summarize knowledge and provide future directions. Practical implication: By linking knowledge gaps to management needs, this practice insight provides a road map that can be used to advance management of SWMPs in Ontario and elsewhere.

Using Participatory Workshops to Integrate State-and-Transition Models Created With Local Knowledge and Ecological Data

Safety in the SIPROD platform design primarily relies on applying various codes of practice or design based on the broad experience and knowledge of professional experts and specialists in the industry. One technique used to study the potential hazards and consequences is the HAZOP study which is defined as the application of formal systematic critical examination to the process and engineering intentions of new or modified SIPROD facilities to assess the hazard potential of individual items of equipment and the consequential effect on the SIPROD facility as a whole. The application is backed up by local SIPROD platform managers, engineers, and operators with direct experience in the relevant plant operation. The HAZOP session describes the SIPROD process and systematically questions each design part by breaking it into pieces or nodes. Each node is assessed using guide words and deviations to discover how these deviations from the original design intent can occur and the resultant hazards and maintenance problems. There may be a deviation in identifying controls that need further investigation. This paper discusses the adequacy of the safeguards concerning safety and operations at the SIPROD platform, evaluates additional safeguards required for the system under study to address and minimize the consequence of deviation, and recommends ways to mitigate the consequences of deviations and return to normal and safe operations.

Issues of production and utilization of knowledge: multiple uses of knowledge

The Internet has made the transfer of knowledge of successful community development programs and processes possible by allowing practitioners to connect through computer-mediated-communications such as Web pages, email, chat rooms and groupware. However, because community development needs are specific to each community, it becomes difficult to design programs to solve the problem, despite the availability of funds, which is one of the problems of enduring poverty and distress. We propose that one of the ways to alleviate the burden of knowledge transfer among practitioners is to build a large repository of community development practices and practitioner knowledge using video or automated slide shows and an intelligent agent question/answering system to simulate a conversation between a practitioner seeking information and a practitioner sharing information. Such a system could provide the information seeking practitioner with the perception of dealing with one or more knowledgeable experts without having to actually interact, expediting the transfer of knowledge when the practitioner actually needs it.