Background Of Natural Environment Research Articles

Self-calibration method for LaBr3 coupled with SiPM detector based on internal radiation of 138La

Gamma detectors consisting of lanthanum bromide (LaBr3) scintillator and silicon photomultiplier (SiPM) have extensive applications in various scientific fields. Accurate gamma energy measurement depends on accurate calibration of these detectors. While some studies have attempted detector self-calibration based on the natural background of LaBr3, these methods are limited to specific LaBr3 crystals and lack generality. To address this limitation, this paper proposes a self-calibration method that solely utilizes the natural radioactivity of 138La. By solving for the maximum similarity between the test background from measurement and the standard spectrum obtained from the Geant4 simulation, the detector is effectively calibrated. Furthermore, the application of a series of energy spectrum processing algorithms simplifies the solution complexity of the maximum similarity problem. Experimental results from four different crystals at varying temperatures demonstrate calibration errors of less than 0.8% at 662 keV, highlighting the method's broad applicability and accuracy. Besides, the influence of the background measurement time and the natural environmental background on the self-calibration method are discussed in detail, further illustrating the value of the application.

Overview of DISCOVER22 experiment in the framework of INFN-LNGS Cosmic Silence activity: challenges and improvements in underground radiobiology

One of the most intriguing and still pending questions in radiobiology is to understand whether and how natural environmental background radiation has shaped Life over millions of years of evolution on Earth. Deep Underground Laboratories (DULs) represent the ideal below-background exposure facilities where to address such a question. Among the few worldwide DULs, INFN-Laboratorio Nazionale del Gran Sasso (LNGS) is one of the largest in terms of size and infrastructure. Designed and built to host neutrino and dark matter experiments, since the 1990 s the LNGS has been one of the first DULs to systematically host radiobiology experiments. Here we present the DISCOVER22 (DNA Damage and Immune System Cooperation in VEry low Radiation environment 2022) experiment recently started at LNGS. DISCOVER22 aims at investigating how the low radiation background modulates the Immune System (IS) response in in vitro and in vivo models. Underground radiobiology experiments are particularly complex and tricky to design and perform. In these studies, the accurate characterization of exposure scenarios is mandatory, but a challenging aspect is to understand how the very few ionizing tracks in the ultra-Low Radiation Environment (LRE) interact with the living matter in space and time in order to trigger different biological responses. In this Perspective, we describe these challenges and how we address them through a microdosimetric and a radiobiological approaches. We aim at linking physical microdosimetric measurements and the corresponding biological radiation responses by using radiation biophysical models that could shed light on many as yet unresolved questions.

Generation of map on natural environmental background absorbed dose rate in India

A systematic mapping of natural absorbed dose rate was carried out to assess the existing exposure situation in India. The mammoth nationwide survey covered the entire terrestrial region of the country comprising of 45127 sampling grids (grid size 36 km2) with more than 100,000 data points. The data was processed using Geographic Information System. This study is based on established national and international approaches to provide linkage with conventional geochemical mapping of soil. Majority (93%) of the absorbed dose rate data was collected using handheld radiation survey meters and remaining were measured using environmental Thermo Luminescent Dosimeters. The mean absorbed dose rate of the entire country including several mineralized regions, was found to be 96 ± 21 nGy/h. The median, Geometric Mean and Geometric Standard Deviation values of absorbed dose rate were 94, 94 and 1.2 nGy/h, respectively. Among the High Background Radiation Areas of the country, absorbed dose rate varied from 700 to 9562 nGy/h in Karunagappally area of Kollam district, Kerala. The absorbed dose rate in the present nationwide study is comparable with the global database.

Period-oriented spatial comparative evaluation of biodiversity conservation effectiveness in China

The period-oriented comparative evaluation of biodiversity conservation effectiveness is the main basis for implementing the transfer payment policy of ecological compensation. In response to the lack of such a spatial comparative assessment system, the paper proposes a method to construct the period conservation effectiveness index (PCEI) and applies it to the spatial comparative assessment of Chinese biodiversity conservation effectiveness in three periods from 1990 to 2015, while validating the rationality of the reference. The results show that (1) spatially, the biodiversity conservation effectiveness of key ecological function areas (KEFAs) in Central China and South China is better, while Southwest and Northwest are in the middle, and East China and Northeast are worse; (2) temporally, the biodiversity conservation effectiveness of KEFAs as a whole is worse from 1990 to 2000, best from 2000 to 2010, and middle from 2010 to 2015; (3) The existing reference establishment methods can reflect the spatial differences of natural environment background, which effectively support the spatial comparison assessment of biodiversity conservation effectiveness. This study constructs a spatial comparison assessment system of biodiversity conservation effectiveness within periods, which can provide a scientific basis for national and even global large-scale ecological compensation and other fund allocation methods.

West Coastal Toponyms of Sumatra Island: A Corpus Linguistics Study

Several pieces of research on the toponym of place names in Indonesia have been carried out but focus on place names on the island of Java. The limited documentation of place names makes the study of toponymy in Sumatra a must. This article aims to map the thematization of place naming on the West Coast of Sumatra Island. The research was conducted in a qualitative descriptive manner with a corpus linguistic approach. Data was collected by means of documentation, interviews, and focus group discussions. Data were analyzed by following work procedures by Miles and Huberman (2013), involving data condensation, data display, verification drawing, and Sudaryat's toponymy categorization (2009). The results showed that the toponym of place names on the West Coast of Sumatra Island reflects the relationship between humans and their natural environment. This relationship is manifested through the thematization of place names, namely: embodiment, social, and culture. The embodiment aspect includes the sub-themes of water background, topographical background, and natural environment background. The social aspects include the sub-themes of residential background, economic activity background, and building background. The cultural aspects include sub-themes of myths, folklore, and legends passed down through oral traditions.

Comprehensive Evaluation of Eco-environmental Vulnerability in Rocky Desertification Region

Combined with GIS and remote sensing technology, according to the eco-environment characteristics of karst rocky desertification region, a complete ecological vulnerability evaluation index system was established. The ecological vulnerability of the research area was evaluated and analysed from three aspects, including natural environment background, population characteristics, human-land relationship, and the index weight was determined by entropy method and coefficient of variation method, and the comprehensive evaluation results were obtained by comprehensive index method. The results showed that more than 80% of the regions in the study area had reached the moderate vulnerability level, and nearly 1/6 of the regions were severely vulnerable areas, showing a significant increase in distribution from east to west. Ecological vulnerability shows a significant effect of human-land relationship. With the increase of vulnerability level, the proportion of desertification area increases significantly.

Winery regions as the oldest cultural landscapes: remnants, signs, and metamorphoses

Abstract Considering the general typology of landscapes, winery landscapes are a subtype of agricultural landscapes. A winery landscape is an area in which the dominant land use or indigenous vegetation consists of extensive grapevine crops, that is, vineyards and/or areas covered by wild grapevines; where a specific wine culture has evolved, or grapes constitute an important part of the local diet. In this paper, winery landscapes are studied at two levels: typological (as a repeatable, specific type of area with precisely defined characteristic features), and regional (regional areas that are unique and individual). The authors analyze the evolution of winery landscapes over time and describe their natural and historical aspects. A wide range of factors were taken into consideration: historical and political, socio-economic, cultural and religious influences, as well as the natural environmental background. This paper aims to describe the evolution of winery landscapes in Europe and beyond by considering the Mediterranean Basin, Asia Minor, Transcaucasia, and Central Asia.

The distribution of heavy metals and 137Cs in the central part of the Polish maritime zone (Baltic Sea) – the area selected for wind farm acquisition

Disturbances of the marine sediments that may be induced by offshore wind energy (OWE) construction and functioning may cause reintroduction of contaminants accumulated in the sea bottom over last century. It is thus very important to check in which offshore region of the Polish coast the littlest consequences of the OWE construction may be expected. The area of 9000 km2 in the central part of the Polish economic zone was selected for sediments sampling. In total, sediments from 46 stations were collected by gravity twin corer or geo-vibro corer. Heavy metal (Hg, Pb, Cd, As, Zn, Cu, Cr, Ni, Fe, Mn) concentrations were measured by AAS and ICP-MS while 137 Cs activity concentrations were measured by gamma spectrometer. Sediment accumulation rates were quantified by 210Pb geochronology at 7 stations to follow the history of contaminants accumulation. Study areas located between isobaths of 20 m and 40 m were characterized by the lowest concentration of heavy metals, often below natural environmental background (e.g. Pb = 6.7 − 11.4 μg·g−1, As = 0.3 − 8.4 μg·g−1). The largest contamination by heavy metals (e.g. Pb reached 86.1 μg·g−1 while As = 21.0 μg·g−1) was visible at the outer part of Bornholm Basin and in Słupsk Furrow, the deepest studied regions. Highest accumulation of heavy metals in this area is connected to large fraction of pelite sediments and large proportion of organic matter at those stations. It may be concluded that shallow sandy sediments of the Southern Baltic are unpolluted and appropriate for OWE construction. Deeper sea regions e.g Słupsk Furrow and Bornholm Basin may be regarded as moderately polluted and therefore not recommended for OWE acquisition.

A novel natural environment background model for Monte Carlo simulation and its application in the simulation of anticoincidence measurement

This study proposes a novel natural environment background model by modeling brief environment conditions. It uses Geant4 program to simulate decays of 238U, 232Th, and 40K in soil and obtains compositions of different-energy gamma rays in the natural environment background. The simulated gamma spectrum of the natural environment background agrees well with the experimental spectrum, particularly above 250keV. The model is used in the simulation of anticoincidence measurement, indicating that the natural environment background can be decreased by approximately 88%, and the Compton attenuation factor is 2.22. The simulation of anticoincidence measurement can improve the minimum detectable activity (MDA) of the detection system.

CHARAKTERYSTYKA REGIONALNA PIENIN NA POTRZEBY TERENOWEJ EDUKACJI PRZYRODNICZEJ

The paper comprises geographic characteristics of Pieniny region which is introductory material for field classes at university level. First, localization of the region was depicted and its division into microregions. Next, particular components of natural environment i.e. geological structure, land relief, climatic conditions, water relations, soils, vegetation and fauna were characterized. In the next part, human activity was discussed, against the background of natural environment, which results in development of cultural landscapes. The presented description of Pieniny, in the paper, may be exemplary and auxiliary material for the construction of characteristics of other regions.

A New Approach of Feature Combination for Object Detection in Saliency-based Visual Attention

This paper presents a fuzzy approach of feature maps combination in saliency-based visual attention model proposed by Itti. This strategy applies fuzzy rules to combine three conspicuity maps instead of linear combination in the basic model of visual attention that does not seem reasonable biologically. In this method, in addition to bottom-up features, top-down cues are also considered in the model. As fuzzy rules are designed using target mask information, top-down characteristics of the target are considered helping the model to make the target more conspicuous in the final saliency map. This can be applied in further processing such as object detection and recognition application. The experimental results show the effectiveness of our new fuzzy approach in finding the target in the first hit. A database of emergency triangle in natural environment background is used in this paper to show the results. Moreover, the comparison of this fuzzy combination approach with some other combination methods also proved the priority of the approach over other combination strategies.

Study on the Vegetation Recovering Effect of Oily Soil after Bioremediation

The vegetation recovering effect of oily soil after bioremediation was studied and contrasted with the background of natural environment in this paper. The results indicated that the vegetation productivity of oily soil after microbial remediation can be restored to its original level, but is not enough to rely on natural recovery of vegetation. The unit productivity of oily soil only through microbial remediation was obviously lower than natural background, and the biocommunity and its vertical structure were relatively simple. But the unit productivity of oily soil after phytoremediation was nearly similar to the uncontaminated soil.

Study on the Vegetation Recovering Effect of Oily Soil after Bioremediation

The vegetation recovering effect of oily soil after bioremediation was studied and contrasted with the background of natural environment in this paper. The results indicated that the vegetation productivity of oily soil after microbial remediation can be restored to its original level, but is not enough to rely on natural recovery of vegetation. The unit productivity of oily soil only through microbial remediation was obviously lower than natural background, and the biocommunity and its vertical structure were relatively simple. But the unit productivity of oily soil after phytoremediation was nearly similar to the uncontaminated soil.

Effects assessment: Boron compounds in the aquatic environment

In previous studies, boron compounds were considered to be of comparatively low toxicity in the aquatic environment, with predicted no effect concentration (PNEC) values ranging around 1 mg B/L (expressed as boron equivalent). In the present study, we describe an evaluation of toxicity data for boron available for the aquatic environment by different methods. For substances with rich datasets, it is often possible to perform a species sensitivity distribution (SSD). The typical outcome of an SSD is the Hazardous Concentration 5% (HC 5), the concentration at which 95% of all species are protected with a probability of 95%. The data set currently available on the toxic effects of boron compounds to aquatic organisms is comprehensive, but a careful evaluation of these data revealed that chronic data for aquatic insects and plants are missing. In the present study both the standard assessment factor approach as well as the SSD approach were applied. The standard approach led to a PNEC of 0.18 mg B/L (equivalent to 1.03 mg boric acid/L), while the SSD approach resulted in a PNEC of 0.34 mg B/L (equivalent to 1.94 mg boric acid/L). These evaluations indicate that boron compounds could be hazardous to aquatic organisms at concentrations close to the natural environmental background in some European regions. This suggests a possible high sensitivity of some ecosystems for anthropogenic input of boron compounds. Another concern is that the anthropogenic input of boron could lead to toxic effects in organisms adapted to low boron concentration.

文化遺産の明確化とその管理状況 : 沖縄県・竹富島における文化遺産マネジメントとツーリズムに関する研究 その1

The purpose of this paper is to identification the cultural heritage and analysis of its maintenance in Taketomi Island of Okinawa Prefecture. As a result, we found that the cultural heritage which constituted by tangible and intangible heritages are produced against the background of natural environment, history, and a wisdom of sustainable settlement and are the whole of Taketomi Island. After modernization, the traditional environment is changing and the cultural heritage management causes a problem. We made a list of the cultural heritage in order to identify the one. Base upon the verification, we drew the today's problems.

Sonar array characterization, experimental results

Measurements in the Levantine Sea with a seismic-type array [i.e., the high-frequency array (27 wavelengths at 348 Hz), the mid-frequency array (27 wavelengths at 175 Hz), and the low-frequency array (21 wavelengths at 58 Hz)] were found to have on average results within 1 dB of the theoretical signal gain. Observed signal gain degradations for peak-tracked and short integration times (1 min) had standard deviations from 2 to 3 dB and were caused by the combination of coherent multipaths, array shape, and array motion. The relative motion of source and receiver (5-8 kn) was an important cause of the average degradation at longer integration times (5 min). Equivalent plane wave beam noise levels were measured as a function of frequency, time, bearing, and aperture length. The beam noise level results show contributions from distant surface-ship-generated noise and natural environmental background noise. These results showed resolved distant shipping with median beam noise levels consistent with array noise gain 1-2 dB greater than the theoretical value for incoherent isotropic noise. The beam noise cumulative probability distribution function versus equivalent plane wave levels differed significantly from log-normality. Beam noise surfaces (beam noise levels versus time and bearing) show a higher density of ships for the high-frequency array when compared to the low-frequency array. Beam-to-beam cross correlations were found be sharply peaked and beam autocorrelation functions versus time showed zero crossing times on the order of 9-10 min. Significant space-time noise fade durations were observed at lower frequencies.