Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Medicine and Health Sciences
Point of Care Devices Engaging Green Graphene: An Eco-conscious and Sustainable Paradigm
Published: 2024-04-06
Subjects: Engineering, Medicine and Health Sciences
The healthcare landscape has experienced a profound and irreversible transformation, primarily driven by the emergence of nanomaterial assisted point-of-care (POC) devices. Inclusion of nanomaterials in POC devices have revolutionized healthcare by enabling rapid, on-site diagnostics with minimal infrastructure requirements. Among the materials poised to lead this technological revolution, green [...]
Potentially toxic elements (PTEs) associated with asbestos chrysotile, tremolite and actinolite in the Calabria region (Italy)
Published: 2024-01-25
Subjects: Engineering, Medicine and Health Sciences
Potentially toxic elements (PTEs) host in asbestos elongate mineral particles is one of the factors which have been invoked to explain their toxicity/pathogenicity effects. This study quantifies and compares these elements in terms of major, minor and trace element concentrations (Si, Mg, Ca, Al, Fe, Mn, Cr, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, Be, V, As, Rb, Sb, Ba, Pb, Sr) in various types of asbestos using micro [...]
Machine-Learning Approaches for Assessing Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) in Ghana, West Africa
Published: 2024-01-08
Subjects: Education, Medicine and Health Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
In the field of environmental health, assessing air pollution exposure has historically posed challenges, primarily due to sparse ground observation networks. To overcome this limitation, satellite remote sensing of aerosols provides a valuable tool for monitoring air quality and estimating particulate matter concentration (PM) at the surface. In this study, we employ two predictive models to [...]
Crisis at the Salton Sea: The Vital Role of Science
Published: 2021-03-04
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Biogeochemistry, Chemistry, Climate, Earth Sciences, Environmental Chemistry, Environmental Public Health, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Geochemistry, Geology, Geomorphology, Hydrology, Medicine and Health Sciences, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Public Health, Social and Behavioral Sciences
The Salton Sea—a hypersaline, terminal lake in southern California—is in crisis. A combination of mismanagement and competition among federal, state and local agencies has hindered efforts to address declining lake levels and unstable water chemistry. This delay has heightened the public health threat to regional communities as retreating shorelines expose dry lakebed— a source of potentially [...]
Quantification of non-linear multiphase flow in porous media
Published: 2020-08-20
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Engineering, Hydrology, Life Sciences, Medicine and Health Sciences, Mineral Physics, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
We measure the pressure difference during two-phase flow across a sandstone sample for a range of injection rates and fractional flows of water, the wetting phase, during an imbibition experiment. We quantify the onset of a transition from a linear relationship between flow rate and pressure gradient to a non-linear power-law dependence. We show that the transition from linear (Darcy) to [...]
The formation and implications of giant blocks and fluid escape structures in submarine lateral spreads
Published: 2020-07-30
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Medicine and Health Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology
Lateral spread (or ‘spreading’) and submarine creep are processes that occur near the headwalls of both terrestrial landslides and submarine mass-transport complexes (MTCs). Both submarine creep and spread deposits may contain giant (km-scale) coherent blocks, but their transport processes remain poorly constrained. Here we use 2D and 3D seismic reflection data to determine the geometry, scale, [...]
Lockdown caused by COVID-19 pandemic reduces air pollution in cities worldwide
Published: 2020-04-18
Subjects: Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Life Sciences, Medicine and Health Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Drastic measures such as lockdown taken by countries worldwide to contain spread of COVID-19 have influenced air pollution dynamics substantially, at a planetary scale. Several media reported the lockdown induced air pollution reduction based on quickly assembled satellite observations. However, a global-scale analysis of such reduction in air pollution backed by quality data collected from [...]
Editorial: Geoscience in a time of pandemics
Published: 2020-03-21
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geography, Medical Sciences, Medicine and Health Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences
We, the Executive Editors at Geoscience Communication, sincerely hope that this message finds you and your loved ones in good health. We are in the midst of yet another global health crisis, the Coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19). This affects all of us, and we truly hope that you are remaining safe and taking all necessary precautions. We all are facing difficult times ahead, and we hope that we [...]
High Attenuation Recycled Materials as landfill liners (the HARM project) – A new concept for improved landfill liner design
Published: 2020-01-28
Subjects: Bioresource and Agricultural Engineering, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Earth Sciences, Education, Engineering, Engineering Science and Materials, Environmental Public Health, Environmental Sciences, Geochemistry, Geotechnical Engineering, Hydrology, Medicine and Health Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Public Health, Soil Science
A new approach in landfill liner design which combines hydraulic containment of leachate with contaminant attenuation to improve the performance of these environmental control systems at landfills is described. The idea is to re-use readily available industrial waste residues (construction and biomass waste) as additives for natural clay liners, wherein the additives have specific properties [...]
What has Global Sensitivity Analysis ever done for us? A systematic review to support scientific advancement and to inform policy-making in earth system modelling
Published: 2019-04-08
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Computer Sciences, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Life Sciences, Mathematics, Medicine and Health Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Risk Analysis, Statistics and Probability
Computer models are essential tools in the earth system sciences. They underpin our search for understanding of earth system functioning and support decision- and policy-making across spatial and temporal scales. To understand the implications of uncertainty and environmental variability on the identification of such earth system models and their predictions, we can rely on increasingly powerful [...]
Current Development of Tourism and Recreation on Baltic Sea Coasts: New Directions and Perspectives
Published: 2019-02-13
Subjects: Education, Environmental Studies, Geography, Human Geography, Medicine and Health Sciences, Nature and Society Relations, Other Geography, Physical and Environmental Geography, Rehabilitation and Therapy, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Spatial Science
Research work analyses current situation and development of tourism in the region of Baltic Sea. Specific case study of this paper is Pärnu Bay, Estonia. This region is known for unique environmental settings: mild maritime climate, broad beaches, coniferous pine forests on the coastal zone and high aesthetic value of the surrounding landscapes. However, after the end of USSR, Estonia survived a [...]
Simulated environmental photo- and auto-oxidation of ambrein
Published: 2018-11-12
Subjects: Environmental Sciences, Medicine and Health Sciences, Other Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
In alcoholic solutions (tinctures), the tricyclic triterpenoid alcohol, ambrein, which is usually the main ingredient of the natural product ambergris, undergoes photo-oxidation to a number of odorous products. Such tinctures are valuable in perfumery. Similar reactions are thought to occur in the marine environment, when flotsam and jetsam ambergris are exposed to sunlight. However, [...]
Creating a Model to Optimize and Evaluate the Heat-Reducing Capacity of Green Infrastructure
Published: 2018-09-10
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Public Health, Environmental Studies, Medicine and Health Sciences, Public Health, Social and Behavioral Sciences
As global warming increases temperatures worldwide, cities are experiencing even greater temperatures due to the urban heat island effect, which is the trapping of heat in “gray” urban infrastructure. Cities are combatting this with green infrastructure (GI) initiatives, such as the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) GI initiative in New York City. However, these programs are often [...]
Powers of 10: cross-scale optimization of social agencies for rapid climate and sustainability action
Published: 2018-08-27
Subjects: Education, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Geography, International and Area Studies, Library and Information Science, Life Sciences, Medicine and Health Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Sustainability
Achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement and related sustainability initiatives will require halving of greenhouse gas emissions each decade from now on through to 2050, when net zero emissions should be achieved. To reach such significant reductions requires a rapid and strategic scaling of existing and emerging technologies and practices, coupled with economic and social transformation and [...]
Knowledge in the Dark: Scientific Challenges and Ways Forward
Published: 2018-03-26
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Education, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Higher Education, Language and Literacy Education, Liberal Studies, Library and Information Science, Life Sciences, Medicine and Health Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Public Health, Science and Mathematics Education, Social and Behavioral Sciences
We propose the concept of knowledge in the dark – or short: dark knowledge – and outline how it can help clarify why in our current era of Big Data, the knowledge (i.e. evidence-based understanding) of people does not seem to be substantially increasing despite a rapid increase in produced data and information. Key reasons underlying dark knowledge are: (1) the production of biased, erroneous or [...]