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This paper presents an exploratory study that analysis the factors that influence the intention to use smart meters that measure electricity consumption. The authors used the technology acceptance model as a starting point for their research, taking into consideration other eight external variables: social influence, familiarity with smart meter technology, task-technology fit, compatibility, the level of trust in companies that supply electricity, price awareness, energy conservation intentions, and perception of...

The studied structure is situated in the Carpathian Foredeep and past geological and geophysical prospecting have proven the existence of a large anticline formation with reservoir proprieties in the SW area of the structure. The prospecting and development stages for this particular reservoir started decades ago, however, recently there have been an intensification of seismic prospecting in order to asses the possibility for an increased production. A large gravimetric study was done at a regional scale that esta...

One of the discussion issues of karstological studies is the identification of karst denudation intensity; it means the quantitative evaluation of the intensity of this process, which, in turn, allows to predict the karst development. The problem of karst denudation is developed insufficiently today, which can be explained by the complexity of the issue and at the same time, the methods used to assess the intensity of denudation are not yet refined. The intensity of denudation and its general regularities in the Z...

Glaciers are sensitive to climate change. How the fluctuation of the temperature affectsthe behaviour of the glacier and particularly its flow and seismic activity is underinvestigation. In this paper, we present a study of activity of glacier Perunika,Livingston Island, Antarctica using data from seismic station LIVV, GNSS data frompoint measurements on the surface of the glacier and meteorological data. GlacierPerunika is the closest one to the Bulgarian Antarctic Base. Seismic station LIVV, issituated near the ...

The last several decades, the climate change, as one of the most serious environmental issues, has become a widely spread topic not only to individuals, but the whole international community. Weather extremities, such as tropical days, summer heat waves, switching of periods of extreme precipitation with periods of drought causing the decrease of water reserve capacities cannot simply be overlooked. Due to alarming climate situation, especially in urban zones, the adaptive measures are much needed, even necessary....

The present paper is focused on depollution techniques representative for mining and non-ferrous metallurgy, which will assure a radically changed technological concept for a clean, safe and eco-efficient production, leading to sustainable development industry. At the same time, our works propose the implementation in the mining and metallurgical sector of unconventional processes through innovative techniques that lead to processes intensification, reduction of energy consumption, decrease of carbon footprint, by...

The article analyzes the issue of agricultural development of German-speaking colonists who lived in the steppe zone of Ukraine. The article analyzes the general features and main directions of development of this process and the reasons that caused it. The main attention is paid to the process of transformation of colonial agriculture. Until the 1860s, the most important and profitable branch of agriculture of the colonists was cattle breeding. However, due to rising grain prices, the importance of agriculture in...

In this paper we present a case study regarding a desert dust intrusion over Central and Eastern Europe in 5th of April 2021, observed using a multi-wavelength Raman and depolarization LIDAR system operated in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. This type of system meets the requirements of the European Aerosol Research Lidar Network – EARLINET and is suitable to provide reliable data on optical parameters for aerosol characterization. While mineral aerosols are the second largest source of aerosol and are the subject of long r...

In the present work the researches were carried out between 2017-2020, in the Tata Valley watershed, which has an area of 16.15 sq. km and administratively belongs to Dambovita county, Romania and is located between latitudes of 45o9’ N-45o15’ N and longitudes 21o21’ E-25o27’ E. The methodology used for processing the basic data from 2017-2020, was the adaptation of the USLE equation (Universal Soil Loss Equation) to the specific environmental and anthropic conditions in Romania and called ROMSEM - Romanian Soil E...

In addition to the traffic load, the temperature also has a significant effect on the course of stresses in cement concrete slabs. It is the load of temperature changes that is often underestimated. Recently, there have been significant changes in climatic conditions and increasingly frequent extremes (especially high temperatures in the summer months and extreme fluctuations during the day), which affect the behavior of road structures and the basic characteristics affecting the stress of cement concrete pavement...

Waste treatment is considered one of the critical environmental issues. Waste should be understood not only as a source of pollution but as a raw material. Nevertheless, we need well-sorted waste for recovery. Separate collection of municipal waste is an activity in which components of municipal waste are separated. It is based on the conscious activity of citizens, who primarily sort the relevant raw materials. At present, the citizen is obliged to sort waste by law in Slovakia, and the municipality is obliged to...

Combined sewer are among the most important objects of a unified sewerage network and therefore high requirements are placed on these objects, whether from hydraulic, hydrological, hygienic or constructional requirements. Their main function, ie hydraulic, is to divide the inflow at the time of torrential rains into a flow continuing to the WWTP and a flow that is relieved from the OK to the recipient. Another important function of relief chambers is related to pollution. Some chamber designs can successfully capt...

Quarry sites are famous for the different types of materials produced. Many aggregate elements, extracted by different methods in quarry activities, such as blasting operations, are widely used for different applications, such as construction, road paving and monuments. Generally, the process to obtain these materials is very complex. A stationary production facility does not require machinery to be moved or relocated, whereas the quarry process involves machinery such as wheel loaders, trucks and articulated dump...

This paper presents a study on the stability of nineteen excavation slopes in metamorphic and carbonate rock masses along roads and urban areas in Central Portugal. The slopes studied are formed by phyllites intercalated by metagreywackes belonging to the Xisto-Grauvaquico Complex; quartzites and limestones of the Bussaco Ordovician-Silurian synclinal; schists of the Crystallophyllic Complex; and limestones and dolomites of Jurassic age. Road safety and urban areas are threatened by stability problems. In the asse...

Powdered waste sludge from the production of technical stone (TSW), produced by theTechniStone® Company (Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic), was surface modified withFe2+ and Mn2+ inorganic salts and then testified as a potential adsorbent ofenvironmentally important oxyanions (phosphate PO43-, arsenate AsO43- and chromateCrO42-) from contaminated waters. The surface modification in principle consisted increating a thin layer of hydrated Fe/Mn ions in reactive form on the TSW surface.Thanks to the change of the surfa...

The article is devoted to the study of the features of the formation of dust storms as a complex agrometeorological phenomenon that develops with a combination of a number of natural factors, which include heliogeophysical, synoptic-meteorological, physical-geographical, as well as anthropogenic factors. The latter are caused by mistakes in the development of agricultural land and general problems in the development of the agro-industrial sector of the territory's economy. As shown by the analysis of hydrometeorol...

The construction sector is one of the major consumers of non-renewable energy and natural resources, but also an important factor in increasing global warming and climate change by producing greenhouse gases. In Europe, around 30% of CO2 emissions and 36% of total greenhouse gases are a direct or indirect consequence of the construction sector. At EU level it is estimated that 40% of energy consumption is due to public / private sector buildings. All EU policies regarding climate, energy efficiency and the use of ...

The interaction between groundwater and surface water is a complex process that plays an important role in the functioning of the ecosystems, the understanding of this interaction being significant for the management and protection of water resources. Moreover, this interaction can affect the water quality due to the contaminants transfer between river and aquifer. The water movement within this particular environment can be influenced by geology, topography, land use, climate, etc., being an essential component o...

Improving and protecting water quality, for human needs, and for the sustainability of aquatic ecosystems, has become a global priority for this century, involving continuous monitoring of inland water resources, combining in situ measurements with satellite remote sensing, especially from the surface of the water. This could be possible through the Sentinel missions, respectively S2 and S3 of the European Space Agency, equipped with a multispectral instrument on board, which makes it possible to study inland wate...

The present study focuses on the assessment of station corrections for eleven seismic stations from the national network of National Operative Telemetric System for Seismological Information (NOTSSI). Station corrections are obtained by calculating the ratio of the spectrum of the horizontal components of the signal to the spectrum of the vertical component (H / V). Records of S-waves from 20 local and regional earthquakes are analyzed. The values of A0 - site-effect and f0 - resonant frequency were obtained. Acco...

The study of seismicity in the Black Sea region is of particular interest for assessing the vulnerability of the surrounding coastal zones to strong earthquakes and their consequences. The seismicity pattern in the area is determined by the geodynamic processes along the boundaries of the Eurasian, Anatolian and Arabian tectonic plates. The paper presents an approach to assessing the seismic activity of the Black Sea and the surrounding region covering historical and recent seismicity. The historical events since ...

The article is about three hydrological river routing models (RRM) implemented in Bulgaria, coupled to a land surface model (LSM), mainly for flood forecasting purpose. For the evaluation of the three RRMs the authors use a river basin of Mediterranean climate - the Varbitsa River with catchment area of 1200 km2. The river is prone to dangerous flash floods because of their fast propagation. LSM SURFEX (Surface Externalisee) but formally the integrated part ISBA (Interface Soil Biosphere Atmosphere) is used to com...

Nowadays, along with creating materials with enhanced mechanical characteristics, it became important in the light of ecological problems, to design eco-friendly materials capable to disappear with time after fulfilling functions, in other words to develop biodegradable mechanically strong materials. The chemistry and technology of biodegradable polymers is one of the most important and rapidly developing fields of modern polymer science. A lot of biodegradibel polymers (BPs) were created mostly for medical applic...

Glina Station is a project for the treatment of wastewater from the sewerage of Bucharest. The sewerage of the entire city has always flowed into the Dambovita River. Currently, only partially Stage I is carried out, through which the mechanical treatment of about 60% of the city's wastewater is carried out. The paper presents a solution for biological pretreatment of wastewater to validate the use of ultraviolet waves for biological disinfection but also for the treatment of specific non-synthetic pollutants from...

Our planet experienced many intervals of climate deterioration due to terrestrial causes, such as intensified volcanism and a very active tectonic regime or extraterrestrial causes. The later includes major meteorite impacts and change in the exosphere, mostly linked to the modification of sunlight amount leading to glaciations. The most sensitive organisms to climate changes are the marine planktonic ones, especially the coccoliths and dinoflagellates. This paper describes modification in the marine planktonic wo...

This article offers an innovative method for deriving curricula for tomorrow’s workforce in the geospatial sector, considering the market requirements through modelling business processes, identifying and analyzing occupational profiles. The idea behind this approach reveals business processes models described by workflows of tasks that workforce needs to master in their daily work. In addition, business processes show who is involved in projects and needs to communicate with one another, and how the information i...

Urban areas are very dynamic environments, subject to continuous expansion and growing population, with land use changes influenced by the needs and dynamics of the population. Using remote sensing techniques applied to Sentinel-1 GRD images, some change detection patterns could be revealed for Bucharest city, for a period of three years (2016-2019). As the largest city in Romania, the main university center and the most important industrial and commercial center, Bucharest offers a wide range of educational, inve...

Whisky is one of the most consumed alcoholic beverages in the world obtained from cereals. By-product and waste management are considered significant economic and environmental issues in whisky production. The aim of this study was to assess the components of spent grain (draff) resulting from the only factory in the whisky industry in Romania. Spent grain consists of layers of peel, pericarp, and seeds with residual amounts of endosperm and aleurone from malt used as raw material. Spent grain was stored at -18 °C...

Malt is the essential raw material for beer production. Currently, in Europe the most used cereal for beer is barley due to its many advantages in the manufacture of malt. Recently, research has intensified to replace this raw material for beer with other cereals or pseudo-cereals. These include buckwheat which does not contain toxic prolamins to celiac disease patients. Buckwheat is an annual plant of Polygonaceae family and is produced in many countries for its characteristics such as high economic value, easily...

Eleven stations of the Bulgarian seismological network - National Operating Telemetry System for Seismological Information have been used for an assessment of the stations' corrections (site effect), to account for the impact on the seismic waves of the low-density layer immediately below the seismic stations, amplifying the signal. Nakamura's method for calculating the ratio of the spectrum of the horizontal component to the spectrum of the vertical component (H-to-V) is applied. Data from 20 local and regional e...

Frequency of storms and wind speeds in gusts had been increasing in Northern Europe in last decades, causing more damages to forest stands. Establishment of mixed stands had been suggested as one of the methods to reduce wind damages in future, however, empirical information on actual efficiency of this approach is still limited, especially in relation to summer storms. Therefore aim of our study was to assess summer storm damages in mixed birch spruce stands. Area influenced by the storm of June 2021 in Northern ...

The use of electrical equipment in potentially explosive atmospheres requires special attention, namely from the point of view of their construction and maintenance. Together with the technological developments, these objectives can easily be met, objectives which are defined by European standards concerning the construction, use and maintenance of explosive proof equipment. Evaluation of explosion-proof protected electrical equipment in scope of certification is extremely important considering the risk of explosi...

GNSS technology evolves at a fast pace and, along with it, the number of applications that are based on this technology increases. An important part of the applicability of GNSS technology is in the field of geodesy. In this article we propose to present a GNSS system that is built starting from the U-blox ZED-F9P receiver, integrated on a development board produced by SparkFun that is connected to the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B single-board computer. The Raspberry Pi computer and the development board made by SparkFu...

The article is devoted to the discussion of the possibilities of determining turbulent zones for predicting the dispersion of anthropogenic impurities in the lower air layer of the atmosphere. As you know, the atmosphere, being a dissipative system dissipating energy, is almost constantly in a state of instability. This unstable state of the atmosphere is based on deterministic chaos, which is a very important feature of the atmosphere as a dynamic, changeable environment. During the transition from the state of s...

The data obtained from the monitoring of the dam’s behavior, allow to make the decisions to start the current maintenance works at the best moments of time. They also make it possible to know from early stages possible atypical behavioral phenomena and to take measures accordingly before such phenomena become dangerous for the safety of the construction. One of the ways to monitor constructions is to perform geodetic measurements at different stages and to compare the coordinates obtained in a coordinate reference...

This work is a logical conclusion and generalization of results of two-year researchoriented to design the integrated technology of processing of diopside-containing ores towin the scandium compounds and get the wide spectrum of large-capacity products. Thetraditional technology of sulfuric uncovering of mineral raw materials is applied withinthe scope of this work. The technology of scandium compounds extraction with the useof impregnators, which are based on the macroporous carbons soaked with diethylhexylphosph...

Modern professional geographic information systems (GIS) include a wide range of well-tuned powerful algorithms for processing and analyzing spatial data, but their use is hampered by the specifics of the information environment in which the GIS data operate. At the same time, web technologies can provide an information environment that will allow users to access GIS software from anywhere in the world. The integration of GIS and web technologies provides greater opportunities for collecting, accumulating and proc...

In absence of core samples and open-hole well-log data, the broken bits of rock removed from the borehole during the drilling process represent in many cases the only lithological data that is recovered from a well. The main objective of this study was to build up a lithological profile and to use the data in order to improve the knowledge about the local geology (Quaternary deposits). Lithological information at shallow depth is generally used to better understand the local site effects, known to play an importan...

Peptide-drug conjugates are therapeutic agents that combine one or more drug molecules with a peptide through a biodegradable linker. Even if the peptides used in synthesis of such conjugates have a smaller pharmacological action than the small molecule of organic drug, they easily penetrate the membranes and then bind to receptors. Peptide-drug conjugates are used in various fields, such as: (i) anticancer therapy; (ii) antimicrobial application; (iii) anti-inflammatory application. In the last decades, researche...

Soil and groundwater resources are natural resources of high ecological value, their protection against chemical degradation and pollution being of major interest and requesting a new methodology based on risk instruments. The need to implement methods for qualitative and quantitative assessment of ecotoxicological risk resides in objective assessment of effects pollutants have on ecosystems, to limit the transfer of xenobiotics to lower and upper levels of the food chain. In this sense, the team of the Environmen...

Graphene nanoplatelets (GNPs), a cheap carbon-based material with large surface-to-volume ratio, are currently broadly investigated as a promising reinforcement for composite materials in building industry to enhance particularly their mechanical, thermal, and electrical properties. However, the uniform dispersion of GNPs in composite material is a crucial factor to fully manifest their superior properties. This study is aimed at the design of environmentally friendly composite material based on magnesium oxychlor...

Bread is a staple food all over the world and is the main source of sodium in the human diet which may increase the risks of diseases associated with a sodium-rich diet. Potassium chloride (KCl) is known as the most used ingredient for the food industry as sodium chloride replacer, with an intrinsic salty taste at low levels addition. The use of potassium chloride in the bread making process as a sodium chloride replacer may lead to bakery products of a very good quality from the technological point of view. The a...

Acrylamide (AA) is a chemical contaminant that is formed in bakery products during baking in especially for those obtained from flour with a high extraction rate. There are several ways to reduce the level of AA in bakery products, one of them being the use of antioxidants in bread making. The present study aims to analyze the effects antioxidant addition, respectively a rosemary extract one, in various levels (0.02%, 0.1% and 0.5% on wheat flour of a high extraction rate of 1250 type) to obtain bread products, in...

In this work, experiments have been carried out to study the impact of various stress factors present in the culture medium on the growth and bio-compound production for the microalgae species Porphyridium purpureum. Samples of microalgae have been grown under various stress conditions in a thermostated incubator under mixing and artificial light. Biomass production was determined by removing the cells through centrifugation followed by lyophilization. For exopolysaccharides isolation, the precipitation method wit...

The work is aimed at creating methodological provisions to substantiate the safe parameters of the thermal regime in permafrost rocks when constructing underground mine excavations in the Arctic region. An idea is to control the thermal regime by creating mathematical models, taking into account the main technological operations during excavations driving. The paper presents the results of experimental studies and evaluates the thermal impact of various technological processes during the construction of mine excav...

Main drivers of the industrial growth in the modern society include energy efficiency, compliance with national legislation and international agreements, social and environmental responsibility. Integration of these factors should be applied to the long-term development plans as the framework of sustainable development, environmental and resource efficiency. Currently, more and more countries are moving towards Best Available Techniques (BAT). Russia developed 51 Reference Document on BAT (BREF) for main industria...

The vast territory of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), located in permafrost conditions and scattered by impassable roads, creates a serious problem in the energy supply of the population. In this regard, throughout the territory of the republic there are small open-pit mines with a production capacity of 40 to 200 thousand tons of coal per year to meet the needs of local consumers. The advantages of small open-pit mines are the low cost of coal mining, reduction of transport and transshipment costs, provision of ...

The presented work highlights the general geochemical aspects and considers the theoretical basis of the method of geochemical monitoring of oil fields using the indicator of the quantitative ratio of organic compounds and their isomers - isobutane/butane. The object of the study are the microorganisms that can affect gas composition. The purpose of the work is to study the effect of microorganisms on the biodegradation of oil. The peculiarity of the oil composition will be used to search, delineate bypassed oil a...

The dust cloud is the main form of existence of combustible dust in the production area and together with the existence of effective ignition sources are the main causes of dust explosions in production processes. Dust explosions are mainly characterized by the minimum ignition temperature, explosion limits, the minimum ignition energy, maximum explosion pressure and the rate of pressure rise. The explosive behavior which is represented by a mixture of air and flammable substance is influenced by many factors of w...

Taking into account the Regulation (EU) No 98/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 January 2013 on the marketing and use of explosives precursors, which establishes harmonized rules concerning the making available, introduction, possession and use of substances or mixtures that could be misused for the illicit manufacture of explosives, with a view to limiting their availability to the general public, and ensuring the appropriate reporting of suspicious transactions throughout the supply chain,...