NCC: Bostäder, Lokaler, Byggnader och Infrastruktur

Objective Quit & Win contests are a community-based tobacco cessation strategy that has demonstrated success in supporting tobacco cessation efforts in the general population. However, such contests have not been implemented and evaluated among people living with mental illnesses (MIs). This pilot study aimed to evaluate the feasibility of implementing Quit & Win contests in terms of program delivery, engagement, and cessation outcomes among people with MIs. Methods A single-group posttest design to evaluate the feasibility of Quit & Win contests conducted at three community mental health programs. Results Flyers introducing the contest were posted at study sites 2 weeks prior to recruitment. Recruitment occurred on 2 days over a 2-week period. Eligible participants received a pamphlet with information about tobacco treatment resources. At the follow-up, postsurveys and expired CO levels were obtained. Participants ( N = 28) were mostly male, Non-Hispanic White, with a high school or higher education, unemployed, and 46.4% had a primary substance use disorder diagnosis. Among those who engaged in the program, seven (25.0%) returned for the follow-up, of which three (42.9%) successfully stopped cigarette use. Four (57.1%) described using nicotine replacement therapy in their attempt to stop using cigarettes. Challenges to cessation included difficulty finding available tobacco treatment programs, limited access to treatment medications, and experiencing nicotine withdrawal symptoms. Conclusions Our findings suggest the feasibility of Quit & Win interventions in community mental health settings. Further efforts are required to enhance recruitment, engagement, and retention, and to support access to community-based tobacco treatment resources.

To improve the understanding of failure mechanisms and behaviour of hard rock tunnel linings, local load conditions were experimentally simulated and monitored using a comprehensive set of sensors and imaging techniques. The data includes measurements from distributed optical fiber sensors (DOFS), high-resolution cameras, load cells, pressure cells and LVDTs. Two types of loads were examined: rock block load and bond loss combined with a distributed load over the area of lost bond. The experiments replicated these conditions and were conducted in a laboratory setting where the shotcrete and substrate rock were substituted by cast fiber reinforced concrete (FRC) and cast concrete, respectively. To facilitate the loads, concrete cones were cast into the substrate concrete and pushed through the FRC top layer with a hydraulic jack to mimic rock block loads. To simulate the bond loss and the associated distributed load, lifting bags were installed and inflated between the FRC layer and substrate cast concrete. All specimens were monitored using DOFS embedded in two perpendicular directions and in two layers in the top FRC layer. In addition, the hydraulic jack was instrumented with LVDTs and load cells to measure displacement and load, and the pressure in the lifting bags was monitored using a pressure cell. Two cameras continuously photographed the top surface of the FRC layer, which had been painted with a speckle pattern, during the testing and the pictures can be used for digital image correlation (DIC). Lastly, each specimen was scanned with a 3D scanner prior to and after testing of the specimen.

A hot and dense matter exhibiting collective flow behavior with almost no viscous dissipation has been discovered in ultrarelativistic nuclear collisions. To constrain the fundamental degrees of freedom and equation of state of this matter, these proceedings present an extraction of its speed of sound using head-on lead-lead collision data collected by the CMS experiment at a center-of-mass energy per nucleon pair of 5.02 TeV. The measurement is based on an analysis of the observed charged multiplicity dependence of the average particle transverse momentum in ultra-central events (impact parameter of nearly zero). This variable probes the system temperature as a function of entropy density at a fixed volume. Results are compared with hydrodynamic simulations and lattice quantum chromodynamics (QCD) predictions of the equation of state at high temperatures and small chemical potential. Implications to search for QCD phase transition and the critical point are discussed.

The decarbonization of the economy and the growing need for electricity are two trends that call for greener energy sources. Wind is a growing renewable energy source, which is expected to become the first source of power in the European Union in the next decade. In particular, onshore wind energy is expected to double by then. Fundamental structural components of wind turbines are their foundations, which are large structures associated with important material consumption and many construction challenges. The dimensions of these foundations are continuously increasing as turbines with taller towers and larger rotor diameters are being built. Designing cost-and material-efficient foundations is crucial to reduce the economic and environmental impact of wind energy. An important factor to successfully address these evolving requirements in the planning and design process is to build on the experience from previous projects. The aim of this work is to investigate the evolution of onshore wind turbines and its consequences on the design and climate impact of gravity foundations by analysing data from Swedish wind farms set in operation between 2013 and 2022. The evolution of turbine size, and foundation dimensions, reinforcement layout, material types and quantities, and embodied carbon are analysed in this paper.

In urban environments, particularly areas under reconstruction, metals, organic pollutants (OP), and microplastics (MP), are released in large amounts due to heavy traffic. Road runoff, a major transport route for urban pollutants, contributes significantly to a deteriorated water quality in receiving waters. This study was conducted in Gothenburg, Sweden, and is unique because it simultaneously investigates the occurrence of OP, metals, and MP on roads and in stormwater from an urban area under reconstruction. Correlations between the various pollutants were also explored. The study was carried out by collecting washwater and sweepsand generated from street sweeping, road surface sampling, and flow-proportional stormwater sampling on several occasions. The liquid and solid samples were analyzed for metals, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), oxy-PAH, aliphatics, aromatics, phthalates, and MP. The occurrence of OP was also analyzed with a non-target screening method of selected samples. Microplastics, i.e. plastic fragments/fibers, paint fragments, tire wear particles (TWP) and bitumen, were analyzed with a method based on density separation with sodium iodide and identification with a stereo microscope, melt-tests, and tactile identification. MP concentrations amounted to 1,500 particles/L in stormwater, 51,000 particles/L in washwater, and 2.6x10⁶ particles/kg dw in sweepsand. In stormwater, washwater and sweepsand, MP ≥20 μm were found to be dominated by TWP (38 %, 83 % and 78 %, respectively). The results confirm traffic as an important source to MP, OP, and metal emissions. Concentrations exceeding water and sediment quality guidelines for metals (e.g. Cu and Zn), PAH, phthalates, and aliphatic hydrocarbons in the C16–C35 fraction were found in most samples. The results show that the street sweeper collects large amounts of polluted materials and thereby prevents further spread of the pollutants to the receiving stormwater.

In the present study we investigated the diet of the Eleonora’s falcon in Greece during the entire breeding season and assessed the regional dietary pattern of 16 colonies which hosted ca. 1500 individuals. Overall 224 nests were visited from late May to mid October during 2004-2006 and a total of 8067 prey items were collected which contained two mollusc classes, seven insect orders, one reptile family, two mammalian taxa (family and genus respectively) and at least 54 avian species. Cicadas were the most common insects found in pellets (45.1%) followed by flying ants (34.8%) and beetles (15.8%) while just 20 species (33.3%) accounted for over 90% of all avian prey items identified in bird remains. The Willow Warbler (Phylloscopus trochilus), the Red-backed Shrike (Lanius collurio) and the Whitethroat (Sylvia communis) dominated the falcons’ avian diet accounting for over 50% of the bird prey items identified. Insect feeding peaked in late August (39.8%) and late September (20.8%), whereas bird remains built up in falcon nests from mid-August onwards, culminating in late September (57.2%) and declined abruptly afterwards. Insect prey was more diverse during the first half of July and among central Aegean colonies while avian prey was most diverse during late August and in south Aegean colonies. Overall the falcons’ diet increased in both insect and avian prey species as the breeding season progressed and from the north towards the south Aegean colonies. The falcons’ avian diet diversity was comparable between Aegean regions and prey species richness was negatively influenced by the distance of the colonies from the mainland as well as by the weather conditions during September which coincides with the fledgling period of the young and the autumn peak of passerine migration.

To enable the study of the sheet pile-soil interaction during driving, it was essential to have a record of the sheet pile vibrations as well as the vibrations at depth in the surrounding soil. In this paper, an instrumentation system for vibration analysis during vibratory sheet pile driving was presented. The instrumentation system was used in a full-scale field test where vibrations were measured on the sheet pile as well as at depth in the ground. The new instrumentation system and the field test were thoroughly described. As a sheet pile was driven into the ground, vibrations were transferred both at the toe and along the shaft. Whether it was the toe or the shaft that created the largest contribution to vibrations in the ground is debated in literature. Results from the field test were presented in order to investigate the effect of the position of the sheet pile toe on the ground vibrations at depth. It was shown that, within a distance of about 1.6m from the driven sheet pile, the ground vibrations at depth were affected by the passing of the sheet pile toe. The current field test also indicated that the toe contributed to more ground vibrations than the shaft.

There is an increasing demand amongst decision-makers and stakeholders for identifying sustainable remediation alternatives at contaminated sites, taking into account that remediation typically results in both positive and negative consequences. Multi-criteria analysis (MCA) is increasingly used for sustainability appraisal, and the Excel-based MCA tool Sustainable Choice Of REmediation (SCORE) has been developed to provide a relevant and transparent assessment of the sustainability of remediation alternatives relative to a reference alternative, considering key criteria in the economic, environmental and social sustainability domains, and taking uncertainty into explicit account through simulation. The focus of this paper is the use of cost-benefit analysis (CBA) as a part of SCORE for assessing the economic sustainability of remediation alternatives. An economic model is used for deriving a cost-benefit rule, which in turn motivates cost and benefit items in a CBA of remediation alternatives. The empirical part of the paper is a CBA application on remediation alternatives for the Hexion site, a former chemical industry area close to the city of Göteborg in SW Sweden. The impact of uncertainties in and correlations across benefit and cost items on CBA results is illustrated. For the Hexion site, the traditional excavation-and-disposal remediation alternative had the lowest expected net present value, which illustrates the importance of also considering other alternatives before deciding upon how a remediation should be carried out. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Multiple Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) antennae systems have been among the well-known approaches to attitude determination of moving platforms in recent years. However, the constraints on the onboard GNSS antennae configuration, that is, installing the antennae baselines along the main axes of the platform, can lead to practical difficulties and inevitable uncertainty. In this contribution we present an iterative method to obtain the accurate attitudes by means of the onboard misaligned baselines. In order to remove the effects of the horizontal and vertical misalignments from GNSS observations of the baselines, attitude-induced corrections have been developed through the relative lever-arm coordinates of the onboard antennae. This approach provides us with more freedom from spatial distribution of the onboard antennae. The performance of the proposed method has been analyzed by simulated data and an actual experiment in low- and high-dynamic situations. The simulation has been designed to evaluate the capability and reliability of the iterative method under the presence of small and large misalignments. The field experiment was carried out in the offshore waters of Kish harbor using three dual-frequency GNSS receivers with choke-ring antennae onboard a survey vessel, which was also equipped with an inertial measurement unit (IMU). The maximum allowable misalignments, the convergence of the iteration, and the advantage of the proposed method over the trigonometric approach in spite of applying the traditional calibration are presented. The long-term stability of GNSS attitude determination as well as IMU accuracy degradation, due largely to the increase in the time-varying biases/noises, have demonstrated the potential of the method to estimate the accuracies and biases of the onboard inertial sensor. The overall results affirm that the presented method can effectively provide the platform attitudes using the misaligned GNSS baselines with as much flex- bility as possible for the onboard antennae configuration.

Purpose – This paper aims to introduce a method of performance-based procurement, based on the most economically advantageous tender (MEAT), for low-disturbance bridge construction projects in urban environment. Design/methodology/approach – The first part of this paper reviews the key performance indicators (KPIs) of low-disturbance construction and the procurement procedure based on the MEAT principles. The second part reflects on two actual bridge projects (the Rotebro bridge in Sweden and the Arno river bridge in Italy) as observatory case studies to analyse how clients and contractors can implement the KPIs in MEAT. Findings – The research findings demonstrate the possible inclusion of the KPIs of low-disturbance construction into the MEAT criteria. The MEAT principles can then be used in combination with either a traditional or an integrated procurement strategy. Research limitations/implications – The implementation of MEAT to achieve low-disturbance construction projects is considerably new and still requires an empirical validation. A further elaboration of the procurement strategy within the EU regulatory framework is strongly recommended in order to assure the broader impacts of sustainable construction. Practical implications – The findings and recommendations support the practical development and the use of MEAT in construction projects in the EU. Originality/value – This paper presents on-going investigation within the FP7 collaborative research project “PANTURA”, which addresses the actual research agenda of the European Commission on low-disturbance and urban-friendly civil infrastructure projects.

In this paper, the spatio-temporal variation and trend of daily actual evapotranspiration (ETa) are calculated for the Haihe River Basin from 1961 to 2010. The methodology is based on the complementary relationship approach, i.e. the advection–aridity (AA) model with parameter validation from 1961 to 2010, which allows the determination of ETa that cannot be instrumentally measured. Daily data on mean/maximum/minimum temperature, air pressure, actual water vapor pressure, sunshine hours, wind speed, sunshine duration and cloud cover from 31 meteorological stations from 1961 to 2010 are used in order to identify the main drivers of changes in evapotranspiration. The trend tests applied in this study are the linear regression method and the nonparametric Mann–Kendall test (MKtest). The results show: 1) the Haihe River Basin has an annual ETa at about 484 mm/yr. The highest ETa occurs in summer, followed by autumn. From 1961 to 2010, the annual ETa, the ETa in summer and the ETa in autumn show a significant negative trend in the Haihe River Basin. The ETa varies insignificantly in spring and winter; 2) the ETa shows distinct spatial variability in the Haihe River Basin. It closely follows the topography and increases with greater distance from the sea, but varies significantly during the seasons; 3) the central plain area of the Basin around the capital city of Beijing shows the highest occurrence of negative trends of ETa with a decrease of ETa of 40 mm for the time series. 4) negative trends of ETa in summer are related to multiple factors: decreasing relative humidity and decreasing reduced sunshine duration under increasing surface temperatures in summer. Increases in surface temperature include the mean, maximum and minimum daily temperature. The decline of ETa in autumn can be explained by a negative trend of relative humidity. The decreasing ETa suggests a reduction in water availability and cycle in seasons with highest water demand.

Iran is an active continental domain accommodating the convergence between the Arabia and Eurasia plates. In northwestern Iran, deformation between the Central Iranian block and the Caucasus domain is mainly accommodated by right lateral strike-slip on the Tabriz fault. Cities and villages, including the city of Tabriz, have been destroyed by several strong historical earthquakes (M ˜ 7). In this study, we compare the slip-rates estimated from geodetic measurements (radar interferometry and GPS) with those determined by dating a geomorphological offset of an alluvial fan along the Tabriz fault. The GPS measurements along two profiles normal to the Tabriz fault suggest a slip-rate of 7.3 ± 1.3 mm yr-1. The persistent scatterer radar interferometry analysis of Envisat satellite archives from 2003 to 2010 shows a velocity gradient (6 ± 3 mm yr-1) across the Tabriz fault in agreement with GPS results. Moreover, it reveals that most of the area located south of the Tabriz fault is affected by subsidence, and that some sections of the fault probably act as barriers to fluid migration which may have an impact on its mechanical behaviour. West of Tabriz morphotectonic investigations on an alluvial fan surface show a right-lateral cumulative offset of 320 ± 40 m. Luminescence analyses of the coarse matrix alluvial fan deposits provide an age of 46 ± 3 ka. This yields a slip-rate comprised between 6.5 and 7.3 mm yr-1 along this segment. These results suggest that the Late Quaternary slip-rate is in agreement with the present-day slip-rate estimated by geodetic measurements, showing no slip-rate changes during the past 45 000 yr. Short-term variations within the 45 000 yr related to temporal earthquake clustering over few seismic cycles cannot be ruled out, but if they exist, they do not affect the geodetic and the geomorphological estimates. This study is in agreement with previous ones suggesting that long-term slip-rates (i.e. averaged over several tens of seismic cycles) are consistent with geodetic estimated slip-rates (i.e. extrapolated from few years of interseismic observations), and suggests that perturbations of fault slip-rates are related to variations over few seismic cycles.

The vertical distributions of cloud water content (CWC) and cloud fraction (CF) over the tropical oceans, produced by 13 coupled atmosphere-ocean models submitted to the Phase 5 of Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5), are evaluated against CloudSat/CALIPSO observations as a function of large-scale parameters. Available CALIPSO simulator CF outputs are also examined. A diagnostic framework is developed to decompose the cloud simulation errors into large-scale errors, cloud parameterization errors and covariation errors. We find that the cloud parameterization errors contribute predominantly to the total errors for all models. The errors associated with large-scale temperature and moisture structures are relatively greater than those associated with large-scale midtropospheric vertical velocity and lower-level divergence. All models capture the separation of deep and shallow clouds in distinct large-scale regimes; however, the vertical structures of high/low clouds and their variations with large-scale parameters differ significantly from the observations. The CWCs associated with deep convective clouds simulated in most models do not reach as high in altitude as observed, and their magnitudes are generally weaker than CloudSat total CWC, which includes the contribution of precipitating condensates, but are close to CloudSat nonprecipitating CWC. All models reproduce maximum CF associated with convective detrainment, but CALIPSO simulator CFs generally agree better with CloudSat/CALIPSO combined retrieval than the model CFs, especially in the midtroposphere. Model simulated low clouds tend to have little variation with large-scale parameters except lower-troposphere stability, while the observed low cloud CWC, CF, and cloud top height vary consistently in all large-scale regimes.

A B S T R A C T This study identifies daily Meiyu-like East Asian Summer Monsoon patterns that are linked to precipitation observations in the Poyang lake catchment. This analysis provides insight into the dynamics of strong, local precipitation events and has the potential to improve projections of precipitation from coarse-grid numerical simulations. Precipitation observations between 1960 and 1999 are taken from 13 rain gauges located in the Poyang lake catchment, which is a sub-catchment of the Yangtze River. The analysis shows that the observations are linked to daily patterns of relative vorticity at 850 hPa (Vo850) and vertical velocity at 500 hPa (W500) taken from the ERA-40 re-analysis data set. The patterns are derived by two approaches: (a) empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis and (b) rotated EOF analysis. Vo850 and W500 refer to geostrophic and ageostrophic processes, respectively. A logistic regression connects the large-scale dynamics to the local observations, whereby a forward regression selects the patterns best suited as predictors for the probability of exceeding thresholds of 24 h accumulated rainfall at the gauges. The regression model is verified by cross-validation. The spatial structure of the detected patterns can be interpreted in terms of well-known meso-a-scale disturbances called Southwest vortices. Overall, the proposed EOF and rotated EOF patterns are both related to physical processes and have the potential to work as predictors for exceedance rates of local precipitation in the Poyang catchment.

Aims and background: Covering stoma is the main method used to protect low-lying anastomosis after cancer proctectomy. Intraluminal rectal pressure could be a potential risk factor for anastomotic leakage. We present our personal experience with an alternative and original device, the transanal tube NO COIL®, evaluating its feasibility and safety based on a preliminary manometric study. Methods: From May 1998 to March 1999, an experimental manometric study on 35 subjects was performed to assess the pathophysiological basis of intraluminal rectal pressure with or without the transanal tube. Subsequently, from April 1999 to December 2009, 184 patients (107 males, 77 females, average age 68.2 ± 10 years) with primary adenocarcinoma of the rectum (≤12 cm from anal verge) were selected. Eighty-two underwent total proctectomy and 102 subtotal proctectomy. No stoma were fashioned. At the end of the operation, the silicone transanal tube NO COIL ®, 60-80 mm long, 2 mm thick with a calibre of up to 2 cm, was applied and secured to the perineal skin by two stitches, then removed on the seventh postoperative day if no signs of leakage occurred. Results: The intraluminal rectal pressure with transanal tube was strongly reduced from 13.8 + 8.5 mmHg to 4.8 + 3.7 mmHg (P <0.01). Nine patients (4.8%) developed an anastomotic leakage, 2 males and 7 females. In 10 patients, the transanal tube NO COIL® did not remain in situ for the planned seven days, and 18 patients suffered from ulcers in the perianal skin. Leakage subsided with conservative treatment in 4 patients, whereas 5 patients required loop colostomy. The stoma rate was 2.7%. No leakage-related deaths occurred, and overall mortality was 1.3%. Conclusions: The transanal tube NO COIL® does not abolish the risk of anastomotic leakage but could be an alternative option to covering stoma after cancer proctectomy in selected patients. In our experience, this simple and cheap device could reduce the rate of stoma without leakage-related mortality. Further studies within a randomized controlled trial are required to better define our results.