Noise barriers are one of the common solutions to control road traffic noise. Many studies have also shown that noise barriers cause reductions in near-road air pollutant concentrations. In this study, the simultaneous effects of a specific noise barrier application on near-road noise and air pollution at a specific location were investigated. In this context, air pollution, noise, and meteorological parameters were measured simultaneously at two points, road and receptor sides of a 50 m long, 4 m high glass fiber reinforced concrete noise barrier on a highway section. Results indicated that the noise barrier has an average 23 % reduction effect on the NO concentration in addition to the noise level reduction at the receptor side. Besides, bi-weekly average passive sampler measurement results for BTEX pollutants indicate lower values at the receptor side of the barrier compared to the free field measurement results. In addition to real-time and passive sampler measurements, NO and noise dispersions were modeled using RLINE and SoundPLAN 8.2 software, respectively. Comparisons of the measurement results with the model results indicated strong correlations. Model-calculated NO and noise values under the free field conditions are highly compatible with a correlation coefficient (r) of 0.78. Although the noise barrier has a reduction effect on both parameters, it has been observed that their dispersion mechanisms are different. This study showed that noise barriers considerably affect the dispersion of road-sourced air pollutants at the receptor side. Further studies are needed to optimize noise barrier designs with different physical and material properties and application scenarios considering noise and air pollutants together.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.164754 | DOI Listing |
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January 2025
Department of Chemistry, Dr. Vishwanath Karad MIT World Peace University, Survey No, 124, Paud Rd, Kothrud, Pune, Maharashtra, 411038, India.
Surface Plasmon Polaritons (SPPs) and Localized Surface Plasmon Resonances (LSPRs) are fundamental phenomena in plasmonics that enable the confinement of electromagnetic waves beyond the diffraction limit. This confinement results in a significant enhancement of the electric field, making this phenomenon particularly beneficial for sensitive detection applications. However, conventional plasmonic sensors face several challenges, notably their difficulty in distinguishing chiral molecules, which are vital in drug development.
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January 2025
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Virginia Commonwealth University, 601 W. Main Street, Richmond, VA 23284, USA, Richmond, 23284, UNITED STATES.
Stochastic neurons are extremely efficient hardware for solving a large class of problems and usually come in two varieties - "binary" where the neuronal state varies randomly between two values of ±1 and "analog" where the neuronal state can randomly assume any value between -1 and +1. Both have their uses in neuromorphic computing and both can be implemented with low- or zero-energy-barrier nanomagnets whose random magnetization orientations in the presence of thermal noise encode the binary or analog state variables. In between these two classes is n-ary stochastic neurons, mainly ternary stochastic neurons (TSN) whose state randomly assumes one of three values (-1, 0, +1), which have proved to be efficient in pattern classification tasks such as recognizing handwritten digits from the MNIST data set or patterns from the CIFAR-10 data set.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBioelectron Med
January 2025
SecondWave Systems Incorporated, Head Quarters, Minneapolis-Saint Paul, MN, 55104, USA.
The field of bioelectronic medicine has advanced rapidly from rudimentary electrical therapies to cutting-edge closed-loop systems that integrate real-time physiological monitoring with adaptive neuromodulation. Early innovations, such as cardiac pacemakers and deep brain stimulation, paved the way for these sophisticated technologies. This review traces the historical and technological progression of bioelectronic medicine, culminating in the emerging potential of closed-loop devices for multiple disorders of the brain and body.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNat Commun
January 2025
The Medical Image and Health Informatics Lab, the School of Biomedical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China.
Despite vast data support in DNA methylation (DNAm) biomarker discovery to facilitate health-care research, this field faces huge resource barriers due to preliminary unreliable candidates and the consequent compensations using expensive experiments. The underlying challenges lie in the confounding factors, especially measurement noise and individual characteristics. To achieve reliable identification of a candidate pool for DNAm biomarker discovery, we propose a Causality-driven Deep Regularization framework to reinforce correlations that are suggestive of causality with disease.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPhotodiagnosis Photodyn Ther
January 2025
Urology Department, the First Affiliated Hospital of Xinjiang Medical University. Xinjiang Clinical Reseach Center for Genitourinary System; State Key Laboratory of Patho-genesis, Prevention and Treatment of High Incidence Diseases in Central Asia. Electronic address:
(background): With the highest 5-year recurrence rate among malignancies, bladder cancer is a relatively common type of cancer that typically originates from the urothelial cells lining the bladder. Additionally, bladder cancer is one of the most financially burdensome neoplasms to medical institutions in terms of management. Hence, prompt identification and accurate handling of bladder cancer are pivotal for enhancing patient prognosis.
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