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Huntington's disease (HD) is a fatal neurodegenerative disorder caused by a toxic gain-of-function CAG expansion in the first exon of the huntingtin (HTT) gene. The monogenic nature of HD makes mutant HTT (mHTT) inactivation a promising therapeutic strategy. Single nucleotide polymorphisms frequently associated with CAG expansion have been explored to selectively inactivate mHTT allele using the CRISPR/Cas9 system. One of such allele-selective approaches consists of excising a region flanking the first exon of mHTT by inducing simultaneous double-strand breaks at upstream and downstream positions of the mHTT exon 1. The removal of the first exon of mHTT deletes the CAG expansion and important transcription regulatory sites, leading to mHTT inactivation. However, the frequency of deletion events is yet to be quantified either in vitro or in vivo. Here, we developed accurate quantitative digital polymerase chain reaction-based assays to assess HTT exon 1 deletion in vitro and in fully humanized HU97/18 mice. Our results demonstrate that dual-single guide RNA (sgRNA) strategies are efficient and that 67% of HTT editing events are leading to exon 1 deletion in HEK293T cells. In contrast, these sgRNA actively cleaved HTT in HU97/18 mice, but most editing events do not lead to exon 1 deletion (10% exon 1 deletion). We also showed that the in vivo editing pattern is not affected by CAG expansion but may potentially be due to the presence of multiple copies of wildtype (wt)/mHTT genes HU97/18 mice as well as the slow kinetics of AAV-mediated CRISPR/Cas9 delivery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As cities resume life in public space, they face the difficult task of retaining outdoor activity while decreasing exposure to airborne viruses, such as the novel coronavirus. Even though the transmission risk is higher in indoor spaces, recent evidence suggests that physical contact outdoors also contributes to an increased virus exposure. Given that streets constitute the largest percentage of public space in cities, there is an increasing need to prioritise their use to minimise transmission risk. However, city officials currently lack the assessment tools to achieve this. This article evaluates the extent to which street segments are associated with spatiotemporal variations of potential exposures of pedestrians to virus transmission. We develop a multi-component risk score that considers both urban form and human activity along streets over time, including (a) an assessment of pedestrian infrastructure according to the average width of pavements, (b) a measure of accessibility for each street based on its position in the street network, (c) an activity exposure score that identifies places along streets where exposure could be higher and (d) an estimate of the number of pedestrians that will pass through each street during weekdays and weekends. We use Amsterdam in the Netherlands as a case study to illustrate how our score could be used to assess the exposure of pedestrians to virus transmission along streets. Our approach can be replicated in other cities facing a similar challenge of bringing life back to the streets while minimising transmission risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crime has major influences in urban life, from migration and mobility patterns, to housing prices and neighborhood liveability. However, urban crime studies still largely rely on static data reported by the various institutions and organizations dedicated to urban safety. In this paper, we demonstrate how the use of digital technologies enables the fine-grained analysis of specific crimes over time and space. This paper leverages the rise of ubiquitous sensing to investigate the issue of bike theft in Amsterdam—a city with a dominant cycling culture, where reportedly more than 80,000 bikes are stolen every year. We use active location tracking to unveil where stolen bikes travel to and what their temporal patterns are. This is the first study using tracking technologies to focus on two critical aspects of contemporary cities: active mobility and urban crime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A process is recognized as collaborative when it demonstrates the involvement of multiple stakeholders who are mobilized to interact and negotiate horizontally in order to achieve common objectives. Although efforts can be made to make a process collaborative, a governance process is situated in particular histories and geographies, and collectively shared cultures, norms, and behaviors can help or hinder the emergence of inclusive democratic practices. As a result of broader urban reforms that have been occurring in Brazil over the last 20 years, and particularly a shift in the institutional arrangement of planning in Curitiba, the 2014 Curitiba Master Plan was developed within a more democratic framework, with the engagement of several governmental and nongovernmental stakeholders. Despite adopting a more collaborative approach to planning, this plan is as generic as the 2004 Curitiba Master Plan it replaced, which was proposed within a technocratic framework. If the 2004 and 2014 institutional arrangements and processes were so different, why did they achieve similar results? To answer this question, this study investigates which elements influence the endurance of established practices in urban planning processes. The basic assumption is that the final product of a planning process is heavily influenced by existing and long-lasting institutions, which carry internal beliefs and procedures into new planning approaches. The evidence presented in this study shows that path dependence on ideas, behaviors, and actions has been perpetuating planning practices that have been established in Curitiba for decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) are an emergent technology. The very few studies focusing on how people perceive and react to autonomous vehicles are mainly based on online surveys. Although important, these studies measure people's opinions on AVs, but not their actual reaction when using them. In this paper, we assess users' perceptions of AVs using an immersive virtual reality experiment. We modeled autonomous boats that are intended to be deployed in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. We compared users' reactions to manned and unmanned boats in a virtual reality environment. In total, 30 participants were exposed to a Virtual Reality (VR) simulation, where we collected skin conductance data, which was compared with a participant's responses to a questionnaire regarding perceived risk, stress, and trust toward manned and unmanned boats. The study finds that autonomous boats do not substantially influence the experienced stress, trust, or perceived risk in comparison with human-controlled boats. This article also shows the gains that virtual reality can bring to studies of the social appropriation of technologies. Results show the need for objective, quantitative data regarding the societal acceptance toward autonomous systems to better understand how these technologies will be appropriated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The visual dimension of cities has been a fundamental subject in urban studies since the pioneering work of late-nineteenth- to mid-twentieth-century scholars such as Camillo Sitte, Kevin Lynch, Rudolf Arnheim, and Jane Jacobs. Several decades later, big data and artificial intelligence (AI) are revolutionizing how people move, sense, and interact with cities. This article reviews the literature on the appearance and function of cities to illustrate how visual information has been used to understand them. A conceptual framework, urban visual intelligence, is introduced to systematically elaborate on how new image data sources and AI techniques are reshaping the way researchers perceive and measure cities, enabling the study of the physical environment and its interactions with the socioeconomic environment at various scales. The article argues that these new approaches would allow researchers to revisit the classic urban theories and themes and potentially help cities create environments that align with human behaviors and aspirations in today's AI-driven and data-centric era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a systematic literature review of growing research on microfinance, as promoted by scholars and policymakers in an entrepreneurial finance context. The results suggest promising opportunities for further research on microfinance in developed countries. Bibliometric analyses were used to identify three main dimensions of microfinance that guide academic research: social considerations, economic effects, and performance of microfinance institutions. Most literature focuses on developing countries, reflecting the success of microfinance as an instrument for promoting social and economic development. A keyword co-occurrence analysis reveals that financial inclusion and entrepreneurship domains remain empirically underexplored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In theory, shifts in institutional arrangements result in new public policies. This articles focuses on Curitiba, Brazil, an international flagship city of urban planning recognized for its technocratic government. The 2012 municipal elections and the 2013 nationwide political upheaval led to a change in the city's institutional arrangement. As a consequence, the 2014 Master Plan was conceived with the tagline of more public participation. This paper analyzes whether the changes in institutional arrangements influenced the city's planning process and the Master Plan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present an initial study relating the adsorption of indium (III) onto carbonaceous materials, namely the activated carbon (AC), multiwalled carbon nanotubes functionalized with OH (MWCNT–OH), and the multiwalled carbon nanotubes functionalized with COOH (MWCNT–COOH). The main objective of this study is the development of the adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) and an artificial neural network (ANN) for predicting the adsorption capacity in different operating conditions for different materials. Both models take into account the adsorbent type, adsorbent dosage (0.05, 0.25, 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0 g L−1), and the contact time (5, 20, 60, and 120 min) for predicting the adsorption capacity, which varied from 12.896 to 981.000 mg g−1, a total record of 72 was used. Both modeling methodologies applied can represent the experimental data, taking into account the statistical values obtained. The ANFIS achieved the best performance when the hybrid method was selected, this leads into R of 0.9998, RMSE of 48,373 with 250 epochs. On the other hand, the ANN can represent the best performance when using the Levenberg–Marquardt algorithm, reaching an R of 0.9831, MSE of 0.0180 and 9 epochs. Considering the modeling and experimental aspects indicates that the increase of the adsorbent dosage diminished the adsorbent capacity. The increase of the contact time causes the effect to increase the adsorption capacity until its equilibrium. Lastly, it is possible to conclude that the MWCNT–COOH is the most suitable adsorbent to be used between the selected materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the complex impact of air pollution is crucial to assessing exposure risk and defining public health policies in China. However, the evidence and hence knowledge of how urban activity responds to air pollution are limited. In this paper, we propose to use geotagged check-in records on Weibo, a Tweeter-like platform, to systematically investigate the effect of air pollution on urban activity. Based on panel models, we found clear evidence that such effect exists and varies between pollutants, visitors and residents, and different activity types. Typically, SO 2 has the largest impact, followed by PM 2.5 , NO 2 , and PM 10 ; local citizens' activities are more susceptible than visitors; leisure-related activity has a sensitivity at least twofold higher than work-related activities. Additionally, we tested hypotheses about the heterogeneous effect. We confirmed the role of Income and air quality, showing that people who live in richer and more polluted cities are more likely to experience the effects of air pollution. Specifically, people who live in a more polluted city with 100 unit increments in AvgAQI show on average the same sensitivity as those who live in a less polluted city and earn about 20.3 thousand yuan more in average Income. This reveals new insights about environmental injustice in China. By presenting a portrait of the spatial heterogeneity, we argued that environmental injustice in terms of air pollution is not just about the difference in exposure risk measured based on population distribution, rather the measurement should also consider the disparity derived from urban activity. Secondly, new injustice may arise in underdeveloped areas where manufacture industry is transferred to but people barely take avoidance behavior. Finally, the map also reveals the general neglect of the detrimental effect of light air pollution, which we speculate is partly due to China's comparatively low standard in governmental regulations. We believe our finding contributes significantly to exposure risk assessment and environmental justice debates. Hence it highlights the necessity and urgency of public healthy polices that spread the health consequence of air pollution, especially in the underdeveloped region. • Assessing exposure risk in China. • How urban activity responds to air pollution. • Using geo-tagged check-ins on Weibo, a Twitter-like platform, to investigate effects of air pollution on urban activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Autonomous vehicles (AVs) are starting to hit our roads. It is only a matter of time until the technological challenges still facing full AV implementation are solved, and legal, social, and transport issues related to AVs become part of the public discussion. AVs have the potential to become a major catalyst for urban transformation. To explore some of these transformations, first, we discuss the possibility of decoupling the many functions of urban vehicles from the form factor (without drivers, do cars need to look like they look today?). Second, we question whether AVs will lead to more or fewer cars on the roads, highlighting the synergies between AVs and ride-sharing schemes. Third, with AVs as part of multimodal and sharing-mobility systems, millions of square kilometers currently used for parking spaces might be liberated, or even change the way we design road space. Fourth, freed from the fatigue related to traffic, we question whether AVs would make people search for home locations farther from cities, increasing urban sprawl, or would rather attract more residents to city centers, also freed from congestion and pollution. Fifth, depending on responses to the previous questions and innovative traffic algorithms, we ask whether AVs will demand more or less road infrastructure. We conclude by suggesting that AVs offer the first opportunity to rethink urban life and city design since cars replaced horse-powered traffic and changed the design of cities for a hundred years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses how information and communication technologies (ICT) may influence travel behavior of an informal transport system and whether and in which ways merging digital technologies represents disruption for a specific sociotechnical ensemble. For decades, ojek has been a form of informal passenger transport, based on motorcycles in Jakarta, and recently smartphone apps have become available in that sociotechnical arrangement. We randomly surveyed passengers and drivers in the central district, for both those who do and do not use these apps. Despite many similarities between both groups, the drivers who use smartphones for their trips reported higher daily incomes, longer average trip distances and a larger coverage area. Passengers using conventional ojek transport reported lower levels of both safety perception and satisfaction when compared to app-based ojek users. For both categories of user, ojek seems to compete with, complement and be an alternative to bus rapid transit and the suburban rail system (KRL) in the area covered by our sample. The areas covered by regular buses and vans roughly match the origins and destinations of ojek trips. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the fourth-round database of the Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey (2008/09 BEEPS), this study examines the determinants of discouragement in less developed countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The results show that whereas firms' opaqueness, demographic factors, and distance between lenders and borrowers better explain the discouragement due to tough loan prices and/or loan application procedures, firm risk and banking concentration explain the incidence of discouraged borrowers due to the fear of rationing. Innovator status, the legal protection of creditors and lenders in the event of default, and the coverage of information sharing instruments help explain discouragement in a transversal way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) shield ocean environments from hazardous human activities, including the extraction of marine resources and excessive urban development. Delimitation, zoning and governance structures are some of the environmental management tools that are provided by MPAs. These management tools may be contentious when human settlements exist within an MPAs' boundaries, since zoning affects existing human activities and potential developments, and managing structures overlap traditional governance arrangements. Varying perspectives emerge when each stakeholder is taken into consideration separately. Ideally all stakeholders with genuine interests in MPAs should take part in the delimitation, zoning and governance of these areas. However, governance is about reaching agreements amidst differences and is not just a matter of considering differences as singularities. In order to understand how multiple stakeholders would reach a shared environmental governance of an MPA, we took the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park (ECLSP) in The Bahamas as a case study. The ECLSP, created in 1958, is co-managed by the Government of The Bahamas and the Bahamas National Trust (BNT), and contains within its boundaries uninhabited islands, islands occupied by local communities, and private islands mainly owned by foreigners or held in Bahamian trusts. In this study, we conducted an exercise with different stakeholders who were challenged to work together in redrawing the park's boundaries, zoning and governance structures. Their individual opinions mattered less than the discussion and outcomes of their joint work. We conclude that a shared environmental governance structure does not eliminate all the frictions among stakeholders, but rather it makes them all aware of the natural and social complexities involved in managing MPAs, which improves stewardship and enhances the ECLSP's legitimacy among stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban infrastructures have traditionally been mono-functional: water, sewage, and electricity are notable examples. Embedded with digital technologies, urban infrastructures have the potential to communicate with one another and become multi-functional platforms that integrate data gathering and actuation cycles. In this paper, we focus on public lighting infrastructures. Despite the technological development of lights, including LED technology, streetlights have been primarily treated as a mono-functional infrastructure. Based on case studies, we discuss the potential of reimagining streetlight infrastructure, and advance some initial proposals that focus on sensing and actuation cycles, which could transform this pervasive infrastructure into a digital urban platform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Only a minority of young people in developing countries goes to university. Those who do will probably be the future leaders of their society. Bogotá and Curitiba are known worldwide for their public transport systems based on buses, which introduced unprecedented quality standards for transport in the developing world. But these systems depend on continuous technical improvements and, in particular, backing from political leaders as they compete with other modes of transport for infrastructure and funding. This is especially critical in societies experiencing rapid growth in personal motorized transport, such as Brazil and Colombia. This paper analyses the opinions of university students in Bogotá and Curitiba about their famous public transport systems, and compares their opinions with their current mobility practices. The aim was to shed light on the challenges concerning the future status of public transport the two cities are likely to face, which to a certain extend can be considered a forewarning for other cities in developing nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid expansion of bike-share systems worldwide has been praised as a sign of the environmental movement, with positive consequences for transportation, the economy, and health in urban areas. But is it really possible that politicians, information-technology companies, and global players such as banks and advertising firms have suddenly joined the ranks of those advocating bicycle use for the sake of the environment and a better quality of life in cities? Bike-share systems, like any other artifact, are a technological assemblage formed by technical, cultural, economic, and social factors and actors. When this assemblage stabilizes and is socially accepted, debate cools down and some unresolved features are put aside. We argue that disassembly of the bike-share system, highlighting the use of electronic keys, credit cards, and the strategic location of docks in upmarket urban areas, may enable us to unveil some of its features and reveal a more complex sociotechnical assemblage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, physical distancing, mobility restrictions and self-isolation measures were implemented around the world as the primary intervention to prevent the virus from spreading. Urban life has undergone sweeping changes, with people using spaces in new ways. Stockholm is a particularly relevant case of this phenomenon since most facilities, such as day care centres and schools, have remained open, in contrast to cities with a broader lockdown. In this study, we use Twitter data and an online map survey to study how COVID-19 restrictions have impacted the use of different locations, services and amenities in Stockholm. First, we compare the spatial distribution of 87,000 geolocated tweets pre-COVID-19 and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Second, we analyse 895 survey responses asking people to identify places they 'still visit', 'use more', 'avoid' and self-report reasons for using locations. The survey provides a nuanced understanding of whether and how restrictions have affected people. Service and seclusion were found to be important; therefore, the accessibility of such amenities was analysed, demonstrating how changes in urban habits are related to conditions of the local environment. We find how different parts of the city show different capacities to accommodate new habits and mitigate the effects of restrictions on people's use of urban spaces. In addition to the immediate relevance to COVID-19, this paper thus contributes to understanding how restrictions on movement and gathering, in any situation, expose more profound urban challenges related to segregation and social inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Chromobacterium violaceum is a bacterium commonly found in tropical and subtropical regions and is associated with important pharmacological and industrial attributes such as producing substances with therapeutic properties and synthesizing biodegradable polymers. Its genome was sequenced, however, approximately 40% of its genes still remain with unknown functions. Although C. violaceum is known by its versatile capacity of living in a wide range of environments, little is known on how it achieves such success. Here, we investigated the proteomic profile of C. violaceum cultivated in the absence and presence of high iron concentration, describing some proteins of unknown function that might play an important role in iron homeostasis, amongst others. Results Briefly, C. violaceum was cultivated in the absence and in the presence of 9 mM of iron during four hours. Total proteins were identified by LC-MS and through the PatternLab pipeline. Our proteomic analysis indicates major changes in the energetic metabolism, and alterations in the synthesis of key transport and stress proteins. In addition, it may suggest the presence of a yet unidentified operon that could be related to oxidative stress, together with a set of other proteins with unknown function. The protein-protein interaction network also pinpointed the importance of energetic metabolism proteins to the acclimatation of C. violaceum in high concentration of iron. Conclusions This is the first proteomic analysis of the opportunistic pathogen C. violaceum in the presence of high iron concentration. Our data allowed us to identify a yet undescribed operon that might have a role in oxidative stress defense. Our work provides new data that will contribute to understand how this bacterium achieve its capacity of surviving in harsh conditions as well as to open a way to explore the yet little availed biotechnological characteristics of this bacterium with the further exploring of the proteins of unknown function that we showed to be up-regulated in high iron concentration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of digital cities has gained prominence as the importance of ICTs is undoubtedly related to economic, social, and civic development. Brazil is following this trend, and the Ministry of Communications and CPqD created the Brazilian Digital Cities Index for evaluating national digital cities. Based on the concepts of connectivity, accessibility, and communicability that originated from the analysis of United Nations documents on the Information Society, we analyze the city of Curitiba, first-ranked in this Index. We provide a historical vision of the process that enabled the city to achieve this position, and scrutinize the questionnaire used by CPqD. We conclude that the Brazilian Index of Digital Cities does not take into account some key aspects for ranking the city's degree of inclusion in the information society, as proposed by the United Nations. Nevertheless, it is also possible to conclude that Curitiba's position in the ranking represents a historical construction determined by the influence of various social actors. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract: After many years without any substantial improvement in bicycle infrastructure in Curitiba, a 4-km Leisure Bicycle Lane was implemented in the central area of the city in 2011. The project was one of several that City Hall hurriedly implemented following pressure from bike activists. On the Sunday the project was launched, more than three thousand cyclists are estimated to have used the bicycle lane; of these, 300 cycled alongside the lane, outside it, against it. They made the front pages of newspapers, disrupted the sociotechnical framework of bicycle policy in the city and put bicycles on the political agenda of the municipal elections. This paper discusses why, in a city renowned worldwide for its public transportation system and for having more than a 100km of bicycle lanes, a bicycle project failed after being sabotaged by cyclists and was definitively abandoned in February 2013. Based on interviews with key actors, including public officials, journalists, and bicycle activists, this paper concludes that the failed bicycle lane unveils the profound and urgent social and political dimensions embedded in what had been presented by municipal authorities as a neutral technical solution. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The success of the world-renowned bus rapid transit (BRT) in Curitiba, Brazil, is based on the interdependence of public transport, road system hierarchy, and land use regulation. Notwithstanding the consolidation of this triple approach, the transport system is overcrowded, and in 2009, the city made a bid for a technical analysis of the economic feasibility and the determination of environmental effects of a subway infrastructure to be implemented along one of its mass transport corridors, the north-south one. However, a recent survey indicates that most of people using BRT do not actually live along these corridors, but primarily in the densely occupied peripheral districts of the city and the immediate neighboring areas of a much more populated metropolitan region. This paper searches to confirm a contraction between real urban performance and an ideal city proposed by its somewhat innovative and now 45-year-old plan that was elaborated according to, among other paradigms, high-density linear occupation to make public transport at the same time cheap and attractive for dwellers. This paper also intends to provoke a discussion on the paradoxical municipal managerial decision of, at the same time, enforcing a master plan establishing priorities in terms of public transport and not being able to combine the offer of its main structures for mass public transportation and the public implementation of low-income housing programs along them. Data used to explore these discussions are basically that referring to the use of this modal in the city of Curitiba and the location of municipal social housing programs between 1980 and 2010. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Curitiba, in Brazil, is known for the pioneering deployment of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) in the 1970s, and its system became a reference model worldwide. However, from its very beginning, Curitiba's BRT competed with rail projects, from subway to light rail vehicles (VLT). These projects have been defended by many municipal technicians over the years as better solutions for urban transportation. From 1952, when the last tram ran in the city, up to 2009, when the municipality concluded a bid for a new subway project, eight projects were developed as attempts to resume rail transportation in town. In spite of the failure of all those projects, this article proposes that the major innovations in the BRT in Curitiba had their origins in those unimplemented rail projects, through technical and political advances that resulted from controversies, conflicts, and alliances among the main relevant social groups and artifacts involved during this period. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract: Ultrasound-assisted oxidative desulfurization (UAOD) process was applied to diesel oil and petroleum product feedstock containing model sulfur compounds (benzothiophene, dibenzothiophene and dimethyldibenzothiophene). The influence of oxidant amount, volume of solvent for the extraction step and time and temperature of ultrasound treatment (20kHz, 750W, operating at 40%) was investigated. Using the optimized conditions for UAOD, sulfur removal up to 99% was achieved for model compounds in petroleum product feedstock using a molar proportion for H2O2:acetic acid:sulfur of 64:300:1, after 9min of ultrasound treatment at 90°C, followed by extraction with methanol (optimized solvent and oil ratio of 0.36). Using the same reagent amount and 9min of ultrasound the removal of sulfur was higher than 75% for diesel oil samples. Sulfur removal without ultrasound using the same conditions was lower than 82% for model compounds and 55% for diesel oil samples showing that ultrasound improved the efficiency of oxidative desulfurization. In comparison to conventional hydrodesulfurization, the proposed UAOD process can be performed under relatively mild conditions (atmospheric pressure and 90°C, without using metallic catalysts). [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This study deals with As speciation in white wine. Arsenic species were selectively determined by liquid chromatography–inductively coupled plasma–mass spectrometry (LC–ICP–MS). Separation of As species was performed using an anion exchange column with ammonium phosphate solution (pH 6.00) as mobile phase. Samples of 14 white wine produced in South America were analysed. They were 10-fold diluted in the mobile phase prior to analysis by LC–ICP–MS. Accuracy was evaluated by recovery tests, whereas As species recovery ranged from 95% to 106%. Additionally, the sum of arsenic species concentration found by LC–ICP–MS was in agreement with the total arsenic concentration determined by ICP–MS after sample digestion. Arsenic species detected were arsenite [As(III)], arsenate [As(V)] and dimethylarsinic acid (DMA). As(III) and As(V) were detected in all analysed wine samples and DMA was detected only in wines produced in Argentina. Results for As determination in samples were from 2.9 to 10.3, 8.6 to 17.8, and<0.45 to 1.07μgL−1 for As(III), As(V) and DMA, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: A microwave-induced combustion (MIC) procedure was applied for coal digestion for subsequent determination of As, Cd and Pb by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) and Hg using cold vapor (CV) generation coupled to ICP-MS. Pellets of coal (500mg) were combusted using 20bar of oxygen and ammonium nitrate as aid for ignition. The use of nitric acid as absorbing solution (1.7, 3.5, 5.0, 7.0 and 14molL−1) was evaluated. For coal samples with higher ash content, better results were found using 7.0molL−1 HNO3 and an additional reflux step of 5min after combustion step. For coal samples with ash content lower than 8%, 5.0molL−1 nitric acid was suitable to the absorption of all analytes. Accuracy was evaluated using certified reference material (CRM) of coal and spikes. Agreement with certified values and recoveries was better than 95 and 97%, respectively, for all the analytes. For comparison of results, a procedure recommended by the American Society of Testing and Materials (ASTM) was used. Additionally, a conventional microwave-assisted digestion (MAD) in pressurized vessels was also performed. Using ASTM procedure, analyte losses were observed and a relatively long time was necessary for digestion (>6h). By comparison with MAD procedure, higher sample mass can be digested using MIC allowing better limits of detection. Additionally, the use of concentrated acids was not necessary that is an important aspect in order to obtain low blank levels and lower limits of detection, respectively. The residual carbon content in digests obtained by MAD and MIC was about 15% and <1%, respectively, showing the better digestion efficiency of MIC procedure. Using MIC it was possible to digest completely and simultaneously up to eight samples in only 25min with relatively lower generation of laboratory effluents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: A procedure using ultrasonic irradiation is proposed for sulfur removal of a petroleum product feedstock. The procedure involves the combination of a peroxyacid and ultrasound-assisted treatment in order to comply with the required sulfur content recommended by the current regulations for fuels. The ultrasound-assisted oxidative desulfurization (UAOD) process was applied to a petroleum product feedstock using dibenzothiophene as a model sulfur compound. The influence of ultrasonic irradiation time, oxidizing reagents amount, kind of solvent for the extraction step and kind of organic acid were investigated. The use of ultrasonic irradiation allowed higher efficiency for sulfur removal in comparison to experiments performed without its application, under the same reactional conditions. Using the optimized conditions for UAOD, the sulfur removal was about 95% after 9min of ultrasonic irradiation (20kHz, 750W, run at 40%), using hydrogen peroxide and acetic acid, followed by extraction with methanol. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: A method for organic, inorganic and total mercury determination in fish tissue has been developed using chemical vapor generation and collection of mercury vapor on a gold gauze inside a graphite tube and further atomization by electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometry. After drying and cryogenic grinding, potassium bromide and hydrochloric acid solution (1 mol L−1 KBr in 6 mol L−1 HCl) was added to the samples. After centrifugation, total mercury was determined in the supernatant. Organomercury compounds were selectively extracted from KBr solution using chloroform and the resultant solution was back extracted with 1% m/v L-cysteine. This solution was used for organic Hg determination. Inorganic Hg remaining in KBr solution was directly determined by chemical vapor generation electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometry. Mercury vapor generation from extracts was performed using 1 mol L−1 HCl and 2.5% m/v NaBH4 solutions and a batch chemical vapor generation system. Mercury vapor was collected on the gold gauze heated resistively at 80 °C and the atomization temperature was set at 650 °C. The selectivity of extraction was evaluated using liquid chromatography coupled to chemical vapor generation and determination by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. The proposed method was applied for mercury analysis in shark, croaker and tuna fish tissues. Certified reference materials were used to check accuracy and the agreement was better than 95%. The characteristic mass was 60 pg and method limits of detection were 5, 1 and 1 ng g−1 for organic, inorganic and total mercury, respectively. With the proposed method it was possible to analyze up to 2, 2 and 6 samples per hour for organic, inorganic and total Hg determination, respectively. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The article examines the urban planning on information and communication technologies (ICT) in the cities of São Paulo, Brazil. It was found that the ICT initiatives in the São Paulo cities were fragmented and were not being connected to economic development, city stature or administrative urbanization. The authors commented that the urban leaders do know where to look for inspiration, what they are going to implement and what the outcomes of such development will be. The five structural limitations in the implementation of ICTs for urban development in São Paulo cities are discussed.

Abstract: This work describes an arsenic speciation analysis in aqueous effluent from a shale industrial plant using liquid chromatography coupled to inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LC–ICP–MS). Arsenic species have been separated through an anion-exchange column and several parameters investigated, such as retention time, pH, flow rate and concentration of the mobile phase (ammonium carbonate), chloride interference and column conditioning time. The best conditions have been found by fixing the pH of the mobile phase at 8.7. Keeping the mobile phase flow rate at 1.5 ml min−1, arsenic species were separated by varying the concentration of the mobile phase and the time of elution, as follow: 1.5 mmol l−1 for 10 min, 12 mmol l−1 for 10 min and 20 mmol l−1 for 10 min, respectively. Up to 13 As species present in the samples were separated under these conditions and the following species could be identified and quantified: arsenite [As(III)], dimethylarsinic acid (DMA), monomethylarsonic acid (MMA) and arsenate [As(V)]. The limits of detection of the LC–ICP–MS method were 0.02, 0.06, 0.04 and 0.10 μg l−1 of As(III), DMA, MMA, and As(V), respectively. The concentration of these species in the samples were from 3.7 to 6.4 μg l−1, 6.9 to 13.2 μg l−1, 100 to 142 μg l−1 and 808 to 1363 μg l−1 for As(III), DMA, MMA and As(V), respectively. The accuracy, evaluated by recovery tests, varied from 94 to 105% and the precision, evaluated by the relative standard deviation was typically lower than 10%. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Aim: To test the association between sociodemographic and social characteristics with COVID-19 cases and deaths in small and large Brazilian cities. Methods: This ecological study included COVID-19 data available in State Health Secretaries (managed by brasil.io API) and three national databases (IBGE, DATASUS and Embrapa). Temporal spread of COVID-19 in Brazil during the first year considered as outcome: a) days until 1st case in each city since 1st in the country; b) days until 1,000 cases/100,000 inhabitants since 1st case in each city; c) days until 1st death until 50 deaths/100,000 inhabitants. Covariates included geographic region, city social and environmental characteristics, housing conditions, job characteristics, socioeconomic and inequalities characteristics, and health services and coverage. The analysis were stratified by city size into small (<100,000 inhabitants) and large cities (≥100,00 inhabitants). Multiple linear regressions were performed to test associations of all covariates to adjust to potential confounders. Results: In small cities, the first cases were reported after 82.2 days and 1,000 cases/100,000 were reported after 117.8 days, whereas in large cities these milestones were reported after 32.1 and 127.7 days, respectively. For first death, small and large cities took 121.6 and 36.0 days, respectively. However, small cities were associated with more vulnerability factors to first case arrival in 1,000 cases/100,000 inhabitants, first death and 50 deaths/100,000 inhabitants. North and Northeast regions positively associated with faster COVID-19 incidence, whereas South and Southeast were least. Conclusion: Social and built environment characteristics and inequalities were associated with COVID-19 cases spread and mortality incidence in Brazilian cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the heterogeneous impacts of COVID‐19 on restaurants in the postlockdown United States, from lens of social interactions. We use the data structure of chain restaurants to disentangle restaurant attributes such as food and service types (which vary across chains) and local market conditions such as infection risks (which vary with each establishment's geographical location). We find that visits to chains with higher social indices experienced larger drops as local new cases increased in 2020, but also faster recovery later when vaccination programs expanded. Moreover, demand for restaurants in city centers recovered faster than demand for those in suburbs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Ten adsorbents were used to concentrate In(III) from real leachates. • The operation was analyzed by ANN and ANFIS. • ANN and ANFIS were able to predict the In(III) adsorption capacity. • Chitosan was able to concentrate indium from the LCD leachates. • Chitosan attained adsorption capacity of 1000 mg g–1 within 20 min of operation. Ten different adsorbent materials were tested to adsorb indium (III) from leachates of LCD screens, aiming to concentrate this valuable material. Artificial neural network (ANN) and adaptive neuro–fuzzy inference system (ANIFS) were applied to analyze the indium (III) adsorption. The input variables for the network models were: specific surface area, point of zero charge, adsorbent dosage and contact time. Adsorption capacity (q) was used as output variable. The adsorption capacity values ranged from 8.203 to 1000 mg g–1. The ANN modeling presented the best fit when the Levenberg–Marquardt algorithm was used. The ANFIS modeling presented the optimum performance when the hybrid method was used. Among the tested adsorbents, chitosan presented the best performance; attaining adsorption capacity of 1000 mg g–1 within 20 min. This is an excellent value since the maximum indium concentration in LCD screens is 0.613 mg g–1. This high capacity was attributed to the coordination ligation between chitosan and indium (III). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collaborative governance is the idea that governments, civil society, and private actors can engage in collective policy-making processes. However, which structures and practices facilitate or hinder the deliberative dimension of collaborative governance? This research is based on case studies of urban planning processes carried out in Curitiba (Brazil) and Montreal (Canada). Using 20 semistructured interviews with key informants, planning documents, and media coverage, the study identified the crucial moments and key determinants in the interactions between public and private actors. Despite their disparate histories of urban planning and management, both case studies revealed significant commonalities, namely the varying extent of collaborative interactions among stakeholders according to the type of actors involved, the arena, and the phase of the planning process. The success of the democratic reform in Curitiba was undermined by the maintenance of informal institutions, whereas consultation fatigue explained the lack of participation in Montreal. Although based on a small number of cases and plans, our findings revealed the mechanisms, factors, and processes that could help transition urban planning processes from informative/consultative practices to collaborative governance models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amsterdam is a culturally rich city attracting millions of tourists. Popular activities in Amsterdam consist of museum visits and boat tours. By strategically combining them, this paper presents an innovative approach using waterborne autonomous vehicles (WAVs) to improve the museum visitation in Amsterdam. Multi-source urban data including I Amsterdam card data and Instagram hashtags are used to reveal museum characteristics such as offline and online popularity of museums and visitation patterns. A multi-objective model is proposed to optimize WAV routes by considering museum characteristics and travel experiences. An experiment in the Amsterdam Central area was conducted to evaluate the viability of employing WAVs. By comparing WAVs with land transportation, the results demonstrate that WAVs can enhance travel experience to cultural destinations. The presented innovative WAVs can be extended to a larger variety of points of interest in cities. These findings provide useful insights on embracing artificial intelligence in urban tourism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The potential of wine industry wastes (grape peel, seed, and stem) as alternative biosorbents to remove Ag from aqueous media was investigated in this work. Wine industry wastes were washed, lyophilized and pulverized to obtain the biosorbents. The powdered biosorbents were characterized in detail and several batch experiments were performed to found the most suitable conditions for Ag biosorption. Kinetic, equilibrium, and thermodynamic studies were also performed. The interactions Ag-biosorbent were elucidated by analyses before and after the biosorption. For all wastes, the maximum removal percentages were found using a biosorbent dosage of 3.0 g L−1at pH of 7.0. The kinetic data were well represented by the pseudo-first-order model. The equilibrium was satisfactorily represented by the Sips model. The maximum biosorption capacities, found at 298 K, were: 41.7, 61.4, and 46.4 mg g−1for grape peel, seed, and stem, respectively. Thermodynamically, the biosorption was a spontaneous, favorable, exothermic, and enthalpy-controlled process. The magnitude of ΔH0indicated a physical sorption. These results showed that the wine industry wastes can be considered alternative efficient, low-cost, and eco-friendly biosorbents to remove Ag from aqueous media. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Many nations seek to control or prevent the inflow of waste electronic and electrical equipment, but such flows are difficult to track due to undocumented, often illegal global trade in e-waste. We apply wireless GPS location trackers to this problem, detecting potential cases of non-compliant recycling operations in the United States as well as the global trajectories of exported e-waste. By planting hidden trackers inside discarded computer monitors and printers, we tracked dozens of devices being sent overseas to various ports in Asia, flows likely unreported in official trade data. We discuss how location tracking enables new ways to monitor, regulate, and enforce rules on the international movement of hazardous electronic waste materials, and the limitations of such methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cities around the world are trying to implement transport policies to reduce the dramatic environmental impacts of motorized modes. There is no single method to determine the success of sustainable transport systems, but comparative studies can be illuminating despite inevitable data inconsistencies. This study brings to the forefront different styles of regulation and mix of policy tools used by cities that have been trying to implement sustainable transport systems. To this end, a classification scheme of policy instruments was developed based on asymmetries of information and legitimacy, generating four types of instruments: Self-regulative, Informative/Limited action, Proactive/Government and Interactive/Governance. Using 39 semi-structured interviews with key informants from different levels of government and stakeholders, this paper compares the instrument choice in terms of sustainable urban transport policy in Seattle, Montreal and Curitiba. The main conclusions drawn from our interviews is that the distinction between government/proactive instruments and governance/interactive instruments does not appear as dichotomous and clear as expected and that each city deploys somewhat different patterns of instrument choice, in accordance with its political and institutional context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last 10 years, ride-hailing companies (such as Uber and Grab) have proliferated in cities around the world. While generally beneficial from an economic viewpoint, having a plurality of operators that serve a given demand for point-to-point trips might induce traffic inefficiencies due to the lack of coordination between operators when serving trips. In fact, the efficiency of vehicle fleet management depends, among other things, density of the demand in the city, and in this sense having multiple operators in the market can be seen as a disadvantage. There is thus a tension between having a plurality of operators in the market, and the overall traffic efficiency. To this date, there is no systematic analysis of this trade-off, which is fundamental to design the best future urban mobility landscape. In this paper, we present the first systematic, data-driven characterization of the cost of non-coordination in urban on-demand mobility markets by proposing a simple, yet realistic, model. This model uses trip density and average traffic speed in a city as its input, and provides an accurate estimate of the additional number of vehicles that should circulate due to the lack of coordination between operators—the cost of non-coordination. We plot such cost across different cities—Singapore, New York (limited to the borough of Manhattan in this work), San Francisco, Vienna and Curitiba—and show that due to non-coordination, each additional operator in the market can increase the total number of circulating vehicles by up to 67%. Our findings could support city policy makers to make data supported decisions when regulating urban on-demand mobility markets in their cities. At the same time, our results outline the need of a more proactive government participation and the need for new, innovative solutions that would enable a better coordination of on-demand mobility operators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic, an exceptional crisis, sparked the introduction of new digital infrastructure to halt the novel coronavirus's spread. This paper explores how such digital infrastructure's impact might reverberate over the long term, by comparing Singapore, Hong Kong, and mainland China's utilization of digital technology in response to the 2003 SARS outbreak, and their responses to the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. We find that advancements in digital technology since 2003 have boosted governments' surveillance and segregation abilities substantially—most dramatically so in China. Even though some of these new digital interventions are ostensibly designed to be temporary ones to address the needs of the immediate crisis, we argue that the resultant extensions of state power experienced during COVID-19 are likely to have profound long-term effects because they fundamentally affect sociopolitical contexts, institutional capabilities, and digital cultures. We also find that the extent to which governments can extend digital surveillance and segregation abilities during the pandemic is contingent on their respective sociopolitical, institutional, and digital cultural contexts. • COVID-19 pandemic sparked calls for a new digital infrastructure. • We compare 2003 SARS outbreak to COVID-19 pandemic. • New digital technologies increased governments' ability to surveil and segregate. • Their impact on surveillance and segregation will persist post COVID-19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Studies on keratinolytic microorganisms have been mainly related to their biotechnological applications and association with animal pathologies. However, these organisms have an ecological relevance to recycling keratinous residues in nature. This work aimed to select and identify new culturable feather-degrading bacteria isolated from soils of Brazilian Amazon forest and Atlantic forest. Bacteria that were isolated from temperate soils and bacteria from Amazonian basin soil were tested for their capability to grow on feather meal agar (FMA). Proteolytic bacteria were tested for feather degradation and were further identified according to their morphological and biochemical characteristics. Also, molecular identification based on 16S rDNA gene sequencing was carried out. A total of 24 proteolytic and 20 feather-degrading isolates were selected; Most of the isolates were from the Bacillus genus (division Firmicutes), but one Aeromonas, two Serratia (γ-Proteobacteria), and one Chryseobacterium (Cytophaga–Flavobacterium group). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Microwave-induced combustion was applied to petroleum coke digestion in closed vessels for further chloride determination by ion chromatography. Samples were pressed as pellets and placed on a quartz holder. Combustion was performed using oxygen pressure of 2MPa and 50μl of 6moll−1 NH4NO3 as aid for ignition. Recoveries from 97 to 102% were obtained for all studied absorbing solutions (water, H2O2, Na2CO3 or (NH4)2CO3). Accuracy was evaluated using certified reference materials with agreement better than 98% using water as absorbing solution with reflux step. The limit of quantification was 3.8μgg−1. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Autonomous vehicles will transform urban mobility. However, before being fully implemented, autonomous vehicles will navigate cities in mixed-traffic roads, negotiating traffic with human-driven vehicles. In this work, we simulate a system of autonomous vehicles co-existing with human-driven vehicles, analyzing the consequences of system design choices. The system consists of a network of arterial roads with exclusive lanes for autonomous vehicles where they can travel in platoons. This paper presents the evaluation of this system in realistic scenarios evaluating the impacts of the system on travel time using mesoscopic traffic simulation. We used real data from the metropolis of São Paulo to create the simulation scenarios. The results show that the proposed system would bring reductions to the average travel time of the city commuters and other benefits such as the reduction of the space required to handle all the traffic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poor air quality is the world's single largest environmental health risk, and air quality monitoring is crucial for developing informed air quality policies. Efforts to monitor air pollution in different countries are uneven, largely due to the high capital costs of reference air quality monitors (AQMs), especially for airborne particulate matter (PM). In sub-Saharan Africa, for example, few cities operate AQM systems. It is thus important to examine the potential of alternative monitoring approaches. Although PM measurements can be obtained from low-cost optical particle counters (OPCs), data quality can be an issue. This paper develops a new method using raw aerosol size distributions from multiple, surface-based low-cost OPCs to constrain the Multiangle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) component-specific, column aerosol optical depth (AOD) data, which contain some particle-size-resolved information. The combination allows us to derive surface aerosol concentrations for particles as small as ∼0.1 µ m in diameter, which MISR detects but are below the OPC detection limit of ∼0.5 µ m. As such, we obtain better constraints on the near-surface particulate matter (PM) concentration, especially as the smaller particles tend to dominate urban pollution. We test our method using data from five low-cost OPCs deployed in the city of Nairobi, Kenya, from 1 May 2016 to 2 March 2017. As MISR passes over Nairobi only once in about 8 d, we use the size-resolved MISR AODs to scale the more frequent Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS)-derived AODs over our sites. The size distribution derived from MISR and MODIS agrees well with that from the OPCs in the size range where the data overlap (adjusted- R2∼0.80). We then calculate surface-PM concentration from the combined data. The situation for this first demonstration of the technique had significant limitations. We thus identify factors that will reduce the uncertainty in this approach for future experiments. Within these constraints, the approach has the potential to greatly expand the range of cities that can afford to monitor long-term air quality trends and help inform public policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poor air quality is the world's single largest environmental health risk, and air quality monitoring is crucial for developing informed air quality policies. Efforts to monitor air pollution in different countries are uneven, largely due to the high capital costs of reference air quality monitors (AQMs), especially for airborne particulate matter (PM). In sub-Saharan Africa, for example, few cities operate AQM systems. It is thus important to examine the potential of alternative monitoring approaches. Although PM measurements can be obtained from low-cost optical particle counters (OPCs), data quality can be an issue. This paper develops a new method using raw aerosol size distributions from multiple, surface-based low-cost Optical Particle Counters (OPCs) to calibrate the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) component-specific, column aerosol optical depth (AOD) data, that contain some particle-size-resolved information. The combination allows us to derive surface aerosol concentrations for particles as small as ~ 0.1 µm in diameter that MISR detects but are below the OPC detection limit of ~ 0.5 µm. As such, we obtain better constraints on the near-surface particulate matter (PM) concentration, especially as the smaller particles tend to dominate urban pollution. We test our method using data from five low-cost OPCs deployed in the city of Nairobi, Kenya, from May 1 2016 to March 2 2017. As MISR passes over Nairobi only once in about eight days, we use the size-resolved MISR AODs to scale the more frequent Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS)-derived AODs over our sites. The size distribution derived from MISR and MODIS agrees well with that from the OPCs in the size range where the data overlap (adjusted-R² ~ 0.80). We then calculate surface-PM concentration from the combined data. The situation for this first demonstration of the technique had significant limitations. We thus identify factors that will reduce the uncertainty in this approach for future experiments. Within these constraints, the approach has the potential to greatly expand the range of cities that can afford to monitor long-term air quality trends and help inform public policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Low-cost air sensing is changing the paradigm of ambient air quality management research and practices. However, consensus on a structured low-cost sensor calibration and performance evaluation framework is lacking. Our study aims to devise a standardized low-cost sensor calibration protocol and evaluate the performance of various calibration algorithms. Extensive collocation data were collected in stationary and mobile settings in two American cities, New York and Boston. We trained the calibration models using stationary data aggregated at various intervals to examine the performance of several commonly used calibration algorithms described in the literature. Linear models provide consistently satisfactory calibration results, indicating linear responses from the low-cost sensors in our stationary test environment. Its simplicity is recommended for citizen science and education usages. Models that can account for non-linear relationships, especially random forest, perform well and transfer between sensors better than generalized linear regression models for PM 2.5 calibration, which should be adopted for regulatory and scientific purposes. Data collected in a mobile validation campaign in Boston were passed through the best-performing calibration models to assess their transferability. The results indicate that models trained with data from a different urban environment and season in the stationary setting did not transfer well to a mobile setting. It is recommended that low-cost sensors should be calibrated more often than suggested in Environmental Protection Agency's air sensor performance evaluation guidelines and used in an environment that is as similar as possible to the calibration environment. [Display omitted] • Our work pilots the standardized EPA sensor performance evaluation guidelines. • We examined factors that affect low-cost sensor and calibration algorithm performance. • We observed better transferraiblity of machine learning algorithm in a stationary setting. • We demonstrated the risk of using low-cost sensors without a local calibration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Air pollution is a major threat to public health. However, two issues have not been adequately addressed in most conventional Land Use Regression models for air pollution prediction: 1). A combination of urban forest involvement and urban form representation; 2). Scale sensitivity analysis of model variables. Here, we apply lacunarity to investigate the spatial sensitivity of predictors, incorporate 2-D and 3-D urban form to comprehensively characterize the urban environment, and examine the tree diversity impacts on air pollution distribution using unique NO 2 datasets collected through opportunistic mobile monitoring in the Bronx, New York, and Oakland, California. We find that lacunarity-optimized models could reduce the computation burden by extracting the upper limits of the spatial heterogeneity of predictors while keeping the model accuracy simultaneously. Furthermore, there are synthetic effects between the urban form and tree diversity on NO 2 distribution, and such effect directions could be non-monotonic. Finally, although the increase in tree diversity could facilitate the reduction of regional NO 2 concentration, it is essential to seek a balance between tree diversity and tree dominance to effectively improve air quality on the city scale. The findings are useful for environmental scientists striving for better air quality and urban planners caring for the well-being of cities. [Display omitted] • Examined the interaction between the urban forest, physical environment, and air quality with mobile measurements. • Characterized the urban environment through both 2D and 3D urban morphological measurements. • Quantified spatial heterogeneity of regression predictors using lacunarity analysis. • The synthetic effects of the urban form and tree diversity on NO 2 distribution could be non-monotonic. • Seek a balance between tree diversity and tree dominance is essential to effectively improve air quality on the city scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A four-week mini-project for teaching is described for an experimental physical chemistry or organic chemistry course. The activities included synthesis of a Pd catalyst, PdCl 2 supported on calcined coconut shell fiber, and its use in the preparation of 4-methylbiphenyl via Suzuki-Miyaura cross-coupling reaction. The technical skills and concepts that are typically presented in practical chemistry courses were covered, including notions of surface chemistry – development of new catalysts, modern organic synthesis, gas chromatography techniques, separation of mixtures, and stoichiometric calculations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]