This book analyses, in an international comparative context, Portugal´s energy transition from organic sources to fossil fuels in the period 1856-2006. It investigates the role that energy played in the industrialization of the country and how the relationship between energy and economic growth changed with the transition from an industrial to a service society. A unique dataset of energy quantiti

The nocturnal helmet gecko, Tarentola chazaliae, discriminates colors in dim moonlight when humans are color blind. The sensitivity of the helmet gecko eye has been calculated to be 350 times higher than human cone vision at the color vision threshold. The optics and the large cones of the gecko are important reasons why they can use color vision at low light intensities. Using photorefractometry

The association between vitamin D status and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) has not been well investigated, despite experimental evidence supporting an important role of vitamin D in liver pathophysiology. Our objective was to investigate the association between prediagnostic circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] serum levels and the risk of HCC in a prospective, nested case-control study amon

To study how prescription patterns concerning respiratory tract infections differ between interns, residents, younger general practitioners (GPs), older GPs and locums.

Consideration of strut inertia can have significant influence on the modal behavior of a Gough-Stewart Platform (GSP). However, in the literature, the strut inertia has not yet been taken into account in its vibration study with a parametric approach. In this paper, we present a fully parametric approach to formulate the damped vibrations of GSPs taking into account the strut masses and moments of

A simple, rapid and environmentally friendly hollow-fibre liquid-phase microextraction (HF-LPME) technique was developed for the quantitative determination of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in aqueous samples. GC-MS was then used as the method of analysis. The HF-LPME technique involves extraction of PAHs from a 20-mL sample containing 20 % acetonitrile as a modifier. The PAHs were extrac

The origin of the new kinematically identified metal-poor stellar stream, the KFR08 stream, has not been established to date. We present stellar parameters, stellar ages, and detailed elemental abundances for Na, Mg, Al, Si, Ca, Sc, Ti, Cr, Ni, Zn, Sr, Y, Zr, Ba, La, and Eu for 16 KFR08 stream members based on an analysis of high-resolution spectra. Based on the abundance ratios of 14 elements, we

Objective: The aim of this study was to explore healthcare workers' opinions on workplace related health resources relevant to promotion of their health. Participants: 16 registered nurses and 19 assistant nurses, from a medical emergency ward at a medium sized hospital in the south of Sweden, participated in the study. Methods: Eight focus group interviews were conducted, the material was con

Soil organic material (SOM) is usually enriched in (15)N in deeper soil layers. This has been explained by discrimination against the heavier isotope during decomposition or by the accumulation of (15)N-enriched microbial biomass versus plant biomass in older SOM. In particular, ectomycorrhizal (EM) fungi have been suggested to accumulate in old SOM since this group is among the most (15)N-enriche

Spring phenophases such as the beginning of leaf unfolding, measured in the Irish gardens of the International Phenological Garden (IPG) network, indicate an earlier spring occurrence hence a longer growing season. However, these measurements are limited to selected species of trees at a few point locations in the southern half of the country. The aim of this study was to develop a methodology, ba

This report is the result of study that was performed in January and February 2009. It was presented and reviewed at the Annual Meeting of the Law and Society Association: Law, Power, and Inequality in the 21st Century in May 2009. The study empirically examined, or rather examined the lack of, social norms opposing illegal file sharing. A total of over 1,000 respondents have answered the questio

Radome diagnostics are acquired in the design process, the delivery control, and in performance verification of repaired and newly developed radomes. A measured near or far field may indicate deviations, e.g., increased side-lobe levels, but the origins of the flaws are not revealed. In this paper, radome diagnostics is performed by visualizing the equivalent surface currents on the 3D-radome body

The World Health Organization/United Nations Children's Fund Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative: Revised, Updated, and Expanded for Integrated Care (2009) identifies the need for expanding the guidelines originally developed for maternity units to include neonatal intensive care. For this purpose, an expert group from the Nordic countries and Quebec, Canada, prepared a draft proposal, which was dis

Vernacular buildings in Egypt express a variety of passive low-tech approaches in design and construction to achieve human comfort and fulfil inhabitants’ requirements. They have been devised to suit living in regions where local inhabitants had to invent various passive building strategies to live under severe local climatic conditions without depending on fossil fuels. This paper discusses a ret

The existence of infinite periodic lipid bilayer structures in biological systems was first demonstrated in cell membrane assemblies. Such periodicity is only possible in symmetric bilayers, and their occurrence is discussed here in relation to the asymmetry of cell membranes in vivo. A periodic membrane conformation in the prolamellar body of plants corresponds to a dormant state without photosyn

A primary functionality of context aware applications is the retrieval of different types of context data from various context sources and adapting their behavior accordingly. In order to facilitate context aware application development, a context aware middleware must provide an effective context data management and lookup strategy. The use of a traditional index for indexing dynamic context data