Polytechnic Institute of Viseu

About: Polytechnic Institute of Viseu is a education organization based out in Viseu, Portugal. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Agriculture. The organization has 392 authors who have published 989 publications receiving 14134 citations. The organization is also known as: IPV.

Environmental, Economic, and Social Impact of Industrial Symbiosis: Methods and Indicators Review

Abstract: Industrial symbiosis is an important approach to achieve sustainability and to reduce significantly wastes. It is, therefore, imperative to evaluate and quantify the real impact of industrial symbiosis in order to provide more synergies between companies and more policies to encourage this practice. This article aims to present a literature review about the methods and indicators used to assess the impact of industrial symbiosis in environmental, economic, and social context. The advantages and limitations of each of them are also listed. This review addresses the economic and environmental aspects are the most studied, all methods and indicators that have been developed, and the advantages that come from industrial symbiosis.

Image Classification Benchmark (ICB)

Abstract: During any investigative work, it is necessary to confront our solutions to the already existing ones. This requires much work, namely to try to recreate the competing solutions and to use the same experimental conditions in order to obtain an objective comparison. Benchmarking is an activity of comparing performance metrics of systems in order to rank them or the activity of comparing a specific system to state-of-the-art alternatives. It would be convenient to have an image benchmarking ecosystem, not only to evaluate a personal solution but also to compare it with other previously proposed solutions. Upon designing a new or improved image classification pipeline, a convolution neural network or a specific algorithm modifying some detail, a user can add it to the benchmarking ecosystem and get a report on the performance of the solution, which can be compared to other solutions that were previously benchmarked under the same conditions. In this paper we describe the ICB - “Image Classification Benchmark” -, a prototype of a benchmarking ecosystem created to enable this vision. Besides describing how it works and how it was made flexible to incorporate any algorithm, we apply it to a specific comparison, as a proof-of-concept.

Study of the drying kinetics and calculation of mass transfer properties in hot air drying of Cynara cardunculus

Abstract: Abstract In the present work, mass transfer properties of thistle flower (Cynara cardunculus L.) were evaluated for the convective drying carried out at temperatures between 35 and 65°C, with an air flow of 0.5 m/s. The calculations followed two different algorithms, based on mathematical models derived from the thin layer drying equation and Fick’s second law of diffusion. The results obtained indicated that different methodologies resulted in different values of mass transfer properties, which is an alert that care must be taken when choosing which calculation method might be more appropriate in a specific practical application. In all cases, the values of moisture diffusion and mass transfer coefficient were found to increase with increasing operating temperature. The values of diffusivity increased from 2.7866 × 10−9 to 1.4027 × 10−8 m2/s for the thin layer model-based algorithm and from 1.9256 × 10−10 to 1.2033 × 10−9 m2/s for Fick’s equation model. The values of the mass transfer coefficient increased from 8.4335 × 10−8 to 8.4400 × 10−7 m/s and from 5.8277 × 10−9 to 7.2398 × 10−8 m/s, respectively, for the thin layer and Fick’s law-based models.

Effect of Biochar on Emission of Greenhouse Gases and Productivity of Cardoon Crop (Cynara cardunculus L.)

Abstract: Cardoon could be cropped for agro-environmental, industrial, and pharmaceutical purposes. The aim of this study was to assess the effects of biochar on emissions of nitrous oxide (N2O), carbon dioxide (CO2), and methane (CH4), and productivity of cardoon crop. A pot experiment was run outdoors from April to August 2018, with a cardoon plant per pot. The following four treatments, with four replicates each, were applied: control, soil only; mineral, soil amended with mineral fertilizer (2.5 g N m−2); biochar, soil amended with biochar (1 kg m−2); and mineral+biochar, soil amended with mineral fertilizer (2.5 g N m−2) and biochar (1 kg m−2). The morphological characteristics and biomass production of cardoon plants were evaluated, and the fluxes of N2O, CO2 and CH4 were measured by using the closed chamber technique. The application of biochar combined with mineral reduced N2O emissions by 36% and global warming potential (GWP) by 26% relative to mineral. However, the cumulative CO2 and CH4 emissions as well as yield-scaled GWP were not significantly different among amended soil treatments. Furthermore, the biomass production was increased by 50% by the application of biochar combined with mineral fertilizer relative to mineral. It was concluded that biochar combined with mineral fertilizer is recommended as a pathway mitigation for agro-environmental purposes, because it reduces the global warming potential and could increase the biomass production of cardoon plants.