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AIMS: In March 1992 a private members Bill was introduced into parliament which sought to place tighter restrictions on the sale of fireworks. The primary purpose of this research was to document the nature and extent of firework related injury in New Zealand for the purpose of preparing a submission on this Bill. METHODS: Firework related injuries were examined in relation to the legislative history of fireworks control in New Zealand to ascertain if existing regulations had been effective in reducing firework injuries and whether there was justification for greater control. RESULTS: Between 1979 and 1992 (inclusive) 237 persons were admitted to hospital for treatment of injuries related to fireworks. The overall incidence rate for this period was 0.52 per 100,000 persons per year. Eighty five percent of all events involved males. Children (< 15 years) comprised 68% of the victims with the 10-14 year age group having the highest rate of injury, at 2.5 per 100,000 persons per year. CONCLUSIONS: The authors concluded that, on the basis of morbidity, it may be premature to impose a complete ban on the public sale of fireworks (as is proposed in the Bill). The current legislation could well be supported though, by extending the ban on the types of fireworks publicly available to include skyrockets.
Abstract. Fireworks degrade air quality, reduce visibility, alter atmospheric chemistry, and cause short-term adverse health effects. However, there have not been any comprehensive physicochemical and optical measurements of fireworks and their associated impacts in a Southeast Asia megacity, where fireworks are a regular part of the culture. Size-resolved particulate matter (PM) measurements were made before, during, and after New Year 2019 at the Manila Observatory in Quezon City, Philippines, as part of the Cloud, Aerosol, and Monsoon Processes Philippines Experiment (CAMP2Ex). A high-spectral-resolution lidar (HSRL) recorded a substantial increase in backscattered signal associated with high aerosol loading ∼440 m above the surface during the peak of firework activities around 00:00 (local time). This was accompanied by PM2.5 concentrations peaking at 383.9 µg m−3. During the firework event, water-soluble ions and elements, which affect particle formation, growth, and fate, were mostly in the submicrometer diameter range. Total (>0.056 µm) water-soluble bulk particle mass concentrations were enriched by 5.7 times during the fireworks relative to the background (i.e., average of before and after the firework). The water-soluble mass fraction of PM2.5 increased by 18.5 % above that of background values. This corresponded to increased volume fractions of inorganics which increased bulk particle hygroscopicity, kappa (κ), from 0.11 (background) to 0.18 (fireworks). Potassium and non-sea-salt (nss) SO42- contributed the most (70.9 %) to the water-soluble mass, with their mass size distributions shifting from a smaller to a larger submicrometer mode during the firework event. On the other hand, mass size distributions for NO3-, Cl−, and Mg2+ (21.1 % mass contribution) shifted from a supermicrometer mode to a submicrometer mode. Being both uninfluenced by secondary aerosol formation and constituents of firework materials, a subset of species were identified as the best firework tracer species (Cu, Ba, Sr, K+, Al, and Pb). Although these species (excluding K+) only contributed 2.1 % of the total mass concentration of water-soluble ions and elements, they exhibited the highest enrichments (6.1 to 65.2) during the fireworks. Surface microscopy analysis confirmed the presence of potassium/chloride-rich cubic particles along with capsule-shaped particles in firework samples. The results of this study highlight how firework emissions change the physicochemical and optical properties of water-soluble particles (e.g., mass size distribution, composition, hygroscopicity, and aerosol backscatter), which subsequently alters the background aerosol's respirability, influence on surroundings, ability to uptake gases, and viability as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN).
Abstract. Biomass burning activities can produce large quantities of smoke and result in adverse air quality conditions in regional environments. In Canada, the Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) operational FireWork (v1.0) air quality forecast system incorporates near-real-time biomass burning emissions to forecast smoke plumes from fire events. The system is based on the ECCC operational Regional Air Quality Deterministic Prediction System (RAQDPS) augmented with near-real-time wildfire emissions using inputs from the Canadian Forest Service (CFS) Canadian Wildland Fire Information System (CWFIS). Recent improvements to the representation of fire behaviour and fire emissions have been incorporated into the CFS Canadian Forest Fire Emissions Prediction System (CFFEPS) v2.03. This is a bottom-up system linked to CWFIS in which hourly changes in biomass fuel consumption are parameterized with hourly forecasted meteorology at fire locations. CFFEPS has now also been connected to FireWork. In addition, a plume-rise parameterization based on fire-energy thermodynamics is used to define the smoke injection height and the distribution of emissions within a model vertical column. The new system, FireWork v2.0 (FireWork–CFFEPS), has been evaluated over North America for July–September 2017 and June–August 2018, which are both periods when western Canada experienced historical levels of fire activity with poor air quality conditions in several cities as well as other fires affecting northern Canada and Ontario. Forecast results were evaluated against hourly surface measurements for the three pollutant species used to calculate the Canadian Air Quality Health Index (AQHI), namely PM2.5, O3, and NO2, and benchmarked against the operational FireWork v1.0 system (FireWork-Ops). This comparison shows improved forecast performance and predictive skills for the FireWork–CFFEPS system. Modelled fire-plume injection heights from CFFEPS based on fire-energy thermodynamics show higher plume injection heights and larger variability. The changes in predicted fire emissions and injection height reduced the consistent over-predictions of PM2.5 and O3 seen in FireWork-Ops. On the other hand, there were minimal fire emission contributions to surface NO2, and results from FireWork–CFFEPS do not degrade NO2 forecast skill compared to the RAQDPS. Model performance statistics are slightly better for Canada than for the US, with lower errors and biases. The new system is still unable to capture the hourly variability of the observed values for PM2.5, but it captured the observed hourly variability for O3 concentration adequately. FireWork–CFFEPS also improves upon FireWork-Ops categorical scores for forecasting the occurrence of elevated air pollutant concentrations in terms of false alarm ratio (FAR) and critical success index (CSI).
Noise fears represent a highly prevalent welfare problem in dogs. An online survey was performed to explore severity and progression of firework fears in dogs, and relationships with demographics, health, behaviour problems and owners' training efforts to prevent or alleviate firework fears. Fifty-two percent of dogs in the sample (N = 1225) were at least partially affected by firework fears, and the majority developed a fear of fireworks in the first year of life, with a decreasing frequency of new occurrences up until seven years, and only few newly affected dogs beyond this age. While almost three-quarters of fearful dogs had recovered by the next morning following firework exposure, recovery took up to one day in 10%, up to one week in 12%, and several weeks or even months in >3%. Univariate analyses indicated a significant effect of breed group, age, sex, neuter status, origin and age at acquisition on severity of firework fears in dogs. However, binomial models including multiple predictors of presence/ absence of firework fears identified only age, breed group (mixed breeds being most affected), health problems, and an interaction between health problems and age as significant predictors. This discrepancy might be explained by collinearities of predictors and underlying differences between mixed-breed dogs and purebreds, such as mixed breeds being acquired from shelters more often and being neutered more often. Firework fears are highly correlated with fears of gunshots and thunder, and to a low extent with fears of other noises, but not with any other behavioural problems. Both improvement and deterioration of firework fears were frequently reported. While an early age of onset and breed differences point to a strong genetic contribution to firework fears, the data indicate that training puppies or non-fearful adults to associate the noise with positive stimuli is highly effective in preventing later development of firework fears.
Importance: Fireworks are popularly used for recreation but can lead to potentially blinding injuries. Studies quantifying the trend and national prevalence of firework-related ocular injuries are limited. Objective: To characterize firework-related ocular injuries treated in emergency departments (EDs) in the US from 1999 to 2017. Design, Setting, and Participants: This cross-sectional study used the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System, a stratified probability sample of more than 100 hospital-affiliated US EDs representing more than 5300 nationwide hospitals. Deidentified individuals in the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System database who experienced eye injury due to fireworks between January 1, 1999, and December 31, 2017, were included. Analysis began February 2019. Main Outcomes and Measures: Annual prevalence of firework-related ocular injury, firework type stratified by demographic information, diagnosis, event location/date, and patient disposition. Results: A total of 34 548 firework-related ocular injuries were seen in US EDs during the 19-year study period (estimated from 1007 individuals in the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System database). Overall, 664 individuals (65.9%) were 18 years or younger, 724 (71.9%) were male, and 512 (50.8%) were white. Twenty-eight patients (2.8%) sustained a ruptured globe, while 633 (62.9%) sustained ocular burn injuries, 118 (11.7%) had ocular foreign bodies, 97 (9.6%) had conjunctival irritation, and 46 (4.6%) experienced other severe eye trauma. Of 1007 individuals, 911 (90.5%) were treated and released without transfer, while 87 (8.7%) required admission or transfer to another hospital. The most common specified firework types included firecrackers (193 [19.2%]), bottle rockets (177 [17.6%]), sparklers (88 [8.7%]), roman candles (66 [6.6%]), and novelty devices (65 [6.5%]) (eg, poppers and snappers). Bottle rockets disproportionately caused the most severe injuries, including ruptured globe (odds ratio, 5.82; 95% CI, 2.72-12.46; P < .001). A total of 411 cases (74.9%) occurred at home. Injuries most commonly occurred near the time of Independence Day and New Year's Day: 707 patients (70.2%) presented in July, 74 (7.4%) in June, 101 (10.0%) in January, and 47 (4.7%) in December. Conclusions and Relevance: These findings support that firework-related ocular injuries range from mild irritation to ruptured globe, and most occur frequently in those who are young, male, and white. Focused preventive methods and regulations may be imperative in decreasing fireworks-related ocular morbidity, namely from bottle rockets and especially near national holidays.
UNLABELLED: Environment and Climate Change Canada's FireWork air quality (AQ) forecast system for North America with near-real-time biomass burning emissions has been running experimentally during the Canadian wildfire season since 2013. The system runs twice per day with model initializations at 00 UTC and 12 UTC, and produces numerical AQ forecast guidance with 48-hr lead time. In this work we describe the FireWork system, which incorporates near-real-time biomass burning emissions based on the Canadian Wildland Fire Information System (CWFIS) as an input to the operational Regional Air Quality Deterministic Prediction System (RAQDPS). To demonstrate the capability of the system we analyzed two forecast periods in 2015 (June 2-July 15, and August 15-31) when fire activity was high, and observed fire-smoke-impacted areas in western Canada and the western United States. Modeled PM2.5 surface concentrations were compared with surface measurements and benchmarked with results from the operational RAQDPS, which did not consider near-real-time biomass burning emissions. Model performance statistics showed that FireWork outperformed RAQDPS with improvements in forecast hourly PM2.5 across the region; the results were especially significant for stations near the path of fire plume trajectories. Although the hourly PM2.5 concentrations predicted by FireWork still displayed bias for areas with active fires for these two periods (mean bias [MB] of -7.3 µg m(-3) and 3.1 µg m(-3)), it showed better forecast skill than the RAQDPS (MB of -11.7 µg m(-3) and -5.8 µg m(-3)) and demonstrated a greater ability to capture temporal variability of episodic PM2.5 events (correlation coefficient values of 0.50 and 0.69 for FireWork compared to 0.03 and 0.11 for RAQDPS). A categorical forecast comparison based on an hourly PM2.5 threshold of 30 µg m(-3) also showed improved scores for probability of detection (POD), critical success index (CSI), and false alarm rate (FAR). IMPLICATIONS: Smoke from wildfires can have a large impact on regional air quality (AQ) and can expose populations to elevated pollution levels. Environment and Climate Change Canada has been producing operational air quality forecasts for all of Canada since 2009 and is now working to include near-real-time wildfire emissions (NRTWE) in its operational AQ forecasting system. An experimental forecast system named FireWork, which includes NRTWE, has been undergoing testing and evaluation since 2013. A performance analysis of FireWork forecasts for the 2015 wildfire season shows that FireWork provides significant improvements to surface PM2.5 forecasts and valuable guidance to regional forecasters and first responders.
Firework events are capable of inducing particulate matter (PM) episodes that lead to exceedances of regulatory limit values. As short-term peaks in ambient PM concentration have been associated with negative impacts on respiratory and cardiovascular health, we performed a detailed study of the consequences of firework events in London on ambient air quality and PM composition. These changes were further related to the oxidative activity of daily PM samples by assessing their capacity to drive the oxidation of physiologically important lung antioxidants including ascorbate, glutathione and urate (oxidative potential, OP). Twenty-four hour ambient PM samples were collected at the Marylebone Road sampling site in Central London over a three week period, including two major festivals celebrated with pyrotechnic events: Guy Fawkes Night and Diwali. Pyrotechnic combustion events were characterized by increased gas phase pollutants levels (NO(x) and SO(2)), elevated PM mass concentrations, and trace metal concentrations (specifically Sr, Mg, K, Ba, and Pb). Relationships between NO(x), benzene, and PM(10) were used to apportion firework and traffic source fractions. A positive significant relationship was found between PM oxidative burden and individual trace metals associated with each of these apportioned source fractions. The level of exposure to each source fraction was significantly associated with the total OP. The firework contribution to PM total OP, on a unit mass basis, was greater than that associated with traffic sources: a 1 μg elevation in firework and traffic PM fraction concentration was associated with a 6.5 ± 1.5 OP(T) μg(-1) and 5.2 ± 1.4 OP(T) μg(-1) increase, respectively. In the case of glutathione depletion, firework particulate OP (3.5 ± 0.8 OP(GSH) μg(-1)) considerably exceeded that due to traffic particles (2.2 ± 0.8 OP(GSH) μg(-1)). Therefore, in light of the elevated PM concentrations caused by firework activity and the increased oxidative activity of this PM source, there is value in examining if firework derived PM is related to acute respiratory outcomes.
Fireworks displays are a traditional form of celebration during the Chinese Spring Festival (Festival). In response to the heavy air pollution caused by fireworks, Shanghai, a megacity in China, has imposed regulatory measures on the use of fireworks in recent years. To investigate air quality trends before and after firework regulation was established and quantify its efficiency, gaseous pollutants, PM2.5 levels, and PM2.5 chemical composition were synchronously measured at 1 h time intervals at an urban site and a suburban site in Shanghai in the period during and around the Festival from 2013 to 2017. PM2.5 concentrations at the urban site during the Festival over the five-year period were 79 (max: 524), 94 (290), 53 (163), 50 (146) and 32 (156) μg/m3, respectively, presenting a decreasing trend at a rate of −13.8 μg/m3/yr (p = 0.05). K+ concentrations, which serve as a tracer of fireworks, were 8.2 (max: 159.4), 2.5 (14.6), 2.2 (10.4), 4.3 (44.2) and 0.8 (4.5) μg/m3 during the Festival from 2013 to 2017, respectively, and thus decreased at a rate of −1.3 μg/m3/yr (p = 0.17). Accordingly, fireworks contributed 41 (51.9%), 38 (36.5%), 6 (10.3%), 21 (35.6%), and 4 μg/m3 (12.1%) to PM2.5, respectively, implying the effectiveness of firework regulation in Shanghai. Health effects attributed to PM2.5 pollution in Shanghai during the Festival were assessed based on Poisson regression. The number of premature deaths related to short-term PM2.5 exposure in Shanghai during the Festival from 2013 to 2017 was 75 (95% CI: 27, 108), 92 (30, 129), 55 (18, 76), 49 (19, 70), and 31 (12, 45), respectively. Daily mortality due to PM2.5 exposure during the Festival from 2013 to 2017 accounted for 1.4–3.8% of total daily mortality in Shanghai. This study provides scientific evidence of air quality improvement and the effectiveness of firework regulation in Shanghai.
AIM: To provide a systematic review on ocular firework trauma with emphasis on incidence and patient demographics, the extent of ocular trauma and visual function loss, and firework regulation effects on injury rates. METHODS: A literature search was performed using predetermined inclusion and exclusion criteria. Demographic characteristics of ocular firework casualties were obtained and incidence rates of sustained trauma and vision loss calculated. RESULTS: Twenty-six relevant articles were suitable for calculation of trauma incidence and patient demographics, of which 17 articles could be used for calculating trauma severity and vision loss. Victims were male (77%), young (82%) and often bystander (47%). Most of the trauma was mild and temporary. Penetrating eye trauma, globe contusions and burns accounted for 18.2%, with a 3.9% enucleation rate. Mean visual acuity was >10/20 in 56.8%, with severe vision loss (<10/200) in 16.4%. Countries using restrictive firework legislation show 87% less eye trauma (p<0.005). CONCLUSIONS: One in six ocular firework traumas show severe vision loss, mostly in young males. Bystanders are as frequently injured. Firework traumas are a preventable cause of severe ocular injury and blindness because countries using restrictive firework legislation have remarkable lower trauma incidence rates.
PURPOSE: Ocular trauma is a major cause of acquired monocular blindness in children. Firework injuries account for 20% of ocular trauma. The purpose of our study was to document the profile of ocular firework injuries in children during the festive season of Diwali and to determine the prevalence of unilateral blindness in them. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A retrospective chart analysis of ocular firework injury in children during the festival of Diwali from 2009 to 2013, conducted in a tertiary care eye center in Tamil Nadu, Southern India. Children below 18 years of age with ocular firework injuries who presented to the emergency department for 3 consecutive days - the day of Diwali, 1 day before, and 1 day after Diwali - were included in this study. RESULTS: Eighty-four children presented with firework-related ocular injuries during the study period. Male to female ratio was 4:1 with mean age 9.48 ± 4 years. Forty-four percentage required hospitalization. The prevalence of unilateral blindness in children due to fireworks was found to be 8% (95% confidence interval - 2-13%). CONCLUSION: Vision 2020 gives high priority to avoidable blindness, especially in children. In our study, for every 12 children who presented with firecracker injury, one resulted in unilateral blindness. This is an avoidable cause of blindness. Awareness needs to be created, and changes in policy regarding sales and handling of firecrackers including mandatory use of protective eyewear should be considered.
BACKGROUND: On July 1st on 'Territory Day', the public in the Northern Territory are permitted to purchase and operate consumer fireworks without a licence. Serious permanent injuries from fireworks are well described, leading to their banning in many other jurisdictions. This study describes those seriously injured by fireworks in the Top End of the Northern Territory, with the aim of identifying opportunities for prevention and harm minimization. METHODS: This is a retrospective audit of all admitted patients with an injury from fireworks at the Royal Darwin Hospital between 2000 and 2015. The variables collected included demographic data and the circumstances around injury (operator versus bystander, alcohol involvement and day of device operation). The consequences such as injuries, operating theatre visits, length of stay and outpatient visits are described. RESULTS: Fifty-five patients (including 17 children) suffered 67 injuries over the study period, resulting in 68 operating theatre visits, 322 hospital days and 380 outpatient appointments. Burns, hand and eye injuries predominate. Females (P = 0.000) and children (P = 0.029) were more likely to be injured as bystanders. Injuries on a day other than Territory Day were more likely to have alcohol involvement (P = 0.01), and occur in the operator (P = 0.017). CONCLUSION: Consumer firework usage results in a small number of life altering injuries annually. Previous prevention campaigns focusing on device user safety should be expanded to include the safety of bystanders and children and reduce firework usage outside of the Territory Day.
Now we are entering the era of the Internet of Everything (IoE) and billions of sensors and actuators are connected to the network. As one of the most sophisticated IoE applications, real-time video analytics is promising to significantly improve public safety, business intelligence, and healthcare & life science, among others. However, cloud-centric video analytics requires that all video data must be preloaded to a centralized cluster or the cloud, which suffers from high response latency and high cost of data transmission, given the scale of zettabytes of video data generated by IoE devices. Moreover, video data is rarely shared among multiple stakeholders due to various concerns, which restricts the practical deployment of video analytics that takes advantages of many data sources to make smart decisions. Furthermore, there is no efficient programming interface for developers and users to easily program and deploy IoE applications across geographically distributed computation resources. In this paper, we present a new computing framework, <i xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Firework</i> , which facilitates distributed data processing and sharing for IoE applications via a virtual shared data view and service composition. We designed an easy-to-use programming interface for <i xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Firework</i> to allow developers to program on <i xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Firework</i> . This paper describes the system design, implementation, and programming interface of Firework. The experimental results of a video analytics application demonstrate that <i xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Firework</i> reduces up to 19.52 percent of response latency and at least 72.77 percent of network bandwidth cost, compared to a cloud-centric solution.
PURPOSE: To prospectively study mechanisms and injury characteristics of ocular firework burns. METHODS: A prospective analysis of all patients with firework injuries attending the Department of Ophthalmology, University of Vienna, between 1994 and 2001. We looked for classes of fireworks and mechanisms of injuries. The number of diagnoses was established and their severity classified. RESULTS: During this period (8 years) we identified 116 eyes of 102 patients. 67/102 (66%) of all injuries were caused by class II and III fireworks. Patients ranged between 4 and 83 years. Ocular injuries occurred more frequently in males (69, 68%) and affected the right eye in 53 patients (52.5%). Ocular firework injuries to minors (under the age of 18 years) occurred in 48 (49%). The most common types of injury were skin and corneal erosions and abrasions (32/116, 28%). 11/116 eyes (10%) had severe injuries. 8 of 11 severe injuries (72%) occurred in minors (<18 years). 2 patients (1.7%) developed permanent blindness. In 32/116 patients (28%), the ocular trauma resulted in visual impairment, mainly due to corneal scars or retinal pathologies. In all patients, the severity index was 1.4 +/- 0.8. In minors the severity index was 1.6 +/- 1.0, in adults 1.2 +/- 0.5 (p = 0.013). CONCLUSION: Injuries in minors were significantly more severe than those in adults. Possible preventive measures include legislation, education of minors and eye protection.
This study characterizes the epidemiology of nonfatal pediatric firework-related injuries in the United States among children and adolescents by analyzing data from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System from 1990 through 2014. During this 25-year period, an estimated 136 991 (95% CI = 113 574-160 408) children <20 years old were treated in US emergency departments for firework-related injuries. The annual injury rate decreased significantly by 30.4% during this period. Most of those injured were male (75.7%), mean patient age was 10.6 years, and 7.6% required hospital admission. The hands (30.0%) were the most commonly injured body region, followed by head and neck (22.2%), and eyes (21.5%). Sixty percent of injuries were burns. Injuries were most commonly associated with firecrackers (26.2%), aerial devices (16.3%), and sparklers (14.3%). Consumer fireworks pose a serious injury risk to pediatric users and bystanders, and families should be encouraged to attend public firework displays rather than use consumer fireworks.
Fireworks displays are among the most important events during Taiwan’s annual Lantern Festival, although thus practice leads to metal and non-metal pollution in the air. In this study, we investigated the levels of 16 elements—Na, Mg, Al, Si, K, Ca, V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Cu, Zn, As, Sr, Ba, and Pb—during the fireworks festival in Yanshui, Tainan, Taiwan, and the chemical compositions and mass concentration distributions of these elements collected from the sampling site are reported. The airborne particles were mainly in the sub-micrometer regime, with coarse size ranges. The concentrations of most of the elements of interest in this study were higher in the post-fireworks display period than prior to it. Studies of respiratory epithelial cell death revealed that the levels of the elements collected in the sub-micrometer size range were more than two times lower than those in the micrometer size range in the post-fireworks display period, but the viability was 65.7% for the former compared with 73.3% for the latter. Accordingly, the toxicity of the sub-micrometer particles was greater than that of the micrometer-sized particles. We conclude that the burning of fireworks during the festival was the main source of the trace metals, and contributed significantly to the increase in airborne particulate matter.
An online questionnaire survey investigated (1) management and (2) treatment methods for firework fears in dogs used by dog owners and their (perceived) effectiveness. A Principal Components Analysis on data from 1,225 respondents revealed four management strategies (i.e., interventions during firework exposure): the principal components are “environmental modification” (e.g., providing a hiding place, keeping windows and blinds closed, and playing music), “feed/play” (providing the dog with chews, play, and food during fireworks in general, as well as contingent on loud bangs), “alternative” (use of calming nutraceuticals, pheromones, herbal products, homeopathic products, Bach flowers, and essential oils), and “interaction” (allowing body contact, petting, and talking to the dog when loud bangs occurred). To explore possible effects of these management methods on fear development, the components were correlated with a score for fear progression. Of the four components, only “feed/play” was statistically associated with an improvement in fear responses to fireworks. To evaluate the effectiveness of various treatment strategies, owners were asked to select from a range of options which interventions they had used and whether they considered them as effective. With prescription medication (N = 202), improvements were noted by 69% of owners, with high success rates reported for the most frequently prescribed drugs, alprazolam (91%) and Sileo® (74%). Although individual products were not evaluated, the reported success rates for the categories “pheromones” (N = 316), “herbal products” (N = 282), “nutraceuticals” (N = 211), “essential oils” (N = 183), “homeopathic remedies” (N = 250), and “Bach flowers” (N = 281) were all in the range of 27-35%, which is not higher than that would be expected based on a placebo effect. Pressure vests were deemed as effective by 44% of respondents (N = 300). Counterconditioning (providing desirable stimuli after the occurrence of noises) was the most successful training technique according to the owners (N = 694), with a reported effectiveness of over 70%. Relaxation training (N = 433) was reported to be almost as successful at 69%, whereas noise CDs (N = 377) were effective in 55% of cases. Thus, counterconditioning, relaxation training, and anxiolytic medication appear to be the most effective strategies in the treatment of firework fears in dogs. On this basis, it is recommended that ad hoc counterconditioning and relaxation training should complement the standard behavioral technique of desensitization/counterconditioning with noise recordings.
Cloud computing, arguably, has become the de facto computing platform for the big data processing by researchers and practitioners for the last decade, and enabled different stakeholders to discover valuable information from large scale data. At the same time, in the decade, we have witnessed the fast growing deployment of billions of sensors and actuators in multiple applications domains, such as transportation, manufacturing, connected/wearable health care, smart city and so on, stimulating the emerging of Edge Computing (a.k.a., fog computing, cloudlet). However, data, as the core of both cloud computing and edge computing, is still owned by each stakeholder and rarely shared due to privacy concern and formidable cost of data transportation, which significantly limits Internet of Things (IoT) applications that need data input from multiple stakeholders (e.g., video analytics collects data from cameras owned by police department, transportation department, retailer stores, etc.). In this paper, we envision that in the era of IoT the demand of distributed big data sharing and processing applications will dramatically increase since the data producing and consuming are pushed to the edge of the network. Data processing in collaborative edge environment needs to fuse data owned by multiple stakeholders, while keeping the computation within stakeholders' data facilities. To attack this challenge, we propose a new computing paradigm, Firework, which is designed for big data processing in collaborative edge environment (CEE). Firework fuses geographically distributed data by creating virtual shared data views that are exposed to end users via predefined interfaces by data owners. The interfaces are provided in the form of a set of datasets and a set of functions, where the functions are privacy preserved and bound to the datasets. Firework targets to share data while ensuring data privacy and integrity for stakeholders. By pushing the data processing as close as to data sources, Firework also aims to avoid data movement from the edge of the network to the cloud and improve the response latency.
Bonfire night is a worldwide phenomenon given to numerous annual celebrations characterised by bonfires and fireworks. Since Thailand has no national ambient air quality standards for metal particulates, it is important to investigate the impacts of particulate injections on elevations of air pollutants and the ecological health impacts resulting from firework displays. In this investigation, Pb and Ba were considered potential firework tracers because their concentrations were significantly higher during the episode, and lower than/comparable with minimum detection limits during other periods, indicating that their elevated concentrations were principally due to pyrotechnic displays. Pb/Ca, Pb/Al, Pb/Mg, and Pb/Cu can be used to pin-point emissions from firework displays. Air mass backward trajectories (72 h) from the Hybrid Single-Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory (HYSPLIT) model indicated that areas east and north-east of the study site were the main sources of the airborne particles. Although the combined risk associated with levels of Pb, Cr, Co., Ni, Zn, As, Cd, V, and Mn was far below the standards mentioned in international guidelines, the lifetime cancer risks associated with As and Cr levels exceeded US-EPA guidelines, and may expose inhabitants of surrounding areas of Bangkok to an elevated cancer risk.
The substance of the digital filter design is a multi-parameter optimisation problem. This paper presents a joint objective function to design finite impulse response (FIR) digital filters and infinite impulse response (IIR) digital filters, and a cultural firework (CF) algorithm is proposed to implement filter designs. The design of the filter is transformed into the constrained optimisation problem, and the cultural firework algorithm is used to search optimal value of filter design parameters in the parameter space with parallel search. The proposed cultural firework algorithm is a multi-dimensional search algorithm for optimisation of real numbers, which uses mechanisms of cultural evolution to update the locations of cultural sparks. Computer simulations have showed that FIR and IIR digital filters based on the CF algorithm are superior to previous filters based on particle swarm optimisation (PSO), quantum-behaved particle swarm optimisation (QPSO) and adaptive quantum-behaved particle swarm optimisation (AQPSO) in the convergence speed and optimisation results. The effectiveness and superiority of the CF are also demonstrated by computer simulations.
Abstract. The measurement of elements in PM10 was performed with 1 h time resolution at a rural freeway site during summer 2015 in Switzerland using the Xact1 625 Ambient Metals Monitor. On average the Xact elements (without accounting for oxygen and other associated elements) make up about 20 % of the total PM10 mass (14.6 µg m−3). We conducted source apportionment by positive matrix factorisation (PMF) of the elemental mass measurable by the Xact (i.e. major elements heavier than Al), defined here as PM10el. Eight different sources were identified in PM10el (elemental PM10) mass driven by the sum of 14 elements (notable elements in brackets): Fireworks-I (K, S, Ba and Cl), Fireworks-II (K), sea salt (Cl), secondary sulfate (S), background dust (Si, Ti), road dust (Ca), non-exhaust traffic-related elements (Fe) and industrial elements (Zn and Pb). The major components were secondary sulfate and non-exhaust traffic-related elements followed by background dust and road dust factors, explaining 21 %, 20 %, 18 % and 16 % of the analysed PM10 elemental mass, respectively, with the factor mass not corrected for oxygen content. Further, there were minor contributions (on the order of a few percent) of sea salt and industrial sources. The regionally influenced secondary sulfate factor showed negligible resuspension, and concentrations were similar throughout the day. The significant loads of the non-exhaust traffic-related and road dust factors with strong diurnal variations highlight the continuing importance of vehicle-related air pollutants at this site. Enhanced control of PMF implemented via the SourceFinder software (SoFi Pro version 6.2, PSI, Switzerland) allowed for a successful apportionment of transient sources such as the two firework factors and sea salt, which remained mixed when analysed by unconstrained PMF.