Flushing of coarse and graded sediments—a case study using reduced scale model

Living wall system for improved thermal performance of facades located in tropical climate. Case study in Dominican Republic

El turismo se configura como un sector económico importante a nivel mundial, adquiriendo más importancia en los países en vías de desarrollo. Así, en los últimos años se ha pasado de un turismo de masas dominante a un disfrute de un turismo alternativo, que contribuye al desarrollo sostenible. Un ejemplo es el ecoturismo en áreas en vías de desarrollo. De esta manera, el objetivo de esta investigación es evaluar la calidad percibida por los ecoturistas que visitan áreas protegidas República Dominicana, en concreto, en el Monumento Natural Saltos de la Damajagua, principal oferta complementaria de sol y playa en Puerto Plata. Para ello, se ha realizado un cuestionario a la demanda ecoturística. Entre los principales resultados destacar que los visitantes son generalmente de nacionalidad extranjera, que perciben una calidad elevada del servicio ofertado en esta área protegida. En consecuencia, la satisfacción es también alta, generando esto una lealtad elevada, sobre todo en el caso de recomendar el lugar. Como conclusión, esta área protegida que se gestiona en forma de co-manejo es un ejemplo de turismo sostenibl, que genera resultados positivos tanto para los visitantes como para las comunidades locales, y por tanto, puede ser implementado en otros destinos dominicanos.

This dissertation explores and analyzes Dominicans in Hip-Hop culture, both in New York City and in the Dominican Republic, a population that has been overlooked in Hip-Hop scholarship, and whose relationship to blackness has always been used as an archetypal case study to highlight black denial and erasure in the Americas. I use Dominican Hip-Hop voices to challenge hegemonic narratives that depict blackness and latinidad as rigid and mutually exclusive categories in Hip-Hop and beyond. I theorize the transnational presence and experience of Dominicans in Hip-Hop using the concept of scratchin’. I refer to the scratching technique used by Hip-Hop DJs that consists of continuously moving vinyl records back and forth to deconstruct the original sonic flow of records in order to recreate a whole new pattern of rhythms and sounds. Therefore, I conceptualize “scratch” for Dominicans in Hip-Hop who first challenge the existing preconceptions that have historically marginalized them for not being black enough in New York Hip-Hop and for being associated with blackness and U.S. cultural imperialism in the transnational Dominican context, in order to recreate new narratives that disrupt these preconceptions. My dissertation prompts us to rethink ethno-racial, class and gender politics in New York City and in the Dominican Republic from the perspective of marginalized, invisibilized, and at times criminalized, Hip-Hop artists. This dissertation relies on six years of mixed-methods. I primarily utilize qualitative ethnography building on preliminary research done for a Master’s project on Hip-Hop and Dominican Transnationalism. I use participant observation as well as structured and semi-structured interviews. I have realized 60 one-time interviews lasting between 25 minutes and 3 hours between 2015 and 2022 with deejays, emcees, graffiti writers, breakers or dancers, and beatboxers, as well as record producers and sound engineers, in three different research sites, New York City, Santo Domingo and Santiago de Los Caballeros in the Dominican Republic. This represents around 90 hours of transcribed interviews that I complement with participant observation. I attended sixteen performances ranging from concerts, freestyles, formal and informal collective gatherings, graffiti activities and dance contests. Six of them in New York City and ten in the Dominican Republic. In addition to ethnographic work, this project is also informed by the analysis of secondary research. I did archival research to analyze press coverage in New York City through the digital archive of The New York Times, and The New York Post. In the Dominican Republic, I

The temperature field characteristics of highway tunnels during fire conditions are investigated in this paper. Numerical simulations coupled with reduced-scale physical model tests were conducted to analyze the thermal characteristics of the tunnel interior and lining structure under various ventilation conditions. Taking the extra-long double-tube highway tunnel as a case study, a numerical model was established using FLUENT to simulate a 100 MW fire under different longitudinal ventilation velocities. Furthermore, a reduced-scale physical model with a geometric similarity ratio of 1:2.7 was fabricated to investigate the effect of lining moisture content on the heat transfer characteristics. It is indicated by the results that high-temperature zones above 800 °C are mainly concentrated within roughly 100 m of the fire source, extending approximately 20 m upstream and 80 m downstream. As the ventilation velocity rises, the high-temperature zone adjacent to the fire source is gradually reduced, the upstream smoke backflow length is shortened, and the downstream thermal influence range is expanded. Obvious spatial variations are observed in the cross-sectional temperature distribution: relatively uniform temperatures are found near the fire source, whereas higher temperatures are observed at the crown in upstream and downstream sections, followed by the haunch and sidewalls. A pronounced thermal lag effect is observed in the lining structure, with both slower heating rates and lower peak temperatures being exhibited at larger distances from the fire source and in linings with higher moisture content. A temperature plateau at around 100 °C is detected, which is mainly attributed to latent heat absorption during moisture evaporation. A more significant temperature gradient through the lining thickness is also caused by a higher moisture content. These findings provide valuable references for tunnel fire safety design, smoke control strategies, and evacuation safety analysis.

The current ongoing globalisation shows an increasing amount of issues regarding sustainability, which is to be addressed from the very first stages. In this sense, different variables have been measured in the form of a survey in order to learn about the behaviour, attitude and knowledge of high school students in the Dominican Republic regarding sustainability, using a methodology based on structural equations through the SmartPls (v. 3.2.8) program. Among the main deductions, a mediation between their knowledge and behaviour towards sustainable development is to be highlighted.

Operational forecasters desire information about how their reservoir and riverine systems will evolve over monthly to seasonal timescales. Seasonal traces of hydrometeorological variables at a daily or sub-daily resolution are needed to drive hydrological models at this timescale. Operationally available models such as the Climate Forecast System (CFS) provide seasonal precipitation forecasts, but their coarse spatial scale requires further processing for use in local or regional hydrologic models. We focus on three methods to generate such forecasts: (1) a bias-adjustment method, in which the CFS forecasts are bias-corrected by ground-based observations; (2) a weather generator (WG) method, in which historical precipitation data, conditioned on an index of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation, are used to generate synthetic daily precipitation time series; and (3) a historical analog method, in which the CFS forecasts are used to condition the selection of historical satellite-based mean areal precipitation (MAP) traces. The Yaque del Norte River basin in the Dominican Republic is presented herein as a case study, using an independent dataset of rainfall and reservoir inflows to assess the relative performance of the methods. The methods showed seasonal variations in skill, with the MAP historical analog method having the strongest overall performance, but the CFS and WG methods also exhibited strong performance during certain seasons. These results indicate that the strengths of each method may be combined to produce an ensemble forecast product.

IntroductionThe use of biosolids from wastewater treatment plants in agriculture is considered relevant for the promotion of sustainable agricultural practices, the improvement of soil fertility, and the reduction of dependence on synthetic chemical products. The Dominican Republic is today the world's largest producer of organic bananas and the main exporter of organic and fair-trade bananas to Europe. The biosolids generated in the wastewater treatment plants in the Dominican Republic currently have no use. In other countries, biosolids are used for agriculture, although biosolids have different characteristics in each place and their potential must be analyzed. In the Dominican Republic, there is no research that analyzes biosolids and their impact on agriculture. This research aims to compare the nutritional composition of bananas in plantations fertilized with different doses of biosolids and other organic fertilizers.MethodsFor this test, five blocks were prepared with organic fertilization, another with potassium sulfate, and a control block. Laboratory analysis was used to determine the characteristics of the biosolids used and also to know the nutritional composition of bananas of the Williams variety.ResultsThe results, when compared, show the impact that each of these fertilizers has or can have on the production of organic bananas in the Dominican Republic.DiscussionThe use of dose Y of the biosolid, characterized by the application of 16 kilograms of biosolid per plant, is the most recommended to fertilize the banana since the collected fruits presented the most optimal nutritional values.

A mining operation uses mechanical vapor recompression to treat mine tailings water for discharge to the environment. To maintain the mine’s operations, the removal of an additional 1 MLD of water is required. The water has a high TDS, is supersaturated, and a low pH. A range of water treatment technologies were reviewed and assessed. It was determined that a membrane system was the best option to deploy, and an NF/RO system was recommended for further evaluation. However, because the tailings water pH is in the vicinity of most membrane isoelectric points (~3-4), electrostatic rejection would be greatly affected, allowing excessive ion transmission to the permeate. It was hypothesized that a membrane with an isoelectric point >4 would provide enhanced rejection. Two acid resistant NF polymeric membranes with isoelectric points at approximately pH 5 were tested at laboratory scale. The volume recovery was restricted due to supersaturation chemistry limitations, not osmotic pressure or the operating pressure of the selected membranes. An overall system recovery of ~50% was achievable. An integrated flowsheet was developed for a system that required significantly less capital and energy that an additional thermal evaporation process.

This Note addresses the management of the Underwater Cultural Heritage (UCH) in the Dominican Republic as a case study of the effects of two aspects of globalization on cultural and environmental resource management in the developing world: the international convergence of values and the horizontal delegation of state power to private actors due to economic constraints. This Note posits that even as the global community of states moves toward a consensus on the ethical management of the UCH, this convergence combined with the global trend of horizontal delegation may incentivize some lesser-developed countries to deal with the economic pressures of resource management by permitting treasure hunting. To examine this phenomenon, this Note addresses national and international laws protecting the UCH, including Dominican laws and their actual consistency with the 2001 UNESCO Convention for the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage. It then discusses how management in the Dominican Republic is not always in accord with either the country’s own laws or the 2001 Convention to illustrate both the impacts of globalization on management of the UCH when government resources are scarce, and the resulting need for an extralegal, community-based solution. This Note concludes with a suggestion that the Dominican government, Dominican communities, and international actors consider a variant of Common-Pool Resource Management known as Living Museums in the Sea incorporated into a Multilevel Environmental Governance framework as a potential solution to counteract the economic pressures on governments to allow treasure hunting while providing for long-term preservation of the UCH in this and other developing countries.

Maternal nutrition is essential from conception and throughout pregnancy as it is a critical factor in child survival, growth and development. Many breastfeeding mothers do not have adequate knowledge of causes, complications, management and preventive measures of nutritional imbalances during pregnancy, which is responsible for the high prevalence of poor maternal nutritional status. The study sought to establish the attitude and practices among breastfeeding mothers attending Hospital Ricardo Limardo in Dominican Republic. This was a descriptive cross-sectional study targeting a sample of 286 breastfeeding women. Data collection was carried out using structured questionnaires and analyzed using IBM-SPSS version 25 of 2015 software. Breastfeeding mothers had positive attitude towards nutrition. Majority of breastfeeding women were positive towards antenatal check-up during pregnancy. Majority of them also felt that skipping meals among breastfeeding mothers affects their health. The study also concluded that breastfeeding mothers had positive attitude towards nutrition and were willing to consume food that was healthy for them and to the child. The study recommends for the need of subsidizing supplements and nutrients sold in the dispensaries and health centers so that breastfeeding women from low income households can afford them. Subsidizing of supplements and nutrients can be done by government by reducing VAT taxes on these products. It is also recommended that breastfeeding women should be encouraged to be buying foods rich in iron, calcium and folic acid nutrients while avoiding chuck foods that may result to abnormal weight gain for both the mother and the baby. Keywords: Nutritional attitudes, breastfeeding Mothers, Hospital Ricardo Limardo, Dominican Republic

Topographic measures are frequently used in a variety of landscape ecology applications, in their simplest form as elevation, slope, and aspect, but increasingly more complex measures are being employed. We explore terrain metric similarity with changes in scale, both grain and extent, and examine how selecting the best measures is sensitive to changes in application. There are three types of topographic measures: 1) those that relate to orientation for approximating solar input, 2) those that capture variability in terrain configuration, and 3) those that provide metrics about landform features. Many biodiversity hotspots and predators have been found to coincide with areas of complexity, yet most complexity measures cannot differentiate between terrain steepness and uneven and broken terrain. Currently characterizing terrain in landscape-level analyses can be challenging, especially at coarser spatial resolutions but developing methods that improve landscape-level assessments include multivariate approaches and the use of neighborhood statistics. Some measures are sensitive to the spatial grain of calculation, the physiography of the landscape, and the scale of application. We show which measures have the potential to be multi-collinear, and illustrate with a case study how the selection of the best measures can change depending on the question at hand using mountain lion (Puma concolor) occurrence data. The case study showed a combination of infrequently employed metrics, such as view-shed analysis and focal statistics, outperform more commonly employed singular metrics. The use of focal statistics as a measure of topographic complexity shows promise for improving how mountain lions use terrain features.

Health spending is increasing globally due to demographic and epidemiological changes, rising demand for services driven by higher incomes, aging populations, and the emergence of expensive new health technologies. In Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), health expenditure has risen from 6.6% to 7.9% of GDP over the past two decades. By 2030, it is expected to increase by another 2 percentage points. This projection excludes additional investments required to strengthen health systems post-pandemic. Given fiscal constraints caused by the pandemics economic impact, rising debt, and macroeconomic uncertainty, relying solely on higher budget allocations to sustain spending growth is not feasible. Instead, improving health outcomes will require smarter investments, better procurement practices, and efficient resource allocation. Prioritizing high-impact health interventions can ensure better population health without proportional increases in expenditure. This policy brief highlights two significant inefficiencies in pharmaceutical spending in LAC: (i) The frequent funding of branded drugs, which are generally more expensive than unbranded generics offering equivalent therapeutic value and (ii) the procurement of high-cost pharmaceutical products with uncertain or low clinical benefits relative to their price, often at the expense of alternative investments that could provide greater health gains. The Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) Social Protection and Health Division conducted case studies in three countriesDominican Republic, Chile, and Colombiato analyze these inefficiencies. The findings demonstrate that inefficient pharmaceutical spending results in lost health outcomes and increased household out-of-pocket expenses. This brief summarizes key findings from these studies and provides policy recommendations to improve the efficiency of pharmaceutical spending. Addressing these inefficiencies through better procurement strategies, increased use of generics, and improved price regulation could enhance the cost-effectiveness of health spending, ultimately benefiting population health in the region.

Transnational regulation of bribery involves several increasingly complex forms of cooperation among enforcement authorities. International investigative cooperation allows a foreign authority to assist another on criminal and/or civil investigations, through requests of mutual legal assistance, rogatory letters, as well as joint investigative teams. Sanction-based cooperation helps different authorities to transfer or extradite persons and recover proceeds of corruption to the victims. More recently, there has been a rise in cooperation in negotiated settlements with the accused. Settlement cooperation may entail joint resolutions or the coordination of settlement clauses. This paper focuses on how these three modes of cooperation intersect in cases with successive negotiated settlements. We use the Odebrecht case settlements to unpack the relation between investigative, sanction-based, and settlement cooperation in three case studies: the joint resolutions between the company and Brazil, Switzerland, and the United States, as well as two local agreements with the Dominican Republic and with Peru. We evidence how these modes of cooperation can reinforce or undermine one another. Beyond illustrating different cooperation dynamics, we also explore the role of sequencing. The existence of a previous joint resolution affects the developments of the subsequent agreements, but in different ways from those previously mapped by the literature.

Editor’s note: The aim of the Geology and Mining series is to introduce early career professionals and students to various aspects of mineral exploration, development, and mining in order to share the experiences and insight of each author on the myriad of topics involved with the mineral industry and the ways in which geoscientists contribute to each. Abstract Supergene oxidation is a process that has created some of the largest gold and silver orebodies in the Americas, including the Carlin-type (sediment-hosted) gold deposits and Round Mountain in Nevada; Yanacocha and many similar deposits in Peru; Cerro Rico, Bolivia; and Pueblo Viejo, Dominican Republic. Oxidation can make sulfide-bearing gold-silver deposits economic by converting refractory gold-silver–bearing sulfide minerals to minerals that can be leached by dilute cyanide solutions. The use of cyanide heap leaching or tank leaching enabled open-pit mining of low-grade oxidized gold deposits starting in the 1960s. This revolutionized gold mining which, combined with the end of the dollar gold standard in 1971, led to a huge increase in gold production, particularly in the Americas where the technology has been widely applied. During weathering and oxidation of sulfide minerals, particularly pyrite, associated gold and silver form supergene minerals in the oxidation zone but are only transported over short distances (centimeters to meters) due to low solubility of the metals, so they do not form enrichment zones. Gold forms Au0 grains of 1 to 25 µm size and high fineness, as well as invisible gold associated with jarosite and iron oxyhydroxides by sorption or substitution. Silver forms halides and native silver, which may be accompanied by metastable hypogene acanthite. Silver in jarosite, alunite, and Mn oxides is refractory. The economic advantages of near-surface oxidized deposits are that they can be mined by open pit with low costs, commonly not requiring stripping or blasting. Run-of-mine ore is sent directly to leach pads, although some ores may require prior crushing and grinding with agglomeration of fine material such as clays. Oxidized ore is processed by heap leaching using dilute sodium cyanide solution and gold and silver recovered by zinc cementation or on activated carbon. Some ores require grinding and are processed by tank leaching. The hypogene sulfide minerals below the oxidized zone are typically refractory and require at least ultrafine grinding for leaching to be effective, or high-cost oxidation technology for roasting, autoclaving, or bio-oxidation. The sulfide-rich portions of deposits are often not exploited for many decades after discovery, if at all. To explore for supergene oxidized deposits, the exploration geologist requires knowledge of geology, oxide mineralogy, geomorphology, hydrogeology, and the (paleo)-climate, as well as open-pit mining, hydrometallurgy, cyanide leaching, and carbon technology, topics that are introduced here with case studies.

SUMMARY: This chapter presents an assessment of the water resources management system of a case study region, the Dominican Republic in the Caribbean, with a particular focus on sustainability. After a brief presentation on water resources management concepts, a methodology proposed for the assessment is developed and applied to country specific situation and issues of water resources. The “Building Blocks” assessment methodology, consisting of elements of the management functions or tools for water resources viewed in a simple graphic manner, helps to organize the assessment and is feasible to use in a participatory exercise due to its visual value and its potential to generate and guide discussions. Problems and issues related to water in the case study country are analyzed with reference to the tools or functions of water management as the evaluation unfolds. Results show that the water sector requires reform, which should be wisely based on the development of organization, planning and control tools for adequate administration of that resource in order to solve problems in water stressed regions of the country, identifying priority actions, and define strategies to solve current water quantity and quality issues, and to prevent aggravation of them in the future. Areas for improvement in water resources management are suggested.