National Centre of Scientific Research "DEMOKRITOS"
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Demokritos is a scientific research centre in Greece, officially known as the National Centre of Scientific Research "DEMOKRITOS" (NCSR). The centre is located in a suburb of Athens called Agia Paraskevi. It is named in honour of the Greek philosopher Democritus.
The NCSR is a self-administered governmental legal entity, under the supervision of the General Secretariat of Research and Technology of the Ministry of Development.
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[edit] The science activities of the NCSR
The NCSR is the oldest and largest research centre in Greece. The science activities of the centre are conducted in eight administratively independent institutes:
- Institute of Biology
- Institute of Materials Science (IMS)
- Institute of Microelectronics
- Institute of Informatics Telecommunications
- Institute of Nuclear Technology - Radiation Protection (INT-RP)
- Institute of Nuclear Physics
- Institute of Radioisotopes & Radiodiagnostic Products
- Institute of Physical Chemistry
The INT-RP at Demokritos operates Greece's only nuclear reactor, a 5 MW research reactor.
[edit] The Environmental Research Laboratory (EREL)
The EREL is part of the Institute of Nuclear Technology - Radiation Protection (INT-RP) and it is one of the largest scientific research teams in Greece dealing with the environment. The staff consists of 13 Ph.D. and 5 M.Sc. scientists, 4 Ph.D. students, 1 technician and 1 administrative assistant.
The research and development activities of the EREL include:
- Urban air quality
- Emissions inventories
- Air quality measurement, analysis and predictions
- Air pollutant dispersion modelling over terrain of high complexity on local, urban and regional scales.
[edit] The DETRACT atmospheric dispersion modeling system
The DETRACT atmospheric dispersion modelling system, developed by the EREL, is an integrated set of modules for modelling air pollution dispersion over highly complex terrain.
The modules included in DETRACT include:
- Topography and land use pre-processors that prepare the ground-related inputs for the other modules.
- A meteorological pre-processor to generate meteorological data.
- A module for generating wind fields.
- A module (ADREA-I) performing small to medium scale calculations under any atmospheric stability conditions. It is a 3-D program utilizing the conservation laws of mass, momentum and energy. The module takes into account air/ground energy and mass interactions including solar radiation and forest fire heat input.
- A Eulerian dispersion module (ADREA-D) for passive plume dispersion. The model allows for 3-D variability of wet scavenging and deposition.
- A Eulerian dispersion module (ADREA/UAM) for chemical substances utilizing the U.S. EPA-UAM photochemical model.
- A Langrangian particle dispersion module (DIPCOT) for dispersion modelling of passive pollution plumes and point sources.
[edit] See also
- Atmospheric dispersion modelling
- Compilation of atmospheric dispersion models
- Czech Hydrometeorological Institute
- Finnish Meteorological Institute
- List of nuclear reactors
- List of research institutes in Greece
- Met Office, the UK meteorological service
- National Center for Atmospheric Research
- NERI, the National Environmental Research Institute of Denmark
- NILU, the Norwegian Institute for Air Research
- UK Atmospheric Dispersion Modelling Liaison Committee
- UK Dispersion Modelling Bureau
