Alejandro Rubio de Juan

Scopus Publications

Measuring farmers' attitude towards breeding tools: the Livestock Breeding Attitude Scale
D. Martin-Collado, C. Díaz, G. Benito-Ruiz, D. Ondé, A. Rubio, and T.J. Byrne
Elsevier BV

Air quality monitoring in scholar environments
Begona Artinano, Francisco J. Gomez-Moreno, Elias Diaz, Elisabeth Alonso-Blanco, Marcos Barreiro, Alfonso Fernandez, Alejandro Rubio, Javier Fernandez, and Ibai Figuero
IEEE
Children are one of the population groups more vulnerable to health effects associated to urban air pollution. Children exposure estimations require knowledge of pollutant concentration levels in these particular environments, where they spend a great part of their time for many years. This study presents an experimental approach for air quality monitoring in schools including different measurement and monitoring techniques. Pollutant concentrations from nearby stations belonging to the urban air quality monitoring networks may not be representative. Therefore, local measurements, static and dynamic modes, can result more adequate to document actual pollution levels in scholar environments. This study analyzes experimental data obtained at three primary schools located in three districts of Madrid (Spain). Results from different measurement techniques show the rather different environmental conditions in each and also the influence of the schools themselves on the local air quality. As an example of this, it can be highlighted the influence of traffic emissions related to scholar transport on NO2 and PM10 levels measured in the school vicinity, that points at the main entrance of the school as a clear hot spot of local air pollution. Other anthropogenic activities such as distribution of goods and proximity of shopping centers also exert a significant influence on local traffic and therefore on air quality, which is relevant for exposure estimation. The indoor/outdoor study shows the infiltration process of gaseous and finest particle pollutants (NO2, black carbon, ultrafine particles), more related to traffic emissions. Scholar activities in the classroom have a greater influence on coarser particulate matter by resuspension processes.

Field Assessment of Low-cost Particulate Matter Sensors against Reference Methods
Elias Diaz Ramiro, Begona Artinano, Alejandro Rubio, Ibai Figuero, Marcos Barreiro, and Javier Fernandez
IEEE
During 2018 and 2019 an assessment of five Clarity® low-cost particle matter sensors has been performed in our Research Centre in the city of Madrid. The instruments performance has been evaluated in different ambient conditions during the study period. The parameters reference bias, time drift, particle composition effect, reproducibility between sensors and meteorological influence over the sensors data have been evaluated in order to determine their importance in the analytical results. Both composition of the atmospheric particles and drift have proved to be influential factors in the performance of these instruments.