ALBERT

Description: During the past year, health care environments have struggled to cope with the various impacts of COVID-19 around the world. Health care facilities need to help strengthen resistance to pathogen threats and provide care for patients and health workers in the safest possible way. Architectural design strategies can play a significant role in infection prevention and control. The current study aims to examine the experiences of health workers with hospital spaces during the COVID-19 pandemic. Identifying the difficulties they face, the present study attempts to shed light on the role of the health care layout configuration in combating pandemics. The authors conducted observations at four hospitals and a series of online semi-structured interviews with 162 health care staff from March to May 2020. The study indicated that space configuration and the hospitalization of patients, layout and circulation of the environment, operation services such as indoor environment conditions, maintenance of health care system, and organizational support for health care staff were the most critical factors affecting infection control in health care environments. The initial zoning and separation of patients were the most effective methods of controlling infection. Hospitals with clustered plan layouts were found to be the most effective buildings for the zoning of COVID-19 patients during the pandemic and for infection control.

Description: Gas engine-driven heat pumps are an interesting option to satisfy space heating and cooling demands aiming at energy saving, environmental impact and operating costs’ reduction. This work presents (i) a comprehensive review updated on gas engine-driven heat pumps research activities, (ii) the investigation of the central role of this technology in the air conditioning sector and (iii) the future perspectives regarding gas engine heat pumps’ diffusion in the context of the energy sector decarbonisation. The outcomes highlight that gas engine heat pumps could have better environmental performance compared to electric heat pumps both in heating and cooling operations. Moreover, they could play a pivotal role in the fight against climate change and energy security since they can guarantee an energy mix differentiation moving from electricity to natural gas and renewable gases’ usage. Indeed, by 2030, a lower-carbon gas grid could be supported by renewable gases. A further investigation has concerned diffusion of gas heat pumps activated from biofuels produced by local biomass in an energy community scenario based on a low-temperature energy district network. A novel biomass-based GEHP interacting with a low-temperature district heating network is proposed here. This system could save more than 30% of primary energy compared to biomass-fuelled boilers.

Description: With the aim of increasing the efficiency of maintenance and fuel usage in airplanes, structural health monitoring (SHM) of critical composite structures is increasingly expected and required. The optimized usage of this concept is subject of intensive work in the framework of the EU COST Action CA18203 “Optimising Design for Inspection” (ODIN). In this context, a thorough review of a broad range of energy harvesting (EH) technologies to be potentially used as power sources for the acoustic emission and guided wave propagation sensors of the considered SHM systems, as well as for the respective data elaboration and wireless communication modules, is provided in this work. EH devices based on the usage of kinetic energy, thermal gradients, solar radiation, airflow, and other viable energy sources, proposed so far in the literature, are thus described with a critical review of the respective specific power levels, of their potential placement on airplanes, as well as the consequently necessary power management architectures. The guidelines provided for the selection of the most appropriate EH and power management technologies create the preconditions to develop a new class of autonomous sensor nodes for the in-process, non-destructive SHM of airplane components.

Description: In the first quarter of 2020, Italy became one of the earliest hotspots of COVID-19 infection, and the government imposed a lockdown. During the lockdown, an online survey of 2053 adults was conducted that asked about health behaviors and about the psychological and overall impact of COVID-19. The present study is a secondary analysis of that data. We hypothesized that self-control, higher socio-economic status, existing health conditions, and fear of infection were all inversely related to actions (or intentions) that violated the lockdown (i.e., infractions). Using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM), we found that only the fear of infection significantly dissuaded people from violating lockdown rules. Since it is not practical or ethical to sow a fear of infection, our study indicates that enacting rules and enforcing them firmly and fairly are important tools for containing the infection. This may become more important as vaccines become more widely available and people lose their fear of infection.

Description: This study aimed to investigate the effects of multi-bacteria solid-state fermented diets with different crude fiber (CF) levels on growth performance, nutrient digestibility, and microbial flora of finishing pigs. The multi-bacteria solid-state fermented diets were made up of Lactobacillus amylovorus, Enterococcus faecalis, Bacillus subtilis, and Candida utilis. According to a 2 (factors) × 2 (levels) design, with the two factors being multi-bacteria solid-state fermentation (fed non-fermented diet or multi-bacteria fermentation) or CF levels (fed a basal diet containing 2.52% CF or 7.00% CF), a total of 36 finishing pigs (70.80 ± 5.75 kg) were divided into 4 treatments with 9 barrows per group: (1) pigs fed a diet containing 7.00% CF (HF), (2) pigs fed a multi-bacteria fermentation diet containing 7.00% CF (HFM), (3) pigs fed a diet containing 2.52% CF (LF), and (4) piglets fed a multi-bacteria fermentation diet containing 2.52% CF (LFM). This experiment lasted 28 days. The multi-bacteria solid-state fermented diet increased the backfat thickness (p 〈 0.05) and apparent total tract nutrient digestibility (ATTD) of CF, neutral detergent fiber (NDF), acid detergent fiber (ADF), crude protein (CP), 8 amino acids (Trp, Asp, Gly, Cys, Val, Met, Ile, and Leu), total essential amino acids (EAA), total non-essential amino acids (NEEA), and total amino acids (TAA) (p 〈 0.05). Multi-bacteria solid-state fermented diet increased serum concentrations of HDL-c, ABL, TP, and GLU, the serum enzyme activities of GSH-Px, T-AOC, SOD, and CAT (p 〈 0.05), the relative abundance of Lactobacillus, Oscillospira, and Coprococcus (p 〈 0.05), and the abundance of YAMINSYN3-PWY, PWY-7013, GOLPDLCAT-PWY, ARGORNPROST-PWY, and PWY-5022 pathways (p 〈 0.05). The multi-bacteria solid-state fermented diet reduced the digestion amount of CF, NDF, and ADF (p 〈 0.05), the serum concentrations of TC, TG, LDL-c, BUN, and MDA (p 〈 0.05), the relative abundance of Streptococcaceae (p 〈 0.05), and the abundance of PWY-6470, PWY0-862, HSERMETANA-PWY, LACTOSECAT-PWY, MET-SAM-PWY, PWY-6700, PWY-5347, PWY0-1061, and LACTOSECAT-PWY pathways (p 〈 0.05). The high-fiber diet increased average daily feed intake (p 〈 0.05), the serum concentrations of TC, TG, LDL-c, BUN, and MDA (p 〈 0.05), the relative abundance of Clostridiaceae_Clostridium and Coprococcus (p 〈 0.05), and the abundance of TCA-GLYOX-BYPASS, GLYCOLYSIS-TCA-GLYOX-BYPASS, and PWY-6906 pathways (p 〈 0.05). The high-fiber diet reduced chest circumference (p 〈 0.05) and ATTD of ether extract (EE), CF, NDF, ADF, Ca, CP, 18 amino acids (Trp, Thr, Val, Met, Ile, Leu, Phe, Lys, His, Arg Asp, Ser, Glu, Gly, Ala, Cys, Tyr, and Pro), EAA, NEAA, and TAA (p 〈 0.05). The high-fiber diet also reduced the serum concentrations of HDL-c, TP, ABL, and GLU, the serum enzyme activities of T-AOC, GSH-Px, SOD, and CAT (p 〈 0.05), and the relative abundance of Akkermansia and Oscillospira (p 〈 0.05). There was no significant effect of the interaction between multi-bacteria fermentation and dietary CF levels, except on the digestion amount of CF (p 〈 0.05). The 7.00% CF had a negative effect on the digestion of nutrients, but multi-bacteria solid-state fermentation diets could relieve this negative effect and increase backfat thickness. High-fiber diets and multi-bacteria solid-state fermentation improved the diversity and abundance of fecal microorganisms in finishing pigs.

Description: Optimization and sensitivity analysis of the kinetic parameters of the catalytic ozonation process is crucial to improve water treatment, reactor design, and construction. This study evaluated the optimization of the kinetic constants for Diclofenac (DCF) degradation during catalytic ozonation with Goethite (FeOOH, as a catalyst) through different kinetic modeling approaches. A central composite design was used to evaluate the effect of ozone dose and catalyst loading. The results showed that FeOOH did not significantly influence the degradation of DCF, while the reactivity of DCF with ozone was high (with 〉90% degradations in 20 min). However, the variation in catalyst loading significantly affected TOC removal (〉10%) and ozone use, with ozone efficiency in ozone transfer (RU) 5% higher than ozonation. After evaluating the different kinetic models of reaction speed by optimizing kinetic parameters and performing sensitivity analysis for the treatment of DCF by catalytic ozonation, it can be concluded that the addition of FeOOH improved the kinetics of the decomposition of ozone and the yield in the production of hydroxyl radicals.

Description: A rapid increase in population worldwide is giving rise to the severe problem of safe drinking water availability, necessitating the search for solutions that are effective and economical. For this purpose, membrane technology has shown a lot of promise but faces the challenge of fouling, leading to a reduction in its lifetime. In this study, ultrafiltration polyethersulfone membranes were synthesized in two different concentrations, 16% wt. and 20% wt., using the phase inversion method. Chitosan and activated carbon were incorporated as individual fillers and then as composites in both the concentrations. A novel thiolated chitosan/activated carbon composite was introduced into a polyethersulfone membrane matrix. The membranes were then analyzed using Attenuated Total Reflection–Fourier-Transform Infrared spectroscopy(ATR-FTIR), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), optical profilometry, gravimetric analysis, water retention, mechanical testing and contact angle. For membranes with the novel thiolated chitosan/activated carbon composite, Scanning Electron Microscopy micrographs showed better channels, indicating a better permeability possibility, reiterated by the flux rate results. The flux rate and bovine serum albumin flux were also assessed, and the results showed an increase from 105 L/m2h to 114 L/m2h for water flux and the antifouling determined by bovine serum albumin flux increased from 23 L/m2h to 51 L/m2h. The increase in values of water uptake from 22.84% to 76.5% and decrease in contact angle from 64.5 to 55.7 showed a significant increase in the hydrophilic character of the membrane.

Description: Over the last two decades, Mineral Resources Tasmania has been developing regional 3D geological and geophysical models for prospective terranes at a range of scales and extents as part of its suite of precompetitive geoscience products. These have evolved in conjunction with developments in 3D modeling technology over that time. Commencing with a jurisdiction-wide 3D model in 2002, subsequent modeling projects have explored a range of approaches to the development of 3D models as a vehicle for the better synthesis and understanding of controls on ore-forming processes and prospectivity. These models are built on high-quality potential field data sets. Assignment of bulk properties derived from previous well-constrained geophysical modeling and an extensive rock property database has enabled the identification of anomalous features that have been targeted for follow-up mineral exploration. An aspect of this effort has been the generation of uncertainty estimates for model features. Our experience is that this process can be hindered by models that are too large or too detailed to be interrogated easily, especially when modeling techniques do not readily permit significant geometric changes. The most effective 3D modeling workflow for insights into mineral exploration is that which facilitates the rapid hypothesis testing of a wide range of scenarios whilst satisfying the constraints of observed data.

Description: The rapid growth of the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector requires additional infrastructure, such as more micro-datacenters and telecom stations, to support the higher internet speeds and low latency requirements of 5G networks. The increased power requirements of the new ICT technologies necessitate the proposal of new power supplies, in an attempt to support the increase in energy demand and running costs. This work provides an in-depth theoretical analysis on the losses of the individual stages of commercially available PSU and proposes a new multicell PSU, the buck PFC converter, which offers a higher overall efficiency at varying load levels. The theoretical results are verified using simulation results, via a PSIM Thermal Module, and using experimental data. The results indicate that multicell structures can improve the overall PSU efficiency by 1.2% at 50% rated power and more than 2.1% at full power. Finally, taking into consideration the economic implications of this study, it is shown that the proposed multicell structure may increase the PSU costs by 10.78%, but the payback period is in the order of just 3.3 years.

Description: Speaker recognition deals with recognizing speakers by their speech. Most speaker recognition systems are built upon two stages, the first stage extracts low dimensional correlation embeddings from speech, and the second performs the classification task. The robustness of a speaker recognition system mainly depends on the extraction process of speech embeddings, which are primarily pre-trained on a large-scale dataset. As the embedding systems are pre-trained, the performance of speaker recognition models greatly depends on domain adaptation policy, which may reduce if trained using inadequate data. This paper introduces a speaker recognition strategy dealing with unlabeled data, which generates clusterable embedding vectors from small fixed-size speech frames. The unsupervised training strategy involves an assumption that a small speech segment should include a single speaker. Depending on such a belief, a pairwise constraint is constructed with noise augmentation policies, used to train AutoEmbedder architecture that generates speaker embeddings. Without relying on domain adaption policy, the process unsupervisely produces clusterable speaker embeddings, termed unsupervised vectors (u-vectors). The evaluation is concluded in two popular speaker recognition datasets for English language, TIMIT, and LibriSpeech. Also, a Bengali dataset is included to illustrate the diversity of the domain shifts for speaker recognition systems. Finally, we conclude that the proposed approach achieves satisfactory performance using pairwise architectures.