ALBERT

Description: To balance energy consumption and reduce latency on data transmission in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), a type of low-latency data gathering method with multi-Sink (LDGM for short) is proposed in this paper. The network is divided into several virtual regions consisting of three or less data gathering units and the leader of each region is selected according to its residual energy as well as distance to all of the other nodes. Only the leaders in each region need to communicate with the mobile Sinks which have effectively reduced energy consumption and the end-to-end delay. Moreover, with the help of the sleep scheduling and the sensing radius adjustment strategies, redundancy in network coverage could also be effectively reduced. Simulation results show that LDGM is energy efficient in comparison with MST as well as MWST and its time efficiency on data collection is higher than one Sink based data gathering methods.

Description: In this study a novel sensitive nanogold particle sensor enhancement based on mixed self-assembled monolayers was explored and used to construct a Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) immunosensor to detect Ischemia Modified Albumin (IMA). Compared with a direct binding SPR assay at a limit of detection (LOD) of 100 ng/L, gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) of 10 nm dramatically improved the LOD of IMA to 10 ng/L. Meanwhile, no interfering substance that may lead to false positive results was identified. These results suggested that the SPR biosensor presented superior properties, and provided a simple label-free strategy to increase assay sensitivity for further acute coronary syndrome (ACS) diagnosis.

Description: Metal oxide gas sensors are predominant solid-state gas detecting devices for domestic, commercial and industrial applications, which have many advantages such as low cost, easy production, and compact size. However, the performance of such sensors is significantly influenced by the morphology and structure of sensing materials, resulting in a great obstacle for gas sensors based on bulk materials or dense films to achieve highly-sensitive properties. Lots of metal oxide nanostructures have been developed to improve the gas sensing properties such as sensitivity, selectivity, response speed, and so on. Here, we provide a brief overview of metal oxide nanostructures and their gas sensing properties from the aspects of particle size, morphology and doping. When the particle size of metal oxide is close to or less than double thickness of the space-charge layer, the sensitivity of the sensor will increase remarkably, which would be called “small size effect”, yet small size of metal oxide nanoparticles will be compactly sintered together during the film coating process which is disadvantage for gas diffusion in them. In view of those reasons, nanostructures with many kinds of shapes such as porous nanotubes, porous nanospheres and so on have been investigated, that not only possessed large surface area and relatively mass reactive sites, but also formed relatively loose film structures which is an advantage for gas diffusion. Besides, doping is also an effective method to decrease particle size and improve gas sensing properties. Therefore, the gas sensing properties of metal oxide nanostructures assembled by nanoparticles are reviewed in this article. The effect of doping is also summarized and finally the perspectives of metal oxide gas sensor are given.

Description: Energies, Vol. 11, Pages 1677: Influence of the Design Parameters of a Fuel Thermal Management System on Its Thermal Endurance Energies doi: 10.3390/en11071677 Authors: Liping Pang Shuxin Li Meng Liu Rong A Aicheng Li Fanxin Meng The aerodynamic heating of a high-speed vehicle is destined to lead to a continuous fuselage temperature rise. However, its airborne thermal load rises exponentially. This will severely limit the thermal endurance of the high-speed vehicle and the working time of the electronic equipment. A jet-propelled high-speed vehicle usually uses fuel to generate thrust, so fuel thermal management technology has had much attention paid to it. During the vehicle design, its total amount of fuel should match its flight envelope. However, determining the amount of carried fuel is very difficult because it is affected by many factors. In order to analyze the relationship between the above influence factors and the flight envelope, a typical fuel thermal management system is set up for high-speed vehicles. Its dynamic characteristic equations are built correspondingly. A conception of thermal endurance is further presented to reveal the maximum flight time. Some flight conditions are used to analyze the influence of the main design parameters on the thermal endurance of high-speed vehicles. The results can help to design the parameters of fuel thermal management systems for high-speed vehicles.

Description: IJGI, Vol. 7, Pages 305: Prioritizing Abandoned Mine Lands Rehabilitation: Combining Landscape Connectivity and Pattern Indices with Scenario Analysis Using Land-Use Modeling ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information doi: 10.3390/ijgi7080305 Authors: Liping Zhang Shiwen Zhang Yajie Huang An Xing Zhiqing Zhuo Zhongxiang Sun Zhen Li Meng Cao Yuanfang Huang Connectivity modeling approaches for abandoned mine lands (AML) patches are limited in post-mining landscape restoration, especially where great land use changes might be expected due to large-scale land reclamation. This study presents a novel approach combining AML patch sizes with a proximity index to characterize patch-scaled connectivity for determining the spatial positions of patches with huge sizes and high connectivity. Then this study propose a scenario-based method coupled with landscape-scale metrics for quantifying landscape-scaled connectivity, which aims at exploring the optimal reclamation scheme with the highest connectivity. Using the Mentougou District in Beijing, China, as a case study, this paper confirmed which patches should be reclaimed first to meet the predetermined reclamation numbers; then this paper tested three different reclamation scenarios (i.e., cultivated land-oriented, forest-oriented, and construction land-oriented scenarios) to describe the impact of the different development strategies on landscape connectivity. The research found that the forest-oriented scenario increased connectivity quantitatively, showing an increase in the integral index of connectivity (IIC) and other landscape-scale metrics. Therefore, this paper suggests that future land-use policies should emphasize converting AML into more forest to blend in with the surrounding land-use categories. The findings presented here can contribute to better understanding the quantitative analysis of the connectivity of AML patches at both the patch scale and the landscape scale, thus providing scientific support for AML management in mine-site rehabilitation.

Description: Materials, Vol. 11, Pages 1373: Effect of Healing Agents on Crack Healing of Asphalt and Asphalt Mortar Materials doi: 10.3390/ma11081373 Authors: Changluan Pan Ping Tang Martin Riara Liantong Mo Mingliang Li Meng Guo This study investigated the effect of seven healing agents on crack healing ability of long-term aged asphalt and its mortar. Different healing agents including sunflower oil, aromatic oil, bitumen emulsion, and maltene-based emulsions were used. The crack healing of asphalt made use of two asphalt disk samples and healing was evaluated using direct tensile tests. For asphalt mortar, notched semi-circular samples were used. Test results indicated that the crack healing of asphalt and its mortar depended strongly on the type of healing agent. In general, asphalt healed faster than its mortar. Asphalt healing could be well improved by using oil agents, while asphalt mortar could be well healed with maltene-based emulsions. The crack healing of asphalt mortar developed rapidly followed by a steady state of increase. Initial crack healing using healing agents could be contributed by the diffusion and softening effects, which resulted in low strength recovery. Long term healing could lead to the bonding reconstitution in the cracks, which were decisive for the final strength gain. The promising healing agent should be able to achieve maximum strength recovery to resist cracking as well as a sufficient re-healing ability to deal with crack opening and closing.

Description: Sustainability, Vol. 10, Pages 3245: A Survey of Techniques for Constructing Chinese Knowledge Graphs and Their Applications Sustainability doi: 10.3390/su10093245 Authors: Tianxing Wu Guilin Qi Cheng Li Meng Wang With the continuous development of intelligent technologies, knowledge graph, the backbone of artificial intelligence, has attracted much attention from both academic and industrial communities due to its powerful capability of knowledge representation and reasoning. In recent years, knowledge graph has been widely applied in different kinds of applications, such as semantic search, question answering, knowledge management and so on. Techniques for building Chinese knowledge graphs are also developing rapidly and different Chinese knowledge graphs have been constructed to support various applications. Under the background of the “One Belt One Road (OBOR)” initiative, cooperating with the countries along OBOR on studying knowledge graph techniques and applications will greatly promote the development of artificial intelligence. At the same time, the accumulated experience of China in developing knowledge graphs is also a good reference to develop non-English knowledge graphs. In this paper, we aim to introduce the techniques of constructing Chinese knowledge graphs and their applications, as well as analyse the impact of knowledge graph on OBOR. We first describe the background of OBOR, and then introduce the concept and development history of knowledge graph and typical Chinese knowledge graphs. Afterwards, we present the details of techniques for constructing Chinese knowledge graphs, and demonstrate several applications of Chinese knowledge graphs. Finally, we list some examples to explain the potential impacts of knowledge graph on OBOR.

Description: Sustainability, Vol. 10, Pages 2337: Adsorption and Desorption of Cd by Soil Amendment: Mechanisms and Environmental Implications in Field-Soil Remediation Sustainability doi: 10.3390/su10072337 Authors: Shanshan Li Meng Wang Zhongqiu Zhao Changbao Ma Shibao Chen In China, 1/5 of the total farmland area is Cd-enriched; the wide occurrence of Cd-contaminated soil in China has already posed significant public health risk and deserves immediate action. In situ immobilization has been regarded as one of the most promising agricultural extension-technologies for remediating low-to-medium levels of heavy metal contaminated land in China. Although extensive research has been conducted to examine the effectiveness of different amendments on remediation of Cd-contaminated soils, the influence of changed soil properties on secondary release of Cd from Cd-amendment to soil is rarely known. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of four soil amendments (denoted as Ad1, Ad2, Ad3 and Ad4, their main components being clay mineral, base mineral, humus and biochar, respectively) on reducing Cd availability and increasing Cd stability in soil. The maximum adsorption capacity of test amendments on Cd ranged from 7.47 to 17.67 mg g−1. The characterizations of test amendments before and after Cd loading provided the evidence that surface precipitation and ion exchange were the main reasons for Ad1 and Ad2 to adsorb Cd, and complexation was for Ad3 and Ad4. In addition, there was significant increase in the desorption percentages of Cd from amendments as pH decreased (from 7 to 1) or ion strength increased (from 0 to 0.2 M). Comparatively, Ad3 and Ad4 could be more effective for in situ immobilization of Cd in contaminated soils, due to their high adsorption capacities (12.82 and 17.67 mg g−1, respectively) and low desorption percentages (4.46–6.23%) at pH from 5 to 7 and ion strengths from 0.01 to 0.1 mol L−1. The results obtained in this study could provide a guideline for in-situ remediation of Cd polluted field-soil in China.

Description: This study reviewed the prediction of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) from satellite aerosol optical depth (AOD) and summarized the advantages and limitations of these predicting models. A total of 116 articles were included from 1436 records retrieved. The number of such studies has been increasing since 2003. Among these studies, four predicting models were widely used: Multiple Linear Regression (MLR) (25 articles), Mixed-Effect Model (MEM) (23 articles), Chemical Transport Model (CTM) (16 articles) and Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) (10 articles). We found that there is no so-called best model among them and each has both advantages and limitations. Regarding the prediction accuracy, MEM performs the best, while MLR performs worst. CTM predicts PM2.5 better on a global scale, while GWR tends to perform well on a regional level. Moreover, prediction performance can be significantly improved by combining meteorological variables with land use factors of each region, instead of only considering meteorological variables. In addition, MEM has advantages in dealing with the AOD data with missing values. We recommend that with the help of higher resolution AOD data, future works could be focused on developing satellite-based predicting models for the prediction of historical PM2.5 and other air pollutants.

Description: In this study, horizontal wind (U and V), air temperature (T), and relative humidity (RH) modelled by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts Reanalysis Interim (ERA-Interim), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Modern Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA), the Japanese 55-year Reanalysis (JRA-55), the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Climate Forecast System Version 2 (CFSv2), and the NCEP Final Operational Global Analysis data and the NCEP Final Operational Global Analysis data (NCEP-FNL) products have been compared with observations at 11 radiosonde stations over the eastern and downstream regions of the Tibetan Plateau (TP) from late June until the end of July during 2011 to 2015. The mean bias of all variables for the five gridded datasets (GDs) in the Sichuan Basin (SCB) is larger than that for the TP. The mean values of U, V, and T from each grid dataset are generally consistent with the radiosonde values, whereas considerable bias in the mean RH exists at upper levels. The diurnal variation of the mean bias and root-mean-square (RMS) error in the basin are stronger than those in the TP and the negative/positive peak usually occurs at 06:00 UTC and 18:00 UTC in the basin or at 12:00 UTC in the TP. The inter-annual variations in the basin are significantly stronger, and the maximum values of the variations usually occur at upper levels or near the surface, except for V. The weather conditions have a crucial influence on the performance of the gridded datasets. The mean bias and RMS error of T in the TP on cloudy days are obviously larger than those during sunny conditions. Considerable but unsteady differences occur in the mean bias and RMS error of U and V in different weather conditions. On average, the four variables in the TP are more sensible to the weather conditions.