ALBERT

Description: Negative air ions (NAI) produce biochemical reactions that increase the levels of the mood chemical serotonin in the environment. Moreover, they benefit both the psychological well being and the human body’s physiological condition. The aim of this research was to estimate and measure the spatial distributions of negative and positive air ions in a residential garden in central Taiwan. Negative and positive air ions were measured at thirty monitoring locations in the study garden from July 2009 to June 2010. Moreover, Kriging was applied to estimate the spatial distribution of negative and positive air ions, as well as the air ion index in the study area. The measurement results showed that the numbers of NAI and PAI differed greatly during the four seasons, the highest and the lowest negative and positive air ion concentrations were found in the summer and winter, respectively. Moreover, temperature was positively affected negative air ions concentration. No matter what temperature is, the ranges of variogram in NAI/PAI were similar during four seasons. It indicated that spatial patterns of NAI/PAI were independent of the seasons and depended on garden elements and configuration, thus the NAP/PAI was a good estimate of the air quality regarding air ions. Kriging maps depicted that the highest negative and positive air ion concentration was next to the waterfall, whereas the lowest air ions areas were next to the exits of the garden. The results reveal that waterscapes are a source of negative and positive air ions, and that plants and green space are a minor source of negative air ions in the study garden. Moreover, temperature and humidity are positively and negatively affected negative air ions concentration, respectively. The proposed monitoring and mapping approach provides a way to effectively assess the patterns of negative and positive air ions in future landscape design projects.

Description: Sustainability, Vol. 9, Pages 2239: Environmental Risks or Costs? Exploring Flooding and the Urban Heat Island Effect in Planning for Policymaking: A Case Study in the Southern Taiwan Science Park Sustainability doi: 10.3390/su9122239 Authors: Peiwen Lu Yang-Ting Shen Tang-Huang Lin This study examined a specific case of planning for policymaking in response to two physical environmental issues: flooding and the urban heat island effect (UHI). The Southern Taiwan Science Park (STSP) was selected as a case study. Data were primarily collected through interviews as well as through policy review. The assessment showed significant differences in policymaking when comparing these two issues. The issue of flooding was considered and managed well. The UHI, however, was poorly considered or ignored altogether in policymaking, even though it has shown an increasing trend over the last decades, to a greater degree in the STSP than in the city centre. The results implied that the neoliberal approach to planning of decision-making performed better in managing risks (i.e., flooding and relevant disasters which had occurred in the past) than costs (i.e., the UHI and the future threats resulting from development). The STSP’s spatial development strategy, underpinned by the neoliberal approach with an agenda for maximising economic growth, was questionable for environmental management toward resilience.

Description: Sensors, Vol. 18, Pages 1996: A Novel Approach to Relative Radiometric Calibration on Spatial and Temporal Variations for FORMOSAT-5 RSI Imagery Sensors doi: 10.3390/s18071996 Authors: Tang-Huang Lin Min-Chung Hsiao Hai-Po Chan Fuan Tsai Radiometric calibration for imaging sensors is a crucial procedure to ensure imagery quality. One of the challenges in relative radiometric calibration is to correct detector-level artifacts due to the fluctuation in discrepant responses (spatial) and electronic instability (temporal). In this paper, the integration of the empirical mode decomposition (EMD) with Hilbert–Huang transform (HHT) in relative radiometric calibration was explored for a new sensor, FS-5 RSI (remote sensing instrument onboard the FORMOSAT-5 satellite). The key intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) analyzed by HHT were examined with the pre-flight datasets of the FS-5 RSI in temporal and spatial variations. The results show that the EMD–HHT method can stabilize and improve the radiometric quality of the FS-5 imagery as well as boost its application ability to a new level. It is noticed that the IMFs of the spatial variation would be disturbed by the instability of the temporal variation. The relative response discrepancies among detector chips can be well calibrated after considering the temporal effect. Taking a test imagery dataset of gain setting G2 as an example, the standard deviation (STD) of the discrepancy in the digital number after calibration was dramatically scaled down compared to the original ones (e.g., PAN: 66.31 to 1.85; B1: 54.19 to 1.90; B2: 36.50 to 1.49; B3: 32.43 to 1.56; B4: 37.67 to 1.20). The good performance of pre-flight imagery indicates that the EMD–HHT approach could be highly practical to the on-orbit relative radiometric calibration of the FS-5 RSI sensor and is applicable to other optical sensors. To our knowledge, the proposed EMD–HHT approach is used for the first time to explore relative radiometric calibration for optical sensors.

Description: Sensors, Vol. 18, Pages 644: A Spectral Reconstruction Algorithm of Miniature Spectrometer Based on Sparse Optimization and Dictionary Learning Sensors doi: 10.3390/s18020644 Authors: Shang Zhang Yuhan Dong Hongyan Fu Shao-Lun Huang Lin Zhang The miniaturization of spectrometer can broaden the application area of spectrometry, which has huge academic and industrial value. Among various miniaturization approaches, filter-based miniaturization is a promising implementation by utilizing broadband filters with distinct transmission functions. Mathematically, filter-based spectral reconstruction can be modeled as solving a system of linear equations. In this paper, we propose an algorithm of spectral reconstruction based on sparse optimization and dictionary learning. To verify the feasibility of the reconstruction algorithm, we design and implement a simple prototype of a filter-based miniature spectrometer. The experimental results demonstrate that sparse optimization is well applicable to spectral reconstruction whether the spectra are directly sparse or not. As for the non-directly sparse spectra, their sparsity can be enhanced by dictionary learning. In conclusion, the proposed approach has a bright application prospect in fabricating a practical miniature spectrometer.

Description: The single molecular conductance of amino acids was measured by a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) break junction. Conductance measurement of alanine gives out two conductance values at 10−1.85 G0 (1095 nS) and 10−3.7 G0 (15.5 nS), while similar conductance values are also observed for aspartic acid and glutamic acid, which have one more carboxylic acid group compared with alanine. This may show that the backbone of NH2–C–COOH is the primary means of electron transport in the molecular junction of aspartic acid and glutamic acid. However, NH2–C–COOH is not the primary means of electron transport in the methionine junction, which may be caused by the strong interaction of the Au–SMe (methyl sulfide) bond for the methionine junction. The current work reveals the important role of the anchoring group in the electron transport in different amino acids junctions.

Description: Sustainability, Vol. 10, Pages 651: Post-Disaster Business Recovery and Sustainable Development: A Study of 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake Sustainability doi: 10.3390/su10030651 Authors: Lifang Huang Lin Wang Jie Song Business sectors are essential for community prosperity, and thus it is important to investigate the recovery of businesses after disasters. However, current studies on business recovery after natural disasters are limited, particularly a lack of empirical observations in developing countries. Our observations of the patterns and transformations of small businesses in the recovery process after the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake in China can bridge this gap and provide a valuable contribution to academia. We conducted research through a four-year longitudinal study to track small business recovery in Beichuan County since 2014. Field observations, repeat photography, and semi-structured interviews were used to collect data. The operating status, business type, and spatiotemporal changes of small businesses in the new business district, Banaqia, were demonstrated. Overall, less than 50% of the planned shops were occupied and in operation, and this figure keeps declining from 2014 to 2017. Catering, garments, and souvenirs are the primary business types, but they show individual patterns in terms of sustainable development and spatial configuration. The results help to inform the development of recovery policies following disasters in developing countries.

Description: Exploring the effects of different types of PM2.5 is necessary to reduce associated deaths, especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Hence we determined types of ambient PM2.5 before exploring their effects on under-five and maternal mortality in Africa. The spectral derivate of aerosol optical depth (AOD) from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) products from 2000 to 2015 were employed to determine the aerosol types before using Generalized Linear and Additive Mixed-Effect models with Poisson link function to explore the associations and penalized spline for dose-response relationships. Four types of PM2.5 were identified in terms of mineral dust, anthropogenic pollutant, biomass burning and mixture aerosols. The results demonstrate that biomass PM2.5 increased the rate of under-five mortality in Western and Central Africa, each by 2%, and maternal mortality in Central Africa by 19%. Anthropogenic PM2.5 increased under-five and maternal deaths in Northern Africa by 5% and 10%, respectively, and maternal deaths by 4% in Eastern Africa. Dust PM2.5 increased under-five deaths in Northern, Western, and Central Africa by 3%, 1%, and 10%, respectively. Mixture PM2.5 only increased under-five deaths and maternal deaths in Western (incidence rate ratio = 1.01, p 〈 0.10) and Eastern Africa (incidence rate ratio = 1.06, p 〈 0.01), respectively. The findings indicate the types of ambient PM2.5 are significantly associated with under-five and maternal mortality in Africa where the exposure level usually exceeds the World Health Organization’s (WHO) standards. Appropriate policy actions on protective and control measures are therefore suggested and should be developed and implemented accordingly.