ALBERT

Description: In recent years, the rapid increase in CO2 concentration has accelerated global warming. As a result, sea levels rise, glaciers melt, extreme weather occurs, and species become extinct. As the world’s largest CO2 emission rights trading market, EU Emissions Trading System (EU-ETS) has reached 1.855 billion tons of quotas by 2019, influencing the development of the global carbon emission market. Crude oil, as one of the major fossil energy sources in the world, its price fluctuation is bound to affect the price of carbon emission rights. Therefore, this paper aims to reveal the correlation between crude oil futures prices and carbon emission rights futures prices by studying the price fluctuation. In this paper, the linkage between West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil futures prices and European carbon futures prices was investigated. In addition, this paper selects continuous data of WTI crude oil futures prices and spot prices with European carbon futures prices from January 8, 2018 to November 27, 2020, and builds a smooth transformation regression (STR) model. The relationship between crude oil futures and carbon futures prices is studied in both forward and reversal linkage through empirical analysis. The results show that crude oil futures prices and carbon futures prices have a mutual effect on each other, and both linear and nonlinear correlations between the two prices exist. Based on the results of this research, some suggestions are provided.

Description: We present a high-efficiency method for simulating seawater intrusion (SWI), with mixing, in confined coastal aquifers based on uncoupled equations in the through-flow region of the aquifer. The flow field is calculated analytically and the tracer transport numerically, via spatial splitting along the principal directions (PD) of transport. Advection-dispersion processes along streamlines are simulated with the very efficient matched artificial dispersivity (MAD) method of Syriopoulou and Koussis and the system of discretized transverse-dispersion equations is solved with the Thomas algorithm. These concepts are embedded in the 2D-MADPD-SWI model, yielding comparable solutions to those of the uncoupled SWI equations with the state-of-the-art FEFLOW code, but faster, while 2D-MADPD-SWI achieves an at least hundredfold faster solution than a variable-density flow model. We demonstrate the utility of the 2D-MADPD-SWI model in stochastic Monte Carlo simulations by assessing the uncertainty on the advance of the 1,500 ppm TDS line (limit of tolerable salinity for irrigation) due to randomly variable hydraulic conductivity and freshwater flow rate.

Description: Wastewater stabilization ponds (WSPs) are commonly used to treat municipal wastewater in the Canadian Arctic. Bacterial community structure and functionality remain mostly uncharacterized for arctic WSPs, yet are presumed important for treatment outcomes during the 3-month summer treatment season with open water in the WSPs. The objective of this study was to investigate treatment performance and related temporal and spatial changes in the structure and putative function of bacterial communities during treatment of municipal wastewater in the WSPs of Pond Inlet and Clyde River, Nunavut over two consecutive summer treatment seasons. Influent raw wastewater contained a high organic load and large bacterial communities (~9 log 16S rRNA copies/mL) belonging mainly to Proteobacteria. Although designed to be facultative ponds, both WSPs remained anaerobic with neutral pH values (7.5–7.8) throughout the summer treatment season. Water quality data showed that nutrients [measured as carbonaceous biological oxygen demand (CBOD5)], total suspended solids, and total ammonia nitrogen were progressively reduced during treatment in the ponds as the summer progressed. The pond bacterial population size and species richness depended on the pond temperature (2–18°C), with 8.5 log 16S rRNA copies/mL and the largest alpha diversities (Shannon-Wiener index of 4-4.5) observed mid-season (late July). While the phylogenetic beta diversity in raw wastewater from the two locations remained similar, pond bacterial communities underwent significant (p 〈 0.05) changes to dominance of Comamonadaceae, Geobacteracea, and Porphyromonadaceae. Multivariate distance based redundancy analysis and predicted gene functionalities in the microbiota agreed with water quality results that microbial removal of nutrients (e.g., CBOD5) peaked in the middle of the summer coinciding with the treatment period with the highest pond temperatures. Information from this study will be useful for further development of models to predict biological treatment outcomes, which could be used to size and assess the feasibility of WSPs in extreme climates. Higher pond temperatures resulted in optimal biological processes and nutrient removal in the middle of the summer. While it is challenging to control environmental factors in a passive wastewater treatment system there are some design considerations that could be used to optimize temperature regimes, such as the depth of the pond.

Description: Occurrences and exposure to high levels of microbial bioaerosols such as pathogenic bacteria, fungi, fungal spores, and viruses can be linked to the deterioration of the environment and public health. This study aimed to review the results available for the unusual bioaerosol distribution scenario in the Asian regions. The amount of bioaerosol load and their environmental behavior in the atmosphere is heavily influenced by air pollution such as haze, fog, dust, and particulate matter (PM) and thus strongly affect the air quality index (AQI). Human factors such as heavy traffic, overcrowds, and biomass burning also affected the prevalence or occurrences of bioaerosols in the atmosphere. Seasonal/temporal and diurnal variation was significantly observed from these studies and in the case of South Asia, post-monsoon and winter months were incredibly concentrated with pathogenic bioaerosols. Many human infections, for example, pneumonia, tuberculosis, brucellosis, anthrax, and query fever (Q-fever), are linked to pathogenic bacterial bioaerosols. Respiratory diseases such as asthma and chronic pulmonary obstructiveness are related to fungal bioaerosols, spores, and viral infections. To facilitate the testing and monitoring appraisal of airborne bioaerosols, artificial intelligence, deep neural networks, and machine learning can be used to develop real-time PCR-based bioaerosol sensors. Moreover, mobile apps and compatible electronic gadgets can be developed for the city dwellers to real-time monitor the concentration of bioaerosols in the air they are breathing.

Description: In the context of the energy crisis and environmental deterioration, the integrated energy system (IES) based on multi-energy complementarity and cascaded utilization of energy is considered as an effective way to solve these problems. Due to the different energy forms and the various characteristics in the IES, the coupling relationships among various energy forms are complicated which enlarges the difficulty of energy efficiency evaluation of the IES. In order to flexibly analyze the energy efficiency of the IES, an operation efficiency evaluation model for the IES is established. First, energy utilization efficiency (EUE) and exergy efficiency (EXE) are proposed based on the first/second law of thermodynamics. Second, the energy efficiency models for five processes and four subsystems of the IES are formed. Lastly, an actual commercial-industrial park with integrated energy is employed to validate the proposed method.

Description: This paper investigates the thermophysical properties and heat transfer performance of graphene nanoplatelet (GNP) and alumina hybrid nanofluids at different mixing ratios. The electrical conductivity and viscosity of the nanofluids were obtained at temperatures between 15–55°C. The thermal conductivity was measured at temperatures between 20–40°C. The natural convection properties, including Nusselt number, Rayleigh number, and heat transfer coefficient, were experimentally obtained at different temperature gradients (20, 25, 30, and 35°C) in a rectangular cavity. The Mouromtseff number was used to theoretically estimate all the nanofluids’ forced convective performance at temperatures between 20–40°C. The results indicated that the thermal conductivity and viscosity of water are increased with the hybrid nanomaterial. On the other hand, the viscosity and thermal conductivity of the hybrid nanofluids are lesser than that of mono-GNP nanofluids. Notwithstanding, of all the hybrid nanofluids, GNP-alumina hybrid nanofluid with a mixing ratio of 50:50 and 75:25 were found to have the highest thermal conductivity and viscosity, enhancing thermal conductivity by 4.23% and increasing viscosity by 15.79%, compared to water. Further, the addition of the hybrid nanomaterials improved the natural convective performance of water while it deteriorates with mono-GNP. The maximum augmentation of 6.44 and 10.48% were obtained for Nuaverage and haverage of GNP-Alumina (50:50) hybrid nanofluid compared to water, respectively. This study shows that hybrid nanofluids are more effective for heat transfer than water and mono-GNP nanofluid.

Description: We numerically calculate the quasinormal frequencies of the Klein-Gordon and Dirac fields propagating in a two-dimensional asymptotically anti-de Sitter black hole of the dilaton gravity theory. For the Klein-Gordon field we use the Horowitz-Hubeny method and the asymptotic iteration method for second order differential equations. For the Dirac field we first exploit the Horowitz-Hubeny method. As a second method, instead of using the asymptotic iteration method for second order differential equations, we propose to take as a basis its formulation for coupled systems of first order differential equations. For the two fields we find that the results that produce the two numerical methods are consistent. Furthermore for both fields we obtain that their quasinormal modes are stable and we compare their quasinormal frequencies to analyze whether their spectra are isospectral. Finally we discuss the main results.

Description: The ongoing urbanization requires enhanced understanding of the local meteorological and climatological conditions within the urban environment for multiple applications, concerning energy demand, human health, and spatial planning. Identifying areas with harmful meteorological conditions enables citizens and local authorities to take actions to optimize quality of life for urban dwellers. At the moment cities have (in general) limited networks of meteorological monitoring stations. To overcome this lack of observations, the use of non-traditional data sources is rapidly increasing. However, the use of such data sources without enough prior verification has become a controversial topic in the scientific community. This study aims to verify and assess one of the main non-traditional data sources, i.e. smartphones. The goal is to research the potential of smartphones (using the Samsung Galaxy S4 as an example phone model) to correctly sense air temperature, relative humidity, and solar radiation, and to determine to what extent environmental conditions negatively affect their performance. The smartphone readings were evaluated against observations from reference instrumentation at a weather station and a mobile measurement platform. We test the response time of the smartphone thermometer and hygrometer, and the light sensor’s cosine response. In a lab setting, we find that a smartphone can provide reliable temperature information when it is not exposed to direct solar radiation. The smartphone’s hygrometer performs better at low relative humidity levels while it can over-saturate at higher levels. The light sensor records show substantial correlation with global radiation observations, and short response times. Measurements along an urban transect of 10 km show the smartphone’s ability to react to fast changes of temperature in the field, both in time and space. However, a bias correction (dependent on wind speed and radiation) is required to represent the reference temperature. Finally we show that after such a bias correction, a smartphone record can successfully capture spatial variability over a transect as well.

Description: Global food and water insecurity could be serious problems in the upcoming decades with growing demands from the increasing global population and more frequent effect of climatic extremes. As the available water resources are diminishing and facing continuous stress, it is crucial to monitor water demand and water availability to understand the associated water stresses. This study assessed the water stress by applying the water supply stress index (WaSSI) in relation to green (WaSSIG) and blue (WaSSIB) water resources across six major cropland basins including the Mississippi (North America), San Francisco (South America), Nile (Africa), Danube (Europe), Ganges-Brahmaputra (Asia), and Murray-Darling (Australia) for the past 17-years (2003–2019). The WaSSIG and WaSSIB results indicated that the Murray-Darling Basin experienced the most severe (maximum WaSSIG and WaSSIB anomalies) green and blue water stresses and the Mississippi Basin had the least. All basins had both green and blue water stresses for at least 35% (6 out of 17 years) of the study period. The interannual variations in green water stress were driven by both crop water demand and green water supply, whereas the blue water stress variations were primarily driven by blue water supply. The WaSSIG and WaSSIB provided a better understanding of water stress (blue or green) and their drivers (demand or supply driven) across cropland basins. This information can be useful for basin-specific resource mobilization and interventions to ensure food and water security.

Description: In this paper, a biological template method is introduced and investigated to fabricate ionic polymer-metal composite (IPMC) strain sensor with bionic hierarchical structures. We utilized the multi-level structure of reed leaf surface, which can improve the contact area between the substrate and the electrode layers. Hierarchical structures were observed on the IPMC samples, including pyramid strips with the width in the range of 60–80 μm as well as synaptic scatters with diameter around 10 μm. In addition, five kinds of sensors with different interface structures were obtained by combining the traditional microneedle roller roughening and chemical plating processes. It was found that the IPMC sensor with reed-leaf and microneedle structure on each side presented the best performance, along with a high linearity, a sensitivity of 62.5 mV/1% and a large generated voltage peak under given mechanical stimuli, which is 3.7 times that of the sample fabricated without roughening.

Description: This study evaluated the agricultural eco-efficiency (AEE) of 77 counties and districts in Jiangsu Province from 1999 to 2018 using the slack-based measure (SBM) of efficiency in data envelopment analysis (DEA) (SBM-DEA) and analyzed its spatiotemporal evolution characteristics and influencing factors. We found that 1) the overall AEE, pure technology efficiency (PTE), and scale efficiency (SE) exhibited a fluctuating downward trend. AEE exhibited a significantly positive spatial association and an increasingly widening regional inequality. 2) AEE featured the “high south” and “low north” spatial pattern, with the high-value regions concentrated around the Taihu Lake plain region in southern Jiangsu Province (Sunan) and low-value regions scattered across most of the northern Jiangsu Province (Subei) cities. The high-high and low-low spatial association types further confirmed the existence of the north–south agglomeration pattern. 3) PTE and SE exhibited a similar “high south” and “low north” spatial pattern to that of AEE. The areas with the growth trends of AEE, PTE, and SE were clustered in Xuzhou and Nanjing city and in the bordering regions between Yangzhou and the Huai’an city, and also between Changzhou and the Wuxi city. 4) Excessive redundant input and use of pesticides, chemical fertilizers, agricultural diesel, labor, land, and agricultural carbon emissions, all have been the primary factors affecting Jiangsu’s AEE. Irrigation also considerably affected AEE, while mechanical power and agricultural film have minimal effects. The majority of counties and districts in the Subei, central Jiangsu Province (Suzhong), and Ningzhen Yang Hilly region experienced excessive usage of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, chemical fertilizers, agricultural diesel, labor, and land. The findings can improve understanding of the spatial association effect and underlying impediment of AEE and can further help policymakers promoting agricultural eco-efficiency.

Description: Water-soluble species constitute a significant fraction (up to 60–70%) of the total aerosol loading in the marine atmospheric boundary layer (MABL). The “indirect” effects, that is, climate forcing due to modification of cloud properties depend on the water-soluble composition of aerosols. Thus, the characterization of aerosols over the MABL is of greater relevance. Here, we present 1-year long aerosol chemical composition data of PM10 and PM2.5 at a costal location in the northeastern Arabian Sea (Goa; 15.45°N, 73.20°E, 56 m above the sea level). Average water-soluble ionic concentration (sum of anion and cation) is highest (25.5 ± 6.9 and 19.6 ± 5.8 μg·m−3 for PM10 and PM2.5, respectively) during winter season and lowest during post-monsoon (17.3 ± 9.1 and 14.4 ± 8.1 μg·m−3 for PM10 and PM2.5, respectively). Among water-soluble ionic spices, SO42- ion was found to be dominant species in anions and NH4+ is dominant in cations, for both PM10 and PM2.5 during all the seasons. These observations clearly hint to the contribution from anthropogenic emission and significant secondary inorganic species formation. Sea-salt (calculated based on Na+ and Cl−) concentration shows significant temporal variability with highest contribution during summer seasons in both fractions. Sea-salt corrected Ca2+, an indicator of mineral dust is found mostly during summer months, particularly in PM10 samples, indicates contribution from mineral dust emissions from arid/semiarid regions located in the north/northwestern India and southwest Asia. These observations are corroborated with back-trajectory analyses, wherein air parcels were found to derive from the desert area in summer and Indo-Gangetic Plains (a hot spot for anthropogenic emissions) during winter. In addition, we also observe the presence of nss-K+ (sea-salt corrected), for PM2.5, particularly during winter months, indicating influence of biomass burning emissions. The impact on aerosol chemistry is further assessed based on chloride depletion. Chloride depletion is observed very significant during post-monsoon months (October and November), wherein more than 80 up to 100% depletion is found, mediated by excess sulfates highlighting the role of secondary species in atmospheric chemistry. Regional scale characterization of atmospheric aerosols is important for their better parameterization in chemical transport model and estimation of radiative forcing.

Description: The records of maintenance activities are required for modeling the track irregularity deterioration process. However, it is hard to guarantee the completeness and accuracy of the maintenance records. To tackle this problem, an adaptive piecewise modeling framework for the rail track deterioration process driven by historical measurement data from the comprehensive inspection train (referred to as CIT) is proposed. The identification of when maintenance activities occurred is reformulated as a model selection optimization problem based on Bayesian Information Criterion. An efficient solution algorithm utilizing adaptive thresholding and dynamic programming is proposed for solving this optimization problem. This framework’s validity and practicability are illustrated by the measurement data from the CIT inspection of the mileage section of K21 + 184 to K220 + 308 on the Nanchang-Fuzhou railway track from 2014 to 2019. The results indicate that this framework can overcome the disturbance of contaminated measurement data and accurately estimate when maintenance activities were undertaken without any historical maintenance records. What is more, the adaptive piecewise fitting model provided by this framework can describe the irregular deterioration process of corresponding rail track sections.

Description: Fuel cell technology is continuously gaining ground in E-mobility applications. Fuel cells require a constant supply of pressurized air, for which high-speed turbo compressors with air bearings are an optimal choice to reduce size, guarantee oil-free operation required for the lifetime of the fuel cell, and increase efficiency. However, the inverter driving the electric motor of the turbo compressor does not scale down with increasing speed; therefore, other technology advances are required to achieve an overall compressor system with low weight. New power electronic topologies (double-bridge voltage sources inverter), cutting edge power semiconductor technology (gallium nitride), and multiobjective optimization techniques allow reducing the inverter size, increasing inverter efficiency, and improving the output current quality and in return lowering the losses in the electric motor. This enables the electrical, mechanical, and thermal integration of the inverter into the compressor housing of very high-speed and compact turbo compressors, thereby reducing the size and weight of the overall compressor system by a factor of two. Furthermore, a turbo compressor with an integrated inverter reduces complexity and cost for operators with savings in casing, cables, coolant piping, and connectors and reduces EMI noise by shielding the high-frequency motor currents with one housing. Beside its main application for fuel cell air supply, the advantages gained by an integrated inverter can also be used in other boosting and air handling applications such as advanced air and exhaust handling in combustion engines. The proposed integration concept is verified with a 280,000 rpm, 1 kW turbo compressor, targeted for the Balance of Plant (BoP) of a 5–15 kW fuel cell. The experimental results show that the temperature limits on the power electronics parts can be kept below the limit of 90 °C up to a coolant temperature of 55 °C, and beside the advantage of lower cabling effort, the efficiency of the compressor system (turbo compressor and integrated inverter) is increased by 5.5% compared to a turbo compressor without an integrated inverter.

Description: Atmospheric gravity waves (GWs) are generated in the lower atmosphere by various weather phenomena. They propagate upward, carry energy and momentum to higher altitudes, and appreciably influence the general circulation upon depositing them in the middle and upper atmosphere. We use a three-dimensional first-principle general circulation model (GCM) with implemented nonlinear whole atmosphere GW parameterization to study the global climatology of wave activity and produced effects at altitudes up to the upper thermosphere. The numerical experiments were guided by the GW momentum fluxes and temperature variances as measured in 2010 by the SABER (Sounding of the Atmosphere using Broadband Emission Radiometry) instrument onboard NASA’s TIMED (Thermosphere Ionosphere Mesosphere Energetics Dynamics) satellite. This includes the latitudinal dependence and magnitude of GW activity in the lower stratosphere for the boreal summer season. The modeling results were compared to the SABER temperature and total absolute momentum flux and Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) data in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere. Simulations suggest that, in order to reproduce the observed circulation and wave activity in the middle atmosphere, GW fluxes that are smaller than observed fluxes have to be used at the source level in the lower atmosphere. This is because observations contain a broader spectrum of GWs, while parameterizations capture only a portion relevant to the middle and upper atmosphere dynamics. Accounting for the latitudinal variations of the source appreciably improves simulations.

Description: This study investigated the interface morphology, microstructure composition and connection strength of 7A52 aluminum alloy-Al2O3 ceramic brazed joints under heat treatment conditions. Alumina ceramics were first treated with electroless nickel plating, followed by vacuum heat treatment at different temperatures. Then an Al-Si-Mg intermediate layer was placed between the treated alumina ceramic and 7A52 aluminum alloy for brazing under the conditions of welding temperature 590, holding time 1h, pressure 2 MPa. Results showed that when heat treatment was performed at 350°C and below, the nickel-plated metal had an amorphous structure, and when performed at 400°C, the nickel-plated layer had a crystalline structure and the brittle phase Ni3P was precipitated. When the heat treatment temperature was 350°C, the joint shear strength reached the maximum, which was 68.7 MPa.

Description: Rigid polyurethane foam (RPUF) was an organic porous material, which was applied in many fields for excellent thermal insulation and mechanical properties, especially in building insulation. However, the poor fire performance significantly suppresses its further application. In this work, aluminum diethylphosphinate (ADP) combined with expanded graphite (EG) to form a synergistic flame retarded system, which was introduced to fabricate flame retarded rigid polyurethane foam composites (FR-RPUF) by one-step water-blown method. Furthermore, thermal insulation, thermal stability, fire performance, and decomposition products of RPUF and FR-RPUF composites were systematically investigated. It was found that FR-RPUF composites possessed LOI of 25.9 vol% with V-1 rating in UL-94 test when 10 php of ADP and 20 php of EG were added, which were better than RPUF composites with ADP or EG added alone. MCC test showed that RPUF/ADP24/EG6 had the lowest PHRR value of 159.85 W/g, which was 52.01 W/g lower than that of pure RPUF. Gas phase products investigation implied that the combination of ADP and EG could decrease toxic and combustible gases intensities, thus significantly enhancing fire safety of FR-RPUF composites. SEM test indicated that ADP and EG promoted the formation of dense and continuous char residue, which significantly inhibited heat and substance transfer in combustion, thus significantly enhancing fire performance of FR-RPUF composites.

Description: Most piezoelectric materials are not interactive with visible light, meaning that their band gaps are beyond the photon energies of the visible part of the light spectrum. The first narrow band gap (1.1 eV, the same as silicon) ferroelectric material based on the oxide perovskite structure has been achieved by doping Ni on the B-sites of KNbO3 and paring the Ni2+ ions with oxygen vacancies to form defect dipoles to ease the band-band transition. This band gap engineered ferroelectric material has also been proved to be piezoelectric. The Ni-doping strategy for band gap engineering has been successfully applied to other perovskite compositions. As a result, several materials with simultaneously good piezoelectricity and a visible-range band gap have been developed. Such photoresponsive piezoelectrics have potential applications in opto-electrical dual-source actuators, single-material multi-sensors and multi-source energy harvesters. This mini review focuses on the works of simultaneous tuning of piezoelectricity and band gap, which have not previously been discussed as an individual topic in existing reviews. Pioneer works on the applications of photoresponsive piezoelectrics are also presented. Since most of such materials are built on the frame of lead-free perovskite oxides, their band gap (without degrading the piezoelectricity) provides an additional benefit to environmentally friendly lead-free piezoelectrics (compared to lead-based counterparts such as PZT [Pb(Zr,Ti)O3)]. This review aims to draw the attention of piezoelectric scientists and device engineers, so that potential applications of photoresponsive piezoelectrics can be comprehensively investigated, as well as more material options that can be offered in future works.

Description: Large-scale disturbances such as ice storms may increase in frequency and intensity as climate changes. While disturbances are a natural component of forest ecosystems, climatically driven alteration to historical patterns may impart fundamental change to ecosystem function. At Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest, NH, experimental ice storms of varying severity were applied to replicate plots of mature northern hardwoods to quantify their effects on forested ecosystems. We assessed ice storm treatment effects on insectivorous foliage-gleaning birds and evaluated insectivore predation on model caterpillars in the understory vegetation. These birds are charismatic, of conservation concern, and are major predators of caterpillars. In turn, lepidopterans are the dominant herbivores in temperate forests and are integral to ecosystem function. We predicted that avian abundance would increase due to additional structural heterogeneity caused by ice treatments, with a concomitant increase in caterpillar predation. Point counts were used to measure insectivorous bird activity in the ice storm experiment plots and additional control plots before and after treatments. We deployed and retrieved plasticine model caterpillars and estimated predation from characteristic marks to these surrogates. Abundance of foliage-gleaning birds was higher in the ice storm plots and birds responded to treatments as a single diffuse disturbance rather than on an individual plot level. All species except one were observed both before and after the ice treatments. Surprisingly, predation on caterpillar models was unaffected by ice storm treatments but rather was a function of caterpillar density. The increase in avian abundance in the ice storm treatment plots corroborates other studies of bird responses to relatively small-scale disturbances in forests and the limited change in species composition was expected given the plot size. We conclude that ice storms may provide beneficial changes for foliage-gleaning birds in the growing season following the disturbance.

Description: Strategies for the use of amendments on agricultural soils are needed to help build resilience against potential soil threats. Gypsum is commonly applied to improve soil quality and nutrient supply. However, the sustainability and environmental safety of some gypsum sources is uncertain. This study aims to i. characterize a new by-product, lacto-gypsum, derived from a dairy whey side stream over a 1 year pilot production cycle and ii. assess the temporal variability of the raw form of lacto-gypsum and the stability of its physico-chemical and compositional properties when stored under three potential storage regimes. Results showed that lacto-gypsum compares favorably with conventional equivalents in terms of nutrient and trace element concentrations and represents an environmentally safe material free of contaminants. Storage form did not affect its main physico-chemical characteristics over time and the raw lacto-gypsum remained stable up to 20 days when stored at 4°C. In contrast to conventional gypsum, the lacto-gypsum had very low pH. In general this new lacto-gypsum shows potential as a suitable product for use as a soil amendment or as an acidification agent for animal slurry to reduce ammonia gas emissions during storage. However, further evaluation of this by-product in real life scenarios is required.

Description: Graphene-MoS2 composites were synthesized via one-step microwave-assisted chemical bath deposition and used as counter electrodes for dye-sensitized solar cells, instead of traditional Pt film which has high cost and poor stability. The effects of graphene additive amount on the performance of cells were studied. The results reveal that sheet porous structure graphene and MoS2 particles has been incorporated tightly, which is the benefit of electrical conductivity and catalysis ability. A maximum efficiency of 6.3% has been achieved under 100 mW cm−2 illumination when the Mo:C is 1:1.

Description: We investigate here the magnetic properties of a large-scale magnetic flux rope related to a coronal mass ejection (CME) that erupted from the Sun on September 12, 2014 and produced a well-defined flux rope in interplanetary space on September 14–15, 2014. We apply a fully data-driven and time-dependent magnetofrictional method (TMFM) using Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) magnetograms as the lower boundary condition. The simulation self-consistently produces a coherent flux rope and its ejection from the simulation domain. This paper describes the identification of the flux rope from the simulation data and defining its key parameters (e.g., twist and magnetic flux). We define the axial magnetic flux of the flux rope and the magnetic field time series from at the apex and at different distances from the apex of the flux rope. Our analysis shows that TMFM yields axial magnetic flux values that are in agreement with several observational proxies. The extracted magnetic field time series do not match well with in-situ components in direct comparison presumably due to interplanetary evolution and northward propagation of the CME. The study emphasizes also that magnetic field time-series are strongly dependent on how the flux rope is intercepted which presents a challenge for space weather forecasting.

Description: Theory and observations of Langmuir waves and turbulence induced in the auroral ionosphere by electron beams of magnetospheric-origin are reviewed. The theoretical discussions include a brief description of the electrostatic dispersion relation, excitation of Langmuir waves by electron beams, and the stability of beam distributions. The theory of Langmuir turbulence—including the parametric decay instability and wave collapse—is also briefly discussed. The main focus of the review, however, is on the observations of Langmuir waves and turbulence in the ionosphere by in-situ and ground-based sensors. A summary of five decades of in-situ wave and particle observations is presented and combined with a collection of more recent results from ground-based instruments. The ground-based observations include signatures of Langmuir turbulence in the form of coherent echoes in incoherent scatter radar measurements; signatures of electron beams in the form of auroral morphologies recorded by high-speed, high-resolution optical imagers; and electromagnetic emissions received on the ground at high latitudes. Uniting the various observations obtained by the vastly different sensors is shown to provide further insight into the micro-scale processes that occur in the ionosphere. Also discussed in this review is the potential of the ground-based sensors to provide a broader spatial and temporal context for single-point in-situ measurements of such processes.

Description: With the fossil energy crisis and environmental pollution, wind energy and other renewable energy have been booming. However, the strong intermittence and volatility of wind power make difficult of its integration into grid. To solve this problem, this study proposes a complementary power generation model of wind-hydropower-pumped storage systems, which uses hydropower and pumped storage to adjust the fluctuation of wind power. How to consider the uncertainty and unpredictability of wind power output and make more reliable hydropower generation plan and pumped storage generation plan is the key problem to be solved in the grid with the high proportion of renewable energy. The martingale model of forecast evolution is used to describe the uncertainty evolution of wind power in different regions. According to the flexible load in the region, the flexibility index is used to quantify flexibility, and the transaction price is set to be proportional to flexibility. The two-stage framework of day-ahead and real-time dispatching model is then developed. In the day-ahead stage, different regions trade with each other. If the power after trading is imbalanced, it will be supplemented by hydropower and the grid to meet the power demand. In the real-time stage, the pumped storage is added to quickly balance the deviation of wind power and load between the real-time and day-ahead stages. Finally, considering the positive effect of hydropower on wind power consumption in the grid, a benefit allocation method based on improved Shapley value method is proposed. Test cases are simulated to verify the rationality of the proposed dispatching model and the benefit allocation method. After the cooperation of hydropower and pumped storage, the average revenue growth is 3.02%. The improved benefit allocation scheme makes more benefit of hydropower and pumped storage and promotes the cooperation of multi-participants.

Description: The development of efficient and cost-effective solar photocatalysts capable of producing hydrogen from formic acid as a hydrogen storage medium is still a challenging issue. Herein, we report that iron minerals, ferric iron hydroxy sulfates (FHS), immobilized on a natural layered silicate, magadiite, can be used as a photocatalyst to produce hydrogen from formic acid under irradiation with solar simulator. The material exhibits the hydrogen production rate of 470 μmol g−1 h−1, which is considerably higher than that obtained on other iron minerals and comparable to that obtained on precious metal-based photocatalyst ever reported. The present result may open a way to design efficient photocatalyst for hydrogen production from formic acid in an economically and environmentally friendly way.

Description: Our research aims to analyze how the uncertainties and risks of the overseas oil & gas investment environment change over time and reveal the specific occurrence probabilities of risk on different levels. In the process of long-drawn overseas oil & gas investment that can last for 30 years or longer, it is difficult for investment decision-makers to grasp the occurrence probabilities and trends of some specific risks accurately and in a timely manner. The overseas risk assessment system has made great progress; however, it has remained elusive due to the challenge of too many complex and interweaved factors. With the advent of big data and artificial intelligence, more precise and specific risk evaluations can be conducted. Our research selects 25 indicators from six dimensions and applies a Cloud parameter Bayesian network algorithm to dynamically assess the oil and gas overseas investment risk of 10 countries. The results reveal how risk dynamics have changed over the past two decades. Our research may serve as a reference in future overseas oil & gas investment risk decision-making, and is also significant to outbound investing, engineering, and service projects. The proper use of risk assessment results can be conducive to potential investors who may invest in potential countries in the future.

Description: This study constructed a comprehensive index system and employed a coupling coordination degree model, global spatial autocorrelation models, and local spatial autocorrelation models to quantitatively investigate the spatiotemporal characteristics and dynamic mechanism of the coupling coordination relationship between green urbanization and green finance in China during 2010–2017. The results showed that the level of green urbanization and green finance improved over the study period, but the development of green finance lagged behind the pace of green urbanization and the comprehensive score was still low. The coupling coordination degree presented a trend of continuous optimization, with coordination in eastern China being clearly higher than in central, western, and northeastern China. Furthermore, there was both spatial dependency and spatial heterogeneity in the coupling coordination degree between green urbanization and green finance. Provinces with a high-high clustering mode were mainly distributed in the eastern region, while provinces in western and northeastern China mainly had a low-low clustering mode in 2010. The high-high clustering mode gradually expanded from eastern to central China, while most provinces in western and northeastern China still exhibited low-low clustering in 2017. This indicates that the coupling coordination degree between green urbanization and green finance had strong spatial agglomeration and spatial spillover effects in central and eastern China, while in western and northeastern China its development was still poor.

Description: This work presents an optimized probabilistic modeling methodology that facilitates the modeling of photovoltaic (PV) modules with measured data over a range of environmental conditions. The method applies cuckoo search to optimize kernel parameters, followed by electrical characteristics estimation via relevance vector machine. Unlike analytical modeling techniques, the proposed cuckoo search-relevance vector machine (CS-RVM) takes advantages of no required knowledge of internal PV parameters, more accurate estimation capability and less computational effort. A comparative study has been done among the electrical characteristics predicted by back-propagation neural network (BPNN), radial basis function neural network (RBFNN), support vector machine (SVM), Villalva's model, relevance vector machine (RVM), and the CS-RVM. Experimental results show that the proposed CS-RVM provides the best prediction in most scenarios.

Description: LixFePO4 orthophosphates and fluorite- and pyrochlore-type zirconate materials are widely considered as functional compounds in energy storage devices, either as electrode or solid state electrolyte. These ceramic materials show enhanced cation exchange and anion conductivity properties that makes them attractive for various energy applications. In this contribution we discuss thermodynamic properties of LixFePO4 and yttria-stabilized zirconia compounds, including formation enthalpies, stability, and solubility limits. We found that at ambient conditions LixFePO4 has a large miscibility gap, which is consistent with existing experimental evidence. We show that cubic zirconia becomes stabilized with Y content of ~8%, which is in line with experimental observations. The computed activation energy of 0.92eV and ionic conductivity for oxygen diffusion in yttria-stabilized zirconia are also in line with the measured data, which shows that atomistic modeling can be applied for accurate prediction of key materials properties. We discuss these results with the existing simulation-based data on these materials produced by our group over the last decade. Last, but not least, we discuss similarities of the considered compounds in considering them as materials for energy storage and radiation damage resistant matrices for immobilization of radionuclides.

Description: Objectives: To assess and compare the quantity and the quality of the newly bone generated when using chitosan-based gel scaffold and osteoprotegerin-chitosan gel scaffold.Methods: A total of 18 critical-sized defects on New Zealand white rabbit craniums were created. In 12 defects, either chitosan gel or osteoprotegerin-chitosan gel was implanted the last six defects were kept unfilled as a control. Bone formation was examined at 6 and 12 weeks. Bone’s specimens were scanned using the High-resolution peripheral quantitative computed tomography. Histological and histomorphometric analysis were carried out to compare the volume and area of regenerated bone.Results: The results of the HR-pQCT showed that bone volume and densities in the osteoprotegerin-chitosan gel group were significantly higher than the chitosan gel and control groups whereas, the bone volume density in the chitosan gel group was significantly higher than the control group in both intervals time (p = 0.01, p = 000). No significant difference in bone volume between the chitosan gel and control groups (p = 0.506, p = 0.640) was observed. However, similar findings were shown in the histomorphometric analysis, with the highest new bone formation was observed in the OPG-chitosan gel group followed by the chitosan group. The mean percentage of new bone was greater at 12 weeks compared to 6 weeks in all groups.Conclusions: Chitosan-based gel demonstrated a significant bone quantity and quality compared to unfilled surgical defects. Consistently, osteoprotegerin enhanced the chitosan gel in bone regeneration.

Description: Revegetation is regarded as an effective means to improve the ecological environment in deserts and profoundly influences the potential ecological functions of the soil fungal community. Therefore, Illumina high-throughput sequencing was performed to characterize the soil fungal diversity and community composition at two soil depths (0–10 cm and 10–20 cm) with four revegetation durations (natural grassland, half-mature, nearly mature, and mature Pinus. sylvestris var. mongolica plantations) in the Mu Us Sandy Land, China. The effects of soil properties on soil fungal communities were also examined to reveal the connection between fungal function and soil environment. The results indicated that 1) soil nutrient content and enzyme activity showed significant differences through the restoration durations, 2) there was no significant effect of soil depth on soil fungal diversity, while the Shannon diversity index of all fungal communities was significantly different among different revegetation durations, 3) compared with grassland, ectomycorrhizal fungi (notably, Inocybe, Tuber, and Calostoma) were abundant in plantations. The endophyte fungus Mortierella was among the top 10 genera in all soil samples and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus Diversispora was the indicator genus of the grassland, and 4) catalase and total nitrogen were the main factors affecting fungal community composition and were closely related to saprotrophs and pathotrophs, respectively. This new information indicates the variation of soil fungal communities along revegetation durations and highlights the interaction between fungal functions and desert ecosystems.

Description: After the launch of STEREO twin spacecraft, and most recently of Solar Orbiter and Parker Solar Probe spacecraft, the next mission that will explore Sun-Earth interactions and how the Sun modulates the Heliosphere will be the “Lagrange” mission, which will consist of two satellites placed in orbit around L1 and L5 Sun-Earth Lagrangian points. Despite the significant novelties that will be provided by such a double vantage point, there will be also missing information, that are briefly discussed here. For future heliospheric missions, an alternative advantageous approach that has not been considered so far would be to place two twin spacecraft not in L1 and L5, but in L4 and L5 Lagrangian points. If these two spacecraft will be equipped with in situ instruments, and also remote sensing instruments measuring not only photospheric but also coronal magnetic fields, significant advancing will be possible. In particular, data provided by such a twin mission will allow to follow the evolution of magnetic fields from inside the Sun (with stereoscopic helioseismology), to its surface (with classical photospheric magnetometers), and its atmosphere (with spectro-polarimeters); this will provide a tremendous improvement in our physical understanding of solar activity. Moreover, the L4-L5 twin satellites will take different interesting configurations, such as relative quadrature, and quasi-quadrature with the Earth, providing a baseline for monitoring the Sun-to-Earth propagation of solar disturbances.

Description: Using the SDSS spectroscopy, we have carried out fine optical spectral classification for activity types for 710 AGN candidates. These objects come from a larger sample of some 2,500 candidate AGN using pre-selection by various samples; bright objects of the Catalog of Quasars and Active Galactic Nuclei, AGN candidates among X-ray sources, optically variable radio sources, IRAS extragalactic objects, etc. A number of papers have been published with the results of this spectral classification. More than 800 QSOs have been identified and classified, including 710 QSOs, Seyferts and Composites. The fine classification shows that many QSOs show the same features as Seyferts, i.e., subtypes between S1 and S2 (S1.2, S1.5, S1.8 and S1.9). We have introduced subtypes for the QSOs: QSO1.2, QSO1.5, QSO1.8, QSO1.9, though the last subtype does not appear in SDSS wavelength range due to mostly highly redshifted Hα (the main line for identification of the 1.9 subtype). Thus, independent of the luminosity (which serves as a separator between QSOs and Seyferts), AGN show the same features. We also have classified many objects as Composites, spectra having composite characteristics between Sy and LINERs, Sy and HII or LINERs and HII; in some cases all three characteristics appear together resulting as Sy/LINER/HII subtype. The QSOs subtypes together with Seyfert ones allow to follow AGN properties along larger redshift range expanding our knowledge on the evolution of AGN to more distant Universe represented by QSOs.

Description: In semi-arid to arid regions, both anthropogenic sources (urban and agriculture) and deeper Critical Zone (groundwater with long flow paths and water residence times) may play an important role in controlling chemical exports to rivers. Here, we combined two anthropogenic isotope tracers: uranium isotope ratios (234U/238U) and boron isotope ratios (δ11B), with the 87Sr/86Sr ratios to identify and quantify multiple solute (salinity) sources in the Rio Grande river in southern New Mexico and western Texas. The Rio Grande river is a major source of freshwater for irrigation and municipal uses in southwestern United States. There has been a large disagreement about the dominant salinity sources to the Rio Grande and particularly significant sources are of anthropogenic (agriculture practices and shallow groundwater flows, groundwater pumping, and urban developments) and/or geological (natural groundwater upwelling) origins. Between 2014 and 2016, we collected monthly river samples at 15 locations along a 200-km stretch of the Rio Grande river from Elephant Butte Reservoir, New Mexico to El Paso, Texas, as well as water samples from agricultural canals and drains, urban effluents and drains, and groundwater wells. Our study shows that due to the presence of localized and multiple salinity inputs, total dissolved solids (TDS) and isotope ratios of U, B, and Sr in the Rio Grande river show high spatial and temporal variability. Several agricultural, urban, and geological sources of salinity in the Rio Grande watershed have characteristic and distinguishable U, Sr, and B isotope signatures. However, due to the common issue of overlapping signatures as identified by previous tracer studies (such as δ18O, δD, δ34S), no single isotope tracer of U, Sr, or B isotopes was powerful enough to distinguish multiple salinity sources. Here, combining the multiple U, Sr, and B isotope and elemental signatures, we applied a multi-tracer mass balance approach to quantify the relative contributions of water mass from the identified various salinity end members along the 200-km stretch of the Rio Grande during different river flow seasons. Our results show that during irrigation (high river flow) seasons, the Rio Grande had uniform chemical and isotopic compositions, similar to the Elephant Butte reservoir where water is stored and well-mixed, reflecting the dominant contribution from shallow Critical Zone in headwater regions in temperate southern Colorado and northern New Mexico. In non-irrigation (low flow) seasons when the river water is stored at Elephant Butte reservoir, the Rio Grande river at many downstream locations showed heterogeneous chemical and isotopic compositions, reflecting variable inputs from upwelling of groundwater (deeper CZ), displacement of shallow groundwater, agricultural return flows, and urban effluents. Our study highlights the needs of using multi-tracer approach to investigate multiple solutes and salinity sources in rivers with complex geology and human impacts.

Description: Pinoresinol is a high-value monolignol-derived lignan used in plant defense and with human health-supporting effects. The synthetic yield and isolation efficiency of racemic pinoresinol from coniferyl alcohol by conventional radical coupling methods is sub-optimal. In this work, a facile and efficient synthetic approach was developed to synthesize pinoresinol with much higher yield. By using 5-bromoconiferyl alcohol, which was synthesized in high yield from 5-bromovanillin, to make 5,5′-bromopinoresinol via a peroxidase-mediated radical coupling reaction takes advantage of the smaller variety of radical coupling products from the 5-substituted monolignol, producing simpler product mixtures from which 5,5′-bromopinoresinol may be readily crystalized with good yield (total yield of 44.1% by NMR; isolated crystalline yield of 24.6%). Hydro-debromination of the crystalline 5,5′-bromopinoresinol to pinoresinol was essentially quantitative. Gram quantities of pinoresinol were conveniently synthesized by using this approach. This simple alternative pathway to make pinoresinol will impact pinoresinol-related research including structural characterization and modification of lignins, as well as clinical applications of pinoresinol and its derivatives.

Description: Mirror modes in collisionless high-temperature plasmas represent macroscopic high-temperature quasi-superconductors with bouncing electrons in discrete-particle resonance with thermal ion-sound noise contributing to the ion-mode growth beyond quasilinear stability. In the semi-classical Ginzburg-Landau approximation the conditions for phase transition are reviewed. The quasi-superconducting state is of second kind causing a magnetically perforated plasma texture. Focussing on the interaction of mirror bubbles we apply semi-classical Josephson conditions and show that a mirror perforated plasma emits weak electromagnetic radiation which in the magnetosheath should be in the sub-millimeter, respectively, infrared range. This effect might be of astrophysical importance.

Description: Monocyclic aromatic hydrocarbons such as benzene, toluene and xylene are thought to play an important role as precursors to the formation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and their methylated counterparts in a range of astrophysical environments. Benzene has been detected in two carbon rich objects and models have predicted that it could also be present in the interstellar medium (ISM). It has hence been speculated that small aromatic molecules are present in molecular clouds in the ISM, although they have not been detected to date. If they are present in the ISM, they are likely to exist in water-ice dominated icy mantles on the surface of dust grains.We present a laboratory study of benzene, toluene and two xylene isomers (ortho- and para-xylene) in the presence of water ice on a carbonaceous model dust grain surface (highly oriented pyrolytic graphite, HOPG). Temperature programmed desorption (TPD) shows how the desorption of the molecules is affected by the presence of water ice. The importance of these data for astrophysical situations is demonstrated by the use of TPD-derived kinetic parameters to generate a simple model of desorption in dense molecular clouds on an astrophysical timescale. Since benzene, toluene and xylene have not been detected in water-dominated icy mantles to date, desorption has been simulated in a range of different water-containing environments to show the different behaviour expected depending on ice composition. The simulations demonstrate how future observations of aromatic molecules in dense molecular clouds at known temperatures could reveal which environments the molecules are in. Data from these experiments are also used to predict the behaviour of other, larger, aromatic molecules such as PAHs. Reflection absorption infrared spectroscopy (RAIRS) is also used to record the infrared spectra of the small molecules in different water ice configurations. These spectra can be used to aid identification of these icy aromatics in future observations, such as those that will be possible with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). In all cases, spectra of mixed ices consisting of the aromatic molecule and amorphous water ice show evidence of interactions between the water ice and the aromatic species.

Description: Folding, kinking, curling and vortical optical forms are distinctive features of most bright auroral displays. These forms are symptomatic of non-linear forcing of the plasma above auroral arcs resulting from the intensification of electrical currents and Alfvén waves along high-latitude geomagnetic field-lines during periods of disturbed space weather. Electrons accelerated to energies sufficient to carry these currents impact the atmosphere and drive visible emission with spatial structure and dynamics that replicate the morphology and time evolution of the plasma region where the acceleration occurs. Movies of active auroral displays, particularly when combined with conjugate in-situ fields and plasma measurements, therefore capture the physics of a driven, non-linearly evolving space plasma system. Here a perspective emphasizing the utility of combining in-situ measurements through the auroral acceleration region with high time and spatial resolution auroral imaging for the study of space plasma turbulence is presented. It is demonstrated how this special capacity reveals the operation of a cascade of vortical flows and currents through the auroral acceleration region regulated by the physics of Alfvén waves similar to that thought to operate in the Solar wind.

Description: The aim of the paper is to identify the consequence of the Constructal Principle in the field of Thermoeconomics of (energy) production systems. This Principle has been recently formulated as an extension of the Maximum Entropy Production Principle and it has been used in literature to explain the shape and structure of all kind of flowing systems. First, the concept of Thermoeconomic Environment is defined consistently with the consumption of environmental resources and residual emissions, which inherently characterize every kind of production system. This approach allows to infer that the evolution of any energy system is strictly related to the exploitation of resources from the Thermoeconomic Environment. Moreover, the widely accepted assumption that energy systems have to be optimized by minimizing the specific resource (exergy) cost of products, has to be regarded as a consequence of a physical principle that tells us which energy systems can persist in time (to survive) and which others would be selected for extinction. The paper shows how the creation of a recycle may allow a reduction of the unit exergy cost of the product, obtaining a more sustainable behavior of the macro-system, made up by the production process together with its supply chains, consistently with the Constructal Principle. Finally, the definition of the Thermoeconomic Environment allows (at least in principle) to properly identify the resource (exergy) cost of disposing off residues and sub-products directly in the environment, without any kind of additional operation. As a consequence, residues and sub-products have to be generally converted into some kind of product by different (new) production processes, supporting the paradigm of the Circular Economy and highlighting the importance of recycling not only for system efficiency, but for system surviving. More generally, the results obtained may be regarded as the physical justifications of the evolutionary tendency toward the more and more complex and highly circular pathways that can be observed in both natural and artificial (energy) production systems.

Description: Polar steel requires excellent toughness and corrosion resistance for breaking icy surfaces in low-temperature seawater environments. In this study, the effect of inclusions on the corrosion resistance of polar steel was examined. In the experiments conducted, the composition and morphology of the inclusions in steel were controlled using different deoxidation methods during steel refining. The morphology and composition of the corrosion-resistant active inclusions were analyzed using scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive spectroscopy. The corrosion resistance of polar steel was determined by measuring the saturation current density of the anodic dissolution of steel in a corrosive medium via an electrochemical method. The corrosion resistance under simulated seawater was also investigated under laboratory conditions. It was found that as the ratio of Al/Mg approaches the stoichiometric composition of the spinel (2.3–2.5), the inclusions become less active; as the ratio increases further, the corrosion-resistant activity increases due to the formation of MgAl2O4⋅CaO complexes, leading to an increase in local stress around the inclusions. If steel is deoxidized with Zr–Ti, small Zr–Ti complex oxides form in the steel, providing nucleation particles for the precipitation of spheroidized and uniformly distributed MnS. Therefore, steel deoxidized with Zr–Ti has better seawater corrosion resistance than Al-deoxidized steel.

Description: With the objective of better understanding the sources and dynamics of carbonaceous fractions of the aerosols present in the atmosphere of Montreal, we implemented here an online wet oxidation/isotope ratio mass spectrometry (IRMS) method to simultaneously measure both water-soluble organic carbon (WSOC) content and the corresponding δ13C of aerosol samples collected at four monitoring stations over a 1-year period representing distinct types of environmental conditions (i.e., background, road traffic, industrial, and downtown). We coupled these data with the corresponding concentrations of other carbon fractions: total carbon (TC), elemental carbon plus organic carbon (EC + OC), and carbonates. Results show that TC (6.64 ± 2.88 μg m–3), EC + OC (4.98 ± 2.23 μg m–3), and carbonates (1.71 ± 1.09 μg m–3) were characterized by lower concentrations in winter and higher ones between spring and early autumn, with all fractions expectedly showing significantly lower concentrations for aerosols collected at the background station. We observed a seasonal dependence of the δ13CEC+OC (−25.31 ± 0.94‰) with the EC + OC/total suspended particles (TSP) ratio: (i) an increase of the ratio during late spring, summer and early autumn associated to road traffic emissions characterized by a δ13C of ∼−25‰ and (ii) lower ratios during the winter months indicating the influence of two distinct emission sources, a first one with a δ13C ∼−27‰, suggesting the local influence of combined biomass burning from residential heating and of fossil fuel combustion, and a second one with a δ13C ∼−21‰, likely related to more regional emissions. WSOC (1.14 ± 0.67 μg m–3) presented a similar seasonal pattern for all monitoring stations, with low concentrations in winter, early spring and late autumn that rapidly increased until summer. Our results indicate that this seasonality is controlled by higher anthropogenic contributions from southern Canada and northeastern United States regions and probably from biogenic emissions during the warm months. Moreover, δ13CWSOC (−25.08 ± 1.47‰) showed a 13C-depletion in summer, indicating higher fossil fuel and biogenic contributions, whereas the higher isotope compositions observed in winter may result from the photochemical aging of regional aerosols. Ultimately, we identified the influence of local industrial emissions late in 2013 as well as the impact of aerosol emissions associated to the Lac-Mégantic rail disaster that occurred on July 6, ∼200 km east of Montreal.

Description: Planning for the research and development (R&D) of renewable energy resources (RERs) has not received enough attention. This paper aims to study the planning for the R&D of RERs in order to avoid bottlenecks and ensure sustainable development in developing marine economies. We have established a triple difference model (DDD) model and a wise pig game model between the theoretical government and enterprise. The data on RERs come from the World Bank and International Energy Agency databases. We have three contributions on the basis of distinguishing between mature and immature marine RERs technologies. First, it emphasizes the importance of developing R&D planning for marine RERs immature technology in the future. Second, the DDD model is used to empirically establish whether RERs planning has a significant positive impact on RERs’ output, which explains the importance of existing RERs planning. Third, the wise pig game model is used to analyze the welfare benefits to the government brought by the R&D planning of marine RERs which proves the importance of future RERs R&D planning.

Description: Hydroelectric facilities often release water at variable rates over the day to match electricity demand, resulting in short-term variability in downstream discharge and water levels. This sub-daily variability, known as hydropeaking, has mostly been studied at large facilities. The ongoing global proliferation of small hydropower (SHP) facilities, which in Brazil are defined as having installed capacities between 5 and 30 MW, raises the question of how these facilities may alter downstream flow regimes by hydropeaking. This study examines the individual and cumulative effects of hydropower facilities on tributaries in the upland watershed of the Pantanal, a vast floodplain wetland system located on the upper Paraguay River, mostly in Brazil. Simultaneous hourly discharge measurements from publicly available reference and downstream gage stations were analyzed for 11 reaches containing 24 hydropower facilities. Most of the facilities are SHPs and half are run-of-river designs, often with diversion channels (headraces). Comparison of daily data over an annual period, summarized by indicators of hydrological alteration (HA) that describe the magnitude, frequency, rate of change, and duration of flows, revealed differences at sub-daily scales attributable to hydropeaking by the hydropower facilities. Results showed statistically significant sub-daily HA in all 11 reaches containing hydropower facilities in all months. Discharge indicators that showed the highest percentage of days with increased variability were the mean rates of rise and fall, amplitude, duration of high pulses, maximum discharge, and number of reversals. Those that showed higher percentages of decreased variability included minimum discharge, number of high pulses, duration of stability, and number of low pulses. There was no correlation between HA values and physical characteristics of rivers or hydropower facilities (including installed capacity), and reaches with multiple facilities did not differ in HA from those with single facilities. This study demonstrates that SHPs as well as larger hydropower facilities cause hydrological alterations attributable to hydropeaking. Considering the rapid expansion of SHPs in tropical river systems, there is an urgent need to understand whether the ecological impacts of hydropeaking documented in temperate biomes also apply to these systems.

Description: The Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) have become the international framework for sustainability policy. Its legacy is linked with the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), established in 2000. In this paper a scientometric analysis was conducted to: (1) Present a new methodological approach to identify the research output related to both SDGs and MDGs (M&SDGs) from 2000 to 2017, with the aim of mapping the global research related to M&SDGs; (2) Describe the thematic specialization based on keyword co-occurrence analysis and citation bursts; and (3) Classify the scientific output into individual SDGs (based on an ad-hoc glossary) and assess SDGs interconnections. Publications conceptually related to M&SDGs (defined by the set of M&SDG core publications and a scientometric expansion based on direct citations) were identified in the in-house CWTS Web of Science database. A total of 25,299 publications were analyzed, of which 21,653 (85.59%) were authored by Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) or academic research centers (RCs). The findings reveal the increasing participation of these organizations in this research (660 institutions in 2000–2005 to 1,744 institutions involved in 2012–2017). Some institutions present both a high production and specialization on M&SDG topics (e.g., London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and World Health Organization); and others with a very high specialization although lower production levels (e.g., Stockholm Environment Institute). Regarding the specific topics of research, health (especially in developing countries), women, and socio-economic issues are the most salient. Moreover, it has been observed an important interlinkage in the research outputs of some SDGs (e.g., SDG11 “Sustainable Cities and Communities” and SDG3 “Good Health and Well-Being”). This study provides first evidence of such interconnections, and the results of this study could be useful for policymakers in order to promote a more evidenced-based setting for their research agendas on SDGs.

Description: Resources and environment management have always been a research hotspot. In the context of sustainable development and environmental governance, scholars and policy makers have been increasing their research efforts on natural resource utilization and its environmental impact. By using the Web of Science Core Collection database, this article applies the bibliometric method to accomplish a systematic review about studies on accounting and management of natural resource consumption based on input-output method. The results indicate that both in terms of the quantity and quality of academic achievements and international cooperation, China is in high academic position and has made great contributions to the development in this research field. While energy and water account for a large proportion of the study objects, more attention is paid on the other kinds of natural resources, such as land, metal, and ocean. International trade is an eternal hot topic in this field. With the continuous progress of the multi-regional input-output model, the importance and feasibility in the analysis of sub-national level or region in the global supply chain gradually emerged. Combining input-output model with other methods can obtain more comprehensive and accurate results for scientific decision-making. Meanwhile, the uncertainty and limitations inherent in such models clearly need further attention.

Description: In modern society, the incidence of cancer, inflammatory diseases, nervous system diseases, metabolic diseases, and cardiovascular diseases is on the rise. These diseases not only cause physical and mental suffering for patients, but also place an enormous burden on society. Early, non-invasive diagnosis of these diseases can reduce the physical and mental pain of patients and social stress. There is an urgent need for advanced materials and methods for non-invasive disease marker detection, large-scale disease screening, and early diagnosis. Biomimetic medical materials are synthetic materials designed to be biocompatible or biodegradable, then developed for use in the medical industry. In recent years, with the development of nanotechnology, a variety of biomimetic medical materials with advanced properties have been introduced. Biomimetic nanomaterials have made great progress in biosensing, bioimaging, and other fields. The latest advance of biomimetic nanomaterials in disease diagnosis has attracted tremendous interest. However, the application of biomimetic nanomaterials in disease diagnosis has not been reviewed. This review particularly focuses on the potential of biomimetic nanomaterials in non-invasive disease marker detection and disease diagnosis. The first part focuses on the properties and characteristics of different kinds of advanced biomimetic nanomaterials. In the second part, the recent cutting-edge methods using biosensors and bioimaging based on biomimetic nanomaterials for non-invasive disease diagnosis are reviewed. In addition, the existing problems and future development of biomimetic nanomaterials is briefly described in the third part. The application of biomimetic nanomaterials would provide a novel and promising diagnostic method for non-invasive disease marker detection, large-scale clinical screening, and diagnosis, promoting the exploitation of devices with better detection performance and the development of global clinical public health.

Description: The southern Amazonia is undergoing a major biophysical transition, involving changes in land use and regional climate. This study provides new insights on the relationship between hydroclimatic variables and vegetation conditions in the upper Madeira Basin (~1 × 106 km2). Vegetative dynamics are characterised using the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) while hydroclimatic variability is analysed using satellite-based precipitation, observed river discharge, satellite measurements of terrestrial water storage (TWS) and downward shortwave radiation (DSR). We show that the vegetation in this region varies from energy-limited to water-limited throughout the year. During the peak of the wet season (January-February), rainfall, discharge and TWS are negatively correlated with NDVI in February-April (r = −0.48 to −0.65; p 〈 0.05). In addition, DSR is positively correlated with NDVI (r = 0.47–0.54; p 〈 0.05), suggesting that the vegetation is mainly energy-limited during this period. Outside this period, these correlations are positive for rainfall, discharge and TWS (r = 0.55–0.88; p 〈 0.05), and negative for DSR (r = −0.47 to −0.54; p 〈 0.05), suggesting that vegetation depends mainly on water availability, particularly during the vegetation dry season (VDS; late June to late October). Accordantly, the total rainfall during the dry season explains around 80% of the VDS NDVI interannual variance. Considering the predominant land cover types, differences in the hydroclimate-NDVI relationship are observed. Evergreen forests (531,350 km2) remain energy-limited during the beginning of the dry season, but they become water-limited at the end of the VDS. In savannas and flooded savannas (162,850 km2), water dependence occurs months before the onset of the VDS. These differences are more evident during extreme drought years (2007, 2010, and 2011), where regional impacts on NDVI were stronger in savannas and flooded savannas (55% of the entire surface of savannas) than in evergreen forests (40%). A spatial analysis reveals that two specific areas do not show significant hydroclimatic-NDVI correlations during the dry season: (i) the eastern flank of the Andes, characterised by very wet conditions, therefore the vegetation is not water-limited, and (ii) recent deforested areas (~42,500 km2) that break the natural response in the hydroclimate-vegetation system. These findings are particularly relevant given the increasing rates of deforestation in this region.

Description: Agriculture is the major user of water resources, accounting for 70% of global freshwater demand. As the demand for clean water increases, so does the need to implement more efficient strategies for water management in irrigated agriculture. While the benefits of precision irrigation in high-value crops, such as cannabis, tomatoes, and potatoes, are fully recognized, there is still need to investigate and implement cheap and efficient irrigation strategies for widespread low-value crops such as maize. In this study, the soil moisture dynamics in a sprinkler-irrigated maize field in Veneto (Northeastern Italy) was monitored using six time domain reflectometry (TDR) probes for the entire growing season. The TDR sensors were positioned at different depths into two separate sites: an Uninformed Site irrigated based on the farmer's experience and an Informed Site in which a water balance irrigation strategy was applied based on soil moisture measurements. A parsimonious hydrological model was then implemented and calibrated to quantify the different water balance terms (precipitation, evapotranspiration, lateral fluxes, and deep percolation). The comparison between the water budget terms in the two sites highlights that soil moisture monitoring during agriculture activities leads to substantial savings in terms of irrigation water volumes requirements and cost, without compromising the productivity of the crop field. A simplified upscaling of the results at the regional scale, assuming average conditions as in this study site and growing season, reveals that potentially significant economic savings, compared to the total profits linked to maize crops, could be possible.

Description: The possible influence of MHD turbulence on the energy distributions of ions in the Earth's plasma sheet was studied using data taken by the THEMIS satellites. Turbulence levels were traced using eddy diffusion coefficients (D), of which we measured one for each Geocentric Solar Magnetospheric (GSM) coordinates every 12 min. Ion fluxes between 1.75 and 210.5 keV during the same time windows that correspond to mainly suprathermal populations were fitted to Kappa distribution functions, which approximate a Maxwellian distribution when the κ-index (κ) is large. We found that the distribution of the eddy diffusion coefficients is bimodal, independently of both the eddy diffusion component and the plasma beta (β) parameter, which is defined as the ratio between plasma and magnetic pressures. The main peak corresponds to turbulent plasma flows with D 〉 103 km2 s−1. In such cases, the impact of turbulence on the κ index depends on the value of β and also on the direction of the turbulent transport. For eddy diffusion perpendicular to the neutral sheet, the values of κ decrease as Dzz increases for β 〈 2; while for higher values of β, κ increases with Dzz. For the other two directions, the values of κ decrease as D increases. This last tendency is stronger for β ~ 1 but almost null for β ~ 10. The secondary peak in the distribution of D values might represent quasi-laminar flows forming part of very large vortices, correct detection and description of which is beyond the scope of this study.

Description: Response time is the key index of on-line monitoring system. To improve the response speed of traditional bead thermal conductivity CO2 sensor, this paper proposes to use multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) to improve the performance of gas sensor carrier. Nano-sized γ-Al2O3/CeO2 powder was synthesized by chemical precipitation method under the action of ultrasonic wave. SEM morphology reveals a particle size of 20–50 nm. MWCNTs were hydroxylated and the solution was then prepared by adding a certain amount of dispersant under ultrasonic wave. The composite support of γ- Al2O3/CeO2/MWCNTs was prepared by wet mixing carbon nanotube solution into the above support materials. Using dynamic resistance matching and black component technology, the influence of radiation heat and environmental temperature and humidity is reduced. Results show that the designed thermal conductivity sensor has consistent response and recovery time to different concentrations of CO2, with a T90 response time of 9 s and a T90 recovery time of 13 s, which is faster compared to major commercial Carbon dioxide sensors. The average sensitivity of the sensor is 0.0075 V/10% CO2. Therefore, the high thermal conductivity and pore characteristics of carbon nanotubes can effectively improve the response speed of the thermal conductivity sensor.

Description: A total of 94 soil samples from different soil depths (0∼25 cm, 25∼50 cm) were collected of farmland soil around the plain of Beijing, and the concentrations of five heavy metal elements (Cd, Cr, Pb, As, and Hg) were measured using standard methods. The safety utilization evaluation method of heavy metals was based on three different evaluation methods. Then, the governance principles and specific management control strategy were determined in detail according to the core pollution source analysis of each safety grade zone. The results show that there are four different comprehensive safe utilization areas: safe, low-risk, medium-risk, and high-risk utilization. Among them, the study area was dominated by low-risk utilization areas, and the risk trend was gradually weakening from the center of the city to the periphery. Based on the characteristics of different security zones, this study puts on the governance principles of priority protection, long-term monitoring and moderate optimization, strengthens early warning, and cooperates with effective repair and priority governance. And then it puts forward practical control strategies according to the core pollution sources of each safety utilization zone. Our findings may provide a clear direction for rational utilization of land resources and renovation in the future.

Description: The addition of a tempering or austempering step to the double soaking of a 0.14C–7.17Mn (wt pct) steel was investigated in the present contribution. The double soaking heat treatment is a two-step intercritical annealing heat treatment, which generates microstructures of athermal martensite, retained austenite and ferrite when applied to medium manganese steels. Microstructures following double soaking and (aus)tempering contained a combination of retained austenite, athermal or tempered martensite, and blocky or bainitic ferrite. X-ray diffraction, dilatometry and transmission Kikuchi diffraction were utilized to investigate microstructural changes which occurred during tempering or austempering. The resulting mechanical properties were measured using uniaxial tensile testing. The double soaking plus tempering heat treatment was shown to generate an ultimate tensile strength of 1,340 MPa in combination with 28 pct total elongation while the double soaking plus austempering heat treatment resulted in an ultimate tensile strength of 1,675 MPa and total elongation of 22 pct. Overall, both novel heat treatments produced a combination of strength and ductility desired for the third generation of advanced high strength steels.

Description: To investigate the nexus between natural gas consumption, global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, and technological innovation, this study employs a balanced panel dataset of 73 countries for the period 1990–2019 based on the fixed effect and random effect estimation methods. Considering potential heterogeneity in the natural gas-CO2 nexus, this study divides the 73 countries into regional comprehensive economic partnership (RCEP) countries and non-RCEP countries for comparative analysis. The main findings indicate that natural gas consumption can significantly promote CO2 emissions for the full sample and non-RCEP countries, and improved technological innovation can help alleviate CO2 emissions from natural gas consumption. In the RCEP countries, technological innovation can improve the carbon emission reduction effect of natural gas. Furthermore, economic growth and global CO2 emissions show an inverted U-shaped relationship, which confirms the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis. Finally, several policy implications are provided to reduce global CO2 emissions and promote green recovery in the post-epidemic era.

Description: Most European cities have air pollution levels that exceed the threshold for human health protection. Children are sensitive to air pollution and thus it is important to ensure they are not exposed to high concentrations of air pollutants. In order to make a positive change toward cleaner air, a joint effort is needed, involving all civil society actors. Schools and local communities have a decisive role, and can, for example, become engaged in citizen science initiatives and knowledge coproduction. In 2019, with the aim of raising awareness for air quality, NILU developed a citizen science toolbox to engage primary schools in monitoring air quality using a simple and affordable measuring method based on paper and petroleum jelly. This is a very visual method, where the students can clearly see differences from polluted and non-polluted places by looking at “how dirty” is the paper. In addition to the qualitative analysis, we have developed an air meter scale making possible for the students to obtain an indicative measurement of the air pollution level. The comparison between the paper and petroleum jelly method against reference PM10 data collected at two official air quality stations showed a good agreement. The method is a strong candidate for dust monitoring in citizen science projects, making participation possible and empowering people with simple tools at hand. The toolbox is targeted at primary schools and children aged 6–12 years, although it can easily be adapted to other age groups. The main objective of the toolbox is to involve young children who are usually not targeted in air quality citizen science activities, to develop research skills and critical thinking, as well as increase their awareness about the air they breathe. The toolbox is designed to engage students in hands-on activities, that challenge them to create hypotheses, design scientific experiments, draw conclusions and find creative solutions to the air pollution problem. The toolbox includes all the necessary material for the teachers, including guidance, background information and templates facilitating the incorporation in the school curricula. The toolbox was launched as part of the Oslo European Green Capital in March 2019 and was later included as part of the European Clean Air Day initiative coordinated by the European Citizen Science Association (ECSA) working group on air quality. A total of 30 schools and 60 4th grade classes (aged 8–9 years) participated in the Oslo campaign. The citizen science approach employed in the schools, combined the four key elements that promote knowledge integration: elicit ideas, add new ideas, distinguish among ideas and reflect and sort out ideas. Although the main goal of the study was to provide simple but robust tools for engaging young children in air quality monitoring, we also carried out ex-ante and ex-post evaluations in 12 of the participating classes using a 10-question multiple choice test to have an indication of the contribution of the activity to knowledge integration. The results show that there is an increase in the number of correct answers, as well as a reduction in the misconceptions after conducting the activity. These results indicate that applying a citizen science approach improved science instruction and helped knowledge integration by including students' views and taking advantage of the diverse ideas students generated. Citizen science gives learners an insight into the ways that scientists generate solutions for societal problems. But more important, citizen science provides a way to differ from the classic view of the learner as an absorber of information, by considering the social context of instruction and making the topic personally relevant.

Description: We investigate experimentally and numerically the influence of chemical heterogeneity and of third-body particles on adhesive contact. Chemical heterogeneity is generated by chemical treatment of the contacting bodies changing locally the surface energy. For studying the influence of the third body, two types of particles are used: sand particles with various geometrical shapes and sizes, and steel spheres of equal radius. Dependencies of the normal force on the indentation depth at both indenting and pull-off as well as the evolution of the contact configuration are investigated. Corresponding numerical simulations are carried out using the boundary element method (BEM).

Description: Research on the design of semiconductor photocatalysts with rapid electron transfer efficiencies and broad-spectrum responses for environmental remediation remains a pressing challenge. Herein, we described the fabrication of a novel broad-spectrum nitrogen and copper codoped carbon dots/mesoporous WO3 nanocomposite (N,Cu-CDs/m-WO3), which exhibited complete UV–vis–NIR spectrum response, light harvesting capabilities, rich oxygen vacancies, rapid electron-transfer ability, low electron–hole (e−/h+) pair recombination rate, and extensive specific surface area. After 2 h of photocatalytic reaction, it showed excellent photoactivities for the degradation of rhodamine B, methylene blue, tetracycline hydrochloride, oxytetracycline, ciprofloxacin, and bisphenol A. Moreover, we found that the conversion between Cu (II) and Cu (I) played a key role in accelerating electron transfer and inhibiting the recombination of e−/h+ pairs. This work provides an efficient strategy for the utilization of solar light and enhancing the charge-transfer capacity in the semiconductor photocatalysis field.

Description: Modeling is essential for modern science, and science-based policies are directly affected by the reliability of model outputs. Artificial intelligence has improved the accuracy and capability of model simulations, but often at the expense of a rational understanding of the systems involved. The lack of transparency in black box models, artificial intelligence based ones among them, can potentially affect the trust in science driven policy making. Here, we suggest that a broader discussion is needed to address the implications of black box approaches on the reliability of scientific advice used for policy making. We argue that participatory methods can bridge the gap between increasingly complex scientific methods and the people affected by their interpretations

Description: Many late-type stars across the Milky Way exhibit observable pulsations similar to our Sun that open up a window into stellar interiors. The NASA Kepler mission, a space-based photometric telescope, measured the micro-magnitude luminosity fluctuations caused by solar-like oscillations of tens of thousands of stars for almost 10 years. Detailed stellar structure, evolution, and oscillation theoretical work established in the decades before, such as predictions about mode mixing in the interior of red-giant stars, among many others, now had voluminous precision data against which it could be tested. The overwhelming result is the general validation of the theory of stellar oscillations as well as stellar-structure models; however, important gaps in our understanding of interior physics was also revealed by Kepler. For example, interior rotation, convection, and mixing processes are complex phenomena not fully captured by standard models. This review explores some of the important impacts Kepler observations of solar-like oscillations across the cool end of the H-R diagram has had on stellar astrophysics through the use of asteroseismology.

Description: Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) have been one of the most predominant rechargeable power sources due to their high energy/power density and long cycle life. As one of the most promising candidates for the new generation negative electrode materials in LIBs, silicon has the advantages of high specific capacity, a lithiation potential range close to that of lithium deposition, and rich abundance in the earth’s crust. However, the commercial use of silicon in LIBs is still limited by the short cycle life and poor rate performance due to the severe volume change during Li++ insertion/extraction, as well as the unsatisfactory conduction of electron and Li+ through silicon matrix. Therefore, many efforts have been made to control and stabilize the structures of silicon. Magnesiothermic reduction has been extensively demonstrated as a promising process for making porous silicon with micro- or nanosized structures for better electrochemical performance in LIBs. This article provides a brief but critical overview of magnesiothermic reduction under various conditions in several aspects, including the thermodynamics and mechanism of the reaction, the influences of the precursor and reaction conditions on the dynamics of the reduction, and the interface control and its effect on the morphology as well as the final performance of the silicon. These outcomes will bring about a clearer vision and better understanding on the production of silicon by magnesiothermic reduction for LIBs application.

Description: Auto-thermal operation of biomass torrefaction can help avoid additional heat investment and the associated costs to the system. This work provides a general method for relating the feedstock-specific parameters to the energy balance and pre-diagnosing the potential of auto-thermal for different biomass torrefaction and pyrolysis systems. Both solid and gas thermal properties under various torrefaction conditions and their influences to the torrefaction system energy balances are considered. Key parameters that influence the process auto-thermal operation are analyzed, which include torrefaction reaction heat, torrefaction conditions, drying method, biomass species, and inert N2 flowrate. Equations of torgas and biomass higher heating values (HHVs), as well as the torrefaction reaction heat at different operating conditions are developed. It is found that torgas and biomass HHVs increase with torrefaction temperature and biomass weight loss. Torrefaction reaction heat has a linear relationship with the biomass weight loss, with a positive slope at 250–260°C, and a negative slope at 270–300°C, which indicates that torrefaction shifts from endothermic to exothermic at ∼270°C. Applying advanced drying technology and avoiding the use of N2 can help the system achieve auto-thermal operation at lower torrefaction temperature and residence time, thus leading to a higher process energy efficiency and product yield. This is the first work to relate the micro level element changes of biomass to the macro level process energy balances of the torrefaction system. This work is important in design and operation of the torrefaction system in both pilot and industrial scales to improve process efficiency and predict product quality in a reliable and economic manner.

Description: There is a vast amount of evidence that suggests that the geomagnetic tail is like a turbulent wake behind an obstacle. Large-scale vortices in the wake are able to generate turbulent transport that takes place both along the plasma sheet, in the X and Y directions, and across the plasma sheet, in the Z direction. Thus, turbulent fluctuations in all directions should be taken into consideration when analyzing plasma transport in the plasma sheet, and stability of the plasma sheet configurations. In this review, we summarize and discuss the main results of large and middle scale magnetospheric turbulence yielded by data analysis and modeling. We also identify changes in the description of the magnetospheric dynamics connected with the existence of turbulent fluctuations in the tail.

Description: Citizen science is an important vehicle for democratizing science and promoting the goal of universal and equitable access to scientific data and information. Data generated by citizen science groups have become an increasingly important source for scientists, applied users and those pursuing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Citizen science data are used extensively in studies of biodiversity and pollution; crowdsourced data are being used by UN operational agencies for humanitarian activities; and citizen scientists are providing data relevant to monitoring the sustainable development goals (SDGs). This article provides an International Science Council (ISC) perspective on citizen science data generating activities in support of the 2030 Agenda and on needed improvements to the citizen science community's data stewardship practices for the benefit of science and society by presenting results of research undertaken by an ISC-sponsored Task Group.

Description: Microstructural changes during thermal processing of a medium manganese steel containing (in wt%) 0.19C and 4.39 Mn were evaluated in situ with a high energy X-ray diffraction system (HEXRD). Samples with an initial fully martensitic microstructure were heated to intercritical annealing (IA) temperatures of 600 or 650°C, held for 30 min, and cooled to room temperature. Diffraction data were analyzed to determine the variations in austenite and ferrite phase fractions and phase lattice constants throughout the ICA cycles. On heating, the 2 vol. pct of austenite present in the starting microstructure decomposed, and cementite precipitation then occurred. During isothermal holding, the austenite fraction increased, up to 20% for the sample annealed at 650°C. The measured austenite fractions were less than those calculated by Thermo-Calc for equilibrium conditions, indicating that the 30-min hold time was insufficient to achieve near-equilibrium conditions. Observed changes in lattice parameters during isothermal holding were interpreted to reflect composition changes due to redistribution of the C and Mn between austenite and ferrite. The results are discussed in relation to the potential for controlling austenite stability during ambient temperature deformation.

Description: With the growing population, solid waste management (SWM) is becoming a significant environmental challenge and an emerging issue, especially in the eco-sensitive Indian Himalayan region (IHR). Though IHR does not host high local inhabitants, growing tourist footfall in the IHR increases solid wastes significantly. The lack of appropriate SWM facilities has posed a serious threat to the mountain-dwelling communities. SWM is challenging in the highlands due to the remoteness, topographical configuration, increasing urbanization, and harsh climate compared to plain areas. Difficulty in managing SWM has led to improper disposal methods, like open dumping and open burning of waste, that are adversely affecting the fragile IHR ecosystem. Open dumping of unsegregated waste pollutes the freshwater streams, and burning releases major pollutants often linked to the glacier melt. Processes like composting, vermicomposting, and anaerobic digestion to treat biodegradable wastes are inefficient due to the regions' extreme cold conditions. IHR specific SWM rules were revised in 2016 to deal with the rising problem of SWM, providing detailed criteria for setting up solid waste treatment facilities and promoting waste-to-energy (WtE). Despite governments' effort to revise SWM; measures like proper collection, segregation, treatment, and solid waste disposal needs more attention in the IHR. Door-to-door collection, segregation at source, covered transportation, proper treatment, and disposal are the primary steps to resource recovery across the IHR. Approaches such as waste recycling, composting, anaerobic digestion, refuse-derived fuel (RDF), and gas recovery from landfills are essential for waste alteration into valuable products initiatives like 'ban on single-use plastic' and 'polluters to pay' have a potential role in proper SWM in the IHR. Research and technology, capacity building, mass awareness programs, and initiatives like ‘ban on single-use plastic’ and ‘polluters to pay’ have a potential role in proper SWM in the IHR. This review highlights the current status of waste generation, the current SWM practices, and SWM challenges in the IHR. The review also discusses the possible resource recovery from waste in the IHR, corrective measures introduced by the government specific to IHR and, the way forward for improved SWM for achieving sustainable development of the IHR.

Description: An analysis model of wind power consumption capacity is established with the multi-fractal theory. Firstly, the fluctuation characteristics of wind power are described through multi-fractal parameters, and the correlation between wind power fluctuation characteristics and consumption capacity are analyzed. Afterwards, the swinging door algorithm (SDA) is applied to divide the wind power curve in the evaluation period, and the fluctuation process with similar characteristics is clustered. Further, a functional analysis model to evaluate wind power consumption capacity is mentioned based on the fluctuation clustering results. Finally, the effectiveness of the method is verified by an example of a regional power grid in China, and the influence of adjustable parameters in the model on the consumption capacity is quantitatively analyzed.

Description: While forced induction strategies such as turbocharging can increase the power output and extend the load limit of engines operating on low temperature combustion strategies such as reactivity controlled compression ignition, the low exhaust enthalpy prevalent in these strategies requires the use of high backpressures to attain high turbocharger efficiencies, leading to high pumping losses and in turn poor fuel economy. Hence, there is a need to improve the exhaust energy utilization by the turbocharger such that the negative effects of the high backpressure requirements are offset. One turbocharger operating strategy that has the potential to enhance exhaust enthalpy conversion by the turbine is active control turbocharging (ACT), in which the rack position of a variable geometry turbocharger (VGT) is actuated using a continuously varying sinusoidal signal whose frequency is proportional to engine speed. In this study, the impact of ACT on turbocharger performance and fuel economy of a light-duty reactivity controlled compression ignition engine equipped with a VGT is investigated through coupled GT-POWER/KIVA-3V simulations at a medium-load cruise operating condition. A design of experiments study was executed in which the rack position amplitude and phase angle were independently varied, and the turbine efficiency, compressor efficiency, crankshaft torque, and brake specific fuel consumption were tracked for each run. The results show that ACT operation significantly increased the torque output while improving fuel economy over baseline VGT operation, but the range of actuation signal amplitude ratio was limited to 40% of the maximum amplitude possible due to peak cylinder pressure and peak pressure rise rate constraints. It is also shown that the impact of signal phase angle on turbocharger efficiency and overall system performance is not as significant as the amplitude ratio. The best fuel economy improvement over the baseline VGT operation at cruise conditions was observed at 40% amplitude ratio and 0° phase angle, and this value was 2.8%.

Description: Identifying governance schemes that promote cooperation among urban stakeholders is a priority in a context where rapid urbanization poses multiple and complex challenges for ensuring the sustainability of cities. Smart cities offer promising governance approaches, especially in the framework of the concept of Urban Living Labs (ULLs), as an enabling environment for so-called user-centric co-creation processes. While embedding a potential to promote solutions that tackle the challenges of urbanization, especially in relation to the energy transition, it is not yet clear how ULLs can effectively involve all relevant actors nor the extent of their impact, especially regarding behaviors. The study first analyzes the interplay between the challenge of urban energy transition and local governance schemes. Then, it explores how findings from behavioral sciences can inform the design of ULLs to effectively promote active engagement in the urban energy transition. Finally, it reviews the theoretical findings in relation to the ULL that has been taking shape in the city of Trento, Italy.

Description: Magnetorheological fluid (MRF) is a kind of smart materials with rheological behavior change by means of external magnetic field application, which has been widely adopted in many complex systems of different technical fields. In this work, the state-of-the-art MRF based devices are reviewed according to structural configurations reported from 2018 to 2020. Based on the rheological characteristic, the MRF has a variety of operational modes, such as flow mode, shear mode, squeeze mode and pinch mode, and has unique advantages in some special practical applications. With reference to these operational modes, improved engineering mechanical devices with MRF are summarized, including brakes, clutches, dampers, and mounts proposed over these 3 years. Furthermore, some new medical devices using the MRF are also investigated, such as surgical assistive devices and artificial limbs. In particular, some outstanding advances on the structural innovations and application superiority of these devices are introduced in detail. Finally, an overview of the significant issues that occur in the MRF based devices is reported, and the developing trends for the devices using the MRF are discussed.

Description: In southern Mediterranean areas, vineyards are facing the combination of increasing air temperature, drought and frequency of extreme events (e.g., heat waves) due to climate change. Since most of the berry growth and ripening phases occur during the aridity period, such environmental constraints are responsible for limitations in yield and berry quality. Within this scenario, to achieve vineyard sustainability, renewed approaches in vineyard management have been proposed and the use of plant biostimulants seems a prominent and environmental friendly practice. The aim of this study was to test four combinations of a tropical plant extract and conventional chemicals for disease control on morpho-anatomical, physiological, biochemical and berry quality in Vitis vinifera L. subsp. vinifera “Aglianico.” In particular, we aimed to evaluate the possibility to counteract the negative effects of the reductions in copper distribution, by applying the tropical plant extract enriched with: micronutrients, enzymes involved in the activation of natural defense, aminoacids, and vitamins. The halved dose of Cu in combination with the tropical plant extract allowed maintaining a reduced vegetative vigor. In the second year of treatment, the addition of the plant extract significantly improved leaf gas exchanges and photochemistry as well as the synthesis of photosynthetic pigments. At berry level, the plant extract induced an increase in phenolics accompanied by a decrease in soluble sugars. The overall results showed that the expected differences in growth performance and productivity in vines are linked to different eco-physiological and structural properties induced by the various treatments. The tropical plant extract also primed plant defenses at the leaf and fruit levels, mainly due to modifications of some structural and biochemical traits, respectively.

Description: Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) from the atmosphere is likely to be needed to limit global warming to 1.5 or 2°C and thereby for meeting the Paris Agreement. There is a debate which methods are most suitable and cost-effective for this goal and thus deeper understanding of system effects related to CDR are needed for effective governance of these technologies. Bio-Energy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) and Direct Air Carbon Capture and Storage (DACCS) are two CDR methods, that have a direct relation to the electricity system—BECCS via producing it and DACCS via consuming. In this work, we investigate how BECCS and DACCS interact with an intermittent electricity system to achieve net negative emissions in the sector using an energy system model and two regions with different wind and solar resource conditions. The analysis shows that DACCS has a higher levelized cost of carbon (LCOC) than BECCS, implying that it is less costly to capture CO2 using BECCS under the assumptions made in this study. However, due to a high levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) produced by BECCS, the total system cost is lower using DACCS as negative emission provider as it is more flexible and enables cheaper electricity production from wind and solar PV. We also find that the replacement effect outweighs the flexibility effect. Since variations in solar-based systems are more regular and shorter (daily cycles), one could assume that DACCS is better suited for such systems, whereas our results point in the opposite direction showing that DACCS is more competitive in the wind-based systems. The result is sensitive to the price of biomass and to the amount of negative emissions required from the electricity sector. Our results show that the use of the LCOC as often presented in the literature as a main indicator for choosing between different CDR options might be misleading and that broader system effects need to be considered for well-grounded decisions.

Description: Wildland research, management, and policy in western democracies have long relied on concepts of equilibrium: succession, sustained yield, stable age or species compositions, fire return intervals, and historical range of variability critically depend on equilibrium assumptions. Not surprisingly, these largely static concepts form the basis for societal expectations, dominant management paradigms, and environmental legislation. Knowledge generation has also assumed high levels of stasis, concentrating on correlational patterns with the expectation that these patterns would be reliably transferrable. Changes in climate, the introduction of large numbers of exotic organisms, and anthropogenic land conversion are leading to unprecedented changes in disturbance regimes and landscape composition. Importantly, these changes are largely non-reversable; once introduced exotic species are seldom eradicated, climates will continue to warm for the foreseeable future, and many types of land conversion cannot be easily undone. Due to their effects on extant infrastructure and expectations for ecosystem services, these changes are, and will be, viewed by western societies as overwhelmingly negative. The continued acceleration of change will generate increasingly novel systems for which the transferability of correlational relationships will prove unreliable. Our abilities to predict system trajectories will therefore necessarily decrease. In this environment, top-down, expert dominated approaches to environmental decision making are unlikely to produce results that meet broader societal expectations. To be successful we need to embrace a more inclusive paradigm of collaborative governance and multiple forms of knowledge for adapting to constant change, including indigenous epistemological systems. By increasing public and stakeholder participation, we can encourage collaborative social learning allowing all parties to more fully understand the complexities and tradeoffs associated with wildland management and the technical limits of models that seek to quantify those tradeoffs. System novelty will necessarily make forecasting more dependent on predictive modeling and will require better models. Data collection should therefore be strongly influenced by model input requirements and validation; research will need to focus on fundamental and causal relationships to a much greater degree than is done currently.

Description: This article provides the first results of a long-term study aimed at improving the validity of numerical modeling techniques for Electric Propulsion induced Spacecraft Charging using the Spacecraft Plasma Interaction System software. The preflight numerical model of the European Space Agency’s BepiColombo mission and its outputs are presented as a benchmark example of the present capabilities and limitations of the model. It is demonstrated that the code can obtain the spacecraft charging equilibrium by simulating the dynamic interactions between the electric propulsion system, the thruster-generated plasmas, and spacecraft systems exposed to space. The importance of including a physical description of the electron cooling in the freely expanding thruster plasmas is shown by comparing simulations with different polytropic indexes. It particularly highlights the inadequacy of treating the entire plasma as isothermal. The reported variability of the simulation outputs with numerical and physical parameters paves the way for future improvements in preflight design modeling and increased understanding of plasma thruster-induced charging processes through future comparison with available flight telemetries.

Description: The simultaneous application of new low-NOx emissions standards and greenhouse gas (GHG) rules has placed great pressure on the commercial vehicle industry and has driven demand for innovative solutions. One potential solution, gasoline compression ignition (GCI), utilizes gasoline’s lower reactivity to promote partially premixed combustion and extract efficiency while reducing the PM-NOx trade-off curve. Gasoline’s volatility allows for the use of higher levels of exhaust gas recirculation (EGR), a key enabler of GCI combustion. In order to deliver higher levels of EGR while maintaining sufficient boost pressure, a tailored and efficient air-handling system is critical. This work presents the analysis-led development of a low-NOx GCI air-handling system including both turbocharger matching and EGR configuration for a prototype heavy-duty GCI engine based on a model year 2013 Cummins ISX diesel engine using low octane gasoline (RON80). In the analysis-driven development process, a 1D engine system-level analysis was closely coupled with closed-cycle 3D CFD GCI combustion development. Three different boost systems were investigated using a validated 1D engine model: 1) the production turbocharger; 2) an off-the-shelf single-stage waste-gate turbocharger; 3) a prototype single-stage variable geometry turbocharger. For each boost system, three EGR configurations were evaluated: 1) a high-pressure EGR route; 2) a low-pressure EGR route; 3) a dual-loop EGR route. The air-handling system performance was first investigated over five steady-state engine operating conditions extracted from the ramped modal cycle supplemental emissions test. Then, through cosimulation using a Simulink-based engine controls model, the best performing candidates under transient operation through the Heavy-Duty Federal Test Procedure certification cycle were identified. The production turbocharger, designed for 4–6 g/kWh engine-out NOx, suffered from low combined turbocharger efficiency under the low-NOx GCI thermal boundary conditions. The prototype 1-Stage variable geometry turbocharger, when used with a high-pressure EGR configuration, demonstrated higher combined efficiencies, while the waste-gate turbocharger showed the best results when used with a dual-loop EGR system. All low-pressure only EGR configurations were found to incur additional pumping penalties due to the need for a back pressure valve to drive sufficient EGR levels. In the transient test cycle analysis, the single-stage high-pressure EGR system was capable of delivering the target boost and EGR, while the off-the-shelf waste-gate turbocharger, with its higher mass inertia, showed slower turbine response and a resulting lag in boost response. Unsurprisingly, the dual-loop EGR system also suffered from delays in EGR delivery during engine acceleration. In summary, the prototype single-stage variable geometry turbocharger with a high-pressure EGR system produced the best performance over both the steady-state and transient engine cycles and was identified as the best candidate for the prototype low-NOx heavy-duty GCI engine.

Description: The rapid development of wind energy has brought a lot of uncertainty to the power system. The accurate ultra-short-term wind power prediction is the key issue to ensure the stable and economical operation of the power system. It is also the foundation of the intraday and real-time electricity market. However, most researches use one prediction model for all the scenarios which cannot take the time-variant and non-stationary property of wind power time series into consideration. In this paper, a Markov regime switching method is proposed to predict the ultra-short-term wind power of multiple wind farms. In the regime switching model, the time series is divided into several regimes that represent different hidden patterns and one specific prediction model can be designed for each regime. The Toeplitz inverse covariance clustering (TICC) is utilized to divide the wind power time series into several hidden regimes and each regime describes one special spatiotemporal relationship among wind farms. To represent the operation state of the wind farms, a graph autoencoder neural network is designed to transform the high-dimensional measurement variable into a low-dimensional space which is more appropriate for the TICC method. The spatiotemporal pattern evolution of wind power time series can be described in the regime switching process. Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) is used to generate the time series of several possible regime numbers. The Kullback-Leibler (KL) divergence criterion is used to determine the optimal number. Then, the spatiotemporal graph convolutional network is adopted to predict the wind power for each regime. Finally, our Markov regime switching method based on TICC is compared with the classical one-state prediction model and other Markov regime switching models. Tests on wind farms located in Northeast China verified the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Description: This study aimed to understand post-agricultural natural forest regeneration in the Southern Brazilian Atlantic Forest and its possible role as a cost-effective, passive approach to forest restoration. The study characterized vegetation structure, floristic composition, and the dynamics of secondary forest chronosequences. Data were collected from 159 plots (10 × 10 m each) across forest remnants in Santa Catarina State, covering forest ages that ranged from 2 to 60 years of regeneration after swidden agriculture. Only areas with no signs of degradation were sampled in order to provide a description of vegetation characteristics that could be used to identify and monitor natural regeneration. A total of 11,455 woody plants were identified and classified into 334 species representing 71 families. As the succession process unfolds, the continuous turnover of species makes forests more diverse and structurally complex. Floristic similarity among forest types is observed during the early stages of succession, but decreases over time. Pioneer species dominate young secondary forests, representing about 40% of the basal area up to 10 years of regeneration. Shade-tolerant species start colonizing the sites at early ages; however, they become more important structural elements only after 30 years of succession. The observed patterns of forest structure and species diversity largely conform to the post-agricultural succession seen in many tropical forests. The high species diversity found in this study highlights the importance of natural regeneration as a strategy to restore ecosystems. Floristic data can be used as a reference for choosing suitable species for active restoration, as well as contributing to the design of integrated restoration strategies. We herein reinforce the potential of natural regeneration as part of large-scale restoration programs, which would be particularly attractive to family farmers by the low cost of supplies and labor.

Description: Microgrids have been emerging and playing valuable roles in several parts of society, from academia of scholars to the energy supply industry of professional practitioners. A microgrid policy appeared in the Thailand 2015 energy development plan. There are many microgrids in Thailand. The first smart microgrid in Thailand is in active operation. Some microgrids are no longer functioning. Other microgrids continue to serve their customers. The remaining microgrid projects are in the process of development. Most present microgrids in Thailand are driven by public policy and legal flexibility. The objective of this research is to investigate the compatible microgrid technology in Thailand and explore the key drivers of microgrid policies in Thailand. The research methodology applied in this research includes data collection (i.e., a document study, interview, group discussion, and microgrid project participation and observation), as well as data analysis and conclusion. The findings of the research show that: in Thailand, the desired microgrid technologies are compatible with 1) inputs of potential local renewable energy resources of solar, wind, biomass, and mini-hydro, and 2) small gaps of human resource capabilities to deal with the technology utilization. The key drivers of the Thailand microgrid policy are 1) electricity access, 2) wealth creation and distribution, 3) environmental protection, and 4) technology development.

Description: The products of magnetic reconnection in Saturn’s magnetotail are identified in magnetometer observations primarily through characteristic deviations in the north–south component of the magnetic field. These magnetic deflections are caused by traveling plasma structures created during reconnection rapidly passing over the observing spacecraft. Identification of these signatures have long been performed by eye, and more recently through semi-automated methods, however these methods are often limited through a required human verification step. Here, we present a fully automated, supervised learning, feed forward neural network model to identify evidence of reconnection in the Kronian magnetosphere with the three magnetic field components observed by the Cassini spacecraft in Kronocentric radial–theta–phi coordinates as input. This model is constructed from a catalog of reconnection events which covers three years of observations with a total of 2093 classified events, categorized into plasmoids, traveling compression regions and dipolarizations. This neural network model is capable of rapidly identifying reconnection events in large time-span Cassini datasets, tested against the full year 2010 with a high level of accuracy (87%), true skill score (0.76), and Heidke skill score (0.73). From this model, a full cataloging and examination of magnetic reconnection events in the Kronian magnetosphere across Cassini's near Saturn lifetime is now possible.

Description: In this paper, poplar was used as raw material, sodium chlorite was used to delignify it in acidic environment, and then epoxy resin was vacuum impregnated in the delignified wood template to prepare transparent wood. Moreover, in order to imitate the lamination method of plywood, the multilayer transparent wood was prepared by means of staggered vertical lamination. The purpose of this paper is to study the physical and chemical properties of multilayer transparent wood, and to explore the application potential of multilayer transparent wood as a new material by comparing with single layer transparent wood with the same thickness. The weight of wood components in the transparent wood prepared in this experiment accounts for about 30–45% of the weight of composite materials. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) measurements, Fourier transform attenuated total reflection infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR) characterization, weight gain measurements, UV transmittance measurements, color difference measurements, water contact angle measurements and mechanical properties measurements were used to study. The results showed that as the thickness of the transparent wood increased, the cracks between the resin and the wood cell wall increased, and the interface showed an uneven state. In the case of the same thickness, the multilayer transparent wood was made by laminating transparent wood sheets, with fewer internal cracks and smooth interfaces. Its light transmittance is better than single layer transparent wood. Moreover, compared with single layer transparent wood with the same thickness, the lightness of multilayer transparent wood decreased, and tended to yellow and red. Due to the removal of lignin, the tensile strength of transparent wood decreased during the preparation process. However, it can be seen from the mechanical strength test that the tensile strength of multilayer transparent wood is much higher than that of single layer transparent wood. To a certain extent, multilayer transparent wood can improve the mechanical strength of transparent wood. To conclude, multilayer transparent wood is a kind of natural transparent material with large thickness, good light transmission and excellent mechanical properties, and it has a good development prospect.

Description: In response to climate change and energy transition, natural gas has been rapidly developed as a relatively low-carbon energy source by many countries. However, there remain environmental risks at different stages in the entire process from exploitation to utilization. Firstly, this article identifies various environmental risks and benefits of natural gas along the entire industry chain from upstream exploitation and midstream transportation to downstream utilization. It is found that, during upstream exploitation, hydraulic fracturing has the worst environmental impact. During the midstream storage and transportation stage, methane leakage is the biggest environmental risk. In the downstream combustion and utilization stage, the risk to environment is less than other energy sources, although there are some greenhouse gas effects and water pollution issues. Thus, this article puts forward some policy recommendations for different stages from exploitation to utilization. In the upstream stage, especially hydraulic fracturing activity, we suggest strengthening environmental assessment management, improving policy standards, creating a water quality monitoring plan, and promoting the innovation of key technologies. In terms of the midstream, besides pipeline laying and site selection, we focus on monitoring the system, including leak detection, quality management of engineering materials, and risk identification and management. When it comes to the downstream, we encourage the application of advanced technologies to improve thermal efficiency and reduce emissions, such as gas-fired related technologies, natural gas recycling technologies, distributed energy technologies, and green and low-carbon service technologies.

Description: Studies on inequalities in exposure to flood risk have explored whether population of a lower socio-economic status are more exposed to flood hazard. While evidence exist for coastal flooding, little is known on inequalities for riverine floods. This paper addresses two issues: (1) is the weakest population, in socio-economic terms, more exposed to flood hazard, considering different levels of exposure to hazard? (2) Is the exposure to flood risk homogeneous across the territory, considering different scales of analysis? An analysis of the exposure of inhabitants of Liège province to flood risk was conducted at different scales (province, districts, and municipalities), considering three levels of exposure to flood hazard (level 1- low hazard, level 3- high hazard), and five socio-economic classes (class 1-poorest, class 5-wealthiest households). Our analysis confirms that weaker populations (classes 2 and 3) are usually more exposed to flood hazards than the wealthiest (classes 4 and 5). Still it should be stressed that the most precarious households (class 1) are less exposed than low to medium-range ones (classes 2 and 3). Further on the relation between socio-economic status and exposure to flood hazard varies along the spatial scale considered. At the district level, it appears that classes 4 and 5 are most exposed to flood risk in some peripheral areas. In municipalities located around the center of the city, differences of exposure to risk are not significant.

Description: Effective management of both endangered native and invasive alien crayfishes requires knowledge about distribution, monitoring of existing and early detection of newly established populations. Complementary to traditional survey methods, eDNA sampling has recently emerged as a highly sensitive non-invasive detection method to monitor crayfish populations. To advance the use of eDNA as detection tool for crayfish we used a twofold approach: 1) we designed a novel set of specific eDNA-assays for all native (Austropotamobius torrentium, Austropotamobius pallipes, Astacus astacus) and the most relevant invasive crayfish species (Pacifastacus leniusculus, Faxonius limosus, Faxonius immunis) in Central Europe. To ensure specificity each primer pair was tested in silico, in vitro, and in situ; 2) we assessed the influence of spatio-temporal variables (distance to upstream population, season, stream size) on eDNA detection in seven streams using two different detection methods (qualitative endpoint PCR and quantitative droplet digital PCR, ddPCR). The newly developed eDNA assays successfully detected all crayfish species across different lotic and lentic habitats. eDNA detection rate (endpoint PCR) and eDNA-concentration (ddPCR) were significantly influenced by distance and season. eDNA detection was successful up to 7 km downstream of the source population and across all seasons, although detectability was lowest in winter. eDNA detection rate further decreased with increasing stream size. Finally, eDNA-concentration correlated positively with estimated upstream population size. Overall, we provide near operational eDNA assays for six crayfish species, enabling year-round detection, which represents a clear benefit over conventional methods. Due to its high sensitivity, eDNA detection is also suitable for the targeted search of as-yet unrecorded or newly emerging populations. Using quantitative ddPCR might further allow for a rough estimation of population size, provided that the identified spatio-temporal factors are accounted for. We therefore recommend implementing eDNA-detection as a complementary survey tool, particularly for a large-scale screening of data-deficient catchments or a year-round monitoring.

Description: Large primary forest residuals can still be found in boreal landscapes. Their areas are however shrinking rapidly due to anthropogenic activities, in particular industrial-scale forestry. The impacts of logging activities on primary boreal forests may also strongly differ from those of wildfires, the dominant stand-replacing natural disturbance in these forests. Since industrial-scale forestry is driven by economic motives, there is a risk that stands of higher economic value will be primarily harvested, thus threatening habitats, and functions related to these forests. Hence, the objective of this study was to identify the main attributes differentiating burned and logged stands prior to disturbance in boreal forests. The study territory lies in the coniferous and closed-canopy boreal forest in Québec, Canada, where industrial-scale logging and wildfire are the two main stand-replacing disturbances. Based on Québec government inventories of primary forests, we identified 427 transects containing about 5.5 circular field plots/transect that were burned or logged shortly after being surveyed, between 1985 and 2016. Comparative analysis of the main structural and environmental attributes of these transects highlighted the strong divergence in the impact of fire and harvesting on primary boreal forests. Overall, logging activities mainly harvested forests with the highest economic value, while most burned stands were low to moderately productive or recently disturbed. These results raise concerns about the resistance and resilience of remnant primary forests within managed areas, particularly in a context of disturbance amplification due to climate change. Moreover, the majority of the stands studied were old-growth forests, characterized by a high ecological value but also highly threatened by anthropogenic disturbances. A loss in the diversity and functionality of primary forests, and particularly the old-growth forests, therefore adds to the current issues related to these ecosystems. Since 2013, the study area is under ecosystem-based management, which implies that there have been marked changes in forestry practices. Complementary research will be necessary to assess the capacity of ecosystem-based management to address the challenges identified in our study.

Description: Two common tree species, ash (Fraxinus sp.) and oak (Quercus sp.), could provide readily available media for denitrifying bioreactors that use wood-based carbon for biological nitrate treatment. However, it is not known if the wood from Emerald Ash Borer-killed (EAB-killed) ash trees is an effective carbon source for nitrate removal compared to other wood species or if the high-tannin nature of oak inhibits denitrification potential. This lab-scale study showed that EAB-killed ash woodchips did not significantly differ in nitrate removal or denitrification potential compared to a commercially available blend of hardwood chips. However, neither treatment performed as well as oak woodchips in these metrics. Use of high-tannin oak in bioreactors is currently restricted by a federal standard in the United States. Ash woodchips beneficially exhibited the lowest nitrous oxide production potential, and their dissolved phosphorus leaching fell within the range of other woodchip types. Emerald ash borer-killed ash wood could be an effective source for denitrifying bioreactors located within affected regions and oak woodchips merit additional investigation for the application of denitrifying bioreactors.

Description: In the process of the detection of a false data injection attack (FDIA) in power systems, there are problems of complex data features and low detection accuracy. From the perspective of the correlation and redundancy of the essential characteristics of the attack data, a detection method of the FDIA in smart grids based on cyber-physical genes is proposed. Firstly, the principle and characteristics of the FDIA are analyzed, and the concept of the cyber-physical FDIA gene is defined. Considering the non-functional dependency and nonlinear correlation of cyber-physical data in power systems, the optimal attack gene feature set of the maximum mutual information coefficient is selected. Secondly, an unsupervised pre-training encoder is set to extract the cyber-physical attack gene. Combined with the supervised fine-tuning classifier to train and update the network parameters, the FDIA detection model with stacked autoencoder network is constructed. Finally, a self-adaptive cuckoo search algorithm is designed to optimize the model parameters, and a novel attack detection method is proposed. The analysis of case studies shows that the proposed method can effectively improve the detection accuracy and effect of the FDIA on cyber-physical power systems.

Description: The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the interrelationship between data science and climate studies, as well as describes how sustainability climate issues can be managed using the Big Data tools. Climate-related Big Data articles are analyzed and categorized, which revealed the increasing number of applications of data-driven solutions in specific areas, however, broad integrative analyses are gaining less of a focus. Our major objective is to highlight the potential in the System of Systems (SoS) theorem, as the synergies between diverse disciplines and research ideas must be explored to gain a comprehensive overview of the issue. Data and systems science enables a large amount of heterogeneous data to be integrated and simulation models developed, while considering socio-environmental interrelations in parallel. The improved knowledge integration offered by the System of Systems thinking or climate computing has been demonstrated by analysing the possible inter-linkages of the latest Big Data application papers. The analysis highlights how data and models focusing on the specific areas of sustainability can be bridged to study the complex problems of climate change.

Description: The leopard cat (Prionailurus bengalensis) is the most widespread feline in Asia. It has been recorded in a range of habitats, including monoculture landscapes, such as oil palm plantations. Here, we report on a study on the presence, home range, activity patterns and diet of the species in an oil palm landscape to assess their viability as biological pest controller of rats. The study took place in United Plantations/PT SSS estate in Central Kalimantan, Borneo, Indonesia. From July 2014 to March 2018, we captured 11 leopard cats in purpose-built cage-traps and fitted them with VHF radio-transmitters. They were tracked for a 44 months study period, during which we collected a total of 2.031 GPS locations used for estimating the respective cats’ activities and home-ranges. The cats are strictly nocturnal and prefer to hide and rest in thick bush, primarily consisting of sword-fern (Nephrolepis sp.) during day-time, but forage both on the ground and in the palm canopy at night. The average home range (95% FK) for male leopard cats is 1.47 km2 (n = 7; SD = 0.62 km2) with slightly smaller home range for females at 1.29 km2 (n = 4; SD = 0.28 km2). All individuals studied were recorded strictly within the oil palm plantation landscape, although mangrove forest habitat makes up 7% of the greater plantation landscape. In conclusion, leopard cats survive and reproduce well in oil palm habitats and are effective biological controllers of rats that can replace the traditionally used expensive and environmentally polluting chemical rat poisons.

Description: This paper investigates whether the macroeconomic uncertainty factors can explain and forecast China’s INE crude oil futures market volatility. We use the GARCH-MIDAS model to investigate the explaining and predicting power of the macroeconomic uncertainties. We considered various geopolitical risk (GPR) indices, economic policy uncertainty (EPU) indices, and infectious disease pandemic (IDEMV) indices in our model. The empirical results suggest that the geopolitical risk, the geopolitical act risk, the global economic policy uncertainty, the economic policy uncertainty from the United Kingdom, and the economic policy uncertainty from Japan comprehensively integrate the information contained in the rest factors, and have superior predictive powers for INE crude oil future volatility. These findings highlight the importance of the impact of macroeconomic uncertainty factors has on the crude oil futures market, and indicate that the macroeconomic uncertainties need to be considered when explaining and forecasting crude oil futures market volatility.

Description: Perovskite-based light-emitting diodes (PLEDs) have emerged as a promising alternative owning to the excellent optoelectronic properties including narrow emission linewidths, high photoluminescence quantum yield (PLQY), tunable emission wavelength, and high color purity. Over the past several years, significant progress has been obtained for green, red, and near-infrared PLEDs with a high external quantum efficiency (EQE) of over 20%. However, the development of blue PLEDs has been limited by several technical issues including poor film quality, inefficient device structure, higher trap density, and so on. To overcome these drawbacks with improved PLQY and EQE, we summarize and analyze the recent advances towards the development of three dimensional (3D), two dimensional (2D) and quasi-2D perovskites film employing composition and/or dimensional engineering. Moreover, the utilization of perovskite nanocrystals (PNCs) is also considered as a feasible strategy for the realization of high-performance blue PLEDs. We systematically evaluate the performance of sky-blue, pure-blue and deep blue PLEDs based on different perovskite materials. Finally, future prospective are proposed to promote the development of efficient blue PLEDs.

Description: The soil microbiome consists of a vast variety of microorganisms which contribute to essential ecosystem services including nutrient recycling, protecting soil structure, and pathogen suppression. Recalcitrant organic compounds present in soils contaminated with fuel oil can lead to a decrease in functional redundancy within soil microbiomes. Ecopiling is a passive bioremediation technique involving biostimulation of indigenous hydrocarbon degraders, bioaugmentation through inoculation with known petroleum-degrading consortia, and phytoremediation. The current study investigates the assemblage of soil microbial communities and pollutant-degrading potential in soil undergoing the Ecopiling process, through the amplicon marker gene and metagenomics analysis of the contaminated soil. The analysis of key community members including bacteria, fungi, and nematodes revealed a surprisingly diverse microbial community composition within the contaminated soil. The soil bacterial community was found to be dominated by Alphaproteobacteria (60–70%) with the most abundant genera such as Lysobacter, Dietzia, Pseudomonas, and Extensimonas. The fungal community consisted mainly of Ascomycota (50–70% relative abundance). Soil sequencing data allowed the identification of key enzymes involved in the biodegradation of hydrocarbons, providing a novel window into the function of individual bacterial groups in the Ecopile. Although the genus Lysobacter was identified as the most abundant bacterial genus (11–46%) in all of the contaminated soil samples, the metagenomic data were unable to confirm a role for this group in petrochemical degradation. Conversely, genera with relatively low abundance such as Dietzia (0.4–9.0%), Pusillimonas (0.7–2.3%), and Bradyrhizobium (0.8–1.8%) did possess genes involved in aliphatic or aromatic compound degradation.