ALBERT

Description: Energies, Vol. 11, Pages 1957: Dual-Temperature Evaluation of a High-Temperature Insulation System for Liquid-Immersed Transformer Energies doi: 10.3390/en11081957 Authors: Xiaojing Zhang Lu Ren Haichuan Yu Yang Xu Qingquan Lei Xin Li Baojia Han A high-temperature oil–paper insulation system offers an opportunity to improve the overloading capability of distribution transformers facing seasonal load variation. A high-temperature electrical insulation system (EIS) was chosen due to thermal calculation based on a typical loading curve on the China Southern Power Grid. In order to evaluate candidate high-temperature insulation systems, Nomex® T910 (aramid-enhanced cellulose) immersed in FR3 (natural ester) was investigated by a dual-temperature thermal aging test compared with a conventional insulation system, Kraft paper impregnated with mineral oil. Throughout the thermal aging test, mechanical, chemical, and dielectric parameters of both paper and insulating oil were investigated in each aging cycle. The thermal aging results determined that the thermal class of the FR3-T910 insulation system meets the request of overloading transformer needs.

Description: Energies, Vol. 11, Pages 1954: Experimental Study of Flow-Induced Whistling in Pipe Systems Including a Corrugated Section Energies doi: 10.3390/en11081954 Authors: Hee-Chang LIM Faran RAZI When air flows through pipe systems that include a corrugated segment, a whistling tone is generated and increases in intensity with increasing flow velocity. This whistling sound is related to the particular geometry of corrugated pipes, which is in the form of alternating cavities. This whistling is an environmental noise problem as well as a possible structural danger because of the resulting induced vibration. This paper studies the whistling behavior of various pipe systems with a combination of smooth and corrugated pipes through a series of experiments. The considered pipe systems consist of two smooth pipes attached at the upstream and downstream ends of a corrugated segment. Experiments with smooth and corrugated pipes, which had inner diameters of 15.25 and 16.5 mm, respectively, and various lengths, were performed for flow velocities of up to approximately 30 m/s. The minimum and maximum Strouhal numbers (St) obtained during our experiments were 0.25 and 0.38, respectively. For all pipe configurations investigated in this study, the lowest Mach number at which whistling was observed was 0.017, and the maximum was 0.093. The lowest frequency at which whistling was detected in our experiments was 650 Hz, and the highest was 3080 Hz. The results presented in the form of different variables and dimensionless parameters, including the frequency, Mach number, Strouhal number, and Helmholtz number. The average mode gap and number of excited acoustic modes were also taken into account for all considered configurations. The pipe systems with longer corrugated segments had broader whistling ranges than did configurations with shorter segments, indicating that the number of cavities inside the corrugated pipe has a direct effect on whistling. Increasing the smooth pipe length (either upstream or downstream) resulted in a decrease in the average mode gap between successive modes. The number of excited acoustic modes was primarily related to the corrugated segment length, but the smooth pipe length also had a pronounced effect on the excited modes for a constant corrugation length. The highest number of excited modes (13) was seen in the case of corrugated length 450 mm and smooth pipe length (either upstream or downstream) 400 mm while the lowest number of excited modes (1) was observed for corrugated length 250 mm and smooth pipe length (downstream) 300 mm and 400 mm.

Description: Energies, Vol. 11, Pages 1950: Investigation of Injection Strategy of Branched-Preformed Particle Gel/Polymer/Surfactant for Enhanced Oil Recovery after Polymer Flooding in Heterogeneous Reservoirs Energies doi: 10.3390/en11081950 Authors: Hong He Jingyu Fu Baofeng Hou Fuqing Yuan Lanlei Guo Zongyang Li Qing You The heterogeneous phase combination flooding (HPCF) system which is composed of a branched-preformed particle gel (B-PPG), polymer, and surfactant has been proposed to enhance oil recovery after polymer flooding in heterogeneous reservoirs by mobility control and reducing oil–water interfacial tension. However, the high cost of chemicals can make this process economically challenging in an era of low oil prices. Thus, in an era of low oil prices, it is becoming even more essential to optimize the heterogeneous phase combination flooding design. In order to optimize the HPCF process, the injection strategy has been designed such that the incremental oil recovery can be maximized using the corresponding combination of the B-PPG, polymer, and surfactant, thereby ensuring a more economically-viable recovery process. Different HPCF injection strategies including simultaneous injection and alternation injection were investigated by conducting parallel sand pack flooding experiments and large-scale plate sand pack flooding experiments. Results show that based on the flow rate ratio, the pressure rising area and the incremental oil recovery, no matter whether the injection strategy is simultaneous injection or alternation injection of HPCF, the HPCF can significantly block high permeability zone, increase the sweep efficiency and oil displacement efficiency, and effectively improve oil recovery. Compared with the simultaneous injection mode, the alternation injection of HPCF can show better sweep efficiency and oil displacement efficiency. Moreover, when the slug of HPCF and polymer/surfactant with the equivalent economical cost is injected by alternation injection mode, as the alternating cycle increases, the incremental oil recovery increases. The remaining oil distribution at different flooding stages investigated by conducting large-scale plate sand pack flooding experiments shows that alternation injection of HPCF can recover more remaining oil in the low permeability zone than simultaneous injection. Hence, these findings could provide the guidance for developing the injection strategy of HPCF to further enhance oil recovery after polymer flooding in heterogeneous reservoirs in the era of low oil prices.

Description: Entropy, Vol. 20, Pages 560: Ensemble Estimation of Information Divergence † Entropy doi: 10.3390/e20080560 Authors: Kevin R. Moon Kumar Sricharan Kristjan Greenewald Alfred O. Hero Recent work has focused on the problem of nonparametric estimation of information divergence functionals between two continuous random variables. Many existing approaches require either restrictive assumptions about the density support set or difficult calculations at the support set boundary which must be known a priori. The mean squared error (MSE) convergence rate of a leave-one-out kernel density plug-in divergence functional estimator for general bounded density support sets is derived where knowledge of the support boundary, and therefore, the boundary correction is not required. The theory of optimally weighted ensemble estimation is generalized to derive a divergence estimator that achieves the parametric rate when the densities are sufficiently smooth. Guidelines for the tuning parameter selection and the asymptotic distribution of this estimator are provided. Based on the theory, an empirical estimator of Rényi-α divergence is proposed that greatly outperforms the standard kernel density plug-in estimator in terms of mean squared error, especially in high dimensions. The estimator is shown to be robust to the choice of tuning parameters. We show extensive simulation results that verify the theoretical results of our paper. Finally, we apply the proposed estimator to estimate the bounds on the Bayes error rate of a cell classification problem.

Description: Entropy, Vol. 20, Pages 556: Multivariate Multiscale Complexity Analysis of Self-Reproducing Chaotic Systems Entropy doi: 10.3390/e20080556 Authors: Shaobo He Chunbiao Li Kehui Sun Sajad Jafari Designing a chaotic system with infinitely many attractors is a hot topic. In this paper, multiscale multivariate permutation entropy (MMPE) and multiscale multivariate Lempel–Ziv complexity (MMLZC) are employed to analyze the complexity of those self-reproducing chaotic systems with one-directional and two-directional infinitely many chaotic attractors. The analysis results show that complexity of this class of chaotic systems is determined by the initial conditions. Meanwhile, the values of MMPE are independent of the scale factor, which is different from the algorithm of MMLZC. The analysis proposed here is helpful as a reference for the application of the self-reproducing systems.

Description: IJERPH, Vol. 15, Pages 1592: Full-Scale Experimental Study of Groundwater Softening in a Circulating Pellet Fluidized Reactor International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health doi: 10.3390/ijerph15081592 Authors: Ruizhu Hu Tinglin Huang Aofan Zhi Zhangcheng Tang The softening effect of a new type of circulating pellet fluidized bed (CPFB) reactor on groundwater was studied through a full-scale experiment. The operation of the CPFB reactor in the second water plant in Chang’an District in Xi’an China was monitored for one year, and the results were compared with those for the Amsterdam reactor in The Netherlands. The removal efficiency of Ca2+ in the CPFB reactor reached 90%; the removal rate of total hardness was higher than 60%; effluent pH was 9.5–9.8; the turbidity of the effluent and the turbidity after boiling were lower than 1.0 NTU; the unit cost was less than €0.064 per m3; and the softened effluent was stable. The pellets in the CPFB reactor were circulated, providing higher crystallization efficiency. The diameter of the discharged pellets reached between 3–5 mm, and the fluidized area height of the CPFB reactor was 4 m. The performance parameters of the CFPB reactor were optimized.

Description: IJERPH, Vol. 15, Pages 1596: Predicting Infectious Disease Using Deep Learning and Big Data International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health doi: 10.3390/ijerph15081596 Authors: Sangwon Chae Sungjun Kwon Donghyun Lee Infectious disease occurs when a person is infected by a pathogen from another person or an animal. It is a problem that causes harm at both individual and macro scales. The Korea Center for Disease Control (KCDC) operates a surveillance system to minimize infectious disease contagions. However, in this system, it is difficult to immediately act against infectious disease because of missing and delayed reports. Moreover, infectious disease trends are not known, which means prediction is not easy. This study predicts infectious diseases by optimizing the parameters of deep learning algorithms while considering big data including social media data. The performance of the deep neural network (DNN) and long-short term memory (LSTM) learning models were compared with the autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) when predicting three infectious diseases one week into the future. The results show that the DNN and LSTM models perform better than ARIMA. When predicting chickenpox, the top-10 DNN and LSTM models improved average performance by 24% and 19%, respectively. The DNN model performed stably and the LSTM model was more accurate when infectious disease was spreading. We believe that this study’s models can help eliminate reporting delays in existing surveillance systems and, therefore, minimize costs to society.

Description: Materials, Vol. 11, Pages 1301: Spiral Bevel Gears Face Roughness Prediction Produced by CNC End Milling Centers Materials doi: 10.3390/ma11081301 Authors: Álvaro Álvarez Amaia Calleja Mikel Arizmendi Haizea González Luis Norberto Lopez de Lacalle The emergence of multitasking machines in the machine tool sector presents new opportunities for the machining of large size gears and short production series in these machines. However, the possibility of using standard tools in conventional machines for gears machining represents a technological challenge from the point of view of workpiece quality. Machining conditions in order to achieve both dimensional and surface quality requirements need to be determined. With these considerations in mind, computer numerical control (CNC) methods to provide useful tools for gear processing are studied. Thus, a model for the prediction of surface roughness obtained on the teeth surface of a machined spiral bevel gear in a multiprocess machine is presented. Machining strategies and optimal machining parameters were studied, and the roughness model is validated for 3 + 2 axes and 5 continuous axes machining strategies.

Description: Materials, Vol. 11, Pages 1302: Enhanced Cycling Stability of LiCuxMn1.95−xSi0.05O4 Cathode Material Obtained by Solid-State Method Materials doi: 10.3390/ma11081302 Authors: Hongyuan Zhao Fang Li Xiuzhi Bai Tingting Wu Zhankui Wang Yongfeng Li Jianxiu Su The LiCuxMn1.95−xSi0.05O4 (x = 0, 0.02, 0.05, 0.08) samples have been obtained by a simple solid-state method. XRD and SEM characterization results indicate that the Cu-Si co-doped spinels retain the inherent structure of LiMn2O4 and possess uniform particle size distribution. Electrochemical tests show that the optimal Cu-doping amount produces an obvious improvement effect on the cycling stability of LiMn1.95Si0.05O4. When cycled at 0.5 C, the optimal LiCu0.05Mn1.90Si0.05O4 sample exhibits an initial capacity of 127.3 mAh g−1 with excellent retention of 95.7% after 200 cycles. Moreover, when the cycling rate climbs to 10 C, the LiCu0.05Mn1.90Si0.05O4 sample exhibits 82.3 mAh g−1 with satisfactory cycling performance. In particular, when cycled at 55 °C, this co-doped sample can show an outstanding retention of 94.0% after 100 cycles, whiles the LiMn1.95Si0.05O4 only exhibits low retention of 79.1%. Such impressive performance shows that the addition of copper ions in the Si-doped spinel effectively remedy the shortcomings of the single Si-doping strategy and the Cu-Si co-doped spinel can show excellent cycling stability.

Description: Forests, Vol. 9, Pages 459: Pedunculate and Sessile Mixed Oak Forest Regeneration Process in Lithuania Forests doi: 10.3390/f9080459 Authors: Girmantė Jurkšienė Virginijus Baliuckas Pedunculate and sessile oak species are sympatric. These oaks hybridize with one another, and this process influences the development of undergrowth. The purpose of this study was to determine how different oak species influence the forest regeneration process. For this purpose, the forest was divided into eight transects of 300 m and 100 m widths, distinguished into temporary plots of 10 m in diameter covering the whole territory of the forest. The distribution of oak undergrowth was calculated by four oak height groups, determining the composition of the first storey, covering of underbrush and herbaceous plant, and forest site. We determined that the spread of oak differed depending on the first storey tree species and underbrush. Grass cover was the biggest influence on the sessile oak. The impurity of sessile oak in oak stands had a positive impact on the development of undergrowth, since the entire undergrowth develops faster than separate components of the undergrowth.

Description: Forests, Vol. 9, Pages 455: Measuring Eco-Efficiency of State-Owned Forestry Enterprises in Northeast China Forests doi: 10.3390/f9080455 Authors: Youliang Ning Zhen Liu Zekui Ning Han Zhang State-owned forestry enterprises (SOFEs) play an important role in the forestry economy in China. Understanding the eco-efficiency of their production is beneficial for the development of sustainable forestry and for achieving Goal 8 of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Decent Work and Economic Growth. This paper assesses SOFEs’ overall eco-efficiency by analyzing various undesirable outputs using the Slacks-Based Measure of efficiency in Data Envelopment Analysis (SBM-DEA) model. Using basic data from 87 SOFEs in Northeast China from 2003 to 2016, this paper evaluated the eco-efficiency development level and spatial patterns of that region. The results show that SOFEs’ low eco-efficiency was caused by low pure-technical efficiency. Regional differences in eco-efficiency were very significant and became larger, but a market-oriented reform might help to improve such efficiency. The eco-efficiency of SOFEs was in decline from 2003 to 2016 due to the implementation of the Natural Forest Protection Project (NFPP). However, due to a relative lack of production factor inputs, most SOFEs’ scale returns are now increasing. In the future, efforts should be made to promote market-oriented reforms and take the path of large-scale development.

Description: Minerals, Vol. 8, Pages 323: (10.4) Face of Ordered and Disordered Dolomite, MgCa(CO3)2: A Computational Study to Reveal the Growth Mechanism Minerals doi: 10.3390/min8080323 Authors: Marco Bruno Erica Bittarello In this study, the stability of the (10.4) face of dolomite was systematically investigated. The surface energies at 0 K of the different (10.4) surfaces resulting from the cut of both ordered and disordered bulk structures were determined and compared, to establish how different atomic configurations (surface terminations) can affect the stability of the investigated face. To study the thermodynamic behavior of a surface, a 2D periodic slab model and the ab initio CRYSTAL code were adopted. The surface energies of the (10.4) faces of calcite and magnesite were also calculated in order to compare them with those of the different terminations of the (10.4) face of dolomite. Our calculations showed that the bulk of the dolomite crystal must have an ordered structure to reach the minimum of the energy, whereas the (10.4) surface is more stable when its structure is disordered. A growth model of the (10.4) face has been proposed: the peculiarity of this model consists in the existence of some disordered layers forming at the interface crystal/solution, which arrange in an ordered structure once covered by others disordered layers resulting by the spiral steps propagation.

Description: Materials, Vol. 11, Pages 1297: A Straightforward Substitution Strategy to Tune BODIPY Dyes Spanning the Near-Infrared Region via Suzuki–Miyaura Cross-Coupling Materials doi: 10.3390/ma11081297 Authors: Guanglei Li Yu Otsuka Takuya Matsumiya Toshiyuki Suzuki Jianye Li Masashi Takahashi Koji Yamada In this study, a series of new red and near-infrared (NIR) dyes derived from 4,4-difluoro-4-bora-3a,4a-diaza-s-indacene (BODIPY) were developed by introducing thiophene and its derivatives to the 3- and 5- positions of the dichloroBODIPY core. For the first time, cyclictriol boronates and N-methyliminodiacetic acid (MIDA) boronate were used as organoboron species to couple with 3,5-dichloroBODIPY via the one-step Suzuki–Miyaura cross-coupling. Six kinds of thieno-expended BODIPY dyes were synthesized in acceptable yields ranging from 31% to 79%. All six dyes showed different absorption and emission wavelengths spanning a wide range (c.a. 600–850 nm) in the red and NIR regions with relatively high quantum yields (19–85%). Cellular imaging of 8-(2,6-dimethylphenyl)-re3,5-di(2-thienyl)-BODIPY (dye 1) was conducted using bovine cumulus cells, and the fluorescence microscopy images indicated that the chromophore efficiently accumulated and was exclusively localized in the cytoplasm, suggesting it could be utilized as a subcellular probe. All six dyes were characterized using 1H-NMR and mass spectrometry.

Description: Minerals, Vol. 8, Pages 322: Particle Size Distribution Effects on the Strength Characteristic of Cemented Paste Backfill Minerals doi: 10.3390/min8080322 Authors: Jiangyu Wu Meimei Feng Zhanqing Chen Xianbiao Mao Guansheng Han Yiming Wang It is of great significance, for economic, environmental and security reasons, to investigate the strength characteristic of underground cemented paste backfill (CPB). Consequently, an ultrasonic test, uniaxial and triaxial compression experiment, and acoustic emission (AE) monitoring were carried out on CPB, for which the particles satisfied Talbot gradation. The homogeneity of CPB specimens was evaluated by ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV). The stress–strain behavior and AE characteristic of CPB specimens under different Talbot indices and confining pressures were investigated. The effects of the particle size distribution and the confining pressure on the peak strength of CPB were analyzed. The strength parameter model of CPB under the coupled influence of the particle size distribution and the confining pressure was constructed based on the Mohr–Coulomb strength criterion. The results show that the peak strength of CPB is positively linear with confining pressure, however, the relationship between its strength parameters and the Talbot index can be characterized by a quadratic polynomial function. This suggests that there is an optimal gradation of particles reflected in the maximum strength of CPB.

Description: Minerals, Vol. 8, Pages 319: Fault Zone Evolution and Development of a Structural and Hydrological Barrier: The Quartz Breccia in the Kiggavik Area (Nunavut, Canada) and Its Control on Uranium Mineralization Minerals doi: 10.3390/min8080319 Authors: Alexis Grare Olivier Lacombe Julien Mercadier Antonio Benedicto Marie Guilcher Anna Trave Patrick Ledru John Robbins In the Kiggavik area (Nunavut, Canada), major fault zones along, or close to, where uranium deposits are found are often associated with occurrence of thick quartz breccia (QB) bodies. These bodies formed in an early stage (~1750 Ma) of the long-lasting tectonic history of the Archean basement, and of the Proterozoic Thelon basin. The main characteristics of the QB are addressed in this study; through field work, macro and microscopic observations, cathodoluminescence microscopy, trace elements, and oxygen isotopic signatures of the quartz forming the QB. Faults formed earlier during syn- to post-orogenic rifting (1850–1750 Ma) were subsequently reactivated, and underwent cycles of cataclasis, pervasive silicification, hydraulic brecciation, and quartz recrystallization. This was synchronous with the circulation of meteoric fluids mixing with Si-rich magmatic-derived fluids at depth, and were coeval with the emplacement of the Kivalliq igneous suite at 1750 Ma. These processes led to the emplacement of up to 30 m thick QB, which behaved as a mechanically strong, transverse hydraulic barrier that localized later fracturing, and compartmentalized/channelized vertical flow of uranium-bearing fluids after the deposition of the Thelon Basin (post 1750 Ma). The development and locations of QB control the location of uranium mineralization in the Kiggavik area.

Description: IJERPH, Vol. 15, Pages 1597: Assessing Heat-Related Mortality Risks among Rural Populations: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Epidemiological Evidence International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health doi: 10.3390/ijerph15081597 Authors: Emmanuel A. Odame Ying Li Shimin Zheng Ambarish Vaidyanathan Ken Silver Most epidemiological studies of high temperature effects on mortality have focused on urban settings, while heat-related health risks in rural areas remain underexplored. To date there has been no meta-analysis of epidemiologic literature concerning heat-related mortality in rural settings. This study aims to systematically review the current literature for assessing heat-related mortality risk among rural populations. We conducted a comprehensive literature search using PubMed, Web of Science, and Google Scholar to identify articles published up to April 2018. Key selection criteria included study location, health endpoints, and study design. Fourteen studies conducted in rural areas in seven countries on four continents met the selection criteria, and eleven were included in the meta-analysis. Using the random effects model, the pooled estimates of relative risks (RRs) for all-cause and cardiovascular mortality were 1.030 (95% CI: 1.013, 1.048) and 1.111 (95% CI: 1.045, 1.181) per 1 °C increase in daily mean temperature, respectively. We found excess risks in rural settings not to be smaller than risks in urban settings. Our results suggest that rural populations, like urban populations, are also vulnerable to heat-related mortality. Further evaluation of heat-related mortality among rural populations is warranted to develop public health interventions in rural communities.

Description: IJERPH, Vol. 15, Pages 1595: Does SuperPark Make Children Less Sedentary? How Visiting a Commercial Indoor Activity Park Affects 7 to 12 Years Old Children’s Daily Sitting and Physical Activity Time International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health doi: 10.3390/ijerph15081595 Authors: Arto J. Pesola Martti Melin Anssi Vanhala Ying Gao Taija Finni Commercial indoor activity parks provide children with a variety of entertaining physical activities. This study examined whether visiting SuperPark affects total daily sitting and physical activity time. The participants (8 girls and 7 boys, aged 10.3 ± 1.9 years, height 144.5 ± 11.8 cm, body mass index (BMI) 19.3 ± 3.0 kg/m2) wore a thigh-worn accelerometer during a normal week and were provided free tickets to visit SuperPark on at least one day. On average, the children spent 3.3 ± 1.2 h in SuperPark. During the visits the children had 0.9 h less sitting (0.7 ± 0.3 h, p = 0.000) and 0.9 h more moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA; 1.4 ± 0.6 h, p = 0.002) as compared to the reference periods on days without a SuperPark visit (1.6 ± 0.3 h sitting and 0.5 ± 0.4 h MVPA). During the days when visiting SuperPark, sitting time decreased 1.0 h (5.8 ± 0.9 h, p = 0.008) and MVPA increased 0.8 h (3.0 ± 1.0 h, p = 0.017) as compared to the reference days (6.8 ± 1.1 h sitting and 2.2 ± 0.8 h MVPA). The effects were more pronounced during weekdays than weekends. The children spent more than three hours in SuperPark on one visit, of which almost a half was MVPA. During the whole day, one hour of sitting was replaced with MVPA, suggesting that visiting SuperPark has the potential to improve health. Whether children continue visiting SuperPark and gain health benefits merits investigation.

Description: IJGI, Vol. 7, Pages 300: A Comparative Study of Three Non-Geostatistical Methods for Optimising Digital Elevation Model Interpolation ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information doi: 10.3390/ijgi7080300 Authors: Serajis Salekin Jack H. Burgess Justin Morgenroth Euan G. Mason Dean F. Meason It is common to generate digital elevation models (DEMs) from aerial laser scanning (ALS) data. However, cost and lack of knowledge may preclude its use. In contrast, global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) are seldom used to collect and generate DEMs. These receivers have the potential to be considered as data sources for DEM interpolation, as they can be inexpensive, easy to use, and mobile. The data interpolation method and spatial resolution from this method needs to be optimised to create accurate DEMs. Moreover, the density of GNSS data is likely to affect DEM accuracy. This study investigates three different deterministic approaches, in combination with spatial resolution and data thinning, to determine their combined effects on DEM accuracy. Digital elevation models were interpolated, with resolutions ranging from 0.5 m to 10 m using natural neighbour (NaN), topo to raster (ANUDEM), and inverse distance weighted (IDW) methods. The GNSS data were thinned by 25% (0.389 points m−2), 50% (0.259 points m−2), and 75% (0.129 points m−2) and resulting DEMs were contrast against a DEM interpolated from unthinned data (0.519 points m−2). Digital elevation model accuracy was measured by root mean square error (RMSE) and mean absolute error (MAE). It was found that the highest resolution, 0.5 m, produced the lowest errors in resulting DEMs (RMSE = 0.428 m, MAE = 0.274 m). The ANUDEM method yielded the greatest DEM accuracy from a quantitative perspective (RMSE = 0.305 m and MAE = 0.197 m); however, NaN produced a more visually appealing surface. In all the assessments, IDW showed the lowest accuracy. Thinning the input data by 25% and even 50% had relatively little impact on DEM quality; however, accuracy decreased markedly at 75% thinning (0.129 points m−2). This study showed that, in a time where ALS is commonly used to generate DEMs, GNSS-surveyed data can be used to create accurate DEMs. This study confirmed the need for optimization to choose the appropriate interpolation method and spatial resolution in order to produce a reliable DEM.

Description: IJERPH, Vol. 15, Pages 1593: Modeling Land Use Changes and their Impacts on Non-Point Source Pollution in a Southeast China Coastal Watershed International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health doi: 10.3390/ijerph15081593 Authors: Xin Zhang Lin Zhou Yuqi Liu Changes in landscape patterns in a river basin play a crucial role in the change on load of non-point source pollution. The spatial distribution of various land use types affects the transmission of non-point source pollutants on the basis of source-sink theory in landscape ecology. Jiulong River basin in southeast of China was selected as the study area in this paper. Aiming to analyze the correlation between changing landscape patterns and load of non-point source pollution in this area, traditional landscape metrics and the improved location-weighted landscape contrast index based on the minimum hydrological response unit (HRULCI) were applied in this study, in combination with remote sensing and geographic information system (GIS) technique. The results of the landscape metrics showed the enhanced fragmentation extent and the decreasing polymerization degree of the overall landscape in the watershed. High values of HRULCI were concentrated in cultivated land, while low HRULCI values mostly appeared in forestland, indicating that cultivated land substantially enhanced non-point source pollution, while forestland inhibited the pollution process.

Description: Remote Sensing, Vol. 10, Pages 1186: Application of Multi-Sensor Satellite Data for Exploration of Zn–Pb Sulfide Mineralization in the Franklinian Basin, North Greenland Remote Sensing doi: 10.3390/rs10081186 Authors: Amin Beiranvand Pour Tae-Yoon S. Park Yongcheol Park Jong Kuk Hong Basem Zoheir Biswajeet Pradhan Iman Ayoobi Mazlan Hashim Geological mapping and mineral exploration programs in the High Arctic have been naturally hindered by its remoteness and hostile climate conditions. The Franklinian Basin in North Greenland has a unique potential for exploration of world-class zinc deposits. In this research, multi-sensor remote sensing satellite data (e.g., Landsat-8, Phased Array L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (PALSAR) and Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER)) were used for exploring zinc in the trough sequences and shelf-platform carbonate of the Franklinian Basin. A series of robust image processing algorithms was implemented for detecting spatial distribution of pixels/sub-pixels related to key alteration mineral assemblages and structural features that may represent potential undiscovered Zn–Pb deposits. Fusion of Directed Principal Component Analysis (DPCA) and Independent Component Analysis (ICA) was applied to some selected Landsat-8 mineral indices for mapping gossan, clay-rich zones and dolomitization. Major lineaments, intersections, curvilinear structures and sedimentary formations were traced by the application of Feature-oriented Principal Components Selection (FPCS) to cross-polarized backscatter PALSAR ratio images. Mixture Tuned Matched Filtering (MTMF) algorithm was applied to ASTER VNIR/SWIR bands for sub-pixel detection and classification of hematite, goethite, jarosite, alunite, gypsum, chalcedony, kaolinite, muscovite, chlorite, epidote, calcite and dolomite in the prospective targets. Using the remote sensing data and approaches, several high potential zones characterized by distinct alteration mineral assemblages and structural fabrics were identified that could represent undiscovered Zn–Pb sulfide deposits in the study area. This research establishes a straightforward/cost-effective multi-sensor satellite-based remote sensing approach for reconnaissance stages of mineral exploration in hardly accessible parts of the High Arctic environments.

Description: Remote Sensing, Vol. 10, Pages 1184: An Evaluation of Forest Health Insect and Disease Survey Data and Satellite-Based Remote Sensing Forest Change Detection Methods: Case Studies in the United States Remote Sensing doi: 10.3390/rs10081184 Authors: Ian W. Housman Robert A. Chastain Mark V. Finco The Operational Remote Sensing (ORS) program leverages Landsat and MODIS data to detect forest disturbances across the conterminous United States (CONUS). The ORS program was initiated in 2014 as a collaboration between the US Department of Agriculture Forest Service Geospatial Technology and Applications Center (GTAC) and the Forest Health Assessment and Applied Sciences Team (FHAAST). The goal of the ORS program is to supplement the Insect and Disease Survey (IDS) and MODIS Real-Time Forest Disturbance (RTFD) programs with imagery-derived forest disturbance data that can be used to augment traditional IDS data. We developed three algorithms and produced ORS forest change products using both Landsat and MODIS data. These were assessed over Southern New England and the Rio Grande National Forest. Reference data were acquired using TimeSync to conduct an independent accuracy assessment of IDS, RTFD, and ORS products. Overall accuracy for all products ranged from 71.63% to 92.55% in the Southern New England study area and 63.48% to 79.13% in the Rio Grande National Forest study area. While the accuracies attained from the assessed products are somewhat low, these results are similar to comparable studies. Although many ORS products met or exceeded the overall accuracy of IDS and RTFD products, the differences were largely statistically insignificant at the 95% confidence interval. This demonstrates the current implementation of ORS is sufficient to provide data to augment IDS data.

Description: Sensors, Vol. 18, Pages 2448: Application-Aware Anomaly Detection of Sensor Measurements in Cyber-Physical Systems Sensors doi: 10.3390/s18082448 Authors: Amin Ghafouri Aron Laszka Koutsoukos Detection errors such as false alarms and undetected faults are inevitable in any practical anomaly detection system. These errors can create potentially significant problems in the underlying application. In particular, false alarms can result in performing unnecessary recovery actions while missed detections can result in failing to perform recovery which can lead to severe consequences. In this paper, we present an approach for application-aware anomaly detection (AAAD). Our approach takes an existing anomaly detector and configures it to minimize the impact of detection errors. The configuration of the detectors is chosen so that application performance in the presence of detection errors is as close as possible to the performance that could have been obtained if there were no detection errors. We evaluate our result using a case study of real-time control of traffic signals, and show that the approach outperforms significantly several baseline detectors.

Description: Sensors, Vol. 18, Pages 2444: Utilization of Inexpensive Carbon-Based Substrates as Platforms for Sensing Sensors doi: 10.3390/s18082444 Authors: Minh Tran Ahmad Fallatah Alison Whale Sonal Padalkar Gold (Au) has been widely used as a material for Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) due to its plasmonic properties, stability and biocompatibility. Conventionally for SERS application, Au is deposited on a rigid substrate such as glass or silicon. The rigid substrates severely limit analyte collection efficiency as well as portability. Here, flexible substrates like carbon cloth and carbon paper were investigated as potential substrate candidates for SERS application. The flexible substrates were coated with Au nanostructures by electrodeposition. Model analyte, Rhodamine 6G was utilized to demonstrate the capabilities of the flexible SERS substrates. Additionally, the pesticide paraoxon was also detected on the flexible SERS substrates as well as on a real sample like the apple fruit.

Description: Sensors, Vol. 18, Pages 2441: A Label-Free Fluorescent Assay for the Rapid and Sensitive Detection of Adenosine Deaminase Activity and Inhibition Sensors doi: 10.3390/s18082441 Authors: Xinxing Tang Kefeng Wu Han Zhao Mingjian Chen Changbei Ma Adenosine deaminase (ADA), able to catalyze the irreversible deamination of adenosine into inosine, can be found in almost all tissues and plays an important role in several diseases. In this work, we developed a label-free fluorescence method for the detection of adenosine deaminase activity and inhibition. In the presence of ADA, ATP has been shown to be hydrolyzed. The ATP aptamer was shown to form a G-quadruplex/thioflavin T (ThT) complex with ThT and exhibited an obvious fluorescence signal. However, the ATP aptamer could bind with ATP and exhibited a low fluorescence signal because of the absence of ADA. This assay showed high sensitivity to ADA with a detection limit of 1 U/L based on an SNR of 3 and got a good linear relationship within the range of 1–100 U/L with R2 = 0.9909. The LOD is lower than ADA cutoff value (4 U/L) in the clinical requirement and more sensitive than most of the reported methods. This technique exhibited high selectivity for ADA against hoGG I, UDG, RNase H and λexo. Moreover, this strategy was successfully applied for assaying the inhibition of ADA using erythro-9-(2-hydroxy-3-nonyl) adenine (EHNA) and, as such, demonstrated great potential for the future use in the diagnosis of ADA-relevant diseases, particularly in advanced drug development.

Description: Sensors, Vol. 18, Pages 2440: A Privacy Preserving Scheme for Nearest Neighbor Query Sensors doi: 10.3390/s18082440 Authors: Yuhang Wang Zhihong Tian Hongli Zhang Shen Su Wei Shi In recent years, location privacy concerns that arise when using the nearest neighbor query services have gained increasing attention, as such services have become pervasive in mobile social networks devices and the IoT environments. State-of-the-art privacy preservation schemes focus on the obfuscation of the location information, which has suffered from various privacy attacks and the tradeoff of the quality of service. By noticing the fact that the user’s location could be replaced by their surrounding wireless sensor infrastructures in proximity, in this paper, we propose a wireless sensor access point-based scheme for the nearest neighbor query, without using the location of the user. Then, a noise-addition-based method that preserves user’s location privacy was proposed. To further strengthen the adaptability of the approach to real-world environments, several performance-enhancing methods are introduced, including an R-tree-based Noise-Data Retrieval Algorithm (RNR), and a nearest neighbor query method based on our research. Both performance and security evaluations are conducted to validate our approach. The results show the effectiveness and the practicality of our work.

Description: Water, Vol. 10, Pages 993: Understanding Fundamental Phenomena Affecting the Water Conservation Technology Adoption of Residential Consumers Using Agent-Based Modeling Water doi: 10.3390/w10080993 Authors: Kambiz Rasoulkhani Brianne Logasa Maria Presa Reyes Ali Mostafavi More than one billion people will face water scarcity within the next ten years due to climate change and unsustainable water usage, and this number is only expected to grow exponentially in the future. At current water use rates, supply-side demand management is no longer an effective way to combat water scarcity. Instead, many municipalities and water agencies are looking to demand-side solutions to prevent major water loss. While changing conservation behavior is one demand-based strategy, there is a growing movement toward the adoption of water conservation technology as a way to solve water resource depletion. Installing technology into one’s household requires additional costs and motivation, creating a gap between the overall potential households that could adopt this technology, and how many actually do. This study identified and modeled a variety of demographic and household characteristics, social network influence, and external factors such as water price and rebate policy to see their effect on residential water conservation technology adoption. Using Agent-based Modeling and data obtained from the City of Miami Beach, the coupled effects of these factors were evaluated to examine the effectiveness of different pathways towards the adoption of more water conservation technologies. The results showed that income growth and water pricing structure, more so than any of the demographic or building characteristics, impacted household adoption of water conservation technologies. The results also revealed that the effectiveness of rebate programs depends on conservation technology cost and the affluence of the community. Rebate allocation did influence expensive technology adoption, with the potential to increase the adoption rate by 50%. Additionally, social network connections were shown to have an impact on the rate of adoption independent of price strategy or rebate status. These findings will lead the way for municipalities and other water agencies to more strategically implement interventions to encourage household technology adoption based on the characteristics of their communities.

Description: Algorithms, Vol. 11, Pages 114: Revisiting Chameleon Sequences in the Protein Data Bank Algorithms doi: 10.3390/a11080114 Authors: Mihaly Mezei The steady growth of the Protein Data Bank (PDB) suggests the periodic repetition of searches for sequences that form different secondary structures in different protein structures; these are called chameleon sequences. This paper presents a fast (nlog(n)) algorithm for such searches and presents the results on all protein structures in the PDB. The longest such sequence found consists of 20 residues.

Description: Algorithms, Vol. 11, Pages 115: Color-Based Image Retrieval Using Proximity Space Theory Algorithms doi: 10.3390/a11080115 Authors: Jing Wang Lidong Wang Xiaodong Liu Yan Ren Ye Yuan The goal of object retrieval is to rank a set of images by their similarity compared with a query image. Nowadays, content-based image retrieval is a hot research topic, and color features play an important role in this procedure. However, it is important to establish a measure of image similarity in advance. The innovation point of this paper lies in the following. Firstly, the idea of the proximity space theory is utilized to retrieve the relevant images between the query image and images of database, and we use the color histogram of an image to obtain the Top-ranked colors, which can be regard as the object set. Secondly, the similarity is calculated based on an improved dominance granule structure similarity method. Thus, we propose a color-based image retrieval method by using proximity space theory. To detect the feasibility of this method, we conducted an experiment on COIL-20 image database and Corel-1000 database. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed framework and its applications.

Description: Atmosphere, Vol. 9, Pages 294: The Influence of the North Atlantic Oscillation Index on Emergency Ambulance Calls for Elevated Arterial Blood Pressure Atmosphere doi: 10.3390/atmos9080294 Authors: Jone Vencloviene Agne Braziene Jurate Zaltauskaite Paulius Dobozinskas The North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) is the most prominent pattern of atmospheric variability over the middle and high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, especially during the cold season. It is found that “weather types” are associated with human health. It is possible that variations in NAO indices (NAOI) had additional impact on human health. We investigated the association between daily emergency ambulance calls (EACs) for exacerbation of essential hypertension and the NAOI by using Poisson regression, adjusting for season, weather variables and exposure to CO, particulate matter and ozone. An increased risk of EACs was associated with NAOI < −0.5 (Rate Ratio (RR) = 1.07, p = 0.013) and NAOI > 0.5 (RR = 1.06, p = 0.004) with a lag of 2 days as compared to −0.5 ≤ NAOI ≤ 0.5. The impact of NAOI > 0.5 was stronger during November-March (RR = 1.10, lag = 0, p = 0.026). No significant associations were found between the NAOI and EACs during 8:00–13:59. An elevated risk was associated during 14:00–21:59 with NAOI < −0.5 (RR = 1.09, p = 0.003) and NAOI > 0.5 (RR = 1.09, p = 0.019) and during 22:00–7:59 with NAOI < −0.5 (RR = 1.12, lag = 1, p = 0.001). The non-linear associations were found between the NAO and EACs. The different impact of the NAO was found during the periods November–March and April–October. The impact of the NAOI was not identical for different times of the day.

Description: Energies, Vol. 11, Pages 1966: Possible Interactions and Interferences of Copper, Chromium, and Arsenic during the Gasification of Contaminated Waste Wood Energies doi: 10.3390/en11081966 Authors: Shurooq Badri Al-Badri Ying Jiang Stuart Thomas Wagland A considerable proportion (about 64%) of biomass energy is produced from woody biomass (wood and its wastes). However, waste wood (WW) is very often contaminated with metal(loid) elements at concentrations leading to toxicity emissions and damages to facilities during thermal conversion. Therefore, procedures for preventing and/or alleviating the negative impacts of these elements require further development, particularly by providing informative and supportive information regarding the phase transformations of the metal(loid)s during thermal conversion processes. Although it is well known that phase transformation depends on different factors such as elements’ vaporization characteristics, operational conditions, and process configuration; however, the influences of reaction atmosphere composition in terms of interactions and interferences are rarely addressed. In response, since Cu, Cr, and As (CCA-elements) are the most regulated elements in woody biomass, this paper aims to explore the possible interactions and interferences among CCA-elements themselves and with Ca, Na, S, Cl, Fe, and Ni from reaction atmosphere composition perspectives during the gasification of contaminated WW. To do so, thermodynamic equilibrium calculations were performed for Boudouard reaction (BR) and partial combustion reaction (PCR) with temperature ranges of 0–1300 °C and 0–1800 °C, respectively, and both reactions were simulated under pressure conditions of 1, 20, and 40 atm. Refinement of the occurred interactions and interferences reveals that Ni-As interactions generate dominant species As2Ni5 and As8Ni11, which increase the solid–gaseous transformation temperature of As. Moreover, the interactions between Ca and Cr predominantly form C3Cr7; whereas the absence of Ca leads to Cr2Na2O4 causing instability in the Cr phase transformation.

Description: Energies, Vol. 11, Pages 1967: Dry Fuel Jet Half-Angle Measurements and Correlation for an Entrained Flow Gasifier Energies doi: 10.3390/en11081967 Authors: Francis Kus Robin Hughes Arturo Macchi Poupak Mehrani Marc Duchesne Reduced order models (ROMs) are increasingly applied to entrained flow gasification development due to reduced computational requirements relative to computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models. However, they require greater a posteriori knowledge of the reactor physics. A significant parameter influencing ROM outputs is the jet half-angle of the solid fuel and oxidant mixture in the gasifier. Thus, it is important to understand the geometry of the jet in the gasifier, and how it is dependent on operating parameters, such as solid and carrier gas flow rates. In this work, an existing model for jet half-angles, which considers the ratio of surrounding gas density to jet core density, is extended to a dry solids jet with impinging gas. The model is fitted to experimental jet half-angles. The jet half-angle of a non-reactive flow was measured using laser-sheet imaging for solid fluxes in the range of 460–880 kg/m2·s and carrier gas fluxes in the range of 43–90 kg/m2·s at the transport line outlet. Jet half-angles ranged from 5.6° to 11.3°, increasing with lower solid/gas loading ratios. CFD simulations of two reactive conditions, with solid and gas fluxes similar to experiments, were used to test the applicability of the proposed jet half-angle model.

Description: Water, Vol. 10, Pages 994: Predicting Lake Eutrophication Responses to Multiple Scenarios of Lake Restoration: A Three-Dimensional Modeling Approach Water doi: 10.3390/w10080994 Authors: Yanping Wang Weiping Hu Zhaoliang Peng Ye Zeng Karsten Rinke To improve the water quality and alleviate the eutrophication of Lake Yangchenghu, the third largest freshwater body within the Lake Taihu basin in China and an important source of drinking water, nutrient reduction strategies should be urgently addressed by decision makers, since virtually no improvement of water quality has taken place since the mid-1990s. Due to the lack of sufficient observation data and simulation results, a vertically compressed three-dimensional numerical model, the EcoTaihu model, was used to study the impact of three restoration measures on the water quality—namely, total nitrogen (TN), total phosphorus (TP) and biomass of phytoplankton (BP)—of Lake Yangchenghu: (i) total nutrient reduction, (ii) intensification of flushing by water transfer, and (iii) spatial adjustment of inflow channels. In particular, the spatial effects of the three restoration measures on the water quality were investigated. The results showed that the EcoTaihu model is applicable to other shallow lakes in China. The water quality responses to the different restoration scenarios showed significant spatio-temporal differences. The reduction of nutrient loads from inflows appeared to be the most effective measure for controlling the eutrophication and algal blooms in Lake Yangchenghu. The effectiveness of water transfer on the improvement of water quality for TN and TP was more influenced by the differences of nutrient concentrations between the transferred water and lake water, rather than flow rate, since no proportionate increase of improvement was observable in the case of larger transferred rates (60 m3 s−1). The spatial narrowing of inflowing rivers in the southwestern lake could preferentially improve the water quality in the southern bay of the western lake, but would also result in a deterioration trend of water quality in the total lake and drinking water abstraction areas.

Description: Energies, Vol. 11, Pages 1968: A Review on Recent Advances and Future Trends of Transformerless Inverter Structures for Single-Phase Grid-Connected Photovoltaic Systems Energies doi: 10.3390/en11081968 Authors: Kamran Zeb Imran Khan Waqar Uddin Muhammad Adil Khan P. Sathishkumar Tiago Davi Curi Busarello Iftikhar Ahmad H. J. Kim The research significance of various scientific aspects of photovoltaic (PV) systems has increased over the past decade. Grid-tied inverters the vital elements for the effective interface of Renewable Energy Resources (RER) and utility in the distributed generation system. Currently, Single-Phase Transformerless Grid-Connected Photovoltaic (SPTG-CPV) inverters (1–10 kW) are undergoing further developments, with new designs, and interest of the solar market. In comparison to the transformer (TR) Galvanic Isolation (GI)-based inverters, its advantageous features are lower cost, lighter weight, smaller volume, higher efficiency, and less complexity. In this paper, a review of SPTG-CPV inverters has been carried out. The basic operational principles of all SPTG-CPV inverters are presented in details for positive, negative, and zero cycles. A comprehensive analysis of each topology has been deliberated. A comparative assessment is also performed based on weaknesses, strengths, component ratings, efficiency, total harmonic distortion (THD), semiconductor device losses, and leakage current of various SPTG-CPV inverters schemes. Typical PV inverter structures and control schemes for grid connected three-phase system and single-phase systems are also discussed, described, and reviewed. Comparison of various industrial grids-connected PV inverters is also performed. Loss analysis is also performed for various topologies at 1 kW. Selection of appropriate topologies for their particular application is thoroughly presented. Then, discussion and forthcoming progress are emphasized. Lastly, the conclusions are presented. More than 100 research publications on the topic of SPTG-CPV inverter topologies, configurations, and control schematics along with the recent developments are thoroughly reviewed and classified for quick reference.

Description: Energies, Vol. 11, Pages 1964: Lightning Impulse Withstand of Natural Ester Liquid Energies doi: 10.3390/en11081964 Authors: Stephanie Haegele Farzaneh Vahidi Stefan Tenbohlen Kevin J. Rapp Alan Sbravati Due to the low biodegradability of mineral oil, intense research is conducted to define alternative liquids with comparable dielectric properties. Natural ester liquids are an alternative in focus; they are used increasingly as insulating liquid in distribution and power transformers. The main advantages of natural ester liquids compared to mineral oil are their good biodegradability and mainly high flash and fire points providing better fire safety. The dielectric strength of natural ester liquids is comparable to conventional mineral oil for homogeneous field arrangements. However, many studies showed a reduced dielectric strength for highly inhomogeneous field arrangements. This study investigates at which degree of inhomogeneity differences in breakdown voltage between the two insulating liquids occur. Investigations use lightning impulses with different electrode arrangements representing different field inhomogeneity factors and different gap distances. To ensure comparisons with existing transformer geometries, investigations are application-oriented using a transformer conductor model, which is compared to other studies. Results show significant differences in breakdown voltage from an inhomogeneity factor of 0.1 (highly inhomogeneous field) depending on the gap distance. Larger electrode gaps provide a larger inhomogeneity at which differences in breakdown voltages occur.

Description: Energies, Vol. 11, Pages 1963: Numerical Analysis to Determine Reliable One-Diode Model Parameters for Perovskite Solar Cells Energies doi: 10.3390/en11081963 Authors: Esteban Velilla Juan Bernardo Cano Keony Jimenez Jaime Valencia Daniel Ramirez Franklin Jaramillo With the aim to determine the photo-generated current, diode saturation current, ideality factor, shunt, and series resistances related to the one-diode model for p-i-n planar perovskite solar cells, reference cells with active area of approximately 1 cm2 and efficiencies ranging between 4.6 and 12.2% were fabricated and characterized at standard test conditions. To estimated feasible parameters, the mean square error between the I-V curve data of these cells and the circuital model results were minimized using a Genetic Algorithm combined with the Nelder-Mead method. When considering the optimization process solutions, a numerical sensitivity analysis of the error as a function of the estimated parameters was carried out. Based on the errors behavior that is showed graphically through maps, it was demonstrated that the set of parameters estimated for each cell were reliable, meaningful, and realistic, and being related to errors lower than 9.1 × 10−9. Therefore, these results can be considered as global solutions of the optimization process. Moreover, based on the lower errors obtained from the optimization process, it was possible to affirm that the one-diode model is suitable to model the I-V curve of perovskite solar cells. Finally, the estimated parameters suggested that the average ideality factor is close to 2 when the fill factor of the I-V curves is higher than 0.5. Lower fill factors corresponded to ideality that was higher than 3, linked to lower efficiencies, and high loses effects reflected on lower shunt resistances. Lower ideality factor of 1.4 corresponds to the best performing solar cells.

Description: Energies, Vol. 11, Pages 1962: Energy Loss Allocation in Smart Distribution Systems with Electric Vehicle Integration Energies doi: 10.3390/en11081962 Authors: Paulo M. De Oliveira-De Jesus Mario A. Rios Gustavo A. Ramos This paper presents a three-phase loss allocation procedure for distribution networks. The key contribution of the paper is the computation of specific marginal loss coefficients (MLCs) per bus and per phase expressly considering non-linear load models for Electric Vehicles (EV). The method was applied in a unbalanced 12.47 kV feeder with 12,780 households and 1000 EVs under peak and off-peak load conditions. Results obtained were also compared with the traditional roll-in embedded allocation procedure (pro rata) using non-linear and standard constant power models. Results show the influence of the non-linear load model in the energy losses allocated. This result highlights the importance of considering an appropriate EV load model to appraise the overall losses encouraging the use and further development of the methodology

Description: Entropy, Vol. 20, Pages 564: A New Fractional-Order Chaotic System with Different Families of Hidden and Self-Excited Attractors Entropy doi: 10.3390/e20080564 Authors: Jesus Munoz-Pacheco Ernesto Zambrano-Serrano Christos Volos Sajad Jafari Jacques Kengne Karthikeyan Rajagopal In this work, a new fractional-order chaotic system with a single parameter and four nonlinearities is introduced. One striking feature is that by varying the system parameter, the fractional-order system generates several complex dynamics: self-excited attractors, hidden attractors, and the coexistence of hidden attractors. In the family of self-excited chaotic attractors, the system has four spiral-saddle-type equilibrium points, or two nonhyperbolic equilibria. Besides, for a certain value of the parameter, a fractional-order no-equilibrium system is obtained. This no-equilibrium system presents a hidden chaotic attractor with a `hurricane’-like shape in the phase space. Multistability is also observed, since a hidden chaotic attractor coexists with a periodic one. The chaos generation in the new fractional-order system is demonstrated by the Lyapunov exponents method and equilibrium stability. Moreover, the complexity of the self-excited and hidden chaotic attractors is analyzed by computing their spectral entropy and Brownian-like motions. Finally, a pseudo-random number generator is designed using the hidden dynamics.

Description: Entropy, Vol. 20, Pages 561: Statistical Significance of Earth’s Electric and Magnetic Field Variations Preceding Earthquakes in Greece and Japan Revisited Entropy doi: 10.3390/e20080561 Authors: Nicholas Sarlis By analyzing the seismicity in a new time domain, termed natural time, we recently found that the change of the entropy under time reversal (Physica A2018, 506, 625–634) and the relevant complexity measures (Entropy2018, 20, 477) exhibit pronounced variations before the occurrence of the M8.2 earthquake in Mexico on 7 September 2017. Here, the statistical significance of precursory phenomena associated with other physical properties and in particular the anomalous variations observed in the Earth’s electric and magnetic fields before earthquakes in different regions of the world and in particular in Greece since 1980s and Japan during 2001–2010 are revisited (the latter, i.e., the magnetic field variations are alternatively termed ultra low frequency (ULF) seismo-magnetic phenomena). Along these lines we employ modern statistical tools like the event coincidence analysis and the receiver operating characteristics technique. We find that these precursory variations are far beyond chance and in addition their lead times fully agree with the experimental findings in Greece since the 1980s.

Description: Entropy, Vol. 20, Pages 563: A New Underwater Acoustic Signal Denoising Technique Based on CEEMDAN, Mutual Information, Permutation Entropy, and Wavelet Threshold Denoising Entropy doi: 10.3390/e20080563 Authors: Yuxing Li Yaan Li Xiao Chen Jing Yu Hong Yang Long Wang Owing to the complexity of the ocean background noise, underwater acoustic signal denoising is one of the hotspot problems in the field of underwater acoustic signal processing. In this paper, we propose a new technique for underwater acoustic signal denoising based on complete ensemble empirical mode decomposition with adaptive noise (CEEMDAN), mutual information (MI), permutation entropy (PE), and wavelet threshold denoising. CEEMDAN is an improved algorithm of empirical mode decomposition (EMD) and ensemble EMD (EEMD). First, CEEMDAN is employed to decompose noisy signals into many intrinsic mode functions (IMFs). IMFs can be divided into three parts: noise IMFs, noise-dominant IMFs, and real IMFs. Then, the noise IMFs can be identified on the basis of MIs of adjacent IMFs; the other two parts of IMFs can be distinguished based on the values of PE. Finally, noise IMFs were removed, and wavelet threshold denoising is applied to noise-dominant IMFs; we can obtain the final denoised signal by combining real IMFs and denoised noise-dominant IMFs. Simulation experiments were conducted by using simulated data, chaotic signals, and real underwater acoustic signals; the proposed denoising technique performs better than other existing denoising techniques, which is beneficial to the feature extraction of underwater acoustic signal.

Description: Geosciences, Vol. 8, Pages 279: Detection of Stones in Marine Habitats Combining Simultaneous Hydroacoustic Surveys Geosciences doi: 10.3390/geosciences8080279 Authors: Svenja Papenmeier H. Christian Hass Exposed stones in sandy sublittoral environments are hotspots for marine biodiversity, especially for benthic communities. The detection of single stones is principally possible using sidescan-sonar (SSS) backscatter data. The data resolution has to be high to visualize the acoustic shadows of the stones. Otherwise, stony substrates will not be differentiable from other high backscatter substrates (e.g., gravel). Acquiring adequate sonar data and identifying stones in backscatter images is time consuming because it usually requires visual-manual procedures. To develop a more efficient identification and demarcation procedure of stone fields, sidescan sonar and parametric echo sound data were recorded within the marine protected area of “Sylt Outer Reef” (German Bight, North Sea). The investigated area (~5.900 km2) is characterized by dispersed heterogeneous moraine and marine deposits. Data from parametric sediment echo sounder indicate hyperbolas at the sediment surface in stony areas, which can easily be exported. By combining simultaneous recorded low backscatter data and parametric single beam data, stony grounds were demarcated faster, less complex and reproducible from gravelly substrates indicating similar high backscatter in the SSS data.

Description: IJERPH, Vol. 15, Pages 1605: An Analysis of Reported Dangerous Incidents, Exposures, and Near Misses amongst Army Soldiers International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health doi: 10.3390/ijerph15081605 Authors: Ben Schram Robin Orr Timothy Rigby Rodney Pope Occupational health and safety incidents occurring in the military context are of great concern to personnel and commanders. Incidents such as “dangerous incidents”, “exposures”, and “near misses” (as distinct from injuries, illnesses, and fatalities) indicate serious health and safety risks faced by military personnel, even if they do not cause immediate harm. These risks may give rise to harm in the future, if not adequately addressed, and in some cases the incidents may cause latent harm. The purpose of this study was to ascertain the rates and patterns of incidents of these types reported by full time (ARA) and part time (ARES) Australian Army personnel. A retrospective cohort study was performed using self-reported incident data from the Workplace Health, Safety, Compensation and Reporting (WHSCAR) database over a two-year period. Data were analysed descriptively. Of 3791 such incidents, 3636 (96 percent) occurred in ARA and 155 (4 percent) in ARES personnel, somewhat consistent with the proportions of total army person-years served in each (ARA 93 percent; ARES 7 percent). In ARA, 84 percent of these incident types were exposures, 14 percent near misses, and 2 percent dangerous incidents. In ARES, 55 percent of incidents were exposures, 38 percent near misses, and 7 percent dangerous incidents. Soldiers at the rank of ‘private’ experienced the highest rates of these incident types, in both ARA and ARES. Driving gave rise to more near misses than any other activity, in both populations. Exposures to chemicals and sounds were more common in the ARA than ARES. The ARES reported higher proportions of vehicle near misses and multiple mechanism dangerous incidents than the ARA. The findings of this study can usefully inform development of risk mitigation strategies for dangerous incidents, exposures, and near misses in army personnel.

Description: IJERPH, Vol. 15, Pages 1604: Chronic Disease, Disability, Psychological Distress and Suicide Ideation among Rural Elderly: Results from a Population Survey in Shandong International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health doi: 10.3390/ijerph15081604 Authors: Jing Zhu Lingzhong Xu Long Sun Jiajia Li Wenzhe Qin Gan Ding Qian Wang Jiao Zhang Su Xie Zihang Yu Objective: Suicide is a major public health and social problem in contemporary societies. Previous studies showed that the older the seniors were, the more likely it was that they would experience disability, chronic disease, or both. The objective of this study was to examine the joint effects of chronic disease and physical disability on suicide ideation while controlling for psychological distress among the rural elderly living in Shandong Province, China. Method: A total of 5514 rural elderly individuals (60+) living in Shandong Province, China were included in this study. Suicidal ideation was assessed by using questions from the National Comorbidity Survey (NCS). Multiple logistic analyses were performed to examine the factors associated with suicide ideation. A path analysis was conducted to test the direct and indirect effects of chronic disease and of activity of daily living (ADL) limitation on suicide ideation while controlling for psychological distress. Results: The prevalence of suicide ideation among the rural elderly in Shandong, China was 11.0%. Psychological distress had the strongest direct (β = 0.392) and total effect (β = 0.392), chronic disease (β = −0.034; β = −0.063) had both direct and indirect impacts, and ADL (β = 0.091) had indirect impacts on suicide ideation. Psychological distress was a mediator between chronic disease, ADL limitation, and suicide ideation. Conclusions: Psychological distress was the greatest influencing factor of suicide ideation among the rural elderly, followed by chronic disease and disability. Effective intervention measures should be taken to facilitate the early detection of psychological distress in clinical practice among the rural elderly.

Description: IJERPH, Vol. 15, Pages 1601: Risk of Appendicitis among Children with Different Piped Water Supply: A Nationwide Population-Based Study International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health doi: 10.3390/ijerph15081601 Authors: Hao-Ming Li Shi-Zuo Liu Ying-Kai Huang Yuan-Chih Su Chia-Hung Kao Appendicitis is a common surgical condition for children. However, environmental effects, such as piped water supply, on pediatric appendicitis risk remain unclear. This longitudinal, nationwide, cohort study aimed to compare the risk of appendicitis among children with different levels of piped water supply. Using data from Taiwan Water Resource Agency and National Health Insurance Research Database, we identified 119,128 children born in 1996–2010 from areas of the lowest piped water supply (prevalence 51.21% to 63.06%) as the study cohort; additional 119,128 children of the same period in areas of the highest piped water supply (prevalence 98.97% to 99.63%) were selected as the controls. Both cohorts were propensity-score matched by baseline variables. We calculated the hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) of appendicitis in the study cohort compared to the controls by Cox proportional hazards regression. The study cohort had a raised overall incidence rates of appendicitis compared to the control cohort (12.8 vs. 8.7 per 10,000 person-years). After covariate adjustment, the risk of appendicitis was significantly increased in the study cohort (adjusted HR = 1.46, 95% CI: 1.35, 1.58, p < 0.001). Subgroup and sensitivity analyses showed consistent results that children with low piped water supply had a higher risk of appendicitis than those with high piped water supply. This study demonstrated that children with low piped water supply were at an increased risk of appendicitis. Enhancement of piped water availability in areas lacking adequate, secure, and sanitized water supply may protect children against appendicitis.

Description: IJERPH, Vol. 15, Pages 1600: Alternative Risk Assessment for Dangerous Chemicals in South Korea Regulation: Comparing Three Modeling Programs International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health doi: 10.3390/ijerph15081600 Authors: Hyo Eun Lee Jong-Ryeul Sohn Sang-Hoon Byeon Seok J. Yoon Kyong Whan Moon Unlike other countries, the Korean chemical industry does not clearly distinguish between industrial sites and residential areas. The 2012 Gumi Hydrogen Fluoride Accident revealed that chemical accidents could cause damage to nearby residents. Accordingly, the Chemicals Control Act was enacted in 2015, which requested industrial sites using chemicals to perform a risk assessment for all chemical facilities and to distribute the results to the local residents and governments. Industrial businesses had the responsibility of warning the local residents. In this study, two programs (Areal Location of Hazardous Atmospheres (ALOHA), Process Hazard Analysis Software Tool (PHAST)) were compared with Korea Off-site Risk Assessment Supporting Tool (KORA), which is the current representative risk assessment program used in Korea Chemicals Control Act. The five chemical substances (nitric acid, hydrogen chloride, ammonia, sulfuric acid, and formaldehyde) most commonly involved in chemical accidents were selected. The range of influence of ERPG-2 (Emergency Response Planning Guideline) on chemical accidents was modeled and the results compared. ALOHA was found to be the most suitable program for the determination of toxicity for nitrate acid and ammonia, KORA for hydrogen chloride and sulfuric acid, and PHAST for formaldehyde. To maximize the safety of many local residents and to prepare for chemical accidents, risk assessments should be conducted using a variety of risk assessment programs, and the worst-case damage radius should be determined.

Description: Materials, Vol. 11, Pages 1308: Observation of Morphology Changes of Fine Eutectic Si Phase in Al-10%Si Cast Alloy during Heat Treatment by Synchrotron Radiation Nanotomography Materials doi: 10.3390/ma11081308 Authors: Shougo Furuta Masakazu Kobayashi Kentaro Uesugi Akihisa Takeuchi Tomoya Aoba Hiromi Miura A series of three-dimensional morphology changes of fine eutectic Si-particles during heat treatment have been investigated in Self-modified and Sr-modified Al-10%Si cast alloys by means of synchrotron radiation nanotomography utilizing a Fresnel zone plate and a Zernike phase plate in this study. The coral-like shape particles observed in Sr-modified cast alloy fragmented at branch and neck during heat treatment at 773 K. The fragmentation occurred up to 900 s. After that, the fragmented particles grew and spheroidized by Ostwald ripening. On the other hand, rod-like shaped eutectic Si-particles observed in self-modified cast alloy were larger in size compared with the particle size in Sr-modified cast alloy. Separation of eutectic Si-particles in Self-modified cast alloy occurred up to approximately 900 s, which was similar tendency to that in Sr-modified cast alloy. However, it was found that the morphology change behavior was very complex in rod-like shape Si-particles. The three-dimensional morphology changes of fine eutectic Si-particles in both cast alloys, specifically fragmentation and spheroidizing, can be connected to changes in mechanical properties.

Description: Materials, Vol. 11, Pages 1306: Pattern-Dependent Mammalian Cell (Vero) Morphology on Tantalum/Silicon Oxide 3D Nanocomposites Materials doi: 10.3390/ma11081306 Authors: Hassan I. Moussa Megan Logan Wing Y. Chan Kingsley Wong Zheng Rao Marc G. Aucoin Ting Y. Tsui The primary goal of this work was to investigate the resulting morphology of a mammalian cell deposited on three-dimensional nanocomposites constructed of tantalum and silicon oxide. Vero cells were used as a model. The nanocomposite materials contained comb structures with equal-width trenches and lines. High-resolution scanning electron microscopy and fluorescence microscopy were used to image the alignment and elongation of cells. Cells were sensitive to the trench widths, and their observed behavior could be separated into three different regimes corresponding to different spreading mechanism. Cells on fine structures (trench widths of 0.21 to 0.5 μm) formed bridges across trench openings. On larger trenches (from 1 to 10 μm), cells formed a conformal layer matching the surface topographical features. When the trenches were larger than 10 μm, the majority of cells spread like those on blanket tantalum films; however, a significant proportion adhered to the trench sidewalls or bottom corner junctions. Pseudopodia extending from the bulk of the cell were readily observed in this work and a minimum effective diameter of ~50 nm was determined for stable adhesion to a tantalum surface. This sized structure is consistent with the ability of pseudopodia to accommodate ~4–6 integrin molecules.

Description: Materials, Vol. 11, Pages 1307: In Situ DRIFTS Studies of NH3-SCR Mechanism over V2O5-CeO2/TiO2-ZrO2 Catalysts for Selective Catalytic Reduction of NOx Materials doi: 10.3390/ma11081307 Authors: Yaping Zhang Xiupeng Yue Tianjiao Huang Kai Shen Bin Lu TiO2-ZrO2 (Ti-Zr) carrier was prepared by a co-precipitation method and 1 wt. % V2O5 and 0.2 CeO2 (the Mole ratio of Ce to Ti-Zr) was impregnated to obtain the V2O5-CeO2/TiO2-ZrO2 catalyst for the selective catalytic reduction of NOx by NH3. The transient activity tests and the in situ DRIFTS (diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform spectroscopy) analyses were employed to explore the NH3-SCR (selective catalytic reduction) mechanism systematically, and by designing various conditions of single or mixing feeding gas and pre-treatment ways, a possible pathway of NOx reduction was proposed. It was found that NH3 exhibited a competitive advantage over NO in its adsorption on the catalyst surface, and could form an active intermediate substance of -NH2. More acid sites and intermediate reaction species (-NH2), at lower temperatures, significantly promoted the SCR activity of the V2O5-0.2CeO2/TiO2-ZrO2 catalyst. The presence of O2 could promote the conversion of NO to NO2, while NO2 was easier to reduce. The co-existence of NH3 and O2 resulted in the NH3 adsorption strength being lower, as compared to tests without O2, since O2 could occupy a part of the active site. Due to CeO2’s excellent oxygen storage-release capacity, NH3 adsorption was weakened, in comparison to the 1 wt. % V2O5-0.2CeO2/TiO2-ZrO2 catalyst. If NOx were to be pre-adsorbed in the catalyst, the formation of nitrate and nitro species would be difficult to desorb, which would greatly hinder the SCR reaction. All the findings concluded that NH3-SCR worked mainly through the Eley-Rideal (E-R) mechanism.

Description: Sensors, Vol. 18, Pages 2450: Features of X-Band Radar Backscattering Simulation Based on the Ocean Environmental Parameters in China Offshore Seas Sensors doi: 10.3390/s18082450 Authors: Tao Wu Zhensen Wu Jiaji Wu Gwanggil Jeon Liwen Ma The X-band marine radar has been employed as a remote sensing tool for sea state monitoring. However, there are few literatures about sea spectra considering both the wave parameters and short wind-wave spectra in China Offshore Seas, which are of theoretical and practical significance. Based on the wave parameters acquired from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts reanalysis data (ERA-Interim reanalysis data) during 36 months from 2015 to 2017, a finite depth sea spectrum considering both wind speeds and ocean environmental parameters is established in this study. The wave spectrum is then built into a modified two-scale model, which can be related to the ocean environmental parameters (wind speeds and wave parameters). The final results are the mean backscattering coefficients over the variety of sea states at a given wind speed. As the model predicts, the monthly maximum backscattering coefficients in different seas change slowly (within 4 dB). In addition, the differences of the backscattering coefficients in different seas are quite small during azimuthal angles of 0° to 90° and 270° to 360° with a relative error within 1.5 dB at low wind speed (5 m/s) and 2 dB at high wind speed (10 m/s). With the method in the paper, a corrected result from the experiment can be achieved based on the relative error analysis in different conditions.

Description: Sustainability, Vol. 10, Pages 2659: Research on the Influence of Real Estate Development on Private Investment: A Case Study of China Sustainability doi: 10.3390/su10082659 Authors: Jiangtao Li Jianyue Ji Huiwen Guo Lei Chen Private investment in China, as a developing country, is an important source of financing for Chinese SMEs (Small and Medium-Size Enterprises) and has played a major role in the development of the real economy. However, in 2016, the growth rate of private investment in China dropped from 10.18% to 3.17%, which had a significant impact on the real economy. At the same time, China’s real estate market has developed rapidly, attracting a large number of capital inflows. The relationship between real estate development and private investment in China is worth considering. This study first, theoretically analyzes the influence mechanism of real estate industry on private investment, pointing out that within a modest development range, the development of real estate industry can promote private investment through the industrial linkage, urbanization, and balance sheet effects, but when real estate is overdeveloped, it has an inhibitory effect on private investment through vampire effect, raising costs and reducing demand effect. In other words, real estate has different effects on private investment in different developmental periods. Therefore, there is a non-linear relationship between the two variables. Second, the relevant provincial panel data of 31 provinces in mainland China from 2003 to 2015 were selected. Using the dynamic panel system Generalized Method of Moments (GMM), this study estimated the correlation between real estate development and private investment. The empirical results showed that the development of the real estate industry has a significant impact on the level of private investment; the two showing an “inverted U-shaped” relationship. At present, in some provinces in China, the real estate industry has exceeded the inverted U-shaped threshold. To boost the vitality of private investment in promoting real economic growth, the development of the real estate industry should be restricted, and house prices should be properly regulated.

Description: Sustainability, Vol. 10, Pages 2657: Numerical Thermal Characterization and Performance Metrics of Building Envelopes Containing Phase Change Materials for Energy-Efficient Buildings Sustainability doi: 10.3390/su10082657 Authors: Mingli Li Guoqing Gui Zhibin Lin Long Jiang Hong Pan Xingyu Wang Residential and commercial buildings consume nearly 40 percent of total USA energy use and account for one-third of total greenhouse gas emissions. The challenges are how to effectively promote energy efficiency in buildings to respond to the high financial burden of energy consumption, while reducing pollution. Phase change materials (PCMs) have been used as passive energy storage for building systems. Along this vein, this study aims to numerically elucidate the design parameters of building envelopes strengthened by PCM layers, and unveil their impacts on building energy efficiency. Critical design variables, such as the thickness of the PCM layer, the latent heat of PCMs, or melting temperature of PCMs were selected for a parametric study, while performance metrics were used to assess building efficiency. Results revealed that PCM-enabled building walls exhibited different levels of improvement, in terms of reduction of peak temperature and temperature swings. Among the variables, the selection of the proper melting point for a PCM was identified as the most crucial parameter for determining building energy efficiency, while the heat of fusion was also observed as a critical property of PCM for building potential. Findings also demonstrated that the placement of the PCM near the interior wall surface could achieve higher efficiency, as compared to other cases. Results also showed that the thermal conductivity of PCM has a minimum contribution to energy storage capacity.

Description: Sensors, Vol. 18, Pages 2451: Interaction of Lamb Wave Modes with Weak Material Nonlinearity: Generation of Symmetric Zero-Frequency Mode Sensors doi: 10.3390/s18082451 Authors: Xiaoqiang Sun Xiangyan Ding Feilong Li Shijie Zhou Yaolu Liu Ning Hu Zhongqing Su Youxuan Zhao Jun Zhang Mingxi Deng The symmetric zero-frequency mode induced by weak material nonlinearity during Lamb wave propagation is explored for the first time. We theoretically confirm that, unlike the second harmonic, phase-velocity matching is not required to generate the zero-frequency mode and its signal is stronger than those of the nonlinear harmonics conventionally used, for example, the second harmonic. Experimental and numerical verifications of this theoretical analysis are conducted for the primary S0 mode wave propagating in an aluminum plate. The existence of a symmetric zero-frequency mode is of great significance, probably triggering a revolutionary progress in the field of non-destructive evaluation and structural health monitoring of the early-stage material nonlinearity based on the ultrasonic Lamb waves.

Description: Sustainability, Vol. 10, Pages 2655: Substructure Hybrid Simulation Boundary Technique Based on Beam/Column Inflection Points Sustainability doi: 10.3390/su10082655 Authors: Zaixian Chen Xueyuan Yan Hao Wang Xingji Zhu Billie F. Spencer Compatibility among substructures is an issue for hybrid simulation. Traditionally, the structure model is regarded as the idealized shear model. The equilibrium and compatibility of the axial and rotational direction at the substructure boundary are neglected. To improve the traditional boundary technique, this paper presents a novel substructure hybrid simulation boundary technique based on beam/column inflection points, which can effectively avoid the complex operation for realizing the bending moment at the boundary by using the features of the inflection point where the bending moment need not be simulated in the physical substructure. An axial displacement prediction technique and the equivalent force control method are used to realize the proposed method. The numerical simulation test scheme for the different boundary techniques was designed to consider three factors: (i) the different structural layers; (ii) the line stiffness ratio of the beam to column; and (iii) the peak acceleration. The simulation results for a variety of numerical tests show that the proposed technique shows better performance than the traditional technique, demonstrating its potential in improving HS test accuracy. Finally, the accuracy and feasibility of the proposed boundary technique is verified experimentally through the substructure hybrid simulation tests of a six-story steel frame model.

Description: Minerals, Vol. 8, Pages 326: Hydrotalcite and Hydrocalumite in Mortar Binders from the Medieval Castle of Portilla (Álava, North Spain): Accurate Mineralogical Control to Achieve More Reliable Chronological Ages Minerals doi: 10.3390/min8080326 Authors: Graciela Ponce-Antón Luis Angel Ortega Maria Cruz Zuluaga Ainhoa Alonso-Olazabal Jose Luis Solaun Mortars from different stratigraphic units at Portilla Castle (Alava, North Spain) have been analyzed for mineralogical characterization before radiocarbon dating. The mortar binder at Portilla Castle is composed not only of neoformation calcite but also of double-layered hydroxide (LDH) minerals such as hydrotalcite and hydrocalumite. The mineralogy of several fractions of the binder has been analyzed to determine the granulometric distribution of minerals in the binder. The continuous monitoring of mineralogy during the extraction of different grain size fractions has been performed by using a scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and thermogravimetric analyses (TGA). Hydrotalcite and hydrocalumite-bearing mortar binders give older ages than expected since they introduce dead carbon into the system.

Description: Atmosphere, Vol. 9, Pages 299: The Effect of Nonlocal Vehicle Restriction Policy on Air Quality in Shanghai Atmosphere doi: 10.3390/atmos9080299 Authors: Junjie Li Xiao-Bing Li Bai Li Zhong-Ren Peng In recent years, road space rationing policies have been increasingly applied as a traffic management solution to tackle congestion and traffic emission problems in big cities. Existing studies on the effect of traffic policy on air quality have mainly focused on the odd–even day traffic restriction policy or one-day-per-week restriction policy. There are few studies paying attention to the effect of nonlocal license plate restrictions on air quality in Shanghai. Restrictions toward nonlocal vehicles usually prohibit vehicles with nonlocal license plates from entering certain urban areas or using certain subsets of the road network (e.g., the elevated expressway) during specific time periods on workdays. To investigate the impact of such a policy on the residents’ exposure to pollutants, CO concentration and Air Quality Index (AQI) were compared during January and February in 2015, 2016 and 2017. Regression discontinuity (RD) was used to test the validity of nonlocal vehicle restriction on mitigating environmental pollution. Several conclusions can be made: (1) CO concentration was higher on ground-level roads on the restriction days than those in the nonrestriction days; (2) the extension of the restriction period exposed the commuters to high pollution for a longer time on the ground, which will do harm to them; and (3) the nonlocal vehicle restriction policy did play a role in improving the air quality in Shanghai when extending the evening rush period. Additionally, some suggestions are mentioned in order to improve air quality and passenger health and safety.

Description: Atmosphere, Vol. 9, Pages 297: Sources Profiles of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) Measured in a Typical Industrial Process in Wuhan, Central China Atmosphere doi: 10.3390/atmos9080297 Authors: Longjiao Shen Ping Xiang Shengwen Liang Wentai Chen Ming Wang Sihua Lu Zuwu Wang Industrial emission is an important source of ambient volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China. We collected 53 VOC samples from petrochemical, surface coating, electronic manufacturing, and gasoline evaporation using stainless canisters to develop localized source profiles. Concentrations of 86 VOC species, including hydrocarbons, halocarbons, and oxygenated VOCs, were quantified by a gas chromatography–flame ionization detection/mass spectrometry system. Alkanes were the major constituents observed in the source profile from the petrochemical industry. Aromatics (79.5~81.4%) were the largest group in auto-painting factories, while oxygenated VOCs (82.0%) and heavy alkanes (68.7%) were dominant in gravure printing and offset printing factories, respectively. Acetone was the largest contributor and the most frequently monitored species in printed circuit board (PCB) manufacturing, while VOC species emitted from integrated chip (IC) were characterized by high contents of isopropanol (56.4–98.3%) and acetone (30.8%). Chemical compositions from vapor of gasoline 92#, 93#, and 98# were almost identical. Alkanes were the dominant VOC group, with i-pentane being the most abundant species (31.4–37.7%), followed by n-butane and n-pentane. However, high loadings of heavier alkanes were observed in the profile of diesel evaporation.

Description: Atmosphere, Vol. 9, Pages 298: Chemical Composition and Sources of Marine Aerosol over the Western North Pacific Ocean in Winter Atmosphere doi: 10.3390/atmos9080298 Authors: Hong-Wei Xiao Hua-Yun Xiao Chun-Yan Shen Zhong-Yi Zhang Ai-Min Long Atmospheric deposition of long-range transported continental substances from natural and anthropogenic sources affects biogeochemical processes in marine systems. Emissions of sea spray contribute aerosol particles to the marine atmosphere. Despite the importance of continental dispersion and atmospheric processes involving aerosol particles within remote marine atmosphere, knowledge of the sources of various water-soluble ions is limited because of insufficient observations. Concentrations of Total suspended particulates (TSPs) and major inorganic ions (Cl−, Na+, SO42−, Mg2+, Ca2+, K+, NO3−, NH4+), as well as organic nitrogen (ON-N) values, were measured in marine aerosol collected over the western north Pacific (WNP) during a cruise from 3 December 2014 to 13 March 2015. Aerosol samples were analyzed to determine their chemical characteristics and a source apportionment for this region and the continental influence on the open ocean when air masses are from continent in winter. TSP mass concentrations ranged from 14.1 to 136.0 μg/m3 with an average of 44.8 ± 28.1 μg/m3. Concentrations of TSPs and major ions were higher near the coast (close to Qingdao and Xiamen) and lower over the open ocean. The total mass of inorganic ions and organic nitrogen accounted for 51.1% of the total TSP. Cl− had highest concentrations among the major inorganic ions, followed by SO42−, NO3−, Mg2+, Ca2+, K+, and NH4+, respectively. However, Cl− showed a deficit relative to Na+ in most samples, likely related to heterogeneous reactions within the marine atmosphere. Most SO42−, Mg2+, Ca2+, and K+ were from sea salt, while other major ions were from continental sources. The non-sea-salt (nss) fractions of Ca2+, Mg2+ and K+ were derived from continental crust, while nss-SO42− and NO3− were derived from anthropogenic sources. ON had several sources, including reactions of NOx with volatile organic compounds (anthropogenic sources) or NH3 with gaseous hydrocarbons, as well as crustal and marine biogenic sources.

Description: Sustainability, Vol. 10, Pages 2666: Understanding the Spontaneous Spreading of Stone Bunds in Ethiopia: Implications for Sustainable Land Management Sustainability doi: 10.3390/su10082666 Authors: Meskerem Abi Aad Kessler Peter Oosterveer Degefa Tolossa This study deals with the spontaneous spreading of stone bunds in the central Ethiopian highlands, i.e., the adoption and implementation of stone bunds by farmers on their own initiative. The study tests the hypothesis that spontaneously implemented stone bunds, as compared to stone bunds implemented by mass mobilization campaigns, are more integrated with other land management practices and lead to higher yields. Data are collected in the Girar Jarso woreda through field observations and household surveys. Descriptive statistics are used to analyze and test the data at 1% and 5% probability levels. Results show that stone bunds are spontaneously implemented mainly on farmlands located nearby the homesteads where farmers perceive severe erosion, poor soil fertility and steep slope gradients. Compared to stone bunds implemented by mass mobilization, spontaneously implemented stone bunds are perceived as better maintained, more frequently modified to fit the farming system and better integrated with soil fertility management practices, such as applying fertilizer, compost and manure. Particularly, this better integration with other practices is very important, because it makes stone bunds more effective in reducing erosion, leading to beneficial effects on soil moisture and soil productivity, as perceived by farmers. The study, therefore, suggests that the mass mobilization campaign should use a more participatory and integrated approach, in which there is ample space for awareness raising and learning concerning the benefits of integrated farm management, and in which farmers themselves have a leading role in the decision on where to construct stone bunds. Such a strategy will lead to more sustainable impact on soil fertility and food security than the current top-down intervention approach.

Description: Forests, Vol. 9, Pages 464: Payment for Targeted Grazing: Integrating Local Shepherds into Wildfire Prevention Forests doi: 10.3390/f9080464 Authors: Elsa Varela Elena Górriz-Mifsud Jabier Ruiz-Mirazo Feliu López-i-Gelats Wildfires are one of the most prominent risks for Mediterranean forests, reducing the flow of ecosystem services and representing a hazard for infrastructure and human lives. Several wildfire prevention programs in southern Europe are currently incorporating extensive livestock grazers in fire prevention activities to reduce the high costs of mechanical clearance. Among these the Andalusian network of grazed fuel breaks, the so-called RAPCA program, stands out for its dimension and stability over time. RAPCA currently works with 220 local shepherds who, with their guided flocks maintain low biomass levels in almost 6000 ha of fuel breaks in public forests to meet fire prevention standards. This work analyses the institutional design and performance of the RAPCA payment scheme under a payment for environmental services (PES) framework. Results show effectiveness of the payment scheme while efficiency is achieved through savings relative to the mainstream mechanized biomass removal, as well as through reduced information asymmetry. High-level and stable political commitment has been crucial for the emergence and consolidation of RAPCA. Moreover, key intermediaries and sound monitoring practices increased levels of trust amongst involved actors. Beneficial side-effects include social recognition of shepherds’ activities and reduction of their friction with forest managers.

Description: Energies, Vol. 11, Pages 1970: Increase in Robustness against Effects of Coil Misalignment on Electrical Parameters Using Magnetic Material Layer in Planar Coils of Wireless Power Transfer Transformer Energies doi: 10.3390/en11081970 Authors: Joao Victor Pinon Pereira Dias Masafumi Miyatake Utilization of wireless power transfer in light rail transits is seen as one solution for electrification of lines. The main advantage of this supply system is the reduction of installation; moreover, the alignment between the transmitter coil in the track and the receiver coil in the train should be perfect in order not to affect the power transfer. To reduce the effects of misalignment on the input and output electric parameters of the system, a new planar core and coil design, called hybrid intercore coil, is proposed. The proposed design uses a magnetic material layer between the windings in the inner half of the coil to create a non-uniform magnetic field distribution, which makes the system more robust against the effects of coil misalignment on the system current and voltage. Simulations with finite element method software were conducted to compare designs. The results show that the proposed design is less susceptible to the effects of misalignment and is more efficient. Prototype cores were constructed to verify the simulation results. Measurements show a smaller input overcurrent and output overvoltage when operating in resonance mode. The proposed design reduced the effects of coil misalignment on electrical parameters.

Description: Energies, Vol. 11, Pages 1971: A New Lumped Parameter Model for Natural Gas Pipelines in State Space Energies doi: 10.3390/en11081971 Authors: Kai Wen Zijie Xia Weichao Yu Jing Gong Many algorithms and numerical methods, such as implicit and explicit finite differences and the method of characteristics, have been applied for transient flow in gas pipelines. From a computational point of view, the state space model is an effective method for solving complex transient problems in pipelines. However, the impulse output of the existing models is not the actual behavior of the pipeline. In this paper, a new lumped parameter model is proposed to describe the inertial nature of pipelines with inlet/outlet pressure and flow rate as outer variables in the state space. Starting from the basic mechanistic partial differential equations of the general one-dimensional compressible gas flow dynamics under isothermal conditions, the transfer functions are first acquired as the fundamental work. With Taylor-expansion and a transformation procedure, the inertia state space models are derived with proper simplification. Finally, three examples are used to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed model. With the model, a real-time automatic scheduling scheme of the natural gas pipeline could be possible in the future.

Description: Energies, Vol. 11, Pages 1972: Comprehensive Design and Analysis of a State-Feedback Controller for a Dynamic Voltage Restorer Energies doi: 10.3390/en11081972 Authors: Javier Roldán-Pérez Aurelio García-Cerrada Alberto Rodríguez-Cabero Juan Luis Zamora-Macho Voltage sags result in unwanted operation stops and large economical losses in industrial applications. A dynamic voltage restorer (DVR) is a power-electronics-based device conceived to protect high-power installations against these events. However, the design of a DVR control system is not straightforward and it has some peculiarities. First of all, a DVR includes a resonant (LC) connection filter with a lightly damped resonance. Secondly, the control system of a DVR should work properly regardless of the type of load, which can be linear or non-linear, to be protected. In this paper, a digital state-feedback (SF) controller for a DVR is proposed to address these issues. The design and features of the SF controller are studied in detail. Two pole-placement alternatives are discussed and the system robustness is tested under variations in the system parameters. Furthermore, implementation aspects such as discretization not commonly addressed in the literature are described. The controller is implemented in its incremental form. A decoupling system for the dq-axis dynamics that takes into account system delays and the load current is proposed and analytically studied. The proposed controller is compared with two other alternatives found in the literature: a Proportional-Integral-Differential (PID) controller and a cascade controller. The effect of the load connected downstream a DVR is also studied, revealing the potential of the SF controller to damp the resonance under light load conditions. All control system developments were tested in a 5 kVA prototype of a DVR connected to a configurable grid.

Description: Forests, Vol. 9, Pages 462: Preferences of Tourists for the Service Quality of Taichung Calligraphy Greenway in Taiwan Forests doi: 10.3390/f9080462 Authors: Wan-Yu Liu Ching Chung This study explores preferences for a set of attributes that characterize the recreational value of Calligraphy Greenway, the most notable greenbelt in Taichung City, Taiwan. As an urban green space, the Calligraphy Greenway has its own recreational attributes and visitors’ preferences. This study uses the choice experiment method to determine visitors’ preference levels for five major attributes to improve the recreational quality. On average, each visitor visited there 9.15 times in the past year and spent 2.37 h per visit. Of the five recreational attributes, satisfaction with recreational activity opportunities had the highest score and satisfaction with cultural landscape resources had the lowest score. The importance is ranked in the order of recreational service quality, total recreational cost, environmental landscape resources, cultural landscape resources and recreational activity opportunities. Considering difference of groups, female visitors were more concerned with cost and activities but male visitors were more concerned with service quality and natural/cultural landscape resources. Local visitors were more concerned with cost and activities but non-local visitors were more concerned with environmental/cultural landscape resources. Both were concerned with service quality. Based on the results, this study makes the following recommendations: cultural landscape resources and quality of recreational services and facilities should be improved and more complete interpretative educational guidance should be provided to increase visitors’ willingness to visit. Additionally, it is suggested to set up various districts to cater for preferences of different visitor groups.

Description: Forests, Vol. 9, Pages 463: Implementing Participatory Processes in Forestry Training Using Social Network Analysis Techniques Forests doi: 10.3390/f9080463 Authors: Simone Blanc Federico Lingua Livio Bioglio Ruggero G. Pensa Filippo Brun Angela Mosso Public participation has become an important driver in increasing public acceptance of policy decisions, especially in the forestry sector, where conflicting interests among the actors are frequent. Stakeholder Analysis, complemented by Social Network Analysis techniques, was used to support the participatory process and to understand the complex relationships and the strong interactions among actors. This study identifies the forestry training sector stakeholders in the Western Italian Alps and describes their characteristics and priorities, in relation to training activities on entrepreneurial topics for forestry loggers. The hierarchy among actors has been identified, highlighting their respective roles and influence in decision-making processes. A lack of mutual communication among different and well-separated categories of actors has been identified, while good connections between stakeholders, operating in different territories, despite the presence of administrative and logistical barriers, have been observed. Training is a topic involving actors with different roles and interests. Nevertheless, all actors consider training about how to improve yields of forest operations and how to assess investments, particularly in innovative machinery, to be crucially important and conducive to a better comprehension of the wood supply chain and the enhancement of the raw material.

Description: Future Internet, Vol. 10, Pages 71: Hybrid Approach with Improved Genetic Algorithm and Simulated Annealing for Thesis Sampling Future Internet doi: 10.3390/fi10080071 Authors: Shardrom Johnson Jinwu Han Yuanchen Liu Li Chen Xinlin Wu Sampling inspection uses the sample characteristics to estimate that of the population, and it is an important method to describe the population, which has the features of low cost, strong applicability and high scientificity. This paper aims at the sampling inspection of the master’s degree thesis to ensure their quality, which is commonly estimated by random sampling. Since there are disadvantages in random sampling, a hybrid algorithm combined with an improved genetic algorithm and a simulated annealing algorithm is proposed in this paper. Furthermore, a novel mutation strategy is introduced according to the specialty of Shanghai’s thesis sampling to improve the efficiency of sampling inspection; the acceleration of convergence of the algorithm can also take advantage of this. The new algorithm features the traditional genetic algorithm, and it can obtain the global optimum in the optimization process and provide the fairest sampling plan under the constraint of multiple sampling indexes. The experimental results on the master’s thesis dataset of Shanghai show that the proposed algorithm well meets the requirements of the sampling inspection in Shanghai with a lower time-complexity.

Description: Future Internet, Vol. 10, Pages 70: Multidiscipline Integrated Platform Based on Probabilistic Analysis for Manufacturing Engineering Processes Future Internet doi: 10.3390/fi10080070 Authors: Lijun Zhang Kai Liu Jian Liu Researchers from different disciplines, such as materials science, computer science, safety science, mechanical engineering and controlling engineering, have aimed to improve the quality of manufacturing engineering processes. Considering the requirements of research and development of advanced materials, reliable manufacturing and collaborative innovation, a multidiscipline integrated platform framework based on probabilistic analysis for manufacturing engineering processes is proposed. The proposed platform consists of three logical layers: The requirement layer, the database layer and the application layer. The platform is intended to be a scalable system to gradually supplement related data, models and approaches. The main key technologies of the platform, encapsulation methods, information fusion approaches and the collaborative mechanism are also discussed. The proposed platform will also be gradually improved in the future. In order to exchange information for manufacturing engineering processes, scientists and engineers of different institutes of materials science and manufacturing engineering should strengthen their cooperation.

Description: Entropy, Vol. 20, Pages 567: Nonlocality in Bell’s Theorem, in Bohm’s Theory, and in Many Interacting Worlds Theorising Entropy doi: 10.3390/e20080567 Authors: Mojtaba Ghadimi Michael J. W. Hall Howard M. Wiseman “Locality” is a fraught word, even within the restricted context of Bell’s theorem. As one of us has argued elsewhere, that is partly because Bell himself used the word with different meanings at different stages in his career. The original, weaker, meaning for locality was in his 1964 theorem: that the choice of setting by one party could never affect the outcome of a measurement performed by a distant second party. The epitome of a quantum theory violating this weak notion of locality (and hence exhibiting a strong form of nonlocality) is Bohmian mechanics. Recently, a new approach to quantum mechanics, inspired by Bohmian mechanics, has been proposed: Many Interacting Worlds. While it is conceptually clear how the interaction between worlds can enable this strong nonlocality, technical problems in the theory have thus far prevented a proof by simulation. Here we report significant progress in tackling one of the most basic difficulties that needs to be overcome: correctly modelling wavefunctions with nodes.

Description: Forests, Vol. 9, Pages 461: A Review on the Dynamics of Prescribed Fire, Tree Mortality, and Injury in Managing Oak Natural Communities to Minimize Economic Loss in North America Forests doi: 10.3390/f9080461 Authors: Daniel C. Dey Callie Jo Schweitzer The long history of fire in North America spans millennia and is recognized as an important driver in the widespread and long-term dominance of oak species and oak natural communities. Frequent wildfires from about 1850 to 1950 resulted in much forest damage, and gained fire a negative reputation. The lack of fire for the past nearly 100 years due to suppression programs is now indicted as a major cause of widespread oak regeneration failures and loss of fire-dependent natural communities. The use of prescribed fire is increasing in forest management and ecosystem restoration. An understanding of fire effects on trees can provide the basis for the silviculture of restoring and sustaining oak ecosystems. We present an overview of fire-tree wounding interactions, highlight important determinants of fire injury and damage, and discuss several practical situations where fire can be used to favor oak while minimizing damage and devaluation of the forest. We also identify stages in stand development, regeneration methods, and management objectives for which fire has the potential of causing substantial damage and recommend preferred alternative practices.

Description: IJERPH, Vol. 15, Pages 1611: Immunohistochemical Evaluation of Peri-Implant Soft Tissues around Machined and Direct Metal Laser Sintered (DMLS) Healing Abutments in Humans International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health doi: 10.3390/ijerph15081611 Authors: Carlo Mangano Francesco Guido Mangano Jamil Awad Shibli Leandro Amadeu Roth Gianmaria d’ Addazio Adriano Piattelli Giovanna Iezzi Background: Direct metal laser Sintering (DMLS) is an additive manufacturing technique that allows fabrication of dental implants and related components with a highly porous surface. To date, no human studies have investigated the soft tissue adhesion and presence of inflammatory infiltrate with porous DMLS healing abutments (HAs), nor have they compared these with the classic machined ones. Purpose: To evaluate the degree of cell adhesion (integrin expression) and the quantity/quality of inflammatory infiltrate, on HAs with different surfaces; full DMLS, full machined, and hybrid (half DMLS and half machined). Methods: Fifty implant patients were randomly assigned to receive one of these different Has: T1, full DMLS (11 subjects); T2, machined in the upper portion and DMLS in the lower one (10 subjects); T3, DMLS in the upper portion and machined in the lower one (19 subjects); T4, full machined (10 patients). Thirty days after placement, circular sections of soft tissues around HAs were retrieved for immunohistochemical evaluation. Results: With regard to the adhesion molecules, the samples showed different intensity of integrin expression, with a statistically significant difference (p < 0.001) between T1 and the other groups. All the samples were positive for the different clusters related to the inflammatory infiltrate (T lymphocytes, CD3; B lymphocytes, CD20; and macrophages, CD68), but a lower infiltrate was found in T1, with statistically significant differences (p < 0.001) among the groups. Conclusions: The HA surface seems to influence the degree of cell adhesion and the inflammatory infiltrate of the surrounding soft tissues.

Description: IJERPH, Vol. 15, Pages 1614: Effects of Bisphenol A and 4-tert-Octylphenol on Embryo Implantation Failure in Mouse International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health doi: 10.3390/ijerph15081614 Authors: Dinh Nam Tran Eui-Man Jung Changhwan Ahn Jae-Hwan Lee Yeong-Min Yoo Eui-Bae Jeung Miscarriage due to blastocyst implantation failure occurs in up to two-thirds of all human miscarriage cases. Calcium ion has been shown to be involved in many cellular signal transduction pathways as well as in the regulation of cell adhesion, which is necessary for the embryo implantation process. Exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDs) during early gestation results in disruption of intrauterine implantation and uterine reception, leading to implantation failure. In this study, ovarian estrogen (E2), bisphenol A (BPA), or 4-tert-octylphenol (OP), with or without ICI 182,780 (ICI) were injected subcutaneously from gestation day 1 to gestation day 3 post-coitus. The expression levels of the calcium transport genes were assessed in maternal uteri and implantation sites. The number of implantation sites was significantly low in the OP group, and implantation sites were absent in the E2, ICI and EDs + ICI groups. There were different calcium transient transport channel expression levels in uterus and implantation site samples. The levels of TRPV5 and TRPV6 gene expression were significantly increased by EDs with/without ICI treatment in utero. Meanwhile, TRPV5 and TRPV6 gene expression were significantly lower in implantation sites samples. NCX1 and PMCA1 mRNA levels were significantly decreased by OP and BPA in the implantation site samples. Compared to vehicle treatment in the uterus, both the MUC1 mRNA and protein levels were markedly high in all but the BPA group. Taken together, these results suggest that both BPA and OP can impair embryo implantation through alteration of calcium transport gene expressions and by affecting uterine receptivity.

Description: IJERPH, Vol. 15, Pages 1609: A Comparison of Dependence across Different Types of Nicotine Containing Products and Coffee International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health doi: 10.3390/ijerph15081609 Authors: Karl Fagerstrom Introduction: Few studies have compared the dependence to different tobacco and nicotine products. Even less is known about how it relates to dependence on other common drugs, e.g., caffeine. In this study degree of dependence was compared between snus, cigarettes, nicotine replacement (NR), electronic cigarettes and coffee. Methods: A random sample of Swedish citizens belonging to an internet panel were contacted from September to October 2017. The responders were asked among other related things about their use of snus, NR, traditional cigarette or e-cigarette use and coffee consumption. The indicators of dependence used were: (A) the Heavy Smoking Index, (B) The proportions that used within 30 min after raising in the morning, (C) rating the first use in the morning as the most important and (D) Stating that it would be very hard to give up entirely. Results: Significantly fewer coffee drinkers started use within 30 min of awakening compared with all other products. The first use of the day was found to be more important for snus users compared with other products. On HSI there was no difference between snus and cigarettes. Snus and cigarettes were rated as being more difficult to give up than NR and coffee. Conclusion: Dependence to traditional cigarettes and snus seem to be relatively similar while NR was rated lower and coffee lowest. Since the prevalence of caffeine use in all forms is so much more prevalent than nicotine there might be more persons in the society heavily dependent on caffeine. Implication: Tobacco products are likely more dependence forming than NR products and coffee although there might be more people dependent on caffeine. The addiction to coffee or caffeine is seldom discussed in the society probably because of the little or no harm it causes. Funding: The Snus Commission in Sweden (snuskommissionen) funded the data collection. No funding used for the analysis and writing of manuscript.

Description: IJERPH, Vol. 15, Pages 1613: Sexual Violence against Women in Germany: Prevalence and Risk Markers International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health doi: 10.3390/ijerph15081613 Authors: Deborah F. Hellmann Max W. Kinninger Sören Kliem Previous research has repeatedly shown that gender-based violence affects a considerable proportion of women in any given population. Apart from providing current estimates of the prevalence of sexual violence against women in Germany, we identified specific risk markers applying an advanced statistical method. We analyzed data from a survey of N = 4450 women representative of the German population, conducted by the Criminological Research Institute of Lower Saxony in 2011. Lifetime prevalence for experiencing sexual violence was 5.4% for women aged 21−40 years (five-year prevalence: 2.5%). Non-parametric conditional inference tree (C-Tree) analyses revealed that physical and sexual abuse during childhood as well as being divorced, separated, or widowed was the most informative constellation of risk markers, increasing the five-year prevalence rate of experienced sexual violence victimizations up to 17.0%. Furthermore, knowing about the official penalization of marital rape was related to a lower victimization risk for women without a history of parental violence. Possible explanations for these findings as well as implications for future research are critically discussed.

Description: IJERPH, Vol. 15, Pages 1612: Legionellosis Associated with Recreational Waters: A Systematic Review of Cases and Outbreaks in Swimming Pools, Spa Pools, and Similar Environments International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health doi: 10.3390/ijerph15081612 Authors: Erica Leoni Federica Catalani Sofia Marini Laura Dallolio Legionella spp. is widespread in many natural and artificial water systems, such as hot water distribution networks, cooling towers, and spas. A particular risk factor has been identified in the use of whirlpools and hot tubs in spa facilities and public baths. However, there has been no systematic synthesis of the published literature reporting legionellosis cases or outbreaks related to swimming/spa pools or similar environments used for recreational purposes (hot springs, hot tubs, whirlpools, natural spas). This study presents the results of a systematic review of the literature on cases and outbreaks associated with these environments. Data were extracted from 47 articles, including 42 events (17 sporadic cases and 25 outbreaks) and 1079 cases, 57.5% of which were diagnosed as Pontiac fever, without any deaths, and 42.5% were of Legionnaires’ disease, with a fatality rate of 6.3%. The results are presented in relation to the distribution of Legionella species involved in the events, clinical manifestations and diagnosis, predisposing conditions in the patients, favourable environmental factors, and quality of the epidemiological investigation, as well as in relation to the different types of recreational water sources involved. Based on the epidemiological and microbiological criteria, the strength of evidence linking a case/outbreak of legionellosis with a recreational water system was classified as strong, probable, and possible; in more than half of the events the resulting association was strong.

Description: Remote Sensing, Vol. 10, Pages 1196: Evaluating the Best Spectral Indices for the Detection of Burn Scars at Several Post-Fire Dates in a Mountainous Region of Northwest Yunnan, China Remote Sensing doi: 10.3390/rs10081196 Authors: Davide Fornacca Guopeng Ren Wen Xiao Remote mountainous regions are among the Earth’s last remaining wild spots, hosting rare ecosystems and rich biodiversity. Because of access difficulties and low population density, baseline information about natural and human-induced disturbances in these regions is often limited or nonexistent. Landsat time series offer invaluable opportunities to reconstruct past land cover changes. However, the applicability of this approach strongly depends on the availability of good quality, cloud-free images, acquired at a regular time interval, which in mountainous regions are often difficult to find. The present study analyzed burn scar detection capabilities of 11 widely used spectral indices (SI) at 1 to 5 years after fire events in four dominant vegetation groups in a mountainous region of northwest Yunnan, China. To evaluate their performances, we used M-statistic as a burned-unburned class separability index, and we adapted an existing metric to quantify the SI residual burn signal at post-fire dates compared to the maximum severity recorded soon after the fire. Our results show that Normalized Burn Ratio (NBR) and Normalized Difference Moisture Index (NDMI) are always among the three best performers for the detection of burn scars starting 1 year after fire but not for the immediate post-fire assessment, where the Mid Infrared Burn Index, Burn Area Index, and Tasseled Cap Greenness were superior. Brightness and Wetness peculiar patterns revealed long-term effects of fire in vegetated land, suggesting their potential integration to assist other SI in burned area detection several years after the fire event. However, in general, class separability of most of the SI was poor after one growing season, due to the seasonal rains and the relatively fast regrowth rate of shrubs and grasses, confirming the difficulty of assessment in mountainous ecosystems. Our findings are meaningful for the selection of a suitable SI to integrate in burned area detection workflows, according to vegetation type and time lag between image acquisitions.

Description: Remote Sensing, Vol. 10, Pages 1192: Automating Parameter Learning for Classifying Terrestrial LiDAR Point Cloud Using 2D Land Cover Maps Remote Sensing doi: 10.3390/rs10081192 Authors: Chen-Chieh Feng Zhou Guo The automating classification of point clouds capturing urban scenes is critical for supporting applications that demand three-dimensional (3D) models. Achieving this goal, however, is met with challenges because of the varying densities of the point clouds and the complexity of the 3D data. In order to increase the level of automation in the point cloud classification, this study proposes a segment-based parameter learning method that incorporates a two-dimensional (2D) land cover map, in which a strategy of fusing the 2D land cover map and the 3D points is first adopted to create labelled samples, and a formalized procedure is then implemented to automatically learn the following parameters of point cloud classification: the optimal scale of the neighborhood for segmentation, optimal feature set, and the training classifier. It comprises four main steps, namely: (1) point cloud segmentation; (2) sample selection; (3) optimal feature set selection; and (4) point cloud classification. Three datasets containing the point cloud data were used in this study to validate the efficiency of the proposed method. The first two datasets cover two areas of the National University of Singapore (NUS) campus while the third dataset is a widely used benchmark point cloud dataset of Oakland, Pennsylvania. The classification parameters were learned from the first dataset consisting of a terrestrial laser-scanning data and a 2D land cover map, and were subsequently used to classify both of the NUS datasets. The evaluation of the classification results showed overall accuracies of 94.07% and 91.13%, respectively, indicating that the transition of the knowledge learned from one dataset to another was satisfactory. The classification of the Oakland dataset achieved an overall accuracy of 97.08%, which further verified the transferability of the proposed approach. An experiment of the point-based classification was also conducted on the first dataset and the result was compared to that of the segment-based classification. The evaluation revealed that the overall accuracy of the segment-based classification is indeed higher than that of the point-based classification, demonstrating the advantage of the segment-based approaches.

Description: Remote Sensing, Vol. 10, Pages 1197: Quantifying Drought Propagation from Soil Moisture to Vegetation Dynamics Using a Newly Developed Ecohydrological Land Reanalysis Remote Sensing doi: 10.3390/rs10081197 Authors: Yohei Sawada Despite the importance of the interaction between soil moisture and vegetation dynamics to understand the complex nature of drought, few land reanalyses explicitly simulate vegetation growth and senescence. In this study, I provide a new land reanalysis which explicitly simulates the interaction between sub-surface soil moisture and vegetation dynamics by the sequential assimilation of satellite microwave brightness temperature observations into a land surface model (LSM). Assimilating satellite microwave brightness temperature observations improves the skill of a LSM to simultaneously simulate soil moisture and the seasonal cycle of leaf area index (LAI). By analyzing soil moisture and LAI simulated by this new land reanalysis, I identify the drought events which significantly damage LAI on the climatological day-of-year of the LAI’s seasonal peak and quantify drought propagation from soil moisture to LAI in the global snow-free region. On average, soil moisture in the shallow soil layers (0–0.45 m) quickly recovers from the drought condition before the climatological day-of-year of the LAI’s seasonal peak while soil moisture in the deeper soil layer (1.05–2.05 m) and LAI recover from the drought condition approximately 100 days after the climatological day-of-year of the LAI’s seasonal peak.

Description: Sustainability, Vol. 10, Pages 2674: Reputation Effects in Socially Driven Sharing Economy Transactions Sustainability doi: 10.3390/su10082674 Authors: Maarten ter Huurne Amber Ronteltap Chenhui Guo Rense Corten Vincent Buskens Reputation has often been proposed as the central mechanism that creates trust in the sharing economy. However, some sharing platforms that focus primarily on social rather than economically driven exchanges have managed to facilitate exchanges between users without the use of a reputation system. This could indicate that socially driven exchanges are in less need of reputation systems and that having sufficient trust is less problematic. We examine the effect of seller reputation on sales and price as proxies for trust, using a large dataset from a Dutch meal-sharing platform. This platform aims to stimulate social interactions between people via meal sharing. Multilevel regression analyses were used to test the association of reputation with trust. Our main empirical results are that reputation affects both sales and price positively, consistent with the existing reputation literature. We also found evidence of the presence of an information effect, i.e., the influence of reputation on sharing decreases when additional profile information is provided (e.g., a profile photo, a product description). Our results thus confirm the effectiveness of reputation in more socially driven exchanges also. Consequently, platform owners are advised to use reputation on their platform to increase sharing between its users.

Description: Sensors, Vol. 18, Pages 2472: Multiple Instances QoS Routing in RPL: Application to Smart Grids Sensors doi: 10.3390/s18082472 Authors: Jad Nassar Matthieu Berthomé Jérémy Dubrulle Nicolas Gouvy Nathalie Mitton Bruno Quoitin The Smart Grid (SG) aims to transform the current electric grid into a “smarter” network where the integration of renewable energy resources, energy efficiency and fault tolerance are the main benefits. This is done by interconnecting every energy source, storage point or central control point with connected devices, where heterogeneous SG applications and signalling messages will have different requirements in terms of reliability, latency and priority. Hence, data routing and prioritization are the main challenges in such networks. So far, RPL (Routing Protocol for Low-Power and Lossy networks) protocol is widely used on Smart Grids for distributing commands over the grid. RPL assures traffic differentiation at the network layer in wireless sensor networks through the logical subdivision of the network in multiple instances, each one relying on a specific Objective Function. However, RPL is not optimized for Smart Grids, as its main objective functions and their associated metric does not allow Quality of Service differentiation. To overcome this, we propose OFQS an objective function with a multi-objective metric that considers the delay and the remaining energy in the battery nodes alongside with the dynamic quality of the communication links. Our function automatically adapts to the number of instances (traffic classes) providing a Quality of Service differentiation based on the different Smart Grid applications requirements. We tested our approach on a real sensor testbed. The experimental results show that our proposal provides a lower packet delivery latency and a higher packet delivery ratio while extending the lifetime of the network compared to solutions in the literature.

Description: Sensors, Vol. 18, Pages 2465: Improving Classification Algorithms by Considering Score Series in Wireless Acoustic Sensor Networks Sensors doi: 10.3390/s18082465 Authors: Amalia Luque Javier Romero-Lemos Alejandro Carrasco Julio Barbancho The reduction in size, power consumption and price of many sensor devices has enabled the deployment of many sensor networks that can be used to monitor and control several aspects of various habitats. More specifically, the analysis of sounds has attracted a huge interest in urban and wildlife environments where the classification of the different signals has become a major issue. Various algorithms have been described for this purpose, a number of which frame the sound and classify these frames, while others take advantage of the sequential information embedded in a sound signal. In the paper, a new algorithm is proposed that, while maintaining the frame-classification advantages, adds a new phase that considers and classifies the score series derived after frame labelling. These score series are represented using cepstral coefficients and classified using standard machine-learning classifiers. The proposed algorithm has been applied to a dataset of anuran calls and its results compared to the performance obtained in previous experiments on sensor networks. The main outcome of our research is that the consideration of score series strongly outperforms other algorithms and attains outstanding performance despite the noisy background commonly encountered in this kind of application.

Description: Sustainability, Vol. 10, Pages 2676: Measuring Social Vulnerability to Flood Disasters in China Sustainability doi: 10.3390/su10082676 Authors: Ming Zhang Wenbo Xiang Meilan Chen Zisen Mao To proactively prevent losses from flood disasters and subsequent potential human conflicts, it is critical to measure the social vulnerability of a country or a region to flood. In this article, we first propose a list of potential indicators for measuring this social vulnerability. These indicators’ significances are then tested based on their correlation coefficients with a vulnerability index obtained using nonparametric Data Envelopment Analysis. In the final measurement system, there are nine indicators: the proportion of the primary industry, infrastructure development level, income gap between urban and rural residents, the proportion of population over 60 years old, the proportion of children under 14 years old, the number of people receiving minimum income assistance, and the number of disasters per year. We then conduct principal component analysis to evaluate the social vulnerability level. Our results show that the social vulnerability level is mostly impacted by the economic principal component and the demographic and social security principal component. Moreover, our results also confirm that the social vulnerability level to flood in China declined overall from 2003 to 2015.

Description: Sustainability, Vol. 10, Pages 2673: The Public Willingness to Pay for Reducing the Incidence of Hazardous Chemical Spill Accidents by Half in South Korea Sustainability doi: 10.3390/su10082673 Authors: Hye-Jeong Lee Hyo-Jin Kim Seung-Hoon Yoo Hazardous chemical spill (HCS) accidents, which occur due to careless workers, transport accidents, etc., can be harmful to humans. Recently, an average of 96 cases of HCS accidents have taken place in South Korea annually. As a result, the government is trying to reduce the incidence of HCS accidents by 50%. Government officials are seeking information about the value that the enforcement of the reduction plan will bring for the public. This knowledge will help government officials decide whether to implement the reduction plan. This article seeks to acquire information about the public willingness to pay (WTP) for the reduction plan, employing the contingent valuation (CV) technique. For this purpose, a total of 1000 households living in South Korea participated in the CV survey in 2017. The data on the WTP were gathered using a dichotomous choice question and analyzed using the spike model. Forty-five percent of the respondents were willing to accept an increase in income taxes to carry out the reduction plan. The mean household WTP estimate was obtained as KRW 3830 (USD 3.41) per annum. The national value expanded from the sample to the population is worth KRW 74.8 billion (USD 66.6 million) per year. This value implies the public value of the reduction plan and can be applied in policy analysis and decision-making concerning the reduction of the incidence of HCS accidents.

Description: Sustainability, Vol. 10, Pages 2671: The Sustainable Characteristic of Bio-Bi-Phase Flow of Peristaltic Transport of MHD Jeffrey Fluid in the Human Body Sustainability doi: 10.3390/su10082671 Authors: Ahmed Zeeshan Nouman Ijaz Tehseen Abbas Rahmat Ellahi This study deals with the peristaltic transport of non-Newtonian Jeffrey fluid with uniformly distributed identical rigid particles in a rectangular duct. The effects of a magnetohydrodynamics bio-bi-phase flow are taken into account. The governing equations for mass and momentum are simplified using the fact that wavelength is much greater than the amplitude and small Reynolds number. A closed-form solution for velocity is obtained by means of the eigenfunction expansion method whereby pressure rise is numerically calculated. The results are graphically presented to observe the effects of different physical parameters and the suitability of the method. The results for hydrodynamic, Newtonian fluid, and single-phase problems can be respectively obtained by taking the Hartmann number (M = 0), relaxation time (λ1=0), and volume fraction (C = 0) as special cases of this problem.

Description: Water, Vol. 10, Pages 1008: Inherent Relationship between Flow Duration Curves at Different Time Scales: A Perspective on Monthly Flow Data Utilization in Daily Flow Duration Curve Estimation Water doi: 10.3390/w10081008 Authors: Lei Ye Wei Ding Xiaofan Zeng Zhuohang Xin Jian Wu Chi Zhang Modelling flow duration curves (FDCs) has long been a topic of interest since it is widely used in various hydrological applications. Most studies related to the estimation of FDCs in ungauged or partial gauged basins focus primarily on using climate and catchment characteristics to regionalize FDC at some single time scale. However, the relationship of FDCs at various time scales are rarely analyzed or studied. Here, we propose two methods, which are Modelled FDC Parameter comparison (M-FDC-P) and Empirical FDC Ratio comparison (E-FDC-R), to study the quantitative relationship between daily and monthly FDCs. One method M-FDC-P, selects a Kappa (KAP) distribution to represent the characteristics of the FDCs and then analyzes the relationship between KAP parameters of modelled FDCs at different time scales. Results indicate that three out of four parameters have strong correlations between FDCs at daily and monthly time scales. The other method, E-FDC-R, compares the quantitative relationship between daily and monthly empirical FDCs with given exceedance probabilities. The Power function is used for fitting the ratio-exceedance probability curves. In addition, the simulated daily FDC derived from monthly FDC can be very consistent with the observed daily flow records when the two parameters of power function are quantified precisely. These results clearly indicate that there are strong connections between daily and monthly FDCs, and monthly FDC can provide valuable information for daily FDC estimation. Since flow records at a large time scale are easier to obtain, daily FDC could be derived from monthly FDC by considering the inherent relationships between FDCs at different time scales, which is not sufficiently realized in previous studies.

Description: Water, Vol. 10, Pages 1006: Validation of TRMM 3B42V7 Rainfall Product under Complex Topographic and Climatic Conditions over Hexi Region in the Northwest Arid Region of China Water doi: 10.3390/w10081006 Authors: Xiuna Wang Yongjian Ding Chuancheng Zhao Jian Wang Continuous and accurate spatiotemporal precipitation data plays an important role in regional climate and hydrology research, particularly in the arid inland regions where rain gauges are sparse and unevenly distributed. The main objective of this study is to evaluate and bias-correct the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) 3B42V7 rainfall product under complex topographic and climatic conditions over the Hexi region in the northwest arid region of China with the reference of rain gauge observation data during 2009–2015. A series of statistical indicators were adopted to quantitatively evaluate the error of 3B42V7 and its ability in detecting precipitation events. Overall, the 3B42V7 overestimates the precipitation with Bias of 11.16%, and its performance generally becomes better with the increasing of time scale. The agreements between the rain gauge data and 3B42V7 are very low in cold season, and moderate in warm season. The 3B42V7 shows better correlation with rain gauges located in the southern mountainous and central oasis areas than in the northern extreme arid regions, and is more likely to underestimate the precipitation in high-altitude mountainous areas and overestimate the precipitation in low-elevation regions. The distribution of the error on the daily scale is more related to the elevation and rainfall than in monthly and annual scale. The 3B42V7 significantly overestimates the precipitation events, and the overestimation mainly focuses on tiny amounts of rainfall (0–1 mm/d), which is also the range of false alarm concentration. Bias correction for 3B42V7 was carried out based on the deviation of the average monthly precipitation data during 2009–2015. The bias-corrected 3B42V7 was significantly improved compared with the original product. Results suggest that regional assessment and bias correction of 3B42V7 rainfall product are of vital importance and will provide substantive reference for regional hydrological studies.

Description: Energies, Vol. 11, Pages 1987: Distributed Energy Resources Scheduling and Aggregation in the Context of Demand Response Programs Energies doi: 10.3390/en11081987 Authors: Pedro Faria João Spínola Zita Vale Distributed energy resources can contribute to an improved operation of power systems, improving economic and technical efficiency. However, aggregation of resources is needed to make these resources profitable. The present paper proposes a methodology for distributed resources management by a Virtual Power Player (VPP), addressing the resources scheduling, aggregation and remuneration based on the aggregation made. The aggregation is made using K-means algorithm. The innovative aspect motivating the present paper relies on the remuneration definition considering multiple scenarios of operation, by performing a multi-observation clustering. Resources aggregation and remuneration profiles are obtained for 2592 operation scenarios, considering 548 distributed generators, 20,310 consumers, and 10 suppliers.

Description: Energies, Vol. 11, Pages 1986: The Influence of Local Environmental, Economic and Social Variables on the Spatial Distribution of Photovoltaic Applications across China’s Urban Areas Energies doi: 10.3390/en11081986 Authors: Alin Lin Ming Lu Pingjun Sun The capacity of new installed photovoltaic (PV) in China in 2017 was increased to 53.06 GW, reaching a total of 402.5 GW around the world. Photovoltaic applications have a significant role in the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and alleviating electricity shortages in the sustainable development process of cities. Research on the factors that influenced the spatial distribution of photovoltaic applications mostly focus on a certain project or a region. However, it is a complicated process for decision-making of photovoltaic installations in urban areas. This study uses zip code level data from 83 cities to investigate the influence of local environmental, economic and social variables on the spatial distribution of photovoltaic applications across China’s urban areas. By analyzing the current situation, the locations of urban photovoltaic applications are collected and presented. Statistical analysis software is used to evaluate the influence of selected variables. In this paper, correlation analysis, principle component analysis (PCA) and cluster analysis are generated to predict urban photovoltaic installations. The results of this research show that Gross Domestic Product (GDP), electricity consumption, policy incentives, the number of photovoltaic companies, population, age, education and rate of urbanization were important factors that influenced the adoption of urban photovoltaic systems. The results also indicate that Southeast China and Hangzhou Province are currently the most promising areas as they have a higher rate of solar photovoltaic installation. These conclusions have significancefor energy policy and planning strategies by predicting the future development of urban photovoltaic applications.

Description: Energies, Vol. 11, Pages 1985: Design, Construction, and Testing of a Gasifier-Specific Solid Oxide Fuel Cell System Energies doi: 10.3390/en11081985 Authors: Alvaro Fernandes Joerg Brabandt Oliver Posdziech Ali Saadabadi Mayra Recalde Liyuan Fan Eva O. Promes Ming Liu Theo Woudstra Purushothaman Vellayan Aravind This paper describes the steps involved in the design, construction, and testing of a gasifier-specific solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) system. The design choices are based on reported thermodynamic simulation results for the entire gasifier- gas cleanup-SOFC system. The constructed SOFC system is tested and the measured parameters are compared with those given by a system simulation. Furthermore, a detailed exergy analysis is performed to determine the components responsible for poor efficiency. It is concluded that the SOFC system demonstrates reasonable agreement with the simulated results. Furthermore, based on the exergy results, the components causing major irreversible performance losses are identified.

Description: Energies, Vol. 11, Pages 1984: Experimental Study of Mixed Gas Hydrates from Gas Feed Containing CH4, CO2 and N2: Phase Equilibrium in the Presence of Excess Water and Gas Exchange Energies doi: 10.3390/en11081984 Authors: Ludovic Nicolas Legoix Livio Ruffine Christian Deusner Matthias Haeckel This article presents gas hydrate experimental measurements for mixtures containing methane (CH4), carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrogen (N2) with the aim to better understand the impact of water (H2O) on the phase equilibrium. Some of these phase equilibrium experiments were carried out with a very high water-to-gas ratio that shifts the gas hydrate dissociation points to higher pressures. This is due to the significantly different solubilities of the different guest molecules in liquid H2O. A second experiment focused on CH4-CO2 exchange between the hydrate and the vapor phases at moderate pressures. The results show a high retention of CO2 in the gas hydrate phase with small pressure variations within the first hours. However, for our system containing 10.2 g of H2O full conversion of the CH4 hydrate grains to CO2 hydrate is estimated to require 40 days. This delay is attributed to the shrinking core effect, where initially an outer layer of CO2-rich hydrate is formed that effectively slows down the further gas exchange between the vapor phase and the inner core of the CH4-rich hydrate grain.

Description: Diversity, Vol. 10, Pages 77: Review of the Hygrophilous Weevils in Israel (Coleoptera: Curculionoidea) Diversity doi: 10.3390/d10030077 Authors: Ariel-Leib-Leonid Friedman Forty-one species in 20 genera of hygrophilous weevils belonging to Brentidae and Curculionidae, associated with inland aquatic habitats, have been recorded recently from Israel, eight of them for the first time. Thirty-four species are extant, while five species have probably become extinct recently, and two are fossil species, known from Late Cretaceous deposits. Sixteen species are either aquatic or semi-aquatic, while the rest occur only or predominantly on riparian vegetation. Distributional and biological data for most of the species are provided. A key to all hygrophilous weevil taxa and illustrations for most of the species are provided.

Description: Energies, Vol. 11, Pages 1991: Operation and Economic Assessment of Hybrid Refueling Station Considering Traffic Flow Information Energies doi: 10.3390/en11081991 Authors: Suyang Zhou Yuxuan Zhuang Wei Gu Zhi Wu It is anticipated that the penetration of “Green-Energy” vehicles, including Electric Vehicle (EV), Fuel Cell Vehicle (FCV), and Natural Gas Vehicle (NGV) will keep increasing in next decades. The demand of refueling stations will correspondingly increase for refueling these “Green-Energy” vehicles. While such kinds of “Green-Energy” vehicles can provide both social and economic benefits, effective management of refueling various kinds of these vehicles is necessary to maintain vehicle users’ comfortabilities and refueling station’s return on investment. To tackle these problems, this paper proposes a novel energy management approach for hybrid refueling stations with EV chargers, Hydrogen pumps and gas pumps. Firstly, the detailed models of EV chargers, Hydrogen pumps with electrolyte and hydrogen tank, the gas pumps with gas tank, renewable resources, and battery energy storage systems are established. The forecasting methodologies for renewable energy, electricity price and the traffic flow are also presented to support the hybrid refueling station modeling and operation. Then, a management approach is adopted to manage the refueling various kinds of vehicles with considerations of the refueling station profitability. Finally, the proposed management approach is verified under four different kinds of tariffs- Economy-7, Economy-10, Flat-rate, and Real-Time Pricing (RTP), finding that the proposed management approach has the best performance under RTP tariff. The economic assessment of the Energy Storage System (ESS) is also performed. It is found that the ESS can make the saving up to $127 per day. Different sizes of gas storage tank are compared in the final section as well. The result shows that increasing the size of the tank does not bring attractive extra benefits with the consideration of the investment on enlarging the tank size.

Description: Sustainability, Vol. 10, Pages 2591: Reducing Seismic Vulnerability and Energy Demand of Cities through Green Infrastructure Sustainability doi: 10.3390/su10082591 Authors: Riccardo Privitera Daniele La Rosa Historically, urbanization processes in Italy resulted in built environments with high levels of seismic vulnerability, low energy efficiency and a lack of green spaces. The latter represent the main providers of ecosystem services in cities and play a relevant role in reducing the effects of climate change by the regulation of microclimate and urban heat islands that are responsible for building energy consumption. Despite their importance in providing ecosystem services, the implementation of green infrastructure challenges limited financial resources for the public acquisition of private plots. This paper proposes a strategy to implement an urban green infrastructure aimed at generating a double positive effect on cities by triggering seismic retrofitting and the reduction of cooling energy demand of the existing urban fabric. This is proposed through a transfer of development rights program where landowners gain economic incentives to adopt seismic retrofitting interventions and, at the same time, public administrations implement the green infrastructure in the portion of areas transferred to the municipality. The energy efficiency of buildings closer to the green infrastructure, therefore, benefits from the cooling effects of this new greenery. The strategy is tested under different scenarios of acquisition of private land by public administrations in the metropolitan area of Catania (Italy).

Description: Sustainability, Vol. 10, Pages 2588: Identifying Economic Growth Convergence Clubs and Their Influencing Factors in China Sustainability doi: 10.3390/su10082588 Authors: Feng Li Guangdong Li Weishan Qin Jing Qin Haitao Ma Balanced and coordinated economic development across regions is a critical goal of regional economic development and new-type urbanization in China. However, few studies have examined economic growth convergence clubs at the county level. To extend the research on convergence clubs, this research applies a log t convergence test and a dynamic spatial ordered probit model (DSOP) to endogenously identify economic growth convergence clubs in counties and to examine the influence of initial states and structures on club convergence probability. The study sample covers 2286 counties of China from 1992 to 2010. The results show significant convergence club patterns at the county levels, resulting in the gradual formation of six convergence clubs. The DSOP estimation results show that per capita fixed assets, population density, and industrialization have promoted convergence club formation to varying degrees.

Description: Future Internet, Vol. 10, Pages 72: Context Analysis of Cloud Computing Systems Using a Pattern-Based Approach Future Internet doi: 10.3390/fi10080072 Authors: Ludger Goeke Nazila Gol Mohammadi Maritta Heisel Cloud computing services bring new capabilities for hosting and offering complex collaborative business operations. However, these advances might bring undesirable side-effects, e.g., introducing new vulnerabilities and threats caused by collaboration and data exchange over the Internet. Hence, users have become more concerned about security and privacy aspects. For secure provisioning of a cloud computing service, security and privacy issues must be addressed by using a risk assessment method. To perform a risk assessment, it is necessary to obtain all relevant information about the context of the considered cloud computing service. The context analysis of a cloud computing service and its underlying system is a difficult task because of the variety of different types of information that have to be considered. This context information includes (i) legal, regulatory and/or contractual requirements that are relevant for a cloud computing service (indirect stakeholders); (ii) relations to other involved cloud computing services; (iii) high-level cloud system components that support the involved cloud computing services; (iv) data that is processed by the cloud computing services; and (v) stakeholders that interact directly with the cloud computing services and/or the underlying cloud system components. We present a pattern for the contextual analysis of cloud computing services and demonstrate the instantiation of our proposed pattern with real-life application examples. Our pattern contains elements that represent the above-mentioned types of contextual information. The elements of our pattern conform to the General Data Protection Regulation. Besides the context analysis, our pattern supports the identification of high-level assets. Additionally, our proposed pattern supports the documentation of the scope and boundaries of a cloud computing service conforming to the requirements of the ISO 27005 standard (information security risk management). The results of our context analysis contribute to the transparency of the achieved security and privacy level of a cloud computing service. This transparency can increase the trust of users in a cloud computing service. We present results of the RestAssured project related to the context analysis regarding cloud computing services and their underlying cloud computing systems. The context analysis is the prerequisite to threat and control identification that are performed later in the risk management process. The focus of this paper is the use of a pattern at the time of design systematic context analysis and scope definition for risk management methods.

Description: Algorithms, Vol. 11, Pages 111: A Weighted Histogram-Based Tone Mapping Algorithm for CT Images Algorithms doi: 10.3390/a11080111 Authors: David Völgyes Anne Catrine Trægde Martinsen Arne Stray-Pedersen Dag Waaler Marius Pedersen Computed Tomography (CT) images have a high dynamic range, which makes visualization challenging. Histogram equalization methods either use spatially invariant weights or limited kernel size due to the complexity of pairwise contribution calculation. We present a weighted histogram equalization-based tone mapping algorithm which utilizes Fast Fourier Transform for distance-dependent contribution calculation and distance-based weights. The weights follow power-law without distance-based cut-off. The resulting images have good local contrast without noticeable artefacts. The results are compared to eight popular tone mapping operators.

Description: Sustainability, Vol. 10, Pages 2594: Resilient Entrepreneurship among European Higher Education Graduates Sustainability doi: 10.3390/su10082594 Authors: Ana-Maria Zamfir Cristina Mocanu Adriana Grigorescu Resilience represents the ability of systems and individuals to adapt and overcome the difficulties and challenges they face. Resilient entrepreneurs are those who cope with stressful or adverse situations by relying on both internal and external factors. This article examines the way higher education graduates express entrepreneurial resilience in various national contexts. We analyze the Research into Employment and professional Flexibility (REFLEX) data set that provides information on early career of higher education graduates leaving education in the academic year 1999/2000 in 13 European countries. We study resilience in entrepreneurship by considering both how long higher education graduates succeed to remain in self-employment and the extent to which they re-entry in entrepreneurship after exiting. Survival analyses, logistic and cox regressions indicate important differences in patterns of starting, remaining and returning in self-employment and in factors influencing the retention in entrepreneurship among higher education graduates. It is argued that structural factors, personal characteristics and educational background explain a large amount of variation in resilient entrepreneurship.

Description: Forests, Vol. 9, Pages 447: Tradeoffs in Timber, Carbon, and Cash Flow under Alternative Management Systems for Douglas-Fir in the Pacific Northwest Forests doi: 10.3390/f9080447 Authors: David D. Diaz Sara Loreno Gregory J. Ettl Brent Davies Forest management choices offer significant potential to mitigate global climate change and biodiversity loss. To illuminate tradeoffs relevant to policymakers, forest sector stakeholders, and consumers of forest products, we utilize three Key Performance Indicators—average carbon storage in the forest and wood products; cumulative timber output; and discounted cash flow—to compare four alternative management scenarios for Douglas-fir forests on 64 parcels across western Oregon and Washington. These scenarios are designed to meet one of two alternative management objectives: (i) maximize Net Present Value; or (ii) maximize sustained timber yield; according to one of two alternative sets of forest practice constraints: (i) compliance with minimum Oregon/Washington Forest Practices Act (FPA) rules; or (ii) two key requirements (increased green tree retention and wider riparian buffers) of Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification. Improved performance in terms of carbon storage for these alternatives generally also corresponded with reduced Net Present Value and timber yields. The gap between FSC and FPA performance indicators was wider in Oregon than Washington, which is primarily attributed to the higher level of stream protection required under Washington versus Oregon FPA rules. We observed consistently higher average carbon storage per cumulative timber output among FSC scenarios relative to business-as-usual, indicating FSC-certified wood carries an embedded carbon benefit. Our findings highlight options for targeted policies to incentivize management that increases carbon storage and minimizes disruptions in timber output, as well as for narrowing the financial gap (or opportunity cost) that would be involved in a transition away from contemporary common practice on industrial timberlands in the coastal Douglas-fir forests of the Pacific Northwest.

Description: Geosciences, Vol. 8, Pages 287: A New Occurrence of Terrestrial Native Iron in the Earth’s Surface: The Ilia Thermogenic Travertine Case, Northwestern Euboea, Greece Geosciences doi: 10.3390/geosciences8080287 Authors: Christos Kanellopoulos Eugenia Valsami-Jones Panagiotis Voudouris Christina Stouraiti Robert Moritz Constantinos Mavrogonatos Panagiotis Mitropoulos Native iron has been identified in an active thermogenic travertine deposit, located at Ilia area (Euboea Island, Greece). The deposit is forming around a hot spring, which is part of a large active metallogenetic hydrothermal system depositing ore-bearing travertines. The native iron occurs in two shapes: nodules with diameter 0.4 and 0.45 cm, and angular grains with length up to tens of μm. The travertine laminae around the spherical/ovoid nodules grow smoothly, and the angular grains are trapped inside the pores of the travertine. Their mineral-chemistry is ultra-pure, containing, other than Fe, only Mn (0.34–0.38 wt.%) and Ni (≤0.05 wt.%). After evaluating all the possible environments where native iron has been reported up until today and taking under consideration all the available data concerning the study area, we propose two possible scenarios: (i) Ilia’s native iron has a magmatic/hydrothermal origin i.e., it is a deep product near the magmatic chamber or a peripheral cooling igneous body that was transferred during the early stages of the geothermal field evolution, from high temperature, reduced gas-rich fluids and deposited along with other metals in permeable structural zones, at shallow levels. Later on, it was remobilized and mechanically transferred and precipitated at the Ilia’s thermogenic travertine by the active lower temperatures geothermal fluids; (ii) the native iron at Ilia is remobilized from deep seated ophiolitic rocks, originated initially from reduced fluids during serpentinization processes; however, its mechanical transport seems less probable. The native iron mineral-chemistry, morphology and the presence of the other mineral phases in the same thermogenic travertine support both hypotheses.

Description: Materials, Vol. 11, Pages 1284: Microstructures and Compressive Properties of Al Matrix Composites Reinforced with Bimodal Hybrid In-Situ Nano-/Micro-Sized TiC Particles Materials doi: 10.3390/ma11081284 Authors: Feng Qiu Hao-Tian Tong Yu-Yang Gao Qian Zou Bai-Xin Dong Qiang Li Jian-Ge Chu Fang Chang Shi-Li Shu Qi-Chuan Jiang Bimodal hybrid in-situ nano-/micro-size TiC/Al composites were prepared with combustion synthesis of Al-Ti-C system and hot press consolidation. Attempt was made to obtain in-situ bimodal-size TiC particle reinforced dense Al matrix composites by using different carbon sources in the reaction process of hot pressing forming. Microstructure showed that the obtained composites exhibited reasonable bimodal-sized TiC distribution in the matrix and low porosity. With the increasing of the carbon nano tube (CNT) content from 0 to 100 wt. %, the average size of the TiC particles decreases and the compressive strength of the composite increase; while the fracture strain increases first and then decreases. The compressive properties of the bimodal-sized TiC/Al composites, especially the bimodal-sized composite synthesized by Al-Ti-C with 50 wt. % CNTs as carbon source, were improved compared with the composites reinforced with single sized TiC. The strengthening mechanism of the in-situ bimodal-sized particle reinforced aluminum matrix composites was revealed.

Description: Materials, Vol. 11, Pages 1283: Biocompatible and Implantable Optical Fibers and Waveguides for Biomedicine Materials doi: 10.3390/ma11081283 Authors: Roya Nazempour Qianyi Zhang Ruxing Fu Xing Sheng Optical fibers and waveguides in general effectively control and modulate light propagation, and these tools have been extensively used in communication, lighting and sensing. Recently, they have received increasing attention in biomedical applications. By delivering light into deep tissue via these devices, novel applications including biological sensing, stimulation and therapy can be realized. Therefore, implantable fibers and waveguides in biocompatible formats with versatile functionalities are highly desirable. In this review, we provide an overview of recent progress in the exploration of advanced optical fibers and waveguides for biomedical applications. Specifically, we highlight novel materials design and fabrication strategies to form implantable fibers and waveguides. Furthermore, their applications in various biomedical fields such as light therapy, optogenetics, fluorescence sensing and imaging are discussed. We believe that these newly developed fiber and waveguide based devices play a crucial role in advanced optical biointerfaces.

Description: Materials, Vol. 11, Pages 1282: Development of a Novel in Silico Model to Investigate the Influence of Radial Clearance on the Acetabular Cup Contact Pressure in Hip Implants Materials doi: 10.3390/ma11081282 Authors: Saverio Affatato Massimiliano Merola Alessandro Ruggiero A hip joint replacement is considered one of the most successful orthopedic surgical procedures although it involves challenges that must be overcome. The patient group undergoing total hip arthroplasty now includes younger and more active patients who require a broad range of motion and a longer service lifetime of the implant. The current replacement joint results are not fully satisfactory for these patients’ demands. As particle release is one of the main issues, pre-clinical experimental wear testing of total hip replacement components is an invaluable tool for evaluating new implant designs and materials. The aim of the study was to investigate the cup tensional state by varying the clearance between head and cup. For doing this we use a novel hard-on-soft finite element model with kinematic and dynamic conditions calculated from a musculoskeletal multibody model during the gait. Four different usual radial clearances were considered, ranging from 0 to 0.5 mm. The results showed that radial clearance plays a key role in acetabular cup stress-strain during the gait, showing from the 0 value to the highest, 0.5, a difference of 44% and 35% in terms of maximum pressure and deformation, respectively. Moreover, the presented model could be usefully exploited for complete elastohydrodynamic synovial lubrication modelling of the joint, with the aim of moving towards an increasingly realistic total hip arthroplasty in silico wear assessment accounting for differences in radial clearances.

Description: Materials, Vol. 11, Pages 1277: Filtration of Sub-3.3 nm Tungsten Oxide Particles Using Nanofibrous Filters Materials doi: 10.3390/ma11081277 Authors: Raheleh Givehchi Qinghai Li Zhongchao Tan This work aims to understand the effects of particle concentration on the filtration of nanoparticles using nanofibrous filters. The filtration efficiencies of triple modal tungsten oxide (WOx) nanoparticles were experimentally determined at three different concentrations for the size range of 0.82–3.3 nm in diameter. All tests were conducted using polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) nano-fibrous filters at an air relative humidity of 2.9%. Results showed that the filtration efficiencies of sub-3.3 nm nanoparticles depended on the upstream particle concentration. The lower the particle concentration was, the higher the filtration efficiency was.