bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
An Innovative Strategy for Accurate Thermal Compensation of Gyro Bias in Inertial Units by Exploiting a Novel Augmented Kalman Filter
Authors: Fontanella Rita , Accardo Domenico , Moriello Rosario Schiano Lo , Angrisani Leopoldo , Simone Domenico De
Published: May 2018

This paper presents an innovative model for integrating thermal compensation of gyro bias error into an augmented state Kalman filter. The developed model is applied in the Zero Velocity Update filter for inertial units manufactured by exploiting Micro Electro-Mechanical System (MEMS) gyros. It is used to remove residual bias at startup. It is a more effective alternative to traditional approach that is realized by cascading bias thermal correction by calibration and traditional Kalman filtering for bias tracking. This function is very useful when adopted gyros are manufactured using MEMS technology. These systems have significant limitations in terms of sensitivity to environmental conditions. They are characterized by a strong correlation of the systematic error with temperature variations. The traditional process is divided into two separated algorithms, i.e., calibration and filtering, and this aspect reduces system accuracy, reliability, and maintainability. This paper proposes an innovative Zero Velocity Update filter that just requires raw uncalibrated gyro data as input. It unifies in a single algorithm the two steps from the traditional approach. Therefore, it saves time and economic resources, simplifying the management of thermal correction process. In the paper, traditional and innovative Zero Velocity Update filters are described in detail, as well as the experimental data set used to test both methods. The performance of the two filters is compared both in nominal conditions and in the typical case of a residual initial alignment bias. In this last condition, the innovative solution shows significant improvements with respect to the traditional approach. This is the typical case of an aircraft or a car in parking conditions under solar input.
Managing Emergency Situations in VANET Through Heterogeneous Technologies Cooperation
Authors: Santamaria Amilcare Francesco , Tropea Mauro , Fazio Peppino , De Rango Floriano
Published: May 2018

Nowadays, the research on vehicular computing enhanced a very huge amount of services and protocols, aimed to vehicles security and comfort. The investigation of the IEEE802.11p, Wireless Access in Vehicular Environments (WAVE) and Dedicated Short Range Communication (DSRC) standards gave to the scientific world the chance to integrate new services, protocols, algorithms and devices inside vehicles. This opportunity attracted the attention of private/public organizations, which spent lot of resources and money to promote vehicular technologies. In this paper, the attention is focused on the design of a new approach for vehicular environments able to gather information during mobile node trips, for advising dangerous or emergency situations by exploiting on-board sensors. It is assumed that each vehicle has an integrated on-board unit composed of several sensors and Global Position System (GPS) device, able to spread alerting messages around the network, regarding warning and dangerous situations/conditions. On-board units, based on the standard communication protocols, share the collected information with the surrounding road-side units, while the sensing platform is able to recognize the environment that vehicles are passing through (obstacles, accidents, emergencies, dangerous situations, etc.). Finally, through the use of the GPS receiver, the exact location of the caught event is determined and spread along the network. In this way, if an accident occurs, the arriving cars will, probably, avoid delay and danger situations.
Pido: Predictive Delay Optimization for Intertidal Wireless Sensor Networks
Authors: Zhou Xinyan , Ji Xiaoyu , Wang Bin , Cheng Yushi , Ma Zhuoran , Choi Francis , Helmuth Brian , Xu Wenyuan
Published: May 2018

Intertidal habitats are among the harshest environments on the planet, and have emerged as a model system for exploring the ecological impacts of global climate change. Deploying reliable instrumentation to measure environmental conditions such as temperature is challenging in this environment. The application of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) shows considerable promise as a means of optimizing continuous data collection, but poor link quality and unstable connections between nodes, caused by harsh physical environmental conditions, bring about a delay problem. In this paper, we model and analyze the components of delays in an intertidal wireless sensor network system (IT-WSN). We show that, by properly selecting routing pathways, it is feasible to improve delay. To this end, we propose a Predictive Delay Optimization (Pido) framework, which provides a new metric for routing path selection. Pido incorporates delay introduced by both link quality and node conditions, and designs a classifier to predict future conditions of nodes, i.e., the likely time of aerial exposure at low tide in this case. We evaluate the performance of Pido in both a real IT-WSN system and a large-scale simulation, the result demonstrates that Pido decreases up to 73% of delays on average with limited overhead.
A Four-Feet Walking-Type Rotary Piezoelectric Actuator with Minute Step Motion
Authors: Liu Yingxiang , Wang Yun , Liu Junkao , Xu Dongmei , Li Kai , Shan Xiaobiao , Deng Jie
Published: May 2018

A four-feet walking-type rotary piezoelectric actuator with minute step motion was proposed. The proposed actuator used the rectangular motions of four driving feet to push the rotor step-by-step; this operating principle was different with the previous non-resonant actuators using direct-driving, inertial-driving, and inchworm-type mechanisms. The mechanism of the proposed actuator was discussed in detail. Transient analyses were accomplished by ANSYS software to simulate the motion trajectory of the driving foot and to find the response characteristics. A prototype was manufactured to verify the mechanism and to test the mechanical characteristics. A minimum resolution of 0.095 μrad and a maximum torque of 49 N·mm were achieved by the prototype, and the output speed was varied by changing the driving voltage and working frequency. This work provides a new mechanism for the design of a rotary piezoelectric actuator with minute step motion.
PS-CARA: Context-Aware Resource Allocation Scheme for Mobile Public Safety Networks
Authors: Kaleem Zeeshan , Khaliq Muhammad Zubair , Khan Ajmal , Ahmad Ishtiaq , Duong Trung Q.
Published: May 2018

The fifth-generation (5G) communications systems are expecting to support users with diverse quality-of-service (QoS) requirements. Beside these requirements, the task with utmost importance is to support the emergency communication services during natural or man-made disasters. Most of the conventional base stations are not properly functional during a disaster situation, so deployment of emergency base stations such as mobile personal cell (mPC) is crucial. An mPC having moving capability can move in the disaster area to provide emergency communication services. However, mPC deployment causes severe co-channel interference to the users in its vicinity. The problem in the existing resource allocation schemes is its support for static environment, that does not fit well for mPC. So, a resource allocation scheme for mPC users is desired that can dynamically allocate resources based on users’ location and its connection establishment priority. In this paper, we propose a public safety users priority-based context-aware resource allocation (PS-CARA) scheme for users sum-rate maximization in disaster environment. Simulations results demonstrate that the proposed PS-CARA scheme can increase the user average and edge rate around 10.3% and 32.8% , respectively because of context information availability and by prioritizing the public safety users. The simulation results ensure that call blocking probability is also reduced considerably under the PS-CARA scheme.
Manufacturing a Long-Period Grating with Periodic Thermal Diffusion Technology on High-NA Fiber and Its Application as a High-Temperature Sensor
Authors: Shen Xiang , Dai Bin , Xing Yingbin , Yang Luyun , Li Haiqing , Li Jinyan , Peng Jingang
Published: May 2018

We demonstrated a kind of long-period fiber grating (LPFG), which is manufactured with a thermal diffusion treatment. The LPFG was inscribed on an ultrahigh-numerical-aperture (UHNA) fiber, highly doped with Ge and P, which was able to easily diffuse at high temperatures within a few seconds. We analyzed how the elements diffused at a high temperature over 1300 °C in the UHNA fiber. Then we developed a periodically heated technology with a CO2 laser, which was able to cause the diffusion of the elements to constitute the modulations of an LPFG. With this technology, there is little damage to the outer structure of the fiber, which is different from the traditional LPFG, as it is periodically tapered. Since the LPFG itself was manufactured under high temperature, it can withstand higher temperatures than traditional LPFGs. Furthermore, the LPFG presents a higher sensitivity to high temperature due to the large amount of Ge doping, which is approximately 100 pm/°C. In addition, the LPFG shows insensitivity to the changing of the environment’s refractive index and strain.
PCANet-Based Structural Representation for Nonrigid Multimodal Medical Image Registration
Authors: Zhu Xingxing , Ding Mingyue , Huang Tao , Jin Xiaomeng , Zhang Xuming
Published: May 2018

Nonrigid multimodal image registration remains a challenging task in medical image processing and analysis. The structural representation (SR)-based registration methods have attracted much attention recently. However, the existing SR methods cannot provide satisfactory registration accuracy due to the utilization of hand-designed features for structural representation. To address this problem, the structural representation method based on the improved version of the simple deep learning network named PCANet is proposed for medical image registration. In the proposed method, PCANet is firstly trained on numerous medical images to learn convolution kernels for this network. Then, a pair of input medical images to be registered is processed by the learned PCANet. The features extracted by various layers in the PCANet are fused to produce multilevel features. The structural representation images are constructed for two input images based on nonlinear transformation of these multilevel features. The Euclidean distance between structural representation images is calculated and used as the similarity metrics. The objective function defined by the similarity metrics is optimized by L-BFGS method to obtain parameters of the free-form deformation (FFD) model. Extensive experiments on simulated and real multimodal image datasets show that compared with the state-of-the-art registration methods, such as modality-independent neighborhood descriptor (MIND), normalized mutual information (NMI), Weber local descriptor (WLD), and the sum of squared differences on entropy images (ESSD), the proposed method provides better registration performance in terms of target registration error (TRE) and subjective human vision.
Direct Position Determination of Multiple Non-Circular Sources with a Moving Coprime Array
Authors: Zhang Yankui , Ba Bin , Wang Daming , Geng Wei , Xu Haiyun
Published: May 2018

Direct position determination (DPD) is currently a hot topic in wireless localization research as it is more accurate than traditional two-step positioning. However, current DPD algorithms are all based on uniform arrays, which have an insufficient degree of freedom and limited estimation accuracy. To improve the DPD accuracy, this paper introduces a coprime array to the position model of multiple non-circular sources with a moving array. To maximize the advantages of this coprime array, we reconstruct the covariance matrix by vectorization, apply a spatial smoothing technique, and converge the subspace data from each measuring position to establish the cost function. Finally, we obtain the position coordinates of the multiple non-circular sources. The complexity of the proposed method is computed and compared with that of other methods, and the Cramer–Rao lower bound of DPD for multiple sources with a moving coprime array, is derived. Theoretical analysis and simulation results show that the proposed algorithm is not only applicable to circular sources, but can also improve the positioning accuracy of non-circular sources. Compared with existing two-step positioning algorithms and DPD algorithms based on uniform linear arrays, the proposed technique offers a significant improvement in positioning accuracy with a slight increase in complexity.
Environmental Impact Associated with the Supply Chain and Production of Biodiesel from Jatropha curcas L. through Life Cycle Analysis
Authors: Giraldi-Díaz Mario R. , De Medina-Salas Lorena , Castillo-González Eduardo , De la Cruz-Benavides Max
Published: May 2018

The energy market is diversifying, allowing for the development of biofuels that seek to reduce environmental impact and be energetically competitive with conventional fuels. One of the aforementioned biofuels is the biodiesel that is produced from the oil extracted from the seeds of Jatropha curcas L. This research uses life cycle analysis (LCA) tool to analyze the following environmental impacts associated with its production: energy, water footprint, carbon footprint, mineral resource depletion, fossil resource depletion, terrestrial ecotoxicity, and human toxicity. The following stages were evaluated: (i) cultivation, (ii) the extraction of oil, and (iii) the biodiesel manufacturing process. The results showed that the overall process has an accumulated energy demand of 37.9 MJ/kg biodiesel, and generates 2.16 kg CO2 eq. of greenhouse gases (GHG) per kg of biofuel. The cultivation stage had the greatest contribution towards its energy and carbon footprints, taking up 45% and 60%, respectively. However, considering the energy valorization of the coproducts that are generated in the agricultural and extraction stages for self-consumption into the product system, both categories of impact mentioned above were reduced by 35% and 41%, respectively.
Is Fish Farming an Illusion for Lake Malawi Riparian Communities under Environmental Changes?
Authors: Limuwa Moses Majid , Singini Wales , Storebakken Trond
Published: May 2018

Global environmental changes have negatively affected many food systems while the demand for food has continued to rise. An urgent need exists to identify other sustainable means of producing food. This is a case in Malawi, where capture fisheries and agriculture are not supplying sufficient food. Fish farming food systems by communities who rely on inland fisheries have not been evaluated. Therefore, a study was conducted in two phases: January 2016 to May 2016 and in July 2017 to evaluate if fish farming could sustainably support livelihoods of Lake Malawi riparian communities. We used mixed methods to collect and analyze data. The data collection methods included explorative surveys, household survey interviews, focus group discussion and key informant interviews. Qualitative data was analyzed using content analysis for themes. This identified themes that were quantitatively analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. We observed that fish farming was dominated by men and also not the main occupation for the respondents despite owning fishponds. The respondents have water and land, which are prerequisite for any farming. The study also observed fish farming production challenges related to quality fingerlings, formulated diets, and extension services. Cases of food insecurity amongst the respondents were also prevalent due to lack of food to cover the entire year. Weak synergies existed between fish farming and agriculture restricting bio-resource flow and water usage between these two food systems, meaning the outcomes of the food systems provide unsustainable diets. Furthermore, water availability, money spent on food, and cassava cropping increased fish farming participation. Whereas operating a bicycle taxi, casual labor, former fish farming, as well as application of agricultural wastes negatively affected fish farming. On the other hand, extreme weather events (increased incidences of droughts and floods) attributed to inter annual rainfall variation also negatively affected fish farming. The responses from Lake Malawi riparian communities indicate that they merely look upon fish farming as an alternative to capture fisheries than as an illusion. Nonetheless, the research provides a theoretical platform to explore the potential to develop sustainable fish farming food system adapted to such changes. Therefore, we have brought new evidence that progress of fish farming in Malawi is being made, but there is a long way to go before it can be considered successful and sustainable.
Benchmarking the Life-Cycle Environmental Performance of Buildings
Authors: Gervasio Helena , Dimova Silvia , Pinto Artur
Published: May 2018

The work presented in this paper is part of a research project aiming for the development of a performance-based approach for sustainable design, focusing on the efficient use of natural resources over the lifetime of buildings. The proposed approach requires the set of benchmarks to provide a consistent and transparent yardstick for the environmental performance of buildings and to strive towards an effective reduction in the use of resources and relative environmental impacts in the building sector. This paper focuses on the development of the framework for the quantification of the benchmarks. Additionally, a review of available benchmarks is provided, showing a huge diversity of values. One of the main factors contributing to such diversity is the lack of a reliable model for the quantification of the benchmarks. To overcome this problem, a consistent model for life-cycle assessment (LCA) is adopted, which is based on a standardized framework and enables comparability of results. Based on the proposed approach, a preliminary set of benchmarks for residential buildings is defined, leading to values in the range of 5–12 kg CO2/m2.yr and 68–186 MJ/m2.yr, for life-cycle global warming and total primary energy, respectively.
Transforming Development and Disaster Risk
Authors: Thomalla Frank , Boyland Michael , Johnson Karlee , Ensor Jonathan , Tuhkanen Heidi , Gerger Swartling Åsa , Han Guoyi , Forrester John , Wahl Darin
Published: May 2018

This article focuses on the complex relationship between development and disaster risk. Development and disaster risk are closely linked as the people and assets exposed to risk, as well as their vulnerability and capacity, are largely determined by development processes. Transformation is key to moving from current development patterns that increase, create or unfairly distribute risks, to forms of development that are equitable, resilient and sustainable. Based on a review of existing literature, we present three opportunities that have the potential to lead to transformation in the development-disaster risk relationship: (i) exposing development-disaster risk trade-offs in development policy and decision-making; (ii) prioritizing equity and social justice in approaches to secure resilience; and (iii) enabling transformation through adaptive governance. This research aims to contribute to breaking down existing barriers in research, policy and practice between the disaster risk reduction, climate change adaptation, and development communities by providing cross-sectoral opportunities to operationalize theoretical knowledge on transformation. It also helps to clarify the connections between different global agendas by positioning transformation as a potential bridging concept to link disconnected policy processes. This paper argues for empirical research to test the opportunities presented here and further define transformative pathways at multiple scales.
Domestic Wheat Trade and Its Associated Virtual Cropland Flow in China, 2010–2015
Authors: Chen Xiaolin , Liu Xiaojie , Liu Litao , Zhang Yali , Guo Jinhua , Huang Jing , Zhou Meijun , Zhao Yang , Wu Liang , Yang Lun , Lun Fei
Published: May 2018

How to meet food demands with limited cropland has become a serious problem worldwide, especially in China. Global and national food trade can alleviate regional food unbalance among different countries or regions to some extent. The embedded virtual land also flows with food trade, and reasonable food trade can save global croplands and protect local ecosystems. Therefore, it is of great importance to study how trade influences land use as well as its associated environmental consequences. Recent studies have mainly focused on global food trade and its associated virtual land flow; however, only a few have focused on national food trade and its associated virtual land flow. Thus, this study aims to explore the domestic wheat trade and its associated virtual land flows in China during the period 2010–2015, based on the CHINAGRO model and previous studies. The Huang-Huai-Hai Plain and its surrounding regions were the main producers and consumers of wheat and virtual wheat. Without wheat stocks and international wheat trade, the annual domestic wheat trade accounted for 16.43% of the total national wheat production in China. Anhui was the largest net exporter of wheat, followed by Henan, while the developed areas such as Beijing, Guangdong, and Shanghai were the main net importers. Additionally, as an important transfer region, Jiangsu was the largest exporter and importer of wheat virtual cropland, but it finally presented as a net exporter of wheat cropland. During this period, domestic wheat trade led to a total land savings of 2.62 Mha/a, accounting for 10.80% of Chinese wheat cropland. However, compared with the year 2010, Shandong, Hebei, and Sichuan turned into wheat net importers in 2015, which was due to different reasons such as national agriculture polices and economic development. In addition, the net virtual cropland per capita has been greatly influenced by local economic development.
“I Drive outside of Peak Time to Avoid Traffic Jams—Public Transport Is Not Attractive Here.” Challenging Discourses on Travel to the University Campus in Manila
Authors: Hickman Robin , Lopez Neil , Cao Mengqiu , Lira Beatriz Mella , Biona Jose Bienvenido Manuel
Published: May 2018

One of the major narratives in transport policy internationally concerns the promotion of private versus public modes. The Global North has many examples where public transport, walking and cycling networks are well developed, yet examples from the Global South are less evident. There is a historical failure of replicating policies and practices from the Global North, particularly in perpetuating the highway building model, often unsuitable to the cultural contexts in the Global South. This paper examines individual attitudes and discourses concerning travel to De La Salle University campus, in Metro Manila, the Philippines. 42 participants are surveyed using Q methodology. Four discourses are developed, reflecting attitudes to growing automobility in Manila, public transport service provision, the difficulties of travelling in the city and the aspiration for increased comfort whilst travelling. Manila provides an example of the complexities in moving towards greater sustainable travel in the southeast Asian context where levels of private car usage are already high. It is hoped that a greater awareness of the problems of the current travel experiences might lead to us to seek different narratives, where transport systems can be developed which better serve social equity and environmental goals.
Analysing Ecosystem User Perceptions of the Governance Interactions Surrounding a Brazilian Near Shore Coral Reef
Authors: Glaser Marion , Gorris Philipp , Ferreira Beatrice Padovani , Breckwoldt Annette
Published: May 2018

This study focuses on understanding stakeholder perceptions in environmental governance and management. Based on an application of the net-mapping method as the main approach for a comparative analysis of local ecosystem users’ perceptions, this research elucidates subjective local realities of fishers and tourism operators in two study sites of the governance system of a marine protected area in Northeast Brazil. The findings showed that fishers and tourism operators see themselves as part of specific webs of social relations with associated power asymmetries. The perceived governance interaction networks varied between stakeholder groups, since they see reef governance in relation to their own interests and vulnerabilities. These variations in perception set the scene for different actions. The results of this comparative study show that where ecosystem users perceived the environmental rule system to be equitable and legitimate, its implementation was enhanced, where they did not, it was fraught with difficulties. This points to the potential for applying a systematic approach for differentiating perceptions, and their change over time, as behavioural drivers to strengthen future sustainability research. The article concludes with reflections on net-mapping as a tool for analysing perceptions on environmental governance.
The Impact of Proximity to Wet Markets and Supermarkets on Household Dietary Diversity in Nanjing City, China
Authors: Zhong Taiyang , Si Zhenzhong , Crush Jonathan , Xu Zhiying , Huang Xianjin , Scott Steffanie , Tang Shuangshuang , Zhang Xiang
Published: May 2018

This study investigated the influence of the proximity to wet markets and supermarkets on urban household dietary diversity in Nanjing. Based on the data collected through a citywide survey in 2015 and the map data of wet markets and supermarkets, the Poisson regression model was deployed to examine the correlations between geographical proximity to supermarkets and wet markets and household dietary diversity. The result shows that the coefficients for the distance to the nearest wet market are not statistically significant. Although the coefficients for the distance to nearest supermarket are statistically significant, they were too minor to reach a practical importance. We argue, however, that the insignificant correlations reflect exactly the high physical accessibility to food outlets and the extensive spatially dense food supply network constituted by wet markets, supermarkets and small food stores in Nanjing, due in part to the food infrastructure development planning in Nanjing that has ensured relatively equal and convenient access to wet markets or supermarkets for all households. Our findings are verified by the survey data that more than 90% of households purchased fresh food items within their neighborhoods or in walking distance. In addition to the densely distributed food outlets, various other factors contributed to the non-significant influence of the distance to the nearest wet market and supermarket, in particular, the numerous small food stores within or close to residential communities, the prevalence of three-generation extended household structure and the high household income.
The Use of Information and Communications Technology in Vocational Education and Training—Premise of Sustainability
Authors: Deaconu Alecxandrina , Dedu Elena Mădălina , Igreț Ramona Ștefania , Radu Cătălina
Published: May 2018

Vocational education and training of human resources in tourism play an important role in the development of the tourism industry and hence in the national, regional and global economy. In this paper, we aimed to analyze the effective use of smart education in the teaching and learning process in tourism. The research was conducted over three academic years (2013–2014, 2014–2015, 2015–2016) in 12 high schools providing tourism specializations in Constanta County, Romania. The main method used was an experiment. Thus, we used information and communication technology (ICT) methods in the educational process (the independent variable) in order to compare students’ results to those obtained in control classes, in which only traditional teaching methods were used. The results of our research confirmed our initial hypotheses, namely the fact that by using ICT methods within tourism classes, students understand and assimilate specialised knowledge faster and better, and they form and develop specific skills at a higher level than by using traditional teaching methods. This means that by using the latest technology in classes for teaching and learning disciplines in tourism, it is possible to develop, by the end of the superior cycle of high school, the future qualified human resources required for sustainable tourism.
Forest-Cover Increase Does Not Trigger Forest-Fragmentation Decrease: Case Study from the Polish Carpathians
Authors: Kozak Jacek , Ziółkowska Elżbieta , Vogt Peter , Dobosz Monika , Kaim Dominik , Kolecka Natalia , Ostafin Krzysztof
Published: May 2018

Understanding the causes and consequences of forest-fragmentation changes is critical for preserving various ecosystem services and to maintain biodiversity levels. We used long-term (1860s–2010s) and large-scale data on historical forest cover in the Polish Carpathians to identify the trajectories of forest fragmentation. Past forest cover was reconstructed for the 1860s, 1930s, 1970s and 2010s using historical maps and the contemporary national database of topographic objects. We analyzed forest-cover changes in 127 randomly selected circular test areas. Forest fragmentation was quantified with GuidosToolbox software using measures based on a landscape hypsometric curve (LHC). Despite a general increase in forest cover, forest fragmentation showed divergent trajectories: a decrease between the 1860s and 1930s (in 57% of test areas), and an increase between the 1930s and 1970s and between the 1970s and 2010s (in 58% and 72% of test areas, respectively). Although deforestation typically involves the increasing fragmentation of forest habitats, we found that forest expansion may not necessarily lead to more homogenous forested landscape, due to complex land-ownership and land-use legacy patterns. This is both a challenge and an opportunity for policy makers to tune policies in such a way as to maintain the desired fragmentation of forest habitats.
Information Disclosure on Hazards from Industrial Water Pollution Incidents: Latent Resistance and Countermeasures in China
Authors: Tang Yanhong , Miao Xin , Zang Hongyu , Gao Yanhong
Published: May 2018

China has suffered frequent water pollution incidents in recent years, and information disclosure on relevant hazards is often delayed and insufficient. The purpose of this paper is to unearth the latent resistance, and analyze the institutional arrangements and countermeasures. After reviewing representative journal literature about environmental information disclosure, this paper provides a theoretical review based on a comparison of the ontological differences between stakeholder theory and fraud triangle theory. A tentative application of fraud triangle theory as a means of explaining the phenomenon is proposed. Empirical analysis is undertaken to verify the tentative theoretical explanation. Based on news reports from Chinese official news websites, content analysis on longitudinal case evidence of representative water pollution incidents is applied, to contribute to unearthing the mechanism of the latent resistance towards information disclosure. The results show that local government agencies have a dominant position vis a vis information disclosure, but that some important actors rarely participate in information disclosure, which provides a chance for local government agencies’ information disclosure to commit fraud. The phenomenon, its essence, and proposed countermeasures are discussed and explained by referring to recent governmental environmental practices in China. Promising research topics are illuminated, providing enlightenment for future study.
The Effectiveness of the Multilateral Coalition to Develop a Green Agricultural Products Market in China Based on a TU Cooperative Game Analysis
Authors: Deng Mingjun , Xiang Guocheng , Yao Shuntian
Published: May 2018

Green agriculture can improve biodiversity, increase farmers’ income, reduce agricultural non-point source pollution, solve food safety issues, and will be an important way to promote sustainable development in China. At present, the green transformation of China’s agriculture has encountered a bottleneck in the development of a green agricultural product market. How to develop a green agricultural product market has become an issue worthy of in-depth study in the academia. Previous studies have already given persuasive explanations for the inability to form a green agricultural product market, but few have explored its development path from the angle of cooperation. By employing the method of a Transferable Utilities (TU) cooperative game, and based on theoretical analyses and hypothetical data, this thesis aims to prove the effectiveness of the multilateral coalition to develop the green agricultural product market in China. The results show the effectiveness of the developed model of the green agricultural product market in which producers, consumers, food safety inspection departments, and e-commerce platforms cooperate with each other. This model meets the objective needs of the times and that of the market economy. According to the marginal contribution value of participants in different coalition orders, this thesis finds 6 kinds of coalition orders. When producers and consumers of green agricultural products enter the coalition in the last place, the marginal contribution value is maximized, which reflects the importance of the supply side and demand side of green agricultural products. In other words, the development of the green agricultural product market is a dynamic process—determined by consumers and promoted by producers—in which both sides promote and restrict each other. Finally, this article presents two policy recommendations: at the national level, to clearly proposes a strategy to build a green agricultural product e-commerce platform in China and to launch a pilot application for the specialized e-commerce platform for green agricultural products in the Guizhou province.
Transition of the Swiss Phosphorus System towards a Circular Economy—Part 1: Current State and Historical Developments
Authors: Mehr Jonas , Jedelhauser Michael , Binder Claudia R.
Published: May 2018

Current phosphorus (P) use in European countries is highly dependent on mineral P imports and not sustainably managed. In order to identify and implement measures for sustainable P management, a comprehensive understanding of national P flows and stocks and their temporal dynamics is essential. We conduct a substance flow analysis (SFA) of the Swiss P system of the year 2015, and study the dynamics of the national P system by looking into its development since 1989. Furthermore, we investigate how political-legislative interventions affected the P system during this period. The results show that between 1989 and 2015, the P efficiency in Swiss agriculture increased from 59% to 94%, mainly due to a considerable reduction of fertilization in the agricultural subsystem. At the same time, Switzerland's P import dependency decreased from 33% to 24% between 1989 and 2002 because of a reduction of mineral fertilizer import and use. Between 2002 and 2015, the import dependency stagnated because further improvements in P use efficiency in agriculture were outweighed by a decrease of P recycling and an increase of P losses in the waste management system. By embedding these temporal dynamics in their political-legislative context, we found that top-down interventions such as incentives for a balanced nutrient budget in agriculture, restrictions of the use of animal by-products in the agri-food system or the ban of direct sewage sludge recycling in agriculture significantly affected and shaped the national P system. Our analysis provides profound quantitative and qualitative insights into past and present P management in Switzerland and is followed by part 2 of the paper, where we analyze possible future pathways of P management.
Signal Outages of CSMA/CA-Based Wireless Networks with Different AP Densities
Authors: Cho Soohyun
Published: May 2018

In wireless networks, users may experience outages owing to low received signal strength. Divergent from other research, we investigate the outages for users of CSMA/CA-based wireless networks when multiple access points (APs) and multiple users are randomly positioned in a given area. We model the locations of the APs and users using independent homogeneous Poisson point processes (PPPs), and analyze the signal outage probabilities of users when there are different numbers of access points, as well as when different modulation and coding schemes (MCSs) are used for communication. We also investigate heterogeneous CSMA/CA-based wireless networks, wherein the APs use different transmit powers. Then, we evaluate the results and compare the signal outage rates of users with the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) outage rates of users in both homogeneous and heterogeneous IEEE 802.11a wireless networks using extensive event-driven simulations. The simulation results validate our analysis on the signal outages of users in multi-cell, multi-user wireless networking environments, and show that a significant portion of outages are caused by the signal outages when AP densities are low and high MCS levels are used for communication.
Another Approach to Roughness of Soft Graphs with Applications in Decision Making
Authors: Shah Nasir , Rehman Noor , Shabir Muhammad , Irfan Ali Muhammad
Published: May 2018

Fuzzy sets, rough sets and soft sets are different tools for modeling problems involving uncertainty. Graph theory is another powerful tool for representing the information by means of diagrams, matrices or relations. A possible amalgamation of three different concepts rough sets, soft sets and graphs, known as soft rough graphs, is proposed by Noor et al. They introduced the notion of vertex, edge induced soft rough graphs and soft rough trees depending upon the parameterized subsets of vertex set and edge set. In this article, a new framework for studying the roughness of soft graphs in more general way is introduced. This new model is known as the modified soft rough graphs or MSR -graphs. The concept of the roughness membership function of vertex sets, edge sets and of a graph is also introduced. Further, it has been shown that MSR -graphs are more robust than soft rough graphs. Some results, which are not handled by soft rough graphs, can be handled by modified soft rough graphs. The notion of uncertainty measurement associated with MSR -graphs is introduced. All applications related to decision makings are only restricted to the information of individuals only, not their interactions, using this technique we are able to involve the interactions (edges) of individuals with each other that enhanced the accuracy in decisions.
Extended Covering Arrays for Sequence Coverage
Authors: Sheng Yunlong , Sun Chao , Jiang Shouda , Wei Chang’an
Published: May 2018

Although combinatorial testing has been widely studied and used, there are still some situations and requirements that combinatorial testing does not apply to well, such as a system under test whose test cases need to be performed contiguously. For thorough testing, the testing requirements are not only to cover all the interactions among factors but also to cover all the value sequences of every factor. Generally, systems under test always involve constraints and dependencies in or among test cases. The constraints among test cases have not been effectively specified. First, we introduce extended covering arrays that can achieve both t-way combinatorial coverage and t-wise sequence coverage, and propose a clocked computation tree logic-based formal specification method for specifying constraints. Then, Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) based Extended covering array Generator (PEG) is elaborated. To evaluate the constructed test suites, a method for verifying the constraints’ validity is presented, and kernel functions for measuring the coverage are also introduced. Finally, the performance of the proposed PEG is evaluated using several sets of benchmark experiments for some common constraints, and the feasibility and usefulness of PEG is validated.
Chronic Effects of Fusarium Mycotoxins in Rations with or without Increased Concentrate Proportion on the Insulin Sensitivity in Lactating Dairy Cows
Authors: Kinoshita Asako , Keese Christina , Meyer Ulrich , Starke Alexander , Wrenzycki Christine , Dänicke Sven , Rehage Jürgen
Published: May 2018

The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of long-term exposure to a Fusarium toxin deoxynivalenol (DON, 5 mg/kg DM) on the energy metabolism in lactating cows fed diets with different amounts of concentrate. In Period 1 27 German Holstein cows were assigned to two groups and fed a control or mycotoxin-contaminated diet with 50% concentrate for 11 weeks. In Period 2 each group was further divided and fed either a diet containing 30% or 60% concentrate for 16 weeks. Blood samples were collected in week 0, 4, 8, 15, 21, and 27 for calculation of the Revised Quantitative Insulin Sensitivity Check Index and biopsy samples of skeletal muscle and the liver in w 0, 15, and 27 for analysis by real-time RT-qPCR. The DON-fed groups presented lower insulin sensitivities than controls at week 27. Concomitantly, muscular mRNA expression of insulin receptors and hepatic mRNA expression of glucose transporter 2 and key enzymes for gluconeogenesis and fatty acid metabolism were lower in DON-fed cows compared to the control. The study revealed no consistent evidence that DON effects were modified by dietary concentrate levels. In conclusion, long-term dietary DON intake appears to have mild effects on energy metabolism in lactating dairy cows.
Integrated Evaluation of Hybrid Water Supply Systems Using a PROMETHEE–GAIA Approach
Authors: Sapkota Mukta , Arora Meenakshi , Malano Hector , Sharma Ashok , Moglia Magnus
Published: May 2018

There are pressures on existing centralized water infrastructures in urban centers which justify the search for alternatives. An increasingly important alternative is to shift from centralized to hybrid systems, often in response to climate variability and demographic changes. In a hybrid system, water is supplied and discharged through a mix of centralized and decentralized systems. There is usually no single objective that justifies the choice of hybrid water systems, but they typically are justified based on the consideration of a number of different criteria in order to evaluate the overall quality of service provision. The most important criteria include meeting water demand, as well as reducing demand for fresh water and instead using local alternative water supplies. Integration of multiple objectives to evaluate the hybrid water supply systems can be accomplished by multi-criteria decision aid techniques. This paper evaluates a number of hybrid water supply scenarios using a case study based on the Northern Growth Area of Melbourne, Australia. It uses the Preference Ranking Organization METHod for Enrichment Evaluations (PROMETHEE) and Geometrical Analysis for Interactive Decision Aid (GAIA), one of the multi-criteria decision-making methods through D-Sight software, to rank the hybrid water supply scenarios, and this ranking is validated by means of sensitivity analysis. The centralized system combined with stormwater harvesting and the centralized system combined with treated wastewater and rainwater tanks yielded the first and second most preferred scenarios, while the centralized water supply system combined with treated wastewater yielded the worst hybrid water supply option.
An Unstructured-Grid Based Morphodynamic Model for Sandbar Simulation in the Modaomen Estuary, China
Authors: Hu Xiaozhang , Yang Fang , Song Lixiang , Wang Hangang
Published: May 2018

The Modaomen Estuary is the most important passageway in discharging flood and sediment of the Pearl River Delta, which is one of the most complex estuarine systems in China. Due to the coupling effect among tidal currents, waves, and sediments, an immense sandbar area evolved in the outer subaqueous delta, impeding the flood releasing during wet season, as well as salinity intrusion during the dry season. In this work, an unstructured-grid based morphodynamic model was proposed to simulate the sandbar evolution process in the Modaomen Estuary. The proposed model was constructed by using the two-dimensional shallow water equations for tidal flow, the advection-diffusion equations for salinity and suspended sediment transport, and the non-equilibrium formulation of the Exner equation for bed evolution. To simulate the wave-induced longshore currents in the Modaomen Estuary, an adaptive time-stepping approach was proposed to couple the unstructured-grid based Simulating WAves Nearshore (SWAN) model and the shallow flow model. An integrated solver is proposed for computing flow, salinity, and sediment transport fluxes simultaneously, and then the shallow water equations and advection-diffusion equations are jointly solved by a high-resolution, unstructured-grid Godunov method. Application of the model to the Modaomen Estuary, using calibrated parameter values, gives results comparable to the measured data. The butterfly shape of the sandbar in the Modaomen Estuary is considerably well simulated by the proposed model, which matches well with the measured topography.
Performance Analysis of Ageing Single-Jet Water Meters for Measuring Residential Water Consumption
Authors: Arregui Francisco J. , Gavara Francesc J. , Soriano Javier , Pastor-Jabaloyes Laura
Published: May 2018

Single-jet meters are one of the most frequently used domestic meters that can be found in water distribution systems. Like any other water meter technology, they have significant metrological limitations that prevent them, even if recently installed, from measuring all water consumption of a domestic customer. After installation, their metrological characteristics evolve depending on the particular design of the meters and their actual working conditions in the field. This work presents a comprehensive set of tests to determine the initial and after installation weighted error of two types of domestic single-jet water meters. Three non-linear degradation models have been derived from the tests results. These models consider age, totalised volume, or both parameters simultaneously as drivers of the weighted error. The results show that even though the construction of the two examined meters is similar, they have been working under comparable operational conditions and measuring water of the same quality, there is a significant difference in the performance between both types. This result highlights the need to conduct individual analyses for each meter type and the impossibility of generalizing conclusions on how the weighted error could evolve over time.