bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
A Novel Eco-Friendly Circular Approach to Comprehensive Utilizing Bittern Waste and Oyster Shell
Authors: Pan Wei , Yang Yucheng , Yang Daomao , Arowo Moses , Wu Shuai , He Yingjie , Zeng Qingyou
Published: April 2023

Efficient waste management, especially in relation to swaste reuse, has become a pressing societal issue. The waste bittern generated during salt production and discarded oyster shells present formidable environmental challenges and a waste of resources for some coastal regions. Therefore, this work developed a two-stage circular process for the environmentally friendly and efficient utilization of both waste materials. In the first stage, CO2 gas and an organic extraction phase comprising Tri(octyl-decyl)amine (R3N) and isoamyl alcohol were introduced into the waste bittern to obtain MgCO3·3H2O (s). The second stage involved reacting the reacted organic extraction phase with oyster shell powders to produce CaCl2·2H2O (s) and CO2 (g) and regenerate R3N. This work focused on investigating the yield of MgCO3·3H2O and the regeneration ratio of R3N, which are crucial indicators for the two stages involved in the process. The results indicate that, under optimal operating conditions, a maximum yield of 87% for MgCO3·3H2O was achieved, and the regeneration ratio of R3N reached 97%. Furthermore, the reaction mechanism and thermodynamic functions of the R3N regeneration process were elucidated as a crucial element in achieving a circular process. The findings of this work offer a sustainable solution to environmental pollution from waste bittern and oyster shells, and provide a promising avenue for green chemical production.
BioDT: An Integrated Digital-Twin-Based Framework for Intelligent Biomanufacturing
Authors: Zhao Beichen , Li Xueliang , Sun Wanqiang , Qian Juntao , Liu Jin , Gao Minjie , Guan Xin , Ma Zhenwu , Li Jianghua
Published: April 2023

The field of industrial biotechnology has shown an increasing interest in adopting digital twins for improving process productivity and management efficiency. Despite its potential benefits, digital-twin-based biomanufacturing has not been fully implemented. As a preliminary undertaking, we developed an open-source digital twin framework for cell culture. The core models of the digital twin were coded in C++ and compiled as a reusable Python library. A web-based, cloud-native HMI application that links the physical and virtual systems was developed. A microbioreactor digital twin system was implemented using the framework as a proof of concept. The system features a 3D-printed rocking platform that is customized to fit T25 flasks, enabling automated rocking rate and angle control and in-place optical cell density measurement. The digital twin was validated using Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) cells and was found to be able to predict the changes in cell density, glucose consumption, lactic acid production, and oxygen uptake rate (OUR). Finally, we performed a case study to demonstrate the system’s practical applicability in Advanced Process Control (APC) by constructing real-time glucose and lactic acid soft sensors, which are in turn used to alert the operator for manual media change or for automated feeding.
Investigation on the Aerodynamic Performance of High-Pressure Cylinders under the Mode of Regulating Steam Supply with an Intermedium-Pressure Adjustment Valve
Authors: Zhang Pan , Ke Xiwei , Wang Weiliang , Tang Qinghong , Liu Xiong , Lyu Junfu , Tang Xueyu
Published: April 2023

In order to investigate the operational performance of the high-pressure (HP) cylinder towards a 300 MW boiler unit, the three-dimensional calculation method was applied to simulate the aerodynamic flow characteristics of the last five stage cylinder blades, including limiting streamline, isentropic efficiency along the blade height, and relative work amounts. Simulation results show that with the back pressure controlled at 3.4 MPa and the inlet steam flow decreasing to a certain extent, the flow state of the last three stage blades begins to deteriorate. When the back pressure continues to drop, the flow state becomes unstable at the blade root and the blade tip on the suction surface of the rotor blade, while the flow state is stable on the pressure surface of the rotor blade and the surface of the stationary blade. If the flow rate decreases, the flow separation area on the suction surface of the moving blade decreases, and the flow performance can be improved. With the decrease in the boiler load, the total-total isentropic efficiency for the last three stage blades of the HP cylinder gradually decreases. In addition, the isentropic efficiency at the blade root and blade tip is lower than that for the blade body, which is closely related to the flow separation phenomenon of the last three stages of moving blades at the root and tip. In the working condition of the intermedium-pressure adjustment valve, since the temperature variation is within a limited range, operational safety can be guaranteed under the design blade frequency and strength. This paper provides the upper and lower limits of the exhaust gas pressure for the HP cylinder under the intermedium-pressure adjustment valve participation mode concerning various working conditions as well as corresponding constraints. This is conducive to guiding the design and safe operation of the intermedium-pressure adjustment valve. Through adjusting the intermedium-pressure adjustment valve, a specific supply capacity of the unit can also be satisfied at the lower load, which is beneficial to the deep peak regulation of the unit.
A Framework for Multivariate Statistical Quality Monitoring of Additive Manufacturing: Fused Filament Fabrication Process
Authors: Alatefi Moath , Al-Ahmari Abdulrahman M. , AlFaify Abdullah Yahia , Saleh Mustafa
Published: April 2023

Advances in additive manufacturing (AM) processes have increased the number of relevant applications in various industries. To keep up with this development, the process stability of AM processes should be monitored, which is conducted through the assessment of the outputs or product characteristics. However, the use of univariate control charts to monitor an AM process might lead to misleading results, as most additively manufactured products have more than one correlated quality characteristic (QC). This paper proposes a framework for monitoring the multivariate quality characteristics of AM processes, and the proposed framework was applied to monitor a fused filament fabrication (FFF) process. In particular, specimens were designed and produced using the FFF process, and their QCs were identified. Then, critical quality characteristic data were collected using a precise measurement system. Furthermore, we propose a transformation algorithm to ensure the normality of the collected data. After examining the correlations between the investigated quality characteristics, a multivariate exponential weighted moving average (MEWMA) control chart was used to monitor the stability of the process. Furthermore, the MEWMA parameters were optimized using a novel heuristic technique. The results indicate that the majority of the collected data are not normally distributed. Consequently, the efficacy of the proposed transformation technique is demonstrated. In addition, our findings illustrate the correlations between the QCs. It is worth noting that the MEWMA optimization results confirm that the considered AM process (i.e., FFF) is relatively stable.
Molecular Characterization and Pharmacology of Melatonin Receptors in Animals
Authors: Cecon Erika , Boutin Jean A. , Jockers Ralf
Published: April 2023

Melatonin, the hormone of darkness, is secreted in minute amounts during the night and is virtually undetectable during the day. Melatonin mainly acts on high-affinity G protein-coupled receptors. The present review will trace the path of the discovery of melatonin receptors from their cloning, expression and purification to the development of recent radioactive and fluorescent tracers. We will then report on the state-of-the-art of melatonin receptor functional properties, including ligand bias and system bias due to receptor-associated proteins and receptor heteromers. Currently available antibodies raised against melatonin receptors will be critically reviewed here for the first time. The review will close with future perspectives in terms of the discovery of allosteric ligands and the in vivo validation of a range of melatonin receptor-associated signaling complexes to improve future drug development.
The Impact of Intellectual Capital on the Firm Performance of Russian Manufacturing Companies
Authors: Skhvediani Angi , Koklina Anastasia , Kudryavtseva Tatiana , Maksimenko Diana
Published: April 2023

The manufacturing industry makes a significant contribution to Russia’s GDP and exports, but it faces problems that hinder its development. The aim of this study is to estimate the relationship between intellectual capital and performance indicators of Russian manufacturing companies. The study analysed a sample of 23,494 observations of Russian manufacturing companies for the 2017–2020 period. The value-added intellectual coefficient (VAIC) and its components were used to evaluate the impact of intellectual capital on firm performance using polled ordinary least squares, fixed, and random effects models. Intellectual capital significantly and positively affects the performance of companies in both structural and human terms—both through the integrated coefficient VAIC and in the context of individual components of intellectual capital. However, the impact of structural and human capital on performance indicators is significantly lower than the impact of capital employed. There is a distinct focus of enterprises on making profit through the use of company assets, while in the case of Russian manufacturing companies, the potential for profit generation from structural and human capital remains unfulfilled.
Frequency Extraction of Global Constant Frequency Electromagnetic Disturbances from Electric Field VLF Data on CSES
Authors: Han Ying , Wang Qiao , Huang Jianping , Yuan Jing , Li Zhong , Wang Yali , Liu Haijun , Shen Xuhui
Published: April 2023

The electromagnetic data observed with the CSES (China Seismo-Electromagnetic Satellite, also known as Zhangheng-1 satellite) contain numerous spatial disturbances. These disturbances exhibit various shapes on the spectrogram, and constant frequency electromagnetic disturbances (CFEDs), such as artificially transmitted very-low-frequency (VLF) radio waves, power line harmonics, and interference from the satellite platform itself, appear as horizontal lines. To exploit this feature, we proposed an algorithm based on computer vision technology that automatically recognizes these lines on the spectrogram and extracts the frequencies from the CFEDs. First, the VLF waveform data collected with the CSES electric field detector (EFD) are converted into a time–frequency spectrogram using short-time Fourier Transform (STFT). Next, the CFED automatic recognition algorithm is used to identify horizontal lines on the spectrogram. The third step is to determine the line frequency range based on the proportional relationship between the frequency domain of the satellite’s VLF and the height of the time–frequency spectrogram. Finally, we used the CSES power spectrogram to confirm the presence of CFEDs in the line frequency range and extract their true frequencies. We statistically analyzed 1034 orbit time–frequency spectrograms and power spectrograms from 8 periods (5 days per period) and identified approximately 200 CFEDs. Among them, two CFEDs with strong signals persisted throughout an entire orbit. This study establishes a foundation for detecting anomalies due to artificial sources, particularly in the study of short-term strong earthquake prediction. Additionally, it contributes to research on other aspects of spatial electromagnetic interference and the suppression and cleaning of electromagnetic waves.
Visual Detection and Association Tracking of Dim Small Ship Targets from Optical Image Sequences of Geostationary Satellite Using Multispectral Radiation Characteristics
Authors: Meng Fan , Zhao Guocan , Zhang Guojun , Li Zhi , Ding Kaimeng
Published: April 2023

By virtue of the merits of wide swath, persistent observation, and rapid operational response, geostationary remote sensing satellites (e.g., GF-4) show tremendous potential for sea target system surveillance and situational awareness. However, ships in such images appear as dim small targets and may be affected by clutter, reef islands, clouds, and other interferences, which makes the task of ship detection and tracking intractable. Considering the differences in visual saliency characteristics across multispectral bands between ships and jamming targets, a novel approach to visual detecting and association tracking of dense ships based on the GF-4 image sequences is proposed in this paper. First, candidate ship blobs are segmented in each single-spectral image of each frame through a multi-vision salient features fusion strategy, to obtain the centroid position, size, and corresponding spectral grayscale information of suspected ships. Due to the displacement of moving ships across multispectral images of each frame, multispectral association with regard to the positions of ship blobs is then performed to determine the final ship detections. Afterwards, precise position correction of detected ships is implemented for each frame in image sequences via multimodal data association between GF-4 detections and automatic identification system data. Last, an improved multiple hypotheses tracking algorithm with multispectral radiation and size characteristics is put forward to track ships across multi-frame corrected detections and estimate ships’ motion states. Experiment results demonstrate that our method can effectively detect and track ships in GF-4 remote sensing image sequences with high precision and recall rate, yielding state-of-the-art performance.
SAR Based Sea Surface Complex Wind Fields Estimation: An Analysis over the Northern Adriatic Sea
Authors: Zamparelli Virginia , De Santi Francesca , De Carolis Giacomo , Fornaro Gianfranco
Published: April 2023

Nowadays, sea surface analysis and monitoring increasingly use remote sensing, with particular interest in Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR). Several SAR techniques exist in literature to understand the marine phenomena affecting the sea surface. In this work, we focus on the Doppler Centroid Anomaly (DCA), which accounts for the Doppler shift induced by sea surface movements. Starting from SAR raw data, we develop a processing chain to elaborate them and output the surface velocity map using DCA. The DCA technique has often been presented in the marine literature for estimating sea surface velocity, but more recently it has also been used to detect near-surface wind fields. This paper deals with estimating the sea surface wind field using Doppler information and SAR backscatter, combined with wind information provided by ECMWF and geophysical wind and Doppler model functions. We investigate the application of the approach in the coastal area of the northern Adriatic Sea (Northeast Italy). The test site is interesting, both for its particular orography, as it is a semi-enclosed basin largely surrounded by mountains, and for its complex meteorological phenomena, such as the Bora wind. Results obtained combining SAR backscatter and DCA information show an improvement in wind field estimation.
Unsupervised Affinity Propagation Clustering Based Clutter Suppression and Target Detection Algorithm for Non-Side-Looking Airborne Radar
Authors: Liu Jing , Liao Guisheng , Xu Jingwei , Zhu Shengqi , Zeng Cao , Juwono Filbert H.
Published: April 2023

Aimingat non-side-looking airborne radar, we propose a novel unsupervised affinity propagation (AP) clustering radar detection algorithm to suppress clutter and detect targets. The proposed method first uses selected power points as well as space-time adaptive processing (STAP) weight vector, and designs matrix-transformation-based weighted input data, with which the first unsupervised weighted AP clustering is proposed by means of their similarity matrix, responsibility values and availability values. Then, new reconstructed weighted power inputs are designed, and the second weighted AP clustering is proposed. Finally, with their cluster results, a detection-discriminant criterion is designed for the judgment of target detection, and simultaneously, the clutter is suppressed. Compared with the conventional and important STAP, ADC and JDL algorithms, and several SO-based, GO-based and OS-based CFAR algorithms, the proposed unsupervised algorithm achieves much higher probability of detection and provides distinctly superior target-detection performance. With reasonable computation time, it can better conquer the range dependence in characteristic of clutter and better process non-independent identically distributed (non-IID) samples of non-side-looking radar. Sufficient simulations are performed, and they demonstrate that the proposed unsupervised algorithm is preferable and advantageous.
Towards a Consistent Wind Data Record for the CFOSAT Scatterometer
Authors: Mou Xiaoheng , Lin Wenming , He Yijun
Published: April 2023

Since launch, the Ku-band rotating fan-beam scatterometer onboard the China–France Oceanography Satellite (CFOSAT) has provided valuable sea surface wind measurements for more than four years. The performance of CFOSAT scatterometer (CSCAT)-derived wind vectors is generally good in terms of root-mean-square error, while the absolute calibration error remains an issue in the current CSCAT product. In this paper, the temporal variation in CSCAT winds is overviewed by analyzing the collocated CSCAT and numerical weather prediction (NWP) model winds. Then, the reasons for the inconsistency of CSCAT-retrieved winds are discussed. The results show that the imperfect calibration of radar backscatter coefficients is likely the main problem of CSCAT wind processing. Consequently, a running-window-based (i.e., weekly) ocean calibration is proposed to evaluate the consistency of CSCAT radar backscatters, and in turn, to recalibrate CSCAT backscattering measurements before the reprocessing of CSCAT wind data. Although the proposed method is not feasible for the near-real-time processing of CSCAT data, it significantly mitigates the temporal variations in CSCAT wind speed bias, resulting in a more consistent CSCAT wind data record that may be beneficial to meteorological quantitative applications.
An Optimized DNN Model for Real-Time Inferencing on an Embedded Device
Authors: Park Jungme , Aryal Pawan , Mandumula Sai Rithvick , Asolkar Ritwik Prasad
Published: April 2023

For many automotive functionalities in Advanced Driver Assist Systems (ADAS) and Autonomous Driving (AD), target objects are detected using state-of-the-art Deep Neural Network (DNN) technologies. However, the main challenge of recent DNN-based object detection is that it requires high computational costs. This requirement makes it challenging to deploy the DNN-based system on a vehicle for real-time inferencing. The low response time and high accuracy of automotive applications are critical factors when the system is deployed in real time. In this paper, the authors focus on deploying the computer-vision-based object detection system on the real-time service for automotive applications. First, five different vehicle detection systems are developed using transfer learning technology, which utilizes the pre-trained DNN model. The best performing DNN model showed improvements of 7.1% in Precision, 10.8% in Recall, and 8.93% in F1 score compared to the original YOLOv3 model. The developed DNN model was optimized by fusing layers horizontally and vertically to deploy it in the in-vehicle computing device. Finally, the optimized DNN model is deployed on the embedded in-vehicle computing device to run the program in real-time. Through optimization, the optimized DNN model can run 35.082 fps (frames per second) on the NVIDIA Jetson AGA, 19.385 times faster than the unoptimized DNN model. The experimental results demonstrate that the optimized transferred DNN model achieved higher accuracy and faster processing time for vehicle detection, which is vital for deploying the ADAS system.
Workforce Diversity and Occupational Hearing Health
Authors: Nadler David
Published: April 2023

Hearing loss is one of the more common occupation health hazards across the globe yet is preventable. Extensive research has been done across a number of industries measuring the magnitude and frequency of hearing impairment. This study uses the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey data to analyze hearing impairment in the United States. Regression and structural equation models were developed utilizing this publicly available data. A statistically significant correlation exists between general hearing condition and ethnicity, χ2 (30, N = 8897) = 264.817, p < 0.001. A statistically significant correlation exists in this database between general hearing condition and gender, χ2 (6, N = 8897) = 40.729, p < 0.001. An ordinal logistic regression was significant between the general health and ethnicity, χ2 (30, N = 5968) = 212.123, p < 0.001. A structural equation model presents the first of its type for this area of research. Focusing on addressing diversity issues may be the foundation for hearing health improvement. Tools such as smartphone apps may be useful for tracking hearing loss within the workforce.
Perceptions of and Attitudes toward COVID-19 Vaccination among Urban Slum Dwellers in Dhaka, Bangladesh
Authors: Alam Wafa , Farnaz Nadia , Manzoor Farzana , Theobald Sally , Rashid Sabina Faiz
Published: April 2023

Vaccine hesitancy or low uptake was identified as a major threat to global health by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2019. Vaccine hesitancy is context-specific and varies across time, place, and socioeconomic groups. In this study, we aimed to understand the perceptions of and attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccination through time among urban slum dwellers in Dhaka, Bangladesh. In-depth telephone interviews were conducted between October 2020 and January 2021 with 36 adults (25 females and 11 males) living in three urban slums of Dhaka City, Bangladesh. Follow-up interviews were undertaken in April and August 2021 to capture any shift in the participants’ perceptions. Our findings show that for many there was an initial fear and confusion regarding the COVID-19 vaccine among people living in urban informal settlements; this confusion was soon reduced by the awareness efforts of government and non-government organizations. Women and young people were more interested in being vaccinated as they had had more exposure to the awareness sessions conducted by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and on social media. However, people living in the slums still faced systemic barriers, such as complicated online vaccine registration and long queues, which led to low uptake of the vaccine despite their increased willingness to be vaccinated. This study highlights the importance of using sources such as NGO workers and television news to debunk myths, disseminate COVID-19 vaccine information, and support adherence to vaccination among urban slum dwellers. Our study underscores the importance of addressing systemic barriers blocking access and understanding community perceptions in order to develop effective communication strategies for vulnerable groups that will then improve the COVID-19 vaccine uptake.
Struggles of Refugee-Receiving Schools in Turkey
Authors: Özel Dilara , Erdur-Baker Özgür
Published: April 2023

A total of 82.4 million persons had emigrated from their countries by the end of 2020 because of global conflicts. A total of 3.6 million settled in Turkey, which became the most refugee-receiving country. Among those resettled in Turkey, the majority were school-aged children, and schools became an inseparable instrument in the adaptation process. Thus, schools play a vital role in creating a safe space for healing; through students, schools also contribute to building solidarity and collective responsibility for the social inclusion of refugees. Schools’ guidance services are key in working with the school’s stakeholders. This study aims to analyze the needs and issues of schools with high refugee density in different parts of Turkey from the school counselors’ perspectives. Using a semistructured interview protocol, we interviewed fifteen school counselors from seven different cities, and three main themes emerged: (a) student-related issues, (b) contextual issues, and (c) response strategies. Findings indicate that refugee-receiving schools need to attend to students and families, as well as deal with conflicts among Syrians and conflicts between Syrians and locals, with limited resources.
The Dis-Embedded Arbitrator: Releasing Arbitration from Corruption-Shaped Environments in the Wake of the Odebrecht Arbitral Ordeal in Peru
Authors: Vecellio Segate Riccardo
Published: April 2023

Despite local instances of single arbitrators’ corruption not having proven completely absent from arbitration chronicles over the last decades, one may safely argue that until very recently, no scandal had ever been severe enough to shake the foundations of arbitration communities on a regional, let alone global, level. However, this eventually occurred in 2019 in Peru as the outcome of one of the countless parallel investigations stemming from the 2016 Odebrecht corruption saga, propagated from Brazil to the whole of Latin America, the Caribbean, sub-Saharan Africa, and beyond, and labelled by many as the largest scandal of its kind in recent history. Peru’s vicissitudes revolved around a number of corrupted arbitrators who systematically accepted bribes and political favours from Odebrecht in return for favourable awards upholding the repricing of public-procurement contracts. This story can teach us about more than the simple evidence that arbitrators, too, might fall for corruption; criminologically, it suggests that arbitration as a dispute-resolution mechanism can find itself embedded within regionalised networked systems of corruption-prone regulatory capture, and even play an active role in their normalised perpetuation. To prevent this, while having regard for safeguarding the independence and confidentiality of arbitral proceedings to the highest possible extent, the enactment of context-sensitive binding regulation is advised.
Multidimensional Aspects of Social Networks: Implications for CPS Recurrence
Authors: Boyd Reiko , Williams-Butler Abigail , Ploch Katarina , Slack Kristen
Published: April 2023

This study examines the social network characteristics of 670 mothers reported to and investigated by the child protection system (CPS) in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin in 2016. Specifically, having a recurrent CPS investigation within one year of an index investigation that did not result in an ongoing CPS case is assessed as a function of positive social network ties, negative social network ties, and perceived neighborhood support. Few studies have explored these aspects of social networks comparatively and simultaneously in relation to CPS outcomes, or within this population. We used cluster analysis to identify particular combinations of network characteristics among mothers with recent investigations and then examined whether different cluster types are predictive of recurrent CPS involvement within one year. Clusters differed on the perceived levels of both positive and negative interpersonal ties as well as perceived neighborhood support and were associated with different levels of known child maltreatment risk factors. Clusters with lower levels of perceived neighborhood support were more likely to be associated with future CPS investigations, but this association becomes statistically insignificant when controlling for mothers’ depressive symptoms. The results of this study suggest that a more multi-faceted view of social networks can be helpful to understand the social contexts of mothers as they experience contact with CPS and raises questions about how these contexts interact with parental mental health in relation to CPS recurrence.
Evaluation of Dried Citrus Pulp Addition to Total Mixed Ration in Replacement to Corn on Mutton Goat Performance and Health Indices
Authors: Rahman Abdur , Kalsoom Huma , Khanum Sadia , Sajid Muhammad , Zahid Muhammad Zaman , Hayat Zafar , Asif Akhtar Rasool , Mahmood Mubarik , Ahmed Irfan , Nawaz Shah , Yousaf Muhammad , Rehman Aziz ur , Muhammad Sayyed Aun , Ahmad Hafiz Ishfaq
Published: April 2023

Due to the human population explosion, demand for food, especially meat, has also increased. Increasing mutton production, in this scenario, is one way to mitigate this emerging issue as it nourishes a large human population. However, its production is challenging due to high feeding costs. This study was executed to develop cost-effective feed for mutton goat production by adding dried citrus pulp to the total mixed ration. Citrus pulp was used as an energy source instead of corn grain. A total of 12 bucks were divided into 4 groups, each having 3 animals. After 21 days of adaptation, bucks were assigned to experimental groups. The experimental groups were designated as A, B, C and D. They were fed TMR with 0, 10, 15 and 20% dried citrus pulp, respectively, as a replacement for corn grain for 90 days. The effect of the dried citrus pulp inclusion on the bucks’ growth performance such as feed intake, weight gain and feed conversion ratio was evaluated on weekly basis. Hematological and biochemical parameters including total protein, triglycerides, cholesterol, complete blood count and serum antioxidant (catalase) activity were also determined. Results indicated that all hematological and biochemical parameters showed non-significant differences among the control and treatment groups. Weekly weight gain, feed intake and feed conversion ratio were equal in corn based as well as in dried citrus pulp-based diet with a lower feeding cost for the latter. It is concluded that the use of dried citrus pulp up to 20% as a replacement of corn in ration of fattening bucks is economical to use without any adverse effects.
Experimental Study and Theoretical Analysis of Steel–Concrete Composite Box Girder Bending Moment–Curvature Restoring Force
Authors: Qi Jingjing , Ye Yining , Huang Zhi , Lv Weirong , Zhou Wangbao , Liu Fucai , Wu Jidong
Published: April 2023

A steel–concrete composite box girder has good anti-seismic energy dissipation capacity, absorbs seismic energy, and reduces seismic action. It is very suitable for high-rise and super high-rise mega composite structure systems, which is in accordance with the condition of capital construction. In order to accurately study the elastic–plastic seismic response of the composite structure, the restoring force model of the building structure is the primary problem that needs to be solved. Previous research shows that shear connection degree, force ratio, and web height–thickness ratio are the major factors that influence composite box girder bearing capacity and seismic behavior. In this paper, low cycle vertical load tests of four steel–concrete composite box girders were conducted with different shear connection degrees and ratios of web height to thickness. The seismic behavior of a steel–concrete composite box girder was analyzed in depth, such as the hysteresis law, skeleton curve, and stiffness degradation law, etc. The influence of the shear connection degree and ratio of web height to thickness on seismic performance of the steel–concrete composite box girder was investigated. A three-fold line model of the bending moment–curvature skeleton curve of composite box girders was established. On the basis of experimental data and theoretical analysis, the formula of positive and negative stiffness degradation of composite box girders was obtained. Furthermore, the maximum point orientation hysteresis model of the bending moment–curvature of steel–concrete composite box girders was established. The calculated results of the restoring force model agree well with the experimental results. The accuracy of the proposed method is verified. The calculation method of the model is simple and clear, convenient for hand calculation, and suitable for engineering applications.
Different Cropping Patterns to Restore Saline-Alkali Soils in Northeast China Affect the Abundance of Functional Genes in the Soil Nitrogen Cycle
Authors: Ding Junnan , Li Bin , Sun Minglong , Li Xin
Published: April 2023

Considerable attention has been paid to the establishment of an appropriate cropping patterns for the restoration of saline-alkali lands. This study’s goal was to explore changes in nitrogen-cycling (N-cycling) gene (nitrogen fixation: nifH; nitrification: AOA, AOB, and nxrB; denitrification: narG, norB, and nosZ) abundance of three cropping patterns at two soil depths in saline-alkali soils. Results showed that rotation and mixture promoted soil nutrients. N-cycling functional genes were significantly influenced by soil depths and cropping patterns. Compared with monoculture, rotation decreased the abundance of nifH, AOA, narG, and nosZ and increased the abundance of AOB; mixture decreased the abundance of AOA, narG, and nosZ and increased the abundance of AOB and nxrB in the 0–15 cm soil depth. Rotation increased all genes abundance; mixture increased nosZ abundance and decreased nxrB abundance in 15–30 cm soil depth. Soil protease, cellulase, nitrate reductase, pH, AK (available potassium), and AP (available phosphorus) were important factors influencing N-cycling gene abundance. In conclusion, rotation and mixture not only reduced soil salinity but also improved soil fertility and nitrogen cycling. These findings can provide some theories for the sustainable development of N-cycling during the restoration of saline-alkali soils.
Extending the IoT-Stream Model with a Taxonomy for Sensors in Sustainable Smart Cities
Authors: Santos  Rodrigo , Eggly Gabriel , Gutierrez Julián , Chesñevar  Carlos I.
Published: April 2023

Sustainable cities aim to have a lower environmental impact by reducing their carbon footprints as much as possible. The smart city paradigm based on the Internet of Things (IoT) is the natural approach to achieving this goal. Nevertheless, the proliferation of sensors and IoT technologies, along with the need for annotating real-time data, has promoted the need for light weight ontology-based models for IoT environments, such as IoT-Stream. The IoT-Stream model takes advantage of common knowledge sharing of the semantics while keeping queries and inferences simple. However, sensors in the IoT-Stream model are conceptualized as single entities, exluding further analysis concerning their features (energy consumption, cost, etc.) or application areas. In this article, we present a taxonomy of sensors that expands the original IoT-Stream model by facilitating the mapping of sensors/actuators and services in the context of smart cities in such a way that different applications can share information in a transparent way, avoiding unnecessary duplication of sensors and network infrastructure.
The Implications of Community Forest Income on Social and Environmental Sustainability
Authors: Bohnett Eve , Lamichhane Sanju , Liu Yanjing Tracy , Yabiku Scott , Dahal Digambar Singh , Mammo Siraj , Fandjinou Kossi , Ahmad Bilal , An Li
Published: April 2023

Community forestry is a strategy in which communities are, to some degree, responsible for managing the forests, using a more participatory approach to replace the traditional top-down model. Various forms of policies and governance have been developed to balance goals to ensure the community’s socioeconomic resilience and the landscape’s biological sustainability. The reinvestment of community forest (CF) income back into forest regeneration is not well documented, and there is a lack of research comparing forest income to the costs associated with forest regeneration. This research examines how changes in timber income and forest-regeneration costs affected CF social and ecological viability. We conducted expert elicitation interviews for CFs (n = 33) under three zones of management in Chitwan, Nepal (Zone 1: buffer zone, Zone 2: forest corridor, and Zone 3: community forest). To examine how CFs differ financially, we asked questions regarding timber income and forest-regeneration expenditures and then posed 22 questions regarding socioeconomic and biological aspects of the CF. Finally, a Kruskal–Wallis rank-sum test was performed to determine whether there were statistically significant differences in perceptions between groups, including zone, timber income (high, medium, low), and forest-regeneration expenditures (high, medium, low). The amount of income from timber had a substantial impact on the communities’ biological benefits and financial stability. Lower timber-income areas were thought to be less economically stable, lack the resources to enforce rules and regulations necessary to meet the CF’s socioeconomic or biological goals, and place more significant restrictions on the amount of wood members can harvest from the forest. Communities that spent less money on forest regeneration reported poorer levels of forest regeneration, economic sustainability, and community rights. Our research shows that community-forest user groups in the Chitwan district have a significant income and expenditure gap between their forests’ biological and socioeconomic advantages and resilience.
Impact of Paddy Field Reservoirs on Flood Management in a Large River Basin of Japan
Authors: Saha Debanjali , Oki Kazuo , Yoshida Koshi , Hanasaki Naota , Kamiya Hideaki
Published: April 2023

The flood retention capacity of paddy fields is well-recognized in Japan, and all the existing flood control practices via paddy field management achieve reductions in peak flood discharge. However, the previous studies have not assessed the flood management potential of paddy fields in a large river basin with average paddy coverage, and the existing hydrological models are not quite suitable for simulating river discharge from closed-drainage paddy reservoir storage. We herein attempt to improve the watershed-scale version of global hydrological model H08 to simulate a reduction in the peak discharge from paddy reservoirs in the Abukuma River basin of Japan. The NSE and R2 index showed fair reliability of the H08 model during the calibration and validation stages. The simulated results from the improved model show 11% and 6% peak reductions in high paddy coverage areas for a normal year (2018) and a major typhoon year (2019), respectively. The peak-reduction percentage increased with decreasing rainfall, depending on the overflow from the paddy reservoirs. The results indicate that the paddy reservoir is not highly effective in a large river with less than 20% paddy coverage, but the peak discharge reduction capacity shows that paddy reservoirs can make some contribution when used in combination with dam operation.
Permeability Characteristics and Mechanism of Silicone-Hydrophobic-Powder-Modified Compacted Loess
Authors: Duan Xu , Xiao Di , Zou Yu , Dong Qi , Ye Wanjun , Tang Liyun
Published: April 2023

This paper proposes the addition of an environmentally friendly silicone hydrophobic powder (SHP) to compacted loess to enhance its impermeability and reduce the settlement caused by wetting deformation. A flexible wall permeability test was conducted to examine the permeability coefficient of compacted loess with different dry densities mixed with different proportions of the SHP. Water drop infiltration testing, low-temperature drying testing, low-field nuclear magnetic resonance testing, and scanning electron microscopy were performed to clarify the occurrence state and permeability reduction mechanism of the SHP between loess particles from the microscopic viewpoint of the loess structure. The permeability coefficient of the compacted loess decreases significantly after adding 1–3% SHP. Specifically, the permeability coefficient of the loess with low compaction degree (1.35 g/cm3) decreases by 87% after the addition of 3% SHP. Moreover, the permeability coefficient of the loess with a compaction degree of 1.50 g/cm3 decreases from 1.58 × 10−6 to 7.9 × 10−8 cm/s. When the SHP is added to compacted loess, filling and adsorption effects occur: The filling effect decreases the proportion of large pores in the loess. The adsorption effect allows the SHP to encapsulate the loess particles to form a hydrophobic film layer, which leads to the formation of a non-closed hydrophobic structure. This phenomenon decreases the water flow capacity while ensuring the water evaporation capacity inside the loess. The findings demonstrate the potential of adding SHP to enhance the loess impermeability and facilitate and optimize the anti-seepage treatment of various loess filling projects.
The Role of the Total-Quality-Management (TQM) Drivers in Overcoming the Challenges of Implementing TQM in Industrialized-Building-System (IBS) Projects in Malaysia: Experts’ Perspectives
Authors: Alawag Aawag Mohsen , Alaloul Wesam Salah , Liew M. S. , Baarimah Abdullah O. , Musarat Muhammad Ali , Al-Mekhlafi Al-Baraa Abdulrahman
Published: April 2023

Total quality management (TQM) is a systematic management technique for developing a process-driven culture inside an organization to achieve quality and customer and employee satisfaction. TQM has started to impact global business systems, and is extensively regarded as a management “revolution”. The implementation of TQM in the industrialized building system (IBS) in Malaysian projects has not been treated in much detail, although it is essential. This research intended to assess TQM adoption in IBS projects and identify how TQM drivers will help to overcome TQM-implementation challenges. This study utilized the mixed method by developing a semi-structured interview and survey, while the respondents were experts from TQM and IBS consulting firms. The content-validity approach was used, depending on 14 interviews and 28 responses to a distributed questionnaire. The findings indicate that TQM adoption of IBS projects is extremely poor. According to experts, local firms are still unable to execute TQM because they are reluctant to implement the TQM system as a strategy implementation across the construction process. Furthermore, according to the content validity ratio (CVR), there was an agreement that TQM would provide substantial benefits to IBS projects, such as offering cooperative associations, excellent communication, enhanced customer gratification, cost reductions, and productivity improvements. This study provided practical evidence of the fact that if the organizations adopted these 23 drivers of TQM they could overwhelm the challenges of TQM implementation in IBS projects. Thus, the stated factors were trustworthy, as indicated in the transcripts of interviews, and relying on the plurality of expert assessments. This study offers a valuable list of challenges and drivers for managers of the projects as guidelines to help them adopt TQM in IBS projects.
Winding Pathways to Rural Regeneration: Exploring Challenges and Success Factors for Three Types of Rural Changemakers in the Context of Knowledge Transfer and Networks
Authors: Janc Krzysztof , Dołzbłasz Sylwia , Raczyk Andrzej , Skrzypczyński Robert
Published: April 2023

The regeneration of rural areas is a multifaceted process driven by a variety of actors operating in diverse contexts. Understanding specific barriers faced by these actors—as well as factors that contribute to the success of their initiatives—therefore seems to be a prerequisite for designing policies that can effectively support rural changemakers and thus promote rural regeneration. The goal of this exploratory paper is to identify key challenges and success factors for three types of rural changemakers—rural newcomers, new entrants into farming, and farming successors—based on empirical data gathered in three case studies conducted as part of the Horizon2020 project “RURALIZATION” in Poland in 2021. The results of the study show that one of the most important determinants of the success of rural changemakers’ activities is having adequate formal and informal knowledge. This is important in the context of knowledge transfer, interacting with and functioning in the local environment, and consequently laying the foundations for rural regeneration. Rural regeneration must be treated as a complex and long-term process that is strongly linked to the activation of knowledge transfer mechanisms.
Research on Wind Power Project Risk Management Based on Structural Equation and Catastrophe Theory
Authors: Zhao Suyan , Su Xiaopai , Li Jiahui , Suo Guibin , Meng Xiaoxuan
Published: April 2023

Wind power projects are a crucial step towards achieving the objectives of “carbon neutrality” and “carbon peak” because they can improve the energy crisis and contribute towards environmental pollution reduction. However, the risks of wind power projects cannot be ignored, and the success of the design phase can affect the risks and benefits of wind power projects throughout their life cycle. This paper first proposes causality hypotheses for four types of risk factors in wind power projects: policy, economy, technology, and construction. It constructs a structural equation model for wind power project risk factors and then tests and modifies the model. Then, based on the latent variables of policy, economy, technology, and construction, and the relevant explicit variables, the risk index evaluation system of the wind power project design phase is constructed. The risk assessment catastrophe model of wind power projects is further established, and it is used to evaluate the risk of the K wind power project in the design phase. The risk assessment can identify the overall risk and main risk sources in wind power projects in the design phase and provide countermeasures for effectively controlling risks in wind power projects in China.
Nutritive and Chemical Composition and In Vitro Digestibility of Cladodes of the Opuntia Species
Authors: Teklu Gebremedhin Welu , Ayimut Kiros-Meles , Abera Fetien Abay , G. Egziabher Yemane , Fitiwi Ibrahim
Published: April 2023

Sixteen cultivars (three resistant species and thirteen susceptible cultivars to cochineal insects) were included in the experiment to evaluate their nutritional and chemical compositions and to determine the in vitro digestibility of cladodes of the Opuntia species. Cultivars showed highly significant (p < 0.001) differences in their chemical composition. The cultivars’ content of ash, crude protein (CP), dry matter (DM), organic matter (OM), in vitro dry matter digestibility (IVDMD), in vitro organic matter digestibility (IVOMD), acid detergent fiber (ADF), neutral detergent fiber (NDF) and Cell (cellulose) varied, with ranges of 8.18–22.75%, 3.19–10.40%, 86.40–91.88%, 77.45–91.82%, 68.25–87.3%, 55.81–78.95%, 14.88–26.15%, 29.66–67.05% and 10.99–19.92%, respectively. The ash content showed a significant highly negative correlation with OM (r = −1.00; p < 0.001), IVDMD (r = −0.603; p < 0.001) and DOMD (r = −0.904; p < 0.001), respectively. The Garao, Aloqa and O. robusta var. X11 cultivars showed the highest similarities, as they are found close to the first branch of the dendrogram. In total, 90% of the variation among the nutritional traits was attributed to the first four PCs, with 55.97% to the first two principal components (PCs). The nutritional composition of the resistant species was greater than or equal to the susceptible ones.