bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Vibration Monitoring of Civil Engineering Structures Using Contactless Vision-Based Low-Cost IATS Prototype
Authors: Paar Rinaldo , Marendić Ante , Jakopec Ivan , Grgac Igor
Published: December 2021

The role and importance of geodesists in the planning and building of civil engineering constructions are well known. However, the importance and benefits of collected data during maintenance in exploitation have arisen in the last thirty years due primarily to the development of Global Positioning Systems (GPS) and Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) instruments, sensors and systems, which can receive signals from multiple GPS systems. In the last fifteen years, the development of Terrestrial Laser Scanners (TLS) and Image-Assisted Total Stations (IATS) has enabled much wider integration of these types of geodetic instruments with their sensors into monitoring systems for the displacement and deformation monitoring of structures, as well as for regular structure inspections. While GNSS sensors have certain limitations regarding their accuracy, their suitability in monitoring systems, and the need for a clean horizon, IATS do not have these limitations. The latest development of Total Stations (TS) called IATS is a theodolite that consists of a Robotic Total Station (RTS) with integrated image sensors. Today, IATS can be used for structural and geo-monitoring, i.e., for the determination of static and dynamic displacements and deformations, as well as for the determination of civil engineering structures’ natural frequencies. In this way, IATS can provide essential information about the current condition of structures. However, like all instruments and sensors, they have their advantages and disadvantages. IATS’s biggest advantage is their high level of accuracy and precision and the fact that they do not need to be set up on the structure, while their biggest disadvantage is that they are expensive. In this paper, the developed low-cost IATS prototype, which consists of an RTS Leica TPS1201 instrument and GoPro Hero5 camera, is presented. At first, the IATS prototype was tested in the laboratory where simulated dynamic displacements were determined. After the experiment, the IATS prototype was used in the field for the purpose of static and dynamic load testing of the railway bridge Kloštar, after its reconstruction according to HRN ISO NORM U.M1.046—Testing of bridges by load test. In this article, the determination of bridge dynamic displacements and results of the computation of natural frequencies using FFT from the measurement data obtained by means of IATS are presented. During the load testing of the bridge, the frequencies were also determined by accelerometers, and these data were used as a reference for the assessment of IATS accuracy and suitability for dynamic testing. From the conducted measurements, we successfully determined natural bridge frequencies as they match the results gained by accelerometers.
Using a Development Platform with an STM32 Processor to Prototype an Inexpensive 4-DoF Delta Parallel Robot
Authors: Laski Pawel Andrzej , Smykowski Mateusz
Published: December 2021

This article presents a construction prototype of a delta 4-DoF (Degree of Freedom) parallel robot. The structure of kinematic chain was described and the problem of inverse kinematic was formulated and solved. The author also proposed a concept of a control system. The dynamics of the control object were specified, a decision upon the controller and its settings was made, as well as simulation control studies of manipulator drive were conducted. The article contains a description of prepared applications and procedures as well as the research results of the manipulator.
Accurate Instance Segmentation in Pediatric Elbow Radiographs
Authors: Wei Dixiao , Wu Qiongshui , Wang Xianpei , Tian Meng , Li Bowen
Published: December 2021

Radiography is an essential basis for the diagnosis of fractures. For the pediatric elbow joint diagnosis, the doctor needs to diagnose abnormalities based on the location and shape of each bone, which is a great challenge for AI algorithms when interpreting radiographs. Bone instance segmentation is an effective upstream task for automatic radiograph interpretation. Pediatric elbow bone instance segmentation is a process by which each bone is extracted separately from radiography. However, the arbitrary directions and the overlapping of bones pose issues for bone instance segmentation. In this paper, we design a detection-segmentation pipeline to tackle these problems by using rotational bounding boxes to detect bones and proposing a robust segmentation method. The proposed pipeline mainly contains three parts: (i) We use Faster R-CNN-style architecture to detect and locate bones. (ii) We adopt the Oriented Bounding Box (OBB) to improve the localizing accuracy. (iii) We design the Global-Local Fusion Segmentation Network to combine the global and local contexts of the overlapped bones. To verify the effectiveness of our proposal, we conduct experiments on our self-constructed dataset that contains 1274 well-annotated pediatric elbow radiographs. The qualitative and quantitative results indicate that the network significantly improves the performance of bone extraction. Our methodology has good potential for applying deep learning in the radiography’s bone instance segmentation.
Multi-Link Operation with Enhanced Synchronous Channel Access in IEEE 802.11be Wireless LANs: Coexistence Issue and Solutions
Authors: Murti Wisnu , Yun Ji-Hoon
Published: December 2021

Multi-link operation is a new feature of IEEE 802.11be Extremely High Throughput (EHT) that enables the utilization of multiple links using individual frequency channels to transmit and receive between EHT devices. This paper aims to illustrate enhanced multi-link channel access schemes, identify the associated coexistence challenge, and propose solutions. First, we describe the multi-link operation of IEEE 802.11be and how the asynchronous and synchronous channel access schemes facilitate multi-link utilization. Next, we describe the design variants of the synchronous channel access scheme and demonstrate the associated coexistence challenge. Subsequently, we propose four features to address this challenge by assigning penalties to multi-link devices (repicking a backoff count, doubling the contention window size, switching to another contention window set, and compensating the backoff count) as well as five coexistence solutions derived from combinations of these features. Comparative simulation results are provided and analyzed for dense single-spot and indoor random deployment scenarios, demonstrating that the throughput and latency gains of multi-link operation differ between schemes. At the same time, we investigate the coexistence performance of multi-link operation with and without the capability of simultaneous transmission and reception and demonstrate that the proposed solutions mitigate the coexistence problem. In particular, compensating the backoff count achieves the highest coexistence performance among the proposed solutions, with a marginal throughput decrease of multi-link devices. A metric for evaluating both the throughput and latency gains and the coexistence performance of a multi-link channel access scheme using a single value is also proposed.
RM-ADR: Resource Management Adaptive Data Rate for Mobile Application in LoRaWAN
Authors: Anwar Khola , Rahman Taj , Zeb Asim , Khan Inayat , Zareei Mahdi , Vargas-Rosales Cesar
Published: December 2021

LoRaWAN is renowned and a mostly supported technology for the Internet of Things, using an energy-efficient Adaptive Data Rate (ADR) to allocate resources (e.g., Spreading Factor (SF)) and Transmit Power (TP) to a large number of End Devices (EDs). When these EDs are mobile, the fixed SF allocation is not efficient owing to the sudden changes caused in the link conditions between the ED and the gateway. As a result of this situation, significant packet loss occurs, increasing the retransmissions from EDs. Therefore, we propose a Resource Management ADR (RM-ADR) at both ED and Network Sides (NS) by considering the packet transmission information and received power to address this issue. Through simulation results, RM-ADR showed improved performance compared to the state-of-the-art ADR techniques. The findings indicate a faster convergence time by minimizing packet loss ratio and retransmission in a mobile LoRaWAN network environment.
Early Detection and Classification of Tomato Leaf Disease Using High-Performance Deep Neural Network
Authors: Trivedi Naresh K. , Gautam Vinay , Anand Abhineet , Aljahdali Hani Moaiteq , Villar Santos Gracia , Anand Divya , Goyal Nitin , Kadry Seifedine
Published: December 2021

Tomato is one of the most essential and consumable crops in the world. Tomatoes differ in quantity depending on how they are fertilized. Leaf disease is the primary factor impacting the amount and quality of crop yield. As a result, it is critical to diagnose and classify these disorders appropriately. Different kinds of diseases influence the production of tomatoes. Earlier identification of these diseases would reduce the disease’s effect on tomato plants and enhance good crop yield. Different innovative ways of identifying and classifying certain diseases have been used extensively. The motive of work is to support farmers in identifying early-stage diseases accurately and informing them about these diseases. The Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) is used to effectively define and classify tomato diseases. Google Colab is used to conduct the complete experiment with a dataset containing 3000 images of tomato leaves affected by nine different diseases and a healthy leaf. The complete process is described: Firstly, the input images are preprocessed, and the targeted area of images are segmented from the original images. Secondly, the images are further processed with varying hyper-parameters of the CNN model. Finally, CNN extracts other characteristics from pictures like colors, texture, and edges, etc. The findings demonstrate that the proposed model predictions are 98.49% accurate.
Application Layer Packet Processing Using PISA Switches
Authors: Butun Ismail , Tuncel Yusuf Kursat , Oztoprak Kasim
Published: December 2021

This paper investigates and proposes a solution for Protocol Independent Switch Architecture (PISA) to process application layer data, enabling the inspection of application content. PISA is a novel approach in networking where the switch does not run any embedded binary code but rather an interpreted code written in a domain-specific language. The main motivation behind this approach is that telecommunication operators do not want to be locked in by a vendor for any type of networking equipment, develop their own networking code in a hardware environment that is not governed by a single equipment manufacturer. This approach also eases the modeling of equipment in a simulation environment as all of the components of a hardware switch run the same compatible code in a software modeled switch. The novel techniques in this paper exploit the main functions of a programmable switch and combine the streaming data processor to create the desired effect from a telecommunication operator perspective to lower the costs and govern the network in a comprehensive manner. The results indicate that the proposed solution using PISA switches enables application visibility in an outstanding performance. This ability helps the operators to remove a fundamental gap between flexibility and scalability by making the best use of limited compute resources in application identification and the response to them. The experimental study indicates that, without any optimization, the proposed solution increases the performance of application identification systems 5.5 to 47.0 times. This study promises that DPI, NGFW (Next-Generation Firewall), and such application layer systems which have quite high costs per unit traffic volume and could not scale to a Tbps level, can be combined with PISA to overcome the cost and scalability issues.
A Brief Report on the Explosion on 13 June 2021 at a Market in Shiyan, China
Authors: Wang Zhe-Han , Atangana Njock Pierre Guy , Zhao Lin-Shuang
Published: December 2021

A huge gas explosion occurred on 13 June 2021 in Shiyan City, China, resulting in 25 casualties and serious injuries to 37 people. The main victims of this explosion were stall keepers and customers buying breakfast and fresh vegetables in the food market. There is a continuous need to enhance the understanding of such unfortunate events, given the dangers they pose. This study analyzes the causes of this accident considering the general background and scenes of the explosion, and then describes the rescue operations undertaken. The investigation results revealed that the explosion was caused by the poor maintenance of gas facilities and negligence of safety regulations. It is, therefore, recommended that the control of these two main aspects be strengthened to reduce the recurrence of such unfortunate accidents.
Replacement Strategies for Animal Studies in Inhalation Testing
Authors: Fröhlich Eleonore
Published: December 2021

Animal testing is mandatory in drug testing and is the gold standard for toxicity and efficacy evaluations. This situation is expected to change in the future as the 3Rs principle, which stands for the replacement, reduction, and refinement of the use of animals in science, is reinforced by many countries. On the other hand, technologies for alternatives to animal testing have increased. The need to develop and use alternatives depends on the complexity of the research topic and also on the extent to which the currently used animal models can mimic human physiology and/or exposure. The lung morphology and physiology of commonly used animal species differs from that of human lungs, and the realistic inhalation exposure of animals is challenging. In vitro and in silico methods can assess important aspects of the in vivo effects, namely particle deposition, dissolution, action at, and permeation through, the respiratory barrier, and pharmacokinetics. This review discusses the limitations of animal models and exposure systems and proposes in vitro and in silico techniques that could, when used together, reduce or even replace animal testing in inhalation testing in the future.
Producing Child-Centered Interventions: Social Network Factors Related to the Quality of Professional Development for Teachers of Autistic Students
Authors: McGhee Hassrick Elizabeth , Suhrheinrich Jessica , Schetter Patricia , Nahmias Allison , Melgarejo Melina , Li Jennica , Ventimiglia Jonas , Yu Yue , Stahmer Aubyn
Published: December 2021

Autistic students benefit from child-centered goals that align with evidence-based practices (EBPs) that meet their individualized needs, however, most teachers are not trained in how to implement autism-specific EBPs. The challenges do not lie with teachers alone. Professional development (PD) providers, such as district or regional autism experts who train and coach teachers on how to implement autism-specific EBPs, face barriers accessing the needed supports to conduct high-quality PD and lack experience with individualizing their methods for training and coaching teachers. When PD providers have networks of professional support, they can potentially gain access to resources to provide successful individualized coaching for teachers. No research has measured the impact of the social networks of PD providers on their performance as coaches in classrooms for teachers of autistic students. To test the hypothesis that social network resources can impact the performance of PD providers who coach teachers how to use EBPs for their autistic students, we conducted social network analysis with PD providers. Findings suggest that network factors were associated with the self-reported performance for PD providers. PD providers who have more people in their networks who were autism EBP experts, as well as more people in their networks who supported them with how to individualize their PD efforts to specific teachers or districts, had higher performance as teacher coaches. We discuss future research about how to support network development for PD providers and policy implications.
COVID-19 Crisis as the New-State-of-the-Art in the Crimmigration Milieu
Authors: Tsiganou Joanna , Chalkia Anastasia , Lempesi Martha
Published: December 2021

The concept of crimmigration connotes the currently prevailing approach between the different fields of penal, administrative and migration laws. It seems that, progressively, there is an amalgamation of penal law practices with those of civil and administrative law processes in a way creating confusion as to the boundaries of each law discipline and rational. In addition, the protection of public health from COVID-19 interrelates with the above three fields of law while at the same time the measures undertaken for the confrontation of the pandemic are further strengthening the social controls already imposed towards the migrant-refugee populations. Based on the Greek experience, we are particularly interested in mixed migration flows’ status of a ‘prolonged reception’. We have decided to examine the cases of the ‘asylum-seeker’ population and the ‘undocumented’ population who, to a large extent, constitute a large unseen category for the national vaccine program implemented to combat the COVID-19 hygiene crisis. The basic idea supported by our present study is that the health field is used as an additive component to crimmigration as it helps the establishment of a concrete screening intensifying the already imposed migration controls. In addition, the official social controls imposed to combat the COVD-19 health crisis contribute to crimmigration through the intensification of the dangerization of mixed migration flows. Currently, the health field, affected by COVID-19, contributes to the intensification of the crimmigration regime and at the same time to a dangerous cul-de-sac.
A Practical Approach for Estimating the Optimum Tilt Angle of a Photovoltaic Panel for a Long Period—Experimental Recorded Data
Authors: Hassanian Reza , Riedel Morris , Yeganeh Nashmin , Unnthorsson Runar
Published: December 2021

In this study, recorded empirical data were applied with a practical approach to investigate the optimal tilt angle of the flat plate collectors facing south for a long period in Tehran, Iran. The data included 20 years of recorded average total radiation on the horizontal plane in Tehran’s meteorological station. Based on the previous studies, the annual optimum tilt angle for Tehran was estimated at 33 degrees annually; however, this estimation does not focus on the energy absorption and effectiveness of changing the tilt angle monthly, seasonally, and bi-annually via measured data. This paper aims to explain this distinction between various radiation receptions with different tilt angle adjustments. This study shows that annual solar cumulative radiation energy gained via a monthly tilt angle can be approximately 7% higher than that achieved with an annual tilt angle setup. Additionally, the seasonal and bi-annual tilt angles have about 6% more annual cumulative radiation absorption than the annual tilt angle setup. Moreover, with consideration of similar monthly received radiation, the results illustrate that the radiation gained with a monthly tilt angle set up was 20% greater in the summer months than an annual tilt angle adjustment.
Anharmonic Effects in Ordered Kesterite-Type Cu2ZnSnS4
Authors: Suss Nicole , Ritscher Anna , Lerch Martin , Efthimiopoulos Ilias
Published: December 2021

We performed an in-depth investigation and analysis of the effect of temperature on the Raman-active A-modes of bulk kesterite-type Cu2ZnSnS4 within the 300–460 K temperature range. We acquired the individual contributions to each Raman mode, namely, the thermal expansion and anharmonic interactions terms responsible for the Raman shift and broadening with temperature. Our results indicate that the Raman shift with temperature is dominated by the thermal expansion term, whereas the broadening is mainly governed by three-phonon damping processes in this material. Considering relevant results from the literature, it appears that dimensionality is a key factor in regulating the dominant phonon decay mechanism.
Effects of Three Different Combined Training Interventions on Jump, Change of Direction, Power Performance, and Inter-Limb Asymmetry in Male Youth Soccer Players
Authors: Moreno-Azze Alejandro , Arjol-Serrano José Luis , Falcón-Miguel David , Bishop Chris , Gonzalo-Skok Oliver
Published: December 2021

Background: This study compared the effects of performing different unilateral combined training interventions on diverse vertical and horizontal jumping performance parameters, change of direction, concentric and eccentric mean power, and their associated inter-limb asymmetries in young soccer players. Methods: Forty-seven young male soccer players (age: 15.5 ± 0.9 years) were distributed into three groups. Two groups performed the same training volume with both legs, beginning with the weaker leg (Stronger Volume Weaker leg group (SVW), n = 14) or with the stronger leg (Stronger Volume Stronger leg group, (SVS), n = 15). The third group executed double the volume with the weaker leg and also commenced with such leg (Double Volume Weaker leg group (DVW), n = 16) during a 10-week period. Pre- and post-intervention tests included a single-leg hop, single-leg lateral hop, triple hop, bilateral and unilateral countermovement jumps, a change of direction speed test, concentric and eccentric mean power during the lateral squat test, and their corresponding asymmetries. Results: Single-leg hop weaker leg, triple hop weaker leg, and bilateral countermovement jump improvements were achieved in the SVW (ES: 0.29 to 0.46) and DVW (ES: 0.55 to 0.73) groups. Between-groups analysis showed better results in single-leg hop in the SVW and DVW compared to group SVS. The DVW group achieved better improvements in countermovement jump in comparison to groups SVS and SVW. Conclusions: Groups that started with the weaker leg seemed to achieve a greater volume of significant changes than when starting with the stronger leg. Performing a double volume on the weaker limb does not guarantee further improved performance compared to other groups.
Acute Effects of Static Self-Stretching Exercises and Foam Roller Self-Massaging on the Trunk Range of Motions and Strength of the Trunk Extensors
Authors: Fonta Maria , Tsepis Elias , Fousekis Konstantinos , Mandalidis Dimitris
Published: December 2021

Although the effectiveness of static self-stretching exercises (SSSEs) and foam roller self-massaging (FRSM) in joint range of motion and muscle strength of the lower limbs has been extensively investigated, little is known about their effectiveness on the posterior trunk muscles. The present study aimed to investigate the acute effects of two 7-min SSSEs and FRSM intervention protocols on the range of trunk movements and the strength of the trunk extensors. Twenty-five healthy active males (n = 14) and females (n = 11) performed each intervention separately, one week apart. The range of motion (ROM) of the trunk-hip flexion (T-HF), the ROM of the trunk side-flexion (TSF) and rotation (TR) bilaterally, as well as the isometric maximum strength (TESmax) and endurance (TESend) of the trunk extensors were measured before and after each intervention. The ROMs of T-HF, TSF, and TR were significantly increased following both SSSEs and FRSM. The TESmax and TESend were also significantly increased after FRSM, but decreased following SSSEs. While both interventions were effective in increasing the range of motion of the trunk, a single 7-min session of FRSM presented more advantages over a similar duration SSSEs protocol due to the increase in the strength of the trunk extensors it induced.
Predicting Seasonal Performance in Professional Sport: A 30-Year Analysis of Sports Illustrated Predictions
Authors: Jones Justine , Johnston Kathryn , Farah Lou , Baker Joseph
Published: December 2021

In 2017, Sports Illustrated (SI) made headlines when their remarkable prediction from 2014 that the Houston Astros (a team in one of the lowest Major League Baseball divisional rankings) would win the World Series, came true. The less-publicised story was that in 2017, SI predicted the Los Angeles Dodgers to win the Major League Baseball (MLB) title. Assessing the forecasting accuracy of experts is critical as it explores the difficulty and limitations of forecasts and can help illuminate how predictions may shape sociocultural notions of sport in society. To thoroughly investigate SI’s forecasting record, predictions were collected from the four major North American sporting leagues (the National Football League, National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball, and National Hockey League) over the last 30 years (1988–2018). Kruskal–Wallis H Tests and Mann–Whitney U Tests were used to evaluate the absolute and relative accuracy of predictions. Results indicated that SI had the greatest predictive accuracy in the National Basketball Association and was significantly more likely to predict divisional winners compared to conference and league champions. Future work in this area may seek to examine multiple media outlets to gain a more comprehensive perspective on forecasting accuracy in sport.
Developing Earthquake-Resistant Structural Design Standard for Malaysia Based on Eurocode 8: Challenges and Recommendations
Authors: Looi Daniel , Lam Nelson , Tsang Hing-Ho
Published: December 2021

In late 2017, the Malaysian National Annex (NA) to Eurocode 8 (EC8) was released and enacted following some 13 years of deliberations and preparations. The authors of this paper aim to use this article to share their experiences and reflections during this period of developing the first national standard for the seismic design of buildings for Malaysia. To begin with, there were major challenges in implementing the 20-year-old EC8 framework for a country so far away from Europe. The first challenge was adapting the probabilistic seismic hazard assessment (PSHA) methodology in a low-to-moderate seismicity region where the paucity of representative seismic data presented a great deal of uncertainties. To address this situation, imposing a minimum level of seismic hazard was recommended. The second challenge was about dealing with the outdated EC8 site classification scheme, which poorly represents the potential effects of soil amplification in certain geological settings. To address this situation, an alternative site classification scheme in which the site natural period is an explicit modelling parameter was introduced. The third challenge was concerned with difficulties generated by the EC8 provisions mandating Ductility Class Medium (DCM) detailing in certain localities where the level of seismic hazard is predicted to exceed a certain threshold. To address this situation, the viable option of using strength to trade off for ductility was recommended, or in cases where ductility design is needed, a simplified set of code-compliant DCM designs was presented. The fourth challenge was about handling the requirements of EC8 that the majority of buildings are to involve dynamic analysis in their structural design when the majority of practising professionals did not have the skills of exercising proper use of the requisite software. To address this situation, a generalized force method was introduced to control the use dynamic analysis in commercial software. It is hoped that, through sharing the lessons learnt, code drafters for the future would be able to find ways of circumventing the multitude of challenges with clear thinking and pragmatism.
A Geometric Perspective on Functional Outlier Detection
Authors: Herrmann Moritz , Scheipl Fabian
Published: December 2021

We consider functional outlier detection from a geometric perspective, specifically: for functional datasets drawn from a functional manifold, which is defined by the data’s modes of variation in shape, translation, and phase. Based on this manifold, we developed a conceptualization of functional outlier detection that is more widely applicable and realistic than previously proposed taxonomies. Our theoretical and experimental analyses demonstrated several important advantages of this perspective: it considerably improves theoretical understanding and allows describing and analyzing complex functional outlier scenarios consistently and in full generality, by differentiating between structurally anomalous outlier data that are off-manifold and distributionally outlying data that are on-manifold, but at its margins. This improves the practical feasibility of functional outlier detection: we show that simple manifold-learning methods can be used to reliably infer and visualize the geometric structure of functional datasets. We also show that standard outlier-detection methods requiring tabular data inputs can be applied to functional data very successfully by simply using their vector-valued representations learned from manifold learning methods as the input features. Our experiments on synthetic and real datasets demonstrated that this approach leads to outlier detection performances at least on par with existing functional-data-specific methods in a large variety of settings, without the highly specialized, complex methodology and narrow domain of application these methods often entail.
The Impact of the Fear of COVID-19 on Purchase Behavior of Dietary Supplements: Integration of the Theory of Planned Behavior and the Protection Motivation Theory
Authors: Liu Cheng , Sun Cheuk-Kwan , Chang Yu-Chia , Yang Shang-Yu , Liu Tao , Yang Cheng-Chia
Published: December 2021

This study aimed at assessing the impacts of the fear of COVID-19 on consumer buying behavior toward dietary supplements. This investigation was a cross-sectional study in which literate adults regardless of gender over the age of 20 were recruited from three pharmacies in three different districts of Wuhan City, China. A total of 598 questionnaires were analyzed after excluding 10 with incomplete information. The current study demonstrated that attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control had a positive impact on the intention of purchasing dietary supplements. Fear of COVID-19 was related to an enhanced purchase intention toward dietary supplements. Attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control were significant factors that mediated the association between the fear of COVID-19 and the purchase intention of dietary supplements. This study helps provide practical advice for stakeholders in the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries to tailor appropriate strategies for improving product promotion or healthcare-related interventions.
Towards a Sustainable Future through Renewable Energies at Secondary School: An Educational Proposal
Authors: García-Ferrero Judit , Merchán Rosa P. , Roco José M. Mateos , Medina Alejandro , Santos María Jesús
Published: December 2021

A compilation of innovative educational activities to work on concepts related to the production of electrical energy is presented. To approach the real-life secondary education curriculum, they are grouped to be performed during a week denominated Renewable Energy Week: an educational proposal aimed to promote the respect for the environment through the insight on Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and renewable energy sources. The students would build and perform low-cost experiments so as to deeply understand the essence of energetic transformations, as well as electricity generation. Learning by discovery, collaborative learning and experimentation, are the methodological pillars that characterize Renewable Energy Week, since they have been proven to be efficient methodologies to promote students’ learning. Innovative techniques for pupils evaluation are employed, including a rubric, Socrative application and a set of sheets regarding experiments. Through this educational proposal, the students are expected to achieve a deep understanding of some key concepts related to electricity and awaken their interest in scientific subjects, making them conscious of the transition to sustainable development that our planet urgently requires. At the same time, this project offers to teachers a series of experiments and innovative activities to work on the SDG in Physics, Chemistry and Technology subjects.
Linking the Development of Building Sustainability Assessment Tools with the Concept Evolution of Sustainable Buildings
Authors: Liang Lihua , Wen Baohua , Xu Feng , Yan Jianwei , Yan Xiangqi , Ramesh S.
Published: December 2021

With the rapid development of materials science and construction technology, the concept of sustainable building (SB) and the Building Sustainability Assessment Tool (BSAT) have also evolved and developed. Understanding the development of BSAT and SB is of great significance to the sustainable development of the construction industry. This research used the bibliometric method to analyze the development and evolution in the relevant literature on SB and BSAT from 1990 to 2021, and the correlations and differences between them were investigated. We found that there are many common trends in the development of research efforts in SB and BSAT: (1) they focused solely on the environment, in the early days, and only later considered economic and social impacts; (2) the scales with which they are concerned continue to expand, from individual buildings to communities and even cities; (3) key areas, such as energy, materials, resources, indoor environmental quality, high-tech applications, adaptability, and concern for people are being given more attention by both SB and BSAT. On the other hand, the difference between them is that SB research focuses on more macro aspects, such as policy, culture, climate change, while BSAT research is more concerned with micro aspects, such as its system of tools. Furthermore, some current research gaps in the BSAT field are identified, clarifying its future research directions. By linking the evolution of the SB concept and the development of the BSAT research field, this review provides a new and valuable perspective for the sustainable assessment of the construction industry, which, itself, is conducive to the sustainable transformation of this industry, which could contribute greatly to the mitigation of global climate change.
Historical Transition of a Farming System towards Industrialization: A Danish Agricultural Case Study Comparing Sustainability in the 1840s and 2019
Authors: Lohrum Nele , Graversgaard Morten , Kjeldsen Chris
Published: December 2021

A Danish pre-industrial farming system is reconstructed and compared to its modern industrialized farming system equivalent to evaluate agricultural performance in a sustainability perspective. The investigated Danish farm system and its contributing elements have undergone significant transformations. The intensity of contemporary agriculture shows that high productivity levels have been achieved by increasing the input of energy using modern machinery. At the same time, the energy efficiency (calculations based on energetic indicators) diminishes over time as the degree of dependence on fossil fuels increases. The results from this study show significant changes in the farming system, specifically inputs from agricultural land use, livestock, and energy systems. From being highly circular, the system changed to being a clear linear farming system with highly increased productivity but less efficient at the same time, questioning the relationship between productivity and efficiency and resource utilization in modern farming systems. Through utilizing an agroecological historical approach by comparing system performance over time, the results offer opportunities to explore how agricultural farming systems evolve over time and help to describe the complexity of the system level in a sustainability perspective.
Optimizing the Potential Impact of Energy Recovery and Pipe Replacement on Leakage Reduction in a Medium Sized District Metered Area
Authors: Bonthuys Gideon Johannes , van Dijk Marco , Cavazzini Giovanna
Published: December 2021

The drive for sustainable societies with more resilient infrastructure networks has catalyzed interest in leakage reduction as a subsequent benefit to energy recovery in water distribution systems. Several researchers have conducted studies and piloted successful energy recovery installations in water distribution systems globally. Challenges remain in the determination of the number, location, and optimal control setting of energy recovery devices. The PERRL 2.0 procedure was developed, employing a genetic algorithm through extended period simulations, to identify and optimize the location and size of hydro-turbine installations for energy recovery. This procedure was applied to the water supply system of the town of Stellenbosch, South Africa. Several suitable locations for pressure reduction, with energy recovery installations between 600 and 800 kWh/day were identified, with the potential to also reduce leakage in the system by 2 to 4%. Coupling the energy recovery installations with a pipe replacement model showed a further reduction in leakage up to a total of above 6% when replacing 10% of the aged pipes within the network. Several solutions were identified on the main supply line and the addition of a basic water balance, to the analysis, was found valuable in preliminarily evaluation and identification of the more sustainable solutions.
Techno-Economic Assessment of an Air-Multiple PCM Active Storage Unit for Free Cooling Application
Authors: Iten Muriel
Published: December 2021

A latent energy storage (LES) unit is presented in this paper for free space cooling and ventilation application. The unit includes multiple phase change materials (PCM) to advance the thermal performance of common LES units. It is composed by metallic rectangular panels containing commercial paraffins with melting temperatures ranging among 20 °C and 25 °C and surrounded by air channels. The average cooling load of the unit corresponds to approximately 1 kW over 8 h. It fulfils the peak ventilation cooling load during summer of an office building in Portugal. The study provides a techno-economic analysis and the environmental benefits of the LES technology compared to a traditional air conditioning (AC) unit for the cooling and ventilation of an office building. During daytime, the air-multiple PCM unit allows reducing the energy consumption by nearly 200 kWh. The full charging of the PMs during nighttime, requires significant energy consumption due to the high air flowrate demand for full solidification. The competitiveness of such units can be achieved by introducing fins into the panels, allowing double the energy savings. In an overall perspective, the unit presents several benefits such as lower initial cost and reduced maintenance requirements (non-use of refrigerants and batteries) that also allows better personal health issues when related to traditional ACs.
Quantifying Recycled Moisture in Precipitation in Qilian Mountains
Authors: Zhang Zhuanxia , Zhu Guofeng , Pan Hanxiong , Sun Zhigang , Sang Liyuan , Liu Yuwei
Published: December 2021

Studies about the hydrological cycle based on basin or regional scales often ignore the uniqueness of recycling moisture in mountain areas, and little effort has been made to understand the impact of the local recycled moisture on precipitation in mountain areas. We collected and analyzed a series of samples (stable isotope of precipitation, soil water, plant water, runoff, and groundwater) in the Qilian Mountains, northwest of China. Based on the isotopic mixing model, the characteristics of recycled moisture in the Qilian Mountains were evaluated. The results showed that lateral advection moisture is the primary source of precipitation (83.5~98.38%). The contribution rate of recycled moisture to precipitation was higher in the spring, summer, and autumn (2.05~16.5%), and lower in the winter (1.62~3.32%). The contribution of recycled moisture to precipitation in the high-elevation areas (>2400 m) was higher than that in the foothills area (2100~2400 m). The contribution of vegetation transpiration (fTr) to precipitation in the east of Qilian Mountain was higher than that of the land surface evaporation (fEv). These proved that in the eastern part of Qilian Mountain, the arge-scale water cycle has a greater impact on precipitation in the area. The influence of local circulating water on precipitation dominated in the summer half of the year. Understanding the contribution of local circulating water to precipitation in the eastern part of Qilian Mountain will help us to understand the local hydrothermal conditions better and provide a basis for rationally arranging local agricultural production activities.
Implementing SDGs to a Sustainable Rural Village Development from Community Empowerment: Linking Energy, Education, Innovation, and Research
Authors: del Arco Isabel , Ramos-Pla Anabel , Zsembinszki Gabriel , de Gracia Alvaro , Cabeza Luisa F.
Published: December 2021

Rural depopulation is a worldwide fact and has a domino effect on medium and small cities, which act as a nucleus of reference for small towns. Moreover, the United Nations (UN) stressed that disparities between rural and urban areas are pronounced and still growing over time. Globally, people in rural areas lack access to modern energy services, which affects productivity, educational and health services, exacerbating poverty, among other things. Given this reality, the following research questions arise: how can we act to reverse this reality? Are there examples of transformation in rural contexts where community empowerment is a key strategy? This paper aims at describing the transformation process of a small rural municipality towards a sustainable development, in parallel to the activation of the local productivity that helps to eliminate the effects of rural depopulation. Therefore, the project ALMIA was established as an example of a sustainable village that is Almatret (Catalonia-Spain). The backbone of such project is the commitment to community empowerment, where the main results are the generation of networks with experts and researchers to help the municipality’s energy transition, the involvement of the local administration, the commitment to technological development, as well as the socio-community development. Moreover, the activities developed within the project ALMIA are aligned with the UNs Sustainable Development Goals, alignment that is analyzed in detail. Thus, this paper aims to further highlight existing sustainable development practices related to community empowerment in order to promote similar practices.
An Investigation of Suitable Healing Agents for Vascular-Based Self-Healing in Cementitious Materials
Authors: Shields Yasmina , Van Mullem Tim , De Belie Nele , Van Tittelboom Kim
Published: December 2021

Self-healing cementitious materials can extend the service life of structures, improve safety during repair activities and reduce costs with minimal human intervention. Recent advances in self-healing research have shown promise for capsule-based and intrinsic healing systems. However, limited information is available regarding vascular-based self-healing mechanisms. The aim of this work is to compare different commercially available healing agents regarding their suitability in a self-healing vascular network system by examining a regain in durability and mechanical properties. The healing agents investigated include sodium silicate, two polyurethanes, two water repellent agents and an epoxy resin. Sealing efficiencies above 100% were achieved for most of the healing agents, and both polyurethanes and the epoxy resin showed high regain in strength. The results obtained from this study provide a framework for selecting a healing agent given a specific application, as a healing agent’s rheology and curing properties can affect the optimal geometry and design of a vascular network.
Highlighting the Drivers of Italian Diversified Farms Efficiency: A Two-Stage DEA-Panel Tobit Analysis
Authors: Romagnoli Luca , Giaccio Vincenzo , Mastronardi Luigi , Forleo Maria Bonaventura
Published: December 2021

Farm diversification is an important phenomenon in agricultural systems and rural development in Europe, pursuing economic, social and environmental goals. For the sustainability of diversified farms, it is important to analyse some drivers affecting farm efficiency, for instance, socio-economic, technical and policy drivers. The efficiency performance of a panel of Italian farms practising other gainful activities in the period 2012–2017 was investigated and regressed against the drivers that mostly affects farm performances. FADN data and a two-step approach were used. An output-oriented Data Envelopment Analysis was applied; in the second step, efficiency scores were used as a dependent variable in a panel Tobit regression analysis used to determine differences in the significance of drivers. Social, economic, technical and policy drivers were considered as explanatory variables. Results show margins for improving farms performances. The incidence of the output from other gainful activities has been proven to positively affect farms efficiencies, while intermediate costs are the most negatively impacting factor. As regards policy variables and implications, the significance of localization in mountain disadvantaged territories further supports the relevance of EU subsidies in less-favoured areas. Managerial implications in terms of technical, structural and economic indicators can be drawn from study findings.
Promoting Customer Loyalty and Satisfaction in Financial Institutions through Technology Integration: The Roles of Service Quality, Awareness, and Perceptions
Authors: Iqbal Kamran , Munawar Hafiz Suliman , Inam Hina , Qayyum Siddra
Published: December 2021

This study examines the effects of quality of service, product awareness, and perceptions among customers of Islamic financial institutions (IFIs) on customer loyalty through technology integration using customer satisfaction as a mediator. A well-structured, comprehensive questionnaire was developed and data were collected from 203 respondents who were customers of six IFIs in Pakistan and had at least 2 years of experience in dealing confiorm this is correct with these IFIs. A total of 171 accurate responses were received from the respondents. Ten hypotheses were developed and statistically verified using regression and correlation analytical techniques. The results reveal that the quality of customer services and awareness of IFIs had a direct and positive relationship with customer loyalty, which in turn was mediated by customer satisfaction. Perceptions about IFIs had a direct positive relation with customer satisfaction. However, the relation of perceptions and quality of service with customer loyalty and satisfaction in financial institutions through technology integration was found to be insignificant, even in the presence of customer satisfaction as a mediator.
Why Do Koreans Love Ethnic Players in the MLB? A Focus on Ethnic Identity and Player Identification
Authors: Jun Jong-Woo , Cho Jun-Hyuk , Lee Ji-Hoon
Published: December 2021

Asians hold a collectivistic culture, and they feel attachment to people who have the same ethnic background. This study explored how roles of ethnic identity influenced fan behaviors of Korean audiences toward Hyun-jin Ryu, the Korean Major League Baseball player. The results showed that ethnic identity influenced player identification, which led to attitudes toward the L.A. Dodgers. Congruence mediated the relationship between ethnic identity and player identification. It is also found that transportation mediated the relationship between player identification and attitudes toward the L.A. Dodgers. These results provide a cultural explanation of fan behaviors of ethnic players. Managerial implications can also be found.