bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
A Remote Sensing Method to Monitor Water, Aquatic Vegetation, and Invasive Water Hyacinth at National Extents
Authors: Singh Geethen , Reynolds Chevonne , Byrne Marcus , Rosman Benjamin
Published: December 2020

Diverse freshwater biological communities are threatened by invasive aquatic alien plant (IAAP) invasions and consequently, cost countries millions to manage. The effective management of these IAAP invasions necessitates their frequent and reliable monitoring across a broad extent and over a long-term. Here, we introduce and apply a monitoring approach that meet these criteria and is based on a three-stage hierarchical classification to firstly detect water, then aquatic vegetation and finally water hyacinth (Pontederia crassipes, previously Eichhornia crassipes), the most damaging IAAP species within many regions of the world. Our approach circumvents many challenges that restricted previous satellite-based water hyacinth monitoring attempts to smaller study areas. The method is executable on Google Earth Engine (GEE) extemporaneously and utilizes free, medium resolution (10–30 m) multispectral Earth Observation (EO) data from either Landsat-8 or Sentinel-2. The automated workflow employs a novel simple thresholding approach to obtain reliable boundaries for open-water, which are then used to limit the area for aquatic vegetation detection. Subsequently, a random forest modelling approach is used to discriminate water hyacinth from other detected aquatic vegetation using the eight most important variables. This study represents the first national scale EO-derived water hyacinth distribution map. Based on our model, it is estimated that this pervasive IAAP covered 417.74 km2 across South Africa in 2013. Additionally, we show encouraging results for utilizing the automatically derived aquatic vegetation masks to fit and evaluate a convolutional neural network-based semantic segmentation model, removing the need for detection of surface water extents that may not always be available at the required spatio-temporal resolution or accuracy. The water hyacinth species discrimination has a 0.80, or greater, overall accuracy (0.93), F1-score (0.87) and Matthews correlation coefficient (0.80) based on 98 widely distributed field sites across South Africa. The results suggest that the introduced workflow is suitable for monitoring changes in the extent of open water, aquatic vegetation, and water hyacinth for individual waterbodies or across national extents. The GEE code can be accessed here.
The Use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles to Determine Differences in Vegetation Cover: A Tool for Monitoring Coastal Wetland Restoration Schemes
Authors: Dale Jonathan , Burnside Niall G. , Hill-Butler Charley , Berg Maureen J. , Strong Conor J. , Burgess Heidi M.
Published: December 2020

Managed realignment (MR) sites are being implemented to compensate for the loss of natural saltmarsh habitat due to sea level rise and anthropogenic pressures. However, MR sites have been recognised to have lower morphological variability and coverage of saltmarsh vegetation than natural saltmarsh sites, which have been linked with the legacy of the historic (terrestrial) land use. This study assesses the relationship between the morphology and vegetation coverage in three separate zones, associated with the legacy of historic reclamation, of a non-engineered MR site. The site was selected due to the phased historical reclamation, and because no pre-breaching landscaping or engineering works were carried out prior to the more recent and contemporary breaching of the site. Four vegetation indices (Excess Green Index, Green Chromatic Coordinate, Green-Red Vegetation Index, and Visible Atmospherically Resistant Index) were calculated from unmanned aerial vehicle imagery; elevation, slope, and curvature surface models were calculated from a digital surface model (DSM) generated from the same imagery captured at the MR site. The imagery and DSM summarised the three zones present within the MR site and the adjacent external natural marsh, and were used to examine the site for areas of differing vegetation cover. Results indicated statistically significant differences between the vegetation indices across the three zones. Statistically significant differences in the vegetation indices were also found between the three zones and the external natural saltmarsh. However, it was only in the zone nearest the breach, and for three of the four indices, that a moderate to strong correlation was found between elevation and the vegetation indices (r = 0.53 to 0.70). This zone was also the lowest in elevation and exhibited the lowest average value for all indices. No relationship was found between the vegetation indices and either the slope or curvature in any of the zones. The approach outlined in this paper provides coastal managers with a relatively low-cost, low-field time method of assessing the areas of vegetation development in MR sites. Moreover, the findings indicate the potential importance of considering the historic morphological and sedimentological changes in the MR sites. By combining data on the areas of saltmarsh colonisation with a consideration of the site’s morphological and reclamation history, the areas likely to support saltmarsh vegetation can be remotely identified in the design of larger engineered MR sites maximising the compensation for the loss of saltmarsh habitat elsewhere.
ℱ3-Net: Feature Fusion and Filtration Network for Object Detection in Optical Remote Sensing Images
Authors: Ye Xinhai , Xiong Fengchao , Lu Jianfeng , Zhou Jun , Qian Yuntao
Published: December 2020

Object detection in remote sensing (RS) images is a challenging task due to the difficulties of small size, varied appearance, and complex background. Although a lot of methods have been developed to address this problem, many of them cannot fully exploit multilevel context information or handle cluttered background in RS images either. To this end, in this paper, we propose a feature fusion and filtration network (F3-Net) to improve object detection in RS images, which has higher capacity of combining the context information at multiple scales while suppressing the interference from the background. Specifically, F3-Net leverages a feature adaptation block with a residual structure to adjust the backbone network in an end-to-end manner, better considering the characteristics of RS images. Afterward, the network learns the context information of the object at multiple scales by hierarchically fusing the feature maps from different layers. In order to suppress the interference from cluttered background, the fused feature is then projected into a low-dimensional subspace by an additional feature filtration module. As a result, more relevant and accurate context information is extracted for further detection. Extensive experiments on DOTA, NWPU VHR-10, and UCAS AOD datasets demonstrate that the proposed detector achieves very promising detection performance.
A Building Information Modeling Approach to Integrate Geomatic Data for the Documentation and Preservation of Cultural Heritage
Authors: Solla Mercedes , Gonçalves Luisa M. S. , Gonçalves Gil , Francisco Carina , Puente Iván , Providência Paulo , Gaspar Florindo , Rodrigues Hugo
Published: December 2020

Non-destructive testing (NDT) techniques play an important role in the characterization and diagnosis of historic buildings, keeping in mind their conservation and possible rehabilitation. This paper presents a new approach that merges building information modeling (BIM) with environment geospatial data obtained by several non-destructive techniques, namely terrestrial laser scanning, ground-penetrating radar, infrared thermography, and the automatic classification of pathologies based on RGB (red, green, blue) imaging acquired with an unmanned aircraft system (UAS). This approach was applied to the inspection of the Monastery of Batalha in Leiria, Portugal, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. To assess the capabilities of each technique, different parts of the monastery were examined, namely (i) part of its west façade, including a few protruding buttresses, and (ii) the masonry vaults of the Church (nave, right-hand aisle, and transept) and the Founder’s Chapel. After describing the employed techniques, a discussion of the optimization, treatment and integration of the acquired data through the BIM approach is presented. This work intends to contribute to the application of BIM in the field of cultural heritage, aiming at its future use in different activities such as facility management, support in the restoration and rehabilitation process, and research.
Operational Service for Mapping the Baltic Sea Landfast Ice Properties
Authors: Mäkynen Marko , Karvonen Juha , Cheng Bin , Hiltunen Mwaba , Eriksson Patrick B.
Published: December 2020

The Baltic Sea is partly covered by sea ice in every winter season. Landfast ice (LFI) on the Baltic Sea is a place for recreational activities such as skiing and ice fishing. Over thick LFI ice roads can be established between mainland and islands to speed up transportation compared to the use of ferries. LFI also allows transportation of material to or from islands without piers for large ships. For all these activities, information on LFI extent and sea ice thickness, snow thickness and degree of ice deformation on LFI is very important. We generated new operational products for these LFI parameters based on synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery and existing products and prediction models on the Baltic Sea ice properties. The products are generated daily and have a 500 m pixel size. They are visualized in a web-portal titled “Baltic Sea landfast ice extent and thickness (BALFI)” which has free access. The BALFI service was started in February 2019. Before the BALFI service, information on the LFI properties in fine scale (<1 km) was not available from any single source or product. We studied the accuracy and quality of the BALFI products for the ice season 2019–2020 using ice charts and in-situ coastal ice station data. We suggest that the current products give usable information on the Baltic LFI properties for various end-users. We also identify some topics for the further development of the BALFI products.
Multilevel Structure Extraction-Based Multi-Sensor Data Fusion
Authors: Duan Puhong , Kang Xudong , Ghamisi Pedram , Liu Yu
Published: December 2020

Multi-sensor data on the same area provide complementary information, which is helpful for improving the discrimination capability of classifiers. In this work, a novel multilevel structure extraction method is proposed to fuse multi-sensor data. This method is comprised of three steps: First, multilevel structure extraction is constructed by cascading morphological profiles and structure features, and is utilized to extract spatial information from multiple original images. Then, a low-rank model is adopted to integrate the extracted spatial information. Finally, a spectral classifier is employed to calculate class probabilities, and a maximum posteriori estimation model is used to decide the final labels. Experiments tested on three datasets including rural and urban scenes validate that the proposed approach can produce promising performance with regard to both subjective and objective qualities.
Viaxl: A Solution of a Low-Cost Real-Time Visual Accelerometer Based on Laser Speckle Optical Flow Detection
Authors: Li Zhitian , Yang Wuhao , Xiong Xingyin , Wang Zheng , Zou Xudong
Published: December 2020

Non-contact and non-destructive acceleration measurement is receiving considerable attention due to their low cost, flexibility, and simplicity of implementation, as well as their excellent performance in some emerging applications such as medical electronics applications, vibration monitoring, and some other special scenarios. In this paper, a visual accelerometer system based on laser speckle optical flow detection named Viaxl is proposed. Compared with the conventional non-contact acceleration measurement method based on a laser system, Viaxl has moderate and stable performance with the advantages of low cost and simplicity of implementation. Experiment results demonstrate that Viaxl, which consists of a commercial camera and a low-cost laser pointer, can achieve real-time, non-contact acceleration measurement, and confirm the basic system performance of Viaxl: a measurement nonlinearity better than 1.3%, up to 31 dB signal-to-noise ratio, and 1150 Hz theoretic bandwidth; this demonstrates the huge potential of Viaxl in a wide range of applications, and provides a new possible technical method for non-contact acceleration detection.
Sample-Guided Adaptive Class Prototype for Visual Domain Adaptation
Authors: Han Chao , Li Xiaoyang , Yang Zhen , Zhou Deyun , Zhao Yiyang , Kong Weiren
Published: December 2020

Domain adaptation aims to handle the distribution mismatch of training and testing data, which achieves dramatic progress in multi-sensor systems. Previous methods align the cross-domain distributions by some statistics, such as the means and variances. Despite their appeal, such methods often fail to model the discriminative structures existing within testing samples. In this paper, we present a sample-guided adaptive class prototype method, which consists of the no distribution matching strategy. Specifically, two adaptive measures are proposed. Firstly, the modified nearest class prototype is raised, which allows more diversity within same class, while keeping most of the class wise discrimination information. Secondly, we put forward an easy-to-hard testing scheme by taking into account the different difficulties in recognizing target samples. Easy samples are classified and selected to assist the prediction of hard samples. Extensive experiments verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.
A Single Image 3D Reconstruction Method Based on a Novel Monocular Vision System
Authors: Wu Fupei , Zhu Shukai , Ye Weilin
Published: December 2020

Three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction and measurement are popular techniques in precision manufacturing processes. In this manuscript, a single image 3D reconstruction method is proposed based on a novel monocular vision system, which includes a three-level charge coupled device (3-CCD) camera and a ring structured multi-color light emitting diode (LED) illumination. Firstly, a procedure for the calibration of the illumination’s parameters, including LEDs’ mounted angles, distribution density and incident angles, is proposed. Secondly, the incident light information, the color distribution information and gray level information are extracted from the acquired image, and the 3D reconstruction model is built based on the camera imaging model. Thirdly, the surface height information of the detected object within the field of view is computed based on the built model. The proposed method aims at solving the uncertainty and the slow convergence issues arising in 3D surface topography reconstruction using current shape-from-shading (SFS) methods. Three-dimensional reconstruction experimental tests are carried out on convex, concave, angular surfaces and on a mobile subscriber identification module (SIM) card slot, showing relative errors less than 3.6%, respectively. Advantages of the proposed method include a reduced time for 3D surface reconstruction compared to other methods, demonstrating good suitability of the proposed method in reconstructing surface 3D morphology.
InAsSb-Based Infrared Photodetectors: Thirty Years Later On
Authors: Rogalski Antoni , Martyniuk Piotr , Kopytko Malgorzata , Madejczyk Pawel , Krishna Sanjay
Published: December 2020

In 1989, one author of this paper (A.R.) published the very first review paper on InAsSb infrared detectors. During the last thirty years, many scientific breakthroughs and technological advances for InAsSb-based photodetectors have been made. Progress in advanced epitaxial methods contributed considerably to the InAsSb improvement. Current efforts are directed towards the photodetector’s cut-off wavelength extension beyond lattice-available and lattice-strained binary substrates. It is suspected that further improvement of metamorphic buffers for epitaxial layers will lead to lower-cost InAsSb-based focal plane arrays on large-area alternative substrates like GaAs and silicon. Most photodetector reports in the last decade are devoted to the heterostructure and barrier architectures operating in high operating temperature conditions. In the paper, at first InAsSb growth methods are briefly described. Next, the fundamental material properties are reviewed, stressing electrical and optical aspects limiting the photodetector performance. The last part of the paper highlights new ideas in design of InAsSb-based bulk and superlattice infrared detectors and focal plane arrays. Their performance is compared with the state-of-the-art infrared detector technologies.
Device-to-Device Aided Cooperative Relaying Scheme Exploiting Spatial Modulation: An Interference Free Strategy
Authors: Kamal Md. Shahriar , Kader Md. Fazlul , Islam S. M. Riazul , Yu Heejung
Published: December 2020

In this paper, a novel interference free dual-hop device-to-device (D2D) aided cooperative relaying strategy (CRS) based on spatial modulation (SM) (termed D2D-CRS-SM) is proposed. In D2D-CRS-SM, two cellular users (e.g., a near user (NU) and a relay-aided far user (FU)) and a pair of D2D transmitter (D1)-receivers (D2) are served in two time-slots. Two different scenarios are investigated considering information reception criteria at the NU. Irrespective of the scenarios, the base station (BS) exploits SM to map information bits into two sets: modulation bits and antenna index, in phase-1. In the first scenario, the BS maps FU information as the modulation bits and NU information as antenna index, whereas modulation bits correspond to NU information and the antenna index carries FU’s information in scenario-2. The iterative-maximum ratio combining (i-MRC) technique is then used by NU and D1 to de-map their desired information bits. During phase-2, D1 also exploits SM to forward FU’s information received from BS and its own information bits to the D2D receiver D2. Then, FU and D2 retrieve their desired information by using i-MRC. Due to exploiting SM in both phases, interference free information reception is possible at each receiving node without allocating any fixed transmit power. The performance of D2D-CRS-SM is studied in terms of bit-error rate and spectral efficiency considering M-ary phase shift keying and quadrature amplitude modulation. Finally, the efficiency of D2D-CRS-SM is demonstrated via the Monte Carlo simulation.
UWB Low-Profile Boat-Radiator Antenna (BRA) with Dual C-Shape Co-Radiative Ground for Multi-Standard Communication Networks
Authors: Zhang Chungang , Xie Yongjun , Dai Legen
Published: December 2020

Multiple standard communication networks operate in the frequency band of 1.8–6 GHz, which makes lots of antennas available in the limited space. To solve the problem of interference and improve the performance of these antennas, an ultra-wideband (UWB) antenna is presented. It consists of a boat-radiator and a dual C-shape co-radiative ground (DCCRG). One half of the DCCRG plays a role of the ground of a co-planar waveguide fed to the proposed boat-radiator antenna (BRA), while the other half works as a multiple order L-resonant circuit to broaden the lower operating band. Uniform bidirectional radiation is presented with the size of 0.25 λ × 0.375 λ × 0.0063 λ over the frequency band of 1.7–6.3 GHz (115%). The proposed antenna achieves around twice the bandwidth (60%) of the same structured antenna without the structure acting as a multiple order L-resonant circuit. Moreover, the stable boresight gain of 3.6 dBi ± 1.25 dBi is realized over the operating band.
Impact Analysis Using Life Cycle Assessment of Asphalt Production from Primary Data
Authors: Sollazzo Giuseppe , Longo Sonia , Cellura Maurizio , Celauro Clara
Published: December 2020

Road construction and maintenance have a great impact on the environment, owing to the huge volumes of resources involved. Consequently, current production procedures and technologies must be properly investigated, for identifying and quantifying the life cycle environmental impacts produced. In this paper, primary data, i.e., site-specific data directly collected or measured on a reference plant, are analyzed for calculating the impact of the production of a hot mix asphalt. The analysis is performed in a from “cradle to gate” approach to estimate the environmental burdens of the production process in an average plant, representative of the existing technology in Italy and Southern Europe. The research outcomes are useful to increase reliability in quantification of asphalt production impacts and the contribution of each component. The results represent a reference basis for producers, designers, and contractors in the decisional phases, identifying the most critical aspects in the current practice and the possible improvements for reducing impacts of road industries. In this regard, efficient energy technologies for reducing the production temperature (such as warm mix asphalt) and burned fuels are proven to assure relevant improvements in the environmental performance.
Impact of Strategic Cooperation under Competition on Green Product Manufacturing
Authors: Nielsen Izabela , Majumder Sani , Szwarc Eryk , Saha Subrata
Published: December 2020

This study explores the optimal pricing and investment decision for two competing green supply chains, both consisting of a manufacturer and an exclusive retailer. Our focus is to explore, does the strategic integration decision with rivals at the horizontal level or with partners at the vertical level have any effect on green product types? The results reveal the following insights: retailer-retailer strategic integration at downstream level leads to a sub-optimal total supply chain profit and green quality level for a development-intensive green product. Two competing manufacturers can produce products at a higher level if they are vertically integrated with respective retailers. Manufacturer-manufacturer integration at upstream level sometimes leads to higher profits and product quality level if cross price-elasticity of consumers is high. However, an opposite phenomenon is observed while they are selling for a marginal-intensive green product, horizontal integration can improve green quality levels, but supply chain members will receive a lower profit. Therefore, selection of green product types and strategic integration decision are interrelated to achieve the profit maximization goal along with the aim to offer products at a higher green quality level. Vertical integration strategy can outperform horizontal integration strategy, especially if cross-price elastic for green products remain high.
Effect of SOP “STAR COW” on Enteric Gaseous Emissions and Dairy Cattle Performance
Authors: Ross Elizabeth G. , Peterson Carlyn B. , Carrazco Angelica V. , Werth Samantha J. , Zhao Yongjing , Pan Yuee , DePeters Edward J. , Fadel James G. , Chiodini Marcello E. , Poggianella Lorenzo , Mitloehner Frank M.
Published: December 2020

Feed additives have received increasing attention as a viable means to reduce enteric emissions from ruminants, which contribute to total anthropogenic methane (CH4) emissions. The aim of this study was to investigate the efficacy of the commercial feed additive SOP STAR COW (SOP) to reduce enteric emissions from dairy cows and to assess potential impacts on milk production. Twenty cows were blocked by parity and days in milk and randomly assigned to one of two treatment groups (n = 10): supplemented with 8 g/day SOP STAR COW, and an unsupplemented control group. Enteric emissions were measured in individual head chambers over a 12-h period, every 14 days for six weeks. SOP-treated cows over time showed a reduction in CH4 of 20.4% from day 14 to day 42 (p = 0.014), while protein % of the milk was increased (+4.9% from day 0 to day 14 (p = 0.036) and +6.5% from day 0 to day 42 (p = 0.002)). However, kg of milk protein remained similar within the SOP-treated cows over the trial period. The control and SOP-treated cows showed similar results for kg of milk fat and kg of milk protein produced per day. No differences in enteric emissions or milk parameters were detected between the control and SOP-treated cows on respective test days.
A Prediction Method of GHG Emissions for Urban Road Transportation Planning and Its Applications
Authors: Gan Jing , Li Linheng , Xiang Qiaojun , Ran Bin
Published: December 2020

The increasing vehicle usage has brought about a sharp increase in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of vehicles, which brings severe challenges to the sustainable development of road transportation in Chinese counties. Low-carbon transportation planning is an essential strategy for carbon control from the source of carbon emissions and is crucial to the full transition to a low-carbon future. For transportation planning designers, a quick and accurate estimation of carbon emissions under different transportation planning schemes is a prerequisite to determine the optimal low-carbon transportation development plan. To address this issue, a novel prediction method of hourly GHG emissions over the urban roads network was constructed in this paper. A case study was conducted in Changxing county, and the results indicate the effectiveness of our proposed method. Furthermore, we applied the same approach to 30 other counties in China to analyze the influencing factors of emissions from urban road networks in Chinese counties. The analysis results indicate that the urban road mileage and arterial road ratio are the two most important factors affecting road network GHG emissions in road traffic planning process. Moreover, the method was employed to derive peak hour emission coefficients that can be used to quickly estimate daily or annual GHG emissions. The peak hour emission of CO2, CH4, and N2O accounts for approximately 9–10%, 8.5–10.5%, 5.5–7.5% of daily emissions, respectively. It is expected that the findings from this study would be helpful for establishing effective carbon control strategies in the transportation planning stage to reduce road traffic GHG emissions in counties.
Traffic Volumes as a Modal Split Parameter
Authors: Drliciak Marek , Celko Jan , Cingel Michal , Jandacka Dusan
Published: December 2020

Traffic volume depends on several indicators. The most important are the degree of motorization, mobility, and especially the travel time and travel cost factor. The article presents an analysis of the possibility of using mobility surveys and traffic counts to achieve a balance between supply and demand. The frequency of congested traffic and over-capacity volumes are determined. By analyzing the trip information captured in the mobility surveys, we detected the strata causing the highest demand—economically active people with “job” as the purpose of their trip. The study area includes the Kysuce region and the city of Žilina in Slovakia. Three scenarios are processed in the article. Scenario 0 defines the current state, scenario 1 defines the situation with free-of-charge public transport, and scenario 2 represents a targeted modal split where saturation is not exceeded. The aim is to shift passengers to public transport and increase the share of public transport in the modal split. Scenario 2 is also presented in terms of saved emissions as an additional factor of relocating passengers from private to public transport. In terms of fare, we found a small change in the modal split with free-of-charge public transport.
What Drives Urbanisation in Modern Cambodia? Some Counter-Intuitive Findings
Authors: Gangopadhyay Partha , Jain Siddharth , Suwandaru Agung
Published: December 2020

The history of urbanisation in Cambodia is a fascinating case study. During 1965–1973, the Vietnam war triggered the mass migration of Cambodians to the urban centres as its rural economy was virtually annihilated by an unprecedented cascade of aerial bombardments. During the Pol Pot regime, 1975–1979, urban areas were hastily closed down by the Khmer Rouge militia that led to the phase of forced de-urbanisation. With the ouster of the Pol Pot regime, since 1993 a new wave of urbanisation has taken shape for Cambodia. Rising urban population in a few urban regions has triggered multidimensional problems in terms of housing, employment, infrastructure, crime rates and congestions. This paper investigates the significant drivers of urbanisation since 1994 in Cambodia. Despite severe limitations of the availability of relevant data, we have extrapolated the major long-term drivers of urbanization by using autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) analysis and nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) models. Our main finding is that FDI flows have a significant short-run and long-run asymmetric effect on urbanisation. We conclude that an increase in FDI boosts the pull-factor behind rural–urban migration. At the same time, a decrease in FDI impoverishes the economy and promotes the push-factor behind the rural–urban migration.
Problematic Smartphone Use in Spanish and Italian University Students
Authors: Roig-Vila Rosabel , Prendes-Espinosa Paz , Urrea-Solano Mayra
Published: December 2020

Sustainable education requires the proper usage of technological devices. Among these is the smartphone, which is used by millions of young people around the world in today’s society. The objective of this study was to understand the smartphone usage profile of Spanish and Italian university students. It also aimed to identify possible problematic uses, and the differences in smartphone use (or abuse) between the participating subjects. The study was descriptive and comparative, with the intentional sampling of N = 1412 subjects studying at the education faculties of the University of Alicante (UA) and the Suor Orsola Benincasa University (UNISOB). A previously-validated questionnaire with 27 items was employed during the 2019–20 academic year. The data was analysed using the SPSS 25 programme. Descriptive and inferential analyses were carried out. The results obtained after the analysis of the data indicated that, of the four possible user types—occasional, habitual, at risk, and problematic—more than half of the sample identified themselves as habitual users. It can be concluded that there are significant differences between the universities: the UA students exhibited more problematic use than the UNISOB students. It is therefore necessary to prepare training programmes that are designed to avert problematic behaviours related to smartphone use.
Nonlinearity between CO2 Emission and Economic Development: Evidence from a Functional Coefficient Panel Approach
Authors: Nam Kyungsik , Lee Sungro , Jeon Hocheol
Published: December 2020

This paper investigates the nonlinear relationship between CO2 emission and economic development using a newly developed functional coefficient panel model. In contrast to the existing literature, which suggests that the income elasticity of CO2 emission is parametrically modeled as a function of income, the income coefficient of CO2 emission is set as a function of both income and time. Then, we estimate the income elasticity in a nonparametric way using the country panel data covering 1971–2017. By doing so, we impose richer dynamics to the income elasticity not only over income but also over time. Our empirical results indicate that the income elasticity has decreased over time for high-income countries, whereas it has increased over time for low-income countries.
Water Quality Pollution Control and Watershed Management Based on Community Participation in Maros City, South Sulawesi, Indonesia
Authors: Syafri Syafri , Surya Batara , Ridwan Ridwan , Bahri Syamsul , Rasyidi Emil Salim , Sudarman Sudarman
Published: December 2020

Increases in the number of urban residents have significant impacts on spatial pressure, affecting the utilization of river basins. The purpose of this study is to analyze (1) the increase in population and changes in spatial use as determinants of the complexity of the watershed ecosystem; (2) the effect of housing development, urban activity systems, and land use changes on the degradation of the environmental quality of the watershed; and (3) the direct and indirect effects of changes in spatial use, land reclamation, and community behavior on water pollution and the sustainability of watershed management in Maros City. The research method used is a sequential explanatory design combining quantitative and qualitative research methods. Data were obtained through observation, in-depth interviews, surveys, and documentation. The study findings show that land use change, complexity of spatial use, and community behavior have a negative impact on the environmental quality of the watershed. Housing development, urban activity systems, and changes in land use had a significant effect on environmental quality degradation, with a coefficient of determination of 73.9%. Furthermore, the influence of spatial use, land reclamation, and community behavior on water pollution in the watershed was 72.82%. This study may serve to assist the decision-making of and policy formation by the Maros Regency Government in the framework of controlling the use of watersheds, working towards their social, economic, and environmental sustainability.
The Effects of Macroeconomic Factors on Road Traffic Safety: A Study Based on the ARDL-ECM Model
Authors: Li Xibing , Liu Jiao , Zhou Jian , Liu Xiling , Zhou Lei , Wei Wei
Published: December 2020

This paper attempts to examine whether socioeconomic volatility produces differentiated effects on road traffic accident indicators. Adopting the Autoregressive distributed lag error-correction model (ARDL-ECM), this paper explores the long-term equilibrium and short-term interactions between five common economic indicators, namely, average salaries (AS), employment (EM), unemployment (UE), total mileage of highway (TMH), and private vehicle ownership (PVO), as well as road traffic-related indicators including the number of road traffic accidents (RTA), injuries (IN), fatalities (FA), and direct economic losses (DEL), using data of road traffic accidents spanning from 1999 to 2018 in China. The study found that all economic indicators except average salaries showed a long-term equilibrium with road traffic accident indicators. The Granger causality test showed that, over the short term, an increase in employment could lead to an increase in injuries, and an increase in private vehicle ownership could cause a rise in fatalities. This study demonstrates that the volatility in economic indicators indeed produces differentiated effects on road traffic accident indicators, providing a theoretical basis for improving road safety performance and formulating relevant policies.
Land Application of Urban Horizontal Directional Drilling Residuals to Established Grass and Bare Soils
Authors: Daniel Joshua , Penn Chad , Antonangelo João , Zhang Hailin
Published: December 2020

Horizontal directional drilling (HDD) is a non-invasive alternative to trenching used for the installation of many common utilities. The process involves drilling fluid used to stabilize the borehole, lubricate the bit, and float cuttings to the surface. A sustainable alternative to landfill disposal is land application. Two field studies were conducted to determine the optimum application rate of HDD residuals to both established bermudagrass and bare soil seeded with bermudagrass. Residuals were applied at six rates ranging from 0 to 112 tons solid ha−1 for both trials. Soils were sampled 7, 30, and 90 days after application. Saturated paste and Mehlich-3 extractions were performed on all samples. Grass biomass was measured at the end of the study. No significant amount of nutrients or trace metals were found in the treated soils. All concentrations were in the range of typical soils. However, total dissolved solids (TDS) and sodium absorption ratio (SAR) increased with application rate. There was no significant difference in the yields of forage harvested on the established grass plots 110 days after application. Bare plots that received 22 tons solid ha−1 had higher percent ground cover than other rates. It is ecologically safe to apply HDD residuals up to 112 tons and 90 tons solid ha−1 to established bermudagrass and bare soil, respectively.
Multicriteria Intermodal Freight Network Optimal Problem with Heterogeneous Preferences under Belt and Road Initiative
Authors: Zhang Zhuo , Zhang Dezhi , Tavasszy Lóránt A. , Li Qinglin
Published: December 2020

In this study, we demonstrate the importance of incorporating shippers’ preference heterogeneity into the optimization of the China Railway express network. In particular, a bilevel programming model is established to minimize the total construction cost for the government in the upper level and maximize the shippers’ satisfaction in the lower level. The proposed model considers price, time, reliability, frequency, safety, flexibility, traceability, and emission. Two designs are obtained by applying the model to two scenarios, in which one is of the aggregate shipper group and the other is of the three distinct clusters. Results show that explicitly including heterogeneity in network optimization pays off in terms of the dramatic increase in shippers’ satisfaction and the share of the sustainable railway without generating extra cost for the system. The results of this study could lead to insightful implication for proper network planning for the China Railway express and some useful suggestions on the subsidies of the government.
The Italian Case of Lecco Innovation Living Lab: Stakeholders’ Needs and Activities to Contribute to the Technological Innovation Process in Healthcare
Authors: Marone Laura , Onofrio Rossella , Masella Cristina
Published: December 2020

Healthcare technological innovation is a very complex process in which different actors interact with each other, creating a large number of interconnections and synergies in the design of technological innovations. Despite the increasing number of living labs (LLs) in healthcare, building and maintaining LLs for technological innovation in healthcare is challenging. Collaboration with stakeholders remains an issue of major concern in healthcare. The purpose of this paper is to identify stakeholders’ needs in building an LL in healthcare and to plan activities to foster the innovation process. The paper is based on an exploratory single case study investigating an Italian LL. Eight stakeholders’ needs were identified and validated. Specific activities were identified as improving the innovation process in terms of the stakeholders’ needs. The study contributes to the development of domain-specific knowledge and, as such, to the fostering of studies on and the implementation of LLs in healthcare.
Environmental Impacts of Foods in the Adventist Health Study-2 Dietary Questionnaire
Authors: Berardy Andrew , Fresán Ujué , Matos Rodrigo A. , Clarke Abigail , Mejia Alfredo , Jaceldo-Siegl Karen , Sabaté Joan
Published: December 2020

The objective of this study was to use life cycle assessment to estimate the environmental impacts (from farm to factory gate) of the 198 hard-coded line-items included in the food frequency questionnaire of the Adventist Health Study-2 survey and to assess differences among food groups. Life cycle inventories were created using existing data sources and primary data, and their global warming potential (GWP), land use, and water consumption impacts were assessed using the ReCiPe 2016 methodology. In addition to presenting the impacts according to weight and protein content across food groups, we include the novel addition of presenting impacts according to the NOVA classification indicating various levels of processing. Food categories were compared based on one kilogram of edible food, protein food sources were compared based on one kilogram of protein, and NOVA comparisons were based on one serving. In general, meats had the highest environmental impacts per both weight and protein content, while the lowest overall impacts per kilogram came from fruits. Meat analogs had the lowest overall impacts per kilogram of protein, contrary to expectations that additional processing would result in higher environmental impacts when compared to whole plant-based foods. Per serving, ultra-processed foods had the highest GWP, processed foods the highest land use, and minimally processed foods the highest water consumption. Results from this analysis were consistent with other studies. Results from this study suggest that meat and ultra-processed foods have the overall worst environmental impacts, but high water consumption in some minimally processed foods means that those should be carefully considered as well.
Optimization of Prefabricated Components in Housing Modular Construction
Authors: Nam Sunghoon , Yoon Jongsik , Kim Kyungrai , Choi Byungjoo
Published: December 2020

In modular construction—a type of industrialized construction—production planning is very important, as it is closely related to the project’s duration, quality, and sustainability. The constraints (production area, delivery due date) often differ for each project, yet production planning in modular construction has failed to change with the project characteristics. As a result, bottlenecks and construction delays are common problems seen in modular construction, which, in turn, decreases the production ratio, causing the production to be inefficient. To this end, this paper applied a prefabricated component in the modular production process. The paper developed a process analysis model considering constraint factors (production period, production area) to derive the optimal configuration of the prefabricated components in various alternatives. The developed analysis model was then applied to a virtual case to analyze the productivity improvement and select the optimal process. The optimal production process was derived by simulating the possible production planning within a limited production area and production timeline. The result of a simulation indicates that the production period has been halved by optimizing the process. Furthermore, by applying prefabricated components, the production efficiency was further increased because the existing linear production process’s bottleneck disappeared. The model is deemed to have the potential to optimize various production methods across production facilities or modular factories that simultaneously perform multiple projects.
Impact of Resources on the Development of Local Entrepreneurship in Industry 4.0
Authors: Kłobukowski Paweł , Pasieczny Jacek
Published: December 2020

The development of Industry 4.0 has a significant impact not only on production processes but also on the functioning and future of regions. It is crucial to understand the phenomena taking place in the social and economic space both from the cognitive and practical point of view. The article is based on research which investigates the prospect of communes in the context of Industry 4.0 development. The aim of the article is to show possible consequences of the development of Industry 4.0 from the local perspective. The basic assumption is a positive impact of entrepreneurship on ensuring sustainable regional development. The model adopted is built on a resource-based view and includes both invariable, external and independent resources such as location, as well as those which are variable in the longer term, such as human and social capital. To verify most of the hypotheses, a linear regression model has been created. The results of the research show that there is a strong correlation between human capital, social capital, proximity of an agglomeration and tourist attractiveness of a region, and regional development operationalised by the number of enterprises. The article presents possible directions of changes in the profiles of local units, as well as the conditions which have to be met in order to enable such a transformation.
Decision Support System for the Sustainable Seismic and Energy Renovation of Buildings: Methodological Layout
Authors: Artino Antonio , Caponetto Riccardo , Evola Gianpiero , Margani Giuseppe , Marino Edoardo Michele , Murgano Emanuele
Published: December 2020

In Italy, as in many other European countries, a large part of the real estate was built before the issue of restrictive regulations regarding seismic resistance and energy efficiency. Consequently, most existing buildings show inadequate structural and energy performance. However, although a combined renovation is highly recommended, and despite relevant tax incentives which are currently available, the building retrofit market is still struggling to take off. In fact, the lack of information and/or awareness of the involved parties and the consequent difficulty for condominiums to approve the retrofit works are often insuperable obstacles. A Decision Support System (DSS) may help in evaluating and comparing different combined renovation scenarios, thus promoting the regeneration of the building stock. This study presents a new methodology for the selection of the optimal building renovation scenario through a DSS, which is conceived as a tool to allow a quick, simple and effective identification of the best retrofit strategy, based on a priority scale (e.g., costs and duration of intervention, disruption to the occupants, environmental sustainability, energy savings, thermal comfort, structural safety). For this purpose, the DSS calculates suitable performance indices and relative costs. Finally, the system proposes a ranking of the best combined retrofit scenarios. This research study is still ongoing and next steps will deal with the calibration of the proposed methodology.
Circular Economy in Industrial Design Research: A Review
Authors: van Dam Kirsten , Simeone Luca , Keskin Duygu , Baldassarre Brian , Niero Monia , Morelli Nicola
Published: December 2020

In the past decades, industrial design practice and research have focused extensively on how to optimize production and consumption, as a way to prevent negative environmental impacts, such as resource depletion, pollution, and excessive waste. Recently, the “circular economy” concept is increasingly used to achieve environmental benefits and economic growth simultaneously. Industrial design can contribute to a circular economy by fostering systems changes to achieve durability, optimal reuse, refurbishment, remanufacturing, and recycling of products and materials. Indeed, researchers have examined both the theoretical and practical aspects of how design knowledge can support the transition to a circular economy. However, this body of knowledge has not been systematically analyzed yet. To address this critical gap, this paper poses the following question: How has industrial design research so far contributed to advancing the circular economy knowledge? Accordingly, we survey relevant design literature focusing on the circular economy, through a review of contributions published in 42 scientific journals. Based on our results, we discuss how industrial design practices can potentially contribute to a circular economy across four thematic areas: (1) design for circular production processes, (2) design for circular consumption, (3) design to support policy towards the circular economy, and (4) design education for the circular economy.