bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Teenage and Adult Drivers’ Views of a One-Day Car Control Class on a Closed-Road Course
Authors: Mims Lauren , Brooks Johnell O. , Jenkins Casey , Stronczek Alexander , Isley Donnie , Gubitosa Daniel
Published: December 2020

Traffic-related crashes impact drivers of all ages. Post-license driving classes have emerged to equip drivers with higher level skills needed to prevent and avoid emergency situations. A performance driving center offers teenage and adult car control classes designed to address defensive driving skills through both classroom instruction and hands-on practice on a closed-road track. To obtain the views from teenagers and adults, both groups completed a survey immediately after their classes, and the adults completed a phone interview six months later. Results from the teenage and adult survey showed that both groups reported the most important topics learned during the car control class were skid recovery, using the antilock braking system (ABS) and looking where the car should go. Both teenagers and adults reported that they plan to significantly change their driving behaviors, especially those concerning seating, hand and mirror positions. Overall, after the class, the teenagers and adults felt “moderately competent” in their ability to perform the exercises practiced during the class, which increased from the rating of “not competent” prior to the class. The results from the phone interview with the adults suggest that ABS braking was the most important topic six months later. ABS braking was also the single-most reported skill used after the class and the self-identified skill most used to avoid a crash. The phone interview showed that the adults accurately predicted their use of the behaviors (seating position, vision, distractions, etc.) and turned those behaviors taught during the class into habits of their daily driving. Overall, the results from the teenage and adult survey, as well as the phone interview with the adults, suggest that the participants benefitted from the knowledge and skills gained from the one-day car control class.
Evaluation of Sustainable Forest and Air Quality Management and the Current Situation in Europe through Operation Research Methods
Authors: Ozkaya Gokhan , Erdin Ceren
Published: December 2020

Forests cover 30 percent of the Earth’s land surface, almost four billion hectares, and they are necessary to sustain human health, economic growth, and environmental health. Approximately 25 percent of the global population depends on forests for food and work. The world population is expected to reach 9.6 billion by 2050. Therefore, there is a need for urgent action plans at all levels to ensure sustainable forest management and policy collaboration among all stakeholders, in order for forests to continue to serve our ecosystem and life in the future. The study compares 30 countries using 15 indicators related to forest and air quality. This was performed with TOPSIS (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution) and VIKOR (VIseKriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje, meaning Multi-Criteria Optimization and Compromise Solution), which are among the most used multi-criteria decision-making methods in the literature. According to the analysis results, Denmark, Luxembourg, Lithuania, and Germany are the best performing countries in terms of indicators, whereas Slovakia, Estonia, Turkey, Latvia, Chile, and Canada are the worst performing. The paper aims to present the current situation of some developed and developing countries and compare them to each other in terms of forest and air quality indicators. In addition, the article aims to inform all stakeholders and raise awareness to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Global Forest Goals of the United Nations Strategic Plan for Forests 2017–2030 targets.
E-Customer Security as a Social Value in the Sphere of Sustainability
Authors: Pabian Arnold , Pabian Barbara , Reformat Beata
Published: December 2020

Customer security in the e-commerce sector is not, but should be, approached in terms of sustainability, because it is a social problem concerning more than 2 billion people worldwide and over 20 million shopping sites. New techniques and technologies are implemented in this sector not only by e-sellers, but also by cybercriminals, which significantly lowers the level of its security. The purpose of the paper is to present, on the basis of own research, the main e-commerce threats from the perspective of the customer and the seller, and to indicate the possibility of their elimination, which should contribute to sustainable development. The threats from the e-customer’s perspective were identified by considering individual phases of online purchase. In the case of e-shops, the threats were analyzed in a personnel—computer hardware—software structure. As conducted research shows, the threats for e-customers are located in three main areas: security of the means of payment, security of personal data and payment cards, and security of purchased goods. The security of the e-customer largely depends on the security of the e-store in which the purchase is made. Research has shown that e-stores are not fully secure, which mainly results from negligence and the lack of knowledge in the sphere of cybersecurity.
Role of Competences of Graduates in Building Innovations via Knowledge Transfer in the Part of Carpathian Euroregion
Authors: Stuss Magdalena M. , Makieła Zbigniew J. , Stańczyk Izabela
Published: December 2020

Cross-border cooperation within the framework of the Carpathian Euroregion provides the possibility of building the processes of education at universities that would facilitate knowledge transfer from the universities to the business sphere, which is particularly significant in terms of forming innovations. The aim of the research conducted was the analysis of the key competences that have an impact on the level of innovativeness of the graduates of the universities of a business profile in Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Romania. In the methodology used, a systematic literary review of the acquired references from the databases of ProQuest, Emerald, SCOPUS, and the Jagiellonian Library was applied from the outset. Subsequently, a small number of foreign and Polish research works conducted in the sphere of the stipulated subject matter of the competences of graduates, as well as their innovativeness were identified and ascertained. This facilitated the specification of the cognitive gaps as follows: There was no prior research relating to the Carpathian Euroregion and the transnational cooperation, with particular consideration given to the role of graduates of universities in terms of shaping change in this area. In empirical research, a survey method was chosen as it enabled, among other things, the quantitative description of specific aspects declared as the competences of graduates in the chosen research group. The research conducted reveals that there are no stipulated ways of ranking the essential competences directed at innovativeness, thus the decision-makers at the universities in the Carpathian Euroregion must consider what way and what activities they may use to connect the development of competences. The results acquired and the conclusions drawn may serve the transfer and adoption of good practices from individual countries and regions to other European and non-European ones.
Farm-Scale Biofuel Crop Adoption and Its Effects on In-Basin Water Balance
Authors: Noreika Nina , Li Tailin , Zumr David , Krasa Josef , Dostal Tomas , Srinivasan Raghavan
Published: December 2020

In the face of future climate change, Europe has encouraged the adoption of biofuel crops by its farmers. Such land-use changes can have significant impacts on the water balance and hydrological behavior of a system. While the heavy pesticide use associated with biofuel crops has been extensively studied, the water balance impacts of these crops have been far less studied. We conducted scenario analyses using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) to determine the effects of farm-scale biofuel crop adoption (rapeseed) on a basin’s water balance. We found that rapeseed adoption does not support the goal of developing a sustainable agricultural landscape in the Czech Republic. The adoption of rapeseed also had disproportionate effects on a basin’s water balance depending on its location in the basin. Additionally, discharge (especially surface runoff ratios), evapotranspiration, and available soil water content display significant shifts in the rapeseed adoption scenarios.
Reclaiming On-Site Upgrading as a Viable Resilience Strategy-Viabilities and Scenarios through the Lens of Disaster-Prone Informal Settlements in Metro Manila
Authors: Du Juan , Greiving Stefan
Published: December 2020

The Philippines is argued as the only Southeast Asian country where informal settlers’ communities have been self-organized and produced discernible impacts on the country’s urban policies. As one of the high risk countries, fifty percent of the country’s informal settlements are located in danger and disaster-prone areas. However, informal settlement upgrading has not reached its significance in disaster mitigation and community resilience building. At the national level, on-site upgrading is not established in disaster risk management or climate change adaptation strategies, which explains the lack of strategic approaches for local implementation. Metro Manila serves as a suitable backdrop in this sense to study informal settlement upgrading under the condition of high risk and rapid urbanization with a high civil society engagement. This study investigates the underlined reasons why upgrading strategically falls short in addressing disaster mitigation and community resilience building. Theoretically, it questions what on-site upgrading is about. Empirically, two hazard-prone informal settlement communities within Metro Manila are examined with their different risk profiles, community development needs and resilience priorities. The core issues of upgrading are, therefore, differentiated at the settlement level with communities’ innate socio-economic and eco-spatial features over time. Meanwhile, the paper heightens the necessity of tackling on-site upgrading at the settlement level and articulating settlements’ spatial correlations with the city development, so as to sustain upgrading outcomes. In addition, this study attempts at setting up a range of scenarios conditioned with COVID pandemic fallout. It endeavors to provide another facet of how to deal with adaptation and resilience. This includes the urgent strategy shift in the housing sector and its financial sustainability, innovative mechanisms to manage uncertainty and risks, lessons for post-COVID planning, etc.
Social Identity and Risk Perception Explain Participation in the Swiss Youth Climate Strikes
Authors: Brügger Adrian , Gubler Moritz , Steentjes Katharine , Capstick Stuart B.
Published: December 2020

Since late 2018, young people around the world have united to demand greater action on climate change. Aside from their stated concerns and demands, however, very little is known about why young people have been joining this growing movement. Using a large sample (N = 4057) of people in Switzerland aged between 14 and 25, we show that social identity is most strongly associated with participation, followed by beliefs about the effectiveness of youth strikes, level of education, and worry about climate change. Our findings affirm the relevance of both climate change risk perceptions and social identity-related processes for collective climate change action, and pave the way for promising opportunities in theory development and integration. The study also provides lessons for those who seek to maintain and increase collective action on climate change: concern about climate change is an important motivating factor, but social identity processes are at least as relevant for young people’s participation.
Digital Twins: A Critical Discussion on Their Potential for Supporting Policy-Making and Planning in Urban Logistics
Authors: Marcucci Edoardo , Gatta Valerio , Le Pira Michela , Hansson Lisa , Bråthen Svein
Published: December 2020

Poor logistics efficiency, due to low load factors caused by high demand fragmentation, will have relevant negative consequences for cities in terms of pollution, congestion and overall city liveability. Policy-makers should equip themselves with appropriate tools to perform reliable, comprehensive and timely analyses of urban logistics scenarios, also considering upcoming (i) technological changes, (ii) business model evolutions and (iii) spatial-temporal changes these innovations will produce. This paper discusses the Digital Twin (DT) concept, illustrating the role it might play and clarifying how to properly conceive it with respect to urban freight transport policy-making and planning. The main message is that without a sound theory and knowledge with respect to the relationships linking contextual reality and choice/behaviour, it is not possible to make sense of what happens in the real world. Therefore, the joint use of behavioural and simulation models should characterise a DT within a Living Lab approach so to stimulate effective, well-informed and participated planning processes, but also to forecast both behaviour and reactions to structural changes and policy measures implementations.
Linear Discriminant Analysis-Based Dynamic Indoor Localization Using Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE)
Authors: Subhan Fazli , Saleem Sajid , Bari Haseeb , Khan Wazir Zada , Hakak Saqib , Ahmad Shafiq , El-Sherbeeny Ahmed M.
Published: December 2020

Due to recent advances in wireless gadgets and mobile computing, the location-based services have attracted the attention of computing and telecommunication industries to launch location-based fast and accurate localization systems for tracking, monitoring and navigation. Traditional lateration-based techniques have limitations, such as localization error, and modeling of distance estimates from received signals. Fingerprinting based tracking solutions are also environment dependent. On the other side, machine learning-based techniques are currently attracting industries for developing tracking applications. In this paper we have modeled a machine learning method known as Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) for real time dynamic object localization. The experimental results are based on real time trajectories, which validated the effectiveness of our proposed system in terms of accuracy compared to naive Bayes, k-nearest neighbors, a support vector machine and a decision tree.
How to Increase Ocean Literacy for Future Ocean Sustainability? The Influence of Non-Formal Marine Science Education
Authors: Mokos Melita , Realdon Giulia , Zubak Čižmek Ivana
Published: December 2020

Even though the ocean is a defining feature on Earth that regulates climate and provides oxygen, food, and jobs, students still have low to moderate marine and ocean literacy knowledge. Ocean literacy is an understanding of the ocean’s influence on people and people’s influence on the ocean. It is an emerging need necessary for ensuring the sustainability of the ocean and its resources. The UN has declared a Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, and one of the priority research and development areas is ocean literacy. Unfortunately, marine science and ocean literacy topics are poorly represented in school curricula across the world. This study presents the level of marine knowledge in a sample of primary school students before and after different themed non-formal educational interventions and the effect of non-formal educational activities on students’ knowledge. These activities led to significant increase in the knowledge level three weeks after they were performed, indicating the retention of gained information. Performed educational activities and knowledge transfer from graduate level to primary school level significantly increased the level of students’ knowledge, and consequently ocean literacy, and revealed some of the learning misconceptions. Results of this study show that there is a need for an integrated approach to the teaching of Ocean Literacy starting from the early grades by combining teacher’s professional development, strengthening ocean-related topics in school curricula, and promoting non-formal educational activities.
Transitions between Centralization and Metapolization: From City Development Strategy (CDS) to Peri-Urban Development Strategy (PDS)
Authors: Asefi Sedigheh , Matias João , Gonçalves Carlos
Published: December 2020

The elaboration of City Development Strategies (CDS) helps cities to harness the potential of urbanization through strategic planning, and consequently to contribute to promoting development, balancing city growth, and empowering citizens. Continuous and sprawling development along with peri-urban areas has offered a vast and almost limitless nexus of villages–towns upon which the intensifying needs of development, initiatives, and infrastructures can be grafted. Considering the significant role of constructed nexuses in growth and resilience, and thus in planning for the sustainable development of such urban–rural areas, this study will advance the development of a model of the Urban–Rural Reef ecosystem through discovering its main attributes. In doing so, Aveiro has been distinguished as an urban–rural reef to describe such a case study’s characteristics and to extract the indicators of peri-urban sustainable development strategies. In the next step, the assessment of the peri-urban development strategy (PDS) has been accomplished by using the Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDM) method and applying the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) approach. Finally, a conclusion has been presented based on the findings for Aveiro urban–rural reefs containing the analysis results and offering some solutions.
Silicon Nanomembrane Filtration and Imaging for the Evaluation of Microplastic Entrainment along a Municipal Water Delivery Route
Authors: Madejski Gregory R. , Ahmad S. Danial , Musgrave Jonathan , Flax Jonathan , Madejski Joseph G. , Rowley David A. , DeLouise Lisa A. , Berger Andrew J. , Knox Wayne H. , McGrath James L.
Published: December 2020

To better understand the origin of microplastics in municipal drinking water, we evaluated 50 mL water samples from different stages of the City of Rochester’s drinking water production and transport route, from Hemlock Lake to the University of Rochester. We directly filtered samples using silicon nitride nanomembrane filters with precisely patterned slit-shaped pores, capturing many of the smallest particulates (<20 µm) that could be absorbed by the human body. We employed machine learning algorithms to quantify the shapes and quantity of debris at different stages of the water transport process, while automatically segregating out fibrous structures from particulate. Particulate concentrations ranged from 13 to 720 particles/mL at different stages of the water transport process and fibrous pollution ranged from 0.4 to 8.3 fibers/mL. A subset of the debris (0.2–8.6%) stained positively with Nile red dye which identifies them as hydrophobic polymers. Further spectroscopic analysis also indicated the presence of many non-plastic particulates, including rust, silicates, and calcium scale. While water leaving the Hemlock Lake facility is mostly devoid of debris, transport through many miles of piping results in the entrainment of a significant amount of debris, including plastics, although in-route reservoirs and end-stage filtration serve to reduce these concentrations.
Evaluating the Relationship between Freight Transport, Economic Prosperity, Urbanization, and CO2 Emissions: Evidence from Hong Kong, Singapore, and South Korea
Authors: Shafique Muhammad , Azam Anam , Rafiq Muhammad , Luo Xiaowei
Published: December 2020

This paper analyzes the relationship between freight transport, economic prosperity, carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, energy consumption, and urbanization for three top Asian economies, namely, Hong Kong, Singapore, and South Korea during 1995–2017. For this purpose, we use the augmented Dickey-Fuller test for the stationary of the series, Johansen co-integration approach, and fully modified ordinary least squares and Granger causality model to infer the causal relationship between the study variables. The results show that economic prosperity (GDP) and energy consumption (EC) have a significant impact on freight transport (FT) for all three economies. In addition, the results also manifest the existence of bidirectional causality between GDP and FT in Singapore but a unidirectional causality running from GDP to FT in the case of Hong Kong and South Korea. As a quick policy option, controlling fossil fuel energy consumption in the transport sector may result in a remarkable reduction in CO2 emissions. The present study provides new insights to decision-makers for designing comprehensive energy and environmental policies for future sustainable freight transport growth in the long run.
Material Entanglements of Writing Practices in the Bronze Age Aegean and Cyprus
Authors: Steele Philippa M.
Published: December 2020

The present paper explores theoretical aspects of the study of writing systems and practices. It approaches the mesh that constitutes writing practice through one type of agent: the writing instrument used to write clay documents in the Bronze Age Aegean and Cyprus. On the one hand, this investigation will use types of writing implements and their distribution to think through wider issues concerning the development of writing practices across the Bronze Age Aegean and Cyprus. On the other, it will attempt to establish the place of writing implements within a broader conceptual framework of the people, things and actions that constitute writing practices in this area and period.
Situating Indigenous Resilience: Climate Change and Tayal’s “Millet Ark” Action in Taiwan
Authors: Lin Yih-Ren , Tomi Pagung , Huang Hsinya , Lin Chia-Hua , Chen Ysanne
Published: December 2020

Whereas indigenous people are on the frontlines of global environmental challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and numerous other forms of critical planetary deterioration, the indigenous experiences, responses, and cultural practices have been underestimated in the mainstream frameworks of environmental studies. This paper aims to articulate a meaningful response to recent calls to indigenous and local knowledge on food as a source of resilience in the face of global climate change. By retrieving the values and practices indigenous people of Taiwan, specifically Tayal women, associate with human and non-human ecologies, our collaborative work with the indigenous community explores indigenous resilience and its relevance to indigenous cultural knowledge and global environmental concerns. Pivoting on the “Millet Ark” action, a Tayal conservation initiative of the bio-cultural diversity of millets, this study revolves around issues of how Tayal communities adapt to the climate change, how to reclaim their voice, heritage, knowledge, place, and land through food, and how to narrate indigenous “counter-stories” of resilience and sustainability. The cultural narrative of “Millet Ark” investigates indigenous way of preserving millet bio-cultural diversity and restoring the land and community heritage, inquiring into how Tayal people are adaptive and resilient to change and therefore sustainable through the cultural and social life of millets.
A Sustainable Niche Market: How Does Honey Behave?
Authors: Pippinato Liam , Blanc Simone , Mancuso Teresina , Brun Filippo
Published: December 2020

The global honey market has witnessed constant growth over recent decades, especially in Asian regions. In recent years, the increase in export flows of this product throughout the world has raised the issue of the lack of international import standards and regulations, making trade susceptible to variables that are not only economic, but also social or political. The objective of this study is therefore to explore, using the econometric methodology of gravity models, what the determinants of the international honey trade are, both economic and socio-cultural, and to verify whether a niche market, such as the one being examined, is influenced by these covariates, in a similar manner to the main commodities of the agri-food sector, or if honey displays a unique behavior. The results show that honey market behavior is not statistically different from that of the main agri-food products already studied and that the cultural distance, introduced as a covariate, does not have a significant influence.
Structural Relationships among Online Community Use, Parental Stress, Social Support, and Quality of Life between Korean and Taiwanese Employed Mothers
Authors: Bae So Young , Chang Po-Ju , Lee Choong-Ki
Published: December 2020

This study examined mothers’ online community (OC) use and its structural relationship with parental stress, social support, and quality of life (QoL) under the social perspective of leisure and the theory of social support as a stress buffer. The population comprised employed mothers in two countries, Korea and Taiwan, which constitute appropriate settings for cross-cultural comparisons in the context of mothers’ OC use. The online questionnaire was distributed to 12 Korean mothers’ OCs and 14 Taiwanese mothers’ OCs, targeting employed mothers who have at least one child under seven-years-old and access mothers’ OCs on a regular basis. A total of 232 Korean and 303 Taiwanese responses were analyzed to examine the structural relationships among four key variables using structural equation modelling in AMOS 20. This study confirms that more parental stress leads to worse QoL. However, more parental stress results in less frequent participation in OCs, and OC use exerts a negative influence on QoL, which contradicts the hypothesized positive correlations. In comparison among Korean and Taiwanese mothers, Korean respondents showed a stronger influence of parental stress to mobilize more social support than did Taiwanese. This multidisciplinary study contributes to expanding the literature in noncommercial OCs, employed mothers in online leisure, and online social support in cross-cultural settings to promote the sustainability of families’ wellbeing.
Recurrent Sequences Play for Survival Probability of Discrete Time Risk Model
Authors: Grigutis Andrius , Šiaulys Jonas
Published: December 2020

In this article we investigate a homogeneous discrete time risk model with a generalized premium income rate which can be any natural number. We derive theorems and give numerical examples for finite and ultimate time survival probability calculation for the mentioned model. Our proved statements for ultimate time survival probability calculation, at some level, are similar to the previously known statements for non-homogeneous risk models, where required initial values of survival probability for some recurrent formulas are gathered by certain limit laws. We also give a simplified proof that a ruin is almost unavoidable with a neutral net profit condition and state several conjectures on a certain type of recurrent matrices non-singularity. All the research done can be interpreted as a possibility that symmetric or asymmetric random walk (r.w.) hits (or not) the line u+κt and that possibility is directly related to the expected value of r.w. generating random variable which might be equal, above or bellow κ.
Modulated Viscosity-Dependent Parameters for MHD Blood Flow in Microvessels Containing Oxytactic Microorganisms and Nanoparticles
Authors: Elogail M. A. , Mekheimer Kh. S.
Published: December 2020

This work’s primary purpose is to implement a numerical study that simulates blood flow through a microvessel involving oxytactic microorganisms and nanoparticles. The oxytactic microorganisms exhibit negative chemotaxis to gradients of oxygen (oxygen repellents). These microorganisms are to batter infected hypoxic tumor cells as drug-carriers. The viscosity of blood is to vary with temperature, shear-thinning, and nanoparticle concentration. We have formulated a mathematical model then simplified it under assumptions of long wavelength and low Reynold’s number. The resulting non-linear coupled differential equation system is solved numerically with the MATHEMATICA software aid using the built-in command (ParametricNDSolve). This study treated all non-dimensional parameters defined in terms of viscosity to be variables (VP-Model), unlike some previous literature attempts that have considered these parameters mentioned above as constants (CP-Model). The achieved results assured the reliability of the (VP-Model) over the (CP-Model). Our results reveal that temperature and microorganism density increase with the thermophoresis parameter. The impact of increasing the Brownian motion parameter is to increase temperature and lessen microorganism density. Outcomes also indicate an enhancement in the microorganism density towards the hypoxic tumor regions located aside the microvessel walls by boosting oxygen concentrations in the streamflow. The current study is believed to provide further opportunities to improve drug-carrier applications in hypoxic tumor regions by better recognizing the flow features, heat, and mass transfer in such zones.
Kinetics of Microcystin-LR Removal in a Real Lake Water by UV/H2O2 Treatment and Analysis of Specific Energy Consumption
Authors: Sorlini Sabrina , Collivignarelli Carlo , Carnevale Miino Marco , Caccamo Francesca Maria , Collivignarelli Maria Cristina
Published: December 2020

The hepatotoxin microcystin-LR (MC-LR) represents one of the most toxic cyanotoxins for human health. Considering its harmful effect, the World Health Organization recommended a limit in drinking water (DW) of 1 µg L−1. Due to the ineffectiveness of conventional treatments present in DW treatment plants against MC-LR, advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) are gaining interest due to the high redox potential of the OH• radicals. In this work UV/H2O2 was applied to a real lake water to remove MC-LR. The kinetics of the UV/H2O2 were compared with those of UV and H2O2 showing the following result: UV/H2O2 > UV > H2O2. Within the range of H2O2 tested (0–0.9 mM), the results showed that H2O2 concentration and the removal kinetics followed an increasing quadratic relation. By increasing the initial concentration of H2O2, the consumption of oxidant also increased but, in terms of MC-LR degraded for H2O2 dosed, the removal efficiency decreased. As the initial MC-LR initial concentration increased, the removal kinetics increased up to a limit concentration (80 µg L−1) in which the presence of high amounts of the toxin slowed down the process. Operating with UV fluence lower than 950 mJ cm−2, UV alone minimized the specific energy consumption required. UV/H2O2 (0.3 mM) and UV/H2O2 (0.9 mM) were the most advantageous combination when operating with UV fluence of 950–1400 mJ cm−2 and higher than 1400 mJ cm−2, respectively.
Effects of Chronic Kidney Disease and Uremic Toxins on Extracellular Vesicle Biology
Authors: Yaker Linda , Kamel Saïd , Ausseil Jérôme , Boullier Agnès
Published: December 2020

Vascular calcification (VC) is a cardiovascular complication associated with a high mortality rate, especially in patients with diabetes, atherosclerosis or chronic kidney disease (CKD). In CKD patients, VC is associated with the accumulation of uremic toxins, such as indoxyl sulphate or inorganic phosphate, which can have a major impact in vascular remodeling. During VC, vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) undergo an osteogenic switch and secrete extracellular vesicles (EVs) that are heterogeneous in terms of their origin and composition. Under physiological conditions, EVs are involved in cell-cell communication and the maintenance of cellular homeostasis. They contain high levels of calcification inhibitors, such as fetuin-A and matrix Gla protein. Under pathological conditions (and particularly in the presence of uremic toxins), the secreted EVs acquire a pro-calcifying profile and thereby act as nucleating foci for the crystallization of hydroxyapatite and the propagation of calcification. Here, we review the most recent findings on the EVs’ pathophysiological role in VC, the impact of uremic toxins on EV biogenesis and functions, the use of EVs as diagnostic biomarkers and the EVs’ therapeutic potential in CKD.
Improvement of PR8-Derived Recombinant Clade 2.3.4.4c H5N6 Vaccine Strains by Optimization of Internal Genes and H103Y Mutation of Hemagglutinin
Authors: An Se-Hee , Hong Seung-Min , Son Seung-Eun , Song Jin-Ha , Lee Chung-Young , Choi Jun-Gu , Lee Youn-Jeong , Jeong Jei-Hyun , Kim Jun-Beom , Song Chang-Seon , Kim Jae-Hong , Choi Kang-Seuk , Kwon Hyuk-Joon
Published: December 2020

Clade 2.3.4.4c H5N6 avian influenza A viruses (AIVs) may have originally adapted to infect chickens and have caused highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in poultry and human fatalities. Although A/Puerto Rico/8/1934 (H1N1) (PR8)-derived recombinant clade 2.3.4.4c H5N6 vaccine strains have been effective in embryonated chicken eggs-based vaccine production system, they need to be improved in terms of immunogenicity and potential mammalian pathogenicity. We replaced the PB2 gene alone or the PB2 (polymerase basic protein 2), NP (nucleoprotein), M (matrix protein) and NS (non-structural protein) genes together in the PR8 strain with corresponding genes from AIVs with low pathogenicity to remove mammalian pathogenicity and to match CD8+ T cell epitopes with contemporary HPAI viruses, respectively, without loss of viral fitness. Additionally, we tested the effect of the H103Y mutation of hemagglutinin (HA) on antigen productivity, mammalian pathogenicity and heat/acid stability. The replacement of PB2 genes and the H103Y mutation reduced the mammalian pathogenicity but increased the antigen productivity of the recombinant vaccine strains. The H103Y mutation increased heat stability but unexpectedly decreased acid stability, probably resulting in increased activation pH for HA. Interestingly, vaccination with inactivated recombinant virus with replaced NP, M and NS genes halted challenge virus shedding earlier than the recombinant vaccine without internal genes replacement. In conclusion, we successfully generated recombinant clade 2.3.4.4c H5N6 vaccine strains that were less pathogenic to mammals and more productive and heat stable than conventional PR8-derived recombinant strains by optimization of internal genes and the H103Y mutation of HA.
Harnessing Cellular Immunity for Vaccination against Respiratory Viruses
Authors: Lukacs Nicholas W. , Malinczak Carrie-Anne
Published: December 2020

Severe respiratory viral infections, such as influenza, metapneumovirus (HMPV), respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), rhinovirus (RV), and coronaviruses, including severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), cause significant mortality and morbidity worldwide. These viruses have been identified as important causative agents of acute respiratory disease in infants, the elderly, and immunocompromised individuals. Clinical signs of infection range from mild upper respiratory illness to more serious lower respiratory illness, including bronchiolitis and pneumonia. Additionally, these illnesses can have long-lasting impact on patient health well beyond resolution of the viral infection. Aside from influenza, there are currently no licensed vaccines against these viruses. However, several research groups have tested various vaccine candidates, including those that utilize attenuated virus, virus-like particles (VLPs), protein subunits, and nanoparticles, as well as recent RNA vaccines, with several of these approaches showing promise. Historically, vaccine candidates have advanced, dependent upon the ability to activate the humoral immune response, specifically leading to strong B cell responses and neutralizing antibody production. More recently, it has been recognized that the cellular immune response is also critical in proper resolution of viral infection and protection against detrimental immunopathology associated with severe disease and therefore, must also be considered when analyzing the efficacy and safety of vaccine candidates. These candidates would ideally result in robust CD4+ and CD8+ T cell responses as well as high-affinity neutralizing antibody. This review will aim to summarize established and new approaches that are being examined to harness the cellular immune response during respiratory viral vaccination.
Trend and Variance of Continental Fresh Water Discharge over the Last Six Decades
Authors: Wang Chen , Zhang Hui
Published: December 2020

Trend estimation of river discharge is an important but difficult task because discharge time series are nonlinear and nonstationary. Previous studies estimated the trend of discharge using a linear method, which is not applicable to nonstationary time series with a nonlinear trend. To overcome this problem, we used a recently developed wavelet-based method, ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD), which can separate nonstationary variations from the long-term nonlinear trend. Applying EEMD to annual discharge data of the 925 world’s largest rivers from 1948–2004, we found that the global discharge decreased before 1978 and increased after 1978, which contrasts the nonsignificant trend as estimated by the linear method over the same period. Further analyses show that precipitation had a consistent and dominant influence on the interannual variation of discharge of all six continents and globally, but the influences of precipitation and surface air temperature on the trend of discharge varied regionally. We also found that the estimated trend using EEMD was very sensitive to the discharge data length. Our results demonstrated some useful applications of the EEMD method in studying regional or global discharge, and it should be adopted for studying all nonstationary hydrological time series.
Produced Water Desalination via Pervaporative Distillation
Authors: Wang Jingbo , Tanuwidjaja Dian , Bhattacharjee Subir , Edalat Arian , Jassby David , Hoek Eric M. V.
Published: December 2020

Herein, we report on the performance of a hybrid organic-ceramic hydrophilic pervaporation membrane applied in a vacuum membrane distillation operating mode to desalinate laboratory prepared saline waters and a hypersaline water modeled after a real oil and gas produced water. The rational for performing “pervaporative distillation” is that highly contaminated waters like produced water, reverse osmosis concentrates and industrial have high potential to foul and scale membranes, and for traditional porous membrane distillation membranes they can suffer pore-wetting and complete salt passage. In most of these processes, the hard to treat feed water is commonly softened and filtered prior to a desalination process. This study evaluates pervaporative distillation performance treating: (1) NaCl solutions from 10 to 240 g/L at crossflow Reynolds numbers from 300 to 4800 and feed-temperatures from 60 to 85 °C and (2) a real produced water composition chemically softened to reduce its high-scale forming mineral content. The pervaporative distillation process proved highly-effective at desalting all feed streams, consistently delivering <10 mg/L of dissolved solids in product water under all operating condition tested with reasonably high permeate fluxes (up to 23 LMH) at optimized operating conditions.
Density of Seasonal Snow in the Mountainous Environment of Five Slovak Ski Centers
Authors: Mikloš Michal , Skvarenina Jaroslav , Jančo Martin , Skvareninova Jana
Published: December 2020

Climate change affects snowpack properties indirectly through the greater need for artificial snow production for ski centers. The seasonal snowpacks at five ski centers in Central Slovakia were examined over the course of three winter seasons to identify and compare the seasonal development and inter-seasonal and spatial variability of depth average snow density of ski piste snow and uncompacted natural snow. The spatial variability in the ski piste snow density was analyzed in relation to the snow depth and snow lances at the Košútka ski center using GIS. A special snow tube for high-density snowpack sampling was developed (named the MM snow tube) and tested against the commonly used VS-43 snow tube. Measurements showed that the MM snow tube was constructed appropriately and had comparable precision. Significant differences in mean snow density were identified for the studied snow types. The similar rates of increase for the densities of the ski piste snow and uncompacted natural snow suggested that the key density differences stem from the artificial (machine-made) versus natural snow versus processes after and not densification due to snow grooming machines and skiers, which was relevant only for ski piste snow. The ski piste snow density increased on slope with decreasing snow depth (18 kg/m³ per each 10 cm), while snow depth decreased 2 cm per each meter from the center of snow lances. Mean three seasons maximal measured density of ski piste snow was 917 ± 58 kg/m³ the density of ice. This study increases the understanding of the snowpack development processes in a manipulated mountainous environment through examinations of temporal and spatial variability in snow densities and an investigation into the development of natural and ski piste snow densities over the winter season.
How to Sustainably Use Water Resources—A Case Study for Decision Support on the Water Utilization of Xinjiang, China
Authors: Fan Mengtian , Xu Jianhua , Chen Yaning , Li Dahui , Tian Shasha
Published: December 2020

Global warming has led to a serious crisis on regional water resources. Establishing a decision support system (DSS) on the sustainable utilization of water resources for arid areas is an increasingly critical problem. Selecting Xinjiang as a case study, this paper developed a system dynamics (SD) model. Through the simulation operation of the model, we achieved the decision on sustainable utilization of water resources. The extensive economic development is the main factor restricting the sustainable utilization of water resources in Xinjiang. We propose to adjust the planting structure and implement water-saving irrigation in Xinjiang, especially the Tarim Basin and Turpan-Hami Basin. This research provides the sustainable utilization plan of water resources for Xinjiang and its sub-regions in the next 30 years. By 2050, we recommend that the reuse rate of urban domestic water consumption and industrial sewage should reach 75%; the rural domestic water quota should be 70 L/(person·day); water consumption per industrial output value of ten thousand Yuan should be 28 m3; the irrigation water quota should be 5000 m3/hectare in Xinjiang. This research can provide references for the decision on sustainable utilization of water resources in arid regions around the world.
Stable Carbon Isotopes of Phytoplankton as a Tool to Monitor Anthropogenic CO2 Submarine Leakages
Authors: Relitti Federica , Ogrinc Nives , Giani Michele , Cerino Federica , Smodlaka Tankovic Mirta Smodlaka , Baricevic Ana , Urbini Lidia , Krajnc Bor , Del Negro Paola , De Vittor Cinzia
Published: December 2020

This study aims to validate the stable carbon isotopic composition (δ13C) of phytoplankton as a tool for detecting submarine leakages of anthropogenic CO2(g), since it is characterised by δ13C values significantly lower than the natural CO2 dissolved in oceans. Three culture experiments were carried out to investigate the changes in δ13C of the diatom Thalassiosira rotula during growth in an artificially modified medium (ASW). Three different dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) concentrations were tested to verify if carbon availability affects phytoplankton δ13C. Simultaneously, at each experiment, T. rotula was cultured under natural DIC isotopic composition (δ13CDIC) and carbonate system conditions. The available DIC pool for diatoms grown in ASW was characterised by δ13CDIC values (−44.2 ± 0.9‰) significantly lower than the typical marine range. Through photosynthetic DIC uptake, microalgae δ13C rapidly changed, reaching significantly low values (until −43.4‰). Moreover, the different DIC concentrations did not affect the diatom δ13C, exhibiting the same trend in δ13C values in the three ASW experiments. The experiments prove that phytoplankton isotopic composition quickly responds to changes in the δ13C of the medium, making this approach a promising and low-impact tool for detecting CO2(g) submarine leakages from CO2(g) deposits.
Green Infrastructure as an Urban Heat Island Mitigation Strategy—A Review
Authors: Balany Fatma , Ng Anne WM , Muttil Nitin , Muthukumaran Shobha , Wong Man Sing
Published: December 2020

Research on urban heat mitigation has been growing in recent years with many of the studies focusing on green infrastructure (GI) as a strategy to mitigate the adverse effects of an urban heat island (UHI). This paper aims at presenting a review of the range of findings from GI research for urban heat mitigation through a review of scientific articles published during the years 2009–2020. This research includes a review of the different types of GI and its contribution for urban heat mitigation and human thermal comfort. In addition to analysing different mitigation strategies, numerical simulation tools that are commonly used are also reviewed. It is seen that ENVI-met is one of the modelling tools that is considered as a reliable to simulate different mitigation strategies and hence has been widely used in the recent past. Considering its popularity in urban microclimate studies, this article also provides a review of ENVI-met simulation results that were reported in the reviewed papers. It was observed that the majority of the research was conducted on a limited spatial scale and focused on temperature and human thermal comfort.
Elevation Dependence of the Impact of Global Warming on Rainfall Variations in a Tropical Island
Authors: Tanteliniaina Mirindra Finaritra Rabezanahary , Chen Jia , Adyel Tanveer M. , Zhai Jun
Published: December 2020

Due to their vulnerability, understanding the impacts of global warming on rainfall is important for a tropical country and islands. This research aimed to assess the impact of global warming on rainfall in Madagascar, using the Mann-Kendall test, continuous wavelet transform, and polynomial regression. The result showed that the annual, seasonal maximum, and minimum temperature increased, while elevation amplified the increase of maximum temperature. Different trends in rainfall were found in the 22 regions of Madagascar but in general, the increasing trend in rainfall was prominent at a higher elevation than lower elevation. The annual rainfall decreased up to −5 mm per year for the regions located below 450 m of altitude while increased up to +5 mm per year above 500 m. We found that the wet becomes wetter with an important increase in rainfall in summer and the increase in temperature influenced the rainfall. The annual rainfall increased with temperature and elevation. However, if the increase in temperature was more than 0.03 °C per year, the annual rainfall increased regardless of elevation. The knowledge of the elevation dependence of the impact of warming on rainfall is important for water resources management and climate change adaptation strategies, especially for island nations and African countries.