Radiation shielding of concretes containing different aggregates

The shielding of γ-rays by concrete has been investigated for concretes containing different amounts of barite and normal weight aggregates. The linear attenuation coefficients (μ, cm⁻¹) have been calculated at photon energies of 1 keV to 100 GeV using XCOM and the obtained results compared with the measurements at the photon energies of 0.66 MeV and 1.33 MeV. It is shown that the type of the aggregate is more important than the amount of aggregate used in concrete for γ-ray shielding.     

Increase of secondary electron yield of amorphous carbon coatings under high vacuum conditions

Electron cloud (e-cloud) is one of the major limitations for beam quality in modern particle accelerators. The macroscopic property which governs this phenomenon is the secondary electron yield (SEY) of a surface, defined as the number of emitted electrons per incident electron. SEY of inner surface walls must be less than 1.3 to prevent the formation of an e-cloud. Although most pure metals possess an SEY within this range, technical surfaces (i.e. those resulting from the necessary machining to produce vacuum parts) typically display much higher SEY. An elegant and effective solution to this problem is to deposit the carbon coating on these surfaces by magnetron sputtering. However, the first measurements performed at CERN revealed an increase of the SEY as a function of long term air exposure. Furthermore, we observed a rapid increase of the SEY of these samples whilst under high vacuum conditions. In order to determine the contaminant responsible for the observed ageing, as well as the ageing mechanism, the samples were exposed to various gases and vapours such as water vapour, H₂, rotary pump oil vapour, etc. The results confirm that the vapour of rotary pump oils is responsible for exceptionally fast sample ageing. We also observed that high SEY samples usually have an increased surface concentration of oxygen. The possible ageing mechanisms are discussed.     

Global sensitivity analysis of outputs over rice-growth process in ORYZA model

Dynamic crop models usually have a complex structure and a large number of parameters. Those parameter values usually cannot be directly measured, and they vary with crop cultivars, environmental conditions and managements. Thus, parameter estimation and model calibration are always difficult issues for crop models. Therefore, the quantification of parameter sensitivity and the identification of influential parameters are very important and useful. In this work, late-season rice was simulated with meteorological data in Nanchang, China. Furthermore, we conducted a sensitivity analysis of 20 selected parameters in ORYZA_V3 using the Extended FAST method. We presented the sensitivity results for four model outputs (LAI, WAGT, WST and WSO) at four development stages and the results for yield. Meanwhile, we compared the differences among the sensitivity results for the model outputs simulated in cold, normal and hot years. The uncertainty of output variables derived from parameter variation and weather conditions were also quantified. We found that the development rates, RGRLMN and FLV0.5 had strong effects on all model outputs in all conditions, and parameters WGRMX and SPGF had relative high effects on yield in cold year. Only LAI was sensitive to ASLA. Those influential parameters had unequal effects on different outputs, and they had different effects at four development stages. With the interaction effects of parameter variation and different weather conditions, the uncertainty of model outputs varied significantly. However, the weather conditions had negligible effects on the identification of influential parameters, although they had slight effects on the ranks of the parameters' sensitivity for outputs in the panicle-formation phase and the grain-filling phase, including yield at maturity. The results suggested that the influential parameters should be recalibrated in priority and fine-tuned with higher accuracy during model calibration.     

Short term solar irradiance forecasting using a mixed wavelet neural network

In modern smart grids and deregulated electricity markets, accurate forecasting of solar irradiance is critical for determining the total energy generated by PV systems. We propose a mixed wavelet neural network (WNN) in this paper for short-term solar irradiance forecasting, with initial application in tropical Singapore. The key advantage of using wavelet transform (WT) based methods is the high signal compression ability of wavelets, making them suitable for modeling of nonstationary environmental parameters with high information content, such as short timescale solar irradiance. In this WNN, a combination of the commonly known Morlet and Mexican hat wavelets is used as the activation function for hidden-layer neurons of a feed forward artificial neural network (ANN). To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach, hourly predictions of solar irradiance, which is an aggregate sum of irradiance value observed using 25 sensors across Singapore, are considered. The forecasted results show that WNN delivers better prediction skill when compared with other forecasting techniques.     

New approaches to measuring biochar density and porosity

It is clear that the density and porosity of biochar will impact its mobility in the environment, its interaction with the soil hydrologic cycle, and its suitability as an ecological niche for soil microorganisms. However, the wide range of biochar pore sizes complicates biochar porosity characterization, making it challenging to find methods appropriate to connect the fundamental physical properties of density and porosity to environmental outcomes. Here, we report the use of two fast, simple density measurement techniques to characterize biochar density and porosity. We measured biochar skeletal density by helium pycnometry and envelope density by displacement of a dry granular suspension. We found that biochar skeletal density ranged from 1.34 g cm⁻³ to 1.96 g cm⁻³, and increased with pyrolysis temperature. Biochar envelope density ranged from 0.25 g cm⁻³ to 0.60 g cm⁻³, and was higher for wood biochars than grass biochars—a difference we attribute to plant cell structures preserved during pyrolysis. We compared the pore volumes measured by pycnometry with those measured by nitrogen gas sorption and mercury porosimetry. We show that biochar pore volumes measured by pycnometry are comparable to the values obtained by mercury porosimetry, the current benchmark method. We also show that the majority of biochar pore volume is in macropores, and thus, is not measured by gas sorption analysis. These fast, simple techniques can now be used to study the relationship between biochar's physical properties and its environmental behaviors.     

How current and future urban patterns respond to urban planning? An integrated cellular automata modeling approach

While many publications predict future urban scenarios, few have deliberated the impact of issued urban planning on scenario prediction. We propose a planning-constrained model (named PCGA-CA) that integrates cellular automata (CA) and genetic algorithm (GA) to simulate current and future urban patterns under the spatial constraints of urban planning. The planning regulations include three types: fully allowed area (FAA), partially allowed area (PAA), and strictly prohibited area (SPA), where we propose a planning implementation parameter (PIP) to represent the stringency in PAA. Under different PIPs, we apply the PCGA-CA model to simulate the 2015 urban patterns and predict the 2030 and 2045 scenarios for Ningbo city, China. The results show that the regulations substantially affect the simulation accuracy and urban pattern. As the planning regulations become less stringent, the accuracy decreases from 90.3% to 89.4% and the urban pattern becomes less compact. In particular, the urban pattern is the most compact when the regulations are not imposed. The PCGA-CA predicts the quantity and location of illegal urban development, and identifies spatially varying urban growth across planning regulations. For the same year, the urban patterns with different PIPs illustrate substantial differences in landscape metrics. The simulations of the current urban pattern should help urban planners and local authorities assess past implementations of urban planning, while the scenario predictions can offer a view of the future by evaluating the consequences of different planning regulations.     

Pressure transient analysis for asymmetrically fractured wells in dual-permeability organic compound reservoir of hydrogen and carbon

In this paper, a comprehensive semi-analytical model was presented to investigate pressure transient behavior for asymmetrically fractured wells in organic compound reservoir of hydrogen and carbon with dual-permeability behavior. Stehfest inversion algorithm can be used to transform it back into time domain to obtain pressure solution. The presented solution was validated well with numerical solutions. Flow characteristics for asymmetrically fractured wells in dual-permeability organic compound reservoir of hydrogen and carbon were divided into five regime. The effects of some important parameters on dimensionless pressure and its derivative curves were analyzed in details, including inter-porosity flow coefficient from matrix to natural fractures λ, storage coefficient ω, fracture asymmetry factor θ and permeability ratio κ. The presented model can be used to predict production performance and do well test analysis in the development of dual-permeability organic compound reservoir of hydrogen and carbon.     

Coastal trapped waves in the southern Caspian Sea

Previous studies reported coastal trapped waves (CTWs) in the Caspian Sea (CS). This study deals with the generation mechanisms, the temporal and spatial variability of CTWs in this area, and their transformations during propagation from the origin to the destination using recent measurements and high-resolution numerical simulations. CTWs are observed at all stations with periods of 2–6 days after northerly storms. The Absheron Peninsula, old Sefidrud delta, and Nur coasts were identified as the CTWs prone regions. The generation of CTWs in these locations was confirmed using numerical experiments. The propagation away from the generating location of CTWs was analyzed using a representative real wind storm. In the west part of the CS, the generation mechanism of CTWs is mainly similar to the barotropic Kelvin waves; in contrast, it is similar to the continental shelf waves in the southern shelves. The results can be used to study the contribution of generated CTWs to the transport of sediment and biological materials in all large lakes.     

Tungsten phosphide nanosheets seamlessly grown on tungsten foils toward efficient hydrogen evolution reaction in basic and acidic media

Exploring earth-abundant electrocatalyst with active and stable hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) properties is desirable but still challengeable. Herein, WP₂ nanosheets are seamlessly grown on W foil (WP₂ NSs/W) through phosphorization of WO₃/W. This seamless WP₂/W structure is beneficial to reducing the resistance between WP₂ and W. Along with the exposed large density of active sites, WP₂ NSs/W displays outstanding HER activity with a lower onset potential of about 0 V, a smaller overpotential of 90 mV for the current density of 10 mA/cm² in basic media. Notably, WP₂ NSs/W electrode also catalyzes HER efficiently in acid. The synthesis of WP₂ NSs/W provides us a straightforward strategy to gain more cost-effective cathode for HER.     

On the mechanism of the flotation of oxides and silicates

The mechanism of flotation of oxide and silicate minerals was established long ago as being due to the electrostatic attraction between the charged surface and the charge of the collector. What is less well established is the mechanism of the charging of the mineral surface. Most researchers have postulated that the adsorption of H⁺ is the cause. However, the adsorption model and its derivatives (such as the amphoteric and multisite-adsorption models), do not successfully describe the data for the zeta potential as a function of pH. In particular, these adsorption models have the following features that are not observed: (i) they are symmetrical about the point of zero charge, whereas the data is asymmetrical, (ii) they have an inflection at the pK_a values, leading to an asymptotic approach to the point of zero charge, whereas such an inflection is not observed, and (iii) they only fit the data in its extremes, that is, when the pK_a values differ by orders of magnitude, or are very close to one another. An alternative mechanism of charging is proposed here that is based on the dissolution of ions from and deposition of ions onto the mineral surface. It is shown that this model (a) fits the data, (b) is consistent with the thermodynamic model for reversible interfaces, (c) is consistent with the thermodynamics of the overall reaction and its solubility, (d) indicates reasons for the ageing of surfaces and (e) displays the observed features of zeta potential measurements as a function of pH, that is, it is pseudo-Nernstian and asymmetrical in nature. Application of the proposed theory is discussed for the flotation of quartz and corundum.