The concept of the water-food-energy nexus has been widely studied in the past decade. In this paper we expand on this concept to include environmental, economic, and social aspects as well as life cycle assessment based thinking. We proposed a set of Environmental Footprint Assessment, Life Cycle Assessment, and Socio-Economic Assessment indicators and calculated them using a developed System Dynamic Model for Water-Land-Food-Energy-Environment-Economic-Social Nexus (SD-WLF3ESN). The developed model was applied to predict the WLF3ESN of the corn crop in the Western Lake Erie Basin (WLEB)-USA for the period 2016-2030. The prediction was based on scenarios for population, land, yield, crop use, and crop production costs and returns at the county level of WLEB. A matrix for WLF3ESN of the corn crop in WLEB was developed. This matrix can help in developing policies and strategies for managing the nexus in the basin.
Objectives: To investigate the effect of different self-etch adhesive systems application techniques: active or passive in a single or double layer on adhesive–dentin microshear bond strength.
Methods: Occlusal surfaces of 48 extracted human molars were ground to expose flat superficial dentin surfaces. Specimens were randomly divided into two main groups according to the tested self-etch adhesive system either: One-step self-etch (AdperTM easy-one) or two-step self-etch (AdperTM SE Plus). Each adhesive system was applied on the prepared dentin surfaces followed one of these techniques: (1) Passive application of a single layer, (2) Active application of single layer, (3) Passive application of double adhesive layer (with light curing in between), and (4) Active application of double adhesive layers. Resin composite was packed inside micro-tubes fixed on the bonded dentin surfaces and light cured for 40 s. All specimens were stored in artificial saliva either for 24 h or 3 months before testing. Microshear bond strength test was employed using a universal testing machine at a crosshead speed of 0.5 mm/min.
Results: AdperTM SE Plus showed higher significant microshear bond strength in compared with AdperTM easy-one. For both adhesive systems active application showed higher significant microshear bond strength to dentin than passive application. Double application of adhesive systems showed lower microshear bond strength than single application.
Conclusion: Active application of self-etch adhesives could improve the dentin microshear bond strength. Double application with curing in between the layers did not improve the bond strength to the tested adhesive. 相似文献
The thermocatalytic decomposition of methane over activated carbon (AC) is proposed as a potential alternative for the production of hydrogen. The experiments were divided into two parts; the first part was conducted using thermogravimetric analyzer (TGA) while the second part was conducted in a bench-scale unit. For the first part, the research objective is to study the main and interaction effects of decomposition temperature (800-950 °C) and methane partial pressure (0.03-0.63 atm) on the initial specific rate of carbon formation by using statistical method. The experiments were carried out as a general full factorial design consisting of 20 experiments. Quadratic model was developed for initial specific rate of carbon formation in term of temperature and methane partial pressure using response surface methodology. The model’s results show that not only the effects of the main parameters are important, but also the interaction effects between them are significant. For the second part, the main effects of decomposition temperature (775-850 °C) and AC weight (20-120 g) on the initial rate of methane decomposition by using the analysis of variance (ANOVA) were investigated. The results showed that AC weight has higher mean effects than decomposition temperature on the initial rate of methane decomposition. 相似文献
A methodology for analysis and synthesis of lowpass sigma-delta () converters is presented in this paper. This method permits the synthesis of modulators employing continuous-time filters from discrete-time topologies. The analysis method is based on the discretization of a continuous-time model and using a discrete simulator, which is more efficient than an analog simulator. In our analysis approach, the influence of the sample and hold block and non-idealities of the feedback DAC can be systematically modeled by discrete-time systems. Finally, a realistic design of a second-order modulator with a compensation of the non-ideal behavior of the DAC is given. Moreover, simulation results show a good agreement with the theoretical predictions. 相似文献
In this paper, a new CMOS CCII+ is proposed. The circuit is characterized by high precision in voltage tracking and exhibits very low input resistance. An adaptive voltage offset cancellation methodology is introduced and then applied to the proposed circuit. As a result, a higher accuracy CCII+ is presented. For both circuits, the voltage offset cancellation is independent of the input current and voltage. To demonstrate the strength of the proposed architectures, fair comparisons with Liu and Yodprasit CCII realizations are held. 相似文献
New Class-A second-generation CMOS current conveyor (CCII) suitable for high frequency applications is proposed. It provides low input impedance and accurate voltage and current tracking. Targeting low power dissipation, the Class-AB version of the proposed Class-A architecture is introduced as well. Simulation results are included. 相似文献
Given the water-food-energy interconnections, integrated planning, policy and management using the nexus approach are required for the food production system. In this study the nexus and non-nexus approaches are compared to propose an optimal cropping patternthat considers water, energy and economic parameters. Linear optimization was applied to compare i) the nexus approach utilizing an objective function to maximize a water-food-energy nexus index and 2) the non-nexus approach utilizing three objective functions for water use, energy use, and agricultural net return. The study showed that the nexus approach is the best. Applying it through a water-food-energy nexus index provides a holistic method for identifying an optimal cropping pattern that reduces water and energy consumption and increases the agricultural net return. 相似文献