Search Results (1,257)

The transport sector is a major contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions, making its decarbonization critical for climate change mitigation efforts. The Marginal Abatement Cost (MAC) curve is a vital tool that evaluates the cost-effectiveness of mitigation measures by comparing their emission reduction potential against their implementation costs. This paper conducts a literature review to analyze the application of the MAC curve in the transport sector, identifying common mitigation measures, comparing abatement costs, and assessing the tool’s role in shaping decarbonization policies. The findings reveal a predominance of technology-focused, bottom-up methodologies, with a significant research gap in the freight sector, which is largely overlooked compared with passenger transport. The results show that the abatement costs for similar measures vary considerably across geographical contexts, influenced by local factors such as fuel prices and gross domestic product (GDP). The analysis suggests that combining technological solutions with behavioral and structural changes creates synergistic effects, yielding greater benefits than isolated actions. The strong alignment observed between measures analyzed in the literature and subsequent national climate policies confirms the MAC curve’s strategic importance as an evidence-based instrument for policymakers to construct economically rational decarbonization pathways. Full article

Double-round bottom fermentation (DRBF) represents an important technological innovation in strong-flavor Baijiu production, yet the microbial succession and metabolic mechanisms underlying this process remain insufficiently understood. In this study, physicochemical analyses combined with multi-omics approaches were employed to elucidate the dynamic variations in physicochemical parameters, volatile compounds, and microbial community structure and function during DRBF, as well as to reconstruct key metabolic pathways involved in fermentation. A total of 153 volatile compounds were identified, with esters, alcohols, and acids as the major components showing distinct accumulation patterns across fermentation stages. High-throughput sequencing detected 505 bacterial and 175 fungal genera, dominated by Lactobacillus, Aspergillus, and Saccharomyces. Functional annotation revealed that metabolic pathways predominated, shifting from energy- and growth-related processes in the early stage to amino acid, fatty acid, and secondary metabolite biosynthesis in the later stage. Reconstruction of metabolic pathways identified 57 key enzymes linking starch degradation, pyruvate metabolism, the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle, and ester biosynthesis, indicating cooperative metabolism among bacteria, yeasts, and molds. These findings elucidate the synergistic metabolic mechanisms of flavor formation during DRBF and provide a scientific basis for optimizing fermentation control and improving Baijiu quality. Full article

To extend the near-seabed survey operation duration of deep-sea Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs), this paper proposes a deep-sea bottom-landing and dwelling technical scheme integrating the drive of a variable buoyancy adjustment mechanism with the support of a “biped” telescopic bottom-landing mechanism. This scheme offers a flexible, low-cost, multi-site repeatable bottom-landing process, and sensitive water area-applicable dwelling solution for marine surveys. Firstly, for hard seabed sediments, the mechanical response of AUVs during hard landing under different driving forces and attitudes is solved through simulation analysis, and the local optimal solution of reasonable driving forces is obtained to provide input for the design of the variable buoyancy mechanism. Secondly, for soft seabeds, the variation law of the bottom-leaving adsorption force with different length-to-width ratios (L/B) under the same bottom-landing plate area is studied to provide design input for the telescopic bottom-landing mechanism. Subsequently, the bottom-landing criteria and calculation formulas for flat and uneven seabeds are established, and the bottom-landing and bottom-leaving control strategies are constructed. Finally, the two sets of mechanisms are integrated into the AUV platform. Verification via pool, lake, and sea tests has demonstrated favorable results, and scientific test data of 56 dives within 1 m of the near-seabed are obtained. Traditional technical solutions primarily rely on jettisonable ballast weights or ballast tanks for operations, enabling only a single dive, bottom-landing, and bottom-leaving process. Their concealment and operational depth are often limited. The technical achievement proposed in this paper supports the ABLUV in performing multiple repeated bottom-landing and bottom-leaving operations in deep-sea environments without the need for jettisoning ballast throughout the entire process. Full article

The Small Island Developing States (SIDSs) in the Latin American and Caribbean region remain among the most vulnerable to climate change, as increasingly frequent and severe disasters threaten infrastructure, human life, and progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals. Addressing these risks requires urgent regional and localized approaches grounded in coordinated climate risk assessment, anticipatory action, and Earth observation science-informed modeling with key support from a strong global community of practice. However, barriers remain to achieving local adaptation measures, including global action measures that conclude before local uptake of climate resilience practices are realized, reinforcing cycles of project impermanence. In this paper, we detail a Jamaica-focused case study that articulates such barriers impeding science and data-informed disaster risk reduction strategies, policies, and durable project implementation. The case study was a longitudinal co-development initiative led by a team of Jamaican and international interdisciplinary, cross-sector experts on climate-related disasters in SIDS. Using principles of co-design, discourse analysis, and systems thinking, the study underscores the need for a place-based framework that centers relevant sectors of society and often-marginalized voices as foundational to bottom-up climate resilience. The resulting Relationship and Place-Based Framework offers a model for localized climate science and technology development and ethical international collaboration for climate action that emphasizes local ownership and self-determination, as bottom-to-top feedback loops are key for managing multi-hazard dynamics and residual risks. Full article

The problem of poor coupling and wheel breakage is a critical issue in the rapid inspection of rails using contact piezoelectric ultrasonic technology for trolleys and vehicles. To overcome this shortcoming, a non-contact unidirectional Shear Vertical Wave EMAT (USV-EMAT) for rapid rail flaw detection with a larger emission angle is proposed and optimized. First, the core characteristics of the USV-EMAT and the Unidirectional Line-Focusing Shear Vertical Wave EMAT (ULSV-EMAT) are compared and analyzed, including emission angle, directivity, intensity, and detection scan distance. The results confirmed that the USV-EMAT is more suitable for rapid rail flaw detection. Secondly, the orthogonal experimental analysis method was used to optimize the structural parameters of the probe. This study systematically identified the key factors influencing the directivity and intensity of acoustic waves excited by the probe, as well as the detection blind zones. Finally, the structural parameters of the integrated 37° USV-EMAT probe were determined by comparing and analyzing the received signal characteristics of the transmit–receive racetrack coil and the self-transmitting–receiving meander coil. The results show that the optimized probe achieves a 14.3 dB SNR for detecting a 5 mm diameter, 50 mm deep transverse hole in the rail, and a 14.0 dB SNR for a 3 mm diameter, 25 mm long, 50 mm deep flat-bottomed hole. Additionally, this study reveals that as the burial depth of the transverse holes increases, the detection scan distance for such defects exhibits an “N”-shaped trend, with the minimum occurring at a depth of 90 mm. Full article

This paper describes an ultra-high-speed monolithic global shutter CMOS image sensor capable of continuous motion capture at 326,000 fps with a resolution of 640 × 480 pixels. The performance is enabled by a novel combination of pixel technology and circuit techniques. The highly sensitive BSI pixel with a 52 μm pitch employs a fully depleted substrate to facilitate rapid photocarrier transport. In-pixel voltage mode storage enables pipelined readout, while in-pixel analog CDS provides low noise with minimal impact on readout speed. The sensor achieves an equivalent row time of 6.4 ns through separate top and bottom readout together with multiple parallel ADCs per column. Independent row drivers on both the left and right sides ensure the global shutter accuracy needed for the minimum exposure time of 59 ns. The dynamic range is enhanced by on-chip reduction in FPN and by PTC-based data compression. The sensor delivers a throughput of 100 Gpix/sec, transferred off chip via 128 CML channels operating at 6.6 Gbps each. The device is fabricated using a 130 nm monolithic CIS process with BSI postprocessing and is in series production. Full article

Ensuring product quality and safety is fundamental to sustainable production and consumption. With the rapid advancement of digital technologies such as blockchain and big data, quality and safety traceability systems have become essential tools to enhance transparency, accountability, and governance efficiency across supply chains. The sustainable functioning of these systems, however, depends on the coordinated actions of multiple stakeholders—including governments, enterprises, consumers, and industry associations—making the study of technological and institutional interactions particularly significant. This paper extends evolutionary game theory to the context of technology-enabled sustainable governance by constructing a tripartite game model involving government regulators, traceability enterprises, and consumers from both technological and institutional perspectives. Unlike existing studies, which focused solely on government regulation, this research explicitly incorporates the role of industry associations in shaping stakeholder behavior and integrates consumer rights protection mechanisms as well as the adoption of emerging technologies such as blockchain into the model. Analytical derivations and MATLAB-based simulations reveal that strengthening reward–penalty mechanisms and improving digital maturity significantly enhance enterprises’ incentives for truthful information disclosure; consumers’ verification and reporting behaviors generate bottom-up pressure that encourages stricter governmental supervision; and active participation of industry associations helps share regulatory costs and stabilize cooperative equilibria. These findings suggest that combining technological innovation with institutional collaboration not only improves transparency and strengthens consumer trust but also reshapes the incentive structures underlying traceability governance. The study provides new insights into how multi-stakeholder coordination and technological adoption jointly foster transparent, credible, and resilient traceability systems, offering practical implications for advancing digital transformation and co-governance in sustainable supply chains. Full article

Green hydrogen is a potential enabler of deep decarbonisation for industrial process heat. We assess its role in Aotearoa New Zealand using a bottom-up, least-cost energy-system model based on the integrated MARKAL-EFOM system (TIMES), which includes hydrogen production electrolysis, storage, and delivery of end-use technologies for process heat, as well as alternative low-carbon options. Drawing on detailed data on industrial energy use by sector and temperature band, we simulate pathways to 2050 under varying assumptions for electrolyser and fuel prices, technology efficiencies, electricity decarbonisation and carbon prices. In most scenarios, the least-cost pathway involves widespread electrification of low- and medium-temperature heat, with green hydrogen playing a targeted role where high-temperature requirements and process constraints limit direct electrification. Sensitivity analysis reveals that hydrogen uptake increases under higher carbon prices, lower electrolyser capital expenditure, and when grid connection or peak capacity constraints are binding. These results suggest that policy should prioritise rapid industrial electrification while focusing hydrogen support on hard-to-electrify, high-temperature processes, such as primary metals and mineral products, alongside enabling infrastructure and standards for hydrogen production, transport, and storage. Full article

Conventional wind resource assessments often fail to capture the complex interaction between topography and technology suitability in mountainous regions. This study employs a 40-year, 5 km resolution WRF dataset to construct a differentiated assessment framework for Sichuan Province, distinguishing between utility-scale and distributed generation potentials. The results reveal that topography dictates a stark west-to-east resource gradient, with the Extreme Wind (EW) region possessing a wind power density (1166 W/m²) exceeding that of the sheltered Basin by over 24 times. However, this high potential is coupled with severe operational risks, as overspeed shutdown durations (>25 m/s) in the EW region exceed those in the High Wind Plateau by more than 4.45 times. Crucially, shifting to a distributed generation perspective (2–15 m/s) fundamentally reconstructs the resource landscape: the Basin gains a substantial “light breeze dividend” with available hours increasing by ~89%, whereas the EW region suffers a “high-speed penalty” of ~7% due to frequent cut-out events. Despite a systematic model bias attributed to the “representativeness mismatch” between ridge-resolving grids and valley-bottom observations, the revealed relative spatiotemporal patterns remain robust. Full article

With the development of deep learning technology, virtual try-on technology has developed important application value in the fields of e-commerce, fashion, and entertainment. The recently proposed Leffa technology has addressed the texture distortion problem of diffusion-based models, but there are limitations in that the bottom detection inaccuracy and the existing clothing silhouette persist in the synthesis results. To solve this problem, this study proposes CaP-VTON (Clothing-Agnostic Pre-Inpainting Virtual Try-On). CaP-VTON integrates DressCode-based multi-category masking and Stable Diffusion-based skin inflation preprocessing; in particular, a generated skin module was introduced to solve skin restoration problems that occur when long-sleeved images are converted to short-sleeved or sleeveless ones, introducing a preprocessing structure that improves the naturalness and consistency of full-body clothing synthesis and allowing the implementation of high-quality restoration considering human posture and color. As a result, CaP-VTON achieved 92.5%, which is 15.4% better than Leffa, in short-sleeved synthesis accuracy and consistently reproduced the style and shape of the reference clothing in visual evaluation. These structures maintain model-agnostic properties and are applicable to various diffusion-based virtual inspection systems; they can also contribute to applications that require high-precision virtual wearing, such as e-commerce, custom styling, and avatar creation. Full article

Making smart and sustainable manufacturing operations is a top priority for industries in the era of digitization. Numerous studies have demonstrated the feasibility of attaining sustainability goals by incorporating Industry 4.0 technologies. There is still a scarcity of research in the existing literature on deploying smart and sustainable systems within a smart manufacturing context. This study aims to develop an implementation framework for smart sustainable systems and analyze its impact on business practices. It presents a multiple case study analysis of manufacturing organizations based on secondary data collection. The outcomes of these studies assist in developing a framework for a smart sustainable system structured into five layers. These include identification of the area, establishing a correlation, system integration, development of sustainability 4.0, and analyzing the performance based on the Triple Bottom Line (TBL) approach. The study’s results indicate that implementation of smart sustainable systems leads to enhanced organizational performance, which is particularly seen in the areas of sustainable purchasing, sustainable manufacturing, sustainable logistics, and sustainable marketing. Implementation of smart sustainable operations contributes to achieving economic sustainability 4.0, social sustainability 4.0, and environmental sustainability 4.0. The findings of this research will offer guidance to the academic and business communities in their pursuit of sustainability 4.0. Full article

One of the biggest risks to safety on offshore platform safety is the ignition of high-pressure natural gas streams. Currently, the size and number of fugitive emissions on offshore platforms is unknown and methods used to detect fugitives have significant shortcomings. To investigate the frequency, size, and potential impact of fugitives, a data collection exercise was conducted using incidents reported, leak survey data, and independent measurements. The size and number of fugitives on offshore facilities were simulated to investigate likely areas of safety concern. Incident reports indicate in 2021 there were 113 reports of gas leaks on 1119 offshore facilities, suggesting 0.02 fugitives per Type 1 facility (older, shallow-water platforms) and 0.31 fugitives per Type 2 facility (larger deeper-water facilities). Leak survey data report 12 fugitives per Type 1 facility (average emission 0.6 kg CH₄ h⁻¹ leak⁻¹) and 15 fugitives per Type 2 facility (average emission 1.5 kg CH₄ h⁻¹ leak⁻¹). Reconciliation of direct measurements with a bottom-up model suggests that the number of fugitive emissions generated from the leak report data is an underestimate for Type 1 platforms (44 fugitives facility⁻¹; average emission 0.6 kg CH₄ h⁻¹ leak⁻¹) and in general agreement for the Type 2 platforms (15 fugitives facility⁻¹; average emission 1.5 kg CH₄ h⁻¹ leak⁻¹). Analysis of the fugitive emission rates on an offshore platform suggests that gas will not collect to explosive concentration if any air movement is present (>0.36 mph); however, large volumes of air (~600 m³) near representative leaks on the working deck could become explosive in hour-long zero-wind conditions. We suggest that wearable technology could be employed to indicate gas build up, safety regulations amended to consider low-wind conditions and real-world experiments are conducted to test assumptions of air mixing on the working deck. Full article

With continued technological advancements, the sizes of fixed-bottom offshore wind turbines have increased, resulting in increased operational noise levels. In this study, we investigated the underwater radiated noise generated by wind turbine operation along the western coast of the Korean Peninsula using numerical simulations. Using the OpenFAST software, a load analysis of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory 5 MW reference turbine with a jacket substructure was conducted for the various wind speeds defined in Design Load Case 1.2. The load analysis results and gear mesh frequency components were applied as excitation forces in a finite-element-method-based structural–acoustic coupled analysis model to evaluate underwater radiated noise, incorporating the acoustic properties of the seabed along the western coast of the Korean Peninsula and dynamic state of the sea surface. The numerical results were subsequently compared with experimental measurements of the operational noise from wind turbines supported by jacket substructures. The results indicated that, excluding certain frequency bands, the spectral levels were similar across the frequency spectrum. Full article

With the growing demand for efficiency, low consumption, and environmental sustainability in the iron and steel industry, ultra-high bed sintering technology emerges as a research hotspot due to its advantages in significantly reducing fuel consumption and pollutant emissions. However, studies on the influence of fuel on mineralization behavior under ultra-high bed sintering conditions remained limited. This study systematically analyzes the effects of particle size, chemical composition, alkalinity, and MgO/Al₂O₃ ratio on mineralization behavior using a 500 m² sintering machine, while evaluating the tumbler strength and phase composition of the sinter. The results reveal that particle size segregation in the mixture was primarily caused by the upper layer, with the lower layer having a lesser impact on overall segregation. Chemical composition also exhibited significant segregation, particularly in TFe and fuel distribution along the bed height. Fuel segregation was pronounced vertically but negligible horizontally. Under the current fuel distribution, uneven heat distribution was observed, with excessive heat in the lower layer leading to increased liquid phase formation, reduced porosity, and improved sinter strength downward along the bed. Additionally, the phase composition varied markedly across layers: hematite content gradually increases from top to bottom, calcium ferrite (SFCA) content peaks in the middle layers, and magnetite decreases with bed depth. Full article

Subsoiling is an important technology in conservation tillage. The disturbance characteristics of paddy soil were simulated by smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) in this paper in order to explore the optimal tillage depth of paddy soil in a rice–wheat rotation area. Firstly, a subsoiling experiment with five tillage depths was carried out by a self-made multi-functional in situ test-rig facility. Then, a three-layer-soil subsoiling model of a cultivated layer, plow pan, and subsoil layer was established based on the SPH method. Finally, the soil disturbance characteristics were analyzed from macroscopic and microscopic perspectives. The results showed that the average draft force in simulation was consistently lower than in the field, with a maximum error of 18.71%, and the field draft force fluctuated greatly. The soil block above the tine was not lifted up as a big block but broken into many small soil blocks and then lifted up, resulting in different displacements of the soil particles, but the relative position was unchanged from top to bottom. The particle displacements were concentrated above the tine, the stress was concentrated around the tine, while the velocity and acceleration were closely attached to the subsoiler. A “mole cavity” at 25 and 30 cm tillage depths existed at the bottom of the disturbance, which was consistent with the finding in the field. The disturbance area and specific draft were maximum and minimum at 20 cm tillage depth, respectively. These findings suggest that the optimal tillage depth was 20 cm for the rice–wheat rotation area. The results of the analysis provide a theoretical basis for the optimal design of subsequent subsoiling. Full article