Search Results (2,079)

Landslides are the most common geological hazards, and chemical reinforcement is an effective method for enhancing the stability of soil slopes. Based on the coupled Eulerian–Lagrangian method, finite element analyses were conducted to develop a simple design approach for soil slope reinforcement using the curing agent. First, the effects of internal friction angle, cohesion, soil unit weight, slope height and angle on the slope stability were systematically quantified through 93 numerical cases. On this basis, an empirical formula was established for the factor of safety (FOS) of soil slope, and a method for determining the failure mode was proposed using a dimensionless parameter and two critical values related to slope angle. Subsequently, the reinforcement performance of the SH curing agent was investigated by varying the reinforcement position and length. The results indicate that the reinforcement of Case I-II-III and Case I-II provide the best performance, and the optimum reinforcement length was determined for different slope conditions. For slope angles ranging from 25° to 65°, the FOS after reinforcement was found to increase by 12.1% to 18.8% compared with that before reinforcement. Based on the FE results, empirical formulae for predicting the FOS of reinforced slope were further developed. Finally, a simple design approach was proposed for soil slope reinforcement with curing agent. The proposed method provides a convenient and effective reference for engineering practice in soil slope reinforcement with curing agents. Full article

Studying Bingham flows in permeable media under a periodic magnetic field enhances the understanding of yield-stress fluids for applications like oil recovery and filtration. This study combines non-Newtonian behavior with porous-medium resistance and magnetic variations, facilitating the analysis of complex flow phenomena, including oscillatory yielding and improved flow control in porous structures. The viscous potential theory is employed to streamline the mathematical processes. The utilization of linear governing partial differential equations of motion, along with appropriate nonlinear boundary conditions, yields additional simplifications. The investigation yields a nonlinear Mathieu oscillator that governs the interfacial displacement. A non-perturbative method is used to convert this nonlinear ordinary differential equation into a linear equation. A non-dimensional formulation minimizes the fundamental variables required to characterize the system by establishing a collection of dimensionless physical characteristics. The study analyzes a nonlinear Mathieu oscillator with complex coefficients to explore system dynamics related to elevation. By simplifying the variable coefficients, it enhances the examination of stability and resonance behavior. Despite inherent complexities, the work effectively clarifies fundamental concepts, contributing to a more coherent understanding of the subject. The Hartman number, magnetic field, and magnetic permeability ratio exert a destabilizing effect. Conversely, the Bingham parameter, Weber number, and periodic frequency exert a stabilizing influence. Full article

Liquid bridge formation between wet granular governs a wide range of industrial processes. In experiments aimed at observing the volume and evolution of liquid bridges, the ability to form stable and uniform liquid films on particle surfaces is an essential prerequisite. However, existing experimental setups are incapable of maintaining such uniform coating, thereby precluding a complete characterization of the bridge evolution dynamics. To address this gap, a new experimental setup is developed in this work. Uniform liquid film coating on spherical particles is achieved for the first time. The formation process is captured by high-speed imaging, and the control variable method systematically quantifies the effects of liquid film thickness, distance between two particle surfaces, and particle radius ratio on the dimensionless liquid bridge volume. Quantitatively, increasing the dimensionless liquid film thickness by 0.01 raises the maximum dimensionless liquid bridge volume by 0.2; enlarging the dimensionless initial particle spacing from 0.067 to 0.133 and 0.200 reduces the maximum dimensionless liquid bridge volume by 3.0% and 4.9%, respectively; and a radius ratio of 6:4 lowers the maximum dimensionless liquid bridge volume by 10.9% compared to 6:6. The Reynolds number exhibits no discernible effect within the viscous-dominated regime investigated. Full article

Wearable inertial sensing has considerable potential for process-level analysis of upper-limb function, but further evidence is needed to understand how it can be applied within ecologically structured immersive virtual reality (VR) tasks. Most VR-based functional assessments rely primarily on outcome-level indicators, such as task completion time, success rate, or error count, which may not fully capture how a task is executed. This exploratory study investigated whether wearable IMU signals collected during an immersive VR sushi-making task could support binary detection of a core upper-limb manipulation phase and provide additional information about task execution beyond global performance outcomes. A total of 45 participants contributed usable motion recordings for this study, with five Xsens DOT sensors placed on the hands, forearms, and waist. Three signal modalities were analysed, including acceleration (ACC), gyroscope angular velocity (GYR), and Euler angles. The downstream recognition problem was formulated as a binary classification task (Placing vs. Non-Placing), and a self-supervised learning (SSL) pretrain–fine-tune strategy was evaluated against conventional machine learning and from-scratch deep learning baselines using five subject-wise validation splits. The strongest overall performance was achieved with hand-mounted accelerometer signals, with LeftHand–ACC achieving a Macro-F1 of $0.712\pm 0.128$ and RightHand–ACC achieving $0.679\pm 0.118$. Under both hand-ACC settings, SSL fine-tuning showed higher mean Macro-F1 than the Balanced Random Forest baseline and the same deep architecture trained from scratch. Recognition performance varied substantially across sensor locations, signal modalities, and task segments, with distal upper-limb sensors generally outperforming waist-based configurations. Cross-age analyses further showed that within-cohort and cross-cohort performance did not fully align, indicating sensitivity to age-related distribution shift. Beyond classification, Log Dimensionless Jerk (LDLJ) derived from the Placing action showed a significant positive association with Cognitron motor control time cost ($r=0.636$, $p<0.001$). These findings suggest that wearable IMU sensing can provide preliminary process-level information during immersive VR functional tasks, including task-phase detection, sensing-configuration comparison, cross-cohort generalisation assessment, and exploratory motion-quality analysis. The results should be interpreted as evidence of feasibility rather than as a mature biomechanical or clinical assessment model. Full article

Background/Objectives: Medication-related osteonecrosis of the jaw (MRONJ) is a serious complication of bisphosphonate therapy, whose risk is currently assessed through qualitative staging systems that do not integrate pharmacological determinants of cumulative drug exposure. The aim of this study is to present the Bisphosphonate Accumulation Index (BAI), a pharmacologically derived, dimensionless scalar quantifying cumulative exposure to bone-targeted antiresorptive agents by integrating relative potency, administered dose, dosing frequency, route-specific bioavailability, and treatment duration, for use as a pre-procedural assessment tool in patients receiving bisphosphonates. Methods: The BAI combines five pharmacologically grounded parameters from peer-reviewed literature: (1) relative antiresorptive potency referenced to etidronate; (2) dose per administration (mg); (3) monthly dosing frequency; (4) bioavailability route; and (5) years of treatment within the preceding 10-year window. The model includes nine bisphosphonates registered in Italy. Results: The BAI spans approximately five orders of magnitude (from <1000 for short-term oral therapy to >120,000 for monthly intravenous zoledronic acid). Four analyses support the model: sensitivity analysis identifies relative potency as the main source of variance; ecological calibration against nine MRONJ incidence data points yielded r = 0.911 (p = 0.0006, R² = 0.829), indicating that the BAI accounts for approximately 83% of the population-level variance in published incidence rates across heterogeneous regimens (ecological correlation; this does not establish individual-level predictive validity); Monte Carlo simulation on 10,000 patients generated a plausible exposure-strata distribution (6.1% low, 66.6% moderate, 27.3% high); and concordance analysis with a DDD-based metric showed discordance in 7/8 regimens. Conclusions: The BAI is a transparent, reproducible, pharmacologically grounded metric of cumulative antiresorptive exposure addressing the quantitative gap identified in the AAOMS 2022 Position Paper. The BAI measures pharmacological exposure, which is a necessary but insufficient component of MRONJ risk; clinical modifiers such as corticosteroid co-administration, diabetes, renal function, and procedure type are not integrated and must be evaluated independently. The provisional exposure strata reported here (<1000, 1000–10,000, >10,000) are hypothesis-generating and intended solely to guide the design of validation studies; they should not be used as clinical decision rules until prospective patient-level validation has been completed. Full article

This study develops an analytical and computational framework for coupled transient gas redistribution induced by simultaneous localized injection and withdrawal in transmission pipelines. The aim is to describe source–sink interactions within a single transmission system, unlike conventional approaches that treat inflow and outflow processes independently. The governing equations of one-dimensional non-stationary isothermal compressible gas flow are transformed into a diffusion-type formulation using Charny regularization. The pipeline is divided into three interacting regions connected through pressure-continuity and mass-flux coupling conditions. Closed-form Laplace-domain solutions are derived for the dimensionless pressure field, and a practical Laplace-domain approximation is used for computational evaluation of transient pressure profiles. The results reveal a characteristic balancing point separating injection-dominated and withdrawal-dominated regions and show rapid convergence toward a quasi-steady redistribution regime. A pressure-deviation-based objective function is introduced to evaluate hydraulic disturbance, and the optimization analysis shows that the minimum disturbance occurs under a near-balanced source–sink operating condition. The obtained pressure profiles, asymptotic behavior, and regional redistribution patterns confirm the physical consistency of the proposed model. The framework provides a mathematically interpretable basis for analyzing coupled redistribution dynamics, hydraulic stabilization, and asymptotic equilibrium in gas transmission systems. Full article

Well control during drilling requires continuous assessment of bottom-hole pressure (BHP) relative to the pressure window bounded by formation and fracture pressures. This study presents a reduced-order, physics-guided digital-twin framework for well-control decision support, kick and loss risk assessment, and hybrid BHP prediction. The framework is intended as a computational decision-support prototype rather than a fully deployed, real-time, field-validated digital twin. It combines pressure-window calculations, dimensionless risk indices, bounded machine-learning correction, scenario-based event simulation, an interactive engineering dashboard, and 3D safety-envelope visualization. The machine-learning layer was trained on a predominantly augmented drilling dataset containing 909 cases, including nine field-related baseline records and 900 synthetically generated cases, and was used as a constrained correction mechanism rather than a replacement for the physics-based model. On the held-out test set, the BHP regression model achieved R² = 0.987, MAE = 108.6 psi, and RMSE = 215.7 psi, while the well-control status classifier achieved an accuracy of 98.35%. Scenario simulations reproduced representative kick-prone and loss-prone conditions and tracked the evolution of BHP, the Pressure Safety Index, the Kick Risk Index, and the Loss Risk Index. The results show that the proposed workflow can identify underbalanced states, quantify pressure margins, evaluate mud-weight sensitivity, and support visual interpretation of well-control risk. Further field validation, real-time data integration, uncertainty quantification, and robustness testing are required before operational deployment. Full article

The energy recovery of biomass is frequently implemented through single-output systems or passive management schemes, resulting in underutilization of its thermodynamic potential and losses in economic value, climate benefits, and useful co-products. This study formalizes the concept of biopolygeneration as a diagnostic principle aimed at maximizing biomass utilization through the simultaneous production of multiple energy services and the valorization of secondary streams. A dimensionless metric, the Biopolygeneration Diagnostic Index (BDI), is proposed to quantify this concept. The index is bounded within $[0,1]$ and integrates five sub-indices: energy efficiency ($I_E$), thermal integration ($I_T$), energy self-sufficiency ($I_A$), exergetic quality of outputs ($I_Q$), and co-product valorization ($I_V$). Weights were determined using the Analytic Hierarchy Process ($w_1=0.40$, $w_2=0.24$, $w_3=w_4=0.14$, $w_5=0.08$; $\mathrm{CR}=0.007$). The BDI was evaluated using six cases, including five operating plants and one validated computational model representing five biomass conversion technologies in four countries. Results ranged from 0.453 for an engine without combined heat and power (CHP) to 0.733 for a cascade trigeneration system. Under identical feed conditions, the incorporation of CHP ($C1\to C2$) increased the BDI from 0.453 to 0.715, representing a 57.7% improvement attributable solely to heat recovery. Current limitations include the small validation sample ($n=6$) and the reconstruction of $I_A$ and $I_V$ from technological characteristics due to the absence of standardized reporting in the literature. Although these sub-indices account for only 22% of the total weighting ($w_{I_A}+w_{I_V}=0.22$), the present results should be considered a proof of concept rather than a fully empirical validation. The BDI provides a thermodynamically consistent framework for comparing bioenergy systems across technologies and supports technical, regulatory, and investment decision making. Broader validation using larger measurement-based datasets is required before claims of universality can be established. Full article

The study is driven by its importance in modern material processing and precision engineering, where understanding and controlling interfacial stability is crucial in maintaining reliable performance across various operating conditions. The interplay between the tangential magnetic field and temporal periodicity generates additional mechanisms of mode coupling and amplifies instability. These observations address critical shortcomings in nonlinear stability theory and suggest practical uses in flow regulation and the control of conductive fluids. The fluids are assumed as Eyring–Powell non-Newtonian and flow with uniform velocities through porous media. The analysis is conducted using a non-perturbative method that relies mainly on He’s frequency formulation. To facilitate the mathematical treatment, viscous potential theory is adopted. The governing linear partial differential equations describing the flow are then solved under nonlinear boundary conditions, resulting in a nonlinear characteristic equation that represents the displacement of the interface. A non-dimensional procedure is then applied to extract the key dimensionless physical parameters influencing the system behavior. A set of graphical results is provided to demonstrate how the system’s stability behavior is influenced by changes in the key dimensionless physical parameters. The validation of the innovative process is achieved using Mathematica Software. The study considers both uniform and periodically varying magnetic fields, and the associated stability conditions are evaluated for each case, where the impacts of various non-dimensional attributes are assessed. As density ratio increases, it stabilizes periodic magnetic fields while destabilizing uniform ones. A stronger MF enhances magnetic damping, reducing instability regions and promoting stable periodic interfacial motion. Enhanced conductivity improves Magnetohydrodynamic interactions, resulting in greater energy dissipation and stability. Full article

Direct flood loss estimation for industrial complexes is jointly sensitive to terrain representation, rainfall magnitude, infiltration assumptions, and depth–damage function selection, yet these uncertainties are rarely evaluated together. We quantify their combined effects for the Gumi National Industrial Complex (GNIC), South Korea, using five DEM resolutions (0.5–10 m), six rainfall return periods (10–200 years plus the observed July 2024 event), and three infiltration regimes (5, 10, 20 mm h⁻¹), yielding 90 hydrodynamic realisations from a GPU-accelerated 2D shallow-water model. Each was combined with a harmonised inventory of 16,463 buildings (replacement value 43.07 trillion KRW) and three vulnerability-function families (HAZUS-MH, JRC Huizinga, Korean MD-FDA), producing 270 loss estimates under a common dimensionless transformation. A three-way ANOVA on log-transformed damage confirmed highly significant main effects of resolution, rainfall, and infiltration across all functions, more than an order of magnitude larger than interactions, and robust to heteroscedasticity-consistent and permutation tests. Coarsening the DEM from 0.5 to 10 m reduced expected annual loss (EAL) by 55–57%, while inter-function depth–damage divergence exceeded four-fold at shallow inundation. Validation against the July 2024 event gave the best skill at 2 m resolution (critical success index 0.80, accuracy 0.86). Multi-family residential and heavy industry accounted for 83–89% of total EAL. These results show that terrain resolution and damage-function selection are first-order, statistically independent controls on industrial flood loss, and that omitting any sensitivity axis can bias EAL by more than two-fold. Full article

In this study, we aim to propose a framework for developing a smart model for estimating hourly based storm patterns subject to daily storm patterns, titled the SM_ESP_HRDY model; here, a storm pattern comprises a set of cumulative dimensionless rainfalls. A number of AR5 climate-induced rainstorms (1979–2099) are simulated at grid resolution within the study area (Miaoli City, Northern Taiwan) to develop and demonstrate the model. The results obtained via model development reveal that the AR5-simulated events could be separated into 1-day, 2-day, and 3-day rainy events, which could be classified into three types. Thus, within the proposed SM_ESP_HRDY model, the corresponding ANN-derived relationship between hourly and daily cumulative rainfall is established for the three storm patterns across three rainy events. Accordingly, the results for the demonstration of the model indicate that the estimated hourly storm patterns match the validations well, with low bias, especially for the 2-day and 3-day rainy events, with finer temporal rainfall resolution. As a result, the proposed SM_ESP_HRDY model can provide accurate and reliable hourly storm pattern estimates based on the daily rainfall series. Full article

This article presents the results of a numerical CFD study of heat exchanger channels with passive heat transfer enhancement methods. Two types of channel geometry were analyzed with different flow turbulization methods. In case I, internal micro-fins were applied to the tube wall, which disturbed the flow directly in the boundary layer; the investigated relative fin heights ranged from 0.01 h/D to 0.08 h/D, and the dimensionless longitudinal spacing varied from 0.92 L/D to 3.27 L/D. In case II, an insert with repeating drop-shaped elements was used, causing fluid turbulization in the tube core; the relative droplet diameter ranged from 0.38 d/D to 0.73 d/D, with the same longitudinal spacing as for the fins. The influence of the geometry and longitudinal spacing of the disturbance elements on the thermal–flow characteristics of such channels, namely, the friction factor, Nusselt number, and thermal efficiency evaluated using the PEC, was investigated over a Reynolds number range of 5000 to 400,000. The results show that the insert produces a larger increase in the Nusselt number, whereas the micro-finned tube generally achieves higher PEC values due to lower hydraulic losses. The results clearly indicate that, in most cases, the PEC is higher for the finned tube, particularly at low Reynolds numbers not exceeding 50,000. In turn, for the insert, the longitudinal distance between the elements, L, has a significant influence on the PEC; as L increases, the PEC also increase, reaching its maximum value for the largest L. Full article

We develop an analytical framework to describe the impact of in-plane strain on the electronic and transport properties of graphene. Starting from a strain-modified nearest-neighbor tight-binding model, we derive the energy spectrum and group velocities, explicitly incorporating bond-dependent hopping renormalization. A dimensionless anisotropy parameter, derived from velocity fluctuations, is introduced to quantify directional transport imbalance. We show that this parameter admits a closed-form expression entirely determined by the strain tensor, linking lattice deformation directly to measurable transport quantities. In the small-strain regime, a compact expression is obtained, $\eta \approx ϵ\left(1+\nu \right)\cos \left(2\theta \right)$, revealing an angular dependence controlled solely by the orientation of the applied deformation. This establishes that strain acts as a purely geometric control parameter, separating magnitude and orientation effects. Within the semiclassical Boltzmann framework, the same parameter fully determines the conductivity tensor, leading to simple expressions for the longitudinal components ${\sigma }_{x,y}={\sigma }_0\left(1\mp \eta \right)$ and a clear identification of the preferred transport direction. Importantly, the total conductivity remains constant, while strain redistributes transport between orthogonal directions. These results provide a transparent and predictive description of strain-induced transport anisotropy, demonstrating that the directional electronic response can be tuned without modifying the material composition, offering a practical route to control electronic response in graphene through purely mechanical means. Full article

Oxygen transfer enhancement in aquaculture was investigated using a low-cost fine-bubble spray system operated under controlled hydrodynamic conditions. Experiments were conducted under oxygen-depleted conditions (initial DO = 2.4 mg L⁻¹), and oxygen transfer kinetics were evaluated using the dynamic method. The dissolved oxygen concentration increased to 6.2 mg L⁻¹ within 1 h, corresponding to a net oxygen transfer of 9.55 ± 0.46 g. The volumetric mass transfer coefficient (kLa) was determined to be 1.44 h⁻¹ (R² = 0.97), while the specific oxygen transfer efficiency (SOTE) reached 76.4 ± 7.8 gO₂ kWh⁻¹. Dimensionless analysis (Re ≈ 2 × 10⁴, Sc ≈ 500, Sh ≈ 682) indicates a turbulent, convection-dominated transport regime. Biological observations showed a 43% increase in fish growth under spray-assisted conditions, indicating improved oxygen availability. The observed oxygen transfer enhancement was primarily associated with hydrodynamic interfacial area generation rather than diffusion-limited transport. The low-power configuration and simplified system design suggest potential applicability for decentralized aquaculture operations. The proposed approach also provides an engineering framework for evaluating low-cost aeration technologies under aquaculture operating conditions. Full article

Phytoplankton primary production (PP) underpins marine ecosystems. In winter marginal seas, the magnitude and size structure of PP not only sustain overwintering zooplankton but also shape larval fish survival and fishery resources in the following year. We conducted two cruises in the fish overwintering grounds of the East China Sea shelf to investigate the spatial distribution, size structure, and environmental controls of net primary production (NPP). Winter NPP was generally low relative to the annual range. Nutrient concentrations at most stations exceeded potential limitation thresholds, whereas the mixed-layer mean light exposure (LE) fell below the light-saturation threshold at most stations, indicating that insufficient light availability was primarily associated with sub-saturating light conditions of low winter productivity. Among size classes, the nano-sized fraction dominated NPP, followed by the pico-sized fraction, while the micro-sized fraction contributed least; however, the relative contribution of the micro-sized fraction increased in February. Measured values of two key parameters widely used in satellite-based NPP models—PBopt (optimal chlorophyll-specific carbon fixation rate) and F (a dimensionless light-related factor for the vertical distribution of primary production)—were both lower than model predictions, and the magnitude of deviation varied with water depth and mixing conditions. These findings refine our understanding of biogeochemical processes in overwintering grounds of winter marginal seas. Full article