Search Results (181)

Chilean lithium production depends on the Atacama Salar, and the Atacama Region is the main option for diversifying it. Published geological, hydrogeological, geochemical, technological and institutional information on the Maricunga Salar is integrated here; most project-scale data derive from one NI 43-101 technical report. Brine chemistry determines how lithium can be processed, and reservoir properties determine how much brine can be extracted. Maricunga brines average 1122 mg/L Li (range 460 to 3375 mg/L; n = 718), with a mean total dissolved solids content of 311 g/L, Mg/Li of 6.53 (equal to that of Atacama), Ca/Li of 11.45 and SO₄/Li of 0.63, and, with Tres Quebradas (Argentina), define the calcium-rich endmember of the Andean brines compiled. Pitzer calculations place the mean brine at gypsum saturation, and simulated evaporation removes only about 1% of the calcium, so calcium must be removed chemically in addition to magnesium (2.2 t Ca and 1.2 t Mg per tonne of lithium carbonate equivalent, LCE). In the reservoir, drainable porosity ranges from 0.02 in the lacustrine clays separating the shallow and deep aquifers to 0.14 in marginal alluvial deposits, and the coarse units holding most drainable brine are the least sampled. Resource estimates evaluated different areas and depths and are not directly comparable: 224,300 t Li in 1982 (0 to 30 m) and 358,000 t Li in 2021 (0 to 400 m, 953 mg/L). Announced projects total 75,000 t LCE/year in their initial stages. The main constraints are hydrogeological and institutional: unresolved connectivity with Laguna Santa Rosa and the Paipote ravine, unpublished hydraulic conductivity and piezometric data, and undemonstrated calcium removal and spent-brine reinjection at industrial scale. Full article

China’s eco-environmental zoning management (EEZM) system extends environmental impact assessment (EIA) from the project to the territorial scale, relying on ecological–environmental access lists to translate the ecological conservation red line, environmental quality baseline, and resource utilization ceiling into enforceable unit-level requirements. The linguistic structure of these lists has, however, been quantified at the clause level only for a single provincial corpus. Using the 2025 access lists of Jiangsu Province, this study constructs a corpus of 75,659 sentences (2.92 million characters) covering 4571 control units in total (4268 land-based control units, 302 sea area units, and the provincial-level general requirements). We apply a ten-category keyword taxonomy, term frequency–inverse document frequency (TF-IDF) weighting, a 24-label industry–control form scheme, three lightweight classifiers, and co-occurrence semantic networks, supplemented by direct regular expression measurement of quantitative content, citation extraction, deduplication, and sensitivity analyses. Negative constraint (33.3%) and referential (26.4%) keywords dominate the lists, direct measurement shows that 7.5% of sentences contain explicit quantitative thresholds, but these are strongly concentrated in the pollutant discharge (15.8%) and resource efficiency (11.9%) dimensions and almost absent from spatial-layout (1.9%) and risk prevention (1.9%) provisions, indicating a dimension-specific rather than absolute quantification gap. The three unit types exhibit distinct linguistic profiles—legal referential, project-prohibitive, and guidance-oriented—and the sparser semantic network of general control units remains robust to equal corpus size subsampling, node count variation, and four co-occurrence normalizations. A linear support vector machine (SVM) reaches a micro-F1 of 0.962 against rule-generated labels under a random split, and 0.879 (95% CI 0.850–0.909) after deduplication and unit-grouped splitting. These findings describe how institutional design shapes the language of spatial environmental regulation and provide a transferable text mining framework for zoning-based environmental governance; all findings describe the 2025 snapshot of a single province and are not extrapolated to other jurisdictions without replication. Full article

In the context of Türkiye, the decision-making process concerning nuclear energy is characterised by a series of interwoven strategic considerations, including but not limited to energy security, decarbonisation, cost, technological dependence, and public acceptance. The present study employs the SWOT–AHP method, interpreted from the perspective of sustainability, to rank the strategic factors influencing Türkiye’s nuclear energy development in order of priority. A total of 12 experts from academia and public institutions evaluated a 15-factor SWOT matrix. The evaluations were then aggregated using the geometric mean. The highest priorities within the categories were identified as the existence of international co-operations such as Akkuyu NPP project (S2), insufficient technical capacity and infrastructure (W1), localisation in energy and reducing foreign dependency. (O1), and existence of active faults (T3). When category weights were set equal, O1 ranked first in the overall ranking, while social acceptance (W3) and delays in the construction of nuclear energy facilities (T1) ranked at the bottom. While the overall evaluations remained constant, the individual matrices of the majority of the experts exhibited variations. The application of bootstrap resampling revealed that the highest and lowest priorities were supported exclusively (O1 ranked first in 92% of resamples). The overall ranking demonstrated sensitivity to category weights that were not compared by the experts. The results obtained can inform policies that balance supply security with environmental, economic, and social considerations; however, the extant literature calls for further empirical, quantitative, and technical analysis in this area. Full article

Offshore wind farms are typically optimized using a stationary historical wind rose, although development and operation span decades. This study presents CRA-WLO, a scenario-based screening framework coupling a piecewise-smooth engineering wake model, four stylized climate-resource modes, and a conditional value-at-risk (CVaR) penalty on layout-specific annual energy production (AEP) degradation. The controlled benchmark places 72 generic 15 MW turbines in a rectangular lease area. To quantify search variability, the supplied reconstructed run-history dataset contains 30 seeded run records for each of six optimization cases (180 records in total), with objective distributions, evaluation counts, restart statistics, and convergence reported. At α = 0.85, the 0.15-weight adverse mode exhausts the tail, so CVaR equals its shortfall. Compared with an aligned grid, the selected risk-aware best-found layout raises climate-weighted, adverse-mode, and present AEP by 4.6%, 1.5%, and 4.7%, respectively. Compared with the present-only best-found layout, it reduces present AEP by 6.7%, raises adverse AEP by 42.0%, and reduces normalized degradation from 42.9% to 13.1%. Sensitivity tests over α = 0.60–0.95, adverse-mode weights of 0.05–0.30, and speed, density, and directional-stress diagnostics preserve the central wake-redistribution mechanism within the stated approximations. Results remain conditional on a restricted candidate family and stylized stress modes and are not site-specific projections, certified global optima, or bankable energy-yield estimates. Full article

Transcriptomic similarity is used to characterize disease models, but a comparison can change when the same responses are summarized differently. We examined mean-centering before pathway averaging in 16 disease states from one feline chronic kidney disease cohort and two mouse kidney injury models, using 2016 genes detected in both species’ proteomes and 422 overlapping pathways. Among 87 state pairs without shared control samples, uncentered pathway means separated same-species from cross-species pairs with an area under the curve of 0.868; removing each state’s mean across genes first reduced this to 0.511. The uncentered value was higher in 98.6% of animal-level resamples, and the difference held across nine offset and filter settings, all four gene spaces and the 83-pair subset without shared animals. Under within-state ranking or quantile normalization, which equalize each state’s overall level by construction, the contrast fell to 0.010 and 0.001. Reference-axis projections can rank states differently from cosine because they retain amplitude, and benchmark gaps were poorly calibrated. These results identify a consequential preprocessing choice rather than a preferred species or a validated measure of disease fidelity. Because all feline states came from one cohort and all mouse states from two datasets, species was confounded with dataset throughout, and the separation reported here may reflect dataset-specific technical variation rather than species biology. Full article

Background/Objectives: Ragweed (Ambrosia artemisiifolia) is a major aeroallergen in Central and Eastern Europe. Croatian children in regions with twofold difference in pollen exposure show near-identical sensitisation prevalence (the “Zagreb paradox”), and an earlier analysis found regional pollen and rural residence to be the only associated environmental factors. We re-examined whether air pollution, surrounding landscape and indoor environment contribute to it. Methods: This cross-sectional analysis used 3520 of the 4016 children recruited to the EU FP7 ATOPICA study, who had their complete data re-analysed within the EU Horizon Europe EDIAQI project. Sensitisation was defined as a skin prick test wheal of at least 2 mm. Environmental predictors (particulate matter, PM₁₀; nitrogen dioxide, NO₂; regional pollen; CORINE land cover within 5 km; rural residence; and indoor exposures) were compared using the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) in logistic regression models, which were adjusted for age and parental atopy. Results: Sensitisation prevalence was 10.8%. PM₁₀ and categorical pollen area fitted the data equally well (ΔAIC 1.7): both describe the same inland-coastal contrast and cannot be distinguished with area-level data. NO₂ added nothing to either. Of the 16 landscape variables, only transitional woodland-shrub remained associated with sensitisation after Bonferroni correction (adjusted odds ratio, aOR 0.93 [95% confidence interval, CI 0.90–0.97]); total green area was nominally associated (aOR 0.92 [95% CI 0.87–0.98]; p = 0.009). Children in rural locations were less often sensitised (aOR 0.69 [95% CI 0.50–0.96]; p = 0.026), as previously reported; a mediation analysis could not determine whether broadleaved forest cover explains this association. Indoor exposures added little to model fit. Conclusions: Area-level data cannot separate particulate air pollution from pollen exposure, so a contribution of air pollution can be neither confirmed nor excluded. Rural residence and, with less certainty, surrounding green space were associated with less sensitisation, and the indoor environment added little to it. Full article

Tomato brown rugose fruit virus (ToBRFV) is an emerging tobamovirus that threatens tomato production and seedling trade. We used a BIOMOD2 ensemble to model present and future environmental suitability in China from 35 screened occurrence records, climatic predictors, and agricultural context data. Climate projections were based on BCC-CSM2-MR under SSP126, SSP245, SSP370, and SSP585 for the 2050s and 2090s. The ensemble achieved calibration TSS = 0.831 and AUC/ROC = 0.958. Spatial-block evaluation was lower and more variable, so the calibration metrics do not demonstrate equally strong geographic transferability. Bio6 and bio15 were the leading predictors, followed by bio5 and bio13. At the primary AUCroc threshold of 0.441, the current suitable area was 44.35 × 10⁴ km² (approximately 4.62% of China’s land area), concentrated in warm, humid eastern and southern regions. Future estimates depend on the selected GCM and binary threshold. The maps identify environmental suitability and monitoring priorities rather than epidemic probability. Full article

Planform can change the mean wind force on exposed offshore-intended modules, but isolating that effect requires a deliberately controlled screening model. This study compares nine equal-plan-area, equal-height idealized isolated modules from a rounded square to a circle and at canonical face/vertex endpoints, using steady Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes simulations (PHOENICS, Chen–Kim k–ε). The bodies are isolated, deck-free geometries under one +X inflow. Equal plan area is a geometric control and does not imply equal usable space, constructability or structural performance. A common-area coefficient compares integrated mean streamwise force under the shared footprint, whereas an actual-projected-area coefficient reports drag per exposed area. Pressure contributed 98.7–99.4% of the integrated streamwise force. On the common production grid, the circle and vertex-oriented dodecagon reduced the common-area coefficient by 25.3% and 21.9% relative to Square 0°, whereas Square 45° increased it by 57.8%. Targeted uniform fine-grid checks changed the corresponding coefficients by −2.83% for the circle, −5.04% for Dodecagon 15° and −13.17% for Square 45°, preserving the principal large-effect contrasts. At fine resolution, Square 45° remained 39.3% above Square 0°, close to its 39.8% increase in frontal exposure, while its projected-area drag factor relative to Square 0° was essentially neutral (η = 0.997). The Square 0° three-grid sequence converged monotonically, with a 1.65% medium-to-fine change and a 1.80% fine-grid GCI. The streamwise-force resultant height remained within z_cp/H = 0.466–0.494 on the production grid, and targeted fine checks showed that moment sensitivity was driven mainly by F_x rather than large shifts in the resultant height. A matched Tokyo Polytechnic University benchmark reproduced mean-pressure ordering (r = 0.942) and integrated pressure drag within 0.75%, while underpredicting separated-flow suction. The evidence supports comparative, pressure-dominated integrated mean streamwise loading and the associated mean streamwise-force overturning metric within the stated geometry and inflow. It does not validate roof uplift, local cladding pressures, total base or torsional moments, connection reactions, peak or unsteady loads, a full directional envelope, or complete offshore-topside layouts. The dual normalization is a reporting diagnostic for selecting cases for higher-fidelity assessment, not a code-design rule. Full article

Cubic artificial reef (CAR) modules may undergo settlement, inclination, and burial after deployment, requiring non-contact assessment. This study presents an image-based framework combining Mask R-CNN instance segmentation with three geometric methods for estimating vertical settlement and the projected remaining-area ratio. The framework was evaluated using images from 1:20-scale flume experiments under controlled, clear-water, near-frontal conditions. An additional mask-level evaluation used 14 unaugmented held-out images containing 38 annotated instances from source videos reported by the dataset curator as excluded from model development. The retained checkpoint achieved an overall mask AP of 0.896, with AP50 and AP75 both equal to 1.000. For uniform settlement, Method 1 produced valid estimates for seven of ten modules, with a maximum absolute normalized settlement error of 14.90%, whereas Method 2 produced estimates for all ten modules, with a maximum absolute error of 5.71%. Method 3 evaluated nine modules; normalized area errors ranged from −8.25 to −0.67 percentage points, with a mean signed difference of −4.50 percentage points. Method 3 quantifies a two-dimensional projected remaining-area ratio rather than physical inclination or three-dimensional exposed area. These results demonstrate segmentation and geometric-estimation feasibility for a curator-confirmed held-out dataset within a controlled laboratory domain; full-scale field performance remains to be validated. Full article

This study proposes a new method for the topological synthesis of principal component projections and hydrogeochemical stoichiometric equality lines on self-organizing map (SOM) component planes to assess groundwater chemistry forming factors and quality in the Pleistocene unconfined aquifer of the Southern Bug and Sinyukha interfluve area, Ukraine. The hydrogeochemical characteristics clustered by the SOM were further examined using the graphical cross-validation method. The groundwater dataset used in the analysis consisted of 10 parameters (i.e., pH, total dissolved solids, $\mathrm{C}{\mathrm{a}}^{2+}$, $\mathrm{M}{\mathrm{g}}^{2+}$, $\mathrm{N}{\mathrm{a}}^{+}$, ${\mathrm{K}}^{+}$, $\mathrm{H}\mathrm{C}{\mathrm{O}}_3^{-}$, $\mathrm{C}{\mathrm{l}}^{-}$, $\mathrm{S}{\mathrm{O}}_4^{2-}$, and $\mathrm{N}{\mathrm{O}}_3^{-}$) from 91 samples collected during the dry season. Subsequently, for SOM construction, we utilized six log-ratio relationships of milliequivalent ion concentrations. Based on the results, the hydrogeochemical groundwater data were classified into three clusters, which revealed three water types and processes controlling their chemistry: salinity driven by sulfate inputs (Cluster 1), highly salinity driven by nitrate-chloride and sulfate pollution (Cluster 2), and relatively fresh water governed by natural carbonate dissolution and silicate weathering (Cluster 3). The salinity types were identifiable in the northern part of the study area, characterized as the primary zone of initial intense pollution. High salinity types were identified in the eastern and southeastern parts of the territory (with delayed water exchange), whereas relatively fresh types were identified in the central part (with active water exchange) as well as in the western and southwestern parts. Modeling confirmed that extensive sulfate, nitrate, and chloride contamination led to anthropogenic degradation of the aquifer system. Full article

The eastern Pre-Caspian Depression and northern margin of the Tarim Basin are two Paleozoic craton-based basins that were impacted by different late Paleozoic collisional systems—the Uralides and the South Tian Shan. A comparative analysis was performed on their Paleozoic petroleum source rocks as part of this research project. This comparison utilized an identical methodological process across both basins. Data on total organic carbon content (TOC), Rock-Eval pyrolysis and vitrinite reflectance (Ro) were obtained from 15 wells (eight in the eastern Pre-Caspian Depression and seven in the Tarim Basin). In addition to these new datasets, published regional databases and sediment accumulation rates calculated at 40 locations were used. The Pre-Caspian source rocks contained TOC values ranging from 1.9 wt% to 6.0 wt% (average = 3.5 wt%) and had hydrogen indices (HI) ranging from 279 to 500 mg hydrocarbons per gram TOC; they were characterized as oil-prone Type II kerogens and were mature to late-mature (Ro = 0.85–1.40%). The Tarim source rocks contained less TOC (range = 1.2–4.8 wt%; average = 2.6 wt%) and had HI values that were generally lower and highly variable (range = 80–350 mg hydrocarbons per gram TOC); they were composed of Type I–II to III kerogens and were significantly more mature than those found in the Pre-Caspian Basin (range = Ro = 0.80–2.00%), with some areas reaching the dry-gas window. Sediment Accumulation Rates (SARs) were approximately equal in magnitude (maximum SARs ranged from 60 to 64 m per million years) but differed in terms of spatial distribution. While SARs were primarily focused along the southern margin of the Tian Shan mountain range in the Tarim Basin, SARs were relatively evenly distributed throughout the intracratonic eastern Pre-Caspian Depression. Therefore, it can be concluded that the type of orogenic system is responsible for determining when source rocks enter the oil and gas windows, providing a transferable methodology for distinguishing oil- from gas-prone fairways within orogen-flanked cratonic basins. Full article

Wind-energy expansion is indispensable to decarbonization, but a strong wind resource does not by itself establish that development is spatially suitable, socially legitimate or institutionally deliverable. This article develops an empirical spatial–legal screening framework that converts technical wind opportunity into Justice-adjusted Wind Development Potential (JAWDP). The analysis covers Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Denmark, Germany, India, Kenya, Morocco, South Africa and the United Kingdom. A 25 km grid is used for the primary analysis and a 10 km grid for resolution sensitivity. The Wind-Resource Potential Index (WRPI) combines 100 m wind power density with grid remoteness; the Landscape-Conflict Index (LCI) combines protected-area coverage, ecological sensitivity, agricultural land, settlement exposure and cultural-heritage proximity; and the Legal and Justice Friction Index (LJFI) codes nine functional safeguards on a 0–2 scale. Equal component weights and a preregistered symmetric baseline of $\alpha =\beta =0.25$ are used in the multiplicative JAWDP model. The United Kingdom and Denmark rank first and second (0.702 and 0.697), followed by Morocco under a disclosed midpoint legal scenario (0.539). Grid-resolution changes leave ten country ranks unchanged and shift Chile and Germany by one position. Across the full preregistered sensitivity set, eleven countries are classified as stable and Germany as moderately stable. As an external plausibility check, JAWDP correlates with 2024 installed wind-capacity density (Spearman $\rho =0.692$, $p=0.013$) and 2015–2024 capacity-addition density ($\rho =0.699$, $p=0.011$). An additive equal-weight multicriteria benchmark produces only moderate rank correspondence ($\rho =0.559$), illustrating the non-compensatory purpose of the justice adjustment. The framework is intended for comparative screening, not as a prediction of generation, a grid-feasibility model or a substitute for project-level legal review. Additional robustness checks show high stability to sample composition and transmission-vintage perturbation, but the deployment association weakens under wind-suitable-area denominators; the external comparison is therefore interpreted as a denominator-sensitive plausibility check rather than empirical validation. Full article

This paper presents a data-driven educational framework for teaching psychrometry and air quality control in hospitals, developed within an international pilot project involving universities and hospitals in Spain, Romania, and Turkey. The objective of this pilot study is to examine a multidisciplinary framework that equips engineering students with essential technical skills for managing hospital infrastructure, particularly in critical areas like operating rooms and intensive care units. The methodology integrates theoretical instruction, analogue instruments, and digital technologies, including Arduino-based sensing and AI tools, to facilitate data interpretation and critical thinking. By bridging manual measurements with digital monitoring, the framework aims to equalize proficiency among students from diverse engineering backgrounds. Quantitative results from 23 participants provide preliminary evidence of academic growth, consistent with the hypothesis that this integrated approach may facilitate conceptual mastery. This work offers preliminary insights into the advancement of data-driven modelling in engineering education, emphasizing the significance of multidisciplinary training and international collaboration in preparing future professionals for the oversight, operational management, and maintenance of modern healthcare facilities. Full article

This paper develops a reliability-oriented resource-allocation framework for a single-cell uplink sparse code multiple access (SCMA) system with fixed low-projection codebook (LPCB) constellation components. Link-level SCMA–message-passing-algorithm (MPA) samples calibrate a compact bit-error-rate (BER) surrogate, enabling repeated candidate evaluation without embedding MPA decoding in the search loop. The proposed two-stage method combines a subcarrier allocation whale optimization algorithm (SAWOA), equipped with stochastic binary mapping and exact degree-feasibility repair, with an exact Karush–Kuhn–Tucker (KKT) active-set power allocator. For the $J=6$, $K=4$ setting, exact enumeration over all 210 main conditions shows that the SAWOA attains the enumerated equal-power ${\mathcal{P}}_1$ oracle objective within relative tolerance ${10}^{-10}$ in every case. Across 30 paired channel/optimizer blocks, each aggregating the seven power points, the SAWOA reduces the initial-gap-normalized convergence area under the curve by 47.5% relative to the Standard Binary WOA (Holm-adjusted $p=1.19\times {10}^{-5}$); its oracle-hit rate by iteration 20 is 93.3% versus 75.7%, while no significant AUC difference is detected relative to particle swarm optimization. After 100 iterations, the three population methods approach the same oracle plateau, whereas random is significantly worse at the midpoint ($p=7.45\times {10}^{-9}$). Exact KKT refinement improves every recorded SAWOA solution and reduces the equal-power surrogate by 3.64–56.27% on average across the sweep, with a maximum relative KKT residual of $1.01\times {10}^{-16}$. A single-point direct Rayleigh SCMA–MPA check confirms the executable transfer of the selected allocation and returns the same decoded BER for the SAWOA and Standard Binary WOA; it remains a bounded transfer sanity check. The results demonstrate finite-budget stage-1 search efficiency, reliable feasible support recovery, and effective exact power refinement for the investigated quasi-static configuration. Full article

This paper illustrates the theoretical framework, the methodological approach, and the primary findings of a project titled MASSTER (Managing(South)Africa-and-Senegal-Sustainability-Targets-through-Economic-diversification-of-Rural-areas), in which higher educational institutions (HEIs) and organizations from Senegal, South Africa, and Europe collaborate with the aim of addressing the nexus between migration, agriculture and development in Sub-Saharan Africa by co-creating evidence-based training, tools, and actions to foster development and co-development while targeting several Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), namely Zero-hunger, Good-Health-and-Wellbeing, Gender-Equality, Quality-education, Decent-work-and-economic-growth, Responsible-consumption-and-production, all within the frame of Partnership-for-the-Goals. The MASSTER project employs a transdisciplinary and bottom-up approach based on a cross-sectional study conducted in South Africa and Senegal to identify actual challenges, needs, and resources from farmers (n = 737) and students enrolled in agricultural courses (n = 1.013). Findings underpinned the co-creation of the primary project outcomes: training on agritourism development, farm management, income-generating activities, climate change resilience, and food value chain; toolkits designed to boost the adoption of the Whole of Society Approach and to strengthen cooperation between HEIs and local communities; MASSTER Student-and-alumni-tracking-procedure-with-early-warning-mechanism-for-brain-drain; and a MOOC on critical-thinking-and-empowerment. The MASSTER project can have a relevant impact at local and international levels, providing evidence-based tools to be used by HEIs, stakeholders/policymakers, and the scientific community to actively foster development and co-development. Full article