Search Results (2,920)

Accurate fault location is essential for improving the reliability and service restoration capability of distribution networks. With the increasing penetration of distributed generation, power electronic devices, and flexible loads, fault transient signals become increasingly nonlinear and nonstationary, posing challenges to conventional impedance-based, traveling-wave-based, and feature-engineering-based methods. To improve transient fault feature representation, this paper proposes a wavelet-embedded residual attention convolutional neural network (CNN) for distribution network fault location. The task is formulated as a multi-class classification problem, in which each predefined line section is treated as a candidate fault location class. The proposed method embeds discrete wavelet decomposition into the convolutional feature extraction process, enabling low-frequency trend components and high-frequency transient components to be jointly represented and fused by subsequent trainable network modules. Residual connections improve deep feature propagation, and an attention mechanism enhances fault-sensitive representations. Simulation studies on the IEEE 33-bus distribution system show that the proposed method outperforms multi-layer perceptron (MLP), support vector machine (SVM), standard CNN, ResNet, and Attention-CNN, achieving 98.27% accuracy and a 98.33% F1-score. The class-wise results and robustness tests under different transition resistances, noise levels, and fault types further verify the effectiveness and adaptability of the proposed method. Full article

Outdoor industrial sites, including logistics terminals, construction yards, and civil infrastructure worksites, increasingly require supervisory systems for monitoring autonomous mobile units under variable wireless and operational conditions. This study presents an edge-cloud telemetry platform that connects V2X on-board and roadside units to a normalized data pipeline and an operator dashboard. The architecture assigns frame reception and data validation to the edge layer, while cloud services perform stream ingestion, storage, querying, and visualization using a Kafka-Elasticsearch-Grafana stack. A fixed supervisory schema was defined for position, heading, speed, mission state, battery level, and error flags so that virtual fields used in early validation can later be replaced by measured signals without changing downstream interfaces. Physical field validation was conducted using a single test vehicle in a construction-site emulation environment to evaluate communication continuity and dashboard refresh behavior. Multi-unit applicability was examined at the architecture and schema levels, and a preliminary payload-level capacity estimate was derived using the telemetry frequency and payload-length assumptions. Under the tested site conditions, the system maintained continuous reception and visualization over an approximately 700 m distance from the RSU-side reference location. The measured end-to-end display delay averaged 0.78 s, with a standard deviation of 0.059 s and a maximum of 0.96 s. Under a 10 Hz status-message condition, the estimated pure-payload traffic was approximately 23 kbps per mobile unit. These results indicate that V2X-based edge-cloud telemetry can provide a practical baseline for supervisory monitoring in outdoor industrial sites, while simultaneous multi-vehicle validation, detailed network-load evaluation, and long-term field testing remain necessary future work. Full article

Urbanization is increasingly limiting daily human exposure to natural forest environments, highlighting the growing importance of urban green infrastructure and nature-based solutions in supporting human health and well-being. Among the mechanisms underlying the beneficial effects of forests, biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs), particularly terpenes, are recognized as key contributors due to their bioactive properties and role in cultural ecosystem services related to human well-being. This study explores the potential of urban and natural trees of Pinus nigra J. F. Arnold to serve as sources of health-relevant BVOCs by examining seasonal and spatial variability in needle terpene profiles. Needle samples were collected from trees growing in an urban park and a protected natural area across three seasons (spring, summer, and autumn), and analyzed using headspace GC/MS. The study was designed as an exploratory assessment aimed at identifying general patterns of terpene variability across contrasting environments. Across all seasons and locations, α- and β-pinene consistently dominated the terpene profile, together accounting for the majority of detected compounds, and showed no significant variation in relation to site or season. In contrast, secondary monoterpenes and sesquiterpenes exhibited greater variability, contributing to context-dependent differences between environments. Despite these variations, the overall terpene composition remained relatively stable, particularly with respect to compounds previously associated with health-related effects. These preliminary findings provide insights into the potential role of Pinus nigra within urban and natural green infrastructure associated with nature-based health-oriented practices. The observed stability of health-related terpenes suggests that urban Austrian pine trees can represent a consistent source of compounds previously associated with health-related effects, although their relevance requires further investigation involving total and individual BVOC emissions measurements and human exposure assessments. Full article

The new therapeutic options now available for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) have made their assessment more complex, especially due to the different stages of liver cirrhosis typically associated with this tumor. The management of the disease therefore requires an interdisciplinary approach aimed at identifying the most appropriate treatment based on the risk–benefit profile and residual liver function, as well as in relation to the patient’s age and potential for a full or partial recovery, risk of complications, and cancer recurrence. Another factor to be carefully considered in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma is the frequent comorbidities and the associated socio-health variables (substance abuse, addictions, unfavorable economic or family circumstances), which can impact patient management or the possibilities for long-term monitoring, thus influencing the choice of the most appropriate therapeutic pathway. The healthcare services offered in the Province of Salerno (Campania Region, Southern Italy) to ensure all possible diagnostic and therapeutic options for these patients can be difficult to access due to the territorial extension of the Local Health Authority, characterized by clinics and hospitals located in distant locations, as well as the potential fragmentation of expertise between the University Hospital and ambulatorial facilities or small hospitals. An interdisciplinary consensus conference on the management of patients with HCC has been set with the aim of involving clinicians and surgeons working in healthcare facilities located in Salerno and its Province for the optimal care and effective management of these patients, taking into account all the clinical characteristics of the disease and individual health needs or expectations, from the perspective of personalized medicine. Full article

With the Qinling ecological barrier located in the south, the Guanzhong Plain’s agricultural systems in the central–north, and urban construction expanding outward, Xi’an represents a typical western Chinese metropolis where multiple land functions compete within a limited territory. Such spatial overlap exerts considerable stress upon the provisioning of regional ecosystem services. To ascertain how different land-use configuration trajectories might affect ecological outcomes, this study couples multi-objective programming (MOP), a PLUS-based spatial allocation model, ecosystem service value (ESV) accounting, a sensitivity index (SI), and a local response index (LRI). Historical land-use cartographic datasets for 2000, 2010, and 2020 were mobilized to identify transitions, validate the simulation framework, and generate prospective land-use configuration projections for 2040 across four policy pathways: status quo continuation, growth-oriented, ecological–conservation-preferred, and balanced. The retrospective analysis reveals a clear north–south dichotomy: forests dominate the southern Qinling range, cropland occupies the central and northern plains, and built-up areas have progressively encroached into peripheral cropland, which serves as the primary source of new construction. For 2040, simulated ecological performance differs markedly across scenarios. The conservation-priority pathway yields the largest ESV, totaling 3.317 × 10¹⁰ CNY—6.64% higher than the 2020 baseline. In contrast, the growth-oriented pathway gives the smallest ESV, 2.948 × 10¹⁰ CNY, representing a 5.24% reduction. In 2020, forest land alone contributed 79.7% of the total ESV, remaining the dominant contributor. According to the SI and LRI outcomes, positive ESV shifts are mainly concentrated in the Qinling piedmont transitional zone, Lantian County, and southeastern Chang’an District, whereas negative shifts are tightly coupled with zones of urban expansion. Taken together, these results imply that future spatial planning in Xi’an should give top priority to safeguarding the Qinling ecological system, curbing construction land growth along the agricultural–urban interface, and promoting blue-green infrastructure renewal within already built-up areas. Full article

To address the energy efficiency optimization problem in power wireless private networks caused by fixed node positions, strong coupling between relay selection and power allocation, and strict quality of service (QoS) constraints, an intelligent reflecting surface (IRS)-assisted hybrid multi-hop relay network model is proposed. An IRS is deployed on the surface of an obstacle located between the source node and the first-hop relay to specifically enhance the first-hop link. By integrating path planning and cooperative power control, a joint optimization problem is formulated to maximize the system energy efficiency. To tackle the coupling issues in resource allocation, a joint optimization algorithm based on the block coordinate descent framework is developed, where the original problem is decomposed into three subproblems: relay selection, power allocation, and IRS phase shift configuration. These subproblems are solved using a greedy strategy, the Dinkelbach method, and a closed-form phase alignment solution, respectively. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm outperforms conventional schemes in terms of system energy efficiency, reliability, and latency, making it suitable for power communication scenarios with extremely stringent QoS requirements. Full article

Secure and trustworthy data exchange across distributed data sources remains a major challenge in the health domain, where strict legal, regulatory, and privacy requirements must be satisfied. Data space technologies provide a promising approach to enabling interoperable and sovereign data sharing among diverse stakeholders while preserving data ownership and regulatory compliance. The NextGEM Innovation and Knowledge Hub (NIKH) was developed as a collaborative ecosystem for FAIR data access and evidence-based health risk assessment. This paper describes the NIKH Data Space (NIKH-DS), the underlying network provisioning platform within NIKH that enables secure data exchange in a health data space environment. The work outlines the key requirements, intended uses, and core implemented functionalities necessary for enabling secure network-provisioned data sharing among distributed data locations. Based on these requirements, a prototype architectural framework is proposed that integrates secure networking and interoperable services. The implementation of the individual components is described, including the data space controller, access control mechanisms, and a user-oriented dashboard that enables data visualization and interaction with distributed data sources. The NIKH-DS platform is validated through a set of case studies that demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the platform in supporting secure, interoperable, and Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR)-compliant health data sharing and risk assessment for the investigation of potential health effects of radio-frequency electromagnetic fields (EMF). Full article

Accurate fault location is essential for rapid service restoration in distribution networks. However, modern active distribution networks (ADNs) with high penetration of distributed energy resources (DERs) challenge conventional methods through multi-source fault contributions, bidirectional power flows, and converter-limited fault currents. This paper presents a time-domain fault location method for both passive distribution networks (PDNs) and ADNs, based on a three-sample apparent inductance estimator that uses local voltage and current measurements. The estimator exploits the strong correlation between line inductance and fault distance, with reduced sensitivity to fault resistance compared with classical impedance approaches. Its performance was evaluated on a 22 kV, 20 km distribution feeder, covering three fault types, four fault resistance levels (5–500 Ω), four fault locations, EN 50160 standard-compliant harmonic distortion, and DER penetration levels from 0 to 80%. Under ideal sinusoidal conditions, relative location errors remained below 2% for low-resistance faults. In ADNs, the method achieved errors below 5% for low-resistance faults across all fault types, with accuracy decreasing for high-resistance faults at high DER penetration. A sensitivity analysis confirmed robustness across the tested simulation conditions, covering the SNR, load current, THD, and DER penetration. Full article

The growing expectation of citizens to deliver quality services without increasing taxes requires municipalities to adjust their cost models to remain good stewards of the voters’ finances. Cost-of-Quality (CoQ) models have traditionally been studied in relation to manufacturing processes as a method to increase profitability by reducing the life-cycle costs of the product. Municipalities have historically not been included in these studies as they operate on a semi-monopolistic basis for the services and infrastructure they maintain and have a different set of constraints and obligations from private entities. An analysis of three North Carolina municipalities (Winston-Salem, Cary, and Apex) is conducted to evaluate the Cost-of-Quality components of their water system budgets. The analysis consists of two evaluations. The initial evaluation compares the budgets of the aforementioned North Carolina municipalities with a previous study that analyzed three Texas municipalities’ water system budgets (Lubbock, San Antonio, and El Paso). The purpose of this portion of the study is to evaluate whether North Carolina Cost-of-Quality components behave like Texas municipalities. The second portion of this study evaluates the three North Carolina municipalities independently of the Texas study to see whether population size is a differentiator in how Cost-of-Quality components are divided in North Carolina. The three NC municipalities are chosen based on the Hickory Municipal Classification System (MCS). The Hickory MCS is a national classification system based on the relative population of each state and was developed for this study. The Texas municipalities that were studied had variable populations, variable locations, variable water sources, and variable water uses. The Cost-of-Quality analysis focuses on prevention costs, appraisal costs, failure costs, Total CoQ costs and opportunity costs between the North Carolina and Texas municipalities. Of the twelve comparative hypotheses, three CoQ costs are found to be significantly different with a probability level of p < 0.05. The results suggest that appraisal and failure costs are consistently impactful across the utilities in both states, but opportunity costs are not materially significantly different as in previous studies on Cost of Quality for utilities. Full article

Ionic liquids (ILs) are salts that are liquid at or below 100 °C. They are composed entirely of ions and have unique properties like negligible vapor pressure, high thermal stability, and tunable structures. These characteristics make them a promising alternative to traditional, often volatile and toxic organic solvents in the petrochemical industry. They have broad applications in chemical and petrochemical industry processes. Ionic liquids may be applied in the following processes: desulfurization, benzene toluene xylene (BTX) separation, alkylation, and carbon capture units. Two different ionic liquid-based process configurations have been evaluated for BTX separation. It has been found that the process configuration working with 1-ethyl-3methylimidazolium tricyanomethanide ([emim][TCM]) reduces the energy costs and capital expenditures associated with the Morphylane process by 67 and 63%, respectively. It also reduces solvent costs, confirming it as a cleaner alternative. The hydrodesulfurization (HDS) process is operated under harsh conditions, such as high temperature and high pressure and the requirement of a noble catalyst and hydrogen. High-Temperature Hydrogen Attack (HTHA) failure occurs at high temperatures between the gaseous molecular hydrogen contained inside the steel pressure vessel and the carbon atoms located in the steel matrix or in carbides. Methane molecules are produced during this reaction. This phenomenon can consequently lead to a loss of mechanical properties due to surface decarburization and to the formation of defects caused by methane bubbles mainly located at grain boundaries. The application of ionic liquids (ILs) in oil refineries offers significant advantages, such as safety, environmental sustainability, and process efficiency, primarily by serving as versatile alternatives to hazardous traditional solvents and catalysts. Across BTX extraction, carbon capture, and desulfurization/HDS-adjacent service, the recurring barriers are high viscosity, difficult regeneration, solvent cost/inventory and uncertain long-term stability. Full article

This study examines how mothers raising children with disabilities in American Samoa experience the processes of seeking diagnosis, navigating special education, and advocating for services within an insular rural context. American Samoa, an unincorporated U.S. territory located 2600 miles from Hawaiʻi with a population under 50,000, represents a case of what we term insular rurality—a condition in which the structural disadvantages of rurality are intensified by oceanic isolation, territorial governance, and colonial history. Data were collected through three focus groups with fifteen mothers whose children hold a range of disability diagnoses, with a card sort activity at the outset of each session serving as an idiographic anchor to protect individual voice within the group format. Analysis followed Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis adapted for focus groups (IPA-FG), proceeding from line-by-line exploratory noting through Personal Experiential Themes and Group Experiential Themes within each focus group case to cross-case convergence and divergence analysis, interpreted through the Fonofale model of Pacific wellness. Findings reveal two overarching themes: systemic invalidation, in which mothers encountered deficit-based assumptions, stagnant educational goals, and institutional disengagement; and parent peer support as the primary infrastructure, in which mothers became de facto experts, built community-driven solutions, and envisioned more inclusive futures. Technology emerged as a contradictory force—valuable for parent learning but largely ineffective for children’s remote therapy. These findings suggest how workforce shortages and geographic isolation create conditions in which maternal advocacy becomes a systems-level necessity rather than a personal choice. Implications for rural education policy, IDEA implementation in U.S. territories, and culturally grounded family support are discussed. Full article

Large-scale location-based virtual reality (LBE VR) has become an important form of immersive cultural tourism, but its role in supporting sustained value transformation remains insufficiently understood. In this study, “sustained value transformation” refers to the extension, reinterpretation, and circulation of cultural, educational, social, and engagement-related value across physical venues, embodied virtual narratives, and digital platforms. Rather than assessing economic performance, environmental impact, or long-term operational viability, this study focuses on the cultural and social circulation of experiential value. It examines how physical venues, embodied virtual narratives, and digital platforms jointly mediate visitor experience in LBE VR-based cultural tourism. It compares representative LBE VR projects in museums and heritage institutions, emerging public cultural spaces, and commercial venues in China. A total of 10,862 project-related textual items and 464 visual samples were collected from Xiaohongshu and Douyin and analyzed through comparative content and visual analyses. The findings show that visitor choices are shaped by both the spirit of place in physical venues and platform-visible experience labels. In museums and heritage institutions, institutional knowledge authority and embodied narrative depth help visitors recognize interactive educational value. In emerging public cultural spaces, the intertwining of historical narratives and commercial operations produces more ambiguous experience labels. In commercial venues, platform discussions focus more strongly on value-for-money judgment, sensory stimulation, product quality, and service experience. The study argues that sustained value transformation in LBE VR-based cultural tourism cannot rely solely on platform traffic. Instead, it depends on collaboration among cultural institutions, tourism enterprises, platform content creators, educational actors, and community stakeholders to preserve cultural distinctiveness, improve experience quality, and extend cultural and social value beyond the immediate on-site experience. Full article

To boost the local microalgae sector, Switzerland needs to better understand the current state of the industry, which is not fully represented in the existing literature. Only by identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the Swiss microalgae industry, will the country be able to develop strategies toward a strong and sustainable sector in the future. This work provides the first structured assessment of Switzerland’s fragmented and poorly documented microalgae sector through desktop research and an online survey of the country’s microalgae stakeholders. First, research articles with Swiss authors and patents with Swiss applicants were mapped. Then, a survey consisting of 8 questions was designed to gather information about the location, purpose, employees, production capacity, activities, and installations of 42 organizations with a research and/or commercial focus. The growing number of organizations working with microalgae in Switzerland is dominated by small companies (<50 employees) that provide services rather than biomass or bioproducts. Microalgae biomass production is about 2 tons DW per year and is also dominated by small-scale producers (<100 kg DW per year). One third of Swiss companies that sell microalgae-based products produce their own biomass abroad or purchase from abroad. Our findings highlight the growth potential of the Swiss microalgae sector. This systematic summary of research interests, technological innovations, and current market parameters is the first step toward future improvements in the sector. Full article

This study aimed to identify areas at risk of deforestation in the Cerrado biome of the Brazilian Midwest (states of Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, and Goiás) and to estimate potential soil losses due to water erosion under land-use change scenarios. The methodology integrated the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE), spatializing rainfall erosivity (R), soil erodibility (K), topographic factor (LS), and cover-management factor (CP), with the ACEU (Accessibility, Cultivability, Extractability and Unprotected/protection status) model to assess deforestation risk based on accessibility, agricultural suitability, extractive activities, and legal protection status. Results indicated an average soil loss of 0.11 t ha⁻¹ year⁻¹ under natural vegetation cover, with 90% of the area presenting losses below 0.25 t ha⁻¹ year⁻¹. However, 27.5% of the remaining natural cover is located in areas classified as high or very high deforestation risk, indicating significant environmental vulnerability. Simulated scenarios of land-use conversion to pasture and annual crops revealed substantial increases in soil loss, particularly under annual cropping systems, potentially exceeding soil loss tolerance thresholds across millions of hectares. The findings demonstrate that integrating deforestation risk assessment with erosion modeling is a strategic tool for environmental planning, reinforcing the importance of preserving native vegetation to maintain ecosystem services and ensure long-term environmental sustainability. Full article

AI-enabled infrastructure systems increasingly govern access to emergency services, disaster relief, and utility restoration, yet they routinely produce inequitable outcomes even when allocation algorithms apply procedurally neutral rules. The standard explanation locates the cause inside the algorithm. This paper argues instead that inequity arises from the interaction between the algorithm and the physical environment in which it operates: network topology, resource locations, and demand distribution jointly constrain what any policy can achieve, and when those constraints are sufficiently binding, ethical infeasibility is structural rather than algorithmic. We introduce a constraint-based formulation that embeds ethical requirements into the feasible region, and a hierarchical Irreducible Infeasible Subsystem (IIS) procedure that attributes infeasibility to rule design, algorithmic choice, or physical infrastructure. We further establish the Structural Infeasibility Theorem, deriving closed-form bounds on inter-group disparity across all feasible policies. The framework was applied to zone-decomposable infrastructure allocation problems generally, with a metropolitan ambulance-dispatch system serving as a concrete instantiation. The study delivers four findings. First, the minimum-service violation may not be caused by the allocation algorithm itself; rather, it may arise from the physical layout of the infrastructure. Second, the observed efficiency–equity trade-off may not be an unavoidable feature of equitable allocation, but may instead reflect the difficulty of achieving equity within an underbuilt system. Third, before new infrastructure is added, improvements in equity may represent harm redistribution rather than harm reduction. Fourth, the IIS certificate can be translated into a concrete capital-investment requirement, showing what physical change may be needed to restore ethical feasibility. Full article