Search Results (20)

Industrial raspberry plantations do not provide the domestic Russian market with products in full. Open-ground raspberries are only available in July, August, and September. These time intervals can be extended by using tunnel shelters and remontant varieties. The aim of this study was to evaluate foreign remontant raspberry varieties for industrial cultivation in the Central Russia region and their potential use in breeding programs to improve domestic varieties. The data was collected from four-year-old plants over three years. The studied varieties—including ‘Amira’, ‘Enrosadira’, ‘Maravilla’, ‘Mapema’, ‘Kwanza’, and ‘Eros’—were grown in film greenhouses. The vegetative and generative parts of the plant were assessed, as well as the characteristics of the fruits. The plants were grown in film tunnels (10 m × 100 m × 4.7 m). Thirty fruits were randomly selected for the study, in which quantitative and qualitative parameters were evaluated. The parameters of the vegetative and generative organs were also measured. According to the study results, based on raspberry fruit quality indicators, four raspberry variety groups were distinguished. The content of soluble solids was highest in the Maravilla variety, amounting to 14.14 ± 0.71 Brix. Based on a set of characteristics, it was established that if agronomic activities including irrigation and basic fertilizer application are observed, the varieties ‘Maravilla’, ‘Enrosadira’, and ‘Mapema’ are promising for use in the central zone of Russia. Full article

The cable-suspended PV system has gained increasing popularity due to its large span and good site adaptability. However, this structure is quite sensitive to wind actions, and wind-induced module damage and structure failure have been frequently reported. Therefore, in this study, we carried out wind tunnel tests to study wind load effects on PV arrays with different lengths and widths. Considering the wind sheltering effects of upstream modules, reduction factors for the wind load were proposed in different array zones. Numerical simulations of wind-induced vibration and equivalent static analysis were conducted to yield gust loading factors for the PV array. This study showed that the maximum wind suction and pressure for the middle zone occurred at 0° and 180°, respectively, while those for the outermost zone appeared under oblique flows (e.g., 30° and 150°). For the PV modules beyond the windward fourth row, the reduction factors of the wind loads were 0.4 (maximum suction) and 0.2 (maximum pressure) for the middle zone and 0.5 (maximum suction) and 0.75 (maximum pressure) for the outermost zone. The gust loading factors for the typical wind directions of 0° and 180° varied from 2.2 to 2.7 for the middle zone and from 1.3 to 1.5 for the outermost zone. Full article

Flower traits, such as flower size or color changes, can act as honest signals indicating greater rewards such as nectar; however, nothing is known about shelter-rewarding systems. Large flowers of Royal irises offer overnight shelter as a reward to Eucera bees. A black patch might signal the entrance to the tunnel (shelter) and, together with the flower size, these might act as honest signals. We hypothesize that larger flowers and black patches indicate larger tunnels, and larger tunnels will increase pollinator visits, enhancing the plants’ reproductive success. We measured seven species in a controlled environment and two species from three natural populations varying in flower size. Fruit and seed sets were assessed in these natural populations. We found a positive correlation between the flower, patch size, and tunnel volume, suggesting that the flowers and patch size act as honest signals, both under controlled conditions and in the wild. However, in natural populations, this positive relationship and its effect on fitness was population-specific. Flower size increased the fitness in YER I. petrana, and interactions between flower/patch size and tunnel size increased the fitness in YER and I. atropurpurea NET populations. This suggests that the honesty of the signal is positively selected in these two populations. This study supports the hypothesis that pollinator-mediated selection leads to the honest signaling of flower advertisement. Full article

The lunar lava tubes are envisioned as possible hosting structures for a human base in the Moon’s equatorial regions, providing shelter from radiations, micrometeoroids, and temperature excursion. A first robotic mission is set to scout the habitability of these underground architectures in the near future. The communication inside these underground tunnels is heavily constrained; hence, the scouting system should rely on a high degree of autonomy. At the same time, the exploration system may encounter different types of terrain, requiring an adaptable mobility subsystem able to travel fast on basaltic terrain while avoiding considerable obstacles. This paper presents a cave explorer’s mission study and preliminary sizing targeting the lunar lava tubes. The study proposes using a hybrid mobility system with wheels and thrusters to navigate smoothly inside the lava tubes. The peculiar mobility system of the cave explorer requires an accurate study of the adaptability of its control capabilities with the change of mass for a given set of sensors and actuators. The combination of conceptual design techniques and control assessment gives the engineer a clear indication of the feasible design box for the studied system during the initial formulation phases of a mission. This first part of the study focuses on framing the stakeholders’ needs and identifying the required capabilities of the cave explorer. Furthermore, the study focuses on assessing a design box in terms of mass and power consumption for the cave explorer. Following different mission-level assessments, a more detailed design of the cave explorer is discussed, providing an initial design in terms of mass and power consumption. Finally, the objective shifts toward studying the performances of the guidance, navigation, and control (GNC) algorithms varying the mass of the cave explorer. The GNC significantly impacts the design box of the surface planetary system. Hence, investigating its limitations can indicate the feasibility of mass growth to accommodate, for example, more payload. Full article

Physical obstacles within animal habitats create barriers to individual movements. To cross those barriers, specific corridors are used, some of them created by keystone species such as Eurasian beavers (Castor fiber). Their dams on rivers may also increase habitat connectivity for terrestrial mammals, but the significance of that function has never been quantified. To investigate this, we placed tracking tunnels on beaver dams, fallen trees, and—as a control—on floating rafts. Additionally, we tested kinetic sand as a novel substrate for collecting tracks and found the paws of small mustelids precisely imprinted in that medium, allowing easy identification. However, we needed to lump all shrews and rodents smaller than water voles (Arvicola amphibius) into one category as they can only be detected but not identified. The highest mammalian activity was observed on dams, as they may provide shelter, offering protection from predators during a river crossing or permanent residence, and even the opportunity to hunt invertebrates. Slightly higher diversity was found on logs because of a higher proportion of mustelids, which select exposed locations for scent marking. Our results increase our body of knowledge about the beaver as an ecosystem engineer and provide a novel tool for the monitoring of mammal activity. Full article

Each landscape is the result of an encounter with the culture of a community and the physical features of a territory. The conservation of the historical, artistic, and cultural heritage represents a priority for any society that wishes to draw on references for its civil progress. The aim of the present research is to combine the richness of the historical–cultural heritage with innovative forms of agriculture. It focuses on the recovery, in productive terms, of an air-raid shelter used during the Second World War, located in the center of Varese beneath the Estensi Historical Gardens. The project involves the construction of an underground Vertical Farm (Deep Farm) with the aim of restoring a place of memory, making it more accessible than it is today, and raising public awareness about a new cultivation model. A Deep Farm was designed with a cultivation area in the middle, an educational room, and two hygiene rooms, one at each end of the tunnel. A Vertical Farm was conceived to be shared with local stakeholders to produce vegetables and to foresee an innovative reality in the field of education and tourism. This project has the ambition of representing a model that could be used for similar Italian realities and enhancing meeting places between landscape and modern culture diversities. Full article

Among public facilities, facilities belonging to Multi-Group (I) include high-rise buildings, tunnels, and subway stations, and the location of Shelter in Place (SIP) is an important factor in the safety of citizens. However, subway evacuation maps usually induce evacuation to ground level or the tunnel of a subway platform without considering the location of SIP. In other words, since the location of the SIP is not determined, conditions, such as ventilation, air conditioning facilities, and structural durability required for the SIP cannot be satisfied. It is difficult to suggest the location of SIP because the domestic standards limit only the time it takes to move from the outside to the facility designated as SIP during an emergency evacuation. Therefore, in this study, when there is a situation of emergency evacuation in the subway, the total allowed time to evacuate to SIP is limited to 6 min. We designate a space that can accommodate the number of evacuees at the location and compare and analyze the results of the evacuation simulation using six scenarios. Additionally, suggestions are made for improvement methods relating to evacuation as well as the proposal of reinforcement methods through an experiment to satisfy the structural requirements of SIP in subway stations. Full article

The destruction caused by forest fires generates social impacts, environmental impacts, and extremely important economic impacts caused by the destruction of a wide range of infrastructures and essential goods. Therefore, as it is impossible to remove all the infrastructures from the forest and wildland–urban interface, the design of protection systems is essential. The main objective of this work is the development of a low-cost protection system, with rigid panels, requiring a simple installation, in order to protect outdoor infrastructures such as telecommunications stations, shelters, roadside enclosures, power cabinets, and other structures. A study was carried out on panels that could be used for protection in order to determine whether the protective material would be more appropriate. Taking into account the fire resistance behavior, thermal and structural properties and cost, the panels selected were the magnesium oxide fiberglass reinforced. The protection was constructed, installed on a telecommunication cabinet, and experimentally laboratory tested in a wind combustion tunnel. To collect the data InfraRed and video cameras, heat flux sensors, and thermocouples were used to determine the fire propagation, heat flux, and temperatures, respectively. The experimental data show that the low-cost protection is effective for protecting telecommunication cabinets and similar infrastructures against forest fires. Full article

For buried municipal tunnels—such as cable tunnels and utility tunnels with structural defects—due to the sheltering of the internal pipelines, shelves, and other auxiliary facilities, traditional trenchless rehabilitating methods are not applicable since an intact ring is needed for spraying and lining. In these tunnels, only the exposed area at the crown of the ring can be partly rehabilitated. In this paper, three-edge bearing tests (TEBTs) for partially rehabilitated reinforced concrete (RC) pipe sections are carried out to simulate the case of a municipal tunnel and the effects of different repair materials (cement mortar and epoxy resin) and different dimensional parameters of the liner (lining thickness, lining range) on the partial rehabilitation effect of defective RC pipes are studied. The deforming compatibility of the liner–pipe interface is discussed, and the flexural rigidity of the partially rehabilitated section is calculated. The results show that the load-carrying capacities of partial rehabilitated RC pipes are effectively improved. Full article

The construction of protective forests in Nursultan is key to reducing near-surface wind speeds and snowstorm effects in urban areas. This study analyzed the effects of the number of plant rows and spacing of the shelterbelts on the flow field around protective forests to evaluate the wind protection benefits of the existing configuration of the shelterbelt in Nursultan and guide the construction of protective forests. We measured the airflow fields of four shelterbelts with different numbers of rows, seven double pure shelterbelts, and double mixed shelterbelts of arbors and shrubs with different spacings. The results showed that the airflow field around the shelterbelts can be divided into five characteristic regions based on shelter efficiency: a deceleration region before the shelterbelt, acceleration region above the canopy, strong deceleration region in the canopy layer, deceleration region behind the shelterbelt, and recovery region behind the shelterbelt. In terms of windproof ability, the wind protection benefits of a shelterbelt with six rows are the best in a single shelterbelt. Behind the shelterbelt, the wind protection benefits of double pure shelterbelts are greater than that of double mixed shelterbelts of arbor and shrub. On the contrary, the windbreak benefits of the latter are stronger than those of the former between the two shelterbelts. Full article

Robot localization inside tunnels is a challenging task due to the special conditions of these environments. The GPS-denied nature of these scenarios, coupled with the low visibility, slippery and irregular surfaces, and lack of distinguishable visual and structural features, make traditional robotics methods based on cameras, lasers, or wheel encoders unreliable. Fortunately, tunnels provide other types of valuable information that can be used for localization purposes. On the one hand, radio frequency signal propagation in these types of scenarios shows a predictable periodic structure (periodic fadings) under certain settings, and on the other hand, tunnels present structural characteristics (e.g., galleries, emergency shelters) that must comply with safety regulations. The solution presented in this paper consists of detecting both types of features to be introduced as discrete sources of information in an alternative graph-based localization approach. The results obtained from experiments conducted in a real tunnel demonstrate the validity and suitability of the proposed system for inspection applications. Full article

The observations of meteorological wind speed may be biased due to the influence of various distractions. Therefore, the original measured data should be corrected in a targeted manner. Wind tunnel tests (WTT) and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) numerical simulation methods are used to study the local wind environment characteristics of observation sites in Noi Ling Ding Island (NLDI) and Ping An International Financial Center (PAFC) in the Shenzhen area. The interference effects of NLDI and the building components and instruments in the hollow-layer atop PAFC on their corresponding anemometer measurement results were analyzed, and a quantitative description was provided with the wind speed influence coefficient (C_VI), which is the wind speed ratio in disturbed and undisturbed cases. Results show that the C_VI of WTT at the NLDI site is slightly higher than that of CFD, and the wind speed in the wind-sensitive direction is accelerated by 12% due to the influence of NLDI. The large pillars at the corner of PAFC have a considerable occlusion effect on the wind speed under the wind direction of 45°. An acceleration effect with C_VI of 1.163 is found in the dominant wind direction when instruments are absent atop the hollow-layer, whereas a sheltering effect is observed with the C_VI of 0.593 when instruments are present. These results are used to correct the recorded wind speed at the NLDI and PAFC sites during Super Typhoon Manghut with No. 201822, and then converted into the 10 min mean wind pressure value at 10 m height under the standard landform. The reference wind pressure values obtained are 0.526 and 0.505 kPa. The analogous conversion values achieve the purpose of mutual verification, and the effectiveness and reliability of the methodologies are presented. Full article

Roof rats (Rattus rattus) are common pests of tree fruit and nut orchards in California. Tracking tunnels are an effective and practical tool for monitoring changes in roof rat numbers in orchard systems, but they rely on the use of attractive baits to draw in rats to the tracking surface. The identification of baits that are both attractive and readily available would be of great assistance for monitoring changes in roof rat numbers within agricultural fields. Therefore, we tested the attractiveness of a soft bait (Liphatech Rat and Mouse Attractant^TM), a wax block (Liphatech NoTox^TM), peanut butter, and a control (i.e., no bait applied) to roof rats when applied within tracking tunnels. We did not observe a difference in visitation to any of the tested attractants, although all attractants yielded greater visitation rates than control tunnels. However, tracking tunnels without any attractant were still visited at a relatively high rate, indicating the tracking tunnel is attractive to roof rats. As such, monitoring tools that provide shelter may increase detectability, although this would need to be verified. Regardless, all three food-based lures we tested increased the attractiveness of tracking tunnels and could be used to increase visitation to these monitoring devices. Full article

To explore the interference effects of a high-rise building on the snow load on a low-rise building with a flat roof, a series of wind tunnel tests were carried out with fine silica sand as a substitute for snow particles. The effects of the height of the interfering building and the distance between buildings on the snow distribution of the target building under three different wind directions were studied. The snow depth on the target building roof and the mass of particles blown off from the target building were measured during the wind tunnel tests, and the results showed that the snow distribution of the target building roof tends to be uniform when the interfering building is located upstream of the target building due to the shelter effect. When the interfering building is on the side of the target building, the snow distribution of the target building tends to be more uneven, because the interfering building increases the friction velocity on the target building roof near the interfering building. However, when the interfering building is located downstream of the target building, there will be an amplification effect of snow accumulation, and the snow distribution on the target building roof is nearly the same as that of the isolated condition. Under each wind direction, the interference effect of the snow load increases with the increase of the building height and the decrease of the building spacing. Therefore, the influence of the surrounding buildings on the snow distribution of the building roof cannot be ignored and should be considered in the structure design. Full article

The sheltered environment of the Algares +30 level adit (underground mine gallery) contributes to the preservation of secondary water-soluble minerals formed on the tunnel walls. The massive sulphide and related stockwork zone are hosted by the Mine Tuff volcanic unit and are exposed in the walls of the gallery, showing intense oxidation and hydrothermal alteration. Minerals from the halotrichite group were identified on the efflorescent salts, typically white fine-acicular crystals but also on aggregates with dark orange/brownish colour. Mineral characterization was performed using several methods and analytical techniques (XRD, XRF-WDS, SEM-EDS, DTA-TG), and the chemical formulas were calculated maintaining the ratio A:B ≅ 1:2 in accordance with the general formula of the halotrichite group, AB₂(SO₄)₄·22H₂O. This methodology allowed the assignment of the orange colour to the presence of trivalent iron on iron-rich pickeringite in partial substitution of aluminium. Full article