Underwater Gas Leakage Flow Detection and Classification Based on Multibeam Forward-Looking Sonar

The risk of gas leakage due to geological flaws in offshore carbon capture, utilization, and storage, as well as leakage from underwater oil or gas pipelines, highlights the need for underwater gas leakage monitoring technology. Remotely operated vehicles(ROVs) and autonomous underwater vehicles(AUVs) are equipped with high-resolution imaging sonar systems that have broad application potential in underwater gas and target detection tasks. However, some bubble clusters are relatively weak scatterers, so detecting and distinguishing them against the seabed reverberation in forward-looking sonar images are challenging. This study uses the dual-tree complex wavelet transform to extract the image features of multibeam forward-looking sonar. Underwater gas leakages with different flows are classified by combining deep learning theory. A pool experiment is designed to simulate gas leakage, where sonar images are obtained for further processing. Results demonstrate that this method can detect and classify underwater gas leakage streams with high classification accuracy. This performance indicates that the method can detect gas leakage from multibeam forward-looking sonar images and has the potential to predict gas leakage flow.

Ranking academic institutions based on the productivity,impact,and quality of institutional scholars

Purpose:The quantitative rankings of over 55,000 institutions and their institutional programs are based on the individual rankings of approximately 30 million scholars determined by their productivity,impact,and quality.Design/methodology/approach:The institutional ranking process developed here considers all institutions in all countries and regions,thereby including those that are established,as well as those that are emerging in scholarly prowess.Rankings of individual scholars worldwide are first generated using the recently introduced,fully indexed ScholarGPS database.The rankings of individual scholars are extended here to determine the lifetime and last-five-year Top 20 rankings of academic institutions over all Fields of scholarly endeavor,in 14 individual Fields,in 177 Disciplines,and in approximately 350,000 unique Specialties.Rankings associated with five specific Fields(Medicine,Engineering&Computer Science,Life Sciences,Physical Sciences&Mathematics,and Social Sciences),and in two Disciplines(Chemistry,and Electrical&Computer Engineering)are presented as examples,and changes in the rankings over time are discussed.Findings:For the Fields considered here,the Top 20 institutional rankings in Medicine have undergone the least change(lifetime versus last five years),while the rankings in Engineering&Computer Science have exhibited significant change.The evolution of institutional rankings over time is largely attributed to the recent emergence of Chinese academic institutions,although this emergence is shown to be highly Field-and Discipline-dependent.Practical implementations:Existing rankings of academic institutions have:(i)often been restricted to pre-selected institutions,clouding the potential discovery of scholarly activity in emerging institutions and countries;(ii)considered only broad areas of research,limiting the ability of university leadership to act on the assessments in a concrete manner,or in contrast;(iii)have considered only a narrow area of research for comparison,diminishing the broader applicability and impact of the assessment.In general,existing institutional rankings depend on which institutions are included in the ranking process,which areas of research are considered,the breadth(or granularity)of the research areas of interest,and the methodologies used to define and quantify research performance.In contrast,the methods presented here can provide important data over a broad range of granularity to allow responsible individuals to gauge the performance of any institution from the Overall(all Fields)level,to the level of the Specialty.The methods may also assist identification of the root causes of shifts in institution rankings,and how these shifts vary across hundreds of thousands of Fields,Disciplines,and Specialties of scholarly endeavor.Originality/value:This study provides the first ranking of all academic institutions worldwide over Fields,Disciplines,and Specialties based on a unique methodology that quantifies the productivity,impact,and quality of individual scholars.

Changes and Adjustments:The Rule of Law Response to Medical Institution Data Compliance

Medical institution data compliance is an exogenous product of the digital society,serving as a crucial means to maintain and balance the relationship between data protection and data sharing,as well as individual interests and public interests.The implementation of the Healthy China Initiative greatly benefits from its practical significance.In practice,data from medical institutions takes varied forms,including personally identifiable data collected before diagnosis and treatment,clinical medical data generated during diagnosis and treatment,medical data collected in public health management,and potential medical data generated in daily life.In the new journey of comprehensively promoting the Chinese path to modernization,it is necessary to clarify the shift from an individual-oriented to a societal-oriented value system,highlighting the reinforcing role of the trust concept.Guided by the principle of minimizing data utilization,the focus is on the new developments and changes in medical institution data in the postpandemic era.This involves a series of measures such as fulfilling the obligation of notification and consent,specifying the scope of data collection and usage,strengthening the standardized use of relevant technical measures,and establishing a sound legal responsibility system for data compliance.Through these measures,a flexible and efficient medical institution data compliance system can be constructed.

Can We Manage Coastal Area? Will We?——The Institutional Change of the Coastal Area Management of Taiwan

The Coastal Zone Management Act was finally promulgated in 2015,while Ministry of the Interior was asked to draft a coastal management act in 1991 by Executive Yuan.It was until the government’s lifting of martial law in 1987,vigorous activities started prevailing on coastal areas.And relevant legal documents were on sea reclamation for development in the 1980’s by Council of Agriculture.The approval of“Taiwan Coastal Area Natural Environment Protection Plan”showed an era of environmental protection in 1980s.However,it was surely not market driven,similar to land development,but some efforts by the administration systems.Through all the years,the efforts were put on drafting plans and these efforts were not quite sounding.The coastal disasters and further climate change caught the attention of relevant NGOs,scholars,politicians,and the society.At the critical juncture the government was made to react to outside demands.And then the Coastal Zone Management Act was passed by Legislative Yuan,establishing an integrated coastal management system in Taiwan.As such,it is proposed to look into this long process of the attempt with the concept of institutional change in order to understand this coastal environmental preservation and protection issue in a broader scope.

System Assimilation of E-Skills in Tertiary Institutions to Empower Graduates in South Africa

The value of system assimilation is to improve working relationships between tutors and learners while increasing workflow efficiency among tertiary institutions with low operational costs. E-skills could be described as electronic education development, to assist ICT professionals to reach their future career goals and aim to help users boost their ICT skills. In a society that is expanding, it is also a crucial issue to take into account. Researchers have turned their attention to this topic because of its significance and contribution to the empowerment of graduates in digital education. Many scholars have proposed many methods for integrating e-skills into society with impressive results, but the rising rate of graduate unemployment in South Africa is gradually becoming a big worry in our society. A model based on Activity Theory (AT) and e-skills will be developed in our tertiary institution to equip graduates with skills that will increase their employability and provide more individualized work opportunities as part of this study’s effort to solve this issue. With the use of the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) and Cronbach’s Alpha for validity and reliability testing, the study will create an experimental performance to assess the approach taken to measure e-skills in tertiary institutions to empower graduates in South Africa. The study established that system development and e-skilled models for tertiary institutions are growing gradually, especially in South African institutions, that empower graduates with profitable employability with experiences to improve work operation in the industries. In conclusion, system development and e-skills are very demanding but important to empower graduate employability to determine competency in the professional workforce.

A Review on Determinants Affecting Commercialization of Academic Institution Final Year Projects

Final year project is an important training and assessment component incorporated in many courses of academic institution.The ability to translate ideas,research,and creativity into actual products,services,or businesses shows how successful and impactful people or institutions can be in the wider economy.However,in most of the cases,the outcomes of the final year project usually remain as academic discussion without maximizing their potential to be converted into a commercialized product or services.In this review,theory and applications are discussed to understand how entrepreneurial skills and networking abilities,components of individuals’human capital can impact the commercialisation of final year projects.Furthermore,determinants affecting commercialization of final year projects will also be explored namely:entrepreneurial skills,networking ability,access to resources,institutional support as well as creativity and innovation.

Analysis of the Current Situation of Drug Clinical Trial Institutions in Shaanxi Province

To understand the current situation of institutional registration in Shaanxi Province after the implementation ofregistration system management in drug clinical trial institutions.Relevant information was collected on the“Announcement on the Accreditation of Drug Clinical Trial Institutions”issued by the National Medical Products Administration from 2005 to August 2022,the record management information system of drug and medical device clinical trial institutions,and the drug clinical trial registration and information publicity platform.A retrospective analysis was carried out in terms of institutional development,regional distribution,registered majors,principal investigators,and the number of drug clinical trials.After the implementation of institution registration,the number of drug clinical trial institutions in Shaanxi Province increased by 47.4%,884 principal investigators were registered,the number of registered majors expanded from 58 qualified to 117,and the professional scope increased by 50.4%.The policy of institution registration is conducive to promoting the rational use of medical resources and the development of drug clinical trial institutions and improving the healthy development of the pharmaceutical industry in Shaanxi Province.

High-resolution forward-looking imaging algorithm for missile-borne detectors

Aiming at a novel missile-borne detector in the optional burst height proximity fuze, a self-adaptive high-resolution forward-looking imaging algorithm (SAHRFL-IA) is presented. The echo data are captured by the missile-borne detector in the target regions;thereby the azimuth angulation accuracy at the same distance dimension is improved dynamically. Thus, azimuth information of the targets in the detection area may be obtained accurately. The proposed imaging algorithm breaks through the conventional misconception of merely using azimuth discrimination curves under ideal conditions during monopulse angulation. The real-time echo data from the target region are used to perform error correction for this discrimination curve, and finally the accuracy of the azimuth angulation may reach the optimum at the same distance dimension. A series of experiments demonstrate the validity, reliability and high performance of the proposed imaging algorithm. Azimuth angulation accuracy may reach ten times that of the detection beam width. Meanwhile, the running time of this algorithm satisfies the requirements of missile-borne platforms.

RESEARCH ON THE BISTATIC FORWARD-LOOKING SAR IMAGING

The bistatic Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) systems with separate transmitter and receiver antennas provide a new potential to imaging in the forward-looking geometry. Analysis of the Doppler property in this paper indicates the feasibility of Bistatic Forward-Looking (BFL) SAR imaging. Considering the different Doppler property determined by the two platforms in BFL SAR, a new 2-D point target spectrum is derived in our study. Based on the spectrum, an imaging method is chosen for the configuration, and the point target simulation validates the analysis.

Nonlinear RCMC method for spaceborne/airborne forward-looking bistatic SAR

In the spaceborne/airborne forward-looking bistatic syn- thetic aperture radar （SA-FBSAR）, due to the system platforms＇ remarkable velocity difference and the forward-looking mode, the range cell migration （RCM） not only depends on the target＇s two- dimensional location, but also varies with the range location non- linearly. And the nonlinearity is not just the slight deviation from the linear part, but exhibits evident nonlinear departure in the RCM trajectory. If the RCM is not properly corrected, nonlinear image distortions would occur. Based on the RCM model, a modified two-step RCM compensation （RCMC） method for SA-FBSAR is proposed. In this method, firstly the azimuth-dependent RCM is compensated by the scaling Fourier transform and the phase multi- plication. And then the range-dependent RCM is removed through interpolation. The effectiveness of the proposed RCMC method is verified by the simulation results of both point scatterers and area targets.

Property analysis of bistatic forward-looking SAR with arbitrary geometry

Bistatic forward-looking synthetic aperture radar（SAR） has many advantages and applications owing to its twodimensional imaging capability.There could be various imaging configurations because of the geometric flexibility of bistatic platforms,resulting in kinds of models built independently among which there could be some similar even the same motion features.Comprehensive research on such systems in a more comprehensive and general point of view is required to address their difference and consistency.Property analysis of bistatic forwardlooking SAR with arbitrary geometry is achieved including stripmap and spotlight modes on airborne platform,missile-borne platform,and hybrid platform of both.Emphasis is placed on azimuth space variance of some key parameters significantly affecting the subsequent imaging processing,based on which the frequency spectra are further described and compared considering respective features of different platforms for frequency imaging algorithm developing.Simulation results confirm the effectiveness and correctness of our analysis.

＂Institutionalization＂ as Weapons of the Weak： ASEAN Countries and the South China Sea Disputes

＂Institutionalization＂ can be understood as a process of norm and law setting to regulate and control individual attitudes. An institutionalized area could be more stable and ordered, then the relationships between the factors can be identified by the predicted signals. Institutions can help to provide a key form of such frameworks, through which all states, but especially the stronger states, can use rules and other normative expectations of conduct in the international relation. Weaker states, in return, gain limits on the action of the leading states and access to the political process, in which they can press their interests. This article analyzes the disputes in the South China Sea~, particularly between China and ASEAN countries to prove the argument. It is argued that ASEAN, in the situation of power asymmetry between dominant （power-holders） and dominated groups, has used ＂institution＂ and ＂institutionalization＂ as a countermeasure to constrain the powerful China in the two ways： （1） trying to lock-in China in a rule-based order, in order to restrict its power, and （2） by institutionalizing the way in which the disputes in the South China Sea should be resolved, ASEAN countries want to create a frameworks for setting rules of games, which are shaped by principles and norms instead of balance-of-power.

Railway Track Verification Using a Forward-Looking SAR GPR

It is a challenge to evaluate the conditions of railway track without interruption of regular traffic. In this paper, the authors introduce the detection of cavities under the railway substructure by using forward-looking ground penetrating radar （FLGPR）. Main advantages of FLGPR are that such a system can illuminate a large area and can stand off a long distance over its down-looking counterpart. Two methods, frequency wave-number （F-W） synthetic aperture imaging （SAI） and beam-forming by delay and sum （DAS）, are applied to process the collected data. Analysis and measuring show that the distinct radar image of the cavity beneath the substructure 1.2 m deep can be formed by these two methods.

The Institutionalization of Life Cycle Assessment in Mexico

This article presents a study of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) at a slaughterhouse located in north-western Mexico with the purpose of testing the premise of a low degree of institutionalization of Industrial Ecology in Mexico. The article aims at analyzing the current role played by the Mexican academia in increasing the degree of institutionalization of the concept of LCA in northwestern Mexico. There was conducted a life cycle analysis study according to the standards ISO 14040: 2006, NMX-SAA-14040-IMNC-2008NOM in a Federally Inspected Type (TIF by Spanish acronym) Slaughterhouse in the state of Sonora in Northwest Mexico. The slaughter process was characterized by observing the production tasks during several walkthroughs the production lines and by having short interviews with workers, supervisors, and the manager. The CH4 emissions were calculated using the guidelines suggested by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC 2006). The present LCA case study revealed opportunities for improving the environmental performance of the slaughterhouse by taking measures such as the reduction of CH4 from enteric fermentation since methane was one of the main greenhouse gases responsible for climate change. Although, the LCA generated reliable information in terms of climate change or water eutrophication, the chances of implementing sustainable initiatives were unlikely because the benefits to reduce the impacts to climate change or to reduce the water crisis would be unnoticeable and unaffordable for companies. Findings in this study also confirmed the importance of Mexican universities for promoting and conducting more LCA studies among private and public organizations in order to guide firms towards this tool. The case study here presented gives insights to LCA stakeholders in Mexico to implement or improve the effectiveness of their potential LCA initiatives through the identification of strategies, opportunities, and barriers.

Monetary policy rules：Forward-looking and backward-looking in an overlapping generations model

In the framework of an overlapping generations model, forward-looking monetary policy roles and backward-looking monetary policy rules were investigated. It is shown that the monetary steady state is more likely to be indeterminate under an active forwardlooking rule than under the corresponding backward-looking rule. It is also shown that backward-looking roles can render the monetary steady state unstable.

Sparse three-dimensional imaging for forward-looking array SAR using spatial continuity

For forward-looking array synthetic aperture radar(FASAR),the scattering intensity of ground scatterers fluctuates greatly since there are kinds of vegetations and topography on the surface of the ground,and thus the signal-to-noise ratio(SNR)of its echo signals corresponding to different vegetations and topography also varies obviously.Owing to the reason known to all,the performance of the sparse reconstruction of compressed sensing(CS)becomes worse in the case of lower SNR,and the quality of the sparse three-dimensional imaging for FASAR would be affected significantly in the practical application.In this paper,the spatial continuity of the ground scatterers is introduced to the sparse recovery algorithm of CS in the threedimensional imaging for FASAR,in which the weighted least square method of the cubic interpolation is used to filter out the bad and isolated scatterer.The simulation results show that the proposed method can realize the sparse three-dimensional imaging of FASAR more effectively in the case of low SNR.

Institutionalization of Surveillance in Nigeria, a Benchmarking of the Brazilian Fiscal Responsibility Act

Nigeria ranks among the countries with the highest fiscal indiscipline in the globe regardless of the parameters used. The country has also a weak tax collection system which results in tax evasion, and there is insignificant revenue, thus making the state and the municipalities dependent on federal allocations. The current study objectifies to propose the enactment of the Fiscal Responsibility Act （FRA） for the Nigerian Public Administration based on the frameworks implemented in Brazil. As a glance, the basic arithmetic that guides the Act is spending must equal revenue. The study is anchored on the premise that the FRA brings innumerable benefits to the populace by stabilizing public spending and paving way for a consistent budgetary forecast and its compliance thereby contributing to uphold transparency. Methodologically wise, the study adopts a case study approach and also used the interpretative style in order to strive on the action needed, which tends to be interventionist. Upon analysis of the secondary documents at our disposal, we conclude that control tools such as the SIAFEM system which is the backbone of FRA will be an essential artifact to institutionalize surveillance and also assist the Nigerian government in curtailing spending and also orientate accountability at all levels be it federal, state or municipal.

The Process of Environmental Institutionalization in Mozambique

The late 1980s began a transition from a centrally planned economic system to a market economy in Mozambique. This transition was marked by a gradual decentralization of public administration and the cross consideration of environmental issues. In our times, research and environmental studies are globally centrals to multiples fields of knowledge, based on this we try to reflect on the process of institutionalization of environmental issues in Mozambique. Our goal is to analytically explorer the political, social and economic contours that allow characterizing the beginning of this process. This article is the result of exploratory research using the qualitative method of analysis. The results showed that the beginning of the environmental issue institutionalization process in Mozambique was the result of various government initiatives and financial demands inherent in the development process, and filled in rhetorical strategies of different styles and motives, being pierced by political conflicts and fmancial, both at the state level as the meagerly existing civil society in this period. In this paper, we present and analyzed the socio-historical circumstances that interspersed the process of environmental institutionalization, indicating exogenous and endogenous factors that proved decisive for the current environmental institutional status in Mozambique.

E-Government in Social and Economic Development： The Asymmetric Roles of Information, Institutionalization and Diffusion

There are documented differences between the success and failure factors in the developed and developing countries with regard to the adoption and embracement of Openness in e-Government practice models. This paper posits that e-Government constitutes a critical context for social and economic development in both developed and developing countries. The paper also suggests that e-Government encompasses more than just technology, that is, attempts to highlight the social and economic implications of changes that have occurred in recent years as a result of the transparency and accountability of government and how software usage can influence digital inclusion, trust and privacy and possible strategies to eliminate the digital divide by encouraging greater public and commercial use and re-use of government information through putting govermnent data on the Web. In addition to leveraging economic development, e-Government also helps to stream line govemment services to more social based values of inclusion and citizens＇ participation, accessibility and power relationship ratios. Although e-Government is not a new phenomenon in most developed countries such as the US, UK, Japan, most of the European countries and some developing countries in Asia and Africa which have already announced their Open Government Initiatives and data portals it also leads to greater information asymmetry among citizens and government and also, institutionalization and diffusion asymmetry of the practice of the current Openness in e-Government models within developed and developing countries. Drawing on organizational decision-making research and following the explorative and grounded based research approach the findings of this research are that the information asymmetry between citizens and government and asymmetry in institutionalization and diffusion within developed and developing countries are widely attributed to socio-economic and political variations in developed and developing countries. Unless these differences are skill fully identified and accommodated as such into the development and use models, Openness in e-Government efforts would not help achieve the social and economic development goals by both developed and developing countries.