An agent-based model of agricultural land expansion in the mountain forest of Timor Island,Indonesia

The Mutis-Timau Forest Complex,located on Timor Island,Indonesia,is a mountainous tropical forest area that gradually decreases due to deforestation and forest degradation.Previous modelling studies based on patterns indicate that deforestation primarily occurs at lower elevations and near the boundaries of forests and settlements,often associated with shifting cultivation by local farmers.This study adopts a process-based modelling approach,specifically the agent-based model,to simulate land changes,particularly farmers'expansion of agricultural land around the Mutis mountain forest.The underlying concept of this agent-based approach is the interaction between the human and environmental systems.Farmers,representing the human system,interact with the land,which represents the environmental system,through land use decision-making mechanisms.The research was conducted in the Community Forest of the Timor Tengah Utara District,one of the sites within the Mutis-Timau Forest Complex with the highest deforestation rate.Land use change simulations were performed using agent-based modelling from 1999 to 2030,considering the socio-economic conditions of farmers,spatial preferences,land use decisions,and natural transitions.The results revealed that the agricultural area increased by 14%under the Business as Usual scenario and 5%under the Reducing Emission from Deforestation and Forest Degradation scenario,compared to the initial agricultural area of 245 hectares.The probability of farmers deciding to extend agricultural activities was positively associated with the number of livestock maintained by farmers and the size of the village area.Conversely,the likelihood of farmers opting for agricultural extensification decreased with an increase in the area of private land and the farmer's age.These findings are crucial for the managers of the Mutis-Timau Forest Complex and other relevant stakeholders,as they aid in arranging actions to combat deforestation,designing proper forest-related policies,and providing support for initiatives such as reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation programs or further incentive schemes.

Modification of streamer-to-leader transition model based on radial thermal expansion in the sphere-plane gap discharge at high altitude

Historically,streamer-to-leader transition studies mainly focused on the rod-plane gap and low altitude analysis,with limited attention paid to the sphere-plane gap at high altitude analysis.In this work,sphere-plane gap discharge tests were carried out under the gap distance of 5 m at the Qinghai Ultra High Voltage(UHV)test base at an altitude of 2200 m.The experiments measured the physical parameters such as the discharge current,electric field intensity and instantaneous optical power.The duration of the dark period and the critical charge of streamer-toleader transition were obtained at high altitude.Based on radial thermal expansion of the streamer stem,we established a modified streamer-to-leader transition model of the sphere-plane gap discharge at high altitude,and calculated the stem temperature,stem radii and the duration of streamer-to-leader transition.Compared with the measured duration of sphere-plane electrode discharge at an altitude of 2200 m,the error rate of the modified model was 0.94%,while the classical model was 6.97%,demonstrating the effectiveness of the modified model.From the comparisons and analysis,several suggestions are proposed to improve the numerical model for further quantitative investigations of the leader inception.

From the Hubble Constant to the Black Hole Model. Universe Expansion with Matter Creation and a New Perspective on Dark Energy Observations

Comparison of the Hubble parameter with cosmological quantities strongly supports the black hole model for the description of the Universe evolution. Such evolution requires matter creation and has implications for what is currently referred to as “dark energy” and the “cosmological constant”.

A new expansion method of first order nonlinear ordinary differential equation with at most a sixth-degree nonlinear term and its application to mBBM model

Based on a first order nonlinear ordinary differential equation with at most a sixth-degree nonlinear term which is extended from a type of elliptic equation, and by converting it into a new expansion form, this paper proposes a new algebraic method to construct exact solutions for nonlinear evolution equations. Being concise and straightforward, the method is applied to modified Benjamin-Bona-Mahony （mBBM） model, and some new exact solutions to the system are obtained. The algorithm is of important significance in exploring exact solutions for other nonlinear evolution equations.

Influence of particle contact models on soil response of poorly graded sand during cavity expansion in discrete element simulation

The discrete element method(DEM) has been extensively adopted to investigate many complex geotechnical related problems due to its capability to incorporate the discontinuous nature of granular materials. In particular, when simulating large deformations or distortion of soil(e.g. cavity expansion),DEM can be very effective as other numerical solutions may experience convergence problems. Cavity expansion theory has widespread applications in geotechnical engineering, particularly to the problems concerning in situ testing, pile installation and so forth. In addition, the behaviour of geomaterials in a macro-level is utterly determined by microscopic properties, highlighting the importance of contact models. Despite the fact that there are numerous contact models proposed to mimic the realistic behaviour of granular materials, there are lack of studies on the effects of these contact models on the soil response.Hence, in this study, a series of three-dimensional numerical simulations with different contact constitutive models was conducted to simulate the response of sandy soils during cylindrical cavity expansion. In this numerical investigation, three contact models, i.e. linear contact model, rolling resistance contact model,and Hertz contact model, are considered. It should be noted that the former two models are linear based models, providing linearly elastic and frictional plasticity behaviours, whereas the latter one consists of nonlinear formulation based on an approximation of the theory of Mindlin and Deresiewicz. To examine the effects of these contact models, several cylindrical cavities were created and expanded gradually from an initial radius of 0.055 m to a final radius of 0.1 m. The numerical predictions confirm that the calibrated contact models produced similar results regarding the variations of cavity pressure, radial stress, deviatoric stress, volumetric strain, as well as the soil radial displacement. However, the linear contact model may result in inaccurate predictions when highly angular soil particles are involved. In addition, considering the excessive soil displacement induced by the pile installation(i.e. cavity expansion), a minimum distance of11 a(a is the cavity radius) is recommend for practicing engineers to avoid the potential damages to the existing piles and adjacent structures.

Functional Integrals and Variational-Cumulant Expansion in sine-Gordon-Thirring Model

The free energy in 1D sine-Gordon- Thirring model with impurity coupling is studied by means of functional integrals and variational-cumulant expansion methods. Two variational parameters are introduced to evaluate free energy and statistical averages. It is shown that the non-perturbation method of functional integrals can be applied to strongcoupling range of fcrmion systems.

Using Multi-agent System for Residential Expansion Models——A Case Study of Hongshan District,Wuhan City

Residential expansion is gaining more and more attention from government authorities and urban planners.However,most of the current urban models focus heavily on presenting economic,political and ecological objectives of urban development,while seldom taking the effects of human behavior into consideration.Multi-agent systems for land use/cover change(MAS/LUCC),which mainly concern the behavioral effects of stakeholders on the processes of land use/cover change,are promising to fill the gap.This article,based on the concepts of MAS/LUCC model,con-structs a multi-agent system for residential expansion model(MAS/RE)through the analysis of the behavior of gov-ernment authorities and households.The model takes complex human actions into account,namely urban master plan-ning,planning review and approval,policies of traffic,economy and environment,location and allocation choices of the households and their interrelationships.Taking Hongshan District of Wuhan City,Hubei Province as an illustration,the model is implemented on Arc/info platform to simulate residential expansion between 1996 and 2002.The study result shows that the model is suitable for understanding the process of residential expansion with the effects of human actions,and is especially effective for its capacity in presenting spatio-temporal and behavioral complexity.Therefore,the model can be a reference for policy-making for government authorities and urban planners.

Entity generation algorithm based on reference expansion

The extraction and understanding of text knowledge become increasingly crucial in the age of big data.One of the current research areas in the field of natural language processing(NLP)is how to accurately understand the text and collect accurate linguistic information because Chinese vocabulary is diverse and ambiguous.This paper mainly studies the candidate entity generation module of the entity link system.The candidate entity generation module constructs an entity reference expansion algorithm to improve the recall rate of candidate entities.In order to improve the efficiency of the connection algorithm of the entire system while ensuring the recall rate of candidate entities,we design a graph model filtering algorithm that fuses shallow semantic information to filter the list of candidate entities,and verify and analyze the efficiency of the algorithm through experiments.By analyzing the related technology of the entity linking algorithm,we study the related technology of candidate entity generation and entity disambiguation,improve the traditional entity linking algorithm,and give an innovative and practical entity linking model.The recall rate exceeds 82%,and the link accuracy rate exceeds 73%.Efficient and accurate entity linking can help machines to better understand text semantics,further promoting the development of NLP and improving the users’knowledge acquisition experience on the text.

Fractional derivative statistical damage model of unsaturated expansive soil based on unified hydraulic effect

Unsaturated expansive soil is widely distributed in China and has complex engineering properties.This paper proposes the unified hydraulic effect shear strength theory of unsaturated expansive soil based on the effective stress principle,swelling force principle,and soil–water characteristics.Considering the viscoelasticity and structural damage of unsaturated expansive soil during loading,a fractional hardening–damage model of unsaturated expansive soil was established.The model parameters were established on the basis of the proposed calculation method of shear strength and the triaxial shear experiment on unsaturated expansive soil.The proposed model was verified by the experimental data and a traditional damage model.The proposed model can satisfactorily describe the entire process of the strain-hardening law of unsaturated expansive soil.Finally,by investigating the damage variables of the proposed model,it was found that:(a)when the values of confining pressure and matric suction are close,the coupling of confining pressure and matric suction contributes more to the shear strength;(b)there is a damage threshold for unsaturated expansive soil,and is mainly reflected by strength criterion of infinitesimal body;(c)the strain hardening law of unsaturated expansive soil is mainly reflected by fractional derivative operator.

Analytical Model of Elastic Modulus and Coefficient of Thermal Expansion for 2.5D C/SiC Composite

To make better use of 2.5D C/SiC composites in industry, it is necessary to understand the mechanical properties. A finite element model＇of 2.5D composites is established, by considering the fiber undulation and the porosity in 2.5D C/SiC composites. The fiber direction of warp is defined by cosine function to simulate the undulation of warp, and based on uniform strain assumption, analytical model of the elastic modulus and coefficient of thermal expansion （CTE） for 2.5D C/SiC composites were established by using dual- scale model. The result is found to correlate reasonably well with the predicted results and experimental results. The parametric study also demonstrates the effects of the fiber volume fraction, distance of warp yarn, and porosity in micro-scale on the mechanical properties and the coefficients of thermal expansion.

High mobility channel estimation method based on improved basis expansion model

In this paper, the problem of high mobility channel estimation in the Long-Term Evolution for Railway (LTE-R) communication system is investigated. By using a Basis Expansion Model (BEM), the channel impulse response is modeled as the sum of several basis functions multiplied by coefficients. By estimating the basis function coefficients, the fast time-varying channel can be approximated. In order to reduce the estimation error resulting from the high frequency basis function, the Generalized Complex Exponential BEM (GCE-BEM) is modified to form an Improved GCE-BEM (IGCE-BEM) by adding a correction coefficient to the basis function. Moreover, an Improved Baseline Tilting (IBT) method is proposed to reduce the Gibbs effect. In addition, linear interpolation, Gauss interpolation, and three-order Hermite interpolation are adopted to obtain the channel impulse response at non pilot locations based on the channel estimation results at pilot positions. The simulation results show that the IGCE-BEM outperforms the CE-BEM and GCE-BEM in terms of the Normalized Mean Squared Error (NMSE). The IB T method is better than the BT method in reducing the Gibbs effect. In addition, combined with the IBT, the IGCE-BEM also has low NMSE under high moving speed and high noise power. The performance of the threeorder Hermite interpolation method is higher than that of the linear interpolation and Gauss interpolation approaches.

The Effect of Urban Agglomeration Expansion on PM_(2.5) Concentrations: Evidence from a Quasi-natural Experiment

This study constructs a quasi-natural experiment based on the expansion of the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration(YRDUA) of China in 2010 to investigate the impact and inner mechanism of urban agglomeration expansion on fine particulate matter(PM_(2.5)) concentrations through propensity scores in difference-in-differences models(PSM-DID) using panel data from 286 prefecturelevel cities in China from 2003 to 2016. The results show that 1) urban agglomeration expansion contributes to an overall decrease in PM_(2.5)concentration, which is mainly achieved from the original cities. For the new cities, on the other hand, the expansion significantly increases the local PM_(2.5)concentration. 2) In the long term, the significant influence of urban agglomeration expansion on PM_(2.5)concentration lasts for three years and gradually decreases. A series of robustness tests confirm the applicability of the PSM-DID model.3) Cities with weaker government regulation, a better educated population and higher per capita income present stronger PM_(2.5)reduction effects. 4) Urban agglomeration expansion affects the PM_(2.5)concentration mainly through industrial transfer and population migration, which cause a decrease in the PM_(2.5)concentration in the original cities and an increase in the PM_(2.5)concentration in the new cities.Corresponding policy suggestions are proposed based on the conclusions.

Deep learning-based time-varying channel estimation with basis expansion model for MIMO-OFDM system

For high-speed mobile MIMO-OFDM system,a low-complexity deep learning(DL) based timevarying channel estimation scheme is proposed.To reduce the number of estimated parameters,the basis expansion model(BEM) is employed to model the time-varying channel,which converts the channel estimation into the estimation of the basis coefficient.Specifically,the initial basis coefficients are firstly used to train the neural network in an offline manner,and then the high-precision channel estimation can be obtained by small number of inputs.Moreover,the linear minimum mean square error(LMMSE) estimated channel is considered for the loss function in training phase,which makes the proposed method more practical.Simulation results show that the proposed method has a better performance and lower computational complexity compared with the available schemes,and it is robust to the fast time-varying channel in the high-speed mobile scenarios.

Derivation of a second-order model for Reynolds stress using renormalization group analysis and the two-scale expansion technique

With the two-scale expansion technique proposed by Yoshizawa,the turbulent fluctuating field is expanded around the isotropic field.At a low-order two-scale expansion,applying the mode coupling approximation in the Yakhot-Orszag renormalization group method to analyze the fluctuating field,the Reynolds-average terms in the Reynolds stress transport equation,such as the convective term,the pressure-gradient-velocity correlation term and the dissipation term,are modeled.Two numerical examples：turbulent flow past a backward-facing step and the fully developed flow in a rotating channel,are presented for testing the efficiency of the proposed second-order model.For these two numerical examples,the proposed model performs as well as the Gibson-Launder （GL） model,giving better prediction than the standard k-ε model,especially in the abilities to calculate the secondary flow in the backward-facing step flow and to capture the asymmetric turbulent structure caused by frame rotation.

Simultaneous synthesis of sub and above-ambient heat exchanger networks including expansion process based on an enhanced superstructure model

Synthesis of heat exchanger networks including expansion process is a complex task due to the involvement of both heat and work.A stream that expands through expanders can produce work and cold load,while expansion through valves barely affects heat integration.In addition,expansion through expanders at higher temperature produces more work,but consumes more hot utility.Therefore,there is a need to weigh work production and heat consumption.To this end,an enhanced stage-wise superstructure is proposed that involves synchronous optimization of expander/valve placement and heat integration for each pressure-change sub-stream in stages.A mixed-integer nonlinear programming(MINLP)model is established for synthesizing sub and aboveambient heat exchanger networks with multi-stream expansion,which explicitly considers the optimized selection of end-heaters and end-coolers to adjust temperature requirement.Our proposed method can commendably achieve the optimal selection of expanders and valves in a bid for minimizing exergy consumption and total annual cost.Four example studies are conducted with two distinct objective function(minimization of exergy consumption and total annual cost,respectively)to illustrate the feasibility and efficacy of the proposed method.

Exact Generator and its High Order Expansions in Time-Convolutionless Generalized Master Equation:Applications to Spin-Boson Model and Exictation Energy Transfer

The time-convolutionless （TCL） quantum master equation provides a powerful tool to simulate reduced dynanfics of a quantum system coupled to a bath. The key quantity ill the TCL master equation is the so-called kernel or generator, which describes eflhcts of the bath degrees of freedom. Since the exact TCL generators are usually hard to calculate analytically, most applications of the TCL generalized master equation have relied on approximate generators using second and fourth order perturbative expansions. By using the hierarchical equation of motion （HEOM） and extended HEOM methods, we present a new approach to calculating the exact TCL generator and its high order perturbative expansions. The new approach is applied to the spin-boson model with diflhrent sets of parameters, to investigate the convergence of the high order expansiolls of the TCL generator. We also discuss circumstances where the exact TCL generator becomes singular for the spin-boson model, and a model of excitation energy transfer in the Fenna-Matthews-Olson complex.

Wave propagation of the traffic flow dynamic model based on wavefront expansion

This paper discusses propagation of perturbations along traffic flow modeled by a modified second-order macroscopic model through the wavefront expansion technique. The coefficients in this expansion satisfy a sequence of transport equations that can be solved analytically. One of these analytic solutions yields information about wavefront shock. Numerical simulations based on a Padé approximation of this expansion were done at the end of this paper and results showed that propagation of perturbations at traffic flow speed conforms to the theoretical analysis results.

ESTIMATION OF BASIS EXPANSION MODELS FOR DOUBLY SELECTIVE CHANNELS

By analyzing the relationship between Basis Expansion Model (BEM) and Doppler spectrum, this letter proposed a quasi-MMSE-based BEM estimation scheme for doubly selective channels. Based on the assumption that the basis coefficients are approximately independent and have the same variance for the same channel tap, the quasi-MMSE estimation shows approximately optimal performance and is robust to noise. Moreover, it can avoid a high Peak-to-Average Power Ratio (PAPR) by using continuous pilots. Performance of the proposed estimation scheme has been shown with computer simulations.

Study on Model Predictive Control to Minimize Movements in Positions Due to Thermal Expansion of Plate with Varying Generation of Heat

Precise temperature control to decrease movements in positions due to thermal expansion of work pieces is required in the manufacturing processes to achieve nanometer-order accuracy. We analytically examined the effect of a method of minimizing movements in positions on a plate with varying generation of noise-heat. Control by monitoring temperature changes caused larger movements in positions than that without control because maximum change in temperature occurred at non-monitoring positions. The best method of minimizing movements in positions due to thermal expansion of a plate with varying generation of noise-heat was model predictive control by the monitoring movements and distributed temperature changes in the control heater according to the effects of the generation of noise-heat. The maximum movement in positions was 6 nm, which was 1/4 times of that without control.

Chapman-Enskog Expansion and Transport Coefficients for the NJL Model

The transport equation for the Nambu-Jona-Lasinio (NJL) model isderived phenomenologically. The finite-temperature effective mass for the quarkis analysed, By means of the Chapman-Enskog method and hydrodynamic ap-proach the different transport coefficients for the NJL plasma are calculated tothe first order in the relaxation time.