Approach to Improving TT&C Coverage Rate of LEO and MEO Spacecrafts in China

With the rapid increase of number and types of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) spacecrafts in China, the insufficiency of TT&C resources is exposed.How to improve LEO and MEO TT&C coverage rate has become the key problem of TT&C system,which should be resolved urgently. Firstly,the basic concepts of TT&C coverage are discussed and the relation between TT&C coverage of ground station and geography latitude of ground station as well as spacecraft altitude are analyzed. Secondly,the United States NASA TT&C network is taken as an instance to describe the developing process of TT&C network. Finally,in combination with TT&C activities of LEO and MEO spacecrafts in China,the method to heighten TT&C coverage rate is put forward,such as rational establishing station,space resources application,international TT&C cooperation etc.

Detecting the distribution of and public attitudes to charismatic alien species based on media coverage

Charismatic species are often reported by the media,providing information for detecting population status and public perception.To identify the number and distribution of free-living Black Swan(Cygnus atratus),a charismatic alien species in Chinese mainland and to detect the public and the media attitudes to the species,we analyzed the reports and emotional tendency from media coverage in 2000-2022 using manual reading,crawler extraction and latent Dirichlet allocation.A total of 6654 Black Swans were reported at 711 sites,including 147 individuals at 30 nature reserves.Successful breeding was reported at one-fourth of the total sites,including five nature reserves.The proportion of positive emotional tendency to Black Swans was overwhelming in the reports and was higher than that to alien species in general,suggesting that the public and the media are unaware of the risk of biological invasion.Effective management of invasive species requires the media clarifies the invasion risk of charismatic alien species.Promoting the unity between the harmfulness of abstract concept of alien species and the charisma of a specific alien species among the public help effective management.

Modern Corrosion Mapping of Storage Tank Bottoms--Notable Advancements in Critical Zone Coverage,Inspection Efficiency and Data Integrity

Every day,an NDT(Non-Destructive Testing)report will govern key decisions and inform inspection strategies that could affect the flow of millions of dollars which ultimately affects local environments and potential risk to life.There is a direct correlation between report quality and equipment capability.The more able the equipment is-in terms of efficient data gathering,signal to noise ratio,positioning,and coverage-the more actionable the report is.This results in optimal maintenance and repair strategies providing the report is clear and well presented.Furthermore,when considering tank floor storage inspection it is essential that asset owners have total confidence in inspection findings and the ensuing reports.Tank floor inspection equipment must not only be efficient and highly capable,but data sets should be traceable and integrity maintained throughout.Corrosion mapping of large surface areas such as storage tank bottoms is an inherently arduous and time-consuming process.MFL(magnetic flux leakage)based tank bottom scanners present a well-established and highly rated method for inspection.There are many benefits of using modern MFL technology to generate actionable reports.Chief among these includes efficiency of coverage while gaining valuable information regarding defect location,severity,surface origin and the extent of coverage.More recent advancements in modern MFL tank bottom scanners afford the ability to scan and record data sets at areas of the tank bottom which were previously classed as dead zones or areas not scanned due to physical restraints.An example of this includes scanning the CZ(critical zone)which is the area close to the annular to shell junction weld.Inclusion of these additional dead zones increases overall inspection coverage,quality and traceability.Inspection of the CZ areas allows engineers to quickly determine the integrity of arguably the most important area of the tank bottom.Herein we discuss notable developments in CZ coverage,inspection efficiency and data integrity that combines to deliver an actionable report.The asset owner can interrogate this report to develop pertinent and accurate maintenance and repair strategies.

Deployment optimization for target perpetual coverage in energy harvesting wireless sensor network

Energy limitation of traditional Wireless Sensor Networks(WSNs)greatly confines the network lifetime due to generating and processing massive sensing data with a limited battery.The energy harvesting WSN is a novel network architecture to address the limitation of traditional WSN.However,existing coverage and deployment schemes neglect the environmental correlation of sensor nodes and external energy with respect to physical space.Comprehensively considering the spatial correlation of the environment and the uneven distribution of energy in energy harvesting WSN,we investigate how to deploy a collection of sensor nodes to save the deployment cost while ensuring the target perpetual coverage.The Confident Information Coverage(CIC)model is adopted to formulate the CIC Minimum Deployment Cost Target Perpetual Coverage(CICMTP)problem to minimize the deployed sensor nodes.As the CICMTP is NP-hard,we devise two approximation algorithms named Local Greedy Threshold Algorithm based on CIC(LGTA-CIC)and Overall Greedy Search Algorithm based on CIC(OGSA-CIC).The LGTA-CIC has a low time complexity and the OGSA-CIC has a better approximation rate.Extensive simulation results demonstrate that the OGSA-CIC is able to achieve lower deployment cost and the performance of the proposed algorithms outperforms GRNP,TPNP and EENP algorithms.

How to fill the biodiversity data gap:Is it better to invest in fieldwork or curation?

Data gaps and biases are two important issues that affect the quality of biodiversity information and downstream results.Understanding how best to fill existing gaps and account for biases is necessary to improve our current information most effectively.Two current main approaches for obtaining and improving data include(1)curation of biological collections,and(2)fieldwork.However,the comparative effectiveness of these approaches in improving biodiversity data remains little explored.We used the Flora de Bogota project to study the magnitude of change in species richness,spatial coverage,and sample coverage of plant records based on curation versus fieldwork.The process of curation resulted in a decrease in species richness(synonym and error removal),but it significantly increased the number of records per species.Fieldwork contributed to a slight increase in species richness,via accumulation of new records.Additionally,curation led to increases in spatial coverage,species observed by locality,the number of plant records by species,and localities by species compared to fieldwork.Overall,curationwas more efficient in producing new information compared to fieldwork,mainly because of the large number of records available in herbaria.We recommend intensive curatorial work as the first step in increasing biodiversity data quality and quantity,to identify bias and gaps at the regional scale that can then be targeted with fieldwork.The stepwise strategy would enable fieldwork to be planned more costeffectively given the limited resources for biodiversity exploration and characterization.

Mega-Constellations Based TT&C Resource Sharing: Keep Reliable Aeronautical Communication in an Emergency

With the development of the transportation industry, the effective guidance of aircraft in an emergency to prevent catastrophic accidents remains one of the top safety concerns. Undoubtedly, operational status data of the aircraft play an important role in the judgment and command of the Operational Control Center(OCC). However, how to transmit various operational status data from abnormal aircraft back to the OCC in an emergency is still an open problem. In this paper, we propose a novel Telemetry, Tracking,and Command(TT&C) architecture named Collaborative TT&C(CoTT&C) based on mega-constellation to solve such a problem. CoTT&C allows each satellite to help the abnormal aircraft by sharing TT&C resources when needed, realizing real-time and reliable aeronautical communication in an emergency. Specifically, we design a dynamic resource sharing mechanism for CoTT&C and model the mechanism as a single-leader-multi-follower Stackelberg game. Further, we give an unique Nash Equilibrium(NE) of the game as a closed form. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed resource sharing mechanism is effective, incentive compatible, fair, and reciprocal. We hope that our findings can shed some light for future research on aeronautical communications in an emergency.

Coverage and Factors Associated with Acceptance and Satisfaction of Seasonal Malaria Chemoprevention in Six Health Zones in Benin

Introduction: Seasonal malaria chemoprevention (SMC) was adopted in 2019 in two health zones in Benin where malaria transmission is very high. Positive results led to the extension of the intervention to other zones with additional financial support. Annual SMC campaigns from 2021 to 2023 were carried out in all six health zones in the Atacora and Alibori departments. In five years of implementation, various approaches have been developed on the basis of a communication plan facilitating buy-in and acceptance by all stakeholders. The aim of this study was to assess the effective coverage and acceptance of the SMC by their beneficiary populations in 2023. Methods: It was a cross-sectional study with an analytical focus. Data collection took place from November 30 to December 13, 2023. The study population consisted of children under 5 years of age residing in the departments of Atacora and Alibori in northern Benin. A total of 3573 children under 5 years of age were included in the study, and their parents or guardians were interviewed. Results: During the 2023 campaign, 87.7% of targets were reached by SMC administration and 100.00% of children had received at least one dose of SMC by the fourth visit. Effective therapeutic coverage of SMC was 70.55%, with 99.60% in BNK, 69.40% in KGS, 16.20% in MK, 56.10% in 2KP, 92.40% in NBT and 89.60% in TMC. This coverage was statistically related to child and respondent ages (p Conclusion: SMC is a strategy accepted by the population, and the main reasons for non-participation in SMC were dominated by the absence of mothers or babysitters when the agents visited.

Models to Simulate Effective Coverage of Fire Station Based on Real-Time Travel Times

In recent years,frequent fire disasters have led to enormous damage in China.Effective firefighting rescues can minimize the losses caused by fires.During the rescue processes,the travel time of fire trucks can be severely affected by traffic conditions,changing the effective coverage of fire stations.However,it is still challenging to determine the effective coverage of fire stations considering dynamic traffic conditions.This paper addresses this issue by combining the traveling time calculationmodelwith the effective coverage simulationmodel.In addition,it proposes a new index of total effective coverage area(TECA)based on the time-weighted average of the effective coverage area(ECA)to evaluate the urban fire services.It also selects China as the case study to validate the feasibility of the models,a fire station(FS-JX)in Changsha.FS-JX station and its surrounding 9,117 fire risk points are selected as the fire service supply and demand points,respectively.A total of 196 simulation scenarios throughout a consecutiveweek are analyzed.Eventually,1,933,815 sets of valid sample data are obtained.The results showed that the TECA of FS-JX is 3.27 km^(2),which is far below the standard requirement of 7.00 km^(2) due to the traffic conditions.The visualization results showed that three rivers around FS-JX interrupt the continuity of its effective coverage.The proposed method can provide data support to optimize the locations of fire stations by accurately and dynamically determining the effective coverage of fire stations.

Hepatitis B Vaccination Coverage among University Students in Sub-Saharan Africa: Systematic Review and Meta Analysis

Introduction: Hepatitis B is an infectious disease that remains a real public health problem in Africa. Students represent a group at risk for this disease. The objective of this study was to estimate the hepatitis B vaccination coverage rate among students in sub-Saharan Africa. Methods: A systematic search of databases (PubMed, AJOL) and a manual search of Google Scholar was conducted to retrieve all published studies reporting hepatitis B vaccination coverage among students in sub-Saharan Africa. The pooled coverage rate was estimated with a 95% confidence interval (CI) in a random-effects meta-analysis. Results: A total of 35 studies were included and included 20,520 students. The mean age was 22.1 ± 5.1 years with a predominance of female sex (sex ratio F/M = 1.05). The vaccination coverage rate was 28.8% [95% CI: 22.9% - 34.7%]. Disaggregation allowed to estimate coverage rates of 29.8% [95% CI: 22.9% - 36.7%], 23.4% [95% CI: 9.4% - 37.4%] and 17.0% [95% CI: 14.4% - 19.5%] respectively in West Africa, East Africa and Central Africa. Conclusion: Less than a third of students in sub-Saharan Africa are protected against hepatitis B. However, the majority of this target group is at risk of infection. It would be relevant to screen and, if necessary, vaccinate all new students.

Distributed collaborative complete coverage path planning based on hybrid strategy

Collaborative coverage path planning(CCPP) refers to obtaining the shortest paths passing over all places except obstacles in a certain area or space. A multi-unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV) collaborative CCPP algorithm is proposed for the urban rescue search or military search in outdoor environment.Due to flexible control of small UAVs, it can be considered that all UAVs fly at the same altitude, that is, they perform search tasks on a two-dimensional plane. Based on the agents’ motion characteristics and environmental information, a mathematical model of CCPP problem is established. The minimum time for UAVs to complete the CCPP is the objective function, and complete coverage constraint, no-fly constraint, collision avoidance constraint, and communication constraint are considered. Four motion strategies and two communication strategies are designed. Then a distributed CCPP algorithm is designed based on hybrid strategies. Simulation results compared with patternbased genetic algorithm(PBGA) and random search method show that the proposed method has stronger real-time performance and better scalability and can complete the complete CCPP task more efficiently and stably.

Cluster sampling methodology to evaluate immunization coverage

BACKGROUND Immunization is a key component of primary health care and an indisputable human right.Vaccines are critical to the prevention and control of infectious disease outbreaks.The coronavirus disease 2019(COVID-19)pandemic and associated disruptions over the past two years have strained the health systems,with many children missing out on essential childhood vaccines.AIM To evaluate the immunization coverage among 12-23-month-old children in the rural areas of Community Health Centre(CHC)Dighal and to determine the factors influencing the existing immunization coverage.METHODS A coverage evaluation survey was conducted according to the 30-cluster sampling technique,which is the standard methodology for such surveys devised by World Health Organization.A total of 300 children aged 12-23 months were included,whose immunization details were noted from their immunization cards.RESULTS Full immunization rate was noted in 86.7%of the children,with partial and non-immunized children accounting for 9%and 4.3%respectively.The full immunization dropout rate was 4.2%.The common reasons for partial or non-immunization were family problem including illness of mother,vaccine not being available and child being ill.Place of birth(P=0.014)and availability of immunization card(P<0.001)were significant predictors of the immunization status.Since the study was conducted in 2020/2021,health services were disrupted due to the COVID-19 lockdown.CONCLUSION Due to the coverage being higher than the national average,it was concluded that the immunization coverage was optimal and not affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Analysis of Mobile and Internet Network Coverage: Propagation of Electromagnetic Waves and Concept of Digital Divide in Burundi

Mobile and Internet network coverage plays an important role in digital transformation and the exploitation of new services. The evolution of mobile networks from the first generation (1G) to the 5th generation is still a long process. 2G networks have developed the messaging service, which complements the already operational voice service. 2G technology has rapidly progressed to the third generation (3G), incorporating multimedia data transmission techniques. It then progressed to fourth generation (4G) and LTE (Long Term Evolution), increasing the transmission speed to improve 3G. Currently, developed countries have already moved to 5G. In developing countries, including Burundi, a member of the East African Community (ECA) where more than 80% are connected to 2G technologies, 40% are connected to the 3G network and 25% to the 4G network and are not yet connected to the 5G network and then still a process. The objective of this article is to analyze the coverage of 2G, 3G and 4G networks in Burundi. This analysis will make it possible to identify possible deficits in order to reduce the digital divide between connected urban areas and remote rural areas. Furthermore, this analysis will draw the attention of decision-makers to the need to deploy networks and coverage to allow the population to access mobile and Internet services and thus enable the digitalization of the population. Finally, this article shows the level of coverage, the digital divide and an overview of the deployment of base stations (BTS) throughout the country to promote the transformation and digital inclusion of services.

基于TCPSO的三维无线传感器网络覆盖

针对三维无线传感器网络(3D WSNs)的节点部署问题,提出了一种基于双层混沌粒子群优化(TCPSO)算法的解决方案。利用TCPSO算法对节点进行优化部署,以提高网络的空间覆盖率。TCPSO算法通过非线性分类系数将种群分为精英种群和普通种群,分别采取不同的速度、位置更新公式进行迭代优化。TCPSO提出了基于Logistic混沌映射的递减惯性权重,用来控制算法在局部的开发,并且为了避免算法早熟,引入了Levy飞行策略增强算法的全局搜索能力。通过在1个三维网格空间中进行仿真实验,验证TCPSO以及粒子群优化(PSO)算法解决3D WSNs的节点部署问题的能力。分别在不同数量的节点数、不同的通信半径以及不同的种群规模上进行了3组实验,实验采用控制变量法,观察在不同条件下TCPSO的性能。TCPSO在全部的实验中提出的节点部署方案均明显优于PSO的部署方案。

基于初始氨覆盖率寻优的燃煤电站SCR脱硝系统机理建模

随着新能源发电大规模并网,燃煤机组工况快速变化,选择性催化还原(SCR)反应器入口氮氧化物(NO_(x))浓度剧烈波动。传统PID控制已无法满足NO_(x)的超低排放标准,需要建立准确的模型对出口NO_(x)浓度进行预测,以实现快速准确的喷氨量控制。然而,在机理建模的过程中,氨覆盖率这一关键数据因无法测量而缺失,直接影响模型精度。为了解决氨覆盖率缺失的问题,提出了一种名为初始氨覆盖率寻优的方法。采用改进的粒子群优化(IPSO)方法,通过燃煤电厂运行数据对机理模型反应常数和初始氨覆盖率进行校准。结果表明:经过初始氨覆盖率寻优,机理模型预测的出口NO_(x)浓度精度得到了显著提升,典型工况下,测试集平均绝对百分比误差下降了17.1%。

基于LDSCR-at-Risk的PPP项目可融资性评价

通过分析传统的偿债备付率适用性及政府和社会资本合作(PPP)项目的特点,认为传统的偿债备付率不适合于PPP项目可融资性评价。因此,为了评价中长期债务的可融资性,提出了“平准化偿债备付率”(LDSCR),即在借款偿还期内,各年可用于还本付息的资金折现到起始点的现值与贷款金额的比值;进一步提出“风险下的平准化偿债备付率”(LDSCR-at-Risk),即在给定的置信度下的平准化偿债备付率。运用蒙特卡洛仿真进行验证,结果表明:LDSCR-at-Risk可用于PPP项目的可融资性评价,且在可以评价具有风险的PPP项目可融资性的同时,还避免了如何确定项目的最低偿债备付率的问题,从而促进PPP项目融资的发展。

基于ENVI+HEC-RAS的苏北运河生态修复方法及改善效果研究

鉴于生态修复对维持河流健康生命十分重要,以提升植被覆盖度与水质为目标,对苏北运河进行生态修复。基于2018年研究区Landsat8遥感影像数据,运用ENVI软件对苏北运河全河段的土地利用情况进行处理分析,并在增加上游生态来水的情况下,使用HEC-RAS软件对泗阳新一水厂断面的COD水质指标浓度进行模拟。结果表明,苏北运河全河段植物覆盖度最大可提升至59.84%,且Kappa系数结果均大于0.6,精度符合要求;COD水质指标浓度在5、10、12月达到Ⅱ类水标准,其余月份较调控前均已达到Ⅲ类水标准,可见在增大生态来水作用下,运河水质得到提升。

Dynamic Frontier-Led Swarming:Multi-Robot Repeated Coverage in Dynamic Environments

A common assumption of coverage path planning research is a static environment.Such environments require only a single visit to each area to achieve coverage.However,some real-world environments are characterised by the presence of unexpected,dynamic obstacles.They require areas to be revisited periodically to maintain an accurate coverage map,as well as reactive obstacle avoidance.This paper proposes a novel swarmbased control algorithm for multi-robot exploration and repeated coverage in environments with unknown,dynamic obstacles.The algorithm combines two elements:frontier-led swarming for driving exploration by a group of robots,and pheromone-based stigmergy for controlling repeated coverage while avoiding obstacles.We tested the performance of our approach on heterogeneous and homogeneous groups of mobile robots in different environments.We measure both repeated coverage performance and obstacle avoidance ability.Through a series of comparison experiments,we demonstrate that our proposed strategy has superior performance to recently presented multi-robot repeated coverage methodologies.

Optimization method of linear barrier coverage deployment for multistatic radar

To address the problem of building linear barrier coverage with the location restriction, an optimization method for deploying multistatic radars is proposed, where the location restriction splits the deployment line into two segments. By proving the characteristics of deployment patterns, an optimal deployment sequence consisting of multiple deployment patterns is proposed and exploited to cover each segment. The types and numbers of deployment patterns are determined by an algorithm that combines the integer linear programming(ILP)and exhaustive method(EM). In addition, to reduce the computation amount, a formula is introduced to calculate the upper threshold of receivers’ number in a deployment pattern. Furthermore, since the objective function is non-convex and non-analytic, the overall model is divided into two layers concerning two suboptimization problems. Subsequently, another algorithm that integrates the segments and layers is proposed to determine the deployment parameters, such as the minimum cost, parameters of the optimal deployment sequence, and the location of the split point. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed method can effectively determine the optimal deployment parameters under the location restriction.

Energy-Efficient UAVs Coverage Path Planning Approach

Unmanned aerial vehicles(UAVs),commonly known as drones,have drawn significant consideration thanks to their agility,mobility,and flexibility features.They play a crucial role in modern reconnaissance,inspection,intelligence,and surveillance missions.Coverage path planning(CPP)which is one of the crucial aspects that determines an intelligent system’s quality seeks an optimal trajectory to fully cover the region of interest(ROI).However,the flight time of the UAV is limited due to a battery limitation and may not cover the whole region,especially in large region.Therefore,energy consumption is one of the most challenging issues that need to be optimized.In this paper,we propose an energy-efficient coverage path planning algorithm to solve the CPP problem.The objective is to generate a collision-free coverage path that minimizes the overall energy consumption and guarantees covering the whole region.To do so,the flight path is optimized and the number of turns is reduced to minimize the energy consumption.The proposed approach first decomposes the ROI into a set of cells depending on a UAV camera footprint.Then,the coverage path planning problem is formulated,where the exact solution is determined using the CPLEX solver.For small-scale problems,the CPLEX shows a better solution in a reasonable time.However,the CPLEX solver fails to generate the solution within a reasonable time for large-scale problems.Thus,to solve the model for large-scale problems,simulated annealing forCPP is developed.The results show that heuristic approaches yield a better solution for large-scale problems within amuch shorter execution time than the CPLEX solver.Finally,we compare the simulated annealing against the greedy algorithm.The results show that simulated annealing outperforms the greedy algorithm in generating better solution quality.

Region coverage control for multiple stratospheric airships with combined self-/event-triggered mechanism

The region coverage control problem of multiple stratospheric airships system is firstly addressed in this paper.Towards it,we propose a two-layer control framework with the artificial potential field(APF)-based region coverage control law and the adaptive tracking control law.The APF-based region coverage control law ensures the coverage task is achieved until every single stratospheric airship ends up performing station keeping where near the respective global minimum point,in which an innovative solution to the local minimum problem is put forward.The adaptive tracking control law is designed to realize motion control using tracking the desired velocity and angular velocity given by coverage control law,with the consideration of several practical control problems as unknown individual differences and external disturbances.To save resources,the combined self-/event-triggered mechanism designed therein significantly reduces the times of state information transmission and control law calculation.The effectiveness of the proposed control framework is verified through simulations.