Efficiency and effectiveness of systems for the treatment of domestic wastewater based on subsurface flow constructed wetlands in Jarabacoa, Dominican Republic

Constructed wetlands(CwW)are well known nature-based systems for water treatment.This study evaluated the efficiency and effectiveness of seven domestic wastewater treatment systems based on horizontal flow CWs in Jarabacoa,the Dominican Republic.The results showed that the CWs were efficient in reducing the degree of contamination of wastewater to levels below the Dominican wastewater discharge standards for parameters such as the 5-day biochemical oxygen demand(BOD5)and chemical oxygen demand,but not for the removal of phosphorus and fecal coliforms.In addition,a horizontal flow subsurface wetland in the peri-urban area El Dorado was evaluated in terms of the performance of wastewater treatment in tropical climatic conditions.The concentrations of heavy metals,such as zinc,copper,chromium,and iron,were found to decrease in the effluent of the wetland,and the concentrations for nickel and manganese tended to increase.The levels of heavy metals in the effluent were lower than the limit values of the Dominican wastewater discharge standards.The construction cost of these facilities was around 200 USD per population equivalent,similar to the cost in other countries in the same region.This study suggested some solutions to the improved performance of CWs:selection of a microbial flora that guarantees the reduction of nitrates and nitrites to molecular nitrogen,use of endemic plants that bioaccumulate heavy metals,combination of constructed wetlands with filtration on activated carbon,and inclusion of water purification processes that allow to evaluate the reuse of treated water.

Subsurface multi-physical characterization of mountain excavation and city construction in loess plateau with a fiber-optic sensing system

Mountain excavation and city construction(MECC)projects being launched in the Loess Plateau in China involve the creation of large-scale artificial land.Understanding the subsurface evolution characteristics of the artificial land is essential,yet challenging.Here,we use an improved fiber-optic monitoring system for its subsurface multi-physical characterization.The system enables us to gather spatiotemporal distribution of various parameters,including strata deformation,temperature,and moisture.Yan’an New District was selected as a case study to conduct refined in-situ monitoring through a 77 m-deep borehole and a 30 m-long trench.Findings reveal that the ground settlement involves both the deformation of the filling loess and the underlying intact loess.Notably,the filling loess exhibits a stronger creep capability compared to underlying intact loess.The deformation along the profile is unevenly distributed,with a positive correlation with soil moisture.Water accumulation has been observed at the interface between the filling loess and the underlying intact loess,leading to a significant deformation.Moreover,the temperature and moisture in the filling loess have reached a new equilibrium state,with their depths influenced by atmospheric conditions measuring at 31 m and 26 m,respectively.The refined investigation allows us to identify critical layers that matter the sustainable development of newly created urban areas,and provide improved insights into the evolution mechanisms of land creation.

“Instruction-Category” Approach of Test Suite Construction for Oven Embedded System

Being different from testing for popular GUI software, the “instruction-category” approach is proposed for testing embedded system. This approach is constructed by three steps including refining items, drawing instruction-brief and instruction-category, and constructing test suite. Consequently, this approach is adopted to test oven embedded system, and detail process is deeply discussed. As a result, the factual result indicates that the “instruction-category” approach can be effectively applied in embedded system testing as a black-box method for conformity testing.

Construction Method for Performance Management Curriculum Content System Based on Knowledge Graph

Performance Management is the core course of human resource management major,but its knowledge points lack multi-dimensional correlations.There are problems such as scattered content and unclear system,and it is urgent to reconstruct the content system of the course.Knowledge graph technology can integrate massive and scattered information into an organic structure through semantic correlation and reasoning.The application of knowledge graph to education and teaching can promote scientific and personalized teaching evaluation and better realize individualized teaching.This paper systematically combs the knowledge points of Performance Management course and forms a comprehensive knowledge graph.The knowledge point is associated with specific questions to form the problem map of the course,and then the knowledge point is further associated with the ability target to form the ability map of the course.Then,the knowledge point is associated with teaching materials,question bank and expansion resources to form a systematic teaching database,thereby giving the method of building the content system of Performance Management course based on the knowledge map.This research can be further extended to other core management courses to realize the deep integration of knowledge graph and teaching.

Process,Material,and Regulatory Considerations for 3D Printed Medical Devices and Tissue Constructs

Three-dimensional(3D)printing is a highly automated platform that facilitates material deposition in a layer-by-layer approach to fabricate pre-defined 3D complex structures on demand.It is a highly promising technique for the fabrication of personalized medical devices or even patient-specific tissue constructs.Each type of 3D printing technique has its unique advantages and limitations,and the selection of a suitable 3D printing technique is highly dependent on its intended application.In this review paper,we present and highlight some of the critical processes(printing parameters,build orientation,build location,and support structures),material(batch-to-batch consistency,recycling,protein adsorption,biocompatibility,and degradation properties),and regulatory considerations(sterility and mechanical properties)for 3D printing of personalized medical devices.The goal of this review paper is to provide the readers with a good understanding of the various key considerations(process,material,and regulatory)in 3D printing,which are critical for the fabrication of improved patient-specific 3D printed medical devices and tissue constructs.

Research Progress and Prospects of Total Factor Productivity in the Construction Industry

The high-quality development of the construction industry fundamentally stems from the significant improvement of total factor productivity.Therefore,it is of crucial significance for promoting the development of the construction industry to a higher level by scientifically and accurately measuring the total factor productivity of the construction industry and deeply analyzing the influencing factors behind it.Based on a comprehensive consideration of research methods and influencing factors,this paper systematically reviews the existing relevant literature on total factor productivity in the construction industry,aiming to reveal the current research development trend in this field and point out potential problems.This effort aims to provide a solid theoretical foundation and valuable reference for further in-depth research,and jointly promote the continuous progress and development of total factor productivity research in the construction industry.

Study on the Construction of Circular Economy Development System of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry in Tibet

As a basic industry in Tibet Autonomous Region,the development of agriculture and animal husbandry circular economy is of great practical significance,which is actively reflected in national high-quality development and new agriculture and animal husbandry circular model.The development direction and future trend directly determine the promotion and enhancement of regional agriculture and animal husbandry economy,which is highly valued and welcomed by academic circles.This paper mainly expounds the development connotation of agriculture and animal husbandry circular economy system from the perspective of Tibet's agriculture and animal husbandry economic development.It focuses on sorting out the construction and future direction of circular economy development system,effectively puts forward ideas and comprehensive understanding of the circular economy development system of agriculture and animal husbandry in Tibet,effectively promotes the promotion and basic change of circular economy of agriculture and animal husbandry,and effectively changes the traditional development model and new innovation model of agriculture and animal husbandry.

Construction of Legal System of China's Farmland Protection under the Coexistence of Multiple Objectives:Historical Logic,Practical Problems and Optimization Paths

[Objectives]To explore the evolution of the legal system of farmland protection and explore the rules and characteristics of policy development based on the theory and logic of institutional change since China's reform and opening up,reveal the problems and deep-seated reasons of its legislation,clarify the direction of farmland protection in the new period,and solve the"non-agricultural""non-grain"and ecological problems of farmland.[Methods]Literature analysis and inductive deduction methods were used.[Results]The evolution of the farmland protection legal system has gone through the process of"national consciousness-policy guidelines-institutional system",the change from"single subject to multiple subjects";change from the use of"one-way administrative means to coordinated use of administrative,economic and technical means".The practical problems of the farmland protection legal system are mainly due to the insufficient systematization of the farmland protection legal system itself,the generalization of quantity protection,the transformation of quality protection,and the absence of ecological protection.[Conclusions]It is recommended to improve the existing farmland protection legal system from the establishment of the Farmland Protection Law,the improvement of the farmland protection public participation mechanism and supervision mechanism,the establishment of the farmland quality construction and improvement system,the differentiated farmland occupation and supplementation balance system,and the ecological restoration system.

基于Construct 3的射击类游戏设计与开发——以飞机大战为例

Construct 3作为小而精的H5跨平台游戏引擎,强大的交互性和用户友好性使其在2D游戏开发方面独具优势。借助Construct 3重构经典射击类游戏“飞机大战”,通过Event Sheet实现游戏中背景循环滚动、动画导入、角色创建与随机运动、游戏难度控制、游戏变量控制等主要功能。经过测试,游戏可打包发布成Web、移动设备和PC端.exe格式,游戏交互、特效运行流畅,游戏变量与难度控制处于合理范围。

An Investigation of Exoskeleton Robotic Systems in Assisting Construction Tasks*

Whilst industrial robots have been widely used in many industrial sectors, they are predominantly used in a structured factory environment. In recent years, off-site robotics have been investigated extensively and there are some promising candidates emerging. One such category of robots is exoskeleton robots and this paper provides an in-depth assessment of their suitability in assisting human operators in undertaking manual operations typically found in the construction industry. This work aims to objectively assess the advantages and disadvantages of these two suits and provide recommendations for further improvements of similar system designs. The paper focuses on the passive exoskeleton robotic suits which are commercially available. Three types of activities are designed and a mechatronic methodology has been designed and implemented to capture visual data in order to assess these systems in comparison with normal human operations. The study suggests that these passive suits do reduce the effort required by human operators to undertake the same construction tasks as evidenced by the results from one focused study, though a number of improvements could be made to improve their performance for wider adoption.

Properties and Characteristics of Regolith-Based Materials for Extraterrestrial Construction

The construction of extraterrestrial bases has become a new goal in the active exploration of deep space.Among the construction techniques,in situ resource-based construction is one of the most promising because of its good sustainability and acceptable economic cost,triggering the development of various types of extraterrestrial construction materials.A comprehensive survey and comparison of materials from the perspective of performance was conducted to provide suggestions for material selection and optimization.Thirteen types of typical construction materials are discussed in terms of their reliability and applicability in extreme extraterrestrial environment.Mechanical,thermal and optical,and radiation-shielding properties are considered.The influencing factors and optimization methods for these properties are analyzed.From the perspective of material properties,the existing challenges lie in the comprehensive,long-term,and real characterization of regolith-based construction materials.Correspondingly,the suggested future directions include the application of high-throughput characterization methods,accelerated durability tests,and conducting extraterrestrial experiments.

Construction Activity Analysis of Workers Based on Human Posture Estimation Information

Identifying workers’construction activities or behaviors can enable managers to better monitor labor efficiency and construction progress.However,current activity analysis methods for construction workers rely solely on manual observations and recordings,which consumes considerable time and has high labor costs.Researchers have focused on monitoring on-site construction activities of workers.However,when multiple workers are working together,current research cannot accu rately and automatically identify the construction activity.This research proposes a deep learning framework for the automated analysis of the construction activities of multiple workers.In this framework,multiple deep neural network models are designed and used to complete worker key point extraction,worker tracking,and worker construction activity analysis.The designed framework was tested at an actual construction site,and activity recognition for multiple workers was performed,indicating the feasibility of the framework for the automated monitoring of work efficiency.

Promoting grain production through high-standard farmland construction:Evidence in China

Food security is a strategic priority for a country’s economic development.In China,high-standard farmland construction(HSFC)is an important initiative to stabilize grain production and increase grain production capacity.Based on panel data from 31 sample provinces,autonomous regions,and municipalities in China from 2005–2017,this study explored the impact of HSFC on grain yield using the difference-in-differences(DID)method.The results showed that HSFC significantly increased total grain production,which is robust to various checks.HSFC increased grain yield through three potential mechanisms.First,it could increase the grain replanting index.Second,it could effectively reduce yield loss due to droughts and floods.Last,HSFC could strengthen the cultivated land by renovating the low-and medium-yielding fields.Heterogeneity analysis found that the HSFC farmland showed a significant increase in grain yield only in the main grain-producing areas and balanced areas.In addition,HSFC significantly increased the yields of rice,wheat,and maize while leading to a reduction in soybean yields.The findings suggest the government should continue to promote HSFC,improve construction standards,and strictly control the“non-agriculturalization”and“non-coordination”of farmland to increase grain production further.At the same time,market mechanisms should be used to incentivize soybean farming,improve returns and stabilize soybean yields.

Modelling the water diversion of a sustainable cover system under humid climates

Extreme rainfall significantly threatens the safety of the landfill cover system,especially under humid climates.This study aims to provide design recommendations for a sustainable landfill cover system consisting of a low-permeability soil layer underlying a two-layer capillary barrier for humid climates.First,the numerical back-analysis was conducted for verification against a series of flume model tests.Then,a parametric study was performed to investigate the effects of inclination angle,particle size and layer thickness on the lateral diversion length(DL)of the three-layer cover system under the 100-year return period rainfall of humid climates.The results show that the water lateral DL of the cover system can be greatly enhanced by increasing the inclination angle from 3°to 18°.Moreover,the bottom layer of the cover system with a coarser d10 was more susceptible to the impact of the heavy rainfall,while this can be alleviated by increasing the thickness of the bottom layer.A dimensionless number,defined as the ratio of thickness and d_(10) of the bottom layer,is proposed for designing lateral diversion of the three-layer cover system under humid climates.To preserve the maximum DL,it is suggested that the proposed dimensionless number should be larger than 95 and 110 for the design of rainfall events with 50-year and 100-year return periods for humid climates,respectively.

Robotic reconstructive surgery: The time has arrived

Thank you to the Asian Journal of Urology(AJU)for the honor of allowing me to be the guest editor for this special focus section on robotic urinary tract reconstruction.This topic has been a large focus for me in my career;in my pursuit of knowledge in this new sub-field of urology,I have been so fortunate to have met so many talented surgeons who share a similar passion.The urinary tract spans a large anatomical region,and due to the large variety of conditions that affect it,an endless variety of functional and structural urologic problems can arise.Urologists have always been adept surgeons capable of operating in various anatomical spaces and have embraced technological innovation.Historically,the trend has moved from open surgery to endoscopic treatment;however,many patients with reconstructive needs remain untreated or sub-optimally managed.

Friction Characteristics Between Marine Clay and Construction Materials

Structure-soil interface friction characteristics is of importance to investigate the interaction between engineering structures and soils,especially for offshore structures.The interface friction behavior between marine clay and structural materials with different roughness was studied in this paper by using 3D optical scanning tests,a modified direct shear device and numerical simulation.Relationships between the surface roughness of structures,water content and interface friction angle were presented by model tests.The increase of water contents decreased the interface friction angles.For interfaces with different roughness,the interface friction angles will be smaller than that of the soil when the water content exceeds a certain value.The roughness of the interface and the water content of the soil are mutually coupled to influence the coefficient of friction(COF).This paper proposed a Finite Element Method(FEM)to simulate the interface direct shear tests of structures with different roughness.The surface models with different roughness are established based on the structure data obtained by 3D scanning.The Coupled Eulerian-Lagrangian(CEL)approach was employed to analyse soils sheared by irregular surfaces.The interface behavior for interfaces with different roughness under cyclic shear stresses was analyzed by FEM.

Multiple Collaborative Service Model and System Construction Based on Industrial Competitive Intelligence

This paper constructs a multiple collaborative service model of industrial competition intelligence with the main purpose of promoting the development of regional industries. The multiple service subjects include enterprises, governments, colleges and universities, scientific research institutes, industry associations and for-profit institutions. This article starts from the overall development of regional industrial economy, weighs the mutual relationship between the elements of the service model, and promotes multiple service subjects such as enterprises, governments, universities, research institutes, industry associations, and profit-making organizations to realize the collaborative service of resource intelligence, demand intelligence and data intelligence provides linkage intelligence service for the development and innovation of regional industries. This service model can improve the efficiency of industrial competitive intelligence services and the overall competitiveness of regional industries.

An Image Fingerprint and Attention Mechanism Based Load Estimation Algorithm for Electric Power System

With the rapid development of electric power systems,load estimation plays an important role in system operation and planning.Usually,load estimation techniques contain traditional,time series,regression analysis-based,and machine learning-based estimation.Since the machine learning-based method can lead to better performance,in this paper,a deep learning-based load estimation algorithm using image fingerprint and attention mechanism is proposed.First,an image fingerprint construction is proposed for training data.After the data preprocessing,the training data matrix is constructed by the cyclic shift and cubic spline interpolation.Then,the linear mapping and the gray-color transformation method are proposed to form the color image fingerprint.Second,a convolutional neural network(CNN)combined with an attentionmechanism is proposed for training performance improvement.At last,an experiment is carried out to evaluate the estimation performance.Compared with the support vector machine method,CNN method and long short-term memory method,the proposed algorithm has the best load estimation performance.

A comprehensive review of lunar lava tube base construction and field research on a potential Earth test site

The Moon,as the closest celestial body to the Earth,plays a pivotal role in the progression of deep space exploration,and the establishment of research outposts on its surface represents a crucial step in this mission.Lunar lava tubes are special underground caves formed by volcanic eruptions and are considered as ideal natural shelters and scientific laboratories for lunar base construction.This paper begins with an in-depth overview of the geological origins,exploration history,and distribution locations of lunar lava tubes.Subsequently,it delves into the presentation of four distinctive advantages and typical concepts for constructing bases within lava tubes,summarizing the ground-based attempts made thus far in lunar lava tube base construction.Field studies conducted on a lava tube in Hainan revealed rock compositions similar to those found during the Apollo missions and clear lava tube structures,making it a promising analog site.Lastly,the challenges and opportunities encountered in the field of geotechnical engineering regarding the establishment of lunar lava tube bases are discussed,encompassing cave exploration technologies,in-situ testing methods,geomechanical properties under lunar extreme environments,base design and structural stability assessment,excavation and reinforcement techniques,and simulated Earth-based lava tube base.

Lunar In Situ Large-Scale Construction:Quantitative Evaluation of Regolith Solidification Techniques

Lunar habitat construction is crucial for successful lunar exploration missions.Due to the limitations of transportation conditions,extensive global research has been conducted on lunar in situ material processing techniques in recent years.The aim of this paper is to provide a comprehensive review,precise classification,and quantitative evaluation of these approaches,focusing specifically on four main approaches:reaction solidification(RS),sintering/melting(SM),bonding solidification(BS),and confinement formation(CF).Eight key indicators have been identified for the construction of low-cost and highperformance systems to assess the feasibility of these methods:in situ material ratio,curing temperature,curing time,implementation conditions,compressive strength,tensile strength,curing dimensions,and environmental adaptability.The scoring thresholds are determined by comparing the construction requirements with the actual capabilities.Among the evaluated methods,regolith bagging has emerged as a promising option due to its high in situ material ratio,low time requirement,lack of hightemperature requirements,and minimal shortcomings,with only the compressive strength falling below the neutral score.The compressive strength still maintains a value of 2–3 MPa.The proposed construction scheme utilizing regolith bags offers numerous advantages,including rapid and large-scale construction,ensured tensile strength,and reduced reliance on equipment and energy.In this study,guidelines for evaluating regolith solidification techniques are provided,and directions for improvement are offered.The proposed lunar habitat design based on regolith bags is a practical reference for future research.