Mission critical solutions are essential for providing communications and services in the case of the troubles with connectivity that are often found in infrastructure-based solutions. Such solutions are typically used in the case of disasters, lack of energy, etc. There exist several narrowband solutions that provide countrywide coverage in certain countries. In recent years, the activities related to creating mission-critical broadband solutions based on Long Term Evolution (LTE) have led to the definition of LTE Mission Critical (LTE-MC). Both solutions ignore virtualization and require dedicated mobile terminals as a part of the mission-critical communication solution. This paper describes the opportunities, open issues and a proposal of a solution that exploits Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and network virtualization for mission-critical services. The presented approach combines Cloud/Edge and Fog orchestration to efficiently use all the available resources, including virtualize... [more]

In the original article [...]

One contributor’s name was missing in the original version of the authorship of the paper [...]

The thermal effect can significantly influence the consolidation of the soil, especially in the cold region. Previous studies have established to research that the drops in the ambient temperature would slow down the consolidation process, resulting in the slow dissipation of excess pore water pressure. In addition, the previous studies neglect the final settlement because consolidation is also influenced by thermal effect. In this paper, a closed-form solution to the one-dimensional nonlinear consolidation of soil considering the thermal effect is proposed. In the mathematical framework, the influences of the thermal effect on the compression index, the permeability, and the elastic modulus of the soil are considered. The solution is fully verified by comparing it with the FDM solution neglecting the thermal effect and the classic Terzaghi’s solution. An analysis has been carried out to assess the influence of temperature, stress ratios, consolidation time, the ratio of compression in... [more]

Power cable condition diagnosis and deterioration location rely on signatures of aging characteristics which precede the final breakdown. The purpose of this study was to investigate how to diagnose and locate the aging and/or deterioration of power cables through the analysis of the impedance spectroscopy. The concepts of the reference frequency and characteristic frequency of cable impedance spectroscopy are defined for the first time. Based on the reference frequency, the optimal frequency range for analysis of impedance spectroscopy can be determined, whilst based on characteristic frequency, a set of criteria for assessing cable conditions are examined and established. The solution proposed in this paper has the advantage of being easier to implement than the previously reported “broadband” impedance spectroscopy methods, as it helps to reduce the frequency range for measurement instrumentations; the proposed method also does not need the measurements of the parameters of the cabl... [more]

In this paper, five groups of industrial aluminium back-surface-field (Al-BSF) solar cells were made from silicon wafers from different locations of a B-doped Czochralski silicon ingot. Then, we performed the first LID (45 °C, 1 sun, 12 h), regeneration (100 °C, 1 sun, 24 h), and second LID (45 °C, 1 sun, 12 h) treatments on the cells, and measured the in-situ changes of their I-V characteristic parameters by using an I-V tester during the experiment. The cells were also characterized by Suns-Voc measurement, full-area light beam induced current scanning, and external quantum efficiency measurement at the four breakpoints of treatments (before and after the first LID, after regeneration and the second LID). It was found that the LID and regeneration of the Al-BSF solar cells can be explained by the LID and regeneration reaction of B-O defects and the LID caused by dissociation of Fe-B pairs. After regeneration, the relative decay rate of efficiency decreased from 2.75−3.8% during the f... [more]

The energy transition requires significant volumes of minerals of which the Global South holds large reserves. This context revives hopes and fears that producing countries in the Global South might hold sufficient market power to demand above market prices, technology transfers and even migration of productive processes to their countries. Our research question is what determines the effectiveness of states’ collusion on natural resource exploitation and how does that affect the probability of Latin American collusion regarding lithium. The study utilizes Social Science methods for developing frameworks of analysis and comparative case studies. Following an overview of what is required for effective cartels, the study focuses on characteristics of the six primary lithium producers and potential producers in Latin America: Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Mexico, and Peru. Theory and empirical evidence indicate that Latin American lithium producers should be very cautious in assessin... [more]

An integrated energy system (IES) is vulnerable to network attacks due to the coupling features of multi-energy systems, as well as the deep integration between a physical system and an information system. The anomaly detection of the time-series data in an IES is a key problem to defend against network attacks and ensure the cyber-physical security of IES. Aiming at false data injection attacks (FDIAs) on IES, this paper proposes an anomaly detection method for time-series data in a cyber-physical integrated energy system based on time-frequency feature prediction. The time-frequency features of the time-series data are extracted based on three time-frequency transform methods (DWT, EMD, and EWT). Then the extracted time-frequency features are input to the autoencoder (AE) to capture the hidden features and nonlinear structure of the original data in the frequency domain. The time-domain data within the detected time period are predicted by applying regression prediction on the top-la... [more]

Energy is essential to human survival, and with increasing concerns regarding the global warming caused by greenhouse emissions, the energy field has become a global focal point [...]

This article presents the results of a systematic study on the composition and origin of PM1-2 microspheres in high-calcium fly ash. The composition of individual microspheres was studied by scanning electron microscopy and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. It is shown that the compositions of the analyzed microspheres satisfy the general dependency with a high correlation coefficient: [SiO2 + Al2O3] = 88.80 − 1.02 [CaO + Fe2O3 + MgO], r = −0.97. The formation pathway is parallel to the general trend: anorthite, gehlenite, esseneite, tricalcium aluminate, ferrigehlenite, and brownmillerite. The microspheres were classified into four groups depending on the content of major components: Group 1 (CaO > 40, SiO2 + Al2O3 ≤ 35, Fe2O3 < 23, MgO < 16 wt %); Group 2 (30 < CaO < 40, SiO2 + Al2O3 ≤ 40, Fe2O3 < 27, MgO < 21 wt %); Group 3 (CaO ≤ 30, 40 ≤ SiO2 + Al2O3 ≤ 75, Fe2O3 < 10, MgO < 10 wt %); and Group 4 (14 < CaO < 40, SiO2 + Al2O3 < 14, Fe2O3 > 30, MgO ≤... [more]

Making decisions concerning the use of energy sources is a very difficult and complicated task [...]

Today’s wearable electronics have dramatically altered our daily lives and created an urgent demand for new and intelligent sensor technologies. As a new energy source, self-powering sensors are currently seen as critically important units for wearable and non-wearable textile−electronic systems. To this aim, this paper presents a smart textile-based piezoelectric energy-autonomous harvester and a self-powered sensor for wearable application, where the sandwich structure of the wearable sensor consists of top and bottom textile conductors, and in between the two textile electrodes there is a piezoelectric PVDF thin film. The generating voltage, current, charge, power, and capacitor charging−discharging behaviour of the device were confirmed using multimeter, oscilloscope, Keithley, etc., analyses. Finally, a piezoelectric-textile sensor was integrated into wearable clothes for breathing detection; a shoe insole for footstep recognition; and it can store energy by tapping, to power elec... [more]

The article presents the susceptibility coefficients active power kp and reactive power kq, as proposed by the author. These coefficients reflect the reaction of arc furnaces (change of the furnace operating point) to supply voltage fluctuations. The considerations were based on the model of the arc device in which the electric arc was replaced with a voltage source with an amplitude dependent on the length of the arc. In the case of voltage fluctuations, such a model gives an assessment of the arc device’s behavior closer to reality than the model used, based on replacing the arc with resistance. An example of the application of the kp and kq coefficients in a practical solution is presented.

With the expansion of E-mobility technology, the demand for Medium-Voltage (MV) Electric Buses (E-buses) charging infrastructure has significantly increased. In this regard, the effective connection of E-bus chargers to a medium voltage power grid is essential to provide fast charging and carry out multiple charging processes simultaneously. One of the main building blocks for E-bus charging is the DC-DC converter stage responsible for regulating the power flow and matching the different voltage and power levels. Accordingly, this paper presents a comprehensive review of DC-DC converter topologies applicable to MV E-bus fast charging. This review discusses and compares the basic isolated DC-DC converter topologies. In addition, the DC-DC converters are classified based on their conversion stages. Moreover, isolated DC-DC converter topologies applicable for MV E-bus fast charging applications, including Dual Active Bridge (DAB) modular-based structure converter and Modular Multilevel Co... [more]

In a recent advance, zirconium triselenide (ZrSe3) nanosheets with anisotropic and strain-tunable excitonic response were experimentally fabricated. Motivated by the aforementioned progress, we conduct first-principle calculations to explore the structural, dynamic, Raman response, electronic, single-layer exfoliation energies, and mechanical features of the ZrX3 (X = S, Se, Te) monolayers. Acquired phonon dispersion relations reveal the dynamical stability of the ZrX3 (X = S, Se, Te) monolayers. In order to isolate single-layer crystals from bulk counterparts, exfoliation energies of 0.32, 0.37, and 0.4 J/m2 are predicted for the isolation of ZrS3, ZrSe3, and ZrTe3 monolayers, which are comparable to those of graphene. ZrS3 and ZrSe3 monolayers are found to be indirect gap semiconductors, with HSE06 band gaps of 1.93 and 1.01 eV, whereas the ZrTe3 monolayer yields a metallic character. It is shown that the ZrX3 nanosheets are relatively strong, but with highly anisotropic mechanical r... [more]

The paper presents investigations and analysis of the parameters of the magnetic part of the equivalent circuit of the inductive CT in the frequencies range from 50 Hz to 5 kHz. Therefore, a measuring circuit used to determine the values of the transverse branch elements was developed. The research performed helps to understand the obtained values of the frequency characteristics of the current error and phase displacement of the corrected inductive current transformer. Moreover, the vectorial diagrams for the 1st, 20th and 100th harmonics are provided with consideration of the influence of the applied turns number correction of the secondary winding. The obtained results show that the increase in the frequency of transformed higher harmonics may cause a decrease in the values of the current error and phase displacement for the non-corrected inductive current transformer. However, if the number of turns of the secondary winding is corrected, the behavior is reversed, where the values o... [more]

According to data from the International Energy Agency (IEA), in order to achieve net-zero CO2 emissions by 2050, approximately 306 million tonnes of green hydrogen (H2) must be produced annually [...]

Establishing a suitable classification and evaluation scheme is crucial for sweet spot prediction and efficient development of shale oil in the Chang 71-2 sub-member of the Longdong area. In this paper, a series of experiments, such as casting thin sections (CTS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), low-temperature nitrogen adsorption (LTNA), high-pressure mercury intrusion porosimetry (HMIP), and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), were integrated to classify the pore throats and shale oil reservoirs in the study area. Moreover, the pore structure characteristics of different types of reservoirs and their contributions to productivity were revealed. The results show that the pore-throat system can be divided into four parts: large pore throats (>0.2 μm), medium pore throats (0.08~0.2 μm), small pore throats (0.03~0.08 μm), and micropore throats ( 0.1 mD), type II (Φ ≥ 8%, 0.05 mD < K < 0.1 mD), type III (Φ ≥ 5%, 0.02 mD < K < 0.05 mD) and type IV (Φ < 5% or K < 0.02 mD... [more]

Channel wing is a propeller-coupling layout that has good low-speed performance and S/VTOL potential. Focused on the application of this layout at the S/VTOL stage, this paper attempts to find the interaction mechanism for the distributed propeller channel wing. Firstly, the computation method based on RANS equations for propeller−wing integration was established with Momentum Source Method, which was compared with the unsteady Sliding Mesh method and validated by a ducted propeller. Secondly, the performances and aerodynamic characteristics of the single-propeller channel wings with two different airfoils were analyzed, and a ground test for the scaled model was conducted. Finally, a four-propeller channel wing was analyzed and compared with single-propeller channel wing, then the flow field characteristics were discussed in depth. The study shows that the airfoil shape will strongly affect the lift of channel wing at S/VTOL stage. Multi-propeller channel wing analysis indicates that... [more]

Recognizing the challenges that today’s hydroponics industry and tomorrow’s plant factories are and will be dealing with requires some strategic thinking [...]

Natural disasters have great destructive power and can potentially wipe out great lengths of power lines. A resilient grid can recover from adverse conditions and restore service quickly. Therefore, the present work proposes a novel methodology to reconfigure power grids through graph theory after an extreme event. The least-cost solution through a minimum spanning tree (MST) with a radial topology that connects all grid users is identified. To this end, the authors have developed an iterative minimum-path heuristic algorithm. The optimal location of transformers and maintenance holes in the grid is obtained with the modified Prim algorithm, and the Greedy algorithm complements the process. The span distance and capacity restrictions define the transformer’s number, where larger spans and capacities reduce the number of components in the grid. The performance of the procedure has been tested in the urban zone Quito Tenis of Ecuador, and the algorithm proved to be scalable. Grid reconfi... [more]

To improve the detection speed for wide-frequency dense signals (WFDSs), a fast minimization algorithm (FMA) was proposed in this study. Firstly, this study modeled the WFDSs and performed a Taylor-series expansion of the sampled model. Secondly, we simplified the sampling model based on the augmented Lagrange multiplier (ALM) method and then calculated the augmented Lagrange function of the sampling model. Finally, according to the alternating minimization strategy, the Lagrange multiplier vector and the sparse block phasor in the function were iterated individually to realize the measurement of the original signal components. The results show that the algorithm improved the analysis accuracy of the WFDS by 35% to 46% on the IEEE C37.118.1a-2014 standard for the wide-frequency noise test, harmonic modulation test, and step-change test, providing a theoretical basis for the development of the P-class phasor measurement unit (PMU).

The advancements in intelligent systems have contributed tremendously to the fields of bioinformatics, health, and medicine. Intelligent classification and prediction techniques have been used in studying microarray datasets, which store information about the ways used to express the genes, to assist greatly in diagnosing chronic diseases, such as cancer in its earlier stage, which is important and challenging. However, the high-dimensionality and noisy nature of the microarray data lead to slow performance and low cancer classification accuracy while using machine learning techniques. In this paper, a hybrid filter-genetic feature selection approach has been proposed to solve the high-dimensional microarray datasets problem which ultimately enhances the performance of cancer classification precision. First, the filter feature selection methods including information gain, information gain ratio, and Chi-squared are applied in this study to select the most significant features of cancer... [more]

The transmission in automobiles is the core component to ensure operational stability. Heat accumulation in the meshing process will reduce the transmission efficiency and affect the service life. Here, the essential physical process to improve transmission heat dissipation is the dynamic evolution process and the thermal transfer characteristics of lubricating oil fields during gear meshing. This paper presents a modeling and solving method for gear meshing lubrication and thermal transfer features based on the volume of the fluid model and piecewise linear interface construction (VOF-PLIC). The dynamic mesh technique combines spring smoothing and reconstruction to optimize the numerical solution process. The dynamic evolution law of gear meshing lubrication and thermal transfer is obtained by analyzing the lubrication evolution process under different speed/steering conditions. The results show that the proposed modeling and solving method could well reveal the lubrication and therma... [more]

In the process of metal cutting, a large amount of chips that are difficult to reuse will be produced, resulting in resource waste. As a novel metal forming process, cryogenic-temperature extrusion machining (CT-EM) can directly process chips into usable fins with a surface micro-groove structure, which has the advantage of high efficiency, energy saving and flexibility. In this study, the effects of four parameters (compression ratio λ, rake angle of the tool α, friction coefficient μ and the constraining tool corner radius R) on the effective stress, temperature and formability of micro-groove fins produced by CT-EM and room-temperature extrusion machining (RT-EM) are investigated. The results show that the maximum effective stress and formability of CT-EM are larger than that of RT-EM, which indicates that CT-EM has greater advantages in the preparation of micro-groove fins. At a λ of 0.7, the formability of CT-EM is the best. Reducing the λ and α, or increasing the μ, can improve t... [more]