Actual Area Research Articles

A review on the use of finite element simulations for structural analyses of coronary stenting: What can we do nowadays and what do we need to move forward?

In silico studies to perform structural analyses of coronary stenting have attracted the attention of many researchers in the last 25 years. As a consequence, the finite element models used to describe the fundamental elements of stenting simulations, namely the delivery system (consisting of stent and balloon), the diseased artery, and the deployment procedure have had considerable development, paving the way for the application of numerical analyses in both manufacturing and clinical contexts. Indeed, in accordance with the logic of the 3Rs (refine, reduce, and replace), simulations can play a fundamental role in developing new devices and as a support tool for training/education and operational planning activities for clinical personnel. However, the application of such numerical methodologies in the aforementioned contexts of use requires an adequate level of credibility of the models with respect to the risk associated to their use in the decision-making process. Within this framework, this paper proposes a review of the modeling approaches available today for in silico stenting of coronary arteries and a discussion of their actual or potential application areas. In particular, the attention is focused on the different levels of credibility required by the presented contexts of use with respect to the validation activities of numerical models developed up to now.

The cost of buying land for protected areas in the United States

Buying land to establish protected areas is a common conservation strategy, particularly in countries with strong private property rights. Accurately accounting for spatial heterogeneity in land cost could lead to large efficiency savings when planning future acquisitions. However, lack of data regarding actual acquisition costs faced by conservation organizations has led planners to rely on more readily available proxies, such as agricultural land value. Using data on nearly 36,000 parcels acquired for conservation by public agencies and land trusts in the continental U.S., we built a model predicting protected area acquisition costs. While costs of land for agriculture or development are useful predictors of variation in protected area acquisition costs, they are not, by themselves, good approximations of those costs. For example, using a more comprehensive combination of variables, our model explained almost four times as much variation in actual acquisition costs as those. We found that agricultural land value loses most of its explanatory power once other predictors are used, confirming that it acts as a partial proxy for actual acquisition costs. We then used an optimization model to compare prioritization recommendations with our new cost estimates to those suggested when relying on agricultural land values alone. Locations of highest conservation return on investment shifted from coastal regions toward the country's center, when using actual cost data. Cost estimates used in conservation planning should be based on actual protected area acquisitions, because the type of properties and motivations of buyers and sellers differ from those of other land transactions.

Enhanced interface heat transfer based on gallium-based liquid metal infiltrated into vertically aligned copper nanowire arrays

Owing to the high aspect ratio and thermal conductivity, copper nanowires have great potential as novel thermal conductivity fillers. However, the thermal conductivity of thermal interface materials (TIMs) prepared by copper nanowires with polymer matrices is low. In contrast, gallium-based liquid metal has a higher thermal conductivity than polymer, while it is difficult to wet copper nanowires with liquid metal to prepare the TIMs. In this study, TIMs with a thickness of 53 µm were prepared by forming a galvanic cell between gallium-based liquid metal and vertically aligned copper nanowire arrays to improve wettability, and the heat transfer performance of the TIMs was experimentally investigated. The results show that the total thermal contact resistance of the composite thermal interface material is as low as 3.20 ± 0.24 mm2K/W. Compared with commercial thermal grease, the total thermal contact resistance is reduced by 86.30 %. The total thermal contact resistance increases with the surface roughness as the actual contact area decreases. In HCl/CuSO4 solution, the wettability of gallium-based liquid metal on the surface of vertically aligned copper nanowire arrays was improved, and the contact angle was 10.1 ± 0.9°. Furthermore, after 360 h of ageing, the total thermal contact resistance of the sample increased by 0.57 mm2K/W. This study provides new directions for designing high-performance TIMs with excellent overall heat transfer properties for the thermal management of electronic equipment.

Friction-related size effect during IN718 tube drawing: Realization of ultra-low friction

Drawing process, with the advantages of high accuracy and efficiency, is a common process for tube production. The high friction in tube drawing leads to high drawing forces, easy breakage of tube and high production costs, etc. It is urgent to reduce friction coefficient during the tube drawing. However, the effect of contact area on friction (friction-related size effect) along with the coupling effects of surface roughness, lubricants, and coatings is still unclear or even contradictory, which causes the reduction of the friction coefficient in tube drawing to become a challenge. In this study, taking IN718 tube drawing as the research object, the influence mechanism of contact area (1.25–12.06 mm2) as well as the coupling effects of surface roughness (0.513–0.622 µm), lubrication status, and coatings on friction was explored to reduce the friction coefficient as much as possible. Firstly, a new multi-sensor drawing device is designed to obtain contact pressure and drawing force, combined with finite element model, to characterize friction coefficient during the tube drawing. Secondly, the finite element model considering pits and lubricant is designed to reveal the friction mechanism in tube drawing. The results indicate that as the nominal contact area increases, the proportion of actual contact area decreases, leading to a decrease in friction coefficient, from 0.1102 to 0.0502, a decrease of 54.36%. The reduction of roughness leads to the weakening of plough effect, the coating leads to a transformation of the friction pair, and the lubricant bears some pressure, all of which can lead to a decrease in the friction coefficient, from 0.1203 to 0.0351, a decrease of 70.79%. By designing appropriate contact area (12.06 mm2), surface roughness (0.513 µm), lubrication status (graphite), and coating (sodium fluoride), the friction coefficient is sharply reduced from 0.1203 to 0.0014, a decrease of 98.79%. This in turn leads to a significant increase in the deformation amount, viz., the single pass drawing deformation amount is greatly improved from 14.22% to 49.65%. The research results have significantly reduced production costs.

Producing Knowledge in the War Zones: Challenges and Risks of Academia in Rojava

This paper is based on the ongoing studies that examines the notion of producing knowledge and pursuing academic activities under exceptional circumstances. It is argued that academia and scientific institutions are under scrutiny in terms of their independence, neutrality and quality of producing knowledge and scientific achievements. In the countries that have lesser chance for freedom of expression and dialogue atmosphere, scientific institutions are naturally under less advantage academic conditions. Arguably, they are directly connected to the interests and the will of the state or powerful groups in society. Thus, this paper tries to shed light on the conditions within which universities and academic institutions in war zones and areas besieged by chaos and state failure. The paper is written with a focus on Syria and particularly on North Eastern Self Administration entity of Rojava. The paper tries to look at the challenges that these institutions are facing, in terms frameworks and recognition, freedom of works and limitations, risk of life and safety, and most importantly, the quality of producing knowledge and their academic staff. Another aspect that this paper tries to highlight is the claim of providing new and different style of knowledge productions out of the frame of mainstream style of academia in the world. How alternative and radical modes and methods of teaching and learning can develop in such an environment? What forms of relations between academia and society are developed, and what are the main obstacles in front of these relations? For this purpose, the focus will be on two recently established universities in Rojava, ‘University of Rojava and Kobane University’. My contribution is based on my experiences of working as an instructor of social and political thoughts at the Institute of Social Sciences at the University of Rojava as well as my multiple visits to the actual Area of Syria and Rojava and conducting interviews with students, staff, and education policy makers in this region.

Artificial neural network approach for predicting the sesame (Sesamum indicum L.) leaf area: A non-destructive and accurate method

The estimative of the leaf area using a nondestructive method is paramount for successive evaluations in the same plant with precision and speed, not requiring high-cost equipment. Thus, the objective of this work was to construct models to estimate leaf area using artificial neural network models (ANN) and regression and to compare which model is the most effective model for predicting leaf area in sesame culture. A total of 11,000 leaves of four sesame cultivars were collected. Then, the length (L) and leaf width (W), and the actual leaf area (LA) were quantified. For the ANN model, the parameters of the length and width of the leaf were used as input variables of the network, with hidden layers and leaf area as the desired output parameter. For the linear regression models, leaf dimensions were considered independent variables, and the actual leaf area was the dependent variable. The criteria for choosing the best models were: the lowest root of the mean squared error (RMSE), mean absolute error (MAE), and absolute mean percentage error (MAPE), and higher coefficients of determination (R2). Among the linear regression models, the equation yˆ=0.515+0.584*LW was considered the most indicated to estimate the leaf area of the sesame. In modeling with ANNs, the best results were found for model 2-3-1, with two input variables (L and W), three hidden variables, and an output variable (LA). The ANN model was more accurate than the regression models, recording the lowest errors and higher R2 in the training phase (RMSE: 0.0040; MAE: 0.0027; MAPE: 0.0587; and R2: 0.9834) and in the test phase (RMSE: 0.0106; MAE: 0.0029; MAPE: 0.0611; and R2: 0.9828). Thus, the ANN method is the most indicated and accurate for predicting the leaf area of the sesame.

An Acetylcholine Electrochemical Biosensor Based on Bi-Enzyme Functionalized Nanofiber Composites

This work offered an electrochemical biosensor for acetylcholine (ACh) detection using the bi-enzyme functionalized nanofibers composites-modified glassy carbon electrode (GE). The nanofibers composites (AuNPs@GCS) prepared by electrospinning and electrodeposition techniques, were systematically characterized from micromorphology, active groups, actual areas and impedance, and were used to simultaneously decorate the acetylcholinesterase (AChE) and choline oxidase (ChOx). Bi-enzyme functionalized AuNPs@GCS (AChE-ChOx/AuNPs@GCS) electrode demonstrated the superior loading capacity and stability, was firstly used for the ACh analysis, the detection limit was 0.067 nM, it outperformed or compared to the relevant literatures in terms of linear range and LOD. After systematic methodological evaluation and feasibility verification, this biosensor had good stability, specificity and reproducibility. In human serum samples, the results detected by the biosensor were compared with results tested by Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). T test was performed for statistical comparisons and p value more than 0.05 was considered no statistical significance. It indicated that this biosensor had a good application prospect in the ACh actual sample detection. This work also provided an efficient and accurate method for quantitative detection of neurotransmitters in complex biological samples.

Thermal contact conductance between additively manufactured carbon fiber reinforced thermoplastic composite: An experimental study

As the additive manufacturing provides an advanced method for fabricating polymeric composite components in thermal engineering applications, the thermal contact conductance (TCC) between the contact composites can become an important problem. In order to understand the interfacial heat transfer mechanism between thermoplastic composites, TCC between additively manufactured carbon fiber reinforced polyamide 12 (CF/PA12) composites was experimentally studied with steady-state measurements in this work. By considering the material surface microstructure, thermal and mechanical properties, the effects of interface temperature, contact pressure, surface morphology, carbon fiber (CF) content and orientation in composites on TCC were analyzed. The results show that the TCC is dependent on the actual contact area and the thermal conduction path inside the material. In general, high surface roughness decreases the TCC because of the reduction of contact area; while it is the opposite of temperature and pressure. The CF distribution affects the internal thermal conduction path and surface roughness, leading to the variations in TCC.

Analisis Skalogram: Studi Kasus Pengembangan Kopi Mamasa Berbasis Kesesuaian Lahan dan Sarana Fasilitas Penunjang di Kabupaten Mamasa

To optimize Mamasa coffee production, a land use model that is appropriate to its designation is needed. The actual coffee area in Mamasa Regency reached 33,589.79 ha with a total of 20,980 farmer heads of households. This means that a large number of Mamasa people depend on Mamasa coffee. Analyze the land suitability of Mamasa coffee in relation to the regional hierarchy based on the availability of coffee supporting facilities in Mamasa Regency. Data analysis used the land suitability analysis method combined with a scalogram, to see contextually the process of intensification and development of Mamasa coffee supporting facilities. The results of this study indicate that most of the land for the business of managing Arabica and Robusta coffee plants is dominantly constrained by the physical conditions of the area where around 84.5% of the land is not suitable (N) with dominant slopes with erosion hazards (eh), root media (rc) and water availability (wa) in several open locations. In addition, the availability of coffee supporting facilities in Mamasa Regency is dominant in hierarchy 3 of 88%, while hierarchy 2 is only 9% and hierarchy 1 is 3%. This means that the facilities in Mamasa Regency in order to support coffee development related to processing facilities to marketing are still minimal. The Government of Mamasa Regency needs to pay attention to the improvement of coffee supporting facilities, especially in areas that are suitable land for Mamasa coffee, so that the intensification of coffee production in the upstream can be optimized and increased marketing in the downstream.

ICap: A Low-Cost Cap for Visually Impaired

Abstract: The boom in science and technology has significantly contributed towards the welfare, comfort and ease of movement of mankind, more so for the specially-abled sections of society. Though smart canes are considered to be the cutting-edge technology in terms of improving the lifestyle of visually impaired persons, there are still a few core issues which need to be keenly addressed such as detection of hanging objects, providing hands-free environment, prevention of accidental damage to surroundings, etc. Obstacles like hanging tree branches, open windows, hanging objects or boards on the roads, are few of the hurdles which still pose a problem for the blind. Smart canes do not provide a solution to such problems, although detection of potholes and obstacles lying on the ground have successfully been achieved. Furthermore, with a huge section of the visually impaired being uneducated and financially weak, most smart devices available in the market remain unaffordable and unusable. In this paper, we propose a solution for such obstacles in the form of the “iCap”. The iCap is a light weight and low-cost embedded system; an intelligent cap capable of detecting potholes, obstacles lying on the ground as well as hanging obstacles using a pair of ultrasonic sensors (HC-SR04). It enables the wearer (the visually impaired person) to navigate independently without the fear of being hit by random obstacles. Additionally, experiments were carried out to find the actual area within which an object would be detected by the iCap, and also the thresholds of size and shape of objects beyond which the objects would remain undetected

Uwarunkowania przeciwdziałania zjawisku dyskryminacji osób niskich w przestrzeni publicznej i projektowaniu użytkowym – w perspektywie stanowienia i stosowania prawa

The study is devoted to legal and factual conditions of the social situation of short people, in particular, in terms of actual and potential areas of risk of discrimination based on height, that does not correspond to the average in a given society. The article indicates the extent of height discrimination, referred to as heightism, and deals with social behaviours that can be classified as unfair and violating the subjective rights of a group of people who are characterized by their below-average height compared to the social average. This manifests itself in various aspects, including communication practices established in society, such as the infantilization of short people, which in turn negatively affects other spheres of these people’s social functioning. Moreover, discrimination in the social sphere is also evident in the employment opportunities offered to people of short stature – they are perceived as less experienced and less competent. It is also a problem that employers set requirements regarding the parameters of job applicants in situations where these is not actually necessary for the proper performance of the tasks required. What’s more, there is discrimination hindering, and sometimes severely limiting, the possibility of using public utility facilities (functioning in the public sphere), and utility items referring to the private sphere.Based on the analysis of case-law related to the situation of people of short stature and also anti-discriminatory solutions functioning in other countries, specific remedies for discrimination against short people have been proposed, which should be applied both in Polish legislation and in the implementation of existing law. The idea here is to expand the guarantee norms contained in the Polish constitution so that they explicitly prohibit discrimination on the grounds of height.

An Optimisation–Evaluation Framework for the Sustainable Management of the Water–Energy–Food Nexus for an Irrigation District under Uncertainty

The synergistic regulation of the water–energy–food nexus in irrigation districts is important for promoting the sustainable management of agricultural resources in irrigation districts. In this paper, a new integrated optimization–evaluation modelling framework for the water–energy–food nexus in agricultural irrigation areas is developed. It can measure the synergistic effects of economic, social and environmental multidimensional objectives on the sustainable management of agricultural resources in irrigation areas. The model couples an optimisation module and an evaluation module, combines a multiobjective nonlinear planning model with an opportunity-constrained planning model and uses an entropy-weighted TOPSIS assessment approach to sustainably assess the multidimensional indicators of the water–energy–food nexus in irrigation districts, with full consideration given to the effects of uncertainty in agricultural water and soil resources and social systems. The feasibility of the constructed model is verified through a study of the Jinxi irrigation district. The results show that compared to the actual area, the optimised surface water and groundwater availability increased by 23.5% and 22.7%; the optimised total area increased by 4%, whereas corn decreased by 40%, rice increased by 34.6% and soybean decreased by 33.8%; the energy consumption decreased by 17.6% and the total recycled resources amounted to 8.97 × 109 kg, with a combined net economic benefit of CNY 1.25 × 109 more than the actual current amount. The synergistic development of the water–energy–food nexus (WEFN) in the district is relatively harmonious, suggesting that the district should focus on developing agricultural mechanisation and balancing economic benefits with environmental and ecological protection; furthermore, the model constructed should provide decision-making support for the efficient use of agricultural resources in the irrigation district.

PHYSICOCHEMICAL AND RHEOLOGICAL CHARACTERIZATION OF ANTHOCYANIN DERIVED BUTTERFLY PEA FLOWERS

In the realm of cosmetology, anthocyanin has recently been used as one of the essential ingredients. Anthocyanin has been demonstrated to lessen irritability and aid in moisture retention when applied. However, adding a natural ingredient to a skin care product formulation might alter the consumer's experience when the product is applied since it increases the actual contact area and adhesion, which alters friction. In this study, the chemical and flow characteristics of anthocyanin are examined in order to evaluate the rheological characteristics of butterfly pea flowers that contain anthocyanin. Anthocyanins were derived from three main sources and the characteristic have been compared. By using a shear rate scan test rheometer with a plate configuration and a 1mm gap and temperatures ranging from 25°C to 85°C, rheological data were collected. Utilizing a UV-visible spectrophotometer and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), anthocyanin's chemical structure, class, and yield are each identified. It is found that anthocyanins' structural, physical, and functional attributes are generally influenced by their source, composition, and content.

Numerical study on the effect of thermal pad on enhancing interfacial heat transfer considering thermal contact resistance

In this paper, a 3D numerical model was established to investigate the effect of thermal pad on enhancing heat transfer of rough contact interfaces. The model is a sandwich structure and it includes chip, thermal pad and heat sink. The results indicate that the elastic modulus of the thermal pad can affect the actual contact area of rough contact interfaces, which further affects interfacial heat transfer. Besides, it is the through-plane thermal conductivity of the thermal pad that affects the heat dissipation of the chip, and increasing through-plane thermal conductivity of the thermal pad is more effective than increasing the clamping pressure for heat dissipation. Furthermore, if thermal conductivity of the thermal pad is low, the efficiency of simply increasing convective heat transfer coefficient at the side of the heat sink is limited for heat dissipation. The study also investigates thermal contact resistances among thermal pad, chip and heat sink. The results indicate that thermal contact resistance is influenced by material properties, and thermal contact resistance accounts for 2.2%–45.85% of total thermal resistance for the studied cases of this paper. The model was validated by experimental results and can be acceptable to study the heat dissipation of the sandwich structure with rough contacts.

MKIoU loss: toward accurate oriented object detection in aerial images

Oriented bounding box regression is crucial for oriented object detection. However, regression-based methods often suffer from boundary problems and the inconsistency between loss and evaluation metrics. A modulated Kalman intersection over union (IoU) loss of approximate SkewIoU is proposed, named MKIoU. To avoid boundary problems, we convert the oriented bounding box to Gaussian distribution then use the Kalman filter to approximate the intersection area. However, there exists significant difference between the calculated and actual intersection areas. Thus, we propose a modulation factor to adjust the sensitivity of angle deviation and width-height offset to loss variation, making the loss more consistent with the evaluation metric. Furthermore, the Gaussian modeling method avoids the boundary problem but causes the angle confusion of square objects simultaneously. Thus, the Gaussian angle loss (GA loss) is presented to solve this problem by adding a corrected loss for square targets. The proposed GA loss can be easily extended to other Gaussian-based methods. Experiments on three publicly available aerial image datasets, DOTA, UCAS-AOD, and HRSC2016, show the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Silicon electrodeposition from the KF-KCl-K<sub>2</sub>SiF<sub>6</sub> and KF-KCl-KI-K<sub>2</sub>SiF<sub>6</sub> melts

Silicon and silicon-based materials find extensive applications in metallurgy, microelectronics, and other emerging industries. The field of use of synthesized silicon varies based on its morphology and purity. This study employs voltammetry, galvanostatic electrolysis, and scanning electron microscopy to examine the impact of KI surfactant (in mol %) to 66.5KF–33.3KCl–0.23K2SiF6 melt at 750°C on the electrowinning kinetics of silicon ions and the morphology of silicon deposits formed on a glassy carbon electrode. The findings demonstrate that the addition of potassium iodide to the KF–KCl–K2SiF6 melt at a concentration of 2 mol % induces changes in interfacial tension at the boundary between the glassy carbon, melt, and atmosphere. Consequently, the wetting of the glassy carbon with the melt decreases, leading to a reduction in the actual working surface area and, consequently, a decrease in cathode current while maintaining current density. Taking into account this effect and employing an algebraic estimation of the influence of the melt meniscus shape, it is postulated that the addition of KI does not significantly affect the kinetics of the cathode process. Nevertheless, the impact of KI addition on the morphology of electrodeposited silicon is mentioned. During the electrolysis of the KF–KCl–K2SiF6 melt, fibrous silicon deposits with arbitrary shapes are formed on the glassy carbon electrode, whereas the addition of 2 and 4 mol % of potassium iodide to the melt leads to the agglomeration and smoothing of silicon deposits under the same electrolysis conditions (cathode current density: 0.02 A/cm2, electrolysis duration: 2 h). The obtained results indicate the potential to manipulate the morphology of electrodeposited silicon for specific applications in various fields.

Progress of schistosomiasis control in People's Republic of China in 2022

This report presented the endemic status of schistosomiasis and analyzed the data collected from the national schistosomiasis prevention and control system and national schistosomiasis surveillance program in the People's Republic of China in 2022. Among the 12 provinces (municipality and autonomous region) endemic for schistosomiasis, Shanghai Municipality, Zhejiang Province, Fujian Province, Guangdong Province and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region continued to maintain the achievements of schistosomiasis elimination, and Sichuan and Jiangsu provinces maintained the criteria of transmission interruption, while Yunnan, Hubei, Anhui, Jiangxi and Hunan provinces maintained the criteria of transmission control by the end of 2022. A total of 452 counties (cites, districts) were found to be endemic for schistosomiasis in China in 2022, with 27 434 endemic villages covering 73 424 400 people at risk of infections. Among the 452 endemic counties (cities, districts), 75.89% (343/452), 23.45% (106/452) and 0.66% (3/452) achieved the criteria of elimination, transmission interruption and transmission control of schistosomiasis, respectively. In 2022, 4 317 356 individuals received serological tests for schistosomiasis, and 62 228 were sero-positive. A total of 208 646 individuals received stool examinations for schistosomiasis, with one positive and another two cases positive for urine microscopy, and these three 3 cases were imported schistosomiasis patients from Africa. There were 28 565 cases with advanced schistosomiasis documented in China by the end of 2022. Oncomelania hupensis snail survey was performed in 18 891 endemic villages in China in 2022 and O. hupensis snails were found in 6 917 villages (36.62% of all surveyed villages), with 8 villages identified with emerging snail habitats. Snail survey was performed at an area of 655 703.01 hm2 and 183 888.60 hm2 snail habitats were found, including 110.58 hm2 emerging snail habitats and 844.35 hm2 re-emerging snail habitats. There were 477 200 bovines raised in the schistosomiasis endemic areas of China in 2022, and 113 946 bovines received serological examinations for schistosomiasis, with 204 sero-positives detected. Among the 131 715 bovines received stool examinations, no positives were identified. In 2022, there were 19 726 schistosomiasis patients receiving praziquantel chemotherapy, and expanded chemotherapy was performed in 714 465 person-time for humans and 234 737 herd-time for bovines in China. In 2022, snail control with chemical treatment was performed at an area of 119 134.07 hm2, and the actual area of chemical treatment was 65 825.27 hm2, while environmental improvements were performed at an area of 1 163.96 hm2. Data from the national schistosomiasis surveillance program of China showed that the mean prevalence of Schistosoma japonicum infections was both zero in humans and bovines in 2022, and no S. japonicum infection was detected in O. hupensis snails. These data demonstrated that the endemic status of schistosomiasis continued to decline in China in 2022, with 3 confirmed schistosomiasis patients that had a foreign nationality and all imported from Africa, and the areas of snail habitats remained high. Further improvements in the construction of the schistosomaisis surveillance and forecast system, and reinforcement of O. hupensis survey and control are required to prevent the re-emerging schistosomiasis.

A spheropolyhedral-based discrete element lattice Boltzmann method for simulation of non-spherical adhesive particulate flow

Non-spherical particulate flow is commonly encountered in nature, industry and our daily life. But up to now, there still lack effective model to describe the adhesive elastic collision between non-spherical microparticles. To solve this problem, a spheropolyhedral-based discrete element method (DEM) combined with Johnson-Kendall-Roberts (JKR) model is proposed. The contact between non-spherical particles is attributed to the contacts between three geometry features, including vertice-vertice (V-V), vertice-edge(V-E), vertice-face (V-F) and edge-edge (E-E). The JKR adhesive model is modified to calculate the contact force of the contacting geometry features based on the actual contact area. Meanwhile, the lattice Boltzmann coupled with the immersed moving boundary (LB-IMB) method is employed to simulate the fluid flow and fluid-particle interaction. The novel spheropolyhedral-based DE-LBM is verified to be accurate and effective by several experiments and the data in references. Finally, an application test for simulating the packing process of non-spherical microparticles is presented. The method well predicts the packing structure of both adhesive and non-adhesive non-spherical particles, meaning that it can be easily extended to simulate the massive non-spherical microparticles with high effectiveness and efficiency. Program summaryProgram Title: adhesive contact force model for non-spherical particleCPC Library link to program files:https://doi.org/10.17632/vswvv7ppz2.1Developer's repository link:https://github.com/QIAN-C/adhesive-force-model-for-non-sphericalLicensing provisions: GNU General Public License v3Programming language: C++Nature of problem: Various methods have been proposed to handle the complex shapes of non-spherical particles in the discrete element method. However, there is still a lack of effective models for calculating the contact force between the non-spherical fine particles, particularly the adhesive forces.Solution method: Based on the sphere-polygon algorithm and the JKR model, this program has developed a contact force model that can accurately calculate adhesive forces between non-spherical fine particles within the framework of the open source library MechSys (URL: http://mechsys.nongnu.org/index.shtml).

Research of segmentation recognition of small disease spots on apple leaves based on hybrid loss function and CBAM.

Identification technology of apple diseases is of great significance in improving production efficiency and quality. This paper has used apple Alternaria blotch and brown spot disease leaves as the research object and proposes a disease spot segmentation and disease identification method based on DFL-UNet+CBAM to address the problems of low recognition accuracy and poor performance of small spot segmentation in apple leaf disease recognition. The goal of this paper is to accurately prevent and control apple diseases, avoid fruit quality degradation and yield reduction, and reduce the resulting economic losses. DFL-UNet+CBAM model has employed a hybrid loss function of Dice Loss and Focal Loss as the loss function and added CBAM attention mechanism to both effective feature layers extracted by the backbone network and the results of the first upsampling, enhancing the model to rescale the inter-feature weighting relationships, enhance the channel features of leaf disease spots and suppressing the channel features of healthy parts of the leaf, and improving the network's ability to extract disease features while also increasing model robustness. In general, after training, the average loss rate of the improved model decreases from 0.063 to 0.008 under the premise of ensuring the accuracy of image segmentation. The smaller the loss value is, the better the model is. In the lesion segmentation and disease identification test, MIoU was 91.07%, MPA was 95.58%, F1 Score was 95.16%, MIoU index increased by 1.96%, predicted disease area and actual disease area overlap increased, MPA increased by 1.06%, predicted category correctness increased, F1 Score increased by 1.14%, the number of correctly identified lesion pixels increased, and the segmentation result was more accurate. Specifically, compared to the original U-Net model, the segmentation of Alternaria blotch disease, the MIoU value increased by 4.41%, the MPA value increased by 4.13%, the Precision increased by 1.49%, the Recall increased by 4.13%, and the F1 Score increased by 2.81%; in the segmentation of brown spots, MIoU values increased by 1.18%, MPA values by 0.6%, Precision by 0.78%, Recall by 0.6%, and F1 Score by 0.69%. The spot diameter of the Alternaria blotch disease is 0.2-0.3cm in the early stage, 0.5-0.6cm in the middle and late stages, and the spot diameter of the brown spot disease is 0.3-3cm. Obviously, brown spot spots are larger than Alternaria blotch spots. The segmentation performance of smaller disease spots has increased more noticeably, according to the quantitative analysis results, proving that the model's capacity to segment smaller disease spots has greatly improved. The findings demonstrate that for the detection of apple leaf diseases, the method suggested in this research has a greater recognition accuracy and better segmentation performance. The model in this paper can obtain more sophisticated semantic information in comparison to the traditional U-Net, further enhance the recognition accuracy and segmentation performance of apple leaf spots, and address the issues of low accuracy and low efficiency of conventional disease recognition methods as well as the challenging convergence of conventional deep convolutional networks.

Understanding the Ecosystem Carrying Capacity for Romanichthys valsanicola, a Critically Endangered Freshwater Fish Endemic to Romania, with Considerations upon Trophic Offer and Behavioral Density

The most recent assessment (2008) of the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species classified Romanichthys valsanicola as critically endangered (CR). In December 2022, an expert team from the National Institute for Research and Development in Environmental Protection Bucharest investigated the presence of the species in historical locations and in other potential sites. The authors correlated public data to the actual habitat area to calculate the potential species density in relation to the specific territorial behavior. The ecological carrying capacity was represented by the consensus between the behavioral density limitations and the trophic limitations of the actual species potential habitat. Both trophic availability and populational density present encouragingly high values for the sculpin perch in the Valsan River, indicating that the natural habitat could host a considerably higher number of individuals.