Correct Implementation Research Articles

Challenges of Implementation of Insurance Coverage Program for Infertility Services in Iran

Background: Population has long been known as the most important pillar of governments and societies. However, in recent years, the rate of infertility is increasing rapidly due to various reasons. Objectives: This study aimed to identify the factors and challenges affecting the implementation of insurance coverage program for infertility services in Iran for the policymakers and implementers of the program. Accordingly, the correct implementation of this program provides the possibility for infertile couples to benefit from the services of this program. Methods: This qualitative study was conducted in 2022. Purposive sampling was used for selecting a total of 20 Iranian scientific and executive experts of health system with work experience, especially in the field of infertility. The interviews were conducted in a semi-structured manner and analyzed using the content analysis method and MAXQDA 2020 software. Results: The results showed that the challenges of this program include 6 main themes along with 39 sub-themes. The main themes are challenges of upstream laws and legal requirements; provision of health services; human resources; the service package and its pricing; financial issues, budgets, and methods of service cost reimbursement; and information technology challenges. Conclusion: Although the service package is defined and announced, the implementation of this plan faces many challenges due to not taking into account the implementation conditions and requirements. By examining the problems of infertility insurance coverage, the present study provides a comprehensive and practical picture of these problems. Accordingly, the factors that can make the program successful in the future consist of inclusion of a part of the services related to infertility treatment in the package of insurance services, the awareness of managers and policy makers about the challenges of implementing this program, providing financial, electronic, and human resources needed by the program, and development and modification of standards of the program.

Analysis of the process of qualifying the welding technology of S355JR structural steel using the submerged arc welding method

This paper presents the issue of welding technology qualification using the example of structural steel S355JR with a plate thickness of 25 mm and 100 mm, bevelling V. The main objective of this work was to attempt to perform a full qualification of the submerged arc welding process in accordance with the requirements of PN EN ISO 15614. Particular attention was paid to the issue of the qualification of welding technology. The samples were subjected to non-destructive testing, i.e. visual and penetrant testing, as well as ultrasonic testing and heat treatment. This was followed by destructive testing, including macroscopic testing and hardness testing. According to the proposed procedure for the recognition of submerged arc welding technology, once the necessary tests had been carried out and the protocols with positive results had been obtained. The documentation had been completed, the analysis needed to obtain certificates of conformity for factory production control and welding quality was carried out.Submerged arc welding is often used for highly responsible butt joints, particularly when joining thick components. This has been achieved through the proper design of the preparation of the parts to be welded and the development of a welding technology that practically eliminates the pre-phase that occurs in traditional technology, thereby eliminating the risk of it affecting the quality of the welded joint.During the implementation of submerged arc welding, a number of technological problems were encountered. The first test joints contained many defects, i.e. sticking and slag inclusions inside the welds. In addition, obtaining welds with the correct profile and removing the slag from the weld groove was difficult. These obstacles were eliminated experimentally by carrying out successive tests using different parameters and welding groove geometries.The correct implementation of any welding process depends on its input parameters. These parameters include welding current, welding speed, welding current, wire diameter, welding voltage and many others. Submerged arc welding (SAW) is widely used in the industry for manufacturing as it is more reliable, provides deep penetration in the work, ensures a smooth finish on objects, and results in high productivity.The technology was developed for a company that manufactures control discs for steam turbines.

Studying the influence of technology on the social connectedness of students: A hybrid university learning environment (HULE)

Student social connectedness is indicated to be changing as universities are becoming more digitalised. Although social connectedness is shown to have a significant influence on the learning process, little is understood about the relationship between student social connectedness and the hybrid university learning environment (HULE). This empirical study aims to develop understandings by exploring student social connectedness in a hybrid-style class at a Swiss university. The study applies theories of placemaking and socio-materiality to explore students’ self-reported and observed perceptions of individual social connectedness at the start of a university master’s level course. The qualitative study is conducted using questionnaire data and observational data collected over the first month of a new course starting in the Autumn semester. The findings indicate that although students favour flexibility to design their learning space, they require the appropriate tools and guidance in which to make effective decisions for their social connectedness. Understanding the correct implementation of co-design for the HULE is therefore deemed important to facilitate social connectedness, this is particularly necessary for the liminal space. These findings are preliminary as part of a larger research project and offer a basis for further research to be developed. This study offers an innovative perspective of the HULE based on student social connectedness, impacting the existing pedagogical approach for university courses.

Validation, inter-comparison, and usage recommendation of six latest VIIRS and MODIS aerosol products over the ocean and land on the global and regional scales

MODIS and VIIRS aerosol products have been used extensively by the scientific community. Products in operation include MODIS Dark Target (DT), Deep Blue (DB), and Multi-Angle Implementation of Atmospheric Correction (MAIAC) and VIIRS DT, DB, and NOAA Environmental Data Record products. This study comprehensively validated and inter-compared aerosol optical depth (AOD) and Ångstrom exponent (AE) over land and the ocean of these six products (seven different algorithms) on regional and global scales using AErosol RObotic NETwork (AERONET) and Maritime Aerosol Network (MAN) observations. In particular, we used AERONET inversions to classify AOD and AE biases into different scenarios (depending on absorption and particle size) to obtain retrieval error characteristics. The spatial patterns of the products and their differences were also analyzed. Collectively, although six satellite AODs are in good agreement with ground observations, VIIRS DB (land and ocean) and MODIS MAIAC (land only) AODs show better validation metrics globally and better performance in 8/10 world regions. Therefore, they are more recommended for usage. Although land AE retrievals are not capable of quantitative application at both instantaneous and monthly scales, their spatial patterns show qualitative potential. Ocean AE shows a relatively high correlation coefficient with ground measurements (>0.75), meeting the fraction of expected accuracy (> 0.70). Error characteristic analyses emphasize the importance of aerosol particle size and absorption-scattering properties for land retrieval, indicating that improving the representation of aerosol types is necessary. This study is expected to facilitate the usage selection of operating VIIRS and MODIS products and their algorithm improvements.

Validation of the Ants-TRACE code system with VVER-1000 coolant transient benchmarks

The objective of this paper is to start the validation of the coupled code system of the nodal neutronics solver Ants and the system code TRACE. The process consists of two exercises of well-known VVER-1000 coolant transient benchmarks: a core-vessel simulation of a main steam line break transient of the V1000CT-2 benchmark and a full plant simulation of a main coolant pump trip of the Kalinin-3 benchmark. The Ants-TRACE results are compared against other code solutions in the V1000CT-2 benchmark and measurement data in the Kalinin-3 benchmark. The results show good agreement in both benchmarks, with the deviations ranging mostly within the measurement error or the range of deviations of other published solutions. The results confirm the correct implementation of the coupling and successful modeling of relevant phenomena in coolant transient events in a VVER-1000 reactor.

ANALISIS PERBANDINGAN KINERJA KEUANGAN PADA PT SILOAM INTERNATIONAL HOSPITALS TBK SEBELUM DAN SESUDAH ADANYA PANDEMI COVID-19

Financial performance is an analysis carried out to find out how far the company is progressing through the application of correct and correct financial implementation principles. The performance of a company is a description of the company's financial condition which is
 analyzed using financial analysis tools to determine whether the company's financial condition is good or bad which reflects the performance of a certain period. The purpose of this study is to
 analyze the comparison of the company's performance of PT Siloam International Hospitals Tbk before and after the Covid-19 pandemic, financial report data obtained from the Indonesia Stock Exchange for the 2018-2021 period. Analysis of financial performance is seen from the company's financial ratios, the financial ratios analyzed are liquidity ratios, solvency ratios, and profitability ratios and can be assessed or analyzed better before or after the Covid-19 pandemic based on the industry average of each ratio.

EXPLORING THE ADOPTION OF DYNAMIC CAPABILITIES STRATEGIES IN CONTEMPORARY BUSINESS PRACTICE

The dynamic and rapidly changing business environment demands companies to continuously adapt and align their resources to achieve sustainable growth and success. The adoption of continuous changes in internal business processes is an essential part for any business to survive in an ever-changing business scenario. This study presents a detailed analysis of the existing literature on dynamic capabilities from a theoretical as well as real-life application point of view. This paper is an in-depth case study which examines the dynamic capabilities strategy approach employed by Company X, a non-government organization, to achieve business growth to cultural building, product expansion, brand development and strategic partnership. This case study is based on a personal interview and survey conducted with the Chief Business Operator and key members of the senior team at Company X. The findings of this research stress on the significance of dynamic capabilities strategies and the critical role it plays in enhancing the business performance, for maximum optimization of resources, and demonstrate the positive impact that correct implementation of these strategies can have on efficiency and innovation in business operations. This study aims to provide insights on practical implementation using a case example along with recommendations for businesses that seek to adopt dynamic capabilities to achieve long term success.

Window-Based Filtering Aerosol Retrieval Algorithm of Fine-Scale Remote Sensing Images: A Case Using Sentinel-2 Data in Beijing Region

The satellite-based Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) retrieval algorithms are generally needed to construct Land Surface Reflectance (LSR) database. However, errors are unavoidable due to the surface complexity, especially for the short observation period and high-resolution images, such as Sentinel-2 Multi-Spectral Instrument (MSI) data. To address this, reference day images are used instead of the LSR database. The surface is assumed to be Lambertian; however, the fact is that not all pixels meet it well. Therefore, we proposed a window-based AOD retrieval algorithm, which can ignore the unreliable/non-Lambertian pixels in a retrieval window based on two main filtering processes. Finally, using Sentinel-2 Band 1 (60 m), the AODs (120 m) of 134 reference images to 43 reference images were retrieved by this algorithm from 2017 to 2021 in Beijing region, China. The results show that the retrieved AOD with the proposed algorithm exhibits good agreement with the ground-based measured AOD (R > 0.97). The high-resolution AOD presents comparable spatial distributions to the Multiangle Implementation of Atmospheric Correction (MAIAC) algorithm AOD (1 km) products. Moreover, the very little noise and very high spatial continuity of retrieval AOD imply that this algorithm could be ported to other algorithms as part of improving AOD quality.

Influence of technology adoption on organizational performance: evidence from Paraguayan microenterprises

The use of technology can assist microenterprises in increasing their productivity, competitiveness, and effectiveness, as well as improving customer satisfaction. The goal of this study was to compare the administrative performance of participating microenterprises before and after implementing a computerized management system. Thirty-two microenterprise owners and managers were selected for this case study and participated in four phases of the action research method: an exploratory phase to identify needs, a planning phase during which the first performance measurement was conducted, an implementation phase, and finally a post-implementation evaluation phase in which a new performance measurement was performed. Based on the specific needs identified in the exploratory phase, a tailor-made management software was designed and implemented in the participating microenterprises. The Student’s T-test results show a statistically significant positive change. Most of the participants agree that the implementation has contributed to a significant improvement in administrative tasks and processes, making their overall work more efficient, more accurate and with greater speed. This indicates that a correct implementation of information and communication technologies based on specific needs has a positive impact on the administrative performance of microenterprises. The method used in this study could be useful for successful technology adoption in similar organizations.

Analytical dispersive parametrization for elastic scattering of spinless particles

In this paper, we present an improved parametrization of the elastic scattering of spin-0 particles, which is based on a dispersive representation for the inverse scattering amplitude. Besides being based on well-known general principles, the requirement that the inverse amplitude should satisfy the dispersion relation significantly constrains its possible forms and have not been incorporated in the existing parametrizations so far. While the right-hand cut of the inverse scattering amplitude is controlled by unitarity, the contribution from the left-hand cut, which comes from the crossing symmetry, is commonly ignored or incorporated improperly. The latter is parametrized using the expansion in a suitably constructed conformal variable, which accounts for its analytic structure. The correct implementations of the Adler zero and threshold factors for angular momentum $J>0$ are discussed in detail as well. The amplitudes are written in a compact analytic form and provide a useful tool to analyze current and future lattice data in the elastic region improving upon the commonly used Breit-Wigner or K-matrix approaches.

Frequency response analysis of a toroidal field coil of the divertor tokamak test facility

The magnet system of the Divertor Tokamak Test (DTT) facility is mainly made up with superconducting coils. During the operation of the DTT machine, high voltages will appear across each Toroidal Field Coil (TFC) when fast current will ramp down; the reason why, a reliable electrical insulation is required for the operation of the TFC system. With the aim of checking the correct sizing and implementation of the electrical insulation, different DC and AC electrical tests will be performed during all the coil manufacturing process. Among these, the impedance spectrum test, or rather the complex impedance measurement over several decades of frequency range, can be used to analyze the frequency response of the coil. The variations of the resonance frequency (f0), during its electrical acceptance test, can be useful to make predictions about the detectability of internal failure conditions in a coil. This paper focuses on analysis of the frequency response of a TFC, using a numerical simulation approach. The goal is to assess the impedance spectrum of a TFC within a fixed frequency band by a frequency-dependent lumped network. Starting from the TFC layout, a WP with the casing has been modeled by a complex network of lumped parameters in Ansys 2021/R2 environment. The data (amplitude and phase angle vs frequency) obtained have been used to study the f0 variation during the different manufacturing stage of the WP. This model will be able to make predictions about the detectability of internal short-circuit in a TFC.

THE MAIN FACTORS SHAPING THE STATE'S DEBT POLICY AND DEBT STRATEGY IN THE REPUBLIC OF AZERBAIJAN

Public debt is the total amount covering the budget deficit in a certain period of time. The correct management of the debt structure means the set of operations carried out until the time when the debt is zeroed by issuing the debt and paying off the principal debt and interest thereafter. In this regard, in each state, a special institution responsible for the mentioned issues is involved. The purpose of debt strategy management is to ensure the achievement of the main economic and social goals by making certain adjustments or various additions to the amount, composition and repayment period of debts. From this point of view, debt management is closely related to both fiscal (budget-tax) and monetary policy of the state. Adjustments in the amount of debt, i.e. reducing or increasing the amount of the debt, regulating the debt in terms of duration is one of the important issues of debt management. It should be noted that these operations include adjustments to the amount and composition of the debt and a number of debt policy instruments that will ensure the achievement of certain economic goals. In addition, another goal of managing debt strategies is to use the resources obtained through borrowing in the most beneficial way for the stability and development of the national economy and to get rid of the debt burden at the lowest cost. This issue is one of the most important and most successful elements in the debt strategy. Public debt is the total value covering the budget deficit in a certain period of time. In addition, another goal of managing debt strategies is to use the resources obtained through borrowing in the most beneficial way for the stability and development of the national economy and to get rid of the debt burden at the lowest cost. This issue is one of the most important and most successful elements in the debt strategy. The most important factors that require attention in the debt strategy are: - Selection of the minimum debt burden for the State; - Sale of bonds and bills of any amount or as needed; - Adjustment of the borrowing amount and conditions to economic requirements; - Debt reduction as appropriate opportunities arise. Also, the main principle of strategic debt management is that the amount and structure of the public debt should be in accordance with the requirements of the economic situation and the main goals. At the same time, it should be taken into account that it is natural for the state to try to reduce its debt burden when appropriate opportunities arise. However, the policy of alleviating the debt burden begins first of all with the logical and correct selection of the borrowing time and other necessary measures. For example, during recessions when interest rates are low, it is more appropriate for the government to borrow. Because in general, the interest burden of the debt attracted by the state will be less. On the other hand, if there is a high interest payment obligation in the current period and if interest rates are likely to decrease in the future, it is useful to wait for the market interest to decrease through short-term borrowings. In the research paper “The main factors shaping the state's debt policy and debt strategy in the Republic of Azerbaijan” was talked about the debt policy, which is of special importance for any state and plays an indispensable role in its financial system. Nowadays, due to the fact that it plays an important role in the economic development of the country and the regulation of debt problems, the correct processing of the public debt has been reflected. Otherwise, an improperly prepared debt policy that does not take into account modern realities can lead to negative consequences and lead to unpleasant situations. From this point of view, the correct implementation of the policy related to the topic we are studying has been evaluated as one of the most relevant issues. In the article, the goals put forward in the strategy for public debt in the country are described. Based on the debt policy carried out in our country, it was brought to attention that the state has a wide and positive experience, both in terms of benefiting from the debt system and in terms of paying off the public debt. Recently, the dynamics of internal, general and external public debt have been given and statistical indicators have been shown, emphasizing the great importance of replacing foreign debt with domestic debt as much as possible. At the end of the article, it was mentioned that the main goal of the debt strategy is the gradual reduction of the public debt. Keywords: debt strategy, financial system, debt system, economic development, debt dynamics.

Systematic Evaluation of Four Satellite AOD Datasets for Estimating PM2.5 Using a Random Forest Approach

The latest epidemiological studies have revealed that the adverse health effects of PM2.5 have impacts beyond respiratory and cardio-vascular diseases and also affect the development of the brain and metabolic diseases. The need for accurate and spatio-temporally resolved PM2.5 data has thus been substantiated. While the selective information provided by station measurements is mostly insufficient for area-wide monitoring, satellite data have been increasingly applied to comprehensively monitor PM2.5 distributions. Although the accuracy and reliability of satellite-based PM2.5 estimations have increased, most studies still rely on a single sensor. However, several datasets have become available in the meantime, which raises the need for a systematic analysis. This study presents the first systematic evaluation of four satellite-based AOD datasets obtained from different sensors and retrieval methodologies to derive ground-level PM2.5 concentrations. We apply a random forest approach and analyze the effect of the resolution and coverage of the satellite data and the impact of proxy data on the performance. We examine AOD data from the Moderate resolution Imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) onboard Terra and Aqua satellites, including Dark Target (DT) algorithm products and the Multi-Angle Implementation of Atmospheric Correction (MAIAC) product. Additionally, we explore more recent datasets from the Sea and Land Surface Temperature Radiometer (SLSTR) onboard Sentinel-3a and from the Tropospheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) operating on the Sentinel-5 precursor (S5p). The method is demonstrated for Germany and the year 2018, where a dense in situ measurement network and relevant proxy data are available. Overall, the model performance is satisfactory for all four datasets with cross-validated R2 values ranging from 0.68 to 0.77 and excellent for MODIS AOD reaching correlations of almost 0.9. We find a strong dependency of the model performance on the coverage and resolution of the AOD training data. Feature importance rankings show that AOD has less weight compared to proxy data for SLSTR and TROPOMI.

Influence of Design Efficiency of Water Supply Network Inside Building on its Optimum Usage: Review

The water supply network inside the building is of high importance due to direct contact with the user that must be optimally designed to meet the water needs of users. This work aims to review previous research and scientific theories that deal with the design of water networks inside buildings, from calculating the amount of consumption and the optimal distribution of the network, as well as ways to rationalize the use of water by the consumer. The process of pumping domestic water starts from water treatment plants to be fed to the public distribution networks, then reaching a distribution network inside the building till it is provided to the user. The design of the water supply network inside the building is mainly affected by the amount of water consumed in the building. On this basis, the pipes' dimensions and the water tank's volume are determined. The operating pressure of the water supply network inside the building is calculated to overcome the height difference and the friction inside the pipes and provide sufficient pressure to operate the most remote fixture. The most important results of the research are that the optimal use of the water distribution network inside the buildings is achieved by the correct design and implementation using skilled labor, materials, and devices of high quality and rationalization of water consumption by the user.

Quality Assurance based on Deep Learning for Pelvic OARs Delineation in Radiotherapy.

Correct delineation of organs at risk (OARs) is an important step for radiotherapy and it is also a time-consuming process that depends on many factors. An automatic quality assurance (QA) method based on deep learning (DL) was proposed to improve efficiency for detecting contouring errors of OARs. A total of 180 planning CT scan sets at the pelvic site and the corresponding OARs contours from clinics were enrolled in this study. Among them, 140 cases were randomly chosen as the training datasets, 20 cases were used as the validation datasets, and the remaining 20 cases were used as the test datasets. DL-based models were trained through data curation for data cleaning based on the Dice similarity coefficient and the 95th percentile Hausdorff distance between the original contours and the predicted contours. All contouring errors could be classified into two types; minor modification required and major modification required. The pass criteria were established using Bias- Corrected and Accelerated bootstrap on 20 manually reviewed validation datasets. The performance of the QA method was evaluated with the metrics of sensitivity, specificity, the area under the receiving operator characteristic curve (AUC), and detection rate sensitivity on the 20 test datasets. For all OARs, segmentation results after data curation were superior to those without. The sensitivity of the QA method was greater than 0.890 and the specificity was higher than 0.975. The AUCs were 0.948, 0.966, 0.965, and 0.932 for the bladder, right femoral head, left femoral head, and rectum, respectively. Almost all major errors could be detected by the automatic QA method, and the lowest detection rate sensitivity of minor errors was 0.863 for the rectum. QA of OARs is an important step for the correct implementation of radiotherapy. The DL-based QA method proposed in this study showed a high potential to automatically detect contouring errors with high precision. The method can be integrated into the existing radiotherapy procedures to improve the efficiency of delineating the OARs.

THE IMPORTANCE OF MEDIATION IN THE PROCESS OF RESOLVING INTERNATIONAL PRIVATE DISPUTES

The normal functioning of the justice system existing in the state, which should ensure the satisfaction of the private interests of the sub- jects of law, should be evaluated as an expression of public and private interests. After all, the well-being of the subjects of law is significantly determined by the existence of a flexible dispute resolution system and mechanisms, the correct formation and implementation of which guarantees the stability of the civil turnover and the satisfaction of the interests of legal subjects. Despite the importance of the issue, ensuring that the legal subjects are offered fast and affordable forms of dis- puteresolution, remains to be a challenge. Achieving the mentioned goal becomes more difficult, when the dispute is loaded with international private law elements, is characterized by complexity in this way and its resolution is connected with a number of peculiarities. That is why, on the one hand, it is considered important to make changes in the law of Georgia “On Private International Law”, which will eliminate the risks of its misinterpretation. On the other hand, it is important to emphasize the role and importance of mediation in the process of resolving international private law disputes. Accordingly, following the legislative amendments, it is also considered important to raise public awareness in this direction and improve legal culture. The above-mentioned, significantly helps the formation of a chain of effective means of dispute resolution, where, on the other hand, an important place shall be given to the form of remote proceedings.

How cardiologists can manage excess body weight and related cardiovascular risk. An expert opinion

Obesity is an important independent cardiovascular (CV) risk factor and a chronic inflammatory disease related to the development of insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, dyslipidaemia, coronary artery disease, hypertension, heart failure, atrial fibrillation and obstructive sleep apnoea. Body Mass Index (BMI) values >27 kg/m2 are associated with an exponential increase in the risk for Major Adverse Cardiac Events (MACE). On the other hand, weight reduction can significantly reduce metabolic, CV and oncological risk. Orlistat, bupropion/naltrexone, liraglutide and semaglutide, combined with lifestyle changes, have proven to be effective in weight loss; the last two have been tested in randomized clinical trials (RCTs) with CV outcomes only in diabetic patients, and not in obese patients. To fill a fundamental gap of knowledge, the SELECT trial on patients with obesity and CV disease treated with semaglutide is ongoing, aiming at MACE as the primary endpoint.The battle against the social and clinical stigma towards obesity must be counteracted by promoting an awareness that elevates obesity to a complex chronic disease. Several actions should be implemented to improve the management of obesity, and cardiologists have a key role for achieving a global approach to patients with excess weight also through the correct implementation of available treatment strategies.

All-Digital Computing-in-Memory Macro Supporting FP64-Based Fused Multiply-Add Operation

Recently, frequent data movement between computing units and memory during floating-point arithmetic has become a major problem for scientific computing. Computing-in-memory (CIM) is a novel computing paradigm that merges computing logic into memory, which can address the data movement problem with excellent power efficiency. However, the previous CIM paradigm failed to support double-precision floating-point format (FP64) due to its computing complexity. This paper presents a novel all-digital CIM macro-DCIM-FF to complete FP64 based fused multiply-add (FMA) operation for the first time. With 16 sub-CIM cells integrating digital multipliers to complete mantissa multiplication, DCIM-FF is able to provide correct rounded implementations for normalized/denormalized inputs in round-to-nearest-even mode and round-to-zero mode, respectively. To evaluate our design, we synthesized and tested the DCIM-FF macro in 55-nm CMOS technology. With a minimum power efficiency of 0.12 mW and a maximum computing efficiency of 26.9 TOPS/W, we successfully demonstrated that DCIM-FF can run the FP64-based FMA operation without error. Compared to related works, the proposed DCIM-FF macro shows significant power efficiency improvement and less area overhead based on CIM technology. This work paves a novel pathway for high-performance implementation of an FP64-based matrix-vector multiplication (MVM) operation, which is essential for hyperscale scientific computing.

Corrected ALE-ISPH with novel Neumann boundary condition and density-based particle shifting technique

It is well-known in the Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) community that correction in the gradient and Laplacian operators have the potential to drastically increase the accuracy of the method at the expense of computational stability. This paper proposes a stable implementation of such corrections in all derivative operators to the Arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian incompressible SPH (ALE-ISPH) method, in addition to a novel Neumann boundary condition (BC) applied directly on the velocity (as opposed to traditional BCs where the constraint is applied on the acceleration). In this way, the pressure is solved for both water and wall particles simultaneously, leading to a pressure field that obeys non-penetration BC and divergence-free at the same time. Furthermore, to stabilize the method, we have developed a novel density-based particle shifting technique (PST), specifically designed to deal with incompressible fluids. In this formulation, the numerical density is given as one of the most critical constraint variables. As a result, the proposed density-based PST can maintain the fluid's overall volume for the whole simulation. In addition, it also provides numerical stability as it prevents particle clustering and leads the fluid domain to an isotropic composition. First, we verified the proposed corrected formulation with the novel Neumann BC for both non-penetration and non-slip conditions with the simulation of hydrostatic pressure and Poisenuille flow, respectively. Then, we tested the proposed density-based PST with the rotating square patch problem with results comparable to previous studies. Lastly, we verified the proposed method for the dam break with an obstacle test, a highly dynamic problem.

An exploration, analysis, and correction of the distance effect on terrestrial hyperspectral LiDAR data

Terrestrial hyperspectral light detection and ranging (LiDAR) (HSL), as one novel LiDAR system integrated with more wavelengths, has supplied enhanced possibilities in many fields by delivering the geographic coordinate and the hyperspectral backscattered intensity simultaneously. However, like the traditional single-wavelength LiDAR, it is faced with the distance effect, which restricts the accurate acquisition of the hyperspectral intensities and the quantitative retrieval of characteristics of the targets. The previously reported distance effect correction models mainly concentrated on the distance effect correction for the single-wavelength LiDAR system, and some normalization methods with the standard reflectance panel were also provided to calibrate the data measured by multispectral LiDAR and HSL, producing the reflectance-related value. Nevertheless, it is valuable to systematically explore the distance effect of HSL over long distances and search for the corresponding correction methods. Along these lines, in this study, the homogeneous targets and standard reflectance panels with different reflectance values were employed to participate in the distance experiment to systematically explore and analyze the distance effect phenomenon on terrestrial HSL data. A novel practical piecewise fitting model was proposed to output realistic correction results and it was also compared with the classic inverse distance square law and polynomial fitting model. To further demonstrate the feasibility and good capability, the models were employed in the intensity correction for the various vegetation leaf species. A simple 3-D scene experiment was then carried out to demonstrate the intensity variation before and after the implementation of the distance effect correction. From the acquired result, it suggests that (1) the distance effect on terrestrial HSL data is not related to the wavelength and the scanned target. All the wavelengths share a common distance effect; (2) the concept of the ‘distance effect function’ could represent well the distance effect for the terrestrial HSL; (3) as far as the correction ability is concerned, the proposed piecewise fitting model achieved better performance than the others because it exhibited the smallest standard deviation (σ), coefficient of variation (CV), and the ratio of the coefficient of variation (ε) for the correction results of the homogeneous targets, and the leaf experiments confirmed it again; and (4) the further 3-D experiment result exhibited the intensity variation. It proves that the distance effect does exist in the 3-D scanning results and the correction is necessary. Besides, for small-scanned scenes, the incidence angle effect dominates and largely affects the intensity data instead of the distance effect. This study enriches the study of the distance effect mechanism on the terrestrial HSL data, which facilitates the development of research on the radiative effect correction of the HSL. At the same time, the proposed model can be adopted for the analysis and correction of the distance effect on terrestrial HSL data in actual scanning tasks.