Environmental Infrastructure Research Articles

Laporan Kasus : Pemeriksaan Forensik Pada Kasus Kecelakaan Lalu Lintas

Background: A traffic accident is an unexpected and unwanted road traffic event which is difficult to predict when and where it will occur, involving at least one vehicle with other road users or due to negligence in driving a vehicle, be it a car or motorcycle which can cause death, disability, serious injury or minor injury. Within the territory of Indonesia itself, every hour has an average of at least three people who die as a result of the accident with many causal factors such as the human factor itself, which is around 61%, then the vehicle factor is 9% and environmental factors and infrastructure contribute as much as 30%.
 Case Description : We report a case of a traffic accident with multiple trauma. This traffic accident involved 2 motorbike riders who were traveling at maximum speed so that they collided with a truck that was stopped at a red light in Makassar City, South Sulawesi, on Thursday 15 June 2022 at around 01.00 WITA and caused the two motorbike riders to die. The motorbike that was traveling at high speed suddenly stopped and hit the back of the truck, as a result the body moving at the speed of the vehicle suddenly experienced a deceleration, causing multiple trauma to several regions or organs of the body. The effects on the victim's corpse varied in the form of head injuries, open wounds, and fractures to several bones.
 Conclusion : Forensic examination is very useful to determine the cause of death, mechanism of death, and nature of death. In the medical report of a traffic accident, the forensic doctor can explain his findings in the form of a post mortem et repertum.

A Study of the Effect of Trade Openness on Population Health: Empirical Evidence from China

Currently, the international economy is experiencing profound and intricate transformations, while economic globalization is encountering unprecedented challenges and witnessing a surge in counter-globalization sentiments. Critics express concerns over the potential detrimental effects of trade liberalization on the welfare of low-income groups, particularly in developing countries. China, as the largest developing country, also holds the status of a major trading nation. Using panel data from 285 prefecture-level cities across China during 2000–2019, this study examines how trade openness affects population health to assess the welfare effects of trade openness, providing new theoretical perspectives and empirical evidence to further promote economic globalization and improve human health and well-being. The results show that trade openness can significantly promote population health. And, a series of robustness tests show that the above conclusion is still valid. Trade openness has a greater positive impact on the health of the population of the eastern and central regions, the coastal cities, and high-trade-openness cities. An analysis of the mechanism reveal that trade openness mainly promotes population health through channels such as labor employment, wage income, public health investment, and personal health investment. However, trade openness can also lead to environmental pollution, which has a significant negative impact on population health. Additionally, through threshold effects analysis, it becomes evident that the relationship between trade openness and population health is nonlinear. This implies that there are critical thresholds related to the economic development stage, investment in environmental governance, and environmental infrastructure construction. Falling below or exceeding these thresholds may lead to different interval effects on the impact of trade openness on population health.

Teachers’ Knowledge and Practice of Using ICT Tools in High School Science Teaching and Learning

Information and communication technology (ICT) tools are the integral part of innovative science teaching. Effective uses of ICT tools play a vital role in teaching and learning in this era. This research was done to analyze the level of expertise and practice of using ICT tools among teachers in classroom teaching. The study is based on quantitative descriptive design. Four municipalities and 16 schools were selected randomly. Fifty science teachers were selected on the basis of census sampling from Siraha district. The collected data were evaluated by utilizing statistical tools which indicates that most science teachers have inadequate access to ICT tools and have moderate knowledge and practice of handling them. All teachers used mobile phone and internet for personal purpose but ICT tools practices were poor in an integrated science classroom. The traditional lecture-based pattern of teaching, lack of ICT-specific knowledge and practice, content-based knowledge of teachers, aged teachers, inadequate ICT infrastructure and lack of ICT-friendly environment are the major barriers to the transfer of ICT teaching-learning process. The study suggested that there is the need for conducting of ICT based educational training, and preparing the teaching guidelines for regular use of ICT tools.

Defining environmental justice communities: Evaluating digital infrastructure in Southeastern states for Justice40 benefits allocation

Evaluating the impact of the Justice40 Initiative requires clearly defining and publicly disclosing both the “benefits” of the clean energy transition and the “disadvantaged communities” who should receive these benefits. Robust digital infrastructure at the state level is necessary to ensure that federal clean energy and climate funding intended for disadvantaged communities reaches those communities. This paper evaluates the digital environmental infrastructure capabilities of southeastern U.S. states (Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia) using accessibility, timeliness, methodology, and usefulness metrics drawn from the open government data and environmental data justice literature. The results of this evaluation are compared to each state's environmental justice policies. Southeastern states' environmental digital infrastructure tends to exclude qualitative information, data collected by non-governmental actors, and multi-media information. The states that have developed clear definitions and mapping tools relating to EJ communities (Maryland, North Carolina, and Virginia) tend to score well across the evaluation metrics. Policy recommendations to advance environmental justice policy in southeastern states include developing EJ mapping tools, advocating for a Justice40 oversight committee at the state level, defining EJ communities, and ensuring transparency in reporting the expenditures of federal funds.

Communication about sensors and communication through sensors: localizing the Internet of Things in rural communities

AbstractInternet of Things (IoT) sensor networks are an emerging technology at the center of the datafication and optimization of far-reaching environmental infrastructures—from “smart cities” to workplace efficiencies. However, this low-power, low-cost technology is also well suited to local deployments in rural communities, which are often overlooked by digital development initiatives. Therefore, we used a social construction of technology approach to study how various U.S.-based IoT stakeholders—including designers and advocates as well as citizen stakeholders—understand and value sensor network technologies. Through observational methods, in-depth interviews, and participatory design research in a rural Upstate New York municipality, we worked to design sensor networks with rural community members to generate data about and for community members to further local knowledge. We found that designing rural sensor networks requires stakeholders to navigate obstacles of communication about sensors and communication through sensors to facilitate secure, ethical, and localized sensing in rural communities.

An Overview of How the Built Environment Relates to Children's Health.

Explore the varied pathways between the built environment and children's health. The review begins by describing how the built environment and transport infrastructure relate to conditions that lead to health outcomes. The review examines emissions, noise, and traffic dangers in relation to children's physical, mental, and social health. Evidence is increasing for walkable neighborhoods and health-related behavior such as physical activity. However, diverse land uses (often supporting walkability) were also found to increase traffic injuries. Cognitive impacts of motorways on children at schools were found. Finally, the relationships between social activities and built environment are beginning. The built environment's influence on various physical health outcomes is increasingly clear and is often through a transport pathway. However, the links with mental and social health are less developed, though recent findings show significant results. Having accessible child-relevant destinations is an important consideration for children's health.

Review on the durability of eco-friendly engineering cementitious composite (ECC)

A comprehensive manual review of the use of slag and fly ash in engineered cement-based composites (ECBCs) was conducted. The extensive use of supplementary cementitious materials and integrated fibers in engineered cement-based composite (ECBCs) in seawater composite structures can help to enhance the durability of infrastructure in marine environments and minimize the extensive use of cement and CO2 emissions in the construction industry. This paper retrieved journal and review articles on slag/fly ash utilization in ECBCs from the Scopus database, mainly from 2015 to 2022, and performed an analysis using a suitable software tool. It also provided an up-to-date review of the literature on eco-friendly engineered cementitious composites’ (ECC) durability, with in-depth discussions on the effects of temperature fluctuation on ECCs, supplementary cementitious material, frost and salt corrosion resistance, pre-cracking, seawater resistance, and microstructural alteration. The durability of ECCs is closely related to the behaviors of the fiber distribution, matrix, and fiber-matrix interface under various environmental conditions. The main factors causing the deterioration of the engineering cement-based composites are fiber orientation and dispersion, frost resistance, corrosion, and alkaline environment. Fiber dispersion is mainly assumed to be highly homogeneous in theory, but in practice, due to the uneven dispersion of the fibers the property of each composite structure is not uniform. Further, among all issue associated with durability, sulfate salt attack considered as the most significant environmental deterioration process that affect the resilience of hydraulic structure. At last, it is necessary to conduct additional research on the durability of ECC under various environmental conditions to comprehend its behavior in the actual world. The experimental data currently available on the short-term durability of ECC fluctuate over time. Which indicates that the mechanisms for the long-term degradation of ECC under specific environmental conditions remain unknown.

Can Environmental Centralization Enhance Emission Reductions?—Evidence from China’s Vertical Management Reform

In the industrialization process, the difficulty in implementing environmental protection and enhancing the effect of environmental emission reduction are common problems to the developing countries, which are directly related to the quality of social development. This paper takes environmental centralization as the solution idea, takes the vertical management reform of environmental protection agencies implemented in China as the research object, and evaluates the environmental emission reduction effect and mechanism of action of centralized reform based on provincial environmental economic panel data using difference-in-differences model and intermediary model. The following conclusions are drawn: (1) The environmental centralization has significantly improved the provincial environmental emission reduction effect. After China’s vertical management reforms were implemented, per capita CO2 emissions decreased by 11.1%, and industrial source SO2 emissions fell by 35.7%. (2) By increasing investment in urban environmental infrastructure construction, the reform has raised the level of investment and regulation in environmental protection construction, which in turn has effectively improved the ability to reduce environmental emissions. (3) After the implementation of the reform, the emission reduction effects of the reform on per capita CO2 and industrial source SO2 are 10.1% and 14.2% higher in provinces with lower industrial output value compared to those with higher industrial output value. At the same time, the effect of reform in provinces with a strong degree of local government intervention was significantly lower than that in provinces with a weak degree of local government intervention. The emission reduction effects of the reform implementation are 10.2% (per capita CO2) and 30.5% (industrial source SO2) lower, respectively. Based on the above findings, this paper argues that environmental centralization is an effective measure to advance the improvement of environmental quality and efficiency. In addition, China’s reform experience has implications for other developing countries.

The Wetting Behavior of Water Droplets on Silane and Silane/GO-Modified Ettringite Surfaces: Insights into Molecular Dynamics Simulations

The use of rapid-hardening cementitious materials for the emergency repair of critical infrastructure in coastal environments is becoming increasingly widespread, and concrete surface hydrophobic protection treatment is equally necessary to improve the durability of both new and old concrete. Among them, silane-based hydrophobic materials play an important role in concrete hydrophobic protection. Graphene oxide (GO)-modified silane materials can significantly improve the hydrophobic performance of coatings, but the hydrophobic mechanism of coatings modifying the sulfoaluminate cement’s main hydration product ettringite (AFt) has not yet been explored. In this study, molecular dynamics simulations were conducted to investigate the wetting properties of water droplets on the surface of AFt, isobutyltriethoxy silane (IBTS)-modified AFt, and IBTS/GO-modified AFt. It was found that the AFt substrate had good hydrophilicity, and the droplets could wet the interface through Ca-O ionic bonds and H-bonds. The IBTS coating initially impeded droplet wetting, but the adsorption stability of IBTS on the AFt substrate surface was poor under droplet action, leading to droplet penetration and dispersion of the IBTS coating on the AFt surface. However, the IBTS/GO coating significantly restricted droplet wetting due to the stable adsorption of GO on the AFt surface and the strong stability of hydrogen bonds between IBTS and GO. In conclusion, selecting a suitable bridging material between AFt and silane is crucial for improving the hydrophobic stability of silane coatings on sulfoaluminate cement materials.

Enhancing attack resilience of cyber-physical systems through state dependency graph models

AbstractThis paper presents a method that utilizes graph theory and state modelling algorithms to perform automatic complexity analysis of the architecture of cyber-physical systems (CPS). It describes cyber physical systems risk assessment (CPSRA), a tool to provide automatic decision support for enhancing the overall resilience of CPS architectures often used in critical infrastructures. CPRSA is built to enhance industrial risk assessment and improve the resilience of CPS architecture against malicious attacks on the cyber domain that can affect industrial processes, which is critical in a distributed cyber environment. Such attacks often compromise execution states on physical components and lead to hazards or even disasters through plant malfunction. CPSRA is tested against a real-world testbed model of a large SCADA system that is infused with real-world CVE vulnerabilities in some of its components. The tool creates an isomorphic graph of the CPS process model and uses graph algorithms and network analytics on the model to test cyber-attacks and evaluate attack resilience aspects. The tool’s output is then used to pinpoint high-complexity components in terms of influence on the overall CPS architecture and suggest mitigation points for security measure implementation while considering every potential subattack path and subliminal path on the model’s attack graph. The paper complements standardized assessment reports and contributes to automatic architecture assessment for critical infrastructure environments and can be used as the basis to model dependencies and threat propagation in larger digital twins, a need outlined in major NIST publications concerning the security of industrial systems that was previously done manually, without automatic insight into state and vulnerability influences.

An efficient heterogeneous signcryption scheme for internet of things

In today’s world, Internet of Things (IoT) has penetrated every aspect of us. The security of IoT is challenging because of the open nature of wireless communication and limited resources of sensor nodes (SNs). In this paper, we propose an efficient heterogeneous signcryption scheme from IoT to an Internet server, in which the server is in a public key infrastructure (PKI) environment, while the IoT is in a certificateless cryptosystem (CLC) environment. The proposed scheme is briefly referred to as CP-EHSC. CLC can settle the drawbacks of key escrow in identity-based cryptography (IBC) and public key certificate management in PKI. At the same time, PKI is suitable for the server since it has been widely adopted on the Internet. Our proposed scheme can provide security proof in the random oracle model (ROM). Performance analysis shows that the proposed scheme not only achieves great optimization in calculation cost and communication consumption but also makes great progress in total energy consumption. In addition, we illustrate the practical applicability of our proposed scheme by providing a realistic use case scenario.

Analysis of a Municipal Solid Waste Disposal Site: Use of Geographic Information Technology Tools for Decision Making

In this study, the operation of a final disposal site for municipal solid waste in the state of Chiapas, in Mexico, was evaluated. Several spatial analyses and Geographic Information Technology (GIT) tools were used. It was found that the site’s current operation and location are deficient, partially complying with regulations. The gaseous dispersion is not far-reaching (from 100 to 8725 µg/m3 for landfill gas, and from 0.01 to 0.35 µg/m3 for H2S) but requires attention to avoid olfactory unpleasantness. Liquid emissions (conservative pollutants) move in the east direction of the final disposal site, which can damage the environmental infrastructure (water supply wells) in the long term. The highest and lowest concentrations were found in years 1 (12,270 mg/m3) and 20 (1080 mg/m3), respectively. Thermal emissions around the dumping site are important due to the formation of microclimatic zones. Temperature differences were found during the analysis period, ranging from 8.37 °C in summer to 2.49 °C in winter, which are due to waste decomposition processes and anthropogenic activities. Finally, the change in land use around the dumping site increased at a rate of 5.82% per year, mainly due to the growth of homes, communication routes, and shopping centers.

Integration of Heterogeneous Sensor Systems for Disaster Responses in Smart Cities: Flooding as an Example

Smart cities represent a new perspective on modern urban development. They involve an information infrastructure environment with application intelligence to improve operational efficiency and welfare effectively. However, understanding how to overcome the barriers of data fragmentation and heterogeneity to exploit the strengths of existing resources and create integration effects remains a key challenge in smart city development. This research focuses on the effective management of heterogeneous sensor systems across different domains to improve quick disaster responses. Metadata serve as the core of this proposed framework, which is designed to not only describe the common and unique characteristics of various IoT-based devices and services, but also to provide necessary information to support the searching, requesting, and updating of required sensors and observation, as well as responding to the upcoming disaster. A workflow consisting of four list types was proposed and used to guide the response procedure. This research specifically aims to enable heterogeneous sensor systems available to all public or private stakeholders to be integrated in a collaborative fashion. While a flooding response was chosen for demonstration in this research, the proposed standard-based framework can be further promoted for other types of smart city applications, not limited to disaster response. The study’s results and implications underscore the importance of effective management of heterogeneous sensor systems and the role of metadata in enabling disaster responses in smart cities.

Proposed Business Strategy for New Healthcare Innovation of Electro-Capacitive Body Stimulation (ECBS) Technology

One of the greatest healthcare challenges in Indonesia is providing an adequate environment and healthcare infrastructure that ensures that people obtain the best treatment that conforms to their expectations, preferences, and needs. Therefore, healthcare technology players have a crucial role in overcoming this challenge and creating a better solution to the system. Electro Capacitive Body Stimulation (ECBS) is a technology that utilizes electric pulses to stimulate the body’s muscles and organs to optimize waste removal and nutrient transport process. As a result, the body will be conducive to physical well-being. For the elderly, who start to experience slowing down in physical ability and degeneration of organ functions, this technology is beneficial to maintain their health condition and prevent future chronic disease. However, the market performance is not live up to the fineness of this technology, even with all its benefits and technological advancement. As a matter of fact, sales have been disappointing by the year since the product is launched to the public. A number of factors contributed to this unsatisfactory sale encompassing internal and external conditions of the company. Through the analysis of internal and external environments as well as primary and secondary data, research is conducted to identify the contributing factors to the unsatisfactory sales and potential value of the technology. Based on the analysis and findings, a SWOT analysis that defines the unsatisfactory business performance factors and potential technology value and the TOWS matrix that bases the business strategy can be described. It includes the diamond model, STP and 7PS marketing, and business model canvas as the proposed solution for the business.

Wi-Fi-Based Indoor Localization and Navigation: A Robot-Aided Hybrid Deep Learning Approach.

Indoor localization and navigation have become an increasingly important problem in both industry and academia with the widespread use of mobile smart devices and the development of network techniques. The Wi-Fi-based technology shows great potential for applications due to the ubiquitous Wi-Fi infrastructure in public indoor environments. Most existing approaches use trilateration or machine learning methods to predict locations from a set of annotated Wi-Fi observations. However, annotated data are not always readily available. In this paper, we propose a robot-aided data collection strategy to obtain the limited but high-quality labeled data and a large amount of unlabeled data. Furthermore, we design two deep learning models based on a variational autoencoder for the localization and navigation tasks, respectively. To make full use of the collected data, a hybrid learning approach is developed to train the models by combining supervised, unsupervised and semi-supervised learning strategies. Extensive experiments suggest that our approach enables the models to learn effective knowledge from unlabeled data with incremental improvements, and it can achieve promising localization and navigation performance in a complex indoor environment with obstacles.

A comprehensive resilience assessment framework for hydrogen energy infrastructure development

In recent years, sustainable development has become a challenge for many societies due to natural or other disruptive events, which have disrupted economic, environmental, and energy infrastructure growth. Developing hydrogen energy infrastructure is crucial for sustainable development because of its numerous benefits over conventional energy sources. However, the complexity of hydrogen energy infrastructure, including production, utilization, and storage stages, requires accounting for potential vulnerabilities. Therefore, resilience needs to be considered along with sustainable development. This paper proposes a decision-making framework to evaluate the resilience of hydrogen energy infrastructure by integrating resilience indicators and sustainability contributing factors. A holistic taxonomy of resilience performance is first developed, followed by a qualitative resilience assessment framework using a novel Intuitionistic fuzzy Weighted Influence Nonlinear Gauge System (IFWINGS). The results highlighted that Regulation and legislation, Government preparation, and Crisis response budget are the most critical resilience indicators in the understudy hydrogen energy infrastructure. A comparative case study demonstrates the practicality, capability, and effectiveness of the proposed approach. The results suggest that the proposed model can be used for resilience assessment in other areas.

Innovative Technologies in the Management of the Educational Process in the University: Prospects and Ways of Implementation

The purpose of the article is to provide a concise overview of the potential and methods for implementing groundbreaking technologies in the management of higher education. Research methods. The research utilized a variety of scientific and specialized research techniques, such as analysis and synthesis, comparison, generalization, and systemic and structural analysis. The scientific novelty is to highlight the prospects, ways of implementation, as well as benefits of involving innovative technologies in the management of the educational process in higher education institutions. Information and innovative technologies and computerization in all areas of education have been one of the main trends in the development of modern society for many years. Although new information and innovative technologies are being introduced into the educational process, higher education institutions are provided with computer equipment and constant access to the Internet, which is openly used by teachers and students, where these processes have formed a new scientific and technical basis for the development and operation of virtual tools in education. The virtual educational environment formation is one of the most significant methodological and pedagogical tasks of the efficient organization of the educational process, which consists in developing the higher education establishment’s infrastructure, namely the information environment, which involves implementing new information services. Conclusions. It has been established that under current conditions, innovative technologies serve as tools for solving individual pedagogical tasks and provide new opportunities for managing the educational process. The progressive development of the educational process organization requires the involvement of new learning models integrated into information and communication technologies. As a result, higher education establishments will receive the following benefits: teaching students the skills they will need in further education throughout their lives and future professional activities; access to information and communication outside the classroom; use of innovative technologies to support the pedagogical development of teachers through external networks, etc. The use of innovative technologies in the management of the educational process in universities requires the development of the infrastructure of the education environment: the commissioning of computer equipment, network support, information terminals, educational and methodological techniques and technical support for innovative technologies, as well as the development of a strategy for equipping higher education institutions with the necessary educational software. The ways of implementing innovative technologies in the management of the educational process in universities are identified: development of partnerships between higher education institutions, government agencies and other organizations; availability of qualified personnel whose activities are aimed at implementing innovative technologies in the management of the educational process; development of a strategy that defines goals and objectives, necessary resources and schedule for a particular higher education institution.

Data curation as anticipatory generification in data infrastructure

ABSTRACT Data curation is crucial for data reusability. New possibilities for digital data sharing are an urgent concern for data curators, who must keep historical datasets and present data collections always ready to meet unknown future data needs. This calls for a more nuanced understanding of the temporal horizons of data curation in Information Systems research. Based on a qualitative interpretive case study of data management in an environmental monitoring infrastructure, we characterise three data curation practices to support data reuse. These practices follow three interleaving temporal perspectives: retrospective (by upgrading historical datasets), present-oriented (by monitoring ongoing data collections), and future-looking (by disseminating data). We conceptualise this work as anticipatory generification, involving continuous and temporally oriented data curation to maintain data sufficiently open-ended to anticipate future data reusability. Anticipatory generification is essential for the sustainable evolution of environmental data infrastructures. Our study contributes to the Information Systems literature by further theorising the temporal perspectives of data infrastructures and providing additional insight into how the future is anticipated in practice.

The genesis of an extremely acidic perched aquifer within roasted pyrite waste in a fully urbanized area (Zaragoza, Spain)

Contaminated groundwater is a serious problem in developed countries. The abandonment of industrial waste may lead to acid drainage affecting groundwater and severely impacting the environment and urban infrastructure. We examined the hydrogeology and hydrochemistry of an urban area in Almozara (Zaragoza, Spain); built over an old industrial zone, with pyrite roasting waste deposits, there were acid drainage problems in underground car parks. Drilling and piezometer construction, and groundwater samples revealed the existence of a perched aquifer within old sulfide mill tailings, where the building basements interrupted groundwater flow, leading to a water stagnation zone that reached extreme acidity values (pH < 2). A groundwater flow reactive transport model was developed using PHAST to reproduce flow and groundwater chemistry, in order to be used as a predictive tool for guiding remediation actions. The model reproduced the measured groundwater chemistry by simulating the kinetically controlled pyrite and portlandite dissolution. The model predicts that an extreme acidity front (pH < 2), coincident with the Fe (III) pyrite oxidation mechanism taking dominance, is propagating by 30 m/year if constant flow is assumed. The incomplete dissolution of residual pyrite (up to 18 % dissolved) predicted by the model indicates that the acid drainage is limited by the flow regime rather than sulfide availability. The installation of additional water collectors between the recharge source and the stagnation zone has been proposed, together with periodic pumping of the stagnation zone. The study findings are expected to serve as a useful background for the assessment of acid drainage in urban areas, since urbanization of old industrial land is rapidly increasing worldwide.

2022 Para Report Card on Physical Activity of Israeli Children and Adolescents With Disabilities.

Children and adolescents with disabilities (CAWD) represent 11% of Israeli children and adolescents. The 10 core indicators of the Global Matrix on Para Report Cards of physical activity (PA) of CAWD were used to create the 2022 Israeli Para Report Card. A panel of four experts reviewed resources and synthesized evidence of PA behaviors and policies for CAWD in Israel, converted the data to grades, and charted subcategories of language, sex, and disability across population. Data sources were surveys, reports, and memberships in sport federations and clubs. Among CAWD, levels of participation in daily PA were poor (<20%; Grade F), and participation of CAWD in sports was even lower (<10%; Grade F). A lack of environmental infrastructure may explain the low levels of participation. Females, Arabic speakers, and physiological CAWD need particular attention. Establishing governmental policies and interventions is required to increase overall PA and participation in sports among CAWD.