Large-scale Infrastructure Research Articles

Assessing the Risks from Changing Climate in South Texas Region

The yearly dose of havoc unleashed from the overwhelming forces of changing climatic parameters on coastal communities does not differentiate among boundaries when inflicting damages of any kind. For that, in the last several years, climate risks continue to plague the southern portion of Texas. Give its location, the South Texas’ region, and adjourning areas along the Gulf of Mexico as a hub for speculative capital and natural resource extraction face exposures from the menace of tropical storms of immense scales. The ferocious pressures from heavy storms in these settings are such that, they often leave in their wake indelible footprint on the surrounding ecology. This comes with extreme impacts on both the natural and built-up environments particularly around big cities holding vital infrastructure crucial in economic development and productive capacity of petroleum and natural resource assets of South Texas. While the situation is further compounded by the region’s propensity to natural disasters and the fragile coastal ecosystem close to enormous network of large-scale energy infrastructure made up of oil and gas fields, refineries, and pipelines. The presence of petrochemical complexes, thriving natural resource base, transportation corridors, burgeoning urban centers, and neighborhoods often at the receiving end of recurrent climate hazards over time, increases the inherent risks, due to environmental, physical, and socio-economic and policy factors located within the larger regional ecosystem. Yet, current studies in climate change have done very little in assessing the situation in south Texas region with the latest advances in geospatial information technology under a mix scale orientation. Considering these voids in research, this paper assesses changing climate impacts in the South Texas region using secondary data analyzed with descriptive statistics and (GIS) Geographic Information System under a mix scale method. With emphasis on the issues, trends, impacts, factors, and mitigation measures. The results revealed widespread occurrence of climatic hazards in the study area with visible impacts in the form of heavy floods from storms leading to environmental damages. This involves also risks to petroleum amenities and displacement of citizens and the loss of properties. The GIS mapping of the trends pinpointed clusters of heavy presence of stressors and degraded amenities dispersed across space over time with linkages to socio-economic, physical, and ecological elements. To remedy the situation, the paper proffered numerous solutions ranging from the adoption of effective policy, growth management, monitoring, the design of a regional climate information systems and education of the public.

Применение стека технологий ELK для сбора и анализа системных журналов событий

Modern scientific research in many areas often requires the use of powerful computing systems and complex software systems to effectively solve research problems. Many scientific organizations build their own computing systems, an example of which is the cloud infrastructure of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research. During the operation of such large computing systems, emergency situations and failures inevitably arise, the resolution of which is primarily based on the analysis of system event logs. As infrastructure grows in scale and complexity, event log analysis becomes a more complex process that requires additional tools to be used for its effective implementation in large-scale infrastructures. In this paper we share our experience in organizing and implementing a system for centralized collection and analysis of system event logs of the JINR cloud infrastructure. We chose the Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana (ELK) technology stack as the basis for the developed system, which is widely used to solve similar problems in many other large scientific computing infrastructures and has proven to be suitable both for solving problems of collecting and analyzing event logs of various systems, as well as a number of other problems in semi-structured and unstructured data analysis. On the example of the mechanism for ensuring the fault tolerance of the control nodes of the JINR cloud infrastructure we show that configurations of modern systems can have dynamic nature, complicating examination of system event logs, and how the developed system can be used to simplify their analysis in such situations.

Research on the Complication of Documents for Large-scale Infrastructure Projects in Colleges and Universities

With the practical experience of construction bidding documentation, for example, in view of the large infrastructure project construction in colleges and universities bidding documents for the main body, the construction technology, qualification, performance requirements, bill of quantities, the terms of the contract set aspects were discussed, and put forward practical measures and methods, for similar project construction bidding document preparation to provide certain reference.

A procurement policy-making pathway to future-proof large-scale transport infrastructure assets

Governments worldwide have made a significant financial commitment to combat increasing traffic congestion and ageing transport networks over the next decade. However, large-scale transport projects are often late, over-budget, and below quality, making it difficult to future-proof assets and accommodate unanticipated changes. Evidence indicates that the traditional procurement model for large-scale projects used by Australian State Governments, for example, fails to deliver expected benefits. Markedly, a focused policy-making pathway is absent, especially for future-proofing these complex projects. Hence, the need to move away from a prevailing ‘understand, reduce, respond’ to a more adequate ‘understand, embrace, adapt’ attitude towards complexity and uncertainty in project procurement. The enabling functions of asset management, digitization, delivery, and finance might help. However, little is known about how they can coalesce to form a policy-making pathway to provide governments value for money outcomes and ensure assets are future-proofed. In this paper, we fill this void by reviewing the normative literature and proposing a conceptual approach. The issues we examine are of the utmost interest to governments worldwide as they grapple with designing, constructing, operating and maintaining transport assets that are both resilient to unexpected events and adaptable to changing needs, uses or capacities including climate change.

Balancing scales: Enhancing local applications of adaptation pathways

‘Think global, act local’ has been linked with climate change issues for several decades and suggests a simple downscaling of ideas, tools and processes can be relatively easily achieved. Adaptation pathways, for example, are increasingly used to identify and evaluate adaptation options against a range of plausible futures. The process is applied to both large-scale infrastructure and investment decisions, as well as smaller-scale, sub-national issues associated in part, with climate change impacts and implications. Consequently, pathways are being developed in the context of multiple contested values, competing with other, more immediate, non-climate-related or indirectly related planning processes, such as freshwater management, community resilience and wellbeing, and biodiversity conservation. In this Short Communication we reflect specifically on place-based adaptation pathways constructed, presented, and implemented within limited budgets and without recourse to resource-intensive research capacities. We emphasise the need to meet criteria for local credibility, legitimacy, and relevance. Specifically, we suggest there is a need to accommodate the complexities of local conditions; establish affordable and accessible processes; and build technical and participatory capability. These considerations may assist with co-creating place-based pathways and incorporate a wider range of complex issues both political and contextual with multiple constituencies including, as necessary, where science itself is increasingly questioned or disregarded. In turn this might lead to sets of country specific, nested local hierarchical adaptation options developed through pluralist approaches.

Embodied greenhouse gas emissions from building China’s large-scale power transmission infrastructure

China has built the world’s largest power transmission infrastructure by consuming massive volumes of greenhouse gas- (GHG-) intensive products such as steel. A quantitative analysis of the carbon implications of expanding the transmission infrastructure would shed light on the trade-offs among three connected dimensions of sustainable development, namely, climate change mitigation, energy access and infrastructure development. By collecting a high-resolution inventory, we developed an assessment framework of, and analysed, the GHG emissions caused by China’s power transmission infrastructure construction during 1990–2017. We show that cumulative embodied GHG emissions have dramatically increased by more than 7.3 times those in 1990, reaching 0.89 GtCO2-equivalent in 2017. Over the same period, the gaps between the well-developed eastern and less-developed western regions in China have gradually narrowed. Voltage class, transmission-line length and terrain were important factors that influenced embodied GHG emissions. We discuss measures for the mitigation of GHG emissions from power transmission development that can inform global low-carbon infrastructure transitions. Expanding energy infrastructure has been vital to China’s development plans, but has had negative consequences. This study finds that in 2017 the level of embodied greenhouse gas emissions from the expansion of China’s power transmission infrastructure increased by more than 7.3 times that in 1990.

Water quality index for river water assessment of Serang River Basin and Kulon Progo Regency, Yogyakarta

Yogyakarta Province development in the past decade has been attracting many investors, especially in tourism and education sectors. This growth is resulted in large scale infrastructure constructions and increase of population. It causes higher waste production and may polluted the river water. Kulon Progo Regency is one of the regencies in Yogyakarta Province with vast infrastructure development for the last 4 years. Therefore, the research was carried out in Serang river basin and Kulon Progo Regency with the aim to assess the water quality. The method used was utilizing Water Quality Index (WQI) and Inverse Distance Weighted (IDW) interpolation using GIS software. TSS, temperature, DO, COD, TC and FC value had been utilized to assess the river water parameters. The result shows that from 2011-2018, rivers in Kulon Progo Regency is classified into three types: river water quality standard IV, standard III and Standard II. Further study should be performed to model the river water quality with different land use, pollution sources, and hydrological condition scenarios.

Scenario-based mission statements

Using a planning process for the Stuttgart Neckar Valley as a case study, this paper analyzes the urban inertial forces that counteract the transformation of energy infrastructure areas in the context of the energy transition. In order to overcome these forces, a scenario-based mission statement was developed in which spatial scenarios were derived from energy scenarios and finally summarized in a concept plan for the Neckar Valley. The mission statement was developed following an analytical-deliberative and transdisciplinary approach. The approach to mission statement development presented here can respond flexibly to changing framework conditions and thus serve as a model for other cities with large-scale energy infrastructures in transition.

Sustainable ammonia production by non-thermal plasmas: Status, mechanisms, and opportunities

Ammonia is one of our most important industrial chemicals supporting the global food supply as the major crop fertilizer. Moreover, it is increasingly being promoted as a promising carbon-free fuel source, and an energy storage and transportation medium. However, the current approach for ammonia synthesis, known as the Haber-Bosch process, requires large-scale infrastructure preventing the designs of decentralization. The process consumes a large fossil fuel input leading it to be a major source of CO2 emissions. Plasma-enabled ammonia synthesis provides a clean, sustainable and flexible alternative, where the process is driven by the use of plasmas that activate the source gas(es). However, atmospheric plasmas are complex due to their highly reactive environment (energetic electrons, reactive oxygen and nitrogen species, UV photons, electric field effects, and others), resulting in a challenging scientific issue for both plasma researchers and chemical engineers. The review summarizes the current state-of-the-art of plasma-enabled ammonia synthesis, and provides insights into the fundamental physio-chemistry of plasma activation, including the excitation, dissociation and ionization of feedstocks, as well as the underlying mechanisms for the reaction dynamics of reactive species in the highly-reactive plasma environment. Finally, the opportunities and challenges for this plasma-enabled technology are outlined to approach a sustainable and flexible ammonia industry.

Understanding Effects of Whale-Watching Vessel Noise on Humpback Whale Song in the North Pacific Coast of Colombia With Propagation Models of Masking and Acoustic Data Observations

Soundscapes with minimal anthropogenic noise sources are key for the survival and effective communication of marine mammals. The Gulf of Tribugá is part of the breeding ground for humpback whale Stock G. Currently, no large-scale infrastructure exists on the Gulf's coastline, making it an area with high biodiversity and little anthropogenic noise. Whale-watching is one of the few human activities that contributes to the soundscape. By Morro Mico, on the southern limit of the Utría Natural National Park, an Ecological Acoustic Recorder (EAR, Oceanwide Science Institute) was deployed in the Gulf to record samples of acoustic activity from October to November 2018. It recorded for 10-min intervals with 20-min lapses for a duty cycle of 33.3%. One of the common peak frequencies of humpback whale song units from these recordings was used as input to an acoustic propagation model using the parabolic equation to simulate the communication space of a humpback whale when zero, one, and two boats are present. GPS positions of theodolite data from various whale watching scenarios in the Gulf were used to inform the models. Model results indicate that humpback whale song communication space could be reduced by as much as 63% in the presence of even one whale-watching boat. The boats traveling through the Gulf are the same as those used in whale-watching, and their engine noise while passing Morro Mico coincided with song structural and temporal changes observed in the acoustic data. Combiningin situdata with acoustic models can advance the understanding of the spatio-temporal acoustic reactions of whales when their vocalizations are masked by boat noise. This project serves as an approximation of how humpback whale Stock G may respond to whale-watching vessel noise in the Gulf of Tribugá.

An Overview on Analyzing Deep Learning and Transfer Learning Approaches for Health Monitoring

With the rise and advancement of technology, early detection and involvement in health-associated monitoring through home control are growing with population aging. The expansion of healthy life expectations is progressively significant due to the speedy aging of the world population. The patient requires early and home-based treatment to detect and prevent disease on time and with less effort. Home-based health monitoring has been considered the need of a smart home. The services of health monitoring can facilitate the patient by collecting and analyzing the data of health for tackling diverse complex issues of health at a large scale. Health monitoring is a sustainable progression of clinical trials for ensuring that health is monitored according to the defined protocol and standard operating procedures. Various scenarios can be considered for monitoring health and are performed through experts of the field. Healthcare systems are having large-scale infrastructure of electronic devices, medical information systems, wearable and smart devices, medical records, and handheld devices. The growth in medical infrastructure, combined with the development of computational approaches in healthcare, has empowered practitioners and researchers to devise a novel solution in the innovative spectra. A detailed report of the existing literature in terms of deep learning and transfer learning is the dire need and facilitating of modern healthcare. To overcome these limitations, therefore, the proposed study presents a comprehensive review of the existing approaches, techniques, and methods associated with deep learning and transfer learning for health monitoring. This review will help researchers to formulate new ideas for facilitating healthcare based on the existing evidence.

A new approach for estimating the vertical elastic settlement of a single pile based on the fictitious soil pile model

The development of settlement at pile heads due to vertical loads is one of the most important factors in pile design. For large-scale pile-supported infrastructure and elevated roads, the cumulative plastic deformation caused by cyclic loads could be so dangerous that only elastic deformation is permitted. However, existing methods rely heavily on measurements from field tests, while only a few analytical approaches have been developed based on the Winkler model or load transfer functions, which are mostly empirical. Moreover, present theories can hardly unify the computation of end-bearing piles and floating piles, since the classification between these two types of piles is often ambiguous. In this study, a new approach based on the fictitious soil pile model is proposed, and a semi-analytical is derived. The efficacy of the solution is demonstrated via comparisons against measured curves in the field and rigorous numerical results. Finally, a parametric study is performed to investigate the influence of pile and soil properties and the existence of a strong or weak soil interlayer on the vertical settlement of a single pile. On this basis, a new pile design factor referred as ‘optimal aspect ratio’ is proposed to acquire suitable pile dimensions.

Automated Feature-Driven Flight Planning for Airborne Inspection of Large Linear Infrastructure Assets

Inspecting large-scale physical infrastructure assets such as powerlines from the air involves capturing data of thousands of features of an asset and its nearby surroundings, which makes inspection flight planning challenging. The objective of this article is to address the problems of automatically generating and optimizing flight paths and mission plans for airborne inspection of large linear infrastructure assets. This article proposes an automated feature-driven flight planning method using metaheuristic optimization with consideration of aircraft dynamic, sensor, terrain, and airfield location constraints. Results for flight planning the inspection of one of the world’s largest above-ground powerline networks are shown. Automated planning can reduce the human planning workload and enable the cost-saving benefits of automated aircraft to be realized through efficient deployment. <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Note to Practitioners</i> —This work extends previous research and development of an automated aircraft guidance system for infrastructure inspection, by addressing the problem of automated flight planning. Often, deploying manned or automated aircraft reliably and efficiently for large-scale inspection is a challenge. Designing efficient flight paths and missions by hand is complex and time-consuming. Traditional “top-down” planning approaches use region or waypoint-based planning, neglecting the spatial layout of the assets to be inspected, possibly leading to more missions than required, inefficient flight paths, or missed data capture. Since inspecting a large asset with few aircraft can take many days, a solution was sought that can plan across multiple time scales (from second to second path planning to daily mission planning). A solution was designed that can build flight plans automatically from the “bottom-up” while optimizing performance objectives and satisfying constraints. Flight plans can either be used to aid pilots conducting an aerial inspection, as input to an automated line-tracking system for aircraft or UAVs or for estimating the cost of large-scale inspection operations. The presented method and results are motivated by the specific problem of large-scale powerline inspection and the approach may be applied to the inspection of other above-ground infrastructures, such as roads and railways.

Improving the capital deployment efficiency: An infrastructure investment planning process in transportation project

Transport infrastructure investments constitute 31% of the world's capital investments. However, there is a significant gap between the demand for large-scale transport infrastructure and investments in such infrastructure. An investigation into the causes of the above gap brings to light the inefficiencies of the current capital deployment practices throughout the project life cycle that result in additional expenditure over the optimal investments. This paper aims to review the existing body of knowledge on capital deployment efficiencies of large-scale transport infrastructure investments. The review looks into the causes of inefficiencies and practices applied for efficiency enhancement. Pareto analysis is used to prioritise the causes, and a cause and effect diagram is drawn to identify the root causes for inefficiencies. Finally, practices applied in different stages of the project life cycle are discussed. Based on these findings, a decision support outline is suggested to enhance the efficiency of each identified cause. The findings of this study provide an important foundation to set up a strategic approach to improve capital deployment efficiency of large-scale transport infrastructure investments. Accordingly, a strategic approach is proposed in policy, organisation, and project level activities to improve the capital deployment efficiency of large-scale transportation infrastructure investments in developing countries. Existing studies primarily focus on the technological advancements, without focusing on healthier governance practices. Therefore, it is essential to address the technical advancement and better governance practices to get the best value for investments. Further research is suggested on the application of a strategic approach in different types of projects.

Using socio-technical analogues as an additional experience horizon for nuclear waste management A comparison of wind farms, fracking, carbon capture and storage (CCS) with a deep-geological nuclear waste disposal (DGD)

Energy technologies can be described as socio-technical ensembles, in which social, political, economic and technical dimensions are embedded. Based on this concept as well as other theoretical approaches dealing with the deployment and development of technologies (e.g. the multi-level perspective of Geels (2002)) this contribution investigates the dynamics and interactions that can occur within the socio-technical ensemble of a deep geological disposal (DGD) for high-level radioactive waste (HLRW). We compare socio-technical analogues and relate findings of three energy technologies with large-scale infrastructures to a DGD. The analysis is based on a systematic literature review and aims to gain indirect knowledge for nuclear waste management (NWM) deduced from the dynamics within the socio-technical ensembles of wind farms, fracking and carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS). The analysis is based on a systematic literature review along four central dimensions with eight respective criteria e.g. public participation, conflicts, role of science, etc.

Price Effects in the Evaluation of Investment Projects

In the context of globalisation, there is a need to assess the difference between domestic and world price effects as an im- portant component of the economic analysis of investment projects. We developed an integrated approach to measuring the differences between commercial and public efficien cy (indicati ng pri ce effec ts) and substantiat ing the applicat ion of specific mechanisms for implementing relevant projects based on the principles of public-private partnership. We propose to estimate price effects using three interrelated models: financial and economic model, input-output multi-regional model, and econometric model. The combination of these models allows analysing large investment projects considering their influence on the develop- ment trends of the global, national and regional economy. This methodology was tested on the example of a real regional project for the construction of the Eastern Siberia — Pacific Ocean (ESPO-2) oil pipeline. The results show that the share of price effects amounted to more than 35 % of net present value within the framework of public efficiency, confirming their high significance. Tax price effects have the largest share in the structure of the price effects. Indirect price effects of the considered project are less significant. The research results have confirmed that the identification of indicators of public efficiency and in-depth analysis of price effects increase the validity of the assessment of regional infrastructure projects. In the future, we plan to use the proposed methods as an integral part of a comprehensive assessment of large-scale production, transport and research infrastructure projects.

2020 roadmap on plasma accelerators

Plasma-based accelerators use the strong electromagnetic fields that can be supported by plasmas to accelerate charged particles to high energies. Accelerating field structures in plasma can be generated by powerful laser pulses or charged particle beams. This research field has recently transitioned from involving a few small-scale efforts to the development of national and international networks of scientists supported by substantial investment in large-scale research infrastructure. In this New Journal of Physics 2020 Plasma Accelerator Roadmap, perspectives from experts in this field provide a summary overview of the field and insights into the research needs and developments for an international audience of scientists, including graduate students and researchers entering the field.

BIOACTIVE DEVICES AS SELF-SUFFICIENT SYSTEMS FOR ENERGY PRODUCTION IN ARCHITECTURE

ABSTRACT Using bioenergy systems in architecture provides energy by means of negative emissions technologies (NETs). It plays an important role in stabilizing CO2 emissions at low levels. This depends on options of low life cycle emissions (for instance, a sustainable use of biomass residues), and on outcomes that are site-specific and rely on efficient integrated systems that convert biomass into bioenergy. The objective of this study is to develop self-sufficient systems that generate bioelectricity and offer safety, electricity generation efficiency, cost-effectiveness, waste treatment, integration in domestic use, ease of use, reproducibility and availability. The study also intends to elaborate a general design method of embedding and utilizing microorganisms into architectural elements to achieve design ecology, introducing a multidisciplinary research application through a design theory aspect. The study is based on previous experimental work conducted by the authors. Microbial fuel cell technology was applied to exploit the natural potential of a fungal strain that was identified and optimized to be implemented in microbial fuel cells (MFCs) to generate electricity. The outcomes were included in the self-sufficient cluster design that meets the aforementioned conditions. The novelty of this study is the direct use of a bioreactor of MFCs in a design application for bioelectricity production. It aims to reduce the currently high global CO2 emissions that come from the energy supply sector (47%) and from the building sector (3%), as well as to eliminate the need for large-scale infrastructure intervention. This self-sufficient bio-electricity cluster therefore outweighs other abiotic renewable energy resources such as solar energy or wind power.

Modelling the project transport support optimal option

The object of research is the processes of planning transport provision of projects. The vast majority of projects involve the creation of tangible objects as a product. The implementation of such projects is associated with the use of various types of materials and equipment, which necessitates transport services for the functioning of the project logistics system. Vehicles with different characteristics can be used to solve the same transportation problems. Also, for large-scale infrastructure projects, rental of vehicles is often used for the duration of the project. This allows, on the one hand, to save on transportation costs, on the other hand, to gain complete control over the transportation processes in the project. As a research result, an optimization model has been developed for determining the option of transport support for the project. The variant of transport support of the project is understood as a set of combinations of types and types of vehicles, their characteristics and conditions of use in the project for the work of the project that provide for transport services. Acquisition, lease or transport services from the project suppliers are considered as conditions for the use of vehicles in the project. The optimization criterion is the cost of transport support, taking into account their possible increase, as well as the potential risks of losses associated with the failure to complete the work. Constraints take into account costs, time to receive a project product, and availability of transportation options. Experimental calculations, a fragment of which is presented in the research, demonstrated the efficiency of the developed model, its adequacy and reliability of the results obtained with its help. The area of practical use of the model is making decisions about transportation at the stage of project planning. The model allows for «what-if» experiments, which reflect various scenarios that are possible in the transportation of the project. And this, in turn, allows at the stage of project planning to assess the possible risks associated with transportation, and to establish their impact on the project as a whole.

China’s investments in renewable energy in Africa: Creating co-benefits or just cashing-in?

• China is increasingly involved in renewable energy deployment in sub-Saharan Africa. • Unique Chinese model of renewable energy infrastructure provision exists. • Only bounded local economic co-benefits can be identified in three detailed project-level case studies. • Policymakers should be cautions of overly optimistic expectations of co-benefits. • Implementation of carefully designed policies can potentially increase local economic co-benefits. Investments in renewable energy are increasing rapidly in sub-Saharan Africa. The overall purpose of this paper is to explore to what extent and under what conditions these investments are producing economic co-benefits in terms of spillovers and linkage development effects. One peculiarity of Africa’s renewable-energy sector is the rapid increase and likely future growth of Chinese involvement in large-scale renewable-energy infrastructure projects. Insights from other infrastructure, utility and resource-extraction sectors in sub-Saharan Africa suggest that China is pursuing a specific Chinese model of investments characterised by enclave characteristics and including finance, turnkey project development and the importation of labour and equipment from China. Hence our focus in this paper is to determine to what extent economic co-benefits are created when renewable-energy projects are developed by Chinese investors. To do this, we undertake an in-depth analysis of three Chinese renewable-energy investment projects in hydro, wind and solar PV, based on primary data. Overall, we find evidence of ‘bounded benefits’. On the one hand, we can identify some newly created jobs, linkages generated with actors in local systems of production and training activities involving local staff. On the other hand, the extent of these benefits is very limited. Overall, the results suggest that policymakers should be wary of overly optimistic expectations when it comes to assessing the co-benefits of renewable energy projects in the context of scarce pre-existing capabilities. However, the adoption of pro-active strategies and the implementation of carefully designed policies can increase the local economic co-benefits.