Layout Adjustment Research Articles

Strategic carbon emission assessment in sludge treatment: A dynamic tool for low-carbon transformation

The carbon–neutral target presents a significant challenge for the sewage sludge treatment and disposal (SSTD) industry, necessitating strategic planning for a low-carbon transition. However, flexible and comprehensive carbon emission analysis tools to support this goal remain lacking. This study presents a carbon emission analysis tool to evaluate the carbon emission characteristics and future mitigation potentials of SSTD. The tool integrates life cycle inventory (LCI) modeling-based analysis, sensitivity analysis, regression analysis, and scenario analysis. Carbon emissions are dynamically calculated based on sludge properties, technological level, and industry external parameters, providing a foundation for adaptable evaluation tailored to local conditions. The framework considers the potential effects of multi-parameter and multi-aspect changes in scene design, both within and outside the industry, to achieve dynamic and comprehensive simulations. A case study conducted in Wuhan, China, demonstrated the usability and application processes of the framework. The results indicated that carbon emissions from SSTD are projected to more than double from 2021 to 2060 without interventions. Among the mitigation measures, energy and chemical savings would yield the largest reduction potential, followed by the technical layout adjustment and the promotion of energy efficiency. Operational optimization in the sludge industry and outside the industry would contribute the least. With all mitigation measures applied, emissions could decrease to –82.91 kt CO2-eq in 2060, equivalent to 13.03% compensation for emissions from the sewage treatment line. Among all the processes, incineration routes are recommended due to their current and future low carbon emissions. The cooperative resource route of anaerobic digestion and land use also shows promise as it progressively demonstrates superior performance with increasing organic matter and nutrient content of sludge. Critical factors, sub-processes, and emission types for different routes were identified and can be optimized accordingly. The developed method demonstrates sufficient flexibility to be applied to other cities and larger-scale regions, thereby offering technical and strategic support for SSTD towards carbon–neutral operation.

Influence of Spatial Scale Effect on UAV Remote Sensing Accuracy in Identifying Chinese Cabbage (Brassica rapa subsp. Pekinensis) Plants

The exploration of the impact of different spatial scales on the low-altitude remote sensing identification of Chinese cabbage (Brassica rapa subsp. Pekinensis) plants offers important theoretical reference value in balancing the accuracy of plant identification with work efficiency. This study focuses on Chinese cabbage plants during the rosette stage; RGB images were obtained by drones at different flight heights (20 m, 30 m, 40 m, 50 m, 60 m, and 70 m). Spectral sampling analysis was conducted on different ground backgrounds to assess their separability. Based on the four commonly used vegetation indices for crop recognition, the Excess Green Index (ExG), Red Green Ratio Index (RGRI), Green Leaf Index (GLI), and Excess Green Minus Excess Red Index (ExG-ExR), the optimal index was selected for extraction. Image processing methods such as frequency domain filtering, threshold segmentation, and morphological filtering were used to reduce the impact of weed and mulch noise on recognition accuracy. The recognition results were vectorized and combined with field data for the statistical verification of accuracy. The research results show that (1) the ExG can effectively distinguish between soil, mulch, and Chinese cabbage plants; (2) images of different spatial resolutions differ in the optimal type of frequency domain filtering and convolution kernel size, and the threshold segmentation effect also varies; (3) as the spatial resolution of the imagery decreases, the optimal window size for morphological filtering also decreases, accordingly; and (4) at a flight height of 30 m to 50 m, the recognition effect is the best, achieving a balance between recognition accuracy and coverage efficiency. The method proposed in this paper is beneficial for agricultural growers and managers in carrying out precision planting management and planting structure optimization analysis and can aid in the timely adjustment of planting density or layout to improve land use efficiency and optimize resource utilization.

Dynamic content layout optimization for news website front pages

Purpose The home page design of a digital news website is a key factor in determining its attractiveness to readers. This study aims to propose an approach to manage the frequent adjustment of the dynamic layout of the news content on the website home page in a real-time environment to increase its attractiveness to readers. Design/methodology/approach This paper shows that this news website layout design problem can be modeled as an optimization problem based on the information of news contents that change within a multiple-period planning horizon similar to the dynamic facility layout problem. A hybrid genetic algorithm-based approach integrated with local search heuristic methods is also proposed to improve the solution. Findings This paper finds that the DPLP model is effective in modeling the changing layout of a digital news website. The problem can solved in a timely manner using the proposed hybrid genetic algorithm. Research limitations/implications This paper was based on hypothetical data and on the assumption of equal section size. Actual data would help fine-tune the application of the dynamic facility layout model. As well the algorithm could be enhanced for unequal size sections. Practical implications The model should help online newspapers apply sophisticated algorithms to optimize the layout of news websites dynamically in a timely manner. Social implications News websites are increasingly the desired medium to consume news. So it has an important role in educating society. Thus optimizing and improving the process will help in this regard. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first one to apply the DPLP model to the digital newspaper website dynamic design problem.

Investigating the Transition Upgrading Paths of Manufacturing Enterprises From an Energy Source Perspective

As the manufacturing industry is the foundation of the national economy, many countries have made concerted efforts to promote the transition upgrading of manufacturing enterprises from political, industrial, and academic circles. This study employed content analysis to explore the transition upgrading factors for manufacturing enterprises from an energy source perspective. With the help of FsQCA (Fuzzy-sets qualitative comparative analysis), which can mine multivariate combination relationships using a small number of samples, this study quantitatively calculated the transition paths and energy source combinations of manufacturing enterprises. Three transition upgrading paths were proposed, including an innovation-oriented path, a business-oriented path, and an efficiency-oriented path. The results indicate that manufacturing enterprises can realize transition upgrading based on three key methods, including innovation resources and innovation activities, strategic layout, and production operation + network relationship (peripheral). Such a finding validated the rationality of the theoretical path design and improved the research depth and precision. Multiple case analyses of Huawei, Haier, and Lenovo reveal that manufacturing enterprises used three ways to promote transition upgrading: the joint action of innovation activities and innovation resources; the uni-directional causal effect of strategic layout adjustment to increase market value; and the coordination and matching role of network relations dominated by production and operation. We conclude that this study provides an effective decision-making basis and management reference for manufacturing enterprises, so that enterprises can choose an appropriate energy accumulation method and scientifically realize the transition upgrading.

Matching the Photocurrent of 2‐Terminal Mechanically‐Stacked Perovskite/Organic Tandem Solar Modules by Varying the Cell Width

Photocurrent matching in conventional monolithic tandem solar cells is achieved by choosing semiconductors with complementary absorption spectra and by carefully adjusting the optical properties of the complete top and bottom stacks. However, for thin film photovoltaic technologies at the module level, another design variable significantly alleviates the task of photocurrent matching, namely the cell width, whose modification can be readily realized by the adjustment of the module layout. Herein, this concept is demonstrated at the experimental level for the first time for a 2T‐mechanically stacked perovskite (FAPbBr3)/organic (PM6:Y6:PCBM) tandem mini‐module, an unprecedented approach for these emergent photovoltaic technologies fabricated in an independent manner. An excellent I sc matching is achieved by tuning the cell widths of the perovskite and organic modules to 7.22 mm (PCE PVKT‐mod = 6.69%) and 3.19 mm (PCE OPV‐mod = 12.46%), respectively, leading to a champion efficiency of 14.94% for the tandem module interconnected in series with an aperture area of 20.25 cm2. Rather than demonstrating high efficiencies at the level of small lab cells, this successful experimental proof‐of‐concept at the module level proves to be particularly useful to couple devices with non‐complementary semiconductors, either in series or in parallel electrical connection, hence overcoming the limitations imposed by the monolithic structure.

Study on the design method of an automatic outrigger layout control system for variable outrigger layout trimaran

During the navigation of a trimaran, its wave resistance is influenced by both sailing speed and outrigger layout. In the case of a variable outrigger layout trimaran, due to the adjustability of its outrigger layout according to different speeds, its wave resistance will be lower than that of traditional trimarans. In this paper, an automatic outrigger layout control system is figured out for a variable outrigger layout trimaran. The system can control and regulate the position of outriggers according to the traveling speed in order to reduce the wave resistance during navigation. The slender ship theory based resistance calculation program is applied as the solver in this system to evaluate the wave resistance of the trimaran and further determine the optimal outrigger layout under a specific speed. In order to improve the calculation accuracy, NURBS (Non-Uniform Rational B-Splines) method is introduced to modeling the hull surface. Model tests for trimaran with 6 different outrigger layouts are conducted to obtain the resistance of the trimaran in order to validate the numerical method. The steepest descent method is applied to solve the problem of searching the outrigger layout with minimum wave resistance efficiently. On this basis, an open-loop control system for trimaran outrigger layout is designed based on PID (Proportional Integral Derivative) algorithm with the control objective derived by the solver. Finally, a outrigger layout adjustment simulation (when speed changes from Fr=0.4 to Fr=0.35) is conducted on the experimental trimaran model. By comparing the resistance results obtained by numerical method utilized in this paper to the results obtained by CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) simulations, the effectiveness of the proposed system is validated.

The influence of air inlet layout on the inner flow field for a vertical turbo air classifier

In this study, the influence of air inlet layout on the flow field distribution and particle movement trajectory for the vertical turbo air classifier are analyzed comparatively using the numerical simulation method. The air inlet layout adjustment can increase the axial velocity and turbulent dissipation rate at the feeding inlet and do not generate the axial negative velocity, which improves powder material pneumatic transportation and dispersion capacity; the air inlet layout adjustment can match the airflow rotation direction with the rotation direction of the rotor cage, which can eliminate the vortices in the rotor cage channel effectively. Moreover, the particle movement time is shortened and fast classification is completed, which can decrease the particle agglomeration probability and weaken the ‘fish-hook’ effect. The optimization scheme of the air inlet layout is Type-BC. In accordance with the numerical simulation results, the calcium carbonate classification experimental results indicate that the classification performance of the classifier is improved using Type-BC.

Camera-Based Indoor Positioning System for the Creation of Digital Shadows of Plant Layouts

In the past, plant layouts were regarded as highly static structures. With increasing internal and external factors causing turbulence in operations, it has become more necessary for companies to adapt to new conditions in order to maintain optimal performance. One possible way for such an adaptation is the adjustment of the plant layout by rearranging the individual facilities within the plant. Since the information about the plant layout is considered as master data and changes have a considerable impact on interconnected processes in production, it is essential that this data remains accurate and up-to-date. This paper presents a novel approach to create a digital shadow of the plant layout, which allows the actual state of the physical layout to be continuously represented in virtual space. To capture the spatial positions and orientations of the individual facilities, a pan-tilt-zoom camera in combination with fiducial markers is used. With the help of a prototypically implemented system, the real plant layout was captured and converted into different data formats for further use in exemplary external software systems. This enabled the automatic updating of the plant layout for simulation, analysis and routing tasks in a case study and showed the benefits of using the proposed system for layout capturing in terms of accuracy and effort reduction.

Corrected similarity method for designing scaled-down stiffened plate subjected to compression load with improved processing feasibility

This paper proposes a corrected similarity method for designing scaled-down stiffened plates subjected to compression loads that carefully considers conflict between the minimum welding distance and stiffener spacing by introducing a stiffener layout adjustment approach. Reliable plate scenarios were adopted in a numerical parametric study to investigate the effects of different influential parameters on stiffener layout adjustment design, and an empirical formula and associated design procedure for the stiffener layout adjustment approach were proposed. The proposed approach can help engineers obtain scaled-down stiffened plates that are closer to ideal conditions and can improve the precision of experimental studies.

Structural Optimization Design of Microfluidic Chips Based on Fast Sequence Pair Algorithm.

The market for microfluidic chips is experiencing significant growth; however, their development is hindered by a complex design process and low efficiency. Enhancing microfluidic chips' design quality and efficiency has emerged as an integral approach to foster their advancement. Currently, the existing structural design schemes lack careful consideration regarding the impact of chip area, microchannel length, and the number of intersections on chip design. This inadequacy leads to redundant chip structures resulting from the separation of layout and wiring design. This study proposes a structural optimization method for microfluidic chips to address these issues utilizing a simulated annealing algorithm. The simulated annealing algorithm generates an initial solution in advance using the fast sequence pair algorithm. Subsequently, an improved simulated annealing algorithm is employed to obtain the optimal solution for the device layout. During the wiring stage, an advanced wiring method is used to designate the high wiring area, thereby increasing the success rate of microfluidic chip wiring. Furthermore, the connection between layout and routing is reinforced through an improved layout adjustment method, which reduces the length of microchannels and the number of intersections. Finally, the effectiveness of the structural optimization approach is validated through six sets of test cases, successfully achieving the objective of enhancing the design quality of microfluidic chips.

Spatiotemporal variations of ecosystem security pattern in Horqin sandy dune meadow alternating area, China.

The natural and geographical environment of ecologically fragile areas in northern China is complex. Due to heavy human disturbance and impacts of climate change, the sustainable development of ecosystems is facing serious challenges. Constructing ecological security pattern can provide decision-making basis for ecological environment protection in desertification areas. Based on land use change data of Horqin dune-meadow interphase area from 1985 to 2021, we identified ecological sources with the importance of ecosystem services and ecological sensitivity, and constructed the ecological security pattern using the minimum cumulative resistance model. We further analyzed the ecological security pattern and its development trend in 1985, 1995, 2005, 2015 and 2021, and explored the ecological spatial layout adjustment strategy. The results showed that the proportion of source area in the ecological security pattern of the study area was always small and scattered from 1985 to 2021, the network of ecological corridors was low, and the connectivity between ecological patches was lacking. The ecological security pattern had experienced a trend of deterioration first and then gradually improving. Ecological policies such as returning farmland to forest and grassland and afforestation had significantly improved the environmental security. We optimized the study area by combining the cultivated land suitability evaluation method. The ecological security pattern showed a spatial trend of 'dual-core, scattered and semi-surrounded'. The results could provide references for the construction of county-scale ecological security pattern in ecologically fragile areas and the ecological management of Horqin sands.

Research on withdrawal behavior of foreign venture capital under the industry development and changes-- Take SoftBank Group as an example

In recent years, due to SoftBank Group's adjustment of strategic layout, the actual proportion of investment in China has decreased. As a leader in the investment industry, SoftBank Group has helped a large number of budding Chinese enterprises such as Alibaba and Didi Chuxing expand rapidly and achieve extremely high market shares, making an important contribution to the development of China's modern service industry. Therefore, this paper intends to explore the reasons for "SoftBank's withdrawal from China" event, which will help better utilize foreign investment to promote the development of the tertiary industry and improve the contribution of the tertiary industry to China's economic progress.

RNAcanvas: interactive drawing and exploration of nucleic acid structures.

Two-dimensional drawing of nucleic acid structures, particularly RNA structures, is fundamental to the communication of nucleic acids research. However, manually drawing structures is laborious and infeasible for structures thousands of nucleotides long. RNAcanvas automatically arranges residues into strictly shaped stems and loops while providing robust interactive editing features, including click-and-drag layout adjustment. Drawn elements are highly customizable in a point-and-click manner, including colours, fonts, size and shading, flexible numbering, and outlining of bases. Tertiary interactions can be drawn as draggable, curved lines. Leontis-Westhof notation for depicting non-canonical base-pairs is fully supported, as well as text labels for structural features (e.g. hairpins). RNAcanvas also has many unique features and performance optimizations for large structures that cannot be correctly predicted and require manual refinement based on the researcher's own analyses and expertise. To this end, RNAcanvas has point-and-click structure editing with real-time highlighting of complementary sequences and motif search functionality, novel features that greatly aid in the identification of putative long-range tertiary interactions, de novo analysis of local structures, and phylogenetic comparisons. For ease in producing publication quality figures, drawings can be exported in both SVG and PowerPoint formats. URL: https://rnacanvas.app.

Spatiotemporal characteristics and dynamic risk assessment of a multi-solvents abandoned pesticide-contaminated site with a long history, in China

With the development of the economy and the adjustment of urban planning and layout, abandoned pesticide sites are widely distributed in major and medium cities in China. Groundwater pollution of a large number of abandoned pesticide-contaminated sites has caused great potential risks to human health. Up to now, few relevant studies concerned the spatiotemporal variation of risks exposure to multi-pollutants in groundwater using probabilistic methods. In our study, the spatiotemporal characteristics of organics contamination and corresponding health risks in the groundwater of a closed pesticide site were systematically assessed. A total of 152 pollutants were targeted for monitoring over a time span up to five years (i.e., June 2016–June 2020). BTEX, phenols, chlorinated aliphatic hydrocarbons, and chlorinated aromatic hydrocarbons were the main contaminants. The metadata was subjected to health risk assessments using the deterministic and probabilistic methods for four age groups, and the results showed that the risks were highly unacceptable. Both methods showed that children (0–5 years old) and adults (19–70 years old) were the age groups with the highest carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic risks, respectively. Compared with inhalation and dermal contact, oral ingestion was the predominant exposure pathway that contributed 98.41%–99.69% of overall health risks. Spatiotemporal analysis further revealed that the overall risks first increased then decreased within five years. The risk contributions of different pollutants were also found to vary substantially with time, indicating that dynamic risk assessment is necessary. Compared with the probabilistic method, the deterministic approach relatively overestimated the true risks of OPs. The results provide a scientific basis and practical experience for scientific management and governance of abandoned pesticide sites.

Comparison study of rural school layout adjustment policies in China and the United States

The adjustment of rural school layout is an important topic facing promoting educational equity At present, China's rural primary and secondary schools have experienced extensive and lasting adjustment of school layout, and achieved remarkable results, but the adjustment process of rural school layout in China has also produced a series of problems and negative effects. Through the analysis of the rural school layout adjustment policy in China and the United States, this paper can further understand the whole development process of the rural school layout adjustment in the United States, learn from their successful experience, draw lessons from their failure, and have important enlightenment significance and guidance for the improvement of China's school layout adjustment policy. This article mainly analyzes the adjustment policy of rural school layout in China and the United States, the impact of the layout adjustment of rural schools in China and the United States, and the problems faced by China is tweaking the layout of rural schools and the advanced experience of the United States.

Effective multidimensional approach for practical management of the emergency department in a COVID-19 designated children's hospital in east China during the Omicron pandemic: a cross-sectional study.

Characterized by rapid transmission but lower severity, the new Omicron wave brought about an acute increase in local corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases in Shanghai, followed by stricter infection prevention and control strategies. Inevitably, more time was required for emergency consultation and treatment of children with critical illnesses. Therefore, a multidimensional approach was designed to streamline the emergency service and reduce the incidence of nosocomial infection of sever acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) during the Omicron wave for the emergency department (ED) at the Children's Hospital of Fudan University (CHFU). A multidimensional approach was implemented in the ED to help achieve a balance between the demand for emergency services and pandemic control, consisting of ED layout adjustment; electronic screening (E-screening) measures; standard management processes for patients, medical staff, and goods transfer; reliable disinfection measures; and a surveillance system for infection prevention and control. To evaluate the effect of the management strategy, the data on nosocomial infection cases and occupational exposure episodes among staff in the ED were collected. The demographic and clinical characteristics of level I/II children by the five-level pediatric triage tool and their mean duration of stay in the resuscitation room were collected. There were 12,114 ED visitors from March 1 to May 31 in 2022, among which 53.24% were medical emergencies (6,449/12,114) and 46.76% were surgical emergencies (5,665/12,114). Twenty-nine patients were sent to the buffer zone, four of whom were transferred to the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) because of the critical situation. Six patients tested positive for COVID-19 after entering ED, including three in the buffer zone and three in the ED clinic, causing a temporary closure of the ED for disinfection. There were no reports on medical care delays, unintended deaths, staff with COVID-19 infection, or occupational exposures to COVID-19. Our findings highlight the effectiveness of the multidimensional approach, which can simultaneously meet the emergency care needs of patients as well as pandemic prevention and control. However, the results were obtained against the proportional decrease in clinic visitors due to the Shanghai lockdown. Dynamic assessment and further optimization may be adopted to cope with the pre-pandemic visit volume.

Impact of Digital Transformation on Corporate Innovation--Empirical evidence from public companies

In the context of comprehensive penetration and cross-border integration of information technology, digital transformation of enterprises has become an important way to accelerate enterprise innovation and lead economic innovation growth, injecting new vitality into enterprises. Based on the textual information of annual reports of A-share listed companies from 2011-2021, this paper constructs a measure of digital transformation and systematically examines the impact of digital transformation on corporate innovation output and its impact mechanism. It is found that there is a significant positive relationship between digital transformation and innovation output of enterprises, and the finding is robust. The mechanism test indicates that corporate digital transformation promotes corporate innovation by increasing innovation inputs and promoting corporate learning effects. Further study found that the promotion effect of corporate digital transformation on corporate innovation was more pronounced in large enterprises, high-tech enterprises, stateowned enterprises, enterprises whose executives have master’s degrees, and enterprises in relatively close geographical proximity to the eastern region. This study not only enriches the empirical research on the consequences of digital transformation and the mechanism of enterprises using new dynamic energy to enhance transformation, but also has important implications for promoting the layout adjustment of national digital innovation-driven strategies.

Guaranteed Visibility in Scatterplots with Tolerance.

In 2D visualizations, visibility of every datum's representation is crucial to ease the completion of visual tasks. Such a guarantee is barely respected in complex visualizations, mainly because of overdraws between datum representations that hide parts of the information (e.g., outliers). The literature proposes various Layout Adjustment algorithms to improve the readability of visualizations that suffer from this issue. Manipulating the data in high-dimensional, geometric or visual space; they rely on different strategies with their own strengths and weaknesses. Moreover, most of these algorithms are computationally expensive as they search for an exact solution in the geometric space and do not scale well to large datasets. This article proposes GIST, a layout adjustment algorithm that aims at optimizing three criteria: (i) node visibility guarantee (at least 1 pixel), (ii) node size maximization, and (iii) the original layout preservation. This is achieved by combining a search for the maximum node size that enables to draw all the data points without overlaps, with a limited budget of movements (i.e., limiting the distortions of the original layout). The method's basis relies on the idea that it is not necessary for two data representations to be strictly not overlapping in order to guarantee their visibility in visual space. Our algorithm therefore uses a tolerance in the geometric space to determine the overlaps between pairs of data. The tolerance is optimized such that the approximation computed in the geometric space can lead to visualization without noticeable overdraw after the data rendering rasterization. In addition, such an approximation helps to ease the algorithm's convergence as it reduces the number of constraints to resolve, enabling it to handle large datasets. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach by comparing its results to those of state-of-the-art methods on several large datasets.

Study on Stability of Wind Wire Feeding System in Cigarette Factory

This paper studies the high efficiency and stability of the continuous application of the wind wire feeding system. Combined with the technological transformation of the cigarette factory's roll production process characteristics and equipment layout adjustment, this paper optimizes the wind wire feeding operation mode, improves the upgrading space of the system, integrates the system structure, meets the process requirements of medium cigarette production, and solves the problem of large wind speed fluctuation in the process of cut tobacco air feeding The wind speed control is not accurate, so as to save energy consumption and ensure the reliable operation of the wind wire feeding system. The wind wire feeding system is mainly used for the continuous and uniform transportation of tobacco materials such as sheet tobacco and cut tobacco, and has the function of buffer and adjustment between various processes, realizing the automatic transportation of cut tobacco from the silk workshop to the cigarette machine, which has good popularization value.

Micro-Channel Oscillating Heat Pipe Energy Conversion Approach of Battery Heat Dissipation Improvement: A Review

The application of batteries has become more and more extensive, and the heat dissipation problem cannot be ignored. Oscillating Heat Pipe (OHP) is a good means of heat dissipation. In this paper, the methods to improve the energy conversion and flow thermal performance of micro-channel OHP are studied and summarized. The working principle, heat transfer mechanism, advantages and applications of PHP are also introduced in detail in this study. Proper adjustment of the micro-channel layout can increase the heat transfer limit of PHP by 44%. The thermal resistance of two-diameter channel PHP is 45% lower than that of conventional PHP. The thermal resistance of PHP under uneven heating can be reduced to 50% of the original. PHP pulse heating can alleviate the phenomenon of dryness. Different working fluids have different effects on PHP. The use of graphene nano-fluids as the work medium can reduce the thermal resistance of PHP by 83.6%. The work medium obtained by the mixture of different fluids has the potential to compensate for the defects while inheriting the advantages of a single fluid.