Role Of Human Activities Research Articles

Revising the definition of anthropogenic heat flux from buildings: role of human activities and building storage heat flux

Abstract. Buildings are a major source of anthropogenic heat emissions, impacting energy use and human health in cities. The difference in magnitude and time lag between building energy consumption and building anthropogenic heat emission is poorly quantified. Energy consumption (QEC) is a widely used proxy for the anthropogenic heat flux from buildings (QF,B). Here we revisit the latter's definition. If QF,B is the heat emission to the outdoor environment from human activities within buildings, we can derive it from the changes in energy balance fluxes between occupied and unoccupied buildings. Our derivation shows that the difference between QEC and QF,B is attributable to a change in the storage heat flux induced by human activities (ΔSo-uo) (i.e. QF,B=QEC-ΔSo-uo). Using building energy simulations (EnergyPlus) we calculate the energy balance fluxes for a simplified isolated building (obtaining QF,B, QEC, ΔSo-uo) with different occupancy states. The non-negligible differences in diurnal patterns between QF,B and QEC are caused by thermal storage (e.g. hourly QF,B to QEC ratios vary between −2.72 and 5.13 within a year in Beijing, China). Negative QF,B can occur as human activities can reduce heat emission from a building but this is associated with a large storage heat flux. Building operations (e.g. opening windows, use of space heating and cooling system) modify the QF,B by affecting not only QEC but also the ΔSo-uo diurnal profile. Air temperature and solar radiation are critical meteorological factors explaining day-to-day variability of QF,B. Our new approach could be used to provide data for future parameterisations of both anthropogenic heat flux and storage heat fluxes from buildings. It is evident that storage heat fluxes in cities could also be impacted by occupant behaviour.

Source and enrichment mechanism of fluoride in groundwater of the Hotan Oasis within the Tarim Basin, Northwestern China

In arid inland irrigated areas, the role of human activities on fluoride enrichment in groundwater is not fully understood. There is an extremely arid climate, high-intensity irrigation, and severe soil salinization in the Hotan Oasis within the Tarim Basin, Northwestern China. In this study, hydrogeochemistry and environmental isotope methods were combined to explore the distribution characteristics and controlling processes of fluoride enrichment in groundwater. The F− concentration in groundwater had a range of 1.12–9.4 mg/L. F− concentrations of all the groundwater samples were higher than 1.0 mg/L (Chinese Standards for Drinking Water Quality), and about 89% were higher than 1.5 mg/L (WHO Guidelines for Drinking Water Quality). High fluoride groundwater was mainly distributed downstream of the river and in the middle of the interfluvial zone. Vertically, the fluoride concentration was higher when the sampling depth was less than 15 m. There was a significant positive correlation between F− concentration and salinity in groundwater. F− in groundwater was mainly derived from river water fluoride, which could be imported to groundwater with infiltration of rivers and irrigation canals as well as irrigation return flow. Anthropogenic inputs may be partly responsible for fluoride enrichment in groundwater. Fluoride accumulated in the vadose zone by strong evapotranspiration and then leached into groundwater with irrigation return flow was the main mechanism of F− enrichment in groundwater in the study area. This work is a clear example of how human activities together with natural processes can affect the chemical quality of groundwater, which is essential to safeguard the sustainable management of water and soil resources inland arid oasis areas.

Is There an Environmental Principle of Causality?

This essay considers and reflects upon the principle of causality and its relation to the global environmental crisis. Parting from some of Immanuel Kant’s views on causality and freedom as well as from Heidegger’s reading of causality in Kant, it asks some questions about the role of human activity in the principle of causality, the relation between causality and freedom, and in what possible different way we could interpret causality and environment. The essay proposes that instead of trying to decide on the subject of who causes the environmental crisis, and on the subject capable to solve it, one must turn the intention of inquiry to the very principle of causality and consider the need to rethink this notion today.

Perbandingan Data Harian dan Data Bulanan pada Suhu Permukaan Laut di Samudera Hindia Menggunakan Partial Least Square-Structural Equation Modelling

Sea surface temperature (SST) is one of the features of climate variability that has a significant role in human activities. This study aims to predict and determine whether weather and climate variables with their measuring indicators can predict changes in SST by comparing daily and monthly data. This study uses a partial least square-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) approach which can predict the causality relationship between exogenous latent variables and endogenous latent variables. The results obtained from this study are, from the nine indicators used there are only 6 significant indicators with a loading factor value 0.7, namely sea surface temperature (oC) as a measure of latent variables SST changes, wind speed (m/s) and humidity relative (%) as a measure of the latent variable of weather, and air temperature (oC), short-wave solar radiation (w/m2) for daily data, and long-wave solar radiation (w/m2) for monthly data as a measure of climate latent variable. Inner model obtained on daily data: SST change (η) = -0.285 weather + 0.650 climate + and on monthly data SST change (η) = -0.330 weather + 0.793 climate +. In monthly data, weather and climate latent variables and their measuring indicators have a greater influence on changes in SST with the coefficient values in the model obtained being greater than in daily data. Latent variables that have a significant effect on changes in SST are weather and climate. This shows that if there is an increase or decrease in weather and climate it can cause significant changes to the SST. The value of the criteria on the outer model and inner model on daily and monthly data obtained better results on monthly data. The presence of more missing data in daily data can be one of the causes of this happening.

Micro-organismos: os agentes secretos da biosfera, e seus papéis determinantes na biotecnologia

Abstract We present a survey of projects that have been funded by FAPESP under the BIOTA-Microorganisms program. These projects generated a wide variety of results, including the identification of novel antibacterial-producing microorganisms, the characterization of novel microbial enzymes for industrial applications, taxonomic classification of novel microorganisms in several environments, investigation of the soil and mangrove microbial ecosystems and its influence on endangered plant species, and the sequencing of novel metagenome-assembled genomes. The results surveyed demonstrate the importance of microorganisms in environments that play important roles in human activities as well as the potential that many of these microorganisms have in contributing to biotechnological applications crucial for human survival in the 21st century.

Blended learning berbasis project-based learning untuk meningkatkan kemampuan berpikir kritis

Today’s technology plays a critical role in human activities, including education. However, it is shown that the integration of technology into education did not improve students’ critical thinking skills. This study aims to determine the effect of blended learning through Edmodo based on project-based learning (PBL) to improve critical thinking skills. Quantitative approach was employed with a quasi-experimental method. Samples of this research were students of the undergraduate Biology Education Program, Universitas Muhammadiyah Malang. These samples took Learning Strategy subject with class A as the experimental group, and class B as the control group. Results show that blended learning based on PBL significantly improved students’ critical thinking skills.

Revising the definition of anthropogenic heat flux from buildings: role of human activities and building storage heat flux

Revising the definition of anthropogenic heat flux from buildings: role of human activities and building storage heat flux

Graphene and Carbon Nanotube-based Electrochemical Sensing Platforms for Dopamine.

Dopamine (DA) is an important neurotransmitter, which is created and released from the central nervous system. It plays a crucial role in human activities, like cognition, emotions, and response to anything. Maladjustment of DA in human blood serum results in different neural diseases, like Parkinson's and Schizophrenia. Consequently, researchers have started working on DA detection in blood serum, which is undoubtedly a hot research area. Electrochemical sensing techniques are more promising to detect DA in real samples. However, utilizing conventional electrodes for selective determination of DA encounters numerous problems due to the coexistence of other materials, such as uric acid and ascorbic acid, which have an oxidation potential close to DA. To overcome such problems, researchers have put their focus on the modification of bare electrodes. The aim of this review is to present recent advances in modifications of most used bare electrodes with carbonaceous materials, especially graphene, its derivatives, and carbon nanotubes, for electrochemical detection of DA. A brief discussion about the mechanistic phenomena at the electrode interface has also been included in this review.

The experience of moral interaction of students with other people: a pedagogical aspect

The paper actualizes the problem of a persons formation as a moral person with virtues. The directions of moral education, contributing to the formation of a moral personality, are indicated, and the need to highlight the formation of the experience of moral interaction with other people among university students as an aspect of moral education is argued. It is substantiated that the experience of moral interaction of students with other people is the result of the implementation of a special type of relationship in which moral values are actualized, taking the form of motives of actions and actions of students in relation to other people, which in such an experience reflecting moral practice as a set of real actions of a student, the world of morality and its inherent values is being realized. The methodological grounds for identifying the structure of the experience of moral interaction of students with other people are revealed: scientific provisions on the reflection in the fundamental structure of experience of the fundamental structure of the world; scientific provisions on individual morality, mediating the relationship between external factors that determine the behavior of a person and its internal (social, moral) meaning. The structural components of the experience of moral interaction of students with other people are highlighted: cognitive, motivational-value, communicative and behavioral components and the possibilities of identifying these components are argued. It is substantiated that the allocation of the cognitive component is based on the idea of the correspondence of behavior to knowledge; the allocation of a motivational-value component on the position of the guiding role in human activity of motives, the form of which values take; highlighting the communicative component on the interpretation of communication as one of the types of interaction that has a moral component; the allocation of the behavioral component on the provisions of moral practice.

Metode Natural Feature Tracking dan Fast Corner Detection dengan Teknik Virtual Button Pada Aplikasi Sistem Pernafasan Manusia

At this time the development of information and communication technology has developed very rapidly. As in smartphones, the technology contained in smartphones today has an important role for human activities. The technology that is currently being implemented on smartphones is Augmented Reality. Augmented reality can be used in all fields of human activity, one of which is in the field of education. The purpose of this research is to develop an educational media about the organs of the human respiratory system that is interactive and can be understood by users such as students. In this study, 2 methods were used, namely Fast Corner Detection and Natural Feature Tracking Methods to read a marker which would later bring up information and also use the virtual button technique in the application. In testing using 5 smartphones. The results of testing at an angle of 60o and 90o the five smartphones can detect markers. The distance test has different results from the smallest having a minimum distance of ±70 cm to a maximum distance of ±150 cm. In tests based on light intensity, the five smartphones can detect markers at light intensities above 5 lux

Comprehensive Utilization Pattern of the Bohai Rim Coastline Using the Restrictive Composite Index Method

Coastlines play an important role in human activity and economic development. Reasonably allocating shoreline resources and addressing contradictions between ecological protection and development are critical issues. In this study, positive and negative factors affecting the natural, environmental, and socioeconomic status of the coastal zone while considering land and sea effects were comprehensively analyzed using ecological theories and methods, and an improved restrictive composite index model was constructed. We quantitatively analyzed the comprehensive utilization pattern of the Bohai Rim coastline, China, in terms of the coastline utilization type and spatial agglomeration characteristics. The comprehensive utilization pattern of the Bohai Rim coastline is as follows: ecological areas are present in the north and south, and industrial areas are present in the east and west. Industrial production areas along the coastline are mainly distributed in the East Liaodong and Bohai bays, and ecological protection areas are located in the estuaries of the Liaohe and Yellow River. The improved restricted comprehensive index method model weakens the interaction among variables and makes the calculation results closer to the real situation. The results of the comprehensive utilization pattern of Bohai Rim coastline obtained by quantitative evaluation are of great significance for the coordinated development of coastline ecological protection and development and utilization.

Keystone species of coastal ecosystems from the Bay of Biscay

Estuarine and coastal ecosystems play a fundamental role in human activities. Since millions of people depend on the numerous resources they offer (i.e., fisheries, transportation, and recreational activities), these ecosystems are also exposed to a high anthropogenic pressure. In order to better monitor and regulate such pressures, it is critical to improve our understanding of the functioning of these ecosystems. This is especially important for microorganisms, considering, for instance, their important roles in biogeochemical cycles. In this study we investigate estuarine and coastal microbial communities along the coast of the Basque Country using eDNA metabarcoding of bacterioplankton and microbenthos samples along a time series, from locations that present different degrees of disturbance. Metabarcoding of the 16S and 18S rRNA gene was carried out, and the OTU and taxa tables generated were used to reconstruct ecological networks, representing potential biological interactions. These ecological networks were used to identify on one hand the species that play a major role in the maintenance of the whole community structure (keystones), and on the other, complex network modules affected by environmental impacts. Here, we define keystone taxa as those that presented the highest ratio between the degree of connectivity (number of associations they established within the network) and their relative abundance. The underlying aim of this study is to develop novel “bioindicators” based on taxa that are both sensitive to impacts and important for community structure. Results of two seawater communities, one from offshore waters and the other from the coast, showed similar bacterial composition at family level, dominated by Flavobacteraceae and Rhodobacteraceae. Nevertheless, their ecological network properties differed strongly: for a similar number of taxa that established associations, the conectance was similar in both communities, but the number of associations in the coastal community was twice as high as for the offshore one, resulting in a higher modularity. Identified keystone taxa were taxonomically different between both communities: those from the coastal community belonged to Protobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Firmicutes, and Fusobacteria phyla, while the keystones from the offshore community belonged to Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, Chloroflexi, Thaumarchaeota, PAUC34f and Verrucomicrobia. Moreover, we identified “connector” taxa that presented the highest values of betweenness centrality. These taxa, without having a high degree of connectivity, may be important for the interaction structure because they connect modules, i.e., highly connected subnetworks within the whole network. Further, hierarchical clustering was performed to identify seasonal trends and to better understand the associations retrieved. Taxa with different seasonal preference often grouped together in the same modules, which indicates that modularity was not caused primarily by seasonality.

Contrasting influence of human activities on agricultural and hydrological droughts in India

Human activities associated with intensive irrigation, reservoir storage, and groundwater pumping have substantially altered the hydrological cycle, environment, and regional climate in India. However, the role of human activities on water budget and droughts remains mostly unexplored. We use calibrated and evaluated Community Water Model (CWatM) to quantify the influence of human activities on agricultural (estimated using soil moisture) and hydrological (estimated using total runoff) droughts in India during 1951–2016. The simulations using the CWatM were conducted for the Natural (without human influence) and Human (with the human influence of irrigation, reservoir storage, and groundwater pumping) scenarios. Evapotranspiration and soil moisture increase while total runoff and groundwater storage decrease under the Human scenario in comparison to the Natural scenario. The dominant influence of human activities on agricultural and hydrological droughts was found during the monsoon and post-monsoon seasons. We find a contrasting effect of human activities on agricultural and hydrological droughts. While human activities reduced the intensity of agricultural droughts, hydrological droughts are intensified under the Human scenario. The intensification of hydrological droughts is linked to excessive water abstraction for irrigation. On the other hand, irrigation increases soil moisture and decreases the intensity of agricultural droughts. Overall, our findings highlight that excessive groundwater pumping and irrigation can intensify hydrological droughts, which can have considerable environmental implications.

Development of Automatic Oil Refueling System Model based on Internet of Things

The current application of technology has played a large role in human activities, especially in industry. One of the technologies applied is an automatic filling and packaging system for cooking oil using a filling machine. The application of cooking oil packaging technology using modern machines is usually carried out in the large-scale cooking oil industry. However, the packaging for bulk cooking oil which is common in traditional markets that are classified as a small scale still uses the conventional method of measuring and packaging it. To improve the quality of bulk cooking oil sales and answer this problem, we need a tool that can fill the oil with an adjustable number of measures as needed and has high accuracy and can be run automatically. This research uses descriptive qualitative research methods, this type of qualitative descriptive research displays the results of the data as they are without any manipulation or other treatment processes. The overall results of the work system design of this tool discuss the results of the automatic oil filling system and the sending of oil expenditure data to the Antares ID webserver. The resulting delay value is still below the normal limit, which is around 1-2 seconds. The deviation that occurs is in the ratio 0.11 and the percent error is in the range of 0.2%.

Weather Forecasting for Batu Pahat Using Neural Network

Nowadays, weather forecasting plays a vital role in human activities. The complexity of data gathering in the meteorology department and high technical costs lead to inaccurate weather forecasting. Due to minimizing this problem, an application of using an artificial neural network (ANN) has been developed to forecast weather conditions using the Matlab compiler. This application will help users to define the weather conditions daily well and made early preparation to encounter uncertainty. This application performs in Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) using the back-propagation (BP) algorithm. The data is undergoing training and testing based on actual data obtained from the Malaysian Meteorological Department. The result will show in graph plotting for the training and testing process. Predictive accuracy for each step of stimulation will measure using Mean Square Error (MSE) graph in this application. Therefore, this application will be able to assist the Malaysian Meteorological Department to forecast weather, so our government and people have sufficient time to prepare and solve.

Land use and land cover change within the Koshi River Basin of the central Himalayas since 1990

Land change is a cause and consequence of global environmental change. Land use and land cover have changed considerably due to increasing human activities and climate change, which has become the core issue of major international research projects. This study interprets land use and land cover status and the changes within the Koshi River Basin (KRB) using Landsat remote sensing (RS) image data, and employs logistic regression model to analyze the influence of natural and socioeconomic driving forces on major land cover changes. The results showed that the areas of built-up land, bare land and forest in KRB increased from 1990 to 2015, including the largest increases in forest and the highest growth rate in construction land. Areas of glacier, grassland, sparse vegetation, shrub land, cropland, and wetland all decreased over the study period. From the perspective of driving analysis, the role of human activities in land use and land cover change is significant than climate factors. Cropland expansion is the reclamation of cropland by farmers, mainly from early deforestation. However, labor force separation, geological disasters and drought are the main factors of cropland shrinkage. The increase of forest area in India and Nepal was attributed to the government’s forest protection policies, such as Nepal’s community forestry has achieved remarkable results. The expansion and contraction of grassland were both dominated by climatic factors. The probability of grassland expansion increases with temperature and precipitation, while the probability of grassland contraction decreases with temperature and precipitation.

Interactions between Air Pollution and Terrestrial Ecosystems: Perspectives on Challenges and Future Directions

AbstractInteractions between air pollution and terrestrial ecosystems play an important role in the Earth system. However, process-based knowledge of air pollution–terrestrial ecosystem interactions is limited, hindering accurate quantification of how changes in tropospheric chemistry, biogeochemical cycling, and climate affect air quality and its impact on humans and ecosystems. Here we summarize current challenges and future directions for advancing the understanding of air pollution–ecosystem interactions by synthesizing discussions from a multidisciplinary group of scientists at a recent Integrated Land Ecosystem–Atmosphere Processes Study (iLEAPS) early-career workshop. Specifically, we discuss the important elements of air pollution–terrestrial ecosystem interactions, including vegetation and soil uptake and emissions of air pollutants and precursors, in-canopy chemistry, and the roles of human activities, fires, and meteorology. We highlight the need for a coordinated network of measurements of long-term chemical fluxes and related meteorological and ecological quantities with expanded geographic and ecosystem representation, data standardization and curation to reduce uncertainty and enhance observational syntheses, integrated multiscale observational and modeling capabilities, collaboration across scientific disciplines and geographic regions, and active involvement by stakeholders and policymakers. Such an enhanced network will continue to facilitate the process-level understanding and thus predictive ability of interactions between air pollution and terrestrial ecosystems and impacts on local-to-global climate and human health.

Diagnosis and Exercise Rehabilitation of Knee Joint Anterior Cruciate Ligament Injury Based on 3D-CT Reconstruction

The joint capsule of the knee joint is attached to the edges of various articular surfaces and is thin and loose. Therefore, ligament reinforcement is needed to protect the knee joint and increase the stability of the joint. It plays a vital role in human activities. In this paper, a 3D-CT three-dimensional reconstruction method is used to reconstruct the ACL natural femoral imprint and double-bone tract. The relative positional relationship between the two center points is compared, and the law is summarized to guide the improvement of ACL anatomic double-beam reconstruction under arthroscopy. The 3D reconstruction results suggest that the bone layer in the anterior medial portion is the thickest, forming a peak, and the thickness of the bone layer in the posterior medial portion gradually decreases in a stepwise manner. The entire bone tissue in the anterior medial portion and posterior medial portion is integrated into one body. The tissues are connected as a whole, and the thickness is relatively uniform. The two parts of the bone tissues are not connected. The CF tissue was inserted into the bone tissue in a zigzag pattern. The changes of CF tissues in the anterior medial and posteromedial CF tissues were similar, and they were distributed stepwise from the inside to the outside. According to the bone and CF spatial structure and changing rules, ACL is divided into medial and lateral beams. According to this study, it can be summarized that (1) 3D reconstruction can clearly reconstruct the natural footprint of ACL femoral stops and postoperative osseous position and (2) 3D reconstruction can be used to evaluate the position of osseous postoperative ACL anatomic double-beam reconstruction. Arthroscopy double-beam reconstruction of ACL is instructive.

Malaria: Trend of Burden and Impact of Control Strategies

Since antiquity, malaria had plagued humans claiming millions of lives annually around the world. In addition to its health toll, billions of dollars are lost every year to the exorbitant cost of treatment, premature death, loss of opportunities, capital intensive public health and government interventions to curb the menace. This had intensified global malaria eradication efforts over the last few decades leading to the successful elimination of the disease from most developed countries drastically reducing global malaria mortality to hundreds of thousands yearly. Still, developing countries of the world especially those in tropical Africa remain the worst hit and children are the most vulnerable group generally accounting for > 50% of all malaria mortality. The world actually experienced a giant leap forward between 2000 and 2015 when global malaria mortality rate declined by a remarkable 25% and by a significant 69% in children less than five. Also, during this period a staggering 70% of malaria cases were averted due to strengthened malaria intervention. Some of this step forward was also attributed to increasing urbanization and overall economic development across the nation’s leading to improved housing and nutrition. However, years later, progress has been relatively slower and seemed to have stalled. Nonetheless, the impacts of control strategies have saved millions of lives universally. But to save more lives and eliminate malaria from highest risk countries like in tropical Africa, more efforts are required at both international and national capacity through the funding of research and malaria projects, effective surveillance and response, strengthened health system and mosquito vector control strategies, and development of new, improved antimalarial intervention tools like diagnostics, prophylactics, therapeutics and vaccines. Also, the role of human activity and lifestyle in the fight against malaria cannot be overemphasized.

PAAD: POLITICAL ARABIC ARTICLES DATASET FOR AUTOMATIC TEXT CATEGORIZATION

Now day’s text Classification and Sentiment analysis is considered as one of the popular Natural Language Processing (NLP) tasks. This kind of technique plays significant role in human activities and has impact on the daily behaviours. Each article in different fields such as politics and business represent different opinions according to the writer tendency. A huge amount of data will be acquired through that differentiation. The capability to manage the political orientation of an online article automatically. Therefore, there is no corpus for political categorization was directed towards this task in Arabic, due to the lack of rich representative resources for training an Arabic text classifier. However, we introduce political Arabic articles dataset (PAAD) of textual data collected from newspapers, social network, general forum and ideology website. The dataset is 206 articles distributed into three categories as (Reform, Conservative and Revolutionary) that we offer to the research community on Arabic computational linguistics. We anticipate that this dataset would make a great aid for a variety of NLP tasks on Modern Standard Arabic, political text classification purposes. We present the data in raw form and excel file. Excel file will be in four types such as V1 raw data, V2 preprocessing, V3 root stemming and V4 light stemming.