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A global outlook of the desalination industry and state-of-the-art technologies for brine valorisation
Get PDFDesalination is increasingly recognized not only as a solution to water scarcity but also as a potential source of valuable resources through brine valorisation. This review presents a comprehensive assessment of the global desalination landscape, focusing on the feasibility of resource recovery within circular economy frameworks. Using the DesalData database, the study maps the distribution and capacity of desalination plants, revealing the dominance of seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) and the substantial volume of brine produced globally. A quantitative analysis shows that SWRO brine could meet or exceed current production levels for several commodities. Over 30 technologies are evaluated across membrane-based, thermal, and electrochemical categories, with varying maturity and salinity tolerance. While some, such as thermal brine concentrators and crystallizers, are commercially deployed, others like bipolar membrane electrodialysis (BMED), membrane distillation crystallization (MDC), and forward osmosis (FO) remain at pilot or laboratory scale. The review highlights the potential to recover freshwater, salts, critical raw materials, chemicals, and energy, in brine valorisation and identifies more specifically the key challenges to recover such resources of the analyzed technologies including energy consumption, material durability, and economic viability. Industrial case studies demonstrate that large-scale brine mining currently focuses on water and NaCl recovery, while multi-resource recovery remains limited to pilot-scale implementations. Overall, brine valorisation emerges as a promising strategy to transform desalination from a waste-generating process into a circular and resource-efficient solution, though further technological development and scale-up are essential to realize its full potential
Centralized vs. Decentralized Monitors for Hyperproperties
Get PDFThis article focuses on the runtime verification of hyperproperties expressed in Hyper-recHML, an expressive yet simple logic for describing properties of sets of traces. To this end, we consider a simple language of monitors that observe sets of system executions and report verdicts w.r.t. a given Hyper-recHML formula. We first employ a unique omniscient monitor that centrally observes all system traces. Since centralized monitors are not ideal for distributed settings, we also provide a language for decentralized monitors, where each trace has a dedicated monitor; these monitors yield a unique verdict by communicating their observations to one another. For both the centralized and the decentralized settings, we provide a synthesis procedure that, given a formula, yields a monitor that is correct (i.e., sound and violation complete). A key step in proving the correctness of the synthesis for decentralized monitors is a result showing that, for each formula, the synthesized centralized monitor and its corresponding decentralized one are weakly bisimilar for a suitable notion of weak bisimulation.</p
Meeting of the International Association for Spectral Imaging IASIM-2024:Bilbao, Spain, 6th - 10th July, 2024
No full textSDGs as a Net or Wedge for Climate Action?:An International Study of Students' Climate Consciousness and Awareness
No full textVulnerable Greenlanders in Denmark: Possibilities and challenges in decolonising social work
No full textDeep reinforcement learning tuned type-3 fuzzy PID controller:AC microgrid case study
No full textThis paper proposes an adaptive type-3 fuzzy controller for controlling uncertain power systems. The controller, named type-3 fuzzy PID (T3FPID), has an input–output (I/O) relationship similar to the traditional PID controller but can better handle uncertainty and nonlinearity in systems. In the proposed design, controller parameters, such as I/O scaling factors (SFs) that affect transient and steady-state performance, are adjusted using the deep deterministic policy gradient (DDPG) reinforcement learning (RL) algorithm. The RL agent is initially trained offline under different operating conditions, then used online to tune the T3FPID controller’s parameters. The proposed RL-tuned T3FPID controller’s effectiveness is demonstrated by applying it to the load–frequency control problem of a microgrid system in simulations across various operating points. Results show that this approach outperforms other controllers
A Research Agenda Advancing Circular Economy Skills
No full textThe circular economy transition demands a shift in intellectual capital skills and workforce requirements. In addition, introducing digital technologies aimed at enhancing circularity adds a layer of complexity to this scenario. Consequently, an increasing number of studies are exploring sets of skills necessary for the digitally enabled circular transition. However, the most effective avenues for future exploration in this domain remain unidentified. By applying a systematic literature review, a strategic research agenda with six promising directions is proposed: (1) Skill, reskilling, and upskilling for circular manufacturing; (2) Geographical and cultural understanding of skills, education, and training programs; (3) Impacts of digitalization and required skills; (4) Methods and tools in CE educational programs; (5) Soft and hard skills integration in multidisciplinary CE courses; and (6) Circular economy skills and professional competency levels. These findings provide valuable insights that can guide future scientific endeavors towards areas of critical importance.</p
Socio-Technical Well-Being of Quantum Software Communities: An Overview on Community Smells
No full textQuantum computing has gained significant attention due to its potential to solve computational problems beyond the capabilities of classical computers. With major corporations and academic institutions investing in quantum hardware and software, there has been a rise in the development of quantum-enabled systems, particularly within open-source communities. However, despite the promising nature of quantum technologies, these communities face critical socio-technical challenges, including the emergence of socio-technical anti-patterns known as community smells. These anti-patterns, prevalent in open-source environments, have the potential to negatively impact both product quality and community health by introducing technical debt and amplifying architectural and code smells. Despite the importance of these socio-technical factors, there remains a scarcity of research investigating their influence within quantum open-source communities. This work aims to address this gap by providing a first step in analyzing the socio-technical well-being of quantum communities through a cross-sectional study. By understanding the socio-technical dynamics at play, it is expected that foundational knowledge can be established to mitigate the risks associated with community smells and ensure the long-term sustainability of open-source quantum initiatives.</p
