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Enhancing Agricultural Forecasting: Remote Sensing and Climate Data Integration for Crop Yield Predictions in the Chi Basin, Thailand
No full textThis study endeavored to establish a predictive model for forecasting crop production within a growth season prior to harvest at the province scale, focusing on 14 provinces within Thailand’s Chi basin from 2011 to 2019. To mitigate redundant variables and multicollinearity in remotely sensed (RS) and meteorological data, correlation analysis (CA) and the variance inflation factor (VIF) were employed. Significant variables identified by the model included the temperature condition index (TCI), normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), land surface temperature (LSTnighttime), and mean temperature (T mean), selected based on a p-value 2 values of 0.95, 0.94, and 0.93, respectively. Validation using a testing dataset from 2018 to 2019 yielded a minimum root-mean-square error (RMSE) of 0.18 ton/ha for the optimal solution, integrating variables with the XGBoost model. Based on model predictions, the total crop production in the Chi basin was 7.88 million tons in 2020, 7.64 million tons in 2021, and 7.72 million tons in 2022. The findings demonstrated that the proposed model significantly enhanced crop yield prediction accuracy compared to conventional regression methods. This model holds promise for adaptation in diverse regions, providing valuable insights for farmers and policymakers to make informed decisions regarding agricultural practices and resource allocation
Practical Guidelines for Ideology Detection Pipelines and Psychosocial Applications
No full textOnline ideology detection is crucial for downstream tasks, like countering ideologically motivated violent extremism and modeling opinion dynamics. However, two significant issues arise in practitioners' deployment. Firstly, gold-standard training data is prohibitively labor-intensive to collect and has limited reusability beyond its collection context (i.e., time, location, and platform). Secondly, to circumvent expense, researchers employ ideological signals (such as hashtags shared). Unfortunately, these signals' annotation requirements and context transferability are largely unknown, and the bias they induce remains unquantified. This study provides guidelines for practitioners requiring real-time detection of left, right, and extreme ideologies in large-scale online settings. We propose a framework for pipeline constructions, describing ideology signals by their associated labor and context transferability. We evaluate many constructions, quantifying the bias associated with signals and describing a pipeline that outperforms state-of-the-art methods (0.95 AUC ROC). We showcase the capabilities of our pipeline on five datasets containing more than 1.12 million users. We set out to investigate whether the findings in the psychosocial literature, developed for the offline environment, apply to the online setting. We evaluate at scale several psychosocial hypotheses that delineate ideologies concerning morality, grievance, nationalism, and dichotomous thinking. We find that right-wing ideologies use more vice-moral language, have more grievance-filled language, exhibit increased black-and-white thinking patterns, and have a greater association with national flags. This research empowers practitioners with guidelines for ideology detection, and case studies for its application, fostering a safer and better understood digital landscape
Assessment of reactivity and nucleation potential of mineralised carbon silicates as novel supplementary cementitious material additions in concrete
No full textThe use of supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs) for the replacement of cement in concrete has become popular worldwide as it enhances the properties of concrete and reduces carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions associated with cement manufacture. The mineral carbonation process developed by MCi Carbon captures CO2 and converts it into a stable silicate product, which is amorphous and silica-rich. This carbon-neutral silicate product (MCi-S) can enhance the performance of concrete and offers the Australian heavy materials construction industry an alternative for partially replacing cement in concrete, contributing to significant carbon value as an alternative SCM to a diminishing supply of fly ash (FA) and ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS). Assessing the pozzolanic reactivity of SCMs is crucial for understanding their influence on hydration behaviour and concrete performance. However, the correlation between the pozzolanic reactivity of SCMs including mineralised carbon products, heat evolution behaviour, and concrete compressive strength development remains less well-known in the construction industry in Australia. Therefore, this study aims to bridge the gap by providing valuable insights into the pozzolanic reactivity of SCMs, including MCi-S, through dissolution studies and the heat of hydration behaviour, while correlating these behaviours with the compressive strength development trends in binary concrete blends comprising 10% MCi-S, fly ash (FA)
and micro silica (MS). The results demonstrate that MCi-S shows higher early pozzolanic reactivity, which accelerates cement hydration and provides higher early-age concrete compressive strength development compared to FA and MS. These findings highlight the potential of MCi-S as a viable SCM, offering both performance benefits and environmental advantages
Quantifying the potential impact of the cane toad (Rhinella marina) on biodiversity in Australia's Pilbara region.
No full textIf eradication has become infeasible, containment of an invasive species may be a practical alternative. Like all management actions, however, containment comes with costs, so it is important to quantify the potential benefits accruing from a proposed containment action. Here we examine the ongoing spread of the toxic, invasive cane toad (Rhinella marina) across northern Australia, and a proposal to contain their spread and prevent their arrival in Australia's Pilbara bioregion (178,000 km2), ca. 500 kms south of the toad's 2024 invasion front. We then evaluate the likely biodiversity costs if toads spread to the Pilbara. Under a 'do-nothing' scenario, toads are predicted to arrive via natural dispersal in the Pilbara between 2035 and 2055. They are predicted to colonise almost the entirety of the Pilbara bioregion. We predict that 25 vertebrate taxa resident in the Pilbara are likely to show population declines driven by lethal poisoning. Of the 25 at-risk taxa, eight are endemic to the Pilbara. A further two taxa are not endemic to the region but toad colonisation of the Pilbara will result in > 90% of their range being occupied by toads. Hence, we predict that the spread of toads to the Pilbara will cause an additional five mammals and four reptile species to be added to the threatened species list, and cause another species to be upgraded in threat status. These likely losses will also have cultural impacts for the First Nations people of the Pilbara, and cause economic impacts for the Pilbara's primary industry; mining. Overall, our results show that predicted losses of the no-action option are high, and likely justify an attempt to exclude toads through establishment of a containment zone
Comparative Study of Hybrid Control Using VTLCD and UTLCD for Building Models Subjected to Earthquake Loads
Get PDFOur previous study presented the vibration reduction efficiency of building models equipped with the V-shaped tuned liquid column damper (VTLCD) subjected to earthquake loads as a passive control problem. This study develops a hybrid control problem for VTLCD. The VTLCD is installed on the structure’s top floor, and the control force is placed on the structure’s first floor. The controller used to calculate this control force is based on the hedge-algebras (HA) theory, an advanced approach in automatic control. A U-shaped tuned liquid column damper (UTLCD) has also been included for comparison with VTLCD. The advantages of VTLCD over UTLCD were demonstrated in our previous research on the passive control problem and are further shown in this study on the hybrid control problem. Simulation results in this research show that the hybrid control configuration using VTLCD is significantly better at reducing structural vibrations than the one using UTLCD in all investigated earthquakes with different peak ground accelerations (PGAs). This efficiency increases as the PGA of the investigated earthquakes increases, demonstrating the advantage of VTLCD even in the case of hybrid control. This study has shown the potential of VTLCD as an effective solution to vibration control problems of structures
Growth, productivity and structural change: economic arguments for investment in construction innovation
No full textThe chapter begins with a discussion of innovation as an investment that requires a commitment of resources. The following section is an overview of innovation as an investment that is neither riskless nor costless, but driven by competition and major new technologies. Section 3 looks at innovation in construction products, which is typically incremental over long periods of time, with the development of concrete over more than 100 years given as an example, and many innovations are hidden. Section 4 focuses on the dynamics of innovation, diffusion and productivity. Section 5 looks at innovation and procurement. Section 6 discusses funding for R&D from private equity and venture capital funds. Section 7 focuses on the role of government, building standards and decarbonisation, and BIM mandates. Section 8 discusses Construction 4.0 technologies and the organisation of construction. There is a short conclusion
Cigarette smoke components modulate the MR1-MAIT axis.
Get PDFTobacco smoking is prevalent across the world and causes numerous diseases. Cigarette smoke (CS) compromises immunity, yet little is known of the components of CS that impact T cell function. MR1 is a ubiquitous molecule that presents bacterial metabolites to MAIT cells, which are highly abundant in the lungs. Using in silico, cellular, and biochemical approaches, we identified components of CS that bind MR1 and impact MR1 cell surface expression. Compounds, including nicotinaldehyde, phenylpropanoid, and benzaldehyde-related scaffolds, bound within the A' pocket of MR1. CS inhibited MAIT cell activation, ex vivo, via TCR-dependent and TCR-independent mechanisms. Chronic CS exposure altered MAIT cell phenotype and function and attenuated MAIT cell responses to influenza A virus infection in vivo. MR1-deficient mice were partially protected from the development of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) features that were associated with CS exposure. Thus, CS can impair MAIT cell function by diverse mechanisms, and potentially contribute to infection susceptibility and disease exacerbations
Thermoplastic-virtual integrated model for functionally graded structure at high temperature
Get PDFThe high temperature induced uncertain nonlinear failure behaviour has been one of the critical issues for concurrent composite structures due to the metallic components involved. This paper presents a multivariate coupling framework for combining thermal elastoplastic based mechanical model with efficient virtual modelling technique to investigate the non-deterministic plastic responses of functionally graded structure subject to varied temperature distributions. The position and temperature dependent thermoplastic mechanical properties of functionally graded structure are simulated through the Touloukian and Tamura-Tomota-Ozawa models. The randomness of effective properties of FG structure is applied as random vector into the mechanism algorithm then follow J2-plasticity with isotropic hardening to exhibit nonlinear behaviour. The coupling framework is achieved by incorporating the random nonlinear responses into the multi-cluster virtual modelling technique and provided with explicit formulation that representing the inherent correlation between the field inputs and yielding outputs. Such that the deformed nonlinear deflection, plastic damage zone, and fragility curves could be directly estimated for the FG structure under various temperature distributions. The coupled thermoplastic-virtual model is validated through two practical numerical applications and the computational accuracy, efficiency, and versatility of the coupled framework ensured the rapid safety evaluation of complex composite system in an uncertain thermal environment
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