Autonomous real-time adaptive management of soil salinity using a receding horizon control algorithm: a pilot-scale demonstration

Soil salinization is a potentially negative side effect of irrigation with reclaimed water. While optimization schemes have been applied to soil salinity control, these have typically failed to take advantage of real-time sensor feedback. This study incorporates current soil observation technologies into the optimal feedback-control scheme known as Receding Horizon Control (RHC) to enable successful autonomous control of soil salinization. RHC uses real-time sensor measurements, physically-based state prediction models, and optimization algorithms to drive field conditions to a desired environmental state by manipulating application rate or irrigation duration/frequency. A simulation model including the Richards equation coupled to energy and solute transport equations is employed as a state estimator. Vertical multi-sensor arrays installed in the soil provide initial conditions and continuous feedback to the control scheme. An optimization algorithm determines the optimal irrigation rate or frequency subject to imposed constraints protective of soil salinization. A small-scale field test demonstrates that the RHC scheme is capable of autonomously maintaining specified salt levels at a prescribed soil depth. This finding suggests that, given an adequately structured and trained simulation model, sensor networks, and optimization algorithms can be integrated using RHC to autonomously achieve water reuse and agricultural objectives while managing soil salinization.     

Large scale parameter study of an individual-based model of clonal plant with volunteer computing

Understanding clonal strategies (i.e. the ability of plants to reproduce vegetatively) is particularly important to explain species persistence. A clonal individual may be considered as a network of interconnected ramets that colonizes space. Resources in this network can be shared and/or stored. We developed an individual-based model (IBM) to simulate the growth of an individual clonal plant. Typically a realistic IBM requires a large set of parameters to adequately represent the complexity of the clonal plant growth. Simulations in the literature are often limited to small subsets of the parameter space and are guided by the a priori knowledge and with heuristic aims of the researcher. The aim of this paper was to demonstrate the benefit of volunteer computing in computational ecology to systematically browse the parameter space and analyze the simulation results in order to draw rigorous conclusions. To be specific, we simulated clonal plant growth using nine growth rules related to the metabolic process, plant architecture, resource sharing and storage and nineteen input parameters. We chose 2-4 values per input parameter which corresponded to 20 millions of combinations tested through volunteer computing. We used three criteria to evaluate plant performance: plant total resource, ramet production and maximum length of one branch. The 1% top-performing plants were sorted according to these criteria. Plant total resource and ramet production were correlated while considering the top-performing plants. The maximum length of one branch was independent from the other two performance traits. We detected two processes promoting at least one of the plant performance traits: (i) a relatively high metabolic gain (high photosynthetic activity and low production cost for new growth units), a low resource storage and long integration distance for resource sharing; (ii) short spacer lengths and the predominance of elongation of existing branches over branching. Interactive effects between parameter values were demonstrated for more than half of the input parameters. Best performance was reached for plants with slightly different combinations of values for these parameters (i.e. different strategies) rather than a single one (i.e. unique strategy). This modeling approach with volunteer computing enabled us to proceed to large-scale virtual experiments which provided a new quality of insight into ecological processes linked with clonal plant growth.     

基于自适应灰色面板聚类的城市公共安全风险测度*

为科学评估城市公共安全风险,基于“脆弱性—能力”综合评估框架从公共安全风险事件维度入手,构建城市公共安全风险评估指标体系;选取2015—2019年与脆弱性和风险承载能力相关的22个指标,采用改进后的自适应灰色面板聚类从绝对量、增量和波动量3方面进行测度。聚类结果将全国城市的公共安全风险水平分为6个类型;基于研究结果进一步分析造成不同类型特征的原因,明确各城市公共安全管理存在的薄弱点,提出相关改进建议。研究结果表明:北京和上海在3个层面上均有较好表现,属于低风险城市;全国大部分地区呈现出绝对量水平中等或较差,增量和波动量水平较好的特征。     

基于扰沌模型的青藏高原放牧社会—生态系统分析

青藏高原的放牧系统具有重要的生态和生计意义,但目前正受到气候变化和人为干扰的双重威胁。为寻找改善现状的着力点,有必要探究青藏高原放牧系统的现状与演变趋势。以青藏高原东北部的共和县为例,基于历史统计数据、地方志与文献资料,在社会—生态系统的视角下,运用描述系统演变的扰沌模型,分析共和县放牧社会—生态系统的历史变迁、现状以及未来发展趋势。其中与经济相关的家庭生计—市场子系统目前处于平稳积累资源阶段,与生态相关的草—畜子系统处于释放阶段的早期,社会子系统处于偏离正常轨迹的重组阶段。草—畜子系统的情况恶化并将为更大时空尺度的社会子系统带来负面影响。未来要注意防止家庭畜牧生产与畜牧业市场的过度连接,维护畜牧产业链上的获益公平,提升牧民收入来源多样化程度;注重草地治理,提升基层监理队伍的数量和质量,鼓励合作社优化畜群结构从而与草地匹配,制定合理的政策帮助牧民社会适应外来变化。     

Use of recycled products in UK construction industry: An empirical investigation into critical impediments and strategies for improvement

Construction industry consumes about half of all material resources taken from nature, and generates a large portion of waste to landfill. A way of tackling negative environmental impacts impending from continuous material extraction and waste generation is the use of recycled materials for construction projects. However, the use of recycled materials is yet to become a commonplace in construction industry. This study evaluates the factors hampering the use of recycled products in UK construction industry as well as strategies that could be adopted to enhance its use in the industry. In order to identify the impediments and critical strategies, a two-fold methodical approach was used. An unstructured interview preceded a quantitative questionnaire survey which was used to elicit broader industry practitioners’ opinion.The study shows that designers rarely specify recycled products. This is due to lack of adequate information about quality and market availability of the products, negative perception from clients, and unexpectedly high cost of the products, despite its perceived low quality. The study suggests that a number of strategies could be adopted to promote the use of the products. These include allocation of points to the use of recycled products in sustainable design appraisal tools, governments legislative measures, improved collaboration between designers, contractors and materials suppliers, contractors involvement at earlier stage of design, improved education of the professionals about the products, and the use of tax break to influence the cost of the products. The findings of this study would therefore help policy makers, manufacturers and construction professionals to identify the factors hampering the use of recycled products for construction projects as well as the strategies that could be adopted in order to create market for the products.     

Flexibility in Water Resources Management: Review of Concepts and Development of Assessment Measures for Flood Management Systems

Discussions around adapting water management systems to climate change often express the need to increase system flexibility. Yet despite the frequent use of the term flexibility, very little work has examined what exactly it means to have a flexible water management system, what features of a system make it more flexible than another system, or when the costs to implement flexible options outweigh the benefits gained from increased flexibility. To define and operationalize the concept of flexibility in the field of water resources management, this article reviews and analyzes concepts of flexibility from the fields of information technology, manufacturing, management, and adaptive social‐ecological systems. We identify five characteristics of flexible water resources systems, namely: slack, redundancy, connectivity, compatibility/coordination, and adjustability. We then operationalize the assessment of flexibility for flood management systems by proposing original flexibility metrics and discussing their application. We conclude with a discussion on the tradeoffs of increasing flexibility.     

大型武器平台天线辐射计算软件EMRC及其应用

大型武器平台上,天线辐射的准确快速计算意义重大。本文介绍了我们自主开发的软件EMRC的核心算法——弹跳光束法(SBB),然后利用该软件对天线辐射进行了仿真计算,并与商业仿真软件FEKO的结果做了对比,验证了EMRC的正确性和高效性。     

Integrated Freshwater Solutions — A New Zealand Application of Mediated Modeling

Mediated Modeling (MM) refers to “model building with stakeholders,” enabling collaborative learning and decision support. This article presents results from the Integrated Freshwater Solutions (IFS — www.ifs.org.nz ) action research project in the Manawatū River watershed, New Zealand. Water quality in the watershed often rates poorly, with the key issues being sedimentation, eutrophication, and habitat destruction. IFS is to develop and test MM to support collaborative and adaptive freshwater management. The project team was presented with the opportunity to collaborate with the Manawatū River Leaders' Forum (MRLF), an initiative driven by the Regional Council to improve water quality. This article describes the process of MM and how it was adapted to meet the needs of MRLF stakeholders. This highlights some important conditions for collaborative and adaptive capacity building. The MM/MRLF stakeholders, represented: industry, farming, local and regional authorities, environmental groups, and indigenous Māori iwi/hapū (tribe/sub‐tribe). This article describes how MM assisted early in the collaborative process to develop the following: (1) a shared and more integrated understanding of causes and effects and (2) a sense of the order of magnitude of the problems and the impact proposed solutions might have. It also describes how the context of politics, time, and resource constraints played an important role reverting to a more traditional planning approach part way through the process.     

Adaptive Process Control in Rubber Industry

This paper describes the problems and an adaptive solution for process control in rubber industry. We show that the human and economical benefits of an adaptive solution for the approximation of process parameters are very attractive.

The modeling of the industrial problem is done by the means of artificial neural networks. For the example of the extrusion of a rubber profile in tire production our method shows good resuits even using only a few training samples.     

Macroethical systems and sustainability science

The Industrial Revolution and associated economic, demographic, technological and cultural changes have resulted in what many scientists are beginning to refer to as “the Anthropocene” – roughly translated, the Age of Humans. One response to this development is the nascent field of “sustainability science,” a multidisciplinary and systemic attempt to perceive and understand this new era. In doing so, however, methodologies and intellectual frameworks must be developed which extend beyond existing, dominantly reductionist, approaches, and are intended to address emergent characteristics of complex systems that integrate cultural and social systems, the engineered and built environment and natural systems. In the area of ethics, this requires developing a capability for “macroethics,” or ethical systems and processes capable of addressing issues arising from the emergent behavior of the complicated systems that characterize the Anthropocene.