In the context of accelerated urbanization, socioeconomic development, and population growth, as well as the rapid advancement of information and communication technology (ICT), urban land is rapidly ...expanding worldwide. Unplanned urban growth has led to the low utilization efficiency of land resources. Also, ecological and agricultural lands are continuously sacrificed for urban construction, which in the long-term may severely impact the health of citizens in cities. A thorough understanding of the mechanisms and driving forces of a city’s urban land use changes, including the influence of ICT development, is therefore crucial to the formation of optimal and feasible urban planning in the new era. Taking Nanjing as a study case, this article attempts to explore the measurable “smart” driving indicators of urban land use change and analyze the tapestry of the relationship between these and urban land use change. Different from the traditional linear regression analysis method of driving force of urban land use change, this study focuses on the interaction relationship and the underlying causal relationship among various “smart” driving factors, so it adopts a fuzzy statistical method, namely the grey relational analysis (GRA). Through the integration of literature research and known effective data, five categories of “smart” indicators have been taken as the primary driving factors: industry and economy, transportation, humanities and science, ICT systems, and environmental management. The results show that these indicators have different impacts on driving urban built-up land growth. Accordingly, optimization possibilities and recommendations for development strategies are proposed to realize a “smarter” development direction in Nanjing. This article confirms the effectiveness of GRA for studies on the driving mechanisms of urban land use change and provides a theoretical basis for the development goals of a smart city.
Biphasic calcium phosphate (BCP) materials are widely employed as bone substitute materials due to their resorption/degradation properties. Inflammation after implantation of such materials ...represents a prerequisite for bone tissue repair and regeneration but can be also problematic if it is not only transient and if it is followed by fibrosis and scarring. Here, we modified BCP covalently with hyaluronan (HA) and heparin (Hep), glycosaminoglycans that possess anti‐inflammatory properties. Beside the characterization of particle surface properties, the focus was on in vivo tissue response after subcutaneous implantation in mice. Histological analysis revealed a decrease in signs of inflammatory response to BCP when modified with either HA or Hep. Reduced vascularization after 30 days was noticed when BCP was modified with either HA or Hep with greater cellularity in all examined time points. Compared to plain BCP, expression of endothelial‐related genes Flt1 and Vcam1 was higher in BCP‐HA and BCP‐Hep group at day 30. Expression of osteogenesis‐related genes Sp7 and Bglap after 30 days was the highest in BCP group, followed by BCP‐Hep, while the lowest expression was in BCP‐HA group which correlates with collagen amount. Hence, coating of BCP particles with HA seems to suppress inflammatory response together with formation of new bone‐like tissue, while the presence of Hep delays the onset of inflammatory response but permits osteogenesis in this subcutaneous bone‐forming model. Transferring the results of this study to other coated materials intended for biomedical application may also pave the way to reduction of inflammation after their implantation.
Adverse outcomes from 2014 flooding in Serbia indicated problematic response phase management accentuated by a gender imbalance. For this reason, we investigated the risk perceptions and preparedness ...of women and men regarding these types of events in Serbia. Face-to-face interviews, administered to 2500 participants, were conducted across 19 of 191 municipalities. In light of the current findings, men seemed to be more confident in their abilities to cope with flooding, perceiving greater individual and household preparedness. By contrast, women displayed a deeper understanding of these events. Perhaps owing to a deeper level of understanding, women demonstrated more household-caring attitudes and behaviors and were more prone to report a willingness to help flood victims at reception centers. Emergency management agencies and land planners should account for these differences in gender awareness and preparedness. Based on these findings, doing so may increase citizen participation and shared responsibility under flood hazard scenarios.
For the large-scale coastal wetland system of the Baltic Sea, this study develops a methodology for investigating if and to what degree the variability and changes in certain hydro-climatic drivers ...control key coastal–marine physical conditions. The studied physical conditions include: (a) water temperature, (b) water salinity, and (c) flow structures (magnitudes and directions of flows between marine basins and the associated coastal zones and wetlands). We use numerical simulations of three hydro-climatically distinct cases to investigate the variations in hydro-climatic drivers and the resulting physical conditions (a–c) among the cases. The studied hydro-climatic forcing variables are: net surface heat flux, wind conditions, saltwater influx from the North Sea, and freshwater runoff from land. For these variables, the available observation-based data show that the total runoff from land is significantly and positively correlated with precipitation on the sea itself, and negatively correlated with saltwater influx from the North Sea to the Baltic Sea. Overall, the physical condition (a–c) variability in the Baltic Sea and its coastal zones is found to be pairwise well-explained by simulation case differences as follows: (a) Net heat flux is a main control of sea water temperature. (b) Runoff from land, along with the correlated salt water influx from the North Sea, controls average sea salinity; with the variability of local river discharges shifting some coastal zones to deviate from the average sea condition. (c) Wind variability and change control the Baltic Sea flow structure, primarily in terms of flow magnitude and less so in terms of flow direction. For specific coastal wetland zones, considerable salinity differences from average Baltic Sea conditions (due to variability in local river discharges) are found for the coasts of Finland and Estonia, while the coastal wetland zones of south-eastern Sweden, and of Estonia and Latvia, emerge as particularly sensitive to wind shifts.
Transport of solutes in porous media at the laboratory scale is governed by an Advection Dispersion Equation (ADE). The advection is by the fluid velocity $U$ and dispersion by $D_{dL}=U\alpha ..._{dL}$, where the longitudinal dispersivity $\alpha _{dL}$ is of the order of the pore size. Numerous data revealed that the longitudinal spreading of plumes at field scale is characterized by macrodispersivity $\alpha _{L}$, larger than $% \alpha _{dL}$ by orders of magnitude. This effect is attributed to heterogeneity of aquifers manifesting in the spatial variability of the logconductivity $Y$. Modeling $Y$ as a stationary random field and for mean uniform flow (natural gradient), $\alpha _{L}$ could be determined in an analytical form by a first order approximation in $\sigma _{Y}^{2}$ (variance of $Y$) of the flow and transport equations. Recently, models and numerical simulations for solving transport in highly heterogeneous aquifers ($\sigma _{Y}^{2}>1$), primarily in terms of the mass arrival (the breakthrough curve BTC), were advanced. In all cases ergodicity, which allows to exchange the unknown BTC with the ensemble mean, was assumed to prevail for large plumes, compared to the logconductivity integral scale. Besides, the various statistical parameters characterizing the logconductivity structure as well as the mean flow were assumed to be known deterministically. The present paper investigates the uncertainty of the non-ergodic BTC due to the finiteness of the plume size as well as due to the uncertainty of the various parameters on which the BTC depends. By the use of a simplified transport model we developed in the past (which led to accurate results for ergodic plumes), we were able to get simple results for the variance of the BTC. It depends in an analytical manner on the flow parameters as well as on the dimension of the initial plume relative to the integral scale of logconductivity covariance. The results were applied to the analysis of the uncertainty of the plume spatial distribution of the MADE transport experiment. This was achieved by using the latest, recent, analysis of the MADE aquifer conductivity data.
The fruitfly, Drosophila melanogaster was exposed to the human food grade of E171 titanium dioxide (TiO2). This is a special grade of TiO2 which is frequently omitted in nanotoxicology studies ...dealing with TiO2, yet it is the most relevant grade regarding oral exposure of humans. D. melanogaster larvae were exposed to 0.002 mg mL−1, 0.02 mg mL−1, 0.2 mg mL−1, and 2 mg mL−1 of TiO2 in feeding medium, and the survival, fecundity, pupation time, and expression of genes involved in oxidative stress response were monitored. TiO2 did not affect survival but significantly increased time to pupation (p < 0.001). Fecundity of D. melanogaster was unaffected by the treatment. Expression of the gene for catalase was markedly downregulated by the treatment, while the effect on the downregulation of superoxide dismutase 2 was less pronounced. After four days of dietary exposure TiO2 was present in a significant amount in larvae, but was not transferred to adults during metamorphosis. Two individuals with aberrant phenotype similar to previously described gold nanoparticles induced mutant phenotypes were detected in the group exposed to TiO2. In general, TiO2 showed little toxicity toward D. melanogaster at concentrations relevant to oral exposure of humans.
•Fruitfly, Drosophila melanogaster was exposed to the human food grade of E171 TiO2.•TiO2 did not affect survival but have significantly increased time to pupation.•Expression of the gene for catalase was downregulated by the TiO2 treatment.•Fecundity of D. melanogaster was unaffected by the TiO2 treatment.
The impact of shear displacement under different mechanical boundary conditions on fluid flow and advective transport in a single fracture at the laboratory scale is demonstrated in the present ...study. The shear-induced changes of fracture aperture structures are determined by using the measured normal displacements and digitalized fracture surfaces from laboratory shear tests. Five shear tests on concrete replicas of the same fracture under different mechanical boundary conditions, including constant normal loading (CNL) and constant normal stiffness (CNS), are conducted to analyse the influence of mechanical boundary conditions on the shear-flow-transport processes. Fluid flow in the fracture with different shear displacements are simulated by solving the Reynolds equation. The Lagrangian particle tracking method is applied to model the advective transport in the fracture after shearing. The results generally show that the shear displacements and the normal loading conditions can significantly affect flow patterns and advective travel time distributions in the fracture. For mated fractures, the flow and transport will be enhanced by the increasing shear displacement because of shear dilation. For cases with the same shear displacement, the median advective travel time increases with the increasing boundary normal stiffness. The median advective travel time under the CNS boundary condition is generally longer than that under the CNL boundary condition. The results from this study can help to improve our understanding of stress-dependent solute transport processes in natural rock fractures.
•Laboratory shear tests on high-strength concrete replicas of a rock fracture under different normal loading conditions are conducted.•Flow and transport are limited before the shear stress surpasses the peak shear strength due to disconnected void spaces.•The advective travel time dramatically decreases with shear displacement after the shear stress surpasses the peak shear strength.
Cyberbullying has become widespread, and is generating growing concerns as it affects students and school climates in general. The objective of this article is to investigate the prevalence of ...cyberbullying among Serbian adolescents. Special emphasis was placed on gender differences regarding different forms of cyberbullying and victimization. In this study, 387 middle school students from five state schools in Belgrade were surveyed in order to obtain information about the prevalence of cyberbullying and victimization. The results show that most of the students used the Internet on a daily basis and that almost all of them possess their own mobile telephones. On average, 10% of students aged 11- to 15-years-old reported that they have cyberbullied others online, whilst 20% of them were victims of cyberbullying. The most common types of victimization reported by students were denigration and harassment, and most of the cyberbullying took the form of harassment. There were significant gender differences in cyberbullying, with male students reporting higher levels of bullying others and being victimized by cyberbullies than females. Implications for prevention and intervention are presented.
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. The disease was first detected in Wuhan, the capital of China's Hubei province, ...in December 2019 and has since spread globally, especially to Europe and North America, resulting in the ongoing global coronavirus pandemic disaster of 2019-2020. Although most cases have mild symptoms, there is some progression to viral pneumonia and multi-organ failure and death. More than 4.6 million cases have been registered across 216 countries and territories as of 19 April 2020, resulting in more than 311,000 deaths. Risk to communities with continued widespread disease transmission depends on characteristics of the virus, including how well it spreads between people; the severity of resulting illness; and the medical or other measures available to control the impact of the virus (for example, vaccines or medications that can treat the illness) and the relative success of these. In the absence of vaccines or medications, non-pharmaceutical interventions were the most important response strategy based on community interventions such as person-to-person distancing, mask-wearing, isolation and good personal hygiene (hand-washing)-all of which have been demonstrated can reduce the impact of this seemingly unstoppable globally spreading natural disaster. This paper presents the results of quantitative research regarding the level of citizen preparedness for disasters caused by coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Serbia. The survey was conducted using a questionnaire that was requested and then collected online among 975 respondents during disaster in April 2020. The questionnaire examined citizens' basic socio-economic and demographic characteristics, their knowledge, preparedness, risk perception and preventive measures taken individually and as a community to prevent the death and widespread transmission of novel coronavirus disease 2019 in the Republic of Serbia. Based on the findings that there are major differences in the public's perception of risks posed by communicable disease threats such as presented by COVID-19, emergency management agencies should use these differences to develop targeted strategies to enhance community and national preparedness by promoting behavioral change and improving risk management decision-making.
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