Remarkable Effects of Urbanization on Forest Landscape Multifunctionality in Urban Peripheries: Evidence from Liaoyuan City in Northeast China

Forest landscape multifunctionality (FLM) provides multiple benefits, such as climate regulation, water storage, and biodiversity maintenance. However, the external factors limiting FLM have not been fully identified, although addressing them could contribute to sustainable development. The present study aimed to identify and quantify the role of urbanization as an external factor that affects FLM. To this end, impervious area changes in Liaoyuan, China, were observed from 2000 to 2018, and 10 buffer zones at 500 m intervals were established outside the city. Within each buffer zone, we analyzed changes in forest landscape functions, including habitat maintenance, carbon sequestration, and water yield, as well as changes in the multifunctionality of their composition. The urbanization of Liaoyuan was significant in 2000–2018. The functions of the forest landscape became stronger and more stable as they were located further away from the urban edge. We refer to this pattern as the gradient effect of urbanization. Specifically, urbanization affected the investigated functions at a distance of 1000–2500 m. The FLM showed a more significant gradient effect of urbanization. The impact distance of urbanization on the FLM increased from 3000 m in 2000 to over 5000 m in 2018. This impact distance increased significantly whenever urbanization strengthened significantly (i.e., in 2005–2010 and 2015–2018). These findings are instructive for forest and urban managers working to achieve multiple Sustainable Development Goals.

Identifying the most influential roads based on traffic correlation networks

Prediction of traffic congestion is one of the core issues in the realization of smart traffic. Accurate prediction depends on understanding of interactions and correlations between different city locations. While many methods merely consider the spatio-temporal correlation between two locations, here we propose a new approach of capturing the correlation network in a city based on realtime traffic data. We use the weighted degree and the impact distance as the two major measures to identify the most influential locations. A road segment with larger weighted degree or larger impact distance suggests that its traffic flow can strongly influence neighboring road sections driven by the congestion propagation. Using these indices, we find that the statistical properties of the identified correlation network is stable in different time periods during a day, including morning rush hours, evening rush hours, and the afternoon normal time respectively. Our work provides a new framework for assessing interactions between different local traffic flows. The captured correlation network between different locations might facilitate future studies on predicting and controlling the traffic flows.

Characteristics of Sheet Formed by Collision of Two Elliptical Jets at Short Impact Distance

The research on characteristics of impinging jet has a long history and focuses mainly on the circular jets, whereas the impingement of noncircular jets, such as elliptical jets, receives much less attention. This paper investigated liquid sheet resulting from the oblique collision of two elliptical jets at short impact distance. The elliptical liquid jets contract and collide obliquely at impact point, forming a sheet in the form of a leaf bounded by a thicker rim. An improved theoretical model, taking jet contraction into account, for two elliptical impinging jets is established. The sheet features are obtained by combining the conservation equations between the liquid jet and sheet with the force balance equations of the sheet rim. The calculated sheet shapes are compared with the experiments, and the results show good agreement. The experimental results also indicate that the liquid sheet formed by elliptical jets tends to be larger and more unstable than that formed by circular jets. Based on the model, the effects of axial ratio and impact distance on the sheet characteristics, such as sheet shape and thickness, are also studied.

Technodiversity

What happens when technology, culture, and education intersect? How does culture of place impact technology communication? How does this affect baccalaureate education? While examining cultural awareness and diversity in three separate projects, the researchers discovered key elements to understanding technodiversity and its impact on the exchange of ideas. Morehead State University in eastern Kentucky, Western New Mexico University, and University of Guangxi in China participated in joint projects about privilege and digital communication. Issues impacting technodiversity were discovered. Understanding and harnessing the principles of technodiversity will impact distance education, online communities, and the use of technology as a conduit for communication. The diversity exchanges formed future ideas about curriculum providing baccalaureate candidates not only with a remarkable background in developing goals and assessments of achievement but also with technology and diversity tools to enable teaching in diverse circumstances.

Application of MapGIS in Groundwater Solute Transport of Power Plants

This paper analyses the impact of unexpected diesel tank leak in the non-normal conditions on groundwater, on the basis of a detailed analysis of hydrogeological conditions of a power plant, using the analytical method of solute transport in groundwater,combining with the DTM module of MapGIS spatial analysis. The results show that if leakage of diesel tank lasts 5 years, the maximum influence range of pollution halo is 0.204 km2 and the farthest impact distance is 660m.

Research on the Hard-Rock Breaking Mechanism of Hydraulic Drilling Impact Tunneling

In order to realize the rapid hard-rock tunneling in a safe, highly effective, and economic manner, the hydraulic drilling impact hard-rock tunneling (HDIHT) technology and method were introduced based on the theories of rock mechanics and hydraulic impact. The key parameters, including drilling radius and impact distance, were researched to reveal the stress behavior during HDIHT process. The Von Mises equivalent stress and its principal stress components were analyzed, and the breaking mechanism of HDIHT was also discussed. The simulation results show that, to ensure the effectiveness of “secondary breaking” caused by drilling hole free surfaces, the impact distance should not exceed 200 mm, and the optimal drilling radius was about 35 mm.

Étude quantitative de l'érosion en aval des dissipateurs d'énergie type auge

Scour tests on downstream roller bucket energy dissipators have shown that, at the equilibrium, bed characteristics are mainly influenced by the discharge and by the height of the bucket lip. The discharge affects scour characteristics, without however modifying the shape of the bed. On the other hand, the height of the bucket lip simultaneously affects scour characteristics and the shape of the bed mainly in the vicinity of the structure. In the latter area, for larger values of the height of the bucket lip, one observes a deposition with a small depression on the top and, on the contrary, when the height of the bucket lip is small, one observes an erosion. Both the depth of scour and the thickness of the deposit increase proportionally to the height of the bucket lip. Values of the other bed characteristics decrease slightly with the height of the bucket lip to reach a minimum, then they increase for higher values of the height of the bucket lip. Comparison of bed characteristics at the equilibrium with the literature shows that theory overestimates the depth of the scour measured in the laboratory by an average of 68% for the three values of discharge, underestimates the impact distance by about 6% for low discharges, and overestimates it by 10% for the highest discharge.Key words: hydraulic energy dissipation, roller bucket, scour mecanism, scour, small-scale model.