Optimizing Urban Forest Landscape for Better Perceptions of Positive Emotions

Interacting with urban spaces that are green and blue is believed to promote mental well-being and positive emotions. Therefore, there is an incentive to strategically design urban forest landscapes in a given space to evoke more positive emotion. In this study, we conducted a pilot study in Northeast China with 24 parks from 11 cities across 3 provinces. The subjects of the study are the visitors and a total of 1145 photos and selfies were collected from open micro-twitters in Sino Weibo (~50 individuals per park). Facial expressions of happy and sad emotions were recognized and rated as percent scores by FireFACE v1.0. Demographically, male adolescents smiled more than male visitors in other age groups and female teens. Females expressed more positive emotions than males according to their positive response index (PRI; happy-sad). Multivariate linear regression indicated positive contribution of green space to happy scores (estimate of 0.0040) and a stronger negative contribution of blue area to sad scores (estimate of −0.1392). Therefore, an urban forest landscape can be optimized by mapping green- and blue-spaces to predict spatial distributions of positive emotions. Male teens are recommended more as frequent visitors than people in other age ranges.

A falling magnetic monopole as a holographic local quench

An analytic static monopole solution is found in global AdS4, in the limit of small backreaction. This solution is mapped in Poincaré patch to a falling monopole configuration, which is dual to a local quench triggered by the injection of a condensate. Choosing boundary conditions which are dual to a time-independent Hamiltonian, we find the same functional form of the energy-momentum tensor as the one of a quench dual to a falling black hole. On the contrary, the details of the spread of entanglement entropy are very different from the falling black hole case, where the quench induces always a higher entropy compared to the vacuum, i.e. ∆S > 0. In the propagation of entanglement entropy for the monopole quench, there is instead a competition between a negative contribution to ∆S due to the scalar condensate and a positive one carried by the freely propagating quasiparticles generated by the energy injection.

Theoretical study on the nature of Gold-X(IVA) interaction

Structures, stabilities, and interactions of AuX (X = C - Pb) series are theoretically investigated at CCSD(T) and B3LYP levels with extend basis sets. Natural bond orbital analysis shows that the Au-X interaction is resulted by the overlap of sp hybrid on X and 6s5d hybrid on Au atom. Laplacian and total electronic energy density values at BCP shows the “intermediate type” of Au-X (X = Si, Ge, Sn, Pb) interactions and covalent type of Au-C interaction. Moreover, analysis of electron density deformation shows pronounced charge accumulation in the middle of the region between lighter X and Au, suggesting obvious covalent character of interaction. ELF shows increased covalency from X = Pb to X = C. Energy decomposition analysis shows positive steric contribution and negative quantum contributions to the Au-X interactions. Comparing the interaction energy of AuC with other AuX series, the decrease of interaction strength between them is caused by the positive contribution of steric effect and the negative contribution of quantum and electrostatic effects. Steric charge distribution shows interaction type causes effects to distribution of steric charge. And steric energy is correlated positively with the total interaction energy and correlated positively with the steric charge deformation at BCP.

Greening-induced increase in evapotranspiration over Eurasia offset by CO2-induced vegetational stomatal closure

Evapotranspiration (ET), as a key exchanging component of the land energy, water and carbon cycles, is expected to increase in response to greening land under a warming climate. However, the relative importance of major drivers (e.g., leaf area index (LAI), climate forcing, atmospheric CO2, etc.) to long-term ET change remain largely unclear. Focusing on the Eurasia which experienced the strong vegetational greening, we aim to estimate the long-term ET trend and its drivers’ relative contributions by applying a remote sensing-based water-carbon coupling model─Penman-Monteith-Leuning version 2 (PML-V2) driven by observational climate forcing and CO2 records, and satellite-based LAI, albedo and emissivity. The PML-V2 estimated an increasing ET trend (6.20 ±1.13 mm year-1 decade-1, p < 0.01) over Eurasia during 1982-2014, which is close to the ensemble mean (6.51 ±3.10 mm year-1 decade-1) from other three ET products (GLEAMv3.3a, ERA5 and CRv1.0). The PML-based ET overall agrees well with water-balance derived ET in detecting the trend directions. We find that the Eurasian ET increasing trend was mostly from vegetated regions over central and eastern Europe, Indian and southeast China where ET trends were larger than 20 mm year-1 decade-1. Modeling sensitivity experiments indicate that the Eurasian ET trend was mainly dominated by positive contributions from climate forcing change (40%) and increased LAI (22%), but largely offset by a negative contribution of increased CO2 (26%). Our results highlight the importance of the suppression effect of increasing CO2-induced stomatal closure on transpiration. This effect was rarely considered in diagnostic ET products but plays a key role to ensure that the long-term ET trend should not be overestimated by only accounting for greening-induced increases in transpiration and rainfall interception.

Preventing Enterprise Resource Planning Failure Through an Enhanced Approach to Solve Ineffective Communication

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is a widely known type of software that eases the managerial aspect in enterprises. It increases their efficiency and productivity which helps them to exponentially grow in a short span of time compared to organizations that are not using it. However, as much as productive it is, implementing it does not often succeed. Majority of ERP implementations ends up failing due to different types of factors. Spotting the light on technical aspects showed that several factors contribute to this failure. Starting from pre-implementation phase with Business Process Reengineering (BPR) execution failure, or during the implementation phase due to miscommunication or incapable project members. The research amount in this field, particularly in critical failure factors is not sufficient to learn from and avoid future implementations, hence this topic provides insights about this specific issue. Quantitative method is used to analyse the data collected from a survey questionnaire for those who got involved in ERP or BPR implementations. The research process goes through objectives from problem identification to an in-detail explanation about its causes and effects, to how it is going to be addressed, how the data is going to be collected and analysed, and finally the proposed approach with a technical evaluation for it. The final objective of the research results in developing an approach that minimises the negative contribution of two failure factors, poor BPR and ineffective communication on the mentioned implementations, or prevent them entirely. The reason these two were chosen were due to their high occurrence frequency and lack of research regarding why they are considered failure factors. Concluding the research, the mentioned enhanced approach is being evaluated showing its potential to solve these factors, as they are relying on each other, with additional suggestions to further improve the approach in future work.

Analysis of the antibiotic consumption on the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic: hospital level

Introduction. According to available data, the frequency of prescribing antibacterial drugs to patients hospitalized with COVID-19 is many times higher than the level of bacterial infection recorded in them. This trend may make an extremely negative contribution to the problem of antibiotic resistance in the future, which makes it important to monitor and study the consumption of antibiotics in this category of patients.Aim of the study. To estimate the change in the consumption of antibacterial drugs in patients hospitalized with COVID-19 in a multidisciplinary hospital compared with the consumption in the pre-pandemic period, and to conduct a subsequent analysis of the detected changes.Materials and methods. This retrospective study, reviewed the medical records of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 in the Moscow city hospital No. 4 in the period from April 27 to December 31, 2020, as well as medical records of patients hospitalized in the same medical institution for the same period of 2019. Results of the use of antibacterial drugs were obtained. They were evaluated using the ATC/DDD methodology and then subjected to further analysis.Results. Total consumption increased from 31,576 DDD/100 bed-days to 220,609 DDD/100 bed-days among the patients hospitalized with COVID-19. The level of consumption of macrolides increased most significantly – from 0.024 DDD/100 bed-days to 147.898 DDD/100 bed-days. The level of consumption of penicillins increased from 2,346 DDD/100 bed-days to 15,892 DDD/100 beddays, cephalosporins – from 11.78 DDD/100 bed-days to 19,107 DDD/100 bed-days, fluoroquinolones – from 10,276 DDD/100 beddays to 25,535 DDD/100 bed-days.Conclusion. The consumption of antibiotics has increased dramatically on the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on the data of the frequency of bacterial complications in patients with COVID-19 (no more than 8%), a more rational approach to antibacterial therapy in this group of patients is needed to reduce the potential deterioration of the problem of antibiotic resistance.

Sensitivity Analysis of the Climate Effect of Using Pyrochar Biofuel for Heat and Electricity Generation

This study aims to quantify the climate change impact of pyrochar production from pulp and paper mill sludge and the subsequent utilisation in combined heat and power (CHP) plants for co-generation of heat and electricity using the environmental life cycle assessment (E-LCA) method. In the Pyrochar Scenario, in which the sludge is pyrolyzed into pyrochar, the authors have assumed that pyrochar would replace coal. In the Reference Scenario, sludge is incinerated with a subsequent low rate of energy recovery. A comprehensive sensitivity analysis was performed to determine the conditions in which the sludge pyrochar would offer the greatest climate-effect benefits. The parameters selected for the said analysis are the form of pyrochar (pellet or powder), fuels replaced by it in the CHP plant (solid waste and peat vis-à-vis coal), and the utilisation of the pyrochar fuel in another European country (Germany and Spain vis-à-vis Sweden). The results of this E-LCA clearly show that using pyrochar as a biofuel in CHP plants delivered a considerable reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (−1.87 tonne CO2-eq per 2.8 tonne dry sludge). Contribution analysis reveals that the process accounting for the biggest share of the reduction is the pyrochar combustion (a negative contribution of 76%), which results in a displacement of coal-based fuels. The authors conclude that the utilisation of pyrochar in firing units would provide the highest reduction in GHG emissions, while recommending a comprehensive economic analysis in addition to climate effect assessment, before making a decision regarding the introduction of sludge pyrochar to the energy sector.

Before the Ink Is Dry: Does Sustainability Reduce Earnings Management? Theoretical Perspective

This paper reviews the field of sustainability to develop insights into earnings management studies and outline future research opportunities. We find that most previous studies use integrated reports measured by three dimensions of social, economic and environmental sustainability. These three dimensions are interrelated and communicate with each other to formulate the definition of sustainability. And the sustainability report should provide a balanced disclosure of sustainability performance, including both positive and negative contribution. This paper offers an insightful analysis into sustainability disclosure to support the analysis of IR benefits to balance the current literature that overlooks the benefits of IR.

Impact of Combine Harvester Technological Operations on Global Warming Potential

The agricultural machinery is making a considerable negative contribution to the acceleration of global warming. In this study, we analyzed the impact of combine harvesters (CHs) on the global warming potential (GWP) by evaluating the telematics data from 67 CHs operating in Lithuania and Latvia between 2016 and 2020. This study examined the use of their technological operations and the associated impacts on ambient air and performed field tests using the same CH model to determine the composition of exhaust gases and the impact of different technological operations on GWP. The data confirmed the release of significant GWP during indirect operation, and it was estimated that considerable lengths of time were spent in idle (~20%) and transport (~13%) modes. During these operations, over 13% of the total GWP (~27.4 t year–1 per CH), affected by emissions, was released. It was calculated that a GWP reduction exceeding 1 t year–1 per machine can be achieved by optimizing the idling and transport operations. The dual telematics/field test data approach facilitates a comprehensive assessment of both the impact of CH exhaust gases on GWP and the methods for reducing the negative impact on the environment.

Probing the dark axion portal with muon anomalous magnetic moment

We propose a new scenario of using the dark axion portal at one-loop level to explain the recently observed muon anomalous magnetic moment by the Fermilab Muon g-2 experiment. Both axion/axion-like particle (ALP) and dark photon are involved in the same vertex with photon. Although ALP or dark photon alone cannot explain muon $$g-2$$ g - 2 , since the former provides only negative contribution while the latter has very much constrained parameter space, dark axion portal can save the situation and significantly extend the allowed parameter space. The observed muon anomalous magnetic moment provides a robust probe of the dark axion portal scenario.