Combination of Models to Generate the First PAR Maps for Spain

This work addresses the development of a PAR model in the entire territory of mainland Spain. Thus, a specific model is developed for each location of the study field. The new PAR model consists of a combination of the estimates of two previous models that had unequal performances in different climates. In fact, one of them showed better results with Mediterranean climate, whereas the other obtained better results under oceanic climate. Interestingly, the new PAR model showed similar performance when validated at seven stations in mainland Spain with Mediterranean or oceanic climate. Furthermore, all validation slopes ranged from 0.99 to 1.00; the intercepts were less than 3.70 μmol m−2 s−1; the R2 were greater than 0.988, while MBE was closer to zero percent than −0.39%; and RMSE were less than 6.21%. The estimates of the PAR model introduced in this work were then used to develop PAR maps over mainland Spain that represent daily PAR averages of each month and a full year at all locations in the study field.

SWIPT-Based Nonorthogonal Multiple Access under Arbitrary Nakagami-m Fading with Direct Links

This paper studies the joint impact of simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) and nonorthogonal multiple access (NOMA) to the cooperative relay (CoR) network where direct links exist. Over Nakagami-m fading environments, the near users employ decode-and-forward (DF) and energy harvesting (EH) to assist the transmission from the source to the far users. Exploiting the time-switching protocol (TSP) and power-splitting protocol (PSP) to the CoR-based NOMA system, analytical results for the outage probability are derived, and the corresponding throughput is obtained. Comparative results show that the PSP outperforms the TSP at low transmit power, while at high-transmit-power regime, the TSP provides similar performance as the PSP.

Performance of different adiposity measures for predicting left ventricular remodeling in Chinese hypertensive youth

There is no consistent conclusion on which adiposity measure is best to predict cardiovascular risk factors in youth. The present study aims to assess the performance of body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC), and waist-to-height ratio (WHtR) in predicting abnormal left ventricular structure in Chinese hypertensive youth. A total of 1180 youth aged 6–17 years with hypertension from the China Child and Adolescent Cardiovascular Health Study were included in this study. Logistic regression model, receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curve analysis and net reclassification improvement (NRI) method were used to assess performance of BMI, WC, and WHtR in predicting left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) and left ventricular geometry (LVG). A 1-standard deviation increment in any of three indexes in predicting LVH and LVG were similar, e.g., with the odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals of 1.34 (1.16–1.55), 1.25 (1.08–1.45) and 1.40 (1.20–1.62), respectively. In addition, ROC analysis and NRI method confirmed the similar performance of three adiposity indexes in predicting LVH and LVG. In conclusion, BMI, WC and WHtR had similar performance in predicting abnormal left ventricular structure in Chinese hypertensive youth, but all three indexes had limited value in prediction. WHtR is a simple and convenient adiposity index for screening youth at high risk of target organ damage.

Hydrogel-Based Enzyme and Cofactor Co-Immobilization for Efficient Continuous Transamination in a Microbioreactor

A microbioreactor was developed in which selected amine transaminase was immobilized together with the cofactor pyridoxal phosphate (PLP) to allow efficient continuous transamination. The enzyme and cofactor were retained in a porous copolymeric hydrogel matrix formed in a two-plate microreactor with an immobilization efficiency of over 97%. After 10 days of continuous operation, 92% of the initial productivity was retained and no leaching of PLP or enzyme from the hydrogel was observed. The microbioreactor with co-immobilized cofactor showed similar performance with and without the addition of exogenous PLP, suggesting that the addition of PLP is not required during the process. The space-time yield of the microbioreactor was 19.91 g L−1 h−1, while the highest achieved biocatalyst productivity was 5.4 mg mgenzyme−1 h−1. The immobilized enzyme also showed better stability over a wider pH and temperature range than the free enzyme. Considering the time and cost efficiency of the immobilization process and the possibility of capacity expansion, such a system is of great potential for industrial application.

Testing Colour Appearance Model Based UCS Using HDR, WCG and COMBVD Datasets

Two colour appearance models based UCSs, CAM16-UCS and ZCAM-QMh, were tested using HDR, WCG and COMBVD datasets. As a comparison, two widely used UCSs, CIELAB and ICTCP, were tested. Metrics of the STRESS and correlation coefficient between predicted colour differences and visual differences, together with local and global uniformity based on their chromatic discrimination ellipses, were applied to test models' performance. The two UCSs give similar performance. The luminance parametric factor kL, and power factor γ, were introduced to optimize colour-difference models. Factors kL and γ of 0.75 and 0.5, gave marked improvement to predict the HDR dataset. Factor kL of 0.3 gave significant improvement in the test of WCG dataset. In the test of COMBVD dataset, optimization provide very limited improvement.

Coupling interactive fire with atmospheric composition and climate in the UK Earth System Model

Fire constitutes a key process in the Earth system (ES), being driven by climate as well as affecting the climate by changing atmospheric composition and impacting the terrestrial carbon cycle. However, studies on the effects of fires on atmospheric composition, radiative forcing and climate have been limited to date, as the current generation of ES models (ESMs) does not include fully atmosphere–composition–vegetation coupled fires feedbacks. The aim of this work is to develop and evaluate a fully coupled fire–composition–climate ES model. For this, the INteractive Fires and Emissions algoRithm for Natural envirOnments (INFERNO) fire model is coupled to the atmosphere-only configuration of the UK's Earth System Model (UKESM1). This fire–atmosphere interaction through atmospheric chemistry and aerosols allows for fire emissions to influence radiation, clouds and generally weather, which can consequently influence the meteorological drivers of fire. Additionally, INFERNO is updated based on recent developments in the literature to improve the representation of human and/or economic factors in the anthropogenic ignition and suppression of fire. This work presents an assessment of the effects of interactive fire coupling on atmospheric composition and climate compared to the standard UKESM1 configuration that uses prescribed fire emissions. Results show a similar performance when using the fire–atmosphere coupling (the “online” version of the model) when compared to the offline UKESM1 that uses prescribed fire. The model can reproduce observed present-day global fire emissions of carbon monoxide (CO) and aerosols, despite underestimating the global average burnt area. However, at a regional scale, there is an overestimation of fire emissions over Africa due to the misrepresentation of the underlying vegetation types and an underestimation over equatorial Asia due to a lack of representation of peat fires. Despite this, comparing model results with observations of CO column mixing ratio and aerosol optical depth (AOD) show that the fire–atmosphere coupled configuration has a similar performance when compared to UKESM1. In fact, including the interactive biomass burning emissions improves the interannual CO atmospheric column variability and consequently its seasonality over the main biomass burning regions – Africa and South America. Similarly, for aerosols, the AOD results broadly agree with the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and the Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) observations.

Study of Mesh Pattern for Optically Transparent Flexible Antenna with Feedline

This paper presents a systematic parameter study on mesh pattern for optically transparent flexible antenna with feedline. In implementing a transparent flexible antenna using a metal mesh, transparency and performance of antenna and feedline are opposite factors. To understand how both elements are affected by the design parameters of the mesh, we analyze the performance of the feedlines and antennas according to the design parameters of diamond and square meshes. Moreover, the effect of the difference in the shape of diamond mesh and square mesh on performance is analyzed. The measured results of the fabricated samples offer the feasibility of implementing transparent feedlines and antennas with similar performance to nontransparent feedlines and antennas.