Mobility is a critical element of one's quality of life regardless of one's age. Although the challenges for women are more significant than those for men as they age, far less is known about the gender differences in mobility patterns of older adults, especially in the United States (US) context. This paper reports on a study that examined potential gender gaps in mobility patterns of older adults (aged 65 years and over) in the US by analyzing data from the 2017 National Household Travel Survey.
Since the 1980s, the industrialization and urbanization of the Beijing area has entered a period of high-speed growth. This paper asks the question: How have such great changes in urban land-use over the past decades impacted urban precipitation? In this study, we investigate and analyze the effects of urbanization on the summer precipitation in Beijing using numerical modeling approaches. Applying the numerical mesoscale atmospheric model METRAS, we determine the impact of surface cover on 13 heavy precipitation events.
In this paper, we address the problem of humanitarian aids distribution across refugee camps in war-ridden areas from a network design perspective. We show that the problem can be modeled as a variant of multi-period hub location problem with a particular demand pattern resulted by the user's behavior. The problem has been motivated by a case study of Lebanese experience in Syrian war refugee accommodation. We elaborate on the complexity and real-life constraints and, propose a compact formulation of a mathematical model of the problem.
In this paper, an integrated blockchain-based energy management platform is proposed that optimizes energy flows in a microgrid whilst implementing a bilateral trading mechanism. Physical constraints in the microgrid are respected by formulating an Optimal Power Flow (OPF) problem, which is combined with a bilateral trading mechanism in a single optimization problem. The Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers (ADMM) is used to decompose the problem to enable distributed optimization and a smart contract is used as a virtual aggregator.
Pyrolysis converts biomass into liquid, gaseous and solid fuels. This work reviews the existing models for biomass pyrolysis, including kinetic, network and mechanistic models. The kinetic models are based on the global reaction mechanisms and have been extensively used for a wide range of biomass under various operating conditions. Major emphases have been on the network models as these models predict the structural changes during biomass pyrolysis. Key aspects of various network models include reaction schemes, structural characteristics and applications to CFD simulations.
Wasting food is one of the rare problems that affects our ability to achieve economic goals in terms of food security, environmental sustainability, and farm-financial security. Most of the ideas proposed to this point involve either behavioral nudges or administrative regulations that are either too paternalistic or piecemeal to represent viable solutions. In this study, we investigate the potential for commercial peer-to-peer mutualization systems (CPMSs), or sharing-economy firms, to emerge as market platforms for the exchange of surplus food.
The assessment of microbial functional diversity is an important indicator of soil quality. Different methodological approaches are currently used; among them are enzyme activities (EA) and CLPP (community level physiological profile) techniques (e.g. MicroResp™ MR).
Calibrated models can reasonably capture descriptions between input and output variables and can thus be used to estimate long term groundwater levels.
Over the past decades, detailed individual building energy models (BEM) on the one side and regional and country-level building stock models on the other side have become established modes of analysis for building designers and energy policy makers, respectively. More recently, these two toolsets have begun to merge into hybrid methods that are meant to analyze the energy performance of neighborhoods, i.e. several dozens to thousands of buildings. This paper reviews emerging simulation methods and implementation workflows for such bottom-up urban building energy models (UBEM).
The objective of this study is to explore empirical evidence on the quantitative importance of supply, demand, and market shocks for price changes in international food commodity markets.
