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Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) change has evolved as a central force behind environmental challenges and has gained great acknowledgment for its wide-ranging effects on biodiversity and ecosystem services. Mountains, including the mountainous belts of Pakistan, are particularly vulnerable to alterations in LULC resulting from deforestation and other anthropogenic activities. These changes have profound repercussions on the socio-ecological and biophysical environments of mountains. This research aims to investigate the spatiotemporal changes in LULC in the Swat River Basin (SRB), Eastern Hindu Kush, Pakistan. Assessments of LULC changes are crucial for gaining an in-depth understanding, formulating policy guidelines, and implementing conservation practices to address the environmental challenges faced by mountainous areas. The study is based on remotely sensed data and Geographic Information System (GIS) analysis. The temporal span (1988–2018) is divided into three periods and based on ten years interval, Landsat Satellite Images were acquired for 1988, 1998, 2008 and 2018. These images were processed and classified in ArcGIS 10.8. The analysis indicates varying trends in LULC changes over three periods. Forest cover increased by 52.5% in period 1 as a result of social forestry project but declined in periods 2 (-12.8%) and 3 (-18.8%). Contrarily, rangeland decreased by 63.9% in period 1 but grew in periods 2 (71.1%) and 3 (15.5%). Built-up areas expanded by 280%, barren land by 47%, agricultural land by 14.3%. However, snow cover consistently decreased. These alterations are mainly the result of bio-physical impacts, which highlight the urgent need for sustainable land management to mitigate the environmental impact of human activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a novel single-phase non-isolated bidirectional buck converter topology. The proposed converter uses a basic switching cell structure with a coupled inductor and an interleaving switching scheme. This article addresses a crucial challenge in bidirectional DC-DC conversion by prioritizing reducing output current ripples and minimizing filter inductor size. The employed method includes using MOSFETs with fast recovery diodes to mitigate reverse recovery and body diode losses. Furthermore, the optimization of the switching frequency of the output inductor to be twice the actual switching frequency contributes to reducing the component size of the converter. The coupled inductor also helps to reduce stress on components by distributing currents among its legs. The experimental result demonstrates the proposed converter has a very low ripple current as compared to the conventional converter. The low current ripples and smaller filter inductor size enabled by high-frequency operation have improved the efficiency and size of the converter. A common ground between input and output terminals ensures robust performance without common mode current concerns. Overall, the proposed converter represents a significant improvement in DC-DC converters, promising enhanced efficiency, reliability, and compactness in bidirectional DC-DC conversion systems. In order to verify the performance of the proposed converter, a 460 W buck converter prototype was built and tested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we investigate public support for eco-social policies combining goals of social justice and ecological sustainability. Eco-social policies contribute both to providing a social floor or redistributing resources to where they are needed and to respecting an ecological ceiling by keeping human activities within ecological limits. We discuss five such policies and highlight arguments for and against defining them as eco-social policies: a maximum income, a wealth tax, a basic income, a working time reduction and a meat tax. Asking what the social and individual determinants of supporting these policies are, we use 2020 data from a representative survey in Sweden containing information about how respondents evaluate the policies. We run regression analyses to estimate the effects on these evaluations and test for socio-economic, knowledge-based and value-based factors. Results show that (1) in Sweden a working time reduction is the most supported eco-social policy; (2) political left orientation increases support for all five eco-social policies; (3) socio-economic factors have effects on wealth tax, maximum income and working time reduction; and (4) knowledge-based factors are more associated with the meat tax. Thus, socio-economic and knowledge-based models have the most significance for policies that could be understood as being either social or environmental, while value-based models have significance across potentially perceived policy divides and hence to a greater extent explain support for policies targeting an ecological ceiling and a social floor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seismic inversion is a geophysical technique, which converted the seismic data into rock physical properties that can help to design an earth model. Seismic inversion methods are useful to estimate the attributes of p-impedance (Zp), S-impedance (Zs), and density (ρ) that provide information about the reservoir. To fulfil the present research aims some standard seismic post-stack inversion methods has been used for reservoir characterization. The model-based inversion (MBI), colored inversion (CI), linear programming sparse spike (LPSS), maximum likelihood sparse spike (MLSS), and band-limited (BLI) inversions are applied to the given post-stack seismic data of the Mehar Block Lower Indus Basin to evaluate the objective of the current study. Such methods are normally used for the approximation of subsurface properties from seismic data but the problem arises in deciding which technique will provide more efficient and comprehensive information about the subsurface structures. The simple process is used in all methods of inversion that is calculated from the composite trace near to well location and inverted to obtain petrophysical parameters, which are then finally compared with the well log data. Firstly, analysis shows that both curves (inverted and well log) are a good match and display high correlation thus the average correlation of model-based inversion (0.98). Secondly, the entire seismic section is inverted into acoustic impedance and the low impedance models of all the inversion methods are estimated. Furthermore, develop the other density and velocity models for all inversion methods on the base of estimated inversion analysis. From the results, post-stack inversion is best in particular the model-based and colored inversion technique displays smoothed and clear reservoir zone. The interpreted inverted section indicates that the studied area contains the reservoir zone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forest cover in the Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) mountains of northern Pakistan has changed dramatically due to community dynamics such as population growth, household dynamics, and intensive economic activity for people's livelihoods. Demographic development is one of the major factors influencing forest cover change in a previously sparsely populated environment. An abrupt upsurge in population exerts adverse effects on the local natural resources, specifically forests. The present research shows an increase in population from 1980 to 2017, the development of human settlements, and a long-term decline in forest cover. This study was conducted in the Palas valley in the HKH mountains using GIS and remote sensing (RS) technology. Analysis of the changes between 1980, 2000, and 2017 was done using ArcGIS and the maximum likelihood algorithm for supervised classification of Landsat MSS TM ETM+ and Sentinel 2A satellite images. We used Euclidean distances and buffer analysis techniques to identify that most changes occurred within 1 to 3 km of the settlement's proximity in each period. We also found changes in forest cover to be much greater near settlements than elsewhere in the study area. According to the findings of the study, population explosion and other socio-economic factors have imposed excessive pressure on vegetation cover, resulting in the loss of 17,076 ha of forests in the remote Palas valley. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The great hopes in Brussels that a circular bioeconomy will help bridge the growing divide between urban and rural areas and allow the hinterlands to prosper from 'green growth' are addressed in this article, which reflects on insights from three Nordic case studies of brown, green and blue biomass use at different levels of technology readiness. A closer examination of the forward, backward, fiscal and final demand linkages at regional level from increased biomass utilization, from eastern Finland and northern Sweden to Jutland and North Atlantic islands, suggests that linkages are and will remain relatively weak, predominantly dashing the expectations. As suppliers and exporters of natural resources, disadvantaged regions may all too easily get locked into a 'staples trap', where the value creation evaporates owing in part to the steep start‐up costs and the associated boom‐and‐bust cycles, which place them in a weak position vis‐à‐vis the resource manufacturers and consumers. To make the prospects of development, employment and prosperity in the hinterlands materialize, measures are needed to strengthen the regional‐level economic linkages. Regional‐level revolving funds based on benefit‐sharing instruments related to natural resources can be used to bolster economic development, as reflected in such schemes present in both China and Canada. We call for further research into whether and how such approaches can be replicated successfully by channeling revenues from biomass cultivation to regional‐scale revolving funds, with mandates to strengthen long‐term economic linkages and prosperity within the hinterlands. © 2022 The Authors. Biofuels, Bioproducts and Biorefining published by Society of Industrial Chemistry and John Wiley & Sons Ltd [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The pore structure and pore water of deep shale gas reservoirs are unique. Their complex occurrence mechanism is the root cause of gas content variations, which restrict successful and economic exploration and exploitation. In this study, nuclear magnetic resonance experiments were performed to characterize the pore structure and pore water microscopic migration in deep shale gas reservoirs of the Wufeng–Longmaxi Formation in the Luzhou block. The pore structure particularity and its influence as well as that of pore water on gas occurrence are discussed here. The results show that total organic carbon (TOC) content has weak positive correlation with the proportion of micropores, negative correlation with the proportion of mesopores, and strong positive correlation with the proportion of macropores. These indicate that organic matter developed mainly macropores and micropores, while inorganic minerals produced mainly mesopores. The proportion of producible porosity is relatively low (11.81% on average), reflecting the poor pore connectivity in the studied deep shale. Both the proportion of macropores and the TOC content are strongly positively correlated with the proportion of producible porosity. Organic matter controls the pore connectivity of deep shale by controlling the development of macropores. The producible porosity correlates positively with total porosity, indicating that shale with high total porosity possesses high producible porosity. The pore structure at different burial depths (especially different beds) has significant differences, reflecting strong interlayer heterogeneity. Compared with the shallow Qiongzhusi Formation, the deep shale has lower porosity, smaller dominant pore size, poor pore connectivity, and similar T2 spectrum distribution. Mineral anti-compaction protection pores and reservoir fluid over-pressure are the key to the development of organic pores in deep shale gas reservoirs. When adsorbed gas converts to free gas, the gas-in-place will directly be affected by whether the deep shale gas reservoirs can provide enough storage space for excess free gas. After centrifugation, there was still considerable residual water in the studied deep shale, and available pores decreased with increase in water saturation. There was a negative correlation between gas content and water saturation, indicating that primary formation water has a vital influence on the occurrence and enrichment of shale gas. These findings provide a collective theoretical basis for accurate evaluation of deep shale gas reservoirs, which is significant for the commercial exploration and exploitation of deep shale gas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of cost-effective construction design approaches is an emerging concept in the field of sustainable environments. The design of the foundation for the construction of any infrastructure-related building entails three basic requirements, i.e., serviceability limit state (SLS), ultimate limit state (ULS), and economics. Engineering economy coupled with safety are the two main essentials for a successful construction project. The conventional design approaches are based on hit and trial methods to approach cost-effective design. Additionally, safety requirements are prioritized over the economic aspect of foundation design and do not consider safety requirements and cost simultaneously. This study presents a design approach that considers foundation construction costs while satisfying all the technical requirements of a shallow foundation design. This approach is called an optimization process in which the cost-based isolated foundation design charts were developed based on the field SPT N data. The design charts are the first of their kind for the robust design of foundations and can be used to compare the economic impact of different bearing capacity models. Furthermore, the design framework considers the quantitative impact of the different applied factors of safety values in terms of cost. The results show that Vesic's equation yields higher values of bearing capacities than Terzaghi and Meyerhof. On the other hand, Vesic's theory offers a 37.5% reduction in cost as compared to the conventional design approach of the foundation for isolated footing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The prominence of Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communications in the future wide area communication networks place various challenges to the cellular technologies such as the Long Term Evolution (LTE) standard, owing to the large number of M2M devices generating small bursts of infrequent data packets with a wide range of delay requirements. The channel structure and Quality of Service (QoS) framework of LTE networks fail to support M2M traffic with multiple burst sizes and QoS requirements while a bottleneck often arises from the limited control resources to communicate future uplink resource allocations to the M2M devices. Moreover, many of the M2M devices are battery-powered and require a low-power consuming wide area technology for wide-spread deployments. To alleviate these issues, in this article we propose an adaptive semi-persistent scheduling (SPS) scheme for the LTE uplink which caters for multi-service M2M traffic classes with variable burst sizes and delay tolerances. Instead of adhering to the rigid LTE QoS framework, the proposed algorithm supports variation of uplink allocation sizes based on queued data length yet does not require control signaling to inform those allocations to the respective devices. Both the eNodeB and the M2M devices can determine the precise uplink resource allocation related parameters based on their mutual knowledge, thus omitting the burden of regular control signaling exchanges. Based on a control parameter, the algorithm can offer different capacities and levels of QoS satisfaction to different traffic classes. We also introduce a pre-emptive feature by which the algorithm can prioritize new traffic with low delay tolerance over ongoing delay-tolerant traffic. We also build a model for incorporating the Discontinuous Reception (DRX) mechanism in synchronization with the adaptive SPS transmissions so that the UE power consumption can be significantly lowered, thereby extending their battery lives. The simulation and performance analysis of the proposed scheme shows significant improvement over the traditional LTE scheduler in terms of QoS satisfaction, channel utilization and low power requirements of multi-service M2M traffic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Experiences of ageing and care are closely tied to structural location in terms of race, class, gender and sexuality among others. In South Africa, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people's experiences of ageing and care are profoundly influenced by the patriarchal, postapartheid context. This study, the first of its kind in South Africa, was an exploratory study of the experiences of ageing and care among LGBT elders in two provinces in South Africa. Findings indicate that LGBT elders' experiences of ageing and care are influenced by intersectionality and lack of access to care. In particular, the ageing and care experiences of black and Coloured LGBT elders, especially lesbian, bisexual and transgender women, are disproportionately impacted. Implications of these exploratory findings are that national ageing and care policies need to specifically name LGBT elders as a key group and that services be rolled out for LGBT elders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A case study of a 2760 g female infant was born at a community hospital at 39 weeks and 2 days to a 19-year-old G1P0 mother via spontaneous vaginal delivery, with pregnancy was complicated by intrauterine growth restriction. Topics include transferred to a level 4 neonatal intensive care unit for endocrinology evaluation and a brain magnetic resonance imaging; and Intraventricular hemorrhage was ruled out etiology of infant's central diabetes insipidus was attributed to presumed meningitis.

Green economy is a concept frequently used by governments and international institutions to promote sustainable transformations of the economy. In this study, we explore how the transition towards a green economy is being conceptualised in policy terms in the three Nordic countries Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. Comparing these cases, we analyse strategic policy documents on green growth, circular economy, bioeconomy, low‐carbon transitions, and sustainable development. While comprehensive national policy strategies on the green economy are lacking, the studied documents display policy approaches that reflect different aspects of a green economic transformations, such as low‐carbon developments, promotion of environmental technology sectors, and enhanced circularity. Our findings indicate the presence of a transformative Nordic model for greening the economy, in which the state plays an active role in supporting innovation and technology development, facilitating cooperation among societal actors, and securing social welfare and human wellbeing. It is underpinned by optimism about the opportunity to reconcile economic growth with sustainable development, while more radical beyond growth approaches are strikingly absent, reflecting their marginal roles in the established policy discourse of these countries. Rather, concepts such as circular economy, sharing economy, and sustainable production and consumption are highlighted as central for greening the economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explore peoples' dispositions and practices with regard to social–ecological transformations based on a sustainable welfare policy strategy in Sweden. We draw on Bourdieu's concept of habitus to highlight the relations between social positions, dispositions, and position‐takings. Using data from an own survey, we identify habitus types and place these in the space of social positions. We apply principal component analysis to a large set of questions about social, ecological, and climate change related topics and identify eight underlying eco–social dispositions. These are used for cluster analyses that find typical constellations of eco–social dispositions within the Swedish population: variants of eco–social habitus. We find seven habitus types and describe their social characteristics, political preferences, and practices. Finally, the seven habitus are plotted onto the map of social positions, the Bourdieusian social space, highlighting their relations—proximities, tensions, and contestations—to each other. We find evidence that political struggles around social–ecological transformations reproduce existing social structures but are also connected to new "eco–social" divisions that appear between groups in similar positions. In the conclusion we discuss the implications for social–ecological transformations based on sustainable welfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High performance miniaturized electronic devices require enhanced, compact and reliable thermal management system. As an efficient compact space cooling technique, flow boiling in microchannels has recently gained wide acceptance. However, weak buoyancy effects and microgravity in avionics and numerous space systems operations hinder the performance of flow boiling microchannel thermal management system due to poor bubble departure capacity and unfavorable development of flow regimes. Here we report the flow boiling silicon nanowires (SiNWs) microchannels which can favorably regulate two-phase flow regimes by enhancing explosive boiling, minimizing bubble departure diameter, and smoothing flow regime transition. Extensive experimental investigations along with high speed visualizations are performed. The experiments are performed with the dielectric fluid HFE-7100 in a forced convection loop for wide range of heat and mass fluxes. High speed flow visualizations have been employed at up to 70 k frames per second (fps) to understand the boiling mechanism in terms of bubble dynamics, flow patterns, and flow regime developments for SiNWs microchannels. These studies show that SiNWs reduce intermittent flow regimes (slug/churn), improve rewetting and maintain thin liquid film at wall. Therefore, flow boiling in SiNW microchannels is promising to thermal management owing to its high heat transfer rate with low pressure drop and negligible microgravity sensitivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A model is proposed to predict and evaluate the heat transfer characteristics of dropwise-filmwise hybrid surface. This is approached by modifying the original drop-size distribution, which is defined for fully dropwise condensation (DWC) and making it applicable for dropwise-filmwise condensation (DFC). The modification is achieved by simulation work to determine two parameters: the area fraction occupied by large drops f and the ratio of the maximum radius of newly formed drops to that of larger drops γ. Simulation results show a good agreement with the literature for fully DWC and provide a correlation for each parameter with respect to DWC region width in the DFC hybrid surface. The present model evaluates the heat transfer performance of DFC by utilizing these correlations. A comparison is made between the proposed model with experimental work from the literature and results show a good agreement. While changing filmwise condensation (FWC) region width significantly affects the overall heat transfer performance, utilizing smaller width to that of DWC region has the advantage over fully DWC. Furthermore, surface renewal within the hydrophobic region is controlled by adjusting the DWC region width. When the ratio of drop maximum diameter to DWC region width is unity, surface renewal is achieved by drops merging to adjacent FWC regions only. When the ratio is less than unity, surface renewal is achieved by sweeping of departing drops within the hydrophobic region and by merging. For each case, an optimum DWC region width which corresponds to the maximum DFC heat flux is defined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The low‐power short‐range networks have gained prevalence in research fields such as machine‐to‐machine communications and the Internet of things. Given the large number of devices that may exist, the IPv6 over low‐power wireless personal area networks (6LoWPAN) standard is expected to be widely used. Although Contiki, NS‐3, and OMNeT++ have developed the 6LoWPAN model, it is still not available in optimized network engineering tools (OPNET) because it is extremely difficult to interface the built‐in IP module with the customized modules in OPNET. To bridge this gap, we first developed a preliminary 6LoWPAN model and implemented the header compression and header restoration functions to handle the incoming and outgoing packets in OPNET. To further improve the system performance, we also proposed an algorithm that aggregates packets, reduces intranetwork collisions and increases the packet delivery ratio. The model and algorithm in this work are free to download, so researchers from the OPNET community can easily extend this work for their own research in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate a joint real-time load scheduling and energy storage management at a grid-connected solar powered electric vehicle. Without any a priori knowledge, we consider a finite time approach with arbitrary dynamics of system inputs. Our aim is to minimize an average aggregated system cost through joint optimization of electric vehicle's energy procurement price, load scheduling delays, photovoltaic sufficiency in terms of locally generated renewable energy mix, and battery degradation. Through subsequent modification and reformulation of the joint optimization problem, we utilize the concept of one-slot look-ahead queue stability to solve the problem by employing the Lyapunov optimization technique. We show that the joint optimization problem is separable into sub-problems, which are sequentially solved with asymptotic optimality and a bounded performance guarantee. Simulations are carried in different scenarios and under varying weather conditions. Results show that our proposed algorithm can achieve a daily electric vehicle's photovoltaic sufficiency up to 50.50%, a monthly bill reduction up to 72.61%, and a yearly reduced CO $_2$ emission level up to 6.06 kg, while meeting electric vehicle user's energy and delay requirements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the role of actor relations in advancing climate policymaking and argues that attempts to understand decisions to decarbonise in a green state should explore the institutional conditions for policymaking. The article explores the climate policy model in Sweden in terms of the societal actors included in the policy process, the nature of this inclusion, and its relevance for the prospects of decarbonisation. It uses three perspectives in the analysis: corporatism, sustainable transition studies, and ecological democracy. The findings largely support existing research that states characterised by corporatist policymaking are suited for environmental governance and for climate policymaking. However, as a model of governance of actor relations, the Swedish climate policymaking model has both its merits and demerits. Although it has potential to reach decarbonisation objectives, it does this in the context of including mainly established economic interests, that is, incumbents. This stands in contrast with what is argued in sustainable transition studies that incumbents obstruct change, in the Swedish case they are viewed as potential change agents. Finally, although the character of the actor relations is deliberative, it is a top–down exclusive kind of deliberation that remains far from ideals of ecological democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The large share of carbon emitted by energy-intensive industries in the extraction and processing of basic materials must be limited to decarbonise society and the economy. Ways in which the state can govern industrial decarbonisation and contributes to green state theory are explored by addressing a largely ignored issue: the green state's industrial relations and its role in industrial governance. With insights from a Swedish case study, the tension between the state's economic imperative and ecological concerns in greening industry are shown to persist. However, as the energy-intensive industry's previously privileged position in the economy is weakening, industry is opened to decarbonisation strategies. While the case exposes a number of governance challenges, it also suggests potential areas where the state can pursue decarbonisation in energy-intensive industry and points the way to an active role of the green state in governing industrial decarbonisation and greening industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose a user centric real-time (RT) technique for an optimal control of a distributed photovoltaic stand-alone micro-grid. Our objective is to minimize an average aggregated system cost over a finite time period considering a joint optimization problem of battery energy storage (BES) management, load scheduling, and energy procurement process from a peaker generator (PG). Due to online decision making, the dynamic control actions of the state of energy of the storage battery are correlated over time. Thus, we impose a constraint on the BES state of energy over the considered time period and eliminate the finite BES capacity constraint. In the load scheduling process, we account for the temporal variability and spatial uncertainty of each household load explicitly. We introduce the concept of block duration to optimize the energy procurement cost from a PG. We modify and then transform the problem to utilize the Lyapunov optimization technique. We show that the proposed solution to the joint optimization problem is asymptotically optimal with a bounded performance guarantee and is easy to implement. Simulations in different weather conditions show the effectiveness of our proposed user centric RT solution in terms of the selected performance metrics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The toxicity of the organic dyes presents in the environment due to polluted discharge from industries is a real dilemma in the world. Here, the problem was addressed with the synthesis of new quaternary mineral cupric antimony oxychloride (CAO) during the study of Cu–Sb–O–Cl system in absence of solvents. The morphological analysis showed that synthesized matrix is rough and uneven with round and cylindrical shapes. The composition of nanomaterial verified the elemental composition as Cu, Sb and Cl. The XRD analysis revealed that synthesized product CAO is crystalline in nature where crystallite size was estimated in the range of 2–8 nm. The bond vibrations were studied through Fourier transforms infrared spectroscopy to confirm the symmetric and asymmetric vibrations in the matrix. The material parameters (grain size, dislocation line density, stresses and miller indices) of the synthesized material CAO were calculated using powder X-ray diffraction analysis. Thermogravimetric analysis was performed to study the decomposition behaviour and stability of the CAO. The copper ternary compound was used to mitigate the effect of organic dyes like Sunset yellow (26%), Methylene blue (23%), Brilliant green (20%), Methyl orange (14%) in the dyes polluted wastewater. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The Swedish government is likely to implement longer and heavier road freight vehicles, so-called high-capacity vehicles (HCVs), in the near future. The purpose of this paper is to analysis the expected effects on the whole transport system regarding tonne-kilometres, vehicle-kilometres on road, CO2 and socio-economics with three possible implementation strategies (HCVs on all roads, a designated road network and a designated road network with a kilometre-based truck charge) and two vehicle types (74 t/25.25 m and 74 t/34 m).Design/methodology/approach Calculations are based on two well-established scenarios for transport development in Sweden. Changes per tonne-kilometre are modelled for ten product groups with considerations taken to their transport networks. Socio-economic effects are analysed using the net present value rating method over a 40-year period.Findings The study shows the increase in demand for transport and the modal shift, from rail and sea to road, in terms of tonne-kilometres, vehicle-kilometres and CO2 emissions for three implementation strategies of HCVs in two scenarios. All implementation strategies show a positive social net-benefit with the introduction of HCVs.Research limitations/implications The results reveal potential benefits to the implementation of HCVs. The results are limited by possible over/under-estimations of effects considered in the calculations, due to uncertainties and assumptions.Practical implications The results highlight expected levels of modal shift and induced transport for different HCV implementation strategies and how they depend on transport and climate policies and the expected growth of tonne-kilometres.Originality/value The calculations consider socio-economic effects, particularly from increased CO2 emissions due to modal shift and induced traffic, which is lacking in previous studies. To balance conflicting economic and environmental goals, the findings indicate that the implementation of HCVs could be accompanied by other policy measures. The findings are based on the Swedish context, but the model can be adapted to other countries or regions and to study other freight transport reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wide area wireless systems conventionally employ dynamic scheduling for stochastic or bursty applications and persistent resource allocations of a given period for deterministic applications such as voice. When considering persistent resource allocations for machine-to-machine (M2M) applications from different markets, a wide range of allocation periods may be required to fully support the diversity of applications. The set of periods supported by the wireless system is a compromise between efficient use of the available resources and supporting as many M2M applications as possible. We consider two schemes: a simply periodic system which offers a limited set of periods with very efficient use of resources, and a complex periodic system which offers a wider range of periods at the cost of lower efficiency. We derive formulae for the blocking probability of these two systems by considering different resource sharing policies of the Erlang Multirate Loss Model (EMLM) and the concepts of packing (when a new persistent allocation is admitted to the system) and repacking (when an existing persistent allocation leaves the system). The theoretical models are verified using a discrete event simulation with variable offered traffic loads. The concepts discussed in this paper are generic, but may find particular application in Long Term Evolution (LTE) and Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) networks for the purposes of system configuration (particularly in terms of the set of periods supported for persistent allocations), resource dimensioning and system performance characterisation. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A variety of scheduling strategies can be employed in wireless systems to satisfy different system objectives and to cater for different traffic types. Static persistent resource allocations can be employed to transfer small M2M data packets efficiently compared to dynamic packet-by-packet scheduling, even when the M2M traffic model is non-deterministic. Recently, adaptive persistent allocations have been proposed in which the volume of allocated resources can change in sympathy with the instantaneous queue size at the M2M device and without expensive signaling on control channels. This increases the efficiency of resource usage at the expense of a (typically small) increased packet delay. In this paper, we derive a statistical model for the device queue size and packet delay in static and adaptive persistent allocations which can be used for any arrival process (i.e., Poisson or otherwise). The primary motivation is to assist with dimensioning of persistent allocations given a set of QoS requirements (such as a prescribed delay budget). We validate the statistical model via comparison with queue size and delay statistics obtained from a discrete event simulation of a persistent allocation system. The validation is performed for both exponential and gamma distributed packet inter-arrivals to demonstrate the model generality. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

With the increasing demand of Machine to Machine (M2M) communications and Internet of Things (IoT) services it is necessary to develop a new network architecture and protocols to support cost effective, distributed computing systems. Generally, M2M and IoT applications serve a large number of intelligent devices, such as sensors and actuators, which are distributed over large geographical areas. To deploy M2M communication and IoT sensor nodes in a cost-effective manner over a large geographical area, it is necessary to develop a new network architecture that is cost effective, as well as energy efficient. This paper presents an IEEE 802.11 and IEEE 802.15.4 standards-based heterogeneous network architecture to support M2M communication services over a wide geographical area. For the proposed heterogeneous network, we developed a new cooperative Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance (CSMA/CA) medium access control (MAC) protocol to transmit packets using a shared channel in the 2.4 GHz ISM band. One of the key problems of the IEEE 802.11/802.15.4 heterogeneous network in a dense networking environment is the coexistence problem in which the two protocols interfere with each other causing performance degradation. This paper introduces a cooperative MAC protocol that utilizes a new signaling technique known as the Blank Burst (BB) to avoid the coexistence problem. The proposed MAC protocol improves the network QoS of M2M area networks. The developed network architecture offers significant energy efficiency, and operational expenditure (OPEX) and capital expenditure (CAPEX) advantages over 3G/4G cellular standards-based wide area networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some M2M applications such as event monitoring involve a group of devices in a vicinity that act in a co-ordinated manner. An LTE network can exploit the correlated traffic characteristics of such devices by proactively assigning resources to devices based upon the activity of neighboring devices in the same group. This can reduce latency compared to waiting for each device in the group to request resources reactively per the standard LTE protocol. In this paper, we specify a new low complexity predictive resource allocation algorithm, known as the one way algorithm, for use with delay sensitive event based M2M applications in the LTE uplink. This algorithm requires minimal incremental processing power and memory resources at the eNodeB, yet can reduce the mean uplink latency below the minimum possible value for a non-predictive resource allocation algorithm. We develop mathematical models for the probability of a prediction, the probability of a successful prediction, the probability of an unsuccessful prediction, resource usage/wastage probabilities, and mean uplink latency. The validity of these models is demonstrated by comparison with the results from a simulation. The models can be used offline by network operators or online in real time by the eNodeB scheduler to optimize performance. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]