An empirical study on Cross-Border E-commerce Talent Cultivation-—Based on Skill Gap Theory and big data analysis

To solve the dilemma between the increasing demand for cross-border e-commerce talents and incompatible students’ skill level, Industry-University-Research cooperation, as an essential pillar for inter-disciplinary talent cultivation model adopted by colleges and universities, brings out the synergy from relevant parties and builds the bridge between the knowledge and practice. Nevertheless, industry-university-research cooperation developed lately in the cross-border e-commerce field with several problems such as unstable collaboration relationships and vague training plans.

Formal Specification of Non-Functional Properties of Context-Aware Systems

During the recent years, there is an increasing demand for software systems that dynamically adapt their behavior at run-time in response to changes in user preferences, execution environment, and system requirements, being thus context-aware. Authors are referring here to requirements related to both functional and non-functional aspects of system behavior since changes can also be induced by failures or unavailability of parts of the software system itself. To ensure the coherence and correctness of the proposed model, all relevant properties of system entities are precisely and formally described. This is especially true for non-functional properties, such as performance, availability, and security. This article discusses semantic concepts for the specification of non-functional requirements, taking into account the specific needs of a context-aware system. Based on these semantic concepts, we present a specification language that integrates non-functional requirements design and validation in the development process of context-aware self-adaptive systems.

Herbs and phytogenic feed additives in poultry nutrition

The aim of the study was to review the results of scientific research on the effect of herbs and phytogenic feed additives used in poultry nutrition on animal welfare, breeding conditions, and the quality of meat. The article explains the importance of feed additives used in poultry nutrition. It discusses the role of herbs and phytogenic feed additives in nutrition in the context of the increasing demand for and consumption of poultry meat. The article also analyzes the influence of herbs and phytogenic feed additives on animal welfare, rearing conditions, and meat quality. The results of research on the effect of herbs and phytogenic feed additives used in poultry nutrition are not unequivocal. In view of the high demand for poultry meat, there is need for continued research on the optimal composition of herbal mixtures in nutrition to obtain good breeding conditions and high quality meat.

Various demand side management techniques and its role in smart grid–the state of art

The current lifestyle of humanity relies heavily on energy consumption, thus rendering it an inevitable need. An ever-increasing demand for energy has resulted from the increasing population. Most of this demand is met by the traditional sources that continuously deplete and raise significant environmental issues. The existing power structure of developing nations is aging, unstable, and unfeasible, further prolonging the problem. The existing electricity grid is unstable, vulnerable to blackouts and disruption, has high transmission losses, low quality of power, insufficient electricity supply, and discourages distributed energy sources from being incorporated. Mitigating these problems requires a complete redesign of the system of power distribution. The modernization of the electric grid, i.e., the smart grid, is an emerging combination of different technologies designed to bring about the electrical power grid that is changing dramatically. Demand side management (DSM) allow customers to be more involved in contributors to the power systems to achieve system goals by scheduling their shiftable load. Effective DSM systems require the participation of customers in the system that can be done in a fair system. This paper focuses primarily on techniques of DSM and demand responses (DR), including scheduling approaches and strategies for optimal savings.

Editorial for the Special Issue on Advanced Energy Conversion and Storage Microdevices

Advanced energy conversion and storage systems have attracted much attention in recent decades due to the increasing demand for energy and the environmental impacts of non-sustainable energy resources [...]

Life Cycle Environmental Impacts and Health Effects of Protein-Rich Food as Meat Alternatives: A Review

The food sector is responsible for a considerable impact on the environment in most environmental contexts: the food supply chain causes greenhouse gas emissions, water consumption, reduction in cultivable land, and other environmental impacts. Thus, a change in food supply is required to reduce the environmental impacts caused by the food supply chain and to meet the increasing demand for sufficient and qualitative nutrition. Large herds of livestock are inappropriate to achieve these goals due to the relevant impact of meat supply chain on the environment, e.g., the land used to grow feed for animals is eight times more than that for human nutrition. The search for meat alternatives, especially for the intake of critical nutrients such as protein, is a consequent step. In the above context, this paper summarizes the health aspects of protein-rich food alternatives to meat and carries out a literature review on the life-cycle environmental impacts of this alternative food.

THE EFFECT OF FLY ASH UTILIZATION IN REINFORCEMENT CONCRETE: A REVIEW

Indonesia signed the Paris Agreement on facing climate change. Carbon dioxide is the main issue contributing to the greenhouse effect. Most power plant in Indonesia uses non-renewable energy to generate electricity. Increasing demand for electricity makes increasing coal consumption for steam power plants and directly contributes to greenhouse gasses from coal combustion and produces fly ash as a waste product. Otherwise, fly ash from Steam Power Plant is classified as pozzolanic materials being a part of substitution ordinary portland cement (OPC) on making reinforcement concrete. Many Researchers studied reinforcement concrete from fly ash composition and others development using renewable energy resources such as biomass. This paper presents a literature review on focus studying the properties of various types of fly ash and their effect on the performance of concrete, including corrosion resistance.

Cell behaviors within a confined adhesive area fabricated using novel micropatterning methods

In the field of cell and tissue engineering, there is an increasing demand for techniques to spatially control the adhesion of cells to substrates of desired sizes and shapes. Here, we describe two novel methods for fabricating a substrate for adhesion of cells to a defined area. In the first method, the surface of the coverslip or plastic dish was coated with Lipidure, a non-adhesive coating material, and air plasma was applied through a mask with holes, to confer adhesiveness to the surface. In the second method, after the surface of the coverslip was coated with gold by sputtering and then with Lipidure; the Lipidure coat was locally removed using a novel scanning laser ablation method. These methods efficiently confined cells within the adhesive area and enabled us to follow individual cells for a longer duration, compared to the currently available commercial substrates. By following single cells within the confined area, we were able to observe several new aspects of cell behavior in terms of cell division, cell–cell collisions, and cell collision with the boundary between adhesive and non-adhesive areas.

Basic Principles and Recent Advances in Magnetic Cell Separation

Magnetic cell separation has become a key methodology for the isolation of target cell populations from biological suspensions, covering a wide spectrum of applications from diagnosis and therapy in biomedicine to environmental applications or fundamental research in biology. There now exists a great variety of commercially available separation instruments and reagents, which has permitted rapid dissemination of the technology. However, there is still an increasing demand for new tools and protocols which provide improved selectivity, yield and sensitivity of the separation process while reducing cost and providing a faster response. This review aims to introduce basic principles of magnetic cell separation for the neophyte, while giving an overview of recent research in the field, from the development of new cell labeling strategies to the design of integrated microfluidic cell sorters and of point-of-care platforms combining cell selection, capture, and downstream detection. Finally, we focus on clinical, industrial and environmental applications where magnetic cell separation strategies are amongst the most promising techniques to address the challenges of isolating rare cells.

Assessing Natural Gas Versus CO2 Potential Underground Storage Sites in Greece: A Pragmatic Approach †

Although subsurface traps have been regularly explored for hydrocarbon exploration, natural gas and CO2 storage has drawn industrial attention over the past few decades, thanks to the increasing demand for energy resources and the need for greenhouse gas mitigation. With only one depleted hydrocarbon field in Greece, saline aquifers, salt caverns and sedimentary basins ought to be evaluated in furtherance of the latter. Within this study the potential of the Greek subsurface for underground storage is discussed. An overview and re-evaluation of the so-far studied areas is implemented based on the available data. Lastly, a pragmatic approach for the storage potential in Greece was created, delineating gaps and risks in the already proposed sites. Based on the above details, a case study for CO2 storage is presented, which is relevant to the West Katakolo field saline aquifer.