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During the high-speed flight of a vehicle in the atmosphere, surface friction with the air generates aerodynamic heating. The aerodynamic heating phenomenon can create extremely high temperatures near the surface. These high temperatures impact material properties and the structure of the aircraft, so thermal deformation measurement is essential in aerospace engineering. This paper revisits high-temperature deformation measurement using the digital image correlation (DIC) technique under high-intensity blackbody radiation with a precise speckle pattern fabrication and a heat haze reduction method. The effects of the speckle pattern on the DIC measurement have been thoroughly studied at room temperature, but high-temperature measurement studies have not reported such effects so far. We found that the commonly used methods to reduce the heat haze effect could produce incorrect results. Hence, we propose a new method to mitigate heat haze effects. An infrared radiation heater was employed to make an experimental setup that could heat a specimen up to 950 °C. First, we mitigated image saturation using a short-wavelength bandpass filter with blue light illumination, a standard procedure for high-temperature DIC deformation measurement. Second, we studied how to determine the proper size of the speckle pattern in a high-temperature environment. Third, we devised a reduction method for the heat haze effect. As proof of the effectiveness of our developed experimental method, we successfully measured the deformation of stainless steel 304 specimens from 25 °C to 800 °C. The results confirmed that this method can be applied to the research and development of thermal protection systems in the aerospace field.

Transboundary haze episodes caused by seasonal forest fires have become a recurrent phenomenon in Southeast Asia, with serious environmental, economic, and public health implications. Here we present a cross-sectional survey conducted among people in Kuala Lumpur and surrounds to assess the links between knowledge, attitudes, and practices in relation to the transboundary haze episodes. Of 305 respondents, 125 were amateur athletes participating in a duathlon event and the remainder were surveyed in an inner-city shopping mall. Across the whole sample, people who possessed more factual information about the haze phenomenon showed significantly higher levels of concern. Duathletes were more knowledgeable than non-duathletes and also more concerned about the negative effects of haze, especially on health. For all people who regularly practice outdoor sports (including people interviewed at the shopping mall), higher levels of knowledge and concerned attitudes translated into a greater likelihood of engaging in protective practices, such as cancelling their outdoor training sessions, while those with greater knowledge were more likely to check the relevant air pollution index on a daily basis. Our results indicate that the provision of accurate and timely information about air quality to residents will translate into beneficial practices, at least among particularly exposed individuals, such as amateur athletes who regularly practice outdoor sports.

With the rapid development of industry, haze pollution has become an urgent environmental problem. This study innovatively utilizes network-based methods to investigate the spatial correlation effects of haze pollution transmission between urban clusters in the Yangtze River Economic Belt. A spatial correlation network of haze pollution in the Yangtze River Economic Belt was constructed using 328 urban meteorological data collection points as research samples, and its structural characteristics were examined. Main findings are as follows: (1) The spatial correlation network of PM 2.5 in the Yangtze River Economic Belt urban agglomeration exhibits typical network structural characteristics: obvious spatial correlation within the network. (2) Chengdu, Chongqing, Wuhan, Nanchang, Yichang, Changsha and Yueyang are located at the center of the spatial network. They have more receiving and sending relationships. (3) 36 cities can be divided into four types: bilateral overflow, net beneficiary, net overflow and broker. Each type has different functional characteristics and linkage effects in the network. (4) Haze pollution positively correlates with the city’s synergistic development capacity and urbanization rate, the higher the city’s development level and the higher the Urbanization rate, the stronger its haze pollution capacity. This study provides new insights into the study of the spatial correlation and impact of haze pollution.

Air pollution is strongly tied to climate change. Industrialization and fossil fuel combustion are the main contributors leading to climate change, also being significant sources of air pollution. Malaysia is a developing country with a focus on industrialization. The preference of using private cars is a common practice in Malaysia, resulting in the after-effects of haze and transboundary air pollution. Hence, air pollution has become a severe issue in Malaysia in recent times. Exposure to air pollutants such as ozone and airborne particles is associated with increases in hospital admissions and mortality. For the past few years, the focus of the research is moving towards air quality and the impacts of air pollution on health in Malaysia. In this study, we establish the definition of air pollution, the motivation to study it, and its impacts and sources of air pollution and climate change. We discuss the air quality monitoring system in Malaysia and compare Malaysian ambient air quality standards with global standards. We also look comprehensively on the health impacts of air pollution globally and in the Malaysian context. We discuss where the health impact studies in Malaysia are lacking and what are the gaps in the research. The role of the Malaysian government concerning air pollution and its impacts is discussed. Lastly, we look into the future work and research opportunities with a focus on engineering, estimation, predictive models and lack of research projects.

Forest fires in South Asia lead to widespread haze, where many healthy individuals develop psychosomatic symptoms. We investigated the effects of haze exposure on cerebral hemodynamics and new symptoms. We hypothesised that vasoactive substances present in the haze, would lead to vasodilation of cerebral vasculature, thereby altering cerebral hemodynamics, which in turn may account for new psychosomatic symptoms. Seventy-four healthy volunteers were recruited, and serial transcranial Doppler (TCD) ultrasonography was performed to record blood flow parameters of bilateral middle cerebral arteries (MCA). The first TCD was performed in an air-conditioned environment. It was repeated outdoors after the participants spent 30-minutes in the haze environment. The prevailing level of pollutant standards index (PSI) was recorded. Appropriate statistical analyses were performed to compare cerebral hemodynamics at baseline and after haze exposure in all participants. Subgroup analyses were then employed to compare the findings between symptomatic and asymptomatic participants. Study participants' median age was 30 years (IQR 26-34), and new psychosomatic symptoms were reported by 35 (47.3%). There was a modest but significant decrease in pulsatility index (PI) and resistivity index (RI) in the left MCA after haze exposure (PI: p = 0.026; RI: p = 0.021). When compared to baseline parameters, haze exposure resulted in significantly lower mean PI (p = 0.001) and RI (p = 0.001) in symptomatic patients, but this difference was not present in asymptomatic patients (PI: p = 0.919; RI: p = 0.970). Haze causes significant alterations in cerebral hemodynamics in susceptible individuals, probably responsible for various psychosomatic symptoms. The prognostic implications and health effects of haze require evaluation in a larger study.

Although increased aerosol concentration modifies local air temperatures and boundary layer structure in urban areas, little is known about its effects on the urban hydrological cycle. Changes in the hydrological cycle modify surface runoff and flooding. Furthermore, as runoff commonly transports pollutants to soil and water, any changes impact urban soil and aquatic environments. To explore the radiative effect of haze on changes in the urban surface water balance in Beijing, different haze levels are modelled using the Surface Urban Energy and Water Balance Scheme (SUEWS), forced by reanalysis data. The pollution levels are classified using aerosol optical depth observations. The secondary aims are to examine the usability of a global reanalysis dataset in a highly polluted environment and the SUEWS model performance. We show that the reanalysis data do not include the attenuating effect of haze on incoming solar radiation and develop a correction method. Using these corrected data, SUEWS simulates measured eddy covariance heat fluxes well. Both surface runoff and drainage increase with severe haze levels, particularly with low precipitation rates: runoff from 0.06 to 0.18 mm d−1 and drainage from 0.43 to 0.62 mm d−1 during fairly clean to extremely polluted conditions, respectively. Considering all precipitation events, runoff rates are higher during extremely polluted conditions than cleaner conditions, but as the cleanest conditions have high precipitation rates, they induce the largest runoff. Thus, the haze radiative effect is unlikely to modify flash flooding likelihood. However, flushing pollutants from surfaces may increase pollutant loads in urban water bodies.

Clarifying the impact of haze pollution on residents’ happiness has great theoretical and practical significance for improving the status quo of air pollution and protecting residents’ physical and mental health. With the development of web media, it is more convenient for the public to express their dissatisfaction with pollution through the Internet. This paper innovatively uses Baidu Index to measure residents’ happiness index. Based on the daily panel data of 238 cities at prefecture level and above in 2018, the effects of haze pollution on residents’ happiness were analyzed using fixed effect and 2SLS method. The research results indicate that (1) there is an inverted U-shaped curve relationship between haze pollution and residents’ happiness; (2) haze pollution has an impact on residents’ happiness through the transmission mechanism of economic development; (3) haze pollution affects only east residents’ happiness; the effect in middle and west is insignificant. According to the research conclusions, this paper suggests strengthening environmental protection, optimizing the cadre performance evaluation system, paying attention to vulnerable groups and groups with low happiness, and formulating a series of policies to reduce smog according to local conditions.

The multi-level, multi-dimension and synergistic effects of haze pollution will have a coupling impact on the urban ecosystem. [...]haze pollution control is a complex project that consumes a lot of manpower, materials and financial resources, and it requires the joint efforts of government, enterprises and the public. According to the principle of \" who benefits, who shares\" , the haze pollution control can maximize the public's enthusiasm and participation. The research on subjective variables such as haze control satisfaction, haze awareness and their impact mechanisms is insufficient. [...]thii paper focuses on the in-depth discussion on the cognition of haze control, residents' willingness to pay and its impact mechanism across time and regions. 1 Materials and methods 1.1 General situation of study area AQI index and concentration of five pollutants $ PM2 5, PM10, S02, N02 and CO) in Zhengzhou City and Jiaozuo City overall showed a significant downward trend, and 03 concentration showed a trend of rising first and then falling, while the number of days with good air quality continued to increase. According to frequency distribution of willingness to pay, conditional valuation method $CVM method) is used to calculate mean value of intention of discrete variables.

Foggy days pose many difficulties for outdoor camera surveillance systems. On foggy days, the optical attenuation and scattering effects of the medium significantly distort and degenerate the scene radiation, making it noisy and indistinguishable. Aiming to solve this problem, in this paper we propose a novel object detection method that has the ability to exploit the information in the color and depth domains. To prevent the error propagation problem, we clean the depth information before the training process and remove false samples from the database. A domain adaptation strategy is employed to adaptively fuse the decisions obtained in the color and depth domains. In the experiments, we evaluate the contribution of the depth information for object detection on foggy days. Moreover, the advantages of the multiple-domain adaptation strategy are experimentally demonstrated via comparison with other methods.

Imagery recorded using satellite sensors operating at visible wavelengths can be contaminated by atmospheric haze that originates from large scale biomass burning. Such issue can reduce the reliability of the imagery and therefore having an effective method for removing such contamination is crucial. The principal aim of this study is to investigate the effects of haze on remote sensing imagery and develop a method for removing them. In order to get a better understanding on the behaviour of haze, the effects of haze on satellite imagery were initially studied. A methodology of removing haze based on haze subtraction and filtering was then developed. The developed haze removal method was then evaluated by means of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and classification accuracy. The results show that the haze removal method is able to improve the haze-affected imagery qualitatively and quantitatively.