Description: In order to realize the online learning of a hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) control strategy, a fuzzy Q-learning (FQL) method is proposed in this paper. FQL control strategies consists of two parts: The optimal action-value function Q*(x,u) estimator network (QEN) and the fuzzy parameters tuning (FPT). A back propagation (BP) neural network is applied to estimate Q*(x,u) as QEN. For the fuzzy controller, we choose a Sugeno-type fuzzy inference system (FIS) and the parameters of the FIS are tuned online based on Q*(x,u). The action exploration modifier (AEM) is introduced to guarantee all actions are tried. The main advantage of a FQL control strategy is that it does not rely on prior information related to future driving conditions and can self-tune the parameters of the fuzzy controller online. The FQL control strategy has been applied to a HEV and simulation tests have been done. Simulation results indicate that the parameters of the fuzzy controller are tuned online and that a FQL control strategy achieves good performance in fuel economy.

Description: Elevated LDL-C/HDL-C ratio has been shown to be a marker of lipid metabolism as well as a good predictor of coronary artery disease (CAD). Thus, the aim of this study was to investigate whether the LDL-C/HDL-C ratio is useful for detecting cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors in general healthy Uygur adults in Xinjiang. A total of 4047 Uygur subjects aged ≥35 years were selected from the Cardiovascular Risk Survey (CRS) study which was carried out from October 2007 to March 2010. Anthropometric data, blood pressure, lipid profile and fasting glucose were measured in all participants. The prevalence, sensitivity, specificity and distance on the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve of each LDL-C/HDL-C ratio were calculated. The prevalence of high LDL-C and low HDL-C cholesterol was high and positively correlated with higher LDL-C/HDL-C ratio in the Uygur population. In both men and women, we detected a slight apparent trend of high prevalence of hypertension and hypercholesterolemia with higher LDL-C/HDL-C ratio. Our study also demonstrated that the discriminatory power of the LDL-C/HDL-C ratio for CVD risk factors was slightly stronger in men than in women. Analysis of the shortest distance in the ROC curves for hypertension, dyslipidemia, diabetes, or ≥two of these risk factors suggested a LDL-C/HDL-C ratio cutoff of 2.5 for both men and women. The results of this study showed that a LDL-C/HDL-C ratio cut-off of 2.5 might be used as the predictive marker to detect CVD risk factors among Uygur adults in Xinjiang.

Description: Four natural lakes in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River—Dongting Lake, Poyang Lake, Chaohu Lake and Taihu Lake—play a key role in the climate, environment, and ecology of this area. Upstream of these lakes, the Three Gorges Dam Project has been storing water for 12 years. Future monitoring and management of rivers and lakes can certainly benefit from research on the patterns of variation of natural lakes downstream of the Three Gorges Project. This research applies Landsat TM/ETM data to evaluate water area changes in the four lakes from 2002 to 2013. The water area is estimated using AWEI (Automated Water Extraction Index) from satellite images. The average areas decreased respectively 452, 11, and 5 km2 (29.6%, 1.4% and 0.2%) from 2002 to 2013 for Dongting, Chaohu, and Taihu Lakes. Meanwhile, it increased 300 km2 (11.0%) for Poyang Lake. Precipitation and changes in river inflow may account for the fluctuation in the surface area to a large degree, especially between 2009 and 2013. The present study was undertaken to characterize the evolution of lakes and to explore the potential driving force of variation in order to assist the management of dams upstream in the river basin.

Description: IJERPH, Vol. 15, Pages 858: The Preschool-Aged and School-Aged Children Present Different Odds of Mortality than Adults in Southern Taiwan: A Cross-Sectional Retrospective Analysis International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health doi: 10.3390/ijerph15050858 Authors: Shu-Hui Peng Chun-Ying Huang Shiun-Yuan Hsu Li-Hui Yang Ching-Hua Hsieh Background: This study aimed to profile the epidemiology of injury among preschool-aged and school-aged children in comparison to those in adults. Methods: According to the Trauma Registry System of a level I trauma center, the medical data were retrieved from 938 preschool-aged children (aged less than seven years), 670 school-aged children (aged 7–12 years), and 16,800 adults (aged 20–64 years) between 1 January 2009 and 31 December 2016. Two-sided Pearson’s, chi-squared, and Fisher’s exact tests were used to compare categorical data. A one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) with the Games-Howell post-hoc test was used to assess the differences in continuous variables among different groups of patients. The mortality outcomes of different subgroups were assessed by a multivariable regression model under the adjustment of sex, injury mechanisms, and injury severity. Results: InFsupppjury mechanisms in preschool-aged and school-aged children were remarkably different from that in adults; in preschool-aged children, burns were the most common cause of injury requiring hospitalization (37.4%), followed by falls (35.1%) and being struck by/against objects (11.6%). In school-aged children, injuries were most commonly sustained from falls (47.8%), followed by bicycle accidents (14%) and being struck by/against objects (12.5%). Compared to adults, there was no significant difference of the adjusted mortality of the preschool-aged children (AOR = 0.9; 95% CI 0.38–2.12; p = 0.792) but there were lower adjusted odds of mortality of the school-aged children (AOR = 0.4; 95% CI 0.10–0.85; p = 0.039). The school-aged children had lower odds of mortality than adults (OR, 0.2; 95% CI, 0.06–0.74; p = 0.012), but such lower odds of risk of mortality were not found in preschool-aged children (OR, 0.7; 95% CI, 0.29–1.81; p = 0.646). Conclusions: This study suggests that specific types of injuries from different injury mechanisms are predominant among preschool-aged and school-aged children. The school-aged children had lower odds of mortality than adults; nonetheless there was no difference in mortality rates of preschool-aged children than adults, with or without controlling for sex, injury mechanisms and ISS. These results highlight the importance of injury prevention, particularly for preschool-aged children in Southern Taiwan.

Description: IJERPH, Vol. 15, Pages 997: Insufficient Sleep Duration and Overweight/Obesity among Adolescents in a Chinese Population International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health doi: 10.3390/ijerph15050997 Authors: Qing-Hai Gong Si-Xuan Li Hui Li Jun Cui Guo-Zhang Xu Objectives: The objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between sleep duration and overweight/obesity among Chinese adolescents. Methods: A school-based cross-sectional study was conducted among Chinese adolescents in 2016. In total, 2795 school-aged Chinese children aged 12 to 13 years participated in this study. Participants were asked to complete self-administered surveys during a 45-min class period in their classroom. Details of the questionnaire about health-related behaviors included sleep habits, physical activity, screen time, cigarette use, and alcohol use. Height, weight, waist circumference and hip circumference were directly measured. Results: The mean sleep duration was 8.7 h/day. In total, 43.0% of the participants had a sleep duration of less than 9 h/day. Sleep duration was significantly inversely related to BMI, waist circumference, hip circumference and WHtR in multiple linear regression analyses in both genders. Logistic regression models showed that insufficient sleep (<9 h/day) was associated with high odds of overweight/obesity among both young boys and girls. Conclusions: Insufficient sleep duration was associated with overweight/obesity in Chinese adolescents, and short sleep duration was probably associated with central adiposity, especially among boys.

Description: Remote Sensing, Vol. 10, Pages 535: The Evaluation of SMAP Enhanced Soil Moisture Products Using High-Resolution Model Simulations and In-Situ Observations on the Tibetan Plateau Remote Sensing doi: 10.3390/rs10040535 Authors: Chengwei Li Hui Lu Kun Yang Menglei Han Jonathon Wright Yingying Chen Le Yu Shiming Xu Xiaomeng Huang Wei Gong The Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission was designed to provide a global mapping of soil moisture (SM) measured by L-band passive and active microwave sensors. In this study, we evaluate the newly released SMAP enhanced SM products over the Tibetan Plateau by performing comparisons among SMAP standard products, in-situ observations and Community Land Model (CLM) simulations driven by high-resolution meteorological forcing. At local scales, the enhanced SMAP products, the standard products and CLM simulations all generally compare well with the in-situ observations. The SMAP products show stronger correlations (0.64–0.88) but slightly larger unbiased root mean square errors (ubRMSE, ~0.06) relative to the CLM simulations (0.58–0.79 and 0.037–0.047, for correlation and ubRMSE, respectively). At the regional scale, both SMAP products show similar spatial distributions of SM on the TP (Tibetan Plateau), although, as expected, the enhanced product provides more fine details. The SMAP enhanced product is in good agreement with model simulations with respect to temporal and spatial variations in SM over most of the TP. Regions with low correlation between SMAP enhanced products and model simulations are mainly located in the northwestern TP and regions of complex topography, where meteorological stations are sparse and non-existent or elevation is highly variable. In such remote regions, CLM simulations may be problematic due to inaccurate land cover maps and/or uncertainties in meteorological forcing. The independent, high-resolution observations provided by SMAP could help to constrain the model simulation and, ultimately, improve the skill of models in these problematic regions.

Description: Atmosphere, Vol. 8, Pages 141: Evaluation of the Common Land Model (CoLM) from the Perspective of Water and Energy Budget Simulation: Towards Inclusion in CMIP6 Atmosphere doi: 10.3390/atmos8080141 Authors: Chengwei Li Hui Lu Kun Yang Jonathon S. Wright Le Yu Yingying Chen Xiaomeng Huang Shiming Xu Land surface models (LSMs) are important tools for simulating energy, water and momentum transfer across the land–atmosphere interface. Many LSMs have been developed over the past 50 years, including the Common Land Model (CoLM), a LSM that has primarily been developed and maintained by Chinese researchers. CoLM has been adopted by several Chinese Earth System Models (GCMs) that will participate in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6). In this study, we evaluate the performance of CoLM with respect to simulating the water and energy budgets. We compare simulations using the latest version of CoLM (CoLM2014), the previous version of CoLM (CoLM2005) that was used in the Beijing Normal University Earth System Model (BNU-GCM) for CMIP5, and the Community Land Model version 4.5 (CLM4.5) against global diagnostic data and observations. Our results demonstrate that CLM4.5 outperforms CoLM2005 and CoLM2014 in simulating runoff (R), although all three models overestimate runoff in northern Europe and underestimate runoff in North America and East Asia. Simulations of runoff and snow depth (SNDP) are substantially improved in CoLM2014 relative to CoLM2005, particularly in the Northern Hemisphere. The simulated global energy budget is also substantially improved in CoLM2014 relative to CoLM2005. Simulations of sensible heat (SH) based on CoLM2014 compare favorably to those based on CLM4.5, while root-mean-square errors (RMSEs) in net surface radiation indicate that CoLM2014 (RMSE = 16.02 W m−2) outperforms both CoLM2005 (17.41 W m−2) and CLM4.5 (23.73 W m−2). Comparisons at regional scales show that all three models perform poorly in the Amazon region but perform relatively well over the central United States, Siberia and the Tibetan Plateau. Overall, CoLM2014 is improved relative to CoLM2005, and is comparable to CLM4.5 with respect to many aspects of the energy and water budgets. Our evaluation confirms CoLM2014 is suitable for inclusion in Chinese GCMs, which will increase the diversity of LSMs considered during CMIP6.

Description: Remote Sensing, Vol. 10, Pages 148: Comparison of the Spatial Characteristics of Four Remotely Sensed Leaf Area Index Products over China: Direct Validation and Relative Uncertainties Remote Sensing doi: 10.3390/rs10010148 Authors: Xinlu Li Hui Lu Le Yu Kun Yang Leaf area index (LAI) is a key input for many land surface models, ecological models, and yield prediction models. In order to make the model simulation and/or prediction more reliable and applicable, it is crucial to know the characteristics and uncertainties of remotely sensed LAI products before they are input into models. In this study, we conducted a comparison of four global remotely sensed LAI products—Global Land Surface Satellite (GLASS), Global LAI Product of Beijing Normal University (GLOBALBNU), Global LAI Map of Chinese Academy of Sciences (GLOBMAP), and Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS) LAI, while the former three products are newly developed by three Chinese research groups on the basis of the MODIS land reflectance product over China between 2001 and 2011. Direct validation by comparing the four products to ground LAI observations both globally and over China demonstrates that GLASS LAI shows the best performance, with R2 = 0.70 and RMSE = 0.96 globally and R2 = 0.94 and RMSE = 0.61 over China; MODIS performs worst (R2 = 0.55, RMSE = 1.23 globally and R2 = 0.03, RMSE = 2.12 over China), and GLOBALBNU and GLOBMAP performs moderately. Comparison of the four products shows that they are generally consistent with each other, giving the smallest spatial correlation coefficient of 0.7 and the relative standard deviation around the order of 0.3. Compared with MODIS LAI, GLOBALBNU LAI is the most similar, followed by GLASS LAI and GLOBMAP. Large differences mainly occur in southern regions of China. LAI difference analysis indicates that evergreen needleleaf forest (ENF), woody savannas (SAV) biome types and temperate dry hot summer, temperate warm summer dry winter and temperate hot summer no dry season climate types correspond to high standard deviation, while ENF and grassland (GRA) biome types and temperate warm summer dry winter and cold dry winter warm summer climate types are responsible for the large relative standard deviation of the four products. Our results indicate that although the three newly developed products have improved the accuracy of LAI estimates, much work remains to improve the LAI products especially in ENF, SAV, and GRA regions and temperate climate zones. Findings from our study can provide guidance to communities regarding the performance of different LAI products over mainland China.

Description: Remote Sensing, Vol. 9, Pages 1108: Improving the Triple-Carrier Ambiguity Resolution with a New Ionosphere-Free and Variance-Restricted Method Remote Sensing doi: 10.3390/rs9111108 Authors: Chun Jia Lin Zhao Liang Li Hui Li Jianhua Cheng Zishen Li The ionospheric bias and the combined observation noise are two crucial factors affecting the reliability of the triple-carrier ambiguity resolution (TCAR). In order to obtain a better reliability of TCAR, a new ionosphere-free and variance-restricted TCAR method is proposed through exploring the ambiguity link between each step of TCAR. The method constructs an ionosphere-free combination and simultaneously restricts the combined observation noise with respect to the wavelength to a sufficiently low level for each step of TCAR. The performance of the proposed method is tested by the datasets from the BeiDou navigation satellite system (BDS), with the baseline varying from 7.7 km to 68.8 km. Comparing with the state-of-the-art TCAR methods, the experimental results indicate that the proposed method can obtain a better performance of ambiguity resolution, even though the double-differenced ionospheric delay increases up to 72.4 cm at the baseline of 68.8 km.

Description: Sustainability, Vol. 10, Pages 2771: Environmental Risk Management Strategies and the Moderating Role of Corporate Social Responsibility in Project Financing Decisions Sustainability doi: 10.3390/su10082771 Authors: Muddassar Sarfraz Wang Qun Li Hui Muhammad Abdullah The purpose of this study is to examine the moderating role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in project financing decisions. CSR has gained growing prominence in today’s business era. This study investigates four environmental strategies and the credit risk assessment, stakeholder assessment and corporate social responsibility assessment impact on project financing decision. It explores three main issues related to environmental responsibility (planet), economic responsibility (profit) and social responsibility (people). The study is explanatory and quantitative, and both domestic and foreign banks participated in the data collection process. The sample size for the study is 491 participants. Data was collected through a simple random sampling technique and was analyzed by applying simple linear regression, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modeling analysis (SEM) through the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). The study shows that the Pakistani banking sector is implementing environmental management policies. Foreign banks are more motivated towards corporate social responsibility practices. Cultural differences can influence a manager’s attitude towards implementation of environmental risk-management policies. The result shows that corporate social responsibility has a moderating role in project financing decisions and environmental risk management, stakeholder and credit risk assessment. All hypotheses has significant values.