Virtual Reality Applications in the Extractive Industry—A Short Review

The mining industry presents itself as one of the sectors with major occupational accidents, being only surpassed by agriculture (including fishing) and forestry (including hunting). The technology development has been improving safety awareness and working practises; one of the most used tools is virtual reality (VR). The PRISMA Statement methodology was applied in order to find evidence of these new technologies in the extractive industry. For that, a set of keywords related to both topics (mining and VR) was defined, and the main journals and databases in the engineering field were screened. After applied both exclusion and inclusion criteria, the 1786 papers were reduced to eight. The results show that this resource is useful, however, when comparing to the application in the construction field, in what concerns to safety management, there is still a lot to achieve. (c) Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019

Tailoring disordered/ordered phases to revisit the degradation mechanism of high-voltage LiNi0.5Mn1.5O4 spinel cathode materials

Abstract In the spinel oxide cathode family, LiNi0.5Mn1.5O4 (LNMO) shows a high operating voltage (≈4.7 V vs Li/Li⁺) and excellent Li-ion mobility with stable 3D conducting channels. Ni/Mn cation disordered and ordered phases usually coexist in LNMO materials, and they have distinct structural and electrochemical properties, resulting in different battery performances for LNMO materials with different phase compositions. Identifying the correlation between phase compositions and electrochemical properties is of significance to the improvement of battery performance and understanding of degradation mechanisms. Herein, the disordered/ordered phase compositions in LNMO materials are tailored by post-annealing strategies and their impacts on electrochemical performance and degradation mechanisms from the surface to the bulk are systematically investigated. The ordered phase increases rapidly as Mn³⁺ is oxidized to Mn⁴⁺ through a post-annealing process. LNMO with an intermediate fraction of disordered and ordered phases gives rise to improved cycling stability. This article further reports that a high ordered phase fraction can preferentially protect Ni from dissolution during cycling. However, these results suggest that the transition metal dissolution and surface structural change of LNMO do not exhibit a direct correlation with cycling stability. These results indicate the capacity fading mainly correlates with the bulk structural distortion, leading to decreased Li-ion kinetics

Investigating particle size-dependent redox kinetics and charge distribution in disordered rocksalt cathodes

Abstract Understanding how various redox activities evolve and distribute in disordered rocksalt oxides (DRX) can advance insights into manipulating materials properties for achieving stable, high-energy batteries. Herein, the authors present how the reaction kinetics and spatial distribution of redox activities are governed by the particle size of DRX materials. The size-dependent electrochemical performance is attributed to the distinct cationic and anionic reaction kinetics at different sizes, which can be tailored to achieve optimal capacity and stability. Overall, the local charged domains in DRX particles display random heterogeneity caused by the isotropic delithiation pathways. Owing to the kinetic limitation, the micron-sized particles exhibit a holistic “core-shell” charge distribution, whereas sub-micron particles show more uniform redox reactions throughout the particles and ensembles. Sub-micron DRX particles exhibit increasing anionic redox activities yet inferior cycling stability. In summary, engineering particle size can effectively modulate how cationic and anionic redox activities evolve and distribute in DRX materials

Overruns in Transport Infrastructure Projects: A View from the Inside Out

Cost and schedule overruns are endemic features of transport infrastructure projects. Despite the considerable amount of research within the field of transport and planning in the past 30 years, limited progress has been made to improving the performance of projects. We contend that this will continue to be an issue as long as research efforts focus on the ‘outside view’ with emphasis being placed upon strategic misrepresentation and optimism bias. Understanding ‘why’ and ‘how’ projects overrun, particularly from both outside’ and ‘inside’ perspectives, is pivotal to reducing their impact and occurrence. Thus, in conjunction with the transport and planning literature, reference to cost overrun studies undertaken within the field of construction and engineering are examined, particularly with reference to the points for determining the pre and post contract award stages as they are intimately connected. The objective of this paper is to provide policy makers, industry, voluntary organizations and the public at large with an ameliorated understanding about time and cost overrun phenomenon. Suggestions to mitigate overruns based upon recent process and technological innovations are identified and discussed

Observation of the decay <math display="inline"><msub><mi>χ</mi><mrow><mi>c</mi><mi>J</mi></mrow></msub><mo stretchy="false">→</mo><msup><mi mathvariant="normal">Ω</mi><mo>-</mo></msup><msup><mover accent="true"><mi mathvariant="normal">Ω</mi><mo stretchy="false">¯</mo></mover><mo>+</mo></msup></math>

Using an e+e- collision data sample of (27.08±0.14)×108  ψ(3686) events collected by the BESIII detector, we report the first observation of χcJ→Ω-Ω¯+ (J=0, 1, 2) decays with significances of 5.6σ, 6.4σ, and 18σ, respectively, where the χcJ mesons are produced in the radiative ψ(3686) decays. The branching fractions are determined to be B(χc0→Ω-Ω¯+)=(3.51±0.54±0.29)×10-5, B(χc1→Ω-Ω¯+)=(1.49±0.23±0.10)×10-5, and B(χc2→Ω-Ω¯+)=(4.52±0.24±0.18)×10-5, where the first and second uncertainties are statistical and systematic, respectively

Helicity amplitude analysis of χcJ_{cJ}→ ϕϕ

Using (447.9 ± 2.3) million ψ(3686) events collected with the BESIII detector, the decays of χ$_{cJ}$→ ϕϕ (J = 0, 1, 2) have been studied via the decay ψ(3686) → γχ$_{cJ}$. The branching fractions of the decays χ$_{cJ}$→ ϕϕ (J = 0, 1, 2) are determined to be (8.59 ± 0.27 ± 0.20) × 10$^{−4}$, (4.26 ± 0.13 ± 0.15) × 10$^{−4}$, and (12.67 ± 0.28 ± 0.33) × 10$^{−4}$, respectively, which are the most precise measurements to date. From a helicity amplitude analysis of the process ψ(3686) → γχ$_{cJ}$, χ$_{cJ}$→ ϕϕ, ϕ → K$^{+}$K$^{−}$, the polarization parameters of the χ$_{cJ}$→ ϕϕ decays are determined for the first time.[graphic not available: see fulltext