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Traditionally, critical infrastructures demand for high dependability, being the services they provide essential to human beings and the society at large. However, more recent attention to cautious usage of energy resources is changing this vision and calls for solutions accounting for appropriate multi-requirements combinations when developing a critical infrastructure. In such a context, analysis supports able to assist the designer in envisioning a satisfactory trade-off among the multi-requirements for the system at hand are highly helpful. In this paper, the focus is on the railway sector and the contribution is a stochastic model-based analysis framework to quantitatively assess trade-offs between dependability indicators and electrical energy consumption incurred by the rail switch heating system.Moving from a preliminary study that concentrated on energy consumption only, the analysis framework has been extended to become a solid support to devise appropriate tuning of the heating policy that guarantees satisfactory trade-offs between dependability and energy consumption. An evaluation campaign in a variety of climate scenarios demonstrates the feasibility and utility of the developed framework.

Power system controls are vulnerable to cyber-attacks that can seriously affect and even inhibit their operation. Such attacks may affect large portions of the power system, make repair difficult and cause huge societal impact, so pressure to ensure cyber-security of control and communication systems is now strong worldwide. Several cyber-security frameworks were developed, but it is rather difficult to anticipate adoption costs and benefits, and this hampers their generalised adoption. T his paper focuses on the outcome of two case studies (concerning the Italian power generation and the Polish transmission systems. The socio-economic impact of failures and the costs of standard adoption are estimated on an objective basis. It is up to public authorities to decide whether to require the adoption of security standards to operators in the electric system. The nature of public good of security underlines the necessity of public support for this operation, but we discuss the extent and the management of this support.

The luminescent solar concentrator has the potential of widespread use as a generator of electricity from sunlight well-suited for use in the urban environment owing to its adaptability in shape and coloration. The device performance is heavily dependent on the ability to transport light long distances to the edges. A common organic luminophore used in the device is based on a perylene core. In this work, we describe an overlooked effect of UV illumination on the appearance and efficiency of these devices. An additional absorption peak appears upon polymerization under intense UV in nitrogen atmosphere which significantly reduces the edge emissions from the device. The additional absorbance peak disappears after exposure to air, indicating the presence of a radical anion being formed during the UV light exposure. This suggests newly-produced LSC devices should be allowed to stand a period of time under ambient conditions before their performance characteristics are determined, which could have implications in potential future commercialization of the technology.

Silicon carbide/silicon rich carbide multilayers, aimed at the formation of silicon nanodots for photovoltaic applications, have been studied. The electrical properties have been investigated at the nano-scale by conductive Atomic Force Microscopy (c-AFM) and at macro-scale by temperature dependent conductivity measurements. The mixture is composed of highly conductive Si nanoclusters and moderately conductive SiC nanoclusters in a disordered matrix. The conduction mechanism takes place via band states induced by the disorder at the interface between nanodot clusters. Structural properties have been extracted by optical spectroscopy analyses. The results contribute to the understanding of the microscopical electronic mechanisms of the composite material, which is a candidate for third generation photovoltaics.

An amorphous WO3 induced lattice distortion strategy leads to only 2 wt% Ir for efficient overall water splitting in acid.

ABSTRACTIntraguild interactions among carnivores have long held the fascination of ecologists. Ranging from competition to facilitation and coexistence, these interactions and their complex interplay influence everything from species persistence to ecosystem functioning. Yet, the patterns and pathways of such interactions are far from understood in tropical forest systems, particularly across countries in the Global South. Here, we examined the determinants and consequences of competitive interactions between dholes Cuon alpinus and the two large felids (leopards Panthera pardus and tigers Panthera tigris) with which they most commonly co‐occur across Asia. Using a combination of traditional and novel data sources (N = 118), we integrate information from spatial, temporal, and dietary niche dimensions. These three species have faced catastrophic declines in their extent of co‐occurrence over the past century; most of their source populations are now confined to Protected Areas. Analysis of dyadic interactions between species pairs showed a clear social hierarchy. Tigers were dominant over dholes, although pack strength in dholes helped ameliorate some of these effects; leopards were subordinate to dholes. Population‐level spatio‐temporal interactions assessed at 25 locations across Asia did not show a clear pattern of overlap or avoidance between species pairs. Diet‐profile assessments indicated that wild ungulate biomass consumption by tigers was highest, while leopards consumed more primate and livestock prey as compared to their co‐predators. In terms of prey offtake (ratio of wild prey biomass consumed to biomass available), the three species together harvested 0.4–30.2% of available prey, with the highest offtake recorded from the location where the carnivores reach very high densities. When re‐examined in the context of prey availability and offtake, locations with low wild prey availability showed spatial avoidance and temporal overlap among the carnivore pairs, and locations with high wild prey availability showed spatial overlap and temporal segregation. Based on these observations, we make predictions for 40 Protected Areas in India where temporally synchronous estimates of predator and prey densities are available. We expect that low prey availability will lead to higher competition, and in extreme cases, to the complete exclusion of one or more species. In Protected Areas with high prey availability, we expect intraguild coexistence and conspecific competition among carnivores, with spill‐over to forest‐edge habitats and subsequent prey‐switching to livestock. We stress that dhole–leopard–tiger co‐occurrence across their range is facilitated through an intricate yet fragile balance between prey availability, and intraguild and conspecific competition. Data gaps and limitations notwithstanding, our study shows how insights from fundamental ecology can be of immense utility for applied aspects like large predator conservation and management of human–carnivore interactions. Our findings also highlight potential avenues for future research on tropical carnivores that can broaden current understanding of intraguild competition in forest systems of Asia and beyond.