Forms of participation and learning of mathematics in virtual workgroups in engineering students

The objective of the research was to determine the relationship between the type of participation, collaborative organizational structure of the groups and the learning of mathematics, in a group task carried out in virtual form by the context of health emergency by COVID19. During four weeks, eight working groups composed of three environmental engineering students worked four activities on the analysis of the variation of functions. The working meetings were developed by ZOOM and WhatsApp. It was found that reasoning and argumentation as well as problem solving is favored when students express new ideas or explanations about any doubt or when they address the content of the task, especially in groups with an integrative organizational structure. © 2023 IEEE.

ESTABLISHING A NEW SEMINAR TO COMBINE LEARNING ABOUT TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY

For the transformation we face in industry and society, a broad societal consensus and collaboration between different stakeholders are vitally important. With this in mind, the Environmental Engineering program focuses on environmentally relevant technical developments and the consideration of systemic interrelationships while incorporating societal frameworks. The recently implemented course Technology - Dialogue - Society was developed as an introduction to these complex tasks for first-year students. It focusses on topics of the energy transition sector and public participation. The learning objectives of the course are the acquisition of methodological competencies as well as the promotion of communication, teamwork and the ability to reflect. An overarching goal of the course is also onboarding of students in the program. A wide set of teaching-learning methods is used to achieve this broad objectives. In addition to lectures, collaborative and dialogue-oriented teaching-learning methods such as problem-based learning, peer review of student work, conversational simulations and reflection assignments are used. A particular challenge of implementation was the course size of approximately 100 students and the need for online teaching due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The structure of the course is described and the evaluation results of the first run are presented. © 2022 SEFI 2022 - 50th Annual Conference of the European Society for Engineering Education, Proceedings. All rights reserved.

Evaluation of H5P interactive videos in enhanced e-learning of an environmental engineering course during COVID-19 pandemic

CONTEXT In the autumn session of 2020, COVID-19 outbreak forced the transition of teaching and learning from face-to-face mode into remote delivery in Australian universities. Over this unplanned, unprepared, and rapid move to remote delivery for lecturers and online learning for students, many strategies, designs, and technologies were applied to replace conventional classes, tutorials, laboratory classes, project assignments, and assessments. PURPOSE OR GOAL This study investigated the design, use and impact of videos for lectures, tutorials, and laboratory experiments for a combined undergraduate and postgraduate Environmental Engineering course during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The course was delivered through both face-to-face and online delivery modes, which we employed conventional video recordings and H5P interactive videos to support e-learning on the Moodle platform. APPROACH OR METHODOLOGY/METHODS H5P interactive videos, slides and quizzes were also used to design the pre-lab and recorded lab experiments, as our labs were closed due to social distancing requirements. Students' performance was evaluated through their marks of weekly quizzes;and their engagement was analyzed using Moodle activity logs and anonymous surveys through teacher evaluation and polling in Zoom meetings. ACTUAL OR ANTICIPATED OUTCOMES The attendance to online Zoom lecture and tutorials ranged from 70-87%. These data collectively demonstrate a high level of student engagement and satisfaction under the COVID-19 impacted teaching and learning environment compared to rate of lecture attendance at traditional lectures. H5P interactive videos helped students to achieve higher marks, compared to conventional videos. Student has watched the video more than once to obtain enough information to write the lab class report. CONCLUSIONS/RECOMMENDATIONS/SUMMARY It was shown that H5P interactive videos had higher views than conventional videos, which subsequently led to higher marks in weekly quizzes. The tutorials were delivered using Zoom meetings, supplemented with pre-recorded videos which supported students who could not attend the tutorial or for their revisions. The virtual laboratory experiments enabled with H5P provided adequate data and information for students to write their lab reports comparable to the requirements of a real-life lab class. Different approaches of video design and their limitations and improvements are discussed for the future development of e-learning in the post-COVID era. Copyright © Guangming Jiang, Ashley Ansari, Muttucumaru Sivakumar, Timothy McCarthy, 2021.

Effectiveness of a Hyflex Teaching Pedagogy in Environmental Engineering Education on Student Performance and Course Outcomes

In March 2020, academic institutions across the world were involuntarily presented with the challenge of teaching and engaging students remotely through online classes. These forced adaptations allowed instructors to develop best practices they would carry with them into their classrooms post initial pandemic stages. During the spring semester of 2021, an Introduction to Environmental Engineering Course offered to college Juniors was taught using one of these initial best practices, a hyflex teaching pedagogy. This study looks at the effectiveness of a hyflex teaching pedagogy in environmental engineering education based on student performance on major graded events and achievement of course outcomes. These results can help shape the future of environmental engineering education by helping to evaluate the effectiveness of changes made to traditional education because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Pedagogical changes that enhanced student engagement and performance should be retained in a post-pandemic classroom while those that inhibited engagement and performance should be modified before continuing. Under the flexible pedagogy, during the 2021 spring semester, students were afforded the opportunity to choose their modality for receiving classroom instruction in an introduction to environmental engineering course. For each lesson, the student could choose to either attend the 55-minute lesson in person or remotely using a Blackboard Collaborate classroom. Students were not tied to a single modality and could change the method of instruction for each lesson. In support of hybrid pedagogy, during class time the instructor used tools to encourage student engagement from both in-person and remote students during each of the 40 lessons. The attendance modality was recorded for all 213 students for every lesson. Their performance across three exams, three problem sets, and the final exam were correlated, using Microsoft Excel's built-in correlation matrix function, to the students' method of attendance. This evaluation provided insight regarding if the method of instruction affected student performance. All students enrolled in the course received the same lesson content where the only difference was whether they chose to receive that instruction remotely or in person. This study also compared student performance on course outcomes to previous years when the class was only offered in-person to determine if the hyflex pedagogies affected students' achievement on any of the four desired course outcomes. The results of this study show that student performance throughout the semester on graded events had only a low to moderate correlation with chosen modality. Attendance favoring in-person learning only showed a slight correlation towards an increased overall average in the class but not enough to make it statistically significant. Overall, students performed only slightly better on some of the course outcomes to the previous years' performance. These results encourage instructors to continue to explore teaching pedagogies that were bred out of the adherence to pandemic constraints. Through deliberate and inclusive engagement strategies regarding preparation and the conduct of instruction, students may be allowed to select their teaching modality without significant impact on performance. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022

Virtually Engineering Community Engagement: Training for Undergraduate Engineers During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Flood mitigation and adaptation measures, among other tools to improve resiliency, will be necessary to sustain coastal communities in the face of climate change. Key to successful adaptation will be engineering projects, and critical to the success of those projects will be community engagement and support. Despite the recognized importance of community engagement when addressing complex issues like coastal flooding on which engineers work, most undergraduate engineering programs offer little to no training in community engagement. In this paper, we describe our experiences working with undergraduate engineering students to develop community-driven designs to address flooding and water quality issues in the Lake Mattamuskeet watershed in eastern North Carolina. Through an interdisciplinary approach, student teams learned to engage with local stakeholders to better integrate local knowledge and address issues identified by community members in their designs. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, all community engagement aspects of the project moved to virtual forums, and we discuss the impact this shift had on the engineering designs as well as student learning outcomes and community connections.

International Conference “Sustainable Infrastructure and Built Environment (SIBE-2022) – Challenges on Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructure and Built Environment”, 8th-9th March 2022

1. IntroductionThe Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Institut Teknologi Bandung, Indonesia has organized two-day International Conference on “Sustainable Infrastructure and Built Environment (SIBE-2022) – Challenges on Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructure and Built Environment”, 8th-9th March 2022. The conference was held virtually owing to the COVID situation resulting into travel restrictions. The organizers were in CIBE Building, the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Institut Teknologi Bandung, Jalan Ganeca 10, Bandung, Indonesia.The aim of the conference was to provide a platform for exchanging ideas, information, and experiences among academics, researchers, consultants, engineers, manufactures, and postgraduate scholars. It also serves a medium to discuss and evaluate the latest research, innovative technologies, policies and new directions in infrastructure development, pollution prevention and eco-friendly technologies adapted to developing countries, and to promote cooperation and networking amongst practitioners and researchers involved in addressing sustainable and resilient infrastructure.List of Topic and subtopic of the conferences, commitees, Paper Submission, Speakers and Sessions are available in this Pdf.

Every fifth published metagenome is not available to science

Have you ever sought to use metagenomic DNA sequences reported in scientific publications? Were you successful? Here, we reveal that metagenomes from no fewer than 20% of the papers found in our literature search, published between 2016 and 2019, were not deposited in a repository or were simply inaccessible. The proportion of inaccessible data within the literature has been increasing year-on-year. Noncompliance with Open Data is best predicted by the scientific discipline of the journal. The number of citations, journal type (e.g., Open Access or subscription journals), and publisher are not good predictors of data accessibility. However, many publications in high–impact factor journals do display a higher likelihood of accessible metagenomic data sets. Twenty-first century science demands compliance with the ethical standard of data sharing of metagenomes and DNA sequence data more broadly. Data accessibility must become one of the routine and mandatory components of manuscript submissions—a requirement that should be applicable across the increasing number of disciplines using metagenomics. Compliance must be ensured and reinforced by funders, publishers, editors, reviewers, and, ultimately, the authors.

Team-Based Learning to Improve Diversity and Inclusion of Environmental Engineering Students: A Mixed Methods Case Study

In engineering education, numerous ranges of diversity are needed. With the growing number of international students, it is essential to enhance the inclusion in higher education. Team-based learning (TBL) has been applied in engineering education to boost diversity and inclusion. This study applied a mixed methods approach, a combination of quantitative (questionnaire) and qualitative (interview) methods, to research the effect of TBL on the diversity and inclusion of Chinese students and British students in the Environmental Engineering programme at one UK university. Nearly 70% of Chinese students considered their learning experiences with British students to be positive or very positive. Approximately 64% of students believed that they learned most when they were "discussing and preparing group seminar work/presentation together in library/classroom/other places". "Enjoying a different culture" and "Learning from others with different educational backgrounds" are two primary reasons for Chinese students liking learning with British teammates. The interviews indicated substantial beneficial effects of TBL on enhancing diversity and inclusion in engineering education. Many students welcome the difference and consider it an opportunity to comprehend the foreign culture. The research results shed light on that embracing diversity and producing an inclusive setting have favourable effects on the academic and social development of engineering students. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated racism in some areas. Due to international travel restrictions, most international students have to study online. Further studies are required to understand the new challenges brought about by the pandemic.

Scenari multirischio, conoscenza e progetto ambientale per la periferia dell'area nord di Napoli

La periferia dell'area Nord di Napoli nei nuovi scenari multirischio Nell'ambito della Ricerca dell'Ateneo Federico II "PN1 -https://media.proquest.com/media/hms/PFT/1/0a63N?_a=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%3D%3D&_s=HGm9aCRSy3rTtRDFfBf7S9Ox2WQ%3D ER_ CENT/PERIFERIE AL CENTRO"2 e sostenuta la necessita che negli scenari multirischio, le periferie delle citta debbano essere poste al centro delle strategie di riqualificazione legando si alle proposte europee e ai Sustainable Development Goals dell'Agenda 2030, per l'incremento del numero di aree urbane sostenibili e inclusive, l'accesso ai servizi di base e a un sistema di trasporti efficiente e sostenibile e la riduzione degli impatti climatici per un rinnovato rapporto tra ambiente costruito, territorio, risorse e natura (UN, 2015). Sono state sviluppate strategie e azioni per ridurre la vulnerabilita alla scala di distretto, definendo modalita di rinnovo edilizio e urbano dei complessi di ERP di Napoli nord, con approcci orientati all'autosufficienza (food & energy) e alla carbon neutrality (EC, 2019) oltre che attenti alle fasce deboli della popolazione favorendo forme di emergent dwelling. Il primo step ha riguardato le analisi del sistema ambientale alla scala territoriale tramite l'elaborazione di carte tematiche, sia per l'intera area nord di Napoli che per singoli distretti urbani, relative all'analisi dei principi insediativi e dell'infrastrutturazione storica dell'area, all'analisi funzionale-spaziale e ambientale attraverso la defini- zione di un set di indicatori3 in grado di esprimere il grado di vulnerabilita dell'area ai fenomeni impattanti (Fig. 2). Inoltre, e stato possibile realizzare per la zona nord dell'area metropolitana di Napoli un database interrogabile comprensivo di carte tematiche relative alle caratteristiche ambientali del sistema urbano, utilizzando, per garantire la replicabilita dei processi utilizzati, dataset standardizzati e immagini satellitari5.

Impact of COVID-19 Case Numbers on the Emission of Pollutants from a Medical Waste Incineration Plant

This article examines the correlation between the amount of pollutants emitted from medical waste incinerator plant and the number of COVID-19 infections, based on the example of Podlaskie Voivodeship in Poland. This paper deals with the issues of medical waste management during the COVID-19 pandemic. Thermal processing is characterised as a method of medical waste utilisation. The technological sequence of the medical waste incineration installation and the integrated exhaust gas cleaning system are discussed. The results of studies on the emission of pollutants into the atmosphere during combustion are compared with the number of COVID-19 cases in the same voivodeship to investigate how the coronavirus pandemic affects the amount of medical waste generated, thus the amount of pollutants emitted into the atmosphere. The Pearson's linear correlation coefficient and the Student's t-test are used to verify the results. The analysis results show a statistically significant, moderate positive correlation between the amount of covid waste and the number of COVID-19 cases (0.5140). In turn, there is also a statistically significant moderate correlation between the number of COVID-19 cases and emissions of SO2 (r = 0.6256, p = 0.010), NOx (0.5019, p = 0.048), and HCl (0.5130, p = 0.042). This correlation finding highlights additional costs to the environment and public health as the number of COVID-19 cases increase, which can be taken into account for pandemic planning by governments in the future.

The Digital Revolution in the Urban Water Cycle and Its Ethical–Political Implications: A Critical Perspective

The development and application of new forms of automation and monitoring, data mining, and the use of AI data sources and knowledge management tools in the water sector has been compared to a ‘digital revolution’. The state-of-the-art literature has analysed this transformation from predominantly technical and positive perspectives, emphasising the benefits of digitalisation in the water sector. Meanwhile, there is a conspicuous lack of critical literature on this topic. To bridge this gap, the paper advances a critical overview of the state-of-the art scholarship on water digitalisation, looking at the sociopolitical and ethical concerns these technologies generate. We did this by analysing relevant AI applications at each of the three levels of the UWC: technical, operational, and sociopolitical. By drawing on the precepts of urban political ecology, we propose a hydrosocial approach to the so-called ‘digital water ‘, which aims to overcome the one-sidedness of the technocratic and/or positive approaches to this issue. Thus, the contribution of this article is a new theoretical framework which can be operationalised in order to analyse the ethical–political implications of the deployment of AI in urban water management. From the overview of opportunities and concerns presented in this paper, it emerges that a hydrosocial approach to digital water management is timely and necessary. The proposed framework envisions AI as a force in the service of the human right to water, the implementation of which needs to be (1) critical, in that it takes into consideration gender, race, class, and other sources of discrimination and orients algorithms according to key principles and values;(2) democratic and participatory, i.e., it combines a concern for efficiency with sensitivity to issues of fairness or justice;and (3) interdisciplinary, meaning that it integrates social sciences and natural sciences from the outset in all applications.

Developing Diversity and Inclusion Initiatives and Measuring the Effects of a Pandemic in a Civil and Environmental Engineering Department

The Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) Department at Midsized Northeastern University was awarded The National Science Foundation's Revolutionizing Engineering and computer science Departments (RED) grant in 2016 with the hopes of allowing engineering programs to improve the inclusion of minorities over the course of five years. The CEE Department used this opportunity to create a research group called Revolutionizing Engineering Diversity (RevED) that focuses on all underrepresented and underserved groups. The researchers used the grant to help change admissions as well as incorporate inclusive pedagogical practices. Currently, RevED is in the fifth year of the grant and has since spread out to utilize the Engineering Education Department and the Faculty Development Center to help broaden the impact of the grant to other students outside of the CEE Department. The RevED researchers were successful in helping develop a certification program for faculty and staff members to participate in. While there have been positive developments, the research group had to look at the effects of COVID-19 on the lives of students. RevED has utilized data regarding the impacts of the pandemic and will be looking to further develop insight on student experiences. While the poster will feature information on the changing student demographics and student perception of the climate of diversity, the impact of the pandemic will also be shown to see how students are affected and how to better address the needs of underrepresented and underserved students. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2021

Efficacy of Curricular Enhancements to Address Social and Environmental Injustice in Civil Engineering

This paper outlines ongoing research for implementing social and environmental justice curriculum enhancements within the Civil and Environmental Engineering (CE/ENVE) department at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly SLO). In 2020 alone, the fatal killings of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, Elijah McClain, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, and countless other BIPOC-identifying individuals coupled with ongoing clear inequities in COVID-19 treatment, voting access, and the continuing water crisis in Flint Michigan brought attention to numerous other inequities historically perpetuated by the civil engineering profession. Such practices include district red lining;locating landfills, treatment plants, and industrial facilities in economically disadvantaged communities;as well as mineral extraction and energy production, to name but a few. It will be imperative for future engineers to acknowledge the intersection between social and environmental justice and civil engineering, and to appreciate the role engineers can play in addressing long-standing systemic injustices. This study was initiated to determine (a) existing levels of knowledge among the students, and (b) efficacy of brief, course-relevant lessons at increasing student awareness of the intersection between course topics and social/environmental justice. To assess awareness across the range of the students in the department, surveys were conducted in the Introduction to Environmental Engineering and Introduction to Civil Engineering classes, as well as the Environmental Engineering Senior Capstone class. Students were asked to complete an anonymous survey assessing knowledge and awareness of social and environmental justice issues before and after a social/environmental justice lesson was delivered to the class. The following research provided a preliminary step toward reviewing social and environmental justice instruction modules included more broadly throughout the Civil and Environmental Engineering Curriculum at Cal Poly SLO. Additionally, it may provide a model for other universities to integrate social and environmental justice education into their existing civil engineering curriculum by analyzing student response to curriculum enhancements. The ability to acknowledge social justice in engineering will be crucial for tomorrow's engineers to develop solutions as they face a diverse and changing world. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2021

Applying Resilience Theory to'Bounce Forward' from COVID-19 for Environmental Engineering Programs

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted higher education in numerous ways. As COVID-19 spread worldwide in the spring of 2020, most colleges and universities closed their campuses and transitioned to remote learning platforms. As uncertainty surrounding COVID-19 persisted into 2021, many colleges and universities continued to employ remote learning or transitioned to hybrid in-person/remote learning approaches to prevent further outbreaks on campuses. While COVID-19 has been devastating, we propose that the pandemic also presents an unprecedented opportunity to reflect, reassess, and 'bounce forward' to become more efficient, effective, and resilient. The National Academy of Sciences' definition of resilience has spurred a theory of resilience that centers on four successive stages surrounding a disruptive event, such as COVID-19: (1) plan and prepare, (2) absorb, (3) recover, and (4) adapt. In this paper we propose a framework that environmental programs can employ to 'adapt' (stage 4) and 'bounce forward' to a more resilient modus operandi long-term. The framework first identifies each activity a program executes, and then bins them into one of four categories based on importance relative to the program's outcomes: critical, essential, enhancing, or ancillary. Critical and essential activities are those that are necessary to achieve the program's educational outcomes and remain ABET compliant, or those that directly underpin and enable achievement of outcomes and accreditation, respectively. Enhancing and ancillary activities are those that substantially elevate or noticeably enhance, respectively, a program's educational experience;however, if they are not executed, do not result in a failure to achieve a program's educational objectives. Once activities are identified and binned, opportunities for 'bouncing forward' are identified and explored. While the results of this assessment will inevitably look different for each environmental engineering program, our program found opportunities to immediately 'bounce forward' in several areas, to include integrating remote teaching and distance learning best practices and streamlining administrative practices. We also identified opportunities to 'bounce forward' over the next three to five years, to include eliminating low payoff activities and reassessing the way we do laboratory work. However, continual clear-eyed self-assessment is required to fully realize the 'bounce forward' opportunities available post-pandemic. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2021

Preface

Due to recent pandemic, the 2020 International Conference on New Energy and Sustainable Development (NESD2020) which was planned to be held in Changchun, China, was held virtually online during August 21-23, 2020. The decision to hold the virtual conference was made in compliance with many restrictions and regulations that were imposed by countries around the globe. Such restrictions were made to minimize the risk of people contracting or spreading the COVID-19 through physical contact. There were 60 individuals who attended this on-line conference, represented many countries including India, Pakistan, Australia, Brazil, South Africa, Ireland and China. With the limitation of conventional energy sources and the increasingly prominent environmental problems, new energy sources with environmental protection and renewable qualities are gaining more and more attention from various countries. The research of new energy science and the development of industry are effective supplementary means of the entire energy supply system, and also the ultimate energy choice to meet the needs of sustainable development of human society. Under such condition, the organizer, AEIC as a link in the field of scientific research, will gather experts and scholars and engineering technicians in the fields of new energy science and engineering, sustainable development and environmental engineering around the world under the same roof. Jointly promote research progress in this field. During the conference, the conference model was divided into three sessions, including oral presentations, keynote speeches, and online Q&A discussion. In the first part, some scholars, whose submissions were selected as the excellent papers, were given about 5-10 minutes to perform their oral presentations one by one. Then in the second part, keynote speakers were each allocated 30-45 minutes to hold their speeches. In the second part, we invited four professors as our keynote speakers. Assoc. Prof. Dr. Md. Akhtaruzzaman, from The National University of Malaysia, performed a speech on The Advancement of Inorganic Hole Transport Materials Towards Emerging Third Generation Thin Flim Solar cells. And then we had Prof. Michael Negnevitsky from University of Tasmania, Australia. He talked about High Renewable Energy Penetration and Power System Security: New Challenges and Opportunities. Prof. Jinghong Zhou, Changchun Institute of Technology, China, presented an insightful speech on Research progress and development trend of liquefied air energy storage technology. Lastly, we were glad to invite Assoc. Prof. Cangsu Xu, Zhejiang University, China as our finale keynote speakers. He shared a speech on Investigating the explosion of ethyl acetate in the presence of hydrogen. Their insightful speeches had triggered heated discussion in the third session of the conference. Every participant praised this conference for disseminating useful and insightful knowledge. List of Committee member, Conference Chairman, Conference Procedure Committees, Technical Program Committees are available in this pdf.

Introducing the Leadership ITE Class of 2022

After going to an all-virtual program in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this year Leadership ITE is taking place in a hybrid format, welcoming 20 new scholars to its ranks. This approach combines the best attributes of years past into a comprehensive inclusive program, enabling these professionals to evolve their leadership skills for the future. Leadership ITE was established to grow and empower leaders within the transportation industry so that they are well-prepared for greater roles within the profession, as well as at ITE and other associations. Since 2014, Leadership ITE has been identifying, developing, and engaging leaders to ensure that ITE and its members are positioned to participate and shape the future of transportation.

The Effects of Soundscapes in Relieving Stress in an Urban Park

Urban parks are important urban public spaces that guarantee people recreation, create positive emotions and relieve stress. Emerging research has shown that natural soundscapes are associated with restorative landscapes in urban parks. However, there is still a lack of knowledge on the use of physiological indexes to evaluate the effects of natural sounds versus human-based sounds on stress relief. In this study, the three physiological indexes of skin conductance level, heart rate and heart rate variability were collected in Fuzhou West Lake Park with the help of Ergo LAB data platform, and a soundscape perception evaluation questionnaire was used to assess the degree of soundscape perceptions in the sample sites. The differences in the stress relieving effects of different urban park environments were analysed by applying the median test, the Wilcoxon test was applied to analyse the effects of soundscapes and urban park environments on relieving stress, and regression analysis was used to identify the important factors of restorative soundscapes. The results found that urban park environments provide a certain degree of stress relief, but the stress relieving effects of different urban park environments vary and that natural spaces play an important role in relieving stress. Urban park soundscapes are key to restorative environmental design, with natural sounds such as birdsong and stream sound being important factors of restorative soundscapes.

Electromagnetic Exposure of Personnel Involved in Cardiac MRI Examinations in 1.5T, 3T and 7T Scanners.

(1) Background: It has been hypothesised that a significant increase in the use of cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR), for example, when examining COVID-19 convalescents using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), has an influence the exposure profiles of medical personnel to static magnetic fields (STmf). (2) Methods: Static exposure to STmf (SEmf) was recorded during activities that modelled performing CMR by radiographers. The motion-induced time variability of that exposure (TVEmf) was calculated from SEmf samples. The results were compared with: (i) labour law requirements; (ii) the distribution of vertigo perception probability near MRI magnets; and (iii) the exposure profile when actually performing a head MRI. (3) Results: The exposure profiles of personnel managing 42 CMR scans (modelled using medium (1.5T), high (3T) and ultrahigh (7T) field scanners) were significantly different than when managing a head MRI. The majority of SEmf and TVEmf samples (up to the 95th percentile) were at low vertigo perception probability (SEmf < 500 mT, TVEmf < 600 mT/s), but a small fraction were at medium/high levels; (4) Conclusion: Even under the "normal working conditions" defined for SEmf (STmf < 2T) by labour legislation (Directive 2013/35/EC), increased CMR usage increases vertigo-related hazards experienced by MRI personnel (a re-evaluation of electromagnetic safety hazards is suggested in the case of these or similar changes in work organisation).

Preface: The 4th International Conference of Water Resources Development and Environmental Protection (ICWRDEP 2021)

The 4th International Conference on Water Resources Development and Environmental Protection 2021 (ICWRDEP 2021) was successfully held in a virtual meeting room by Zoom on August 7th, 2021. This conference was initially scheduled to be held offline at Universitas Brawijaya in Malang, East Java, Indonesia. However, it was canceled due to COVID-19 and government travel restrictions, particularly for international participants. Since ICWRDEP has been declared a biannual event and has been ongoing since mid-2020, this event would not be postponed. Moreover, when the call for papers was published, academics and researchers were ecstatic. The ICWRDEP 2021 was organized by Water Resources Engineering Department - Faculty of Engineering - Universitas Brawijaya in cooperation with the Ministry of Public Works and Housings of Indonesia, Miyazaki University in Japan, IHE Delft Institute for Water Education in the Netherlands, and Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) in the Netherlands. The conference topics are River Engineering and Management, Coastal Engineering and Management, Environmental Engineering & Sanitation, Water-Related Disaster Risk Reduction, and Water Resources Engineering and Management and Water-related to Civil, Architectural Engineering. Through the presentation of papers and discussion, the conference provides a platform for researchers, engineers, and academicians to meet and share ideas, achievements, and experiences. This international event is essential in promoting and encouraging practitioners to apply the new concept of water resource development and techniques and enhancing knowledge and understanding with the required specifications of analysis, design, and construction of any engineering concept. We would like to express the most profound appreciation to the Rector of Universitas Brawijaya, the Dean of Engineering Faculty, Keynote Speakers Prof. Eko Winar Irianto from the Ministry of Public Works and Housings Indonesia, Prof. Keisuke Murakami from Japan, and Prof. Dano Roelvink from the Netherlands, International Advisory Board members, organizing committee, and all participants. List Of Committees are available in this pdf.