At present, states and entire regions that possess significant reserves of sought-after minerals have great potential to maintain and even improve their socio-economic position in the foreseeable future. Since the beginning of 2000, the increase in mining volumes of minerals has been more than 50%; however, more than half of all extracted raw materials fall to only five leading countries: China, the USA, the Russian Federation, Australia, and India. This article presents the results of the analysis of the global structure of mineral production by type and geographic region. The article provides an in-depth analysis of the world’s leading mining companies, identifying the key players in the industry. A comprehensive overview of each company’s performance, including key financial indicators and production statistics, is presented. The main environmental risks as a result of the continued increase in the global scale of mining have been identified. The prospects for the development of the mining sector are shown. The results of the study can be used by the scientific community as an information source.

Heat removal has become an increasingly crucial issue for microelectronic chips due to increasingly high speed and high performance. One solution is to increase the thermal conductivity of the corresponding dielectrics. However, traditional approach to adding solid heat conductive nanoparticles to polymer dielectrics led to a significant weight increase. Here we propose a dielectric polymer filled with heat conductive hollow nanoparticles to mitigate the weight gain. Our mesoscale simulation of heat conduction through this dielectric polymer composite microstructure using the phase-field spectral iterative perturbation method demonstrates the simultaneous achievement of enhanced effective thermal conductivity and the low density. It is shown that additional heat conductivity enhancement can be achieved by wrapping the hollow nanoparticles with graphene layers. The underlying mesoscale mechanism of such a microstructure design and the quantitative effect of interfacial thermal resistance will be discussed. This work is expected to stimulate future efforts to develop light-weight thermal conductive polymer nanocomposites.

A failsafe network design recovering from the stressed condition against a massive supply disruption is generally useful for various applications. Water flow in plants under a tension is inherently vulnerable to an embolism, a water supply cut off, causing a death. However, the function of the network structures of leaf veins and xylem stems effectively reduces the embolism-induced failure. In this study, water transport in plants under the pressurized conditions compared to the normal physiological conditions is observed by X-ray imaing. By examining embolism-induced water supply limits in the architecturally diverse leaf and stem networks, a progressive hydraulic rule has been found: the limited flows in the selected parts of the network structures against a total fail. For a scientific explanation on nanoscale water flow dynamics occurring in plants, temporal meniscus development in the nanomembrane model system is investigated. The pressure-driven hydrodynamic transport phenomena can be explained to follow network dynamics of the modified imbibition typically occuring in nanostrutcures. This study contributes to a variety of design technologies of networked materials against the spread of flow damages under the stressed conditions.

Low levels of financial literacy cause people to have lower savings rates, higher transaction costs, larger debts and the loans acquisition with higher interest rates, therefore it becomes relevant to analyze the determinants of financial literacy. The aim of this research is to identify whether there is an association between the financial literacy level and sociodemographic characteristics. The Mexican Petroleum Company (Pemex) employees is the population analyzed. Pemex is the state-owned oil and natural gas producer, transporter, refiner and marketer in Mexico. A non-probabilistic convenience sampling was performed and 404 responses were obtained. The analysis of data was carried out with the Bayesian method. The results show that there is an association between Pemex employees’ level of financial literacy and their level of education, income, age and type of retirement saving. No association was found between their level of financial literacy and gender, marital status and whether or not they have children.

The number of accidents at level railway crossings, especially crossings without gate barriers/attendants, is still very high due to technical problems, driving culture, and human error. The aim of this research is to provide road maps application based on ergonomic visual displays design that can increase awareness level for drivers before crossing railway crossings. The double awareness driving (DAD) map information system was built based on the waterfall method, which has 4 steps: defining requirements, system and software design, unit testing, and implementation. User needs to include origin-destination location, geolocation, distance & travel time, directions, crossing information, and crossing notifications. The DAD map application was tested using a usability test to determine the ease of using the application used the System Usability Scale (SUS) questionnaire and an Electroencephalogram (EEG) test to determine the increase in concentration in drivers before and immediately crossing a railway crossing. Periodically, the application provides information on the driving zone being passed; green zone for driving distances > 500 m to the crossing, the yellow zone for distances 500m to 100m, and the red zone for distances < 100 m. The DAD map also provides information on the position and speed of the nearest train that will cross the railway crossing. The usability test for 10 respondents giving SUS score = 97.5 (satisfaction category) with a time-based efficiency value = 0.29 goals/s, error rate = 0%, and a success rate of 93.33%. The cognitive ergonomic testing via Electroencephalogram (EEG) produced a focus level of 21.66%. Based on the results of DAD map testing can be implemented to improve the safety of level railroad crossings in an effort to reduce the number of driving accidents.