Alina Barbulescu

• Ph.D. Mathematics, Ph.D. Hab. Economics Statistics, Ph.D. Hab. Civil Engineering
• Professor at Transylvania University of Brașov

Predicting the river discharge is essential for preparing effective measures against flood hazards or managing hydrological droughts. Despite mathematical modeling advancements, most algorithms have failed to capture the extreme values (especially the highest ones). In this article, we proposed a quantum neural networks (QNNs) approach for forecast...

This study analyzes the series of annual emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) from agriculture in the European Union countries for 32 years. The outliers, autocorrelation, and change points were detected for each series and the Total one using the boxplot, autocorrelation function (ACF), and Pettit, Hubert, and CUSUM tests. The existence of a monot...

The Dobrogea region, located in southeastern Romania, experiences a semi-arid climate. This study provides a deep analysis of monthly precipitation series from 46 meteorological stations spanning 1965–2005, exploring mean and variance characteristics and detecting structural changes in precipitation patterns. The series normality was assessed using...

This study provides a detailed framework for applying clustering algorithms to analyze precipitation data from the Dobrogea region in Romania, covering 46 meteorological stations from 1965 to 2005. Three clustering methods—K-means, K-medoids, and DBSCAN—were employed to partition the stations based on their monthly precipitation patterns. The prima...

As climate change intensifies with more frequent and severe flood events, urban areas face increasing challenges to protect population wellbeing. Amid urban development challenges, political uncertainty, and socioeconomic pressures, finding sustainable solutions to enhance urban resilience has become urgent and complex. This article explores the li...

Pollution is one of the most important issues currently affecting the global population and environment. Therefore, determining the zones where stringent measures should be taken is necessary. In this study, Principal Component Analysis (PCA), Factor Analysis (FA), and t-distributed Stochastic Neighbor Embedding (t-SNE) were utilized for dimensiona...

Featured Application The results of the article can be applied to determine the zones were the maintenance works should be applied on the tank farm. Abstract In the context of the increased pollution from different sources and its significant negative effect on the population’s health and environment, the article presents a comprehensive analysis...

Floods, along with other natural and anthropogenic disasters, profoundly disrupt both society and the environment. Populations residing in deltaic regions worldwide are particularly vulnerable to these threats. A prime example is the Danube Delta (DD), located in the Romanian sector of the Black Sea. This research paper aims to identify areas withi...

Featured Application This article proposes a solution for reducing and even eliminating flood effects in Prahova County, Romania, by extending the length of a bridge and reducing its embankment. Abstract Recently, the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events have increased in many regions worldwide. Among them, floods, whose effects are d...

Drought poses a significant risk in many parts of the world, especially in regions reliant on agriculture. Evaluating this risk is an essential step in preventing and reducing its impact. In this context, we assess the drought intensity at six sites in Constanța County (Romania) using the de Martonne aridity index. The risk of aridity and vulnerabi...

Artificial intelligence (AI) has become an instrument used in all domains with good results. The water resources management field is not an exception. Therefore, in this article, we propose two machine learning (ML) techniques—an echo state network (ESN) and sparrow search algorithm–echo state network (SSA-ESN)—for monthly modeling of the water dis...

This study comprehensively explores the intricate hydrodynamic and geomorphological processes that affect the Sulina Channel and bar area. It employs advanced hydrodynamic, wave, and sediment transport models to simulate the influence of marine currents, waves, and shipping traffic on sediment transport and deposition patterns, providing valuable i...

Water quality is essential to the population’s well-being, water resources management, and environmental development strategies. In this article, we propose a framework based on machine learning (ML) techniques for enhancing the assessment of water quality based on water quality indices (WQIs). It consists of three algorithms that could serve as a...

In the actual context of growing concerns over sustainability and energy efficiency, Phase Change Materials (PCMs) have gained attention as promising solutions for enhancing energy storage and release efficiency. On another hand, materials based on graphene oxide (GO) have proven antibacterial activity, biocompatibility, efficiency in microbial gro...

Damages produced by cavitation on the materials under their action must be carefully monitored to determine the material's mass loss and changes in its properties. Moreover, describing the process evolution is important for practical applications related to the failure of components made of a certain material. In this context, this article investig...

Various studies have proved that PM2.5 pollution significantly impacts people’s health and the environment. Reliable models on pollutant levels and trends are essential for policy-makers to decide on pollution reduction. Therefore, this research presents the sensitivity analysis of the Bicubic Spline Smoothing (BSS) and Inverse Distance Weighting (...

A ten times smaller version of CPC Global Unified Gauge-Based Daily Precipitation Dataset (1979–2021) is released and described in this paper. Its usability is tested and proved, firstly, by illustrating that the transition to the derived smaller dataset is a case of Pearson correlation transitivity starting with the scale of global yearly data and...

The management of water resources must be based on accurate models of the river discharge in the context of the water flow alteration due to anthropic influences and climate change. Therefore, this article addresses the challenge of detecting the best model among three artificial intelligence techniques (AI)—backpropagation neural networks (BPNN),...

Global pollution demands continuous attention and concerted efforts to reduce its effects [...]

Nowadays, the increasing necessity of consolidating and renewing buildings represents a big challenge for engineers. Structural consolidation using composite materials glued on the damaged surface using high-performance adhesives could be a viable technical solution. In this context, this article’s aim is twofold. First, it presents the experimenta...

This study aims to provide a comparative analysis of two of the most used methods of spatial interpolation – Thiessen Polygons (TP) and Inverse Distance Weighting (IDW) with a spatio-temporal approach – Spatio-temporal kriging (STK) on a data series from Canada. The IDW parameter is optimized to obtain the best fitting for the studied series, based...

This article aims to analyze the alteration in water discharge due to the building of one of the largest dams in Romania. Modifications in the hydrological patterns of the studied river were emphasized by a complex technique that includes decomposition models of the series into trends, seasonal indices, and random components, as well as into Intrin...

In recent decades, an increase in the earth’s atmospheric temperature has been noticed due to the augmentation of the volume of gases with the greenhouse effect (GHG) released into the atmosphere. To reduce this effect, the European Union’s directives indicate the action directions for reducing these emissions, among which carbon dioxide (CO2) reco...

The article aims to analyze the pollution with Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) emitted from the biggest refinery in Romania, using the daily and monthly series registered for two years in two sites on the industrial platform, and the carcinogenic and noncarcinogenic risks for workers at the industrial plant. Since the values of the basic statistic...

This study offers a detailed analysis of the fine particulate matter (PM2.5) series in the Arabian Gulf zone, employing three interpolation models, Inverse Distance Weighting (IDW), Bicubic Spline Smoothing (BSS) and Spatio-Temporal Kriging (STK). Unique advancements include the use of complete temporal records in IDW, the management of edge effect...

One of the primary contributors to energy consumption is the construction industry. To address the urgent demand for eco-friendly approaches in this field, this study conducted an investigation on Scopus and Web of Science databases to identify the criteria for selecting sustainable materials for façades. Three groups of criteria were derived after...

Modeling and forecasting the river flow is essential for the management of water resources. In this study, we conduct a comprehensive comparative analysis of different models built for the monthly water discharge of the Buzău River (Romania), measured in the upper part of the river’s basin from January 1955 to December 2010. They employ convolution...

This study presents the efficiency of a drinking water treatment plant from Constanța, Romania. Individual and aggregated indices are proposed and built using nine water parameters for this aim. The analysis of individual indices permits the detection of the period of malfunctioning of the water treatment plant with respect to various parameters at...

According to the World Meteorological Organization, the total economic impact of drought in Europe in the past 30 years was close to €100 billion. A recent publication by the European Environment Agency states that meteorological and hydrological droughts have become more frequent and severe in most of Europe, “being the highest in southern Europe....

Nowadays, people spend most of their time indoors. Despite constantly cleaning these spaces, dust apparition cannot be avoided. Since dust can contain chemical elements that negatively impact people’s health, we propose the analysis of the metals from the indoor dust component collected in different locations in Dubai, UAE. Multivariate statistics...

Areas subject to flooding must be carefully analyzed to make correct measures for preventing disasters that impact the population’s lives and economy. In this article, we propose a flood potential index (FPI) to estimate flood susceptibility, using an optimal selection of weights for the criteria contributing to flooding risk evaluation. Comparison...

" In this article, the Probable Maximum Precipitation (PMP) evaluation is done using a spatio-temporal approach – Diaconu’s method – for a set of data series collected in the Dobrudja region for 41 years. The results are compared with those obtained by applying the classical method of Hershfield and the advantages of each method are emphasized."

Nowadays, climate change and atmospheric pollution are two of humanity's most significant challenges. Greenhouse gases (GHGs) are responsible for climate change, and they create effects that are mostly irreversible. Therefore, monitoring and reducing such emissions are compulsory for the preservation of the environment for future generations. The E...

Ensuring good drinking water quality, which does not damage the population’s health, should be a priority of decision factors. Therefore, water treatment must be carried out to remove the contaminants. Chlorination is one of the most used treatment procedures. Modeling the free chlorine residual concentration series in the water distribution networ...

Floods are repetitive and unpredictable phenomena. Interventions in these cases are carried out during or after a hazard’s occurrence. The quality and density of the roads, the equipment of emergency intervention centers, and the proximity of these centers to risk areas influence accessibility and intervention capacity. An analysis of this issue is...

This study presents the impact on human health by consuming medicinal herbs with high melliferous potential (HMPs) from botanical areas with different pollution levels. First, the bioaccumulation of the plants’ parts has been determined. The study assessed the potential health risks associated with the ingestion of various mineral species (macroele...

Flooding occurs yearly in region across Europe, including Romania, when water accumulates at heavy rainfalls, favored by natural and anthropogenic factors such as a flat slope of the meadow, elongated shape of the valley or buildings located close to the river. Alexandria is a city affected by flooding. The study wants to analyze the flood that too...

Water is a resource indispensable for human life and activity, significantly affected by climate change (by decreasing the water quantities available for drinking) and anthropogenic activities (by pollution) [...]

The fractal approach is one of the nondestructive techniques for analyzing corrosion’s effects on different materials. This article utilizes it to analyze the erosion–corrosion produced by cavitation on two types of bronze introduced into an ultrasonic cavitation field to investigate the differences between their behavior in saline water. The aim i...

In the context of climate change, this article tries to answer the question of whether a correlation exists between the precipitation and temperature series at a regional scale in Dobrogea, Romania. Six sets of time series are used for this aim, each of them containing ten series—precipitation and temperatures—recorded at the same period at the sam...

In the context of reported climate variations in different regions of the world, this work investigates the evolution of the temperature series in the Dobrogea region, Romania, using the maximum, average, and minimum annual temperature series from 1965 to 2005. The Mann–Kendall test and Sen’s slope emphasized increasing trends of nine (out of ten)...

Flash flooding occurs in different hilly regions with circular shaped catchments across Europe, including Romania, when heavy rains or rapid melting of the snow are encountered. Vărbilău is a village in the Subcarpathian hills, susceptible to flash floods. In some situations, roads and buildings are affected. This study aims to analyze the flash fl...

Cavitation is a physical process that produces complex effects on the machines and components working in conditions where it acts. One effect is the materials-mass loss by corrosion–erosion when components are introduced into fluids under cavitation. The analysis of the damages produced by cavitation is generally performed by using different destru...

Extreme hydro-meteorological phenomena have become more frequent in recent years compared to the year 2000 in Europe, including Romania. Flooding occurs from heavy rainfalls favored by natural and anthropogenic factors such as the valley’s flat slope or settlements situated near the river. Ţigăneşti and Brânceni villages (from southern Romania) are...

In a multi-agent dynamic common-policy decision-making environment, by asking questions, an agent can generate an agreement on dynamically changing (on the fly, during the decision-making process) the common policy shared by the agents, and therefore, it can change the current list of possible options from which the decision is made. Important effo...

Cavitation is a physical process that produces different negative effects on the components working in conditions where it acts. One is the materials’ mass loss by corrosion–erosion when it is introduced into fluids under cavitation. This research aims at modeling the mass variation of three samples (copper, brass, and bronze) in a cavitation field...

Floods have become more and more severe and frequent with global climate change. The present study focuses on the Black Sea's immediate riparian area over which the Danube Delta extends. Due to the accelerated increase in the severity of floods, the vulnerability of the deltaic areas is augmenting. Therefore, it is very important to adopt measures...

In the context of climate change, irrigation has become a must for ensuring crop production because in some regions, the drought episodes became more frequent. The decision to efficiently allocate water resources should be made quickly, based on tools that provide correct information with a low computational effort. Therefore, we propose a new user...

In recent decades, atmospheric pollution has become a major risk for public health and ecosystems [...]

Since the Bin Packing Problem (BPP) has application to industry and supply chain management problems (to mention only the most important ones), it attracted attention from its formulation. The Single Nesting Problem treated here is a particular case of this optimization problem, which different methods, mainly combinatorial, can solve. In this arti...

The article investigates some of the available measurements (Terra MODIS satellite data) of the aerosol optical depth (AOD) taken in the Arabian Gulf, a zone traditionally affected by intense sand-related (or even sand-driven) meteorological events. The Principal Component Analysis (PCA) reveals the main subspace of the data. Clustering of the seri...

Nowadays, ambient air pollution levels and trends have become a topic of interest worldwide because primary atmospheric pollutants (APPs) are risk factors for the population and ecosystems [...]

This study aims at providing bee products and derivatives of medicinal plant consumers with a multifaceted perspective on mineral elements occurring in the soils of two forest zones in the vicinity of North Dobrogea (Romania) by (1) analyzing the pollution levels of the soils at three sites (denoted by DS, PH, and ST) in the study region, using dif...

The study aims to analyze the degree of similarity of some molecules belonging to two subgroups of Aminoalkylindoles. After extracting the molecules’ characteristics using Cheminformatics methods, and the computation of the Tanimoto coefficients, dendrograms and heatmaps were built to reveal the degree of similarity of the analyzed drugs. Some atom...

Nowadays, climate change is one of the most important threads for civilization. Having the origin mainly in the anthropic activity and intensive use of the environmental resources, climate change affects the ecosystems and the population lives. Changes in precipitation volume and cycles severely affect agriculture and food security. Therefore, buil...

Assessing the vulnerability of buildings is very important to determine the settlements affected by floods since authorities can take measures before actual flooding takes place. The present research aims to identify areas affected by flooding in Cernăteşti. The village is located in an area where floods are favored by the elongated shape of the ca...

This article analyzes the structures of some antioxidants, UV stabilizers, and inhibitors utilized to improve the polymeric materials’ functionalities using Cheminformatics tools implemented in the R software. Based on their properties, the dendrograms are drawn, and the molecules are classified in clusters, utilizing hierarchical clustering and th...

Nowadays, observing, recording, and modeling the dynamics of atmospheric pollutants represent actual study areas given the effects of pollution on the population and ecosystems. The existence of aberrant values may influence reports on air quality when they are based on average values over a period. This may also influence the quality of models, wh...

Studying the road accessibility for authorities of an area with hazard potential is essential to ensure their intervention capacity. The present study analyses the flash-flood susceptibility and the accessibility in case of flood of the Vărbilău catchment by the Inspectorate for Emergency Situations (ISU) using field observations and GIS techniques...

Experiments have proved that an electrical signal appears in the ultrasonic cavitation field; its properties are influenced by the ultrasound frequency, the liquid type, and liquid characteristics such as density, viscosity, and surface tension. Still, the features of the signals are not entirely known. Therefore, we present the results on modeling...

The appearance on the free market of synthetic cannabinoids raised the researchers’ interest in establishing their molecular similarity by QSAR analysis. A rigorous criterion for classifying drugs is their chemical structure. Therefore, this article presents the structural similarity of two groups of drugs: benzoylindoles and phenylacetylindoles. S...

This article aims at presenting the model of the mass loss of a brass sample in ultrasonic cavitation field in saline water. The experiments done for data collecting was performed in three scenarios. In the first one, the high frequency generator worked at three power levels - 80 W, at the second one - at 120 W, and in the third one - at 180 W. The...

This article presents a new algorithm for detecting the Inverse Distance Weighting Algorithm parameter (IDW) using an evolutionary technique. The algorithm was applied to interpolate 51 series of maximum annual precipitation series. Comparisons of its results with those of IDW and the optimized OIDW (a version of IDW optimized with PSO) are provide...

The study of hydro-meteorological series is important for planning agricultural activities, managing water resources, and taking measures to prevent the effects of natural hazards. Therefore, here we analyze the fractal characteristics of the temperature series recorded at Constanta, Romania. The studied series are the annual mean maximum annual an...

Water quality is continuously affected by anthropogenic and environmental conditions. A significant issue of the Indian rivers is the massive water pollution, leading to the spreading of different diseases due to its daily use. Therefore, this study investigates three aspects. The first one is testing the hypothesis of the existence of a monotonic...

Dust is a significant pollution source in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) that impacts population health. Therefore, the present study aims to determine the concentration of heavy metals (Cd, Pb, Cr, Cu, Ni, and Zn) in the air in the Sharjah and Ajman emirates’ urban areas and assesses the health risk. Three indicators were used for this purpose: th...

This article contains the results of the experiments concerning the mass loss of copper in seawater, in the cavitation presence. The cavitation is produced by ultrasound in an experimental setup designed for this purpose. The models of mass loss are provided and validated by statistical methods. Gravimetric indices are computed, to compare the mass...

The morphological parameters of microbial aggregates are important for the proper functioning of the activated sludge in wastewater treatment plants. Maintaining normal morphological and functional properties of activated sludge aggregates is necessary for this aim. Therefore, we carried out an analysis of microscopic images of activated sludge und...

Different methods are known for interpolating spatial data. Introduced a few years ago, the initial version of the Most Probable Precipitation Method (MPPM) proved to be a valuable competitor against the Thiessen Polygons Method, Inverse Distance Weighting and kriging for estimating the regional trend of precipitation series. Climate Analyzer, intr...

Artificial intelligence (AI) methods are interesting alternatives to classical approaches for modeling financial time series since they relax the assumptions imposed on the data generating process by the parametric models and do not impose any constraint on the model’s functional form. Even if many studies employed these techniques for modeling fin...

Surface water quality is permanently subject to major changes due to anthropogenic and natural factors. Therefore, its permanent monitoring needs to be realized by different methods, one of them being the multiparametric statistical analyzes that could contribute to a possible medium and long term forecast. In this study, we use different water qua...

Gold is one of the precious metals with multiple uses, whose deposits are much smaller than the global production needs. Therefore, extracting maximum gold quantities from industrial diluted solutions is a must. Am-L-GA is a new material, obtained by an Amberlite XAD7-type commercial resin, functionalized through saturation with L-glutamic acid, wh...

The aim of this study was twofold. Firstly, we performed a land capability class determination of the agricultural soils from the Abu Dhabi Emirate, the United Arab Emirates, based on the concentrations of 17 chemical elements determined in the soil samples collected from 84 locations. Secondly, we assess the soil pollution with different metals, u...

Water is one of the natural resources most affected by anthropogenic activities, like industry, agriculture, and traffic [...]

This article proposes a new approach for determining the optimal parameter (β) in the Inverse Distance Weighted Method (IDW) for spatial interpolation of hydrological data series. This is based on a genetic algorithm (GA) and finds a unique β for the entire study region, while the classical one determines different βs for different interpolated ser...

In the present study, the susceptibility to flash-floods and flooding was studied across the Izvorul Dorului River basin in Romania. In the first phase, three ensemble models were used to determine the susceptibility to flash-floods. These models were generated by a combination of three statistical bivariate methods, namely frequency ratio (FR), we...

The Liwa area is a primary food production area in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and has intensively been used for agriculture. This study investigates the pollution levels with heavy metals in agricultural soils from the Liwa area. Thirty-two soil samples were analyzed for Mn, Zn, Cr, Ni, Cu, Pb, Cd, Co, and As. Results revealed that heavy metal...

Climate change creates new challenges for preventing and protecting human health against different diseases that could appear and propagate. The Aedes albopictus mosquito species is an important vector for different diseases like dengue fever or zika. Although this species is not “indigenous” in Europe, its presence is noticed in many countries on...

While the positive economic impact of tourism cannot be denied, it has also a number of negative side effects. The article focuses on the residents’ perception regarding the tourist activity and on identifying the factors influencing their acceptance for the tourist activity, in Constanta (Romania). A questionnaire based quantitative research was e...

The present study addresses the amount of economic output possible at a given level of energy supply, carbon (greenhouse gas emissions), water use and waste generated recorded in 2014 by the 100 most sustainable corporations in the world. We use an integrated approach that assess how green businesses operate and we analysed the relationship between...

Last period groundwater quality raises big concerns all over the world since it is a limited source of drinkable water and for agricultural and industrial use. While the suitability of the groundwater of Liwa aquifer (Abu Dhabi Emirate) for agricultural use has been previously partially studied, not all the water parameters have been taken into acc...

The aim of this article is the investigation of the benzene concentrations in the ambient air of urban and industrial areas from the Timişoara city and the rural zones of Timiş County, Romania. We use the Mann–Kendall test for assessing the existence of a monotonic trend of the average and maxima daily series. Burr and Wakeby models are fit for the...

Given that water scarcity is a big issue nowadays, wastewater treatment is necessary for the future water use and the prevention of environmental contamination. In this context, this study presents the results of the statistical analysis of ten water parameters before and after the water cleaning in a wastewater treatment plant (WWTP). The influent...

Groundwater vulnerability studies are sources of essential information for the management of water resources, aiming at the water quality preservation. Different methodologies for estimating the groundwater vulnerability, in general, or of the karst aquifer, in particular, are known. Among them, DRASTIC is one of the most popular due to its perform...

The aim of this article is to introduce a hybrid approach, namely optimal multiple kernel–support vector regression (OMK–SVR) for time series data prediction and to analyze and compare its performances against those of support vector regression with a single RBF kernel (RBF-SVR), gene expression programming (GEP) and extreme learning machine (ELM)...

Spatial analysis of hydrological data often requires the interpolation of a variable from point samples. Commonly used methods for solving this problem include Inverse Distance Weighting (IDW) and Kriging (KG). IDW is easily extensible, has a competitive computational cost with respect to KG, hence it is usually preferred for this task. This paper...