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Yuyuan Yang,1 Meng Wang,1 Moxin Luan,1 Xiaoqian Song,1 Yajuan Wang,2 Lulu Xu,3 Meixiang Zhong,4 Xueping Zheng1 1Department of Geriatric Medicine, The Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University, Qingdao, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Geriatric Medicine, The Qingdao Eighth People’s Hospital, Qingdao, People’s Republic of China; 3Department of Neurology, Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, People’s Republic of China; 4Department of Geriatric Medicine, The Chengdu Eighth People’s Hospital, Chengdu, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Xueping Zheng, Email simplexueping@163.comAbstract: Perivascular spaces are the fluid-filled areas surrounding small blood vessels in the brain, and they may play a role similar to lymphatic vessels in clearing metabolic waste. When their diameters exceed 1 mm, as measured by structural magnetic resonance imaging, they are classified as enlarged perivascular spaces (EPVS). Previously, EPVS were considered to be benign, but increasing evidence suggests that their existence may be associated with various clinical diseases. Here, we review recent clinical studies to understand the potential clinical implications of EPVS. We also review the anatomy and imaging characteristics of EPVS and discuss four causal hypotheses for their formation and associated risk factors. Due to differences in research methods and concerns across studies, unified conclusions are difficult to achieve. Overall, more basic high-quality research is needed to clarify the subject and provide more concrete theoretical support.Keywords: cerebral small vessels, enlarged perivascular spaces, cognitive decline, cerebral amyloid angiopathy, Parkinson’s disease, aging

Carbon tax is an important economic instrument in achieving the goal of carbon emission reduction and sustainable development. This paper investigates the effects of carbon tax on carbon emission reduction in China. First, a non-competitive input–output table for Carbon Emissions of 28 sectors in China after Carbon Tax was established, based on the “2018 China Non-competitive Input–Output Table (42 Sectors)” and the carbon emission data of sectors provided by China Carbon Emission Accounts and Datasets (CEADs). Then, an input–output price model was established to study the changes on product price, GDP, employment, and carbon dioxide emissions of 28 sectors after carbon taxing ranged from 10 to 200. When the carbon tax rate reaches 200 yuan/ton, the inflation rate will be 5.907%, the total GDP will be decreased to 1.910%, the total labor force will be decreased to 1.744%, and the total carbon emission reduction rate will be increased to 8.171%. Results showed that with the increases in carbon tax, the inflation rate was increased, the rate of carbon emission reduction was increased, and the negative effects on GDP and employment were also increased. Suggestions on policy making, such as combination of carbon taxing and carbon trading, dynamic adjustment mechanism, tax neutrality, and forcing active carbon reduction, were proposed to minimize the adverse effect of levying carbon tax. The results from this paper would provide a reference for the policy making on carbon management.

Magnetic separation is an effective method to recover iron from steel slag. However, the ultra-fine tailings generated from steel slag become a new issue for utilization. The dry separation processes generates steel slag powder, which has hydration activity and can be used as cement filler. However, wet separation processes produce steel slag mud, which has lost its hydration activity and is no longer suitable to be used as a cement filler. This study investigates the potential of magnetically separated steel slag for carbonation curing and the potential use of the carbonated products as an artificial reef. Steel slag powder and steel slag mud were moulded, carbonation-cured and seawater-cured. Various testing methods were used to characterize the macro and micro properties of the materials. The results obtained show that carbonation and hydration collaborated during the carbonation curing process of steel slag powder, while only carbonation happened during the carbonation curing process of steel slag mud. The seawater-curing process of carbonated steel slag powder compact had three stages: C-S-H gel formation, C-S-H gel decomposition and equilibrium, which were in correspondence to the compressive strength of compact increasing, decreasing and unchanged. However, the seawater-curing process of carbonated steel slag mud compact suffered three stages: C-S-H gel decomposition, calcite transfer to vaterite and equilibrium, which made the compressive strength of compact decreased, increased and unchanged. Carbonated steel slags tailings after magnetic separation underwent their lowest compressive strength when seawater-cured for 7 days. The amount of CaO in the carbonation active minerals in the steel slag determined the carbonation consolidation ability of steel slag and durability of the carbonated steel slag compacts. This paper provides a reference for preparation of artificial reefs and marine coagulation materials by the carbonation curing of steel slag.

Carbonation curing on steel slag is one of the most promising technologies for the iron and steel industry to manage its solid waste and carbon emissions. However, the technology is still in its demonstration stage. This paper investigates the market stakeholders of carbonation curing on steel slag for construction materials for its effective application by taking China as a case study. A holistic analysis of the competition, market size, and stakeholders of carbonation curing on steel slag was carried out through a literature review, a survey, a questionnaire, and interviews. The results showed that carbonation curing on steel slag had the advantages of high quality, high efficiency, low cost, and carbon reduction compared with other technologies. Shandong province was the most suitable province for the large-scale primary application of the technology. Stakeholder involvement to establish information platforms, enhance economic incentives, and promote adequate R&D activities would promote carbonation curing of steel slag into practice. This paper provides a reference for the commercialization of carbonation curing on similar calcium- and magnesium-based solid waste materials.

In this paper, we propose the neural Born iterative method (NeuralBIM) for solving 2D inverse scattering problems (ISPs) by drawing on the scheme of physics-informed supervised residual learning (PhiSRL) to emulate the computing process of the traditional Born iterative method (TBIM). NeuralBIM employs independent convolutional neural networks (CNNs) to learn the alternate update rules of two different candidate solutions regarding the residuals. Two different schemes are presented in this paper, including the supervised and unsupervised learning schemes. With the data set generated by the method of moments (MoM), supervised NeuralBIM are trained with the knowledge of total fields and contrasts. Unsupervised NeuralBIM is guided by the physics-embedded objective function founding on the governing equations of ISPs, which results in no requirement of total fields and contrasts for training. Numerical and experimental results further validate the efficacy of NeuralBIM., Comment: This preprint has been published in IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation on 01 November 2022. Please cite the final published version as [T. Shan et al., "Neural Born Iterative Method for Solving Inverse Scattering Problems: 2D Cases," in IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, vol. 71, no. 1, pp. 818-829, Jan. 2023, doi: 10.1109/TAP.2022.3217333.]

To improve the survivability and energy consumption of intelligent optical networks, we propose, for the first time, an Energy-efficient Shared Segment-protection Algorithm (ESSA) that combines the light bypass and sleeping strategy. By designing the variable weights of the working or backup paths based on the energy consumption in links, ESSA isolates the working paths and the backup paths in different fibers as far as possible, thus minimizing the number of active fibers and switching more fibers into sleep mode for energy saving purpose. To further reduce the network blocking rate, ESSA reuses built lightpaths by utilizing a grooming strategy to select the working and backup paths. Simulation result shows that compared with Shared Grooming Segment Protection Algorithm (SGSPA), ESSA has better a performance in terms of energy efficiency and blocking rate under a moderate network load.

The deployment of PCE (Path Computation Element) architecture in high-speed MPLS/GMPLS networks is widely accepted and facilitates path setup operations for applications with explicitly defined objective functions. In this paper, we propose a new link-abstraction mechanism, which improves the method of establishing domain topology of parent PCE, and further aggregates the abstract topology in the hierarchical PCE method, thus simplifying the topology aggregation of the multi-domain. Meanwhile, considering the constraints of multiple factors which affect cross-domain path calculations, we provide a relatively simple way to select, which solves the key problem of determining the “domain sequence” in the process of cross-domain path calculation. Simulation results show that the proposed method has better performance in terms of blocking probability, end-to-end delay and resource utilization rate.