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AbstractThis study explores how design intervention can promote the transformation of the traditional craft industry into the distributed manufacturing model. First, theories relevant to distributed manufacturing and product-service system (PSS) are analyzed. Subsequently, design intervention strategies aimed at revitalizing specific traditional crafts are proposed. Finally, these strategies are explained comprehensively by combining Gourd Play design practice case. The proposed design intervention strategies can help specific traditional crafts achieve distributed manufacturing and improve their sustainability.

• The important designs and exploration of several solar-water-splitting devices with excellent STH are highlighted. • Various solar-to-hydrogen conversion strategies are described. • Photovoltaic hydrogen production research and module progress. Hydrogen, meeting the requirements of sustainable development, is regarded as the ultimate energy in the 21st century. Due to the inexhaustible and feasible of solar energy, solar water splitting is an immensely promising strategy for environmental-friendly hydrogen production, which not only overcomes the fluctuation and intermittency but also contributes to achieving the mission of global "Carbon Neutrality and Carbon Peaking". However, there is still a lack of a comprehensive overview focusing on hydrogen progress with a discussion of development from solar energy to solar cells. Herein, we emphasize several solar-to-hydrogen pathways from the basic concepts and principles and focus on photovoltaic-electrolysis and photoelectrochemical/photovoltaic systems, which have achieved solar-to-hydrogen (STH) efficiency of over 10% and have extremely promising for large-scale application. In addition, we summarize the challenges and opportunities faced in this field including configuration design, electrode materials, and performance evaluation. Finally, perspectives on the potential commercial application and scientific research for the further development of solar-to-hydrogen are analyzed and presented. Hydrogen production holds great promise for meeting the requirements of sustainable development. Given that solar energy is an abundant and renewable source, it is imperative to develop environmentally friendly methods for water splitting. In this context, we provide an overview of recent advances in solar-to-hydrogen conversion, with a particular focus on solar cells, while also exploring key factors influencing the efficiency of solar-to-hydrogen (STH) conversion. Despite the importance of this topic, comprehensive reviews on solar-to-hydrogen are relatively scarce. We hope that our review will provide valuable insights and inspire the development of sustainable energy systems in the near future. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dry reforming of methane (DRM) process has attracted much attention in recent years for the direct conversion of CH4and CO2into high-value-added syngas. The key for DRM was to develop catalysts with high activity and stability. In this study, LaNiO3was prepared by the sol-gel, co-precipitation, and hydro-thermal methods to explore the influence of preparation methods on the catalyst structure and DRM reaction performance. The regeneration properties of the used LaNiO3catalysts were also investigated under steam, CO2, and air atmospheres, respectively. The results showed that LaNiO3prepared by sol-gel method showed the best DRM performance at 750°C. The DRM performance of the samples prepared by hydro-thermal method was inhibited at 750°C due to the residual of Na+ions during the preparation process. The regeneration tests showed that none of the three atmospheres could restore LaNiO3perovskite phase in the samples, but they could eliminate the carbon deposits in the samples during the DRM reaction, so the samples could maintain stable DRM performance at different cycling stages.

Moderate or intense low-oxy dilution oxy-fuel (MILD-oxy) combustion can synergistically reduce the emissions of CO2and NOx, and its industrial implementation is carried out under dry and wet recycle modes. In this work, a series of numerical simulations on pulverized coal MILD-oxy combustion under the typical dry and wet recycle modes are performed, aiming at fully evaluating the combustion behaviors affected by the oxidizer O2concentration (21–30%) under different recycle modes. The results show that increasing O2concentration weakens the in-furnace flue gas recirculation and promotes the combustion intensity, while a more uniform temperature distribution is obtained under dry recycle mode than under wet recycle mode. The diffusion/kinetics-controlled MILD regime is realized as the O2concentration increases. Nevertheless, the diffusion effect is enhanced due to the accelerated reaction rate under a high O2level. The gasification reaction is strengthened with the increased O2concentration. Compared with wet recycle mode, the burnout of coal char is slowed down under dry recycle mode because of the lower burnout rate. The fuel-NO conversion ratio is significantly reduced with the increased O2concentration, while wet recycle mode shows more potential in achieving low NOxemission than dry recycle mode. This work is expected to provide new insights into the comprehensive understanding of MILD-oxy combustion.

Baseline drift is an important issue in spectral analysis (e.g., infrared, Raman, and laser-induced spectroscopy). Most common methods for baseline correction perform poorly in high noise, complex baselines, and overlapping peaks. To solve this problem, we proposed an adaptive extended Gaussian peak derivative reweighted penalised least squares (agdPLS) method for removing baseline drift from spectra. The method added extended Gaussian peaks to spectra, added derivative terms for spectral and baseline differences during iterations, and adaptively adjusted penalty coefficients λ. Experiments with simulated and measured spectra for methane and ethane were carried out to compare the performance of the different methods. agdPLS performed better than the other methods, with more accurate baseline estimation in low- and high-noise situations. Especially when the spectrum contained high noise, complex baselines and overlapping peaks, the agdPLS method performed significantly better than other methods. Moreover, agdPLS was computationally efficient. Results of actual spectral experiments showed that the proposed agdPLS method could be effective for baseline correction of spectra which, in turn, improved qualitative and quantitative spectral performances.

Large amounts of CO2were discharged into the atmosphere, resulting in a severe greenhouse effect and inducing ecological environmental problems that threaten human survival. Integrated carbon dioxide capture and conversion (ICCC) with Dual Functional Materials (DFMs) was a promising process to capture CO2emission in flue gas and convert it into value-added chemicals, reducing energy consumption and economic cost. The catalytic component of DFMs enhances hydrogen source activation and promotes carbonate hydrogenation to produce high value-added chemicals. The hydrogenation process achieved the regeneration of dual-functional materials, which is the key to realizing the ICCC process. This research focuses on DFMs development with different hydrogen sources (hydrogen or light alkanes) for the ICCC process in recent years. In addition, the reaction mechanism and catalytic components modification were discussed to improve the in-situ conversion activity of the ICCC process. Finally, future prospects were anticipated to guide the development and application scenarios of DFMs in the ICCC process.

Selective oxidation to synthesize nitriles is critical for feedstock manufacturing in the chemical industry. Current strategies typically involve substitutions of alkyl halides with toxic cyanides or the use of strong oxidation reagents (oxygen or peroxide) under ammoxidation/oxidation conditions, setting considerable challenges in energy efficiency, sustainability, and production safety. Herein, we demonstrate a facile, green, and safe electrocatalytic route for selective oxidation of amines to nitriles under ambient conditions, assisted by the anodic water oxidation on metal-doped α-Ni(OH)2(a typical oxygen evolution reaction catalyst). By controlling the balance between co-adsorption of the amine molecule and hydroxyls on the catalyst surface, we demonstrate that Mn doping significantly promotes the subsequent chemical oxidation of amines, resulting in Faradaic efficiencies of 96% for nitriles under ≥99% conversion. This anodic oxidation is further coupled with cathodic hydrogen evolution for overall atomic economy and additional green energy production.

To test the impact of work stress on Chinese rural school principal turnover intention, 490 rural school principals in the mainland of China were asked to participate in a survey. Multiple linear regression analyses showed that work stress had a positive relation with turnover intention, while achievement motivation and place attachment had negative relations. Additionally, place attachment was a protective factor that could reduce the negative effect of work stress on job satisfaction or the positive effect of work stress on turnover intention. Additionally, the moderating effects of place attachment were mediated by job satisfaction. These findings can enrich our understanding of the relation between work stress and school principal turnover behavior and can provide some suggestions for reducing school principal turnover intention in developing countries such as the mainland of China.

China has put forward the "Dual Carbon" target, carbon peak by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060. It is necessary to study the current situation of carbon emissions, carbon reduction potential, and decarbonization paths of industrial cities in China. Taking Wuhan, a typical industrial city, as an object, anthropogenic carbon emissions and distribution in Wuhan in the last 20 years are analyzed. The extended STIRPAT and the gray relation models are adopted to construct a decomposition model for discerning the driving factors of carbon emissions in Wuhan. Besides, a scenario-driven carbon emission projection system with five development scenarios is established, where carbon sinks from the ecosystem and CCUS technology and the decoupling status of “CO2emissions-GDP” are considered, to assess Wuhan's carbon emissions reduction potential and decarbonization pathways by 2060. The results show that Wuhan's carbon emissions mainly come from the industrial and transportation sectors and that the increase in the share of tertiary industry and the decrease in carbon intensity are the main factors curbing Wuhan's carbon emissions. To realize the “Dual Carbon” target, Wuhan's decarbonization development should start with the ISI (Industrial Structure improving) scenario and focus mainly on the development of tertiary industry between 2022 and 2035. Between 2035 and 2045, the decarbonization development transitions to the BID (Comprehensively improving) scenario, which requires simultaneous accelerating improvement of the city's economy and energy structure. Finally, carbon neutrality can be achieved between 2050 and 2060 through ecosystem carbon sinks and technology carbon sinks.

•Copper nitrate salt got pyrolysis on CeO2to form the Cu/CeO2catalysts.•Cu/CeO2-400 catalysts get the best CO production rate at 1.23 mol/gcat.h at 400 °C.•Cu-O-Ce interaction induced more vacancy formed in the Cu-CeO2interface.•Oxygen vacancy formed in the Cu-CeO2interface enhanced CO2hydrogenation.

As promising functional materials, ionic liquids have been widely used in flue gas purification and separation. Previous studies reported that ionic liquid based mixtures can be used for mercury removal due to their high economic efficiency and environmental friendliness. In comparison with ionic liquid based mixtures, a supported ionic liquid phase (SILP) adsorbent shows significantly improved mercury removal performance because of its greatly enhanced gas/liquid interfacial area. In this study, a novel supported task-specific ionic liquid phase adsorbent [C4mim][FeCl4]–SiO2was prepared for high efficiency elemental mercury capture from flue gas. The Hg0removal performance was investigated in a bench-scale fixed bed reactor, and the reaction mechanism was proposed based on the temperature programmed desorption (TPD) test. The results showed that Hg0removal was mainly due to the oxidation by [C4mim][FeCl4]. The addition of [C4mim][FeCl4] on SiO2in a certain composition range enhanced the Hg0removal performance, and the optimized ionic liquid loading is 30%. The Hg0removal by the adsorbent was favored at higher temperatures. TPD results showed that the mercury compound formed on the adsorbent was HgCl2. The Hg0removal mechanism involves combined physisorption and chemisorption, which consists of Hg0oxidation to HgCl2by the ionic liquid and physical adsorption of HgCl2on the porous adsorbent.

Background: Though imaging manifestations of COVID-19 and other types of viralpneumonia are similar, their clinical treatment methods differ. Accurate, non-invasive diagnosticmethods using CT imaging can help develop an optimal therapeutic regimen for both conditions.Objective: To compare the initial CT imaging features in COVID-19 with those in other types of viralpneumonia.Methods: Clinical and imaging data of 51 patients with COVID-19 and 69 with other types of viralpneumonia were retrospectively studied. All significant imaging features (Youden index >0.3)were included for constituting the combined criteria for COVID-19 diagnosis, composed of two ormore imaging features with a parallel model. McNemar's chi-square test or Fisher's exact test wasused to compare the validity indices (sensitivity and specificity) among various criteria.Results: Ground glass opacities (GGO) dominated density, peripheral distribution, unilateral lung,clear margin of lesion, rounded morphology, long axis parallel to the pleura, vascular thickening,and crazy-paving pattern were more common in COVID-19 (p <0.05). Consolidation-dominateddensity, both central and peripheral distributions, bilateral lung, indistinct margin of lesion, tree-inbudpattern, mediastinal or hilar lymphadenectasis, pleural effusion, and pleural thickening weremore common in other types of viral pneumonia (p < 0.05). GGO-dominated density or long axisparallel to the pleura (with the highest sensitivity), and GGO-dominated density or long axis parallelto the pleura or vascular thickening (with the highest specificity) are well combined criteria ofCOVID-19.Conclusion: The initial CT imaging features are helpful for the differential diagnosis ofCOVID-19 and other types of viral pneumonia.

Let (X, T1,0X) be a compact strongly pseudoconvex CR manifold of dimension 2n+ 1. Assume that a d-dimensional torus Tdacts on X. In this work, we study the behavior of torus equivariant Szegő kernels and prove that the weighted torus equivariant Szegő kernels admit asymptotic expansions.

We give simple and unified proofs of weak holomorhpic Morse inequalities on complete manifolds, q-convex manifolds, pseudoconvex domains, weakly 1-complete manifolds and covering manifolds. This paper is essentially based on the asymptotics of Bergman kernel functions and the Bochner–Kodaira–Nakano formulas.

One of the key points in the development of dry reforming of methane (DRM) is the design of catalysts with high activity and stability. The reactivity and carbon deposition properties of La2NiO4in DRM, as well as its regeneration performance, were studied. The results showed that the in-situ decomposition of La2NiO4led to a more uniform distribution of smaller Ni0particles on the La2O3matrix compared with the directly loaded NiO/La2O3. A temperature-programmed test revealed that the breakthrough curve temperature for La2NiO4in DRM was 618 °C. The carbon deposition would carry Ni0metal away from the La2O3matrix, making the solid carbon unable to be removed promptly due to insufficient oxygen supply, resulting in an increase in the catalyst's instantaneous carbon deposition rate at 650 °C and 750 °C. The regeneration tests showed that the samples' DRM performance and carbon deposition levels remained relatively stable before and after steam regeneration. However, air-regenerated samples exhibited a hysteresis time in DRM due to sintering. Additionally, CO2was unable to completely remove carbon deposition from the samples, resulting in a significant increase in carbon deposition when regenerated samples were used for DRM.

Although the impacts of infertility‐related stress on mental health have been testified in the literature, the underlying mechanism between them is still not clear. In response to this issue, 286 Chinese women who were pursuing medical treatment for fertility problems in two state‐owned hospitals were invited to complete the survey, including the 7‐item Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS), the Fertility Problem Inventory (FPI), the 5‐item Mental Health Inventory (MHI‐5), and demographic variables (e.g., age). The multiple linear regression method (SPSS 16) was used to investigate the impact of infertility‐related stress and marital satisfaction on infertile women's mental health. Results showed that the total FPI score—and the specific domains of Social Concern, Relationship Concern, and Rejection of Child‐Free Lifestyle in particular—had a significant negative relation with infertile women's mental health and marital satisfaction as a moderator between them. Therefore, the core of marital relationship and specific infertility‐related stress should be addressed in psychological intervention programs for people facing infertility in mainland China.

Background:Pharmacokinetic evaluation is one of the key processes in drug discovery and development. However, current absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion prediction models still have limited accuracy. Aim:This study aims to construct an integrated transfer learning and multitask learning approach for developing quantitative structure–activity relationship models to predict four human pharmacokinetic parameters. Methods:A pharmacokinetic data set included 1104 U.S. FDA approved small molecule drugs. The data set included four human pharmacokinetic parameter subsets (oral bioavailability, plasma protein binding rate, apparent volume of distribution at steady-state, and elimination half-life). The pretrained model was trained on over 30 million bioactivity data entries. An integrated transfer learning and multitask learning approach was established to enhance the model generalization. Results:The pharmacokinetic data set was split into three parts (60:20:20) for training, validation, and testing by the improved maximum dissimilarity algorithm with the representative initial set selection algorithm and the weighted distance function. The multitask learning techniques enhanced the model predictive ability. The integrated transfer learning and multitask learning model demonstrated the best accuracies, because deep neural networks have the general feature extraction ability; transfer learning and multitask learning improve the model generalization. Conclusions:The integrated transfer learning and multitask learning approach with the improved data set splitting algorithm was first introduced to predict the pharmacokinetic parameters. This method can be further employed in drug discovery and development.

In oxy-combustion power plants, flue gas impurities such as NOxmust be removed before CO2recovery. Currently, sorbents or catalysts as well as a flue gas treatment device are required for the application of the traditional NOxcontrol technologies. To produce NOx-lean oxy-fuel-derived CO2, an attractive option is using the existing CO2compression and purification units (CPUs) as NO removal units instead of traditional selective catalytic reduction technology. The special condition in the CO2CPU system, high pressure, was one of the most crucial operating parameters for NOxremoval in the CO2compression process. Appropriate pressure along with sufficient residence time of the pressurized denitrification system should be provided to achieve cost-efficient NOxremoval. In this work, to simulate the dynamic process of flue gas denitrification at elevated pressures, a two-stage compression process simulation model was built based on the experimental results, and good agreement between experimental and simulated data was obtained. The optimization of the pressure of the compression process as well as residence time showed the feasibility of the system eliminating 94% of NOxwith the emission concentration of 48 ppm (100 mg/m3) at the optimized pressure of 2.6 MPa and residence time of 223 s. This work demonstrated the possibility of the design and optimization of pressurized denitrification in an oxy-fuel CO2compression system.

Calcium looping process (CaLP) is well-considered as a cost-effective scenario for trapping CO2from flue gas. However, the CO2capture capacity of natural CaO-based sorbents spoils rapidly over long-term cycles. In this work, NaBr was introduced to enhance the cyclic CO2capture capacity of CaO sorbents. The NaBr-modified CaO showed an improved activity and durability for carbonation. After 100 cycles, the “NaBr/CaO-10/100” maintained a capacity of 0.202 g CO2/g sorbent, which was about 185% higher than that of unmodified CaCO3precursor. The mechanism of enhancement was analyzed by a simultaneous thermal analyzer (STA), in situ X-ray powder diffraction (in situ XRD) instrumentation, an inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometer (ICP-OES), a field emission scanning electron microscope coupled energy dispersive X-ray spectrometer (FSEM-EDS), and N2physical absorption analysis, and the results showed that the modified sorbent formed a well-linked macropore structure, which was relatively stable at high temperature reactions; additionally, NaBr incorporated inside the CaO crystal lattice promoted the durability of pore structures and cyclic CO2capture capacity. NaBr is an effective promoter that has the ability of enhancing the cyclic CO2capture capacity of CaO-based sorbents.

The prediction model of oral disintegrating tablets formulations with direct compression process by artificial neural network (ANN) and deep neural network (DNN) techniques were established. 145 formulation data were extracted from Web of Science. All datasets were divided into three parts: training set (105 data), validation set (20) and testing set (20) to build prediction model.Image, graphical abstract

Nitrogen oxide (NO) significantly contributes to environmental pollution problems, such as photochemical smog and acid rain. NO absorption in ionic liquids was an attractive issue, but little attention was paid to the removal of NO with a low concentration from coal-fired flue gas. In this work, conventional ionic liquids were used as environmentally benign solvents with low cost compared to functional ionic liquids to separate NO from simulated multi-flue gas mixtures. The concentration of NO is only 1000 ppm. NO removal performance by conventional ionic liquids was investigated on a high-pressure reaction system. Results showed that, among four conventional imidazolium ionic liquids, [Bmim][OAc] and [Bmim][NO3] presented high efficiency for NO removal. NO removal performance is mainly determined by the oxidation rate of NO to NO2in the presence of O2and the absorption capacity of NO2in ionic liquids. High pressure was favored to NO removal efficiency. Both of the oxidation rates of NO and NO2absorption in ionic liquids were dramatically increased at elevated pressures. This work also provides interesting possibilities for simultaneous removal of SO2and NO from flue gas. Highly efficient simultaneous removal of SO2and NO using [Bmim][OAc] was achieved with the removal efficiency of 98.0 and 93.5%, respectively.

Oxy-fuel combustion is considered as one of the most promising options for capturing CO2from coal-fired power plants. Oxy-fuel flue gas contains traces of gaseous elemental mercury (Hg0) impurity, which accumulate in the CO2compression units, causing severe damage to the aluminum heat exchangers. It is of great interest that the co-capture of flue gas impurities, such as nitrogen oxide (NOx) and elemental mercury, could be achieved in a CO2compression system at a high pressure. Currently, most of the studies associated with Hg0removal were conducted on traditional gas-cleaning devices at atmospheric pressure. It has been demonstrated that both NOxand SO2from flue gas played a significant role in Hg0reactions at atmospheric pressure in O2/CO2(oxy-combustion) or O2/N2(air-fired) conditions. However, the effect of those acidic gases on elemental mercury removal in the oxy-fuel compression system at high pressures was unclear. In this work, gas-phase Hg0oxidation by NOxand SO2was experimentally performed at the simulated O2/N2and O2/CO2atmospheres at pressures up to 2.5 MPa. It was found that Hg0removal was dependent upon the concentration of NO2in flue gas and primarily achieved by gas-phase reactions between Hg0and NO2. High pressure dramatically enhanced the oxidation of NO to NO2. Thus, the flue gas impurity Hg0could be efficiently removed through reacting with NO2in the CO2compression purification units. SO2hardly reacted with Hg0but affected the reaction of Hg0and NO2. The presence of SO2inhibited mercury removal especially at high pressures because of the decreased NO2concentration through the reaction with SO2and the decomposition of HgO to Hg0by SO2. The presence of CO2made the Hg0removal rate less dependent upon the pressure. The removal behavior of Hg0in the O2/CO2atmosphere was similar to that in the O2/N2atmosphere at pressures lower than 1.0 MPa. With the increasing pressure, the removal rate of Hg0in the O2/CO2atmosphere was lower than that in the O2/N2atmosphere.

ObjectivesThe epidemic of HIV-1 CRF01_AE has become a major public health issue in China. This study aimed to characterise the transmission patterns of genetic networks for CRF01_AE nationwide and elucidate possible opportunities for prevention.MethodsWe isolated and conducted genetic transmission network analysis of all available CRF01_AE polsequences (n=4704) from China in the Los Alamos HIV sequence database.ResultsA total of 1391 (29.6%) sequences were identified as belonging to 400 separate networks. Of men who have sex with men (MSM) in the networks, 93.8% were linked to other MSM and only 2.4% were linked to heterosexual women. However, 11.8% heterosexual women in the networks were linked to MSM. Lineages composed mainly of MSM had higher transmission than those that were mostly heterosexuals. Of the 1391 individuals in networks, 513 (36.9%) were linked to cases diagnosed in different provinces. The proportion of individuals involved in inter-province links was interrelated with the number of migrant people (Spearman’s r=0.738, p=0.001).ConclusionsThe outcome of this study could help improve our ability to understand HIV transmission among various regions and risk groups in China, and highlighted the importance of targeting MSM and migrants by prevention and intervention efforts.

During oxy-fuel combustion, the NO emission can be inhibited by the strongly reductive atmosphere caused by the high proportion of gasification reaction, which is a unique feature that differs from air combustion. The alkali and alkaline earth metals (AAEMs) contained in coal ash can catalyze gasification reactions, promoting the homogeneous reduction process of NO. Besides, AAEMs also suppress NO emission through catalyzing the NO heterogeneous reduction by char (C-NO). Both catalytic effects of AAEMs have been studied at relatively low temperatures (below 1000°C) in a simple atmosphere (pure CO2). However, the catalytic effect of AAEMs on NO reduction is still unclear during oxy-fuel combustion due to the more complex reaction atmosphere, higher reaction temperatures, and the presence of gasification reactions. In this work, the effect of different factors on the catalytic effect of AAEMs under O2/CO2atmosphere is investigated. Results show that the order of the catalytic effect of AAEMs on NO reduction is Na> K> Ca> Mg, with the highest NO reduction efficiency of 30% for Na. The catalytic effect of Na on NO reduction weakened as the temperature increases. When the temperature increased from 1373 K to 1573 K, the NO reduction efficiency (ηNO) of Na decreased from 30% to 6%. While the catalytic effect of Na on NO reduction strengthened as the oxygen concentration increases. When the O2concentrations increased from 10 vol.% to 30 vol.%, the ηNOvalues of Na increased from 27% to 35%. The K-Na binary additive is more effective in reducing NO emissions than K and Na alone, with NO reduction efficiency as high as 46.8% at a K/ Na is 1:2. Besides, the Raman test results reveal that K contributed to the conversion of amorphous carbon into a regular graphite crystal structure. Na disrupted the graphite structure resulting in more defective points appearing in the graphite lattice. These results are expected to provide a theoretical reference and new insights for the reduction of NO emission during oxy-fuel combustion.

Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) has insulin resistance (IR) or reduced β-cell mass, partially due to an increased β-cell apoptosis rate. Pancreatic stone protein/regenerating protein (PSP/reg) is a secretory protein produced in the pancreas and up-regulated dramatically during pancreatic disease. Recent studies revealed that β-cells undergoing apoptosis induce PSP/reg expression in surviving neighboring cells. Further experiments demonstrated that PSP/reg was elevated during disease progression in type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM). However, the association between PSP/reg and T2DM patients is unknown. The aim of this pilot study was to investigate PSP/reg in different clinical stages of T2DM and evaluate its correlation with chronic complications of diabetes. A total of 1,121 participants (479 males, 642 females; age range 23–80 years) were enrolled in this study. PSP/reg serum values were measured by a newly developed enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). We analyzed its correlation with clinical and biochemical parameters in subjects with T2DM at different clinical phases. Statistical analyses were conducted using SPSS 17.0 software. Correlations of PSP/reg and clinical parameters were performed using Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient. Differences between groups were determined by Nemenyi test. PSP/reg was elevated in high-risk and impaired glucose regulation (IGR) patients (p< 0.05). PSP/reg was significantly up-regulated in newly diagnosed T2DM patients and long-term diabetes patients with complications (p< 0.001). PSP/reg levels correlated with the duration of diabetes (p< 0.001). The area under the curve (AUC) for presence of diabetes-onset and its chronic complications was 0.640 and 0.754, respectively. PSP/reg is significantly up-regulated in T2DM patients, and PSP/reg levels are related to the duration of diabetes. Therefore, PSP/reg might be useful as a predictor of T2DM and disease progression.

In model driven architecture (MDA), system requirements are first captured by UML (unified modeling language) use cases with sequence diagrams to describe their intended use and implemented by classes of objected-oriented languages in the subsequent design stages. It is important that the dynamic behavior specified by the sequence diagrams is in full compliance with the implementation classes. This paper proposes an automatic approach and tool support for generating class contracts, which define a precondition and a postcondition for each operation of the class. The former serves as a guard to ensure invocations of the operations respect the semantics introduced by the sequence diagrams, and the latter places the system in a legal state to facilitate the succeeding operation calls. The contracts can be easily mapped to code of an object-oriented language such as Java. Thus, the approach helps to bridge the gap between the requirements and design stages of system development process. We use our model transformation tool to first generate a UML protocol state machine from the sequence diagrams, and then derive the contracts for a controller class. The transformations take into account the concurrency and critical constructs of the respective UML diagrams.

Chemical looping steam methane reforming (CL-SMR) is a novel process that produce syngas and hydrogen by using solid oxygen carriers to react with methane. The selection of oxygen carriers is a key problem in the development of CL-SMR. This study screened the perovskites with different A (La, Sr) site elements, different B (Co, Fe) site elements, and different loaded materials (CeO2, ZrO2, Al2O3and SiO2). The results showed that La in A site presented higher hydrogen production, Fe in B site could help keep the H2/CO ratio of the syngas at about 2, and CeO2loading could achieve highest H2purity. Thus, LaFeO3-CeO2was screened as the optimal oxygen carrier. When WHSV was 11.79 h−1, the CO selectivity of LaFeO3-CeO2was over 98%, H2/CO ratio of syngas was 2, and H2purity was about 95%. The sample could recover its original crystalline phases after cyclic reactions. CeO2could not only provide lattice oxygen for syngas production in POM stage, but also enhance the H2production in RS stage. Furthermore, although a slight agglomeration of the sample occurred during high temperature reactions, LaFeO3-CeO2exhibited stable reaction performance during 10 CL-SMR cycles.

Cocombustion technology of pulverized coal blending with NH3has a promising use in large-scale CO2reduced emission. However, the unstable flame and high NOx emissions during the cocombustion process retard its wide application. In order to overcome these limits, a new scheme of advanced moderate or intense low-oxygen dilution (MILD) combustion technology implemented in pulverized coal/NH3cocombustion is proposed in this work, and a numerical study on cocombustion characteristics of pulverized coal blending with different NH3proportions (0% ∼ 50% NH3, by caloric) is performed. Results show that the achievement of a pulverized coal/NH3MILD combustion regime is preferred at a high NH3case. As NH3proportions increase from 0 to 50%, the furnace temperatures are decreased due to the enhancement of heat transfer between flue gas and the furnace wall. The ignition time and temperature of coal particles are decreased by 52.1 and 33.0%, respectively, while the particle burnout time is prolonged by 52.3% and the char consumption rate decreases linearly. In addition, MILD combustion shows a good potential to reduce NOx conversion during pulverized coal/NH3cofiring. Although the proportion of NH3reaches up to 50%, NOx conversion ratio is only 2.1%. These results are expected to provide several new insights into stable flame and low NOx emissions of pulverized coal/NH3cocombustion.

As a standard high-level model transformation language, QVT Relations defines a graphical notation, which provides a concise, intuitive way to specify transformations. However, QVT Relations relies only on the textual language OCL for model querying, leading to verbose and complicated OCL expressions. Here, we present a graphical model query facility based on the checking semantics and pattern matching of QVT Relations. The query facility also borrows from QVT Relations the graphical notation. In addition we propose an approach to map the queries into XSLT to facilitate their execution. We have developed a tool for designing the queries and automatically generating the XSLT programs.

Abstract: Model-driven architecture (MDA) has become a main stream technology for software-intensive system design. The main engineering principle behind it is that the inherent complexity of software development can only be mastered by building, analyzing and manipulating system models. MDA also deals with system complexity by providing component-based design techniques, allowing independent component design, implementation and deployment, and then system integration and reconfiguration based on component interfaces. The model of a system in any stage is an integration of models of different viewpoints. Therefore, for a model-driven method to be applied effectively, it must provide a body of techniques and an integrated suite of tools for model construction, validation, and transformation. This requires a number of modeling notations for the specification of different concerns and viewpoints of the system. These notations should have formally defined syntaxes and a unified theory of semantics. The underlying theory of the method is needed to underpin the development of tools and correct use of tools in software development, as well as to formally verify and reason about properties of systems in mission-critical applications. The modeling notations, techniques, and tools must be designed so that they can be used seamlessly in supporting development activities and documentation of artifacts in software design processes. This article presents such a method, called the rCOS, focusing on the models of a system at different stages in a software development process, their semantic integration, and how they are constructed, analyzed, transformed, validated, and verified.

Model transformations are one of the key technologies in modelbased development. The graphical notation of relational QVT provides a concise, intuitive way to specify transformations. But this notation is not directly applicable for practitioners because of the lack of tool support. On the other hand, XSLT is a common and powerful language for XML transformations, but not suitable for directly programming transformations of semantically complex models due to its low level syntax. We combine the best of both techniques by using QVT graphical notation to specify a transformation as a set of QVT relations, and implementing each relation as an XSLT rule template. A prototype tool with a QVT graphical editor and an automatic XSLT program generator has been developed to support the approach.

Linear temporal logic (LTL) has been widely used for specification and verification of reactive systems. Its standard model is sequences of states (or state transitions), and formulas describe sequencing of state transitions. When LTL is used to model real-time systems, a state is extended with a time stamp to record when a state transition takes place. Duration calculus (DC) is another well studied approach for real-time systems development. DC models behaviours of a system by functions from the domain of reals representing time to the system states. This paper extends this time domain to the Cartesian product of the real and the natural numbers. With the extended time domain, we provide the chop modality with a non-overlapping interpretation. This allows some linear temporal operators explicitly dealing with the discrete dimension of time to be derivable from the chop modality in essentially the same way that their continuous-time counterparts are in the classical DC. This provides a nice embedding of some timed LTL (TLTL) modalities into DC to unify the methods from DC and LTL for real-time systems development: Requirements and high level design decisions are interval properties and are therefore specified and reasoned about in DC, while properties of an implementation, as well as the refinement relation between two implementations, are specified and verified compositionally and inductively in LTL. Implementation properties are related to requirement and design properties by rules for lifting LTL formulas to DC formulas.

Milk-clotting enzymes are used during the production of cheese to coagulate the casein, allowing the formation of a three-dimensional network that entraps the milk fat. Commercially available milk-clotting enzymes differ with respect to source, specificity, optimum pH and thermostability. All are acid proteinases that can cleave κ-casein resulting in the coagulation of milk. Chymosin (EC 3.4.23.4) is specific for the Phe–Met bond in κ-casein at the natural pH of milk (6·7). Recombinant chymosin is available commercially from a variety of sources and has a maximum activity at 40 °C. Recombinant chymosins are purified from the fermentation of recombinant strains of Aspergillus niger, Asp. oryzae or Kluyveromyces marxianus. These enzyme preparations are chemically and functionally identical to calf chymosin. Rennets are purified from the abomasum of bovines and can contain from 60 to 100% chymosin with the remainder being primarily bovine pepsin (Wigley, 1996). Microbial proteinases (EC 3.4.23.6) are generally more proteolytic than chymosin, with varying heat stability. These enzymes liberate more non-protein N from casein and can cleave α- and β-casein as well as κ-casein at the natural pH of milk. Acid proteinases from Cryphonectria parasitica are more heat labile than those from Rhizomucor miehei, which are characterized as thermostable (Ernstrom & Wong, 1974). The objective of this research was to characterize milk-clotting enzymes with respect to thermal inactivation in skim milk. This information has applications in milk and whey processing.

Health campaign interventions, particularly those tailored to the target audience’s needs and preferences, can cost-effectively change people’s attitudes and behaviors towards better health decision-making. However, there is limited research on how to best tailor seasonal influenza vaccination campaigns for young adults. Vaccination is vital in protecting young adults and their social circles (vulnerable populations like older adults) from the influenza virus and critical in shaping these emerging adults’ vaccination habits in the long run. However, amid the prevalence of easily-accessible, attention-grabbing, and often malicious false and misinformation (e.g., COVID-19 vaccine conspiracy theories), it may be more challenging to develop vaccination messages that resonate with young adults well enough to attract their attention. Therefore, to bridge the research gap, this study examines young adults’ preferences for seasonal influenza vaccination campaigns to inform effective intervention design and development.

Mean Value Calculus (MVC)[1]is a real-time logic which can be used to specify and verify real-time systems[2]. As a conservative extension of Duration Calculus (DC)[3], MVC increases the expressive power but keeps the properties of DC. In this paper we present decidability results of MVC. An interesting result is that propositional MVC with chop star operator is still decidable, which develops the results of [4] and [5].

•Competitive adsorption of CO2and SO2on CaO-based sorbents was studied•NaBr enhanced the CO2capture capacity of the CaO-based sorbents•NaBr enhanced the SO2capture capacity of the CaO-based sorbents•Fractal theory was applied to analyze the mechanism of NaBr promotion•“NaBr/CaO” captured threefold of CO2than “CaO, AR” over the 50 cycles

COVID-19 vaccines are by no means a silver bullet. With more COVID-19 vaccines expecting approval in the coming months, it is necessary to note that vaccine availability does not equate to vaccine accessibility, nor vaccine efficacy. Some research suggests that approximately 9 out of 10 individuals living in lower-income countries will not have access to COVID-19 vaccines until 2023 or later. For higher-income countries, such as the United States, the prevalence of vaccine hesitancy may further compound the situation. These insights combined, in turn, emphasize the fact that even though COVID-19 vaccines are becoming more available, safety measures (e.g., face masks, personal hygiene, and social distancing) are still of pivotal importance in protecting personal and public health against COVID-19. Furthermore, this paper argues for the continued imperative for health experts and government officials to communicate and emphasize the importance of COVID-19 safety measures with the public, to make sure people are protected against COVID-19 till the pandemic ceases to pose a threat to personal or public health.

In this paper, we aim to underscore the need for a more nuanced understanding of vaccine non-adopters. As the availability of vaccines does not translate into their de factoadoption—a phenomenon that may be more pronounced amid “Operation Warp Speed”—it is important for public health professionals to thoroughly understand their “customers” (i.e., end users of COVID-19 vaccines) to ensure satisfactory vaccination rates and to safeguard society at large.

Here reports a novel Cs4PW11Fe crystal modified electrode (CME), which was prepared by in situ growing Cs4PW11Fe crystals on the surface of a graphite electrode in a simple hydrothermal process. The as-prepared Cs4PW11Fe CME presents a much better electrocatalytic performance for H2O2reduction compared to the reported previously (Bu4N)4PW11Fe CME and the PW11Fe/CS ME due to possessing the quasi-square single crystals orderly stacking on the surface of the graphite electrode. The current density of H2O2reduction at the Cs4PW11Fe CME is 425 μA·cm−2, far higher than that at the (Bu4N)4PW11Fe CME and at the PW11Fe/CS ME. The kinetic parameter kof H2O2reduction at the Cs4PW11Fe CME was estimated to be 9.1 × 10−4cm·s−1in term of the Koutecký-Levich equation. The electrocatalysis occurs through a “Fe(II)-H2O2” transition state mechanism.

The paper reports a kind of NiCo2O4material with urchin-like morphology. This material was prepared using a facile strategy of hydrothermal process followed by calcinations, and exhibits an excellent electrochemical performance. For example, it delivers a specific capacitance high up to 1167Fg−1at 1Ag−1and still retains a value of 1095Fg−1at 10Ag−1, showing a good rate capability; after suffering from 3000 cycles at 10Ag−1, the specific capacitance has only a decay of 12%, presenting a good cycling stability.

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