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[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0286253.].

Environmental protection tax is an important tool for directing environmentally friendly growth in heavily polluting enterprises, but existing research has yet to provide consistent conclusions on whether and how environmental protection tax can promote green innovation in heavily polluting industries. The paper uses a double difference model based on data from Chinese listed companies in heavily polluting industries from 2012 to 2021 to empirically investigate whether environmental protection tax drives green innovation behavior of heavily polluting enterprises. The findings show that the environmental protection tax increases the degree of green innovation in heavily polluting enterprises, primarily through the anti-driving effect, in which an increase in environmental management expenses forces firms to increase their R&D investment, which improves the degree of green technical innovation. Furthermore, the environmental protection tax has a strong promotion effect on heavy polluters' green innovation for state-owned enterprises and those in growing period or located in high marketization regions. However, this promotion effect is insignificant for non-state-owned enterprises and those in recession period, and environmental protection tax hinders green innovation of enterprises in mature period and those located in low marketization regions. Accordingly, it is suggested to improve preferential tax policies, increase investment in corporate green innovation and strengthen the supervision of environmental tax.

Input parallel output parallel (IPOP) DC/DC system is widely utilized in many occasions like data center and hybrid electric vehicle (HEV). However, the efficiency characteristics of different converters usually differs from each other, and the conventional control strategy has difficult to realize efficient conversion of overall power of the system. To address this issue, Buck converter is taken as the module and whose efficiency model under current continuous conduction mode (CCM) is presented. Meantime, parameter identification method based on least square (LS) algorithm is proposed as well. In order to realize the efficiency optimization of the whole parallel system, the constraint conditions of each module are analyzed, and the current distribution calculation method based on sequential quadratic programming (SQP) algorithm for the parallel system is introduced. On this basis, a control strategy of proportional current distribution (PCD) is proposed, which not only ensures that the parallel system can always run as efficiently as possible under different loads, but also realizes the flexible switching between the current-sharing mode and current distribution mode. Finally, the simulation and experimental results prove that the proposed method can achieve 4.46% higher efficiency than conventional method within the given power range of each converter, and realize the efficiency optimization of the IPOP DC/DC system to the greatest extent.

Due to the abuse of antibiotics, antibiotic residues can be detected in both natural environment and various industrial products, posing threat to the environment and human health. Here we describe the design and implementation of an engineered Escherichia coli capable of degrading tetracycline (Tc)-one of the commonly used antibiotics once on humans and now on poultry, cattle and fisheries. A Tc-degrading enzyme, TetX, from the obligate anaerobe Bacteroides fragilis was cloned and recombinantly expressed in E. coli and fully characterized, including its Km and kcat value. We quantitatively evaluated its activity both in vitro and in vivo by UV–Vis spectrometer and LC-MS. Moreover, we used a tetracycline inducible amplification circuit including T7 RNA polymerase and its specific promoter PT7 to enhance the expression level of TetX, and studied the dose-response of TetX under different inducer concentrations. Since the deployment of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) outside laboratory brings about safety concerns, it is necessary to explore the possibility of integrating a kill-switch. Toxin-Antitoxin (TA) systems were used to construct a mutually dependent host-plasmid platform and biocontainment systems in various academic and industrious situations. We selected nine TA systems from various bacteria strains and measured the toxicity of toxins (T) and the detoxifying activity of cognate antitoxins (A) to validate their potential to be used to build a kill-switch. These results prove the possibility of using engineered microorganisms to tackle antibiotic residues in environment efficiently and safely. Keywords: TetX, Antibiotic residue, Toxin-antitoxin system, Kill-switch

An improved modulation strategy based on minimum energy storage for DC-link capacitance reduction in a six-switch AC-AC converter is proposed. The proposed modulation strategy enables the energy on the capacitor to accumulate and release twice each in a complete switching cycle, achieving the effect of “fast charging and discharging”. Meanwhile, the inversion and rectification are modulated synchronously. Hence, there is minimum energy stored in the DC-link capacitor. Then, the time average modeling analysis is presented to take insight analysis. When there is the same voltage ripples constraint on the DC side for the conventional and improved modulation strategies, the six-switch converter under the improved modulation strategy has the much less capacitance value of the storage capacitor and even realizes non-electrolytic capacitance. Therefore, improving the system efficiency, power density, and output waveform quality and extending the system life can be achieved. The operation principle and modulation strategy are discussed in detail. Finally, the simulation model and experimental prototype are built to verify effectiveness of the topology and correctness of the proposed six-switch AC-AC converter modulation strategy.

Sense of presence and extraneous cognitive load (ECL) are the two psychological effects widely employed to explain the cognitive outcomes caused by high-immersive media (e. g., virtual reality). This study identified the concepts of both technological affordance (i.e., immersion) and the psychological effects of VR learning. It investigated the mechanism by which immersion leads to better or worse communication in the context of art education. We operationalized the concept of immersion into two levels: a high-immersive VR system (HTC VIVE Cosmos) and a low-immersive tablet system (iPad). Through a between-subject experiment, we found that higher immersion not only led to a greater sense of presence but also lowered extraneous cognitive load. Enjoyment and attention increased as a sense of presence rose but were not necessarily predicted by extraneous cognitive load. This study found that sense of presence was a more robust explanatory variable than ECL and that cognitive load could be lower in a high-immersive environment with content specifically designed for VR.

The industrial structure upgrading (ISU) plays an important role not only as an important issue in China's economic structure transformation, but also as a key factor in terms of implementing a "win-win" situation between economic growth and environmental protection. The full implementation of the central environmental protection supervision system’s (CEPSS) function in fostering the modernization of China's industrial structure is crucial for the country's economic restructuring and the development of eco-civilization. By applying the double difference (DID) model, this paper has analyzed the policy effect and impact mechanism of the CEPSS on the ISU, in order to explore the effectiveness of the CEPSS on ISU. The research results based on the panel data integrated from 283 prefecture-level cities in China from 2006 to 2019 reveal that: (1) the CEPSS has significantly improved the ISU; (2) the CEPSS was able to act on the ISU through three paths: local government environmental governance motivation, innovation level, and foreign direct investment; (3) The heterogeneity analysis reveals that the promotion function of the CEPSS on the ISU chiefly exists in large cities, super cities, non-resource-based cities and cities in eastern and central China. The research results shall provide theoretical support and policy suggestions for rationally optimizing the CEPSS and promoting the ISU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Virtual reality (VR) has been widely applied in medical health areas and the entertainment and tourism industries, in which elderly people are a primary target. However, most studies on VR have focused on how people respond to this new technology and its effects on younger generations. Our study explored the differences in VR experience and acceptance between elderly adults and college students. A mixed method approach including both experiments and in-depth interviews was applied in this study. Our results show that elderly adults reported a higher level of telepresence and stronger emotional responses than young adults in VR viewing regardless of the VR device. The ways in which elderly people processed and evaluated VR content and devices were different from those of young people. Elderly people reported more positive attitudes toward the video they watched than young people, but this did not necessarily lead to more positive attitudes toward the viewing experience.