Baichuan 2: Open Large-scale Language Models

Large language models (LLMs) have demonstrated remarkable performance on a variety of natural language tasks based on just a few examples of natural language instructions, reducing the need for extensive feature engineering. However, most powerful LLMs are closed-source or limited in their capability for languages other than English. In this technical report, we present Baichuan 2, a series of large-scale multilingual language models containing 7 billion and 13 billion parameters, trained from scratch, on 2.6 trillion tokens. Baichuan 2 matches or outperforms other open-source models of similar size on public benchmarks like MMLU, CMMLU, GSM8K, and HumanEval. Furthermore, Baichuan 2 excels in vertical domains such as medicine and law. We will release all pre-training model checkpoints to benefit the research community in better understanding the training dynamics of Baichuan 2.Comment: Baichuan 2 technical report. Github: https://github.com/baichuan-inc/Baichuan

Seizing the window of opportunity to mitigate the impact of climate change on the health of Chinese residents

The health threats posed by climate change in China are increasing rapidly. Each province faces different health risks. Without a timely and adequate response, climate change will impact lives and livelihoods at an accelerated rate and even prevent the achievement of the Healthy and Beautiful China initiatives. The 2021 China Report of the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change is the first annual update of China’s Report of the Lancet Countdown. It comprehensively assesses the impact of climate change on the health of Chinese households and the measures China has taken. Invited by the Lancet committee, Tsinghua University led the writing of the report and cooperated with 25 relevant institutions in and outside of China. The report includes 25 indicators within five major areas (climate change impacts, exposures, and vulnerability; adaptation, planning, and resilience for health; mitigation actions and health co-benefits; economics and finance; and public and political engagement) and a policy brief. This 2021 China policy brief contains the most urgent and relevant indicators focusing on provincial data: The increasing health risks of climate change in China; mixed progress in responding to climate change. In 2020, the heatwave exposures per person in China increased by 4.51 d compared with the 1986–2005 average, resulting in an estimated 92% increase in heatwave-related deaths. The resulting economic cost of the estimated 14500 heatwave-related deaths in 2020 is US$176 million. Increased temperatures also caused a potential 31.5 billion h in lost work time in 2020, which is equivalent to 1.3% of the work hours of the total national workforce, with resulting economic losses estimated at 1.4% of China’s annual gross domestic product. For adaptation efforts, there has been steady progress in local adaptation planning and assessment in 2020, urban green space growth in 2020, and health emergency management in 2019. 12 of 30 provinces reported that they have completed, or were developing, provincial health adaptation plans. Urban green space, which is an important heat adaptation measure, has increased in 18 of 31 provinces in the past decade, and the capacity of China’s health emergency management increased in almost all provinces from 2018 to 2019. As a result of China’s persistent efforts to clean its energy structure and control air pollution, the premature deaths due to exposure to ambient particulate matter of 2.5 μm or less (PM2.5) and the resulting costs continue to decline. However, 98% of China’s cities still have annual average PM2.5 concentrations that are more than the WHO guideline standard of 10 μg/m3. It provides policymakers and the public with up-to-date information on China’s response to climate change and improvements in health outcomes and makes the following policy recommendations. (1) Promote systematic thinking in the related departments and strengthen multi-departmental cooperation. Sectors related to climate and development in China should incorporate health perspectives into their policymaking and actions, demonstrating WHO’s and President Xi Jinping’s so-called health-in-all-policies principle. (2) Include clear goals and timelines for climate-related health impact assessments and health adaptation plans at both the national and the regional levels in the National Climate Change Adaptation Strategy for 2035. (3) Strengthen China’s climate mitigation actions and ensure that health is included in China’s pathway to carbon neutrality. By promoting investments in zero-carbon technologies and reducing fossil fuel subsidies, the current rebounding trend in carbon emissions will be reversed and lead to a healthy, low-carbon future. (4) Increase awareness of the linkages between climate change and health at all levels. Health professionals, the academic community, and traditional and new media should raise the awareness of the public and policymakers on the important linkages between climate change and health.</p

Changing the direction of the luminaire: A strategy to improve lighting energy efficiency in offices

Light environment’s non-visual effects influence people’s health and work efficiency. However, considering non-visual requirements in addition to traditional visual requirements may significantly increase lighting energy consumption. This study utilized simulation software to explore energy saving potential of changing the direction of the luminaire. A model of a single-person office with the luminaire attached to the ceiling right above the workstation was built in ECOTECT. Vertical eye-level illuminance and horizontal work-plane illuminance were calculated with luminaires of different luminous fluxes and elevation angles from downward vertical (0°-180° at an interval of 10° on both sides) using RADIANCE. Furthermore, six cases of different lighting requirements and light correlated color temperatures were considered. Based on the illuminance-versus-luminous flux coefficients obtained from simulation results, luminous fluxes were calculated to fulfill both visual and non-visual requirements under different elevation angles in all cases. It was found that compared to traditional lighting design with the luminaire facing vertically downwards, turning the luminaire at an elevation angle of 50° reduced the required luminous flux by up to 22.7%, which would benefit energy savings. Therefore, changing the direction of the luminaire has the potential to improve office lighting energy efficiency when considering both visual and non-visual requirements

Effects of General and Task Lighting on Subjective Perception and Work Performance: Empirical Study in an Office

Lighting accounts for a large proportion of building energy use. Task lighting is effective in saving lighting energy consumption and found to improve productivity in factories, but its effects in offices remain unknown. This study aims to investigate the effects of general and task lighting on office occupants’ satisfaction, alertness, mood, and performance in simple and complex tests. A within-subject design involving 2 lighting condition (100% general lighting vs. 70% general + 30% task lighting) × 2 task type (paper-based vs. computer tasks) was adopted. The work-plane illuminance and the equivalent melanopic illuminance were controlled at the same level in two lighting conditions. The lighting power was reduced by 16.7% when introducing task lighting. 28 subjects participated in this empirical study. The results showed that different lighting conditions had no significant impact on alertness. Introducing task lighting would suppress positive mood, but improve work performance. The respond speed in simple tasks was significantly improved by 4.3%-8.5% and the correct rates in complex assessments increased by 6.2%. These findings highlight that the combination of general and task lighting reduces power consumption and benefits work performance. However, its suppression on the positive mood also needs to be considered in the lighting design

Research on parametric design method for energy efficiency of green building in architectural scheme phase

Based on a large number of researches and engineering practices both domestic and overseas, it is shown that the building parameters to be determined during scheme phase can exert a great effect on the building energy consumption. In this paper, through a combination of the popular design method of building parameterization at present and the design goal of energy saving during the scheme phase, the author carries out researches on the design methods and tool development which are applicable to parameterization of building energy saving in this stage. In connection with the characteristics of both modeling process of parameterization and energy saving design, and by means of steady calculation as well as simulation, this paper establishes an simplified model to calculate the overall energy consumption of air-conditioning, heating, lighting and equipments, and ultimately gives suggestions on design of scheme for energy saving by optimization with the genetic algorithm (GA). On the basis of the model, a software platform is developed by computer language QT and openGL interface and is oriented to the design users and sets up the MMI (human–computer interaction) software interface for parameterization of building energy saving, which achieves automatic modeling of parameterization and promotes research on practical design cases