Estimation of photovoltaic waste spatio-temporal distribution by 2060 in the context of carbon neutrality

In recent decades, large-scale deployment of photovoltaic (PV) power leads to management challenges for recycling PV module waste in China. With the growth of waste PV volumes, it is necessary to figure out the spatio-temporal distribution of PV waste at the provincial level. Based on China’s carbon neutrality goal by 2060, six development pathways of PV installed capacity are proposed to identify in-use stocks of PV capacity. In particular, we develop the retired flow estimation model for PV modules that is constructed by three PV module degradation scenarios. The results show that a relatively large scale of PV waste will be started to emerge in China by 2030 and the cumulative waste is expected to reach 1100∼ 1450 GW by 2060. Our findings also indicate an unequal distribution of PV waste across regions and the highest PV waste volumes by 2060 is the East China region at 31.4%, with Shandong (8.99%) and Hebei(8.65%) ranking as the top provinces. This prospective research will help the PV industry plan the location and capacity of recovery facilities at an appropriate time to advance toward a more resource efficient and circular economy

Response of macrofaunal assemblages to different pollution pressures of two types of ports

Pollution status and benthic ecological quality of the two types of ports were assessed based on heavy metals and macrofaunal assemblages. Macrofaunal abundance and biomass in the industrial port were significantly higher than those in the fishing port. The dominant species of the two ports were Echinocardium cordatum and Nephtys oligobranchia. The AZTI marine biotic index (AMBI), multivariate AMBI, and Shannon-Wiener diversity index demonstrated that the benthic ecological quality of the two ports was moderate to good. The benthic ecological quality of the distant port sites was better than those of the nearby port sites. The geoaccumulation index and the Hakanson potential ecological risk index indicated that mercury posed a serious threat to port sediment pollution. AMBI, multivariate AMBI, and Shannon-Wiener diversity index were not good indicators for heavy metal pollution. The dominant species and Pielou’s evenness index were significantly correlated with heavy metal pollution and were good biological indicators

Construction of a high-density genetic map and mapping of QTLs for soybean (Glycine max) agronomic and seed quality traits by specific length amplified fragment sequencing

Abstract Background Soybean is not only an important oil crop, but also an important source of edible protein and industrial raw material. Yield-traits and quality-traits are increasingly attracting the attention of breeders. Therefore, fine mapping the QTLs associated with yield-traits and quality-traits of soybean would be helpful for soybean breeders. In the present study, a high-density linkage map was constructed to identify the QTLs for the yield-traits and quality-traits, using specific length amplified fragment sequencing (SLAF-seq). Results SLAF-seq was performed to screen SLAF markers with 149 F8:11 individuals from a cross between a semi wild soybean, ‘Huapidou’, and a cultivated soybean, ‘Qihuang26’, which generated 400.91 M paired-end reads. In total, 53,132 polymorphic SLAF markers were obtained. The genetic linkage map was constructed by 5111 SLAF markers with segregation type of aa×bb. The final map, containing 20 linkage groups (LGs), was 2909.46 cM in length with an average distance of 0.57 cM between adjacent markers. The average coverage for each SLAF marker on the map was 81.26-fold in the male parent, 45.79-fold in the female parent, and 19.84-fold average in each F8:11 individual. According to the high-density map, 35 QTLs for plant height (PH), 100-seeds weight (SW), oil content in seeds (Oil) and protein content in seeds (Protein) were found to be distributed on 17 chromosomes, and 14 novel QTLs were identified for the first time. The physical distance of 11 QTLs was shorter than 100 Kb, suggesting a direct opportunity to find candidate genes. Furthermore, three pairs of epistatic QTLs associated with Protein involving 6 loci on 5 chromosomes were identified. Moreover, 13, 14, 7 and 9 genes, which showed tissue-specific expression patterns, might be associated with PH, SW, Oil and Protein, respectively. Conclusions With SLAF-sequencing, some novel QTLs and important QTLs for both yield-related and quality traits were identified based on a new, high-density linkage map. Moreover, 43 genes with tissue-specific expression patterns were regarded as potential genes in further study. Our findings might be beneficial to molecular marker-assisted breeding, and could provide detailed information for accurate QTL localization

Programming Support and Adaptive Checkpointing for High-throughput Data Services with Log-based Recovery

Many applications in large-scale data mining and offline processing are organized as network services, running continuously or for a long period of time. To sustain highthroughput, these services often keep their data in memory, thus susceptible to failures. On the other hand, the availability requirement for these services is not as stringent as online services exposed to millions of users. But those dataintensive offline or mining applications do require data persistence to survive failures. This paper presents programming and runtime support called SLACH for building multi-threaded high-throughput persistent services. To keep in-memory objects persistent, SLACH employs application-assisted logging and checkpointing for log-based recovery while maximizing throughput and concurrency. SLACH adaptively adjusts checkpointing frequency based on log growth and throughput demand to balance between runtime overhead and recovery speed. This paper describes the design and API of SLACH, adaptive checkpoint control, and our experiences and experiments in using SLACH at Ask.com.

Request-Aware Scheduling for Busy Internet Services

Abstract — Internet traffic is bursty and network servers are often overloaded with surprising events or abnormal client request patterns. This paper studies scheduling algorithms for interactive network services that use multiple threads to handle incoming requests continuously and concurrently. Our investigation with applications from Ask Jeeves search shows that during overloaded situations, requests that require excessive computing resource can dramatically affect the overall system throughput and response time. The most effective method is to manage resource usage at a request level instead of a thread or process level. We propose a new size-adaptive request-aware scheduling algorithm called SRQ with dynamic feedbacks to control queue properties and have implemented SRQ in the Linux kernel level. Our experimental results with several application service benchmarks indicate that the proposed scheduler can significantly outperform the standard Linux scheduler. I

A case of vegetative pyoderma gangrenosum

A 55-year-old Chinese man presented with a 17-month history of pustules, papules, nodules, plaques, and ulcers involving most of his body, including the scalp, face, neck, trunk, and extremities. Several superficial ulcers with vegetative exophytic margins and plaques were also present. Cribriform sinuses were on the plaque surfaces and ulcer bases. Pus discharged under pressure. C-reactive protein level was 120.07 mg/dL, with the erythrocyte sedimentation rate at 95 mm/h. Repeated smears and cultures were negative. Forearm incisional biopsy showed pseudoepitheliomatous hyperplasia and diffuse neutrophilic infiltration with microabscesses. Vegetative pyoderma gangrenosum was diagnosed. Lesions markedly abated after systemic corticosteroid therapy

Parallelizing skyline queries for scalable distribution

Abstract. Skyline queries help users make intelligent decisions over complex data, where different and often conflicting criteria are considered. Current skyline computation methods are restricted to centralized query processors, limiting scalability and imposing a single point of failure. In this paper, we address the problem of parallelizing skyline query execution over a large number of machines by leveraging content-based data partitioning. We present a novel distributed skyline query processing algorithm (DSL) that discovers skyline points progressively. We propose two mechanisms, recursive region partitioning and dynamic region encoding, to enforce a partial order on query propagation in order to pipeline query execution. Our analysis shows that DSL is optimal in terms of the total number of local query invocations across all machines. In addition, simulations and measurements of a deployed system show that our system load balances communication and processing costs across cluster machines, providing incremental scalability and significant performance improvement over alternative distribution mechanisms.

A combination of CMC and α-MSH inhibited ROS activated NLRP3 inflammasome in hyperosmolarity stressed HCECs and scopolamine-induced dry eye rats

Abstract An important mechanism involved in dry eye (DE) is the association between tear hyperosmolarity and inflammation severity. Inflammation in DE might be mediated by the NLRP3 inflammasome, which activated by exposure to reactive oxygen species (ROS). A combination of carboxymethylcellulose (CMC) and α-melanocyte stimulating hormone (α-MSH) may influence DE through this mechanism, thus avoiding defects of signal drug. In this study, we assessed whether treatment comprising CMC combined with α-MSH could ameliorate ocular surface function; we found that it promoted tear secretion, reduced the density of fluorescein sodium staining, enhanced the number of conjunctival goblet cells, and reduced the number of corneal apoptotic cells. Investigation of the underlying mechanism suggested that the synergistic effect of combined treatment alleviated DE inflammation through reduction of ROS level and inhibition of the NLRP3 inflammasome in human corneal epithelial cells. These findings indicate that combined CMC + α-MSH treatment could ameliorate lesions and restore ocular surface function in patients with DE through reduction of ROS level and inhibition of NLRP3 signalling

Mesozoic Magmatic and Geodynamic Evolution in the Jiaodong Peninsula, China: Implications for the Gold and Polymetallic Mineralization

The intrusive age ranges of Linglong, Guojialing, Weideshan, and Laoshan granites in the Jiaodong Peninsula are 155–154 Ma, 131–130 Ma, 118–111 Ma, and 116 Ma, respectively. Together with the Shidao granite (227–200 Ma), five phases of magmatism can be classified by the time, all of which have different degrees of gold and polymetallic mineralization. The type of granites evolved from A–, S–type to I–, A–type from the Late Triassic to the Early Cretaceous, thus reflects the evolution of geodynamics in the Mesozoic, indicating the switch from North China Craton (NCC)–Yangtze Craton (YC) collision to subduction of the Paleo–Pacific Plate (PPP), with crustal thickening switching to lithospheric thinning and a compressional tectonic setting changing to an extensional setting. It directly leads to a series of extensional structures evolving in the Jiaodong Peninsula and demonstrates affinity for the extensive mineralization in the Early Cretaceous. The key markers of Jiaodong gold and polymetallic mineralization are magmatism, fluid activity and extensional structure. Extensive magmatic uplift and extensional structures in the Early Cretaceous formed the extensional tectonic system. During the formation process, a large proportion of crust and mantle materials exchanged and mixed, and the fluid interaction was highly active, resulting in a magmatic fluid metallogenic system, which provided favorable metallogenic conditions for gold and nonferrous metal hydrothermal deposits. Thus, a large-scale explosive mineralization occurred in Jiaodong in the middle and late Early Cretaceous