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Measures to enforce mandatory civil building energy efficiency codes in China
Mandatory civil building energy efficiency codes strictly govern the energy consumption of new buildings in China. As the promotion of building energy efficiency in China has increased in recent years, compliance with mandatory civil building energy efficiency codes has also improved, increasing from less than 10% in 2000 to nearly 100% in 2012, a remarkable achievement. However, because the promotion of energy efficiency strategies in China has followed a unique pattern, some researchers doubt these statistics. In response to these doubts, this paper summarises and analyses the framework of measures implemented by the Chinese government to enforce mandatory building energy efficiency codes. First, the development and implementation of China's mandatory civil building energy efficiency code system is summarised. Second, the building supervision and inspection systems used to assess energy efficiency are introduced and analysed in detail in order to provide a framework for the development of energy policies in other countries. Third, the assessment and reporting processes used to determine compliance rates are reviewed. Finally, the improvement of compliance rates and its impact on building energy savings in China are discussed. Along with the increase in compliance rates in the construction stage from 71% in 2007 to 100% in 2012, the energy savings of new buildings per increased floor area per year increased from 20.4 kWh/m2 to 28.4 kWh/m2. The supervision and inspection systems reported in this paper are the keys to enforcing building energy efficiency codes
Grain boundary space charge effect in Zirconia
According to the space charge concept, oxygen vacancies are depleted in the grain boundary space charge layers of acceptor-doped ZrO2; whereas electrons are expected to accumulate in the space charge layers if present, leading to significant changes in the grain boundary electrical properties. In this work, electrons were introduced to 8 mol % TiO2 and 7.36 mol % Y2O3-codoped ZrO2 by annealing in the mixture of 2% H-2-Ar; as a result, the grain boundary arc disappeared, and the electrical conductivities increased considerably, especially for the sample with finer grain size. Both phenomena suggest highly conductive grain boundaries resulting from the accumulation of electrons in the space charge layers. (C) 2003 The Electrochemical Society
Recurrent Coronal Jets Induced by Repetitively Accumulated Electric Currents
Three extreme-ultraviolet (EUV) jets recurred in about one hour on 2010
September 17 in the following magnetic polarity of active region 11106. The EUV
jets were observed by the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) on board the Solar
Dynamics Observatory (SDO). The Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) on board
SDO measured the vector magnetic field, from which we derive the magnetic flux
evolution, the photospheric velocity field, and the vertical electric current
evolution. The magnetic configuration before the jets is derived by the
nonlinear force-free field (NLFFF) extrapolation.
We derive that the jets are above a pair of parasitic magnetic bipoles which
are continuously driven by photospheric diverging flows. The interaction drove
the build up of electric currents that we indeed observed as elongated patterns
at the photospheric level. For the first time, the high temporal cadence of HMI
allows to follow the evolution of such small currents. In the jet region, we
found that the integrated absolute current peaks repetitively in phase with the
171 A flux evolution. The current build up and its decay are both fast, about
10 minutes each, and the current maximum precedes the 171 A by also about 10
minutes. Then, HMI temporal cadence is marginally fast enough to detect such
changes.
The photospheric current pattern of the jets is found associated to the
quasi-separatrix layers deduced from the magnetic extrapolation. From previous
theoretical results, the observed diverging flows are expected to build
continuously such currents. We conclude that magnetic reconnection occurs
periodically, in the current layer created between the emerging bipoles and the
large scale active region field. It induced the observed recurrent coronal jets
and the decrease of the vertical electric current magnitude.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in A&
Understanding the white-light flare on 2012 March 9 : Evidence of a two-step magnetic reconnection
We attempt to understand the white-light flare (WLF) that was observed on
2012 March 9 with a newly constructed multi-wavelength solar telescope called
the Optical and Near-infrared Solar Eruption Tracer (ONSET). We analyzed WLF
observations in radio, H-alpha, white-light, ultraviolet, and X-ray bands. We
also studied the magnetic configuration of the flare via the nonlinear
force-free field (NLFFF) extrapolation and the vector magnetic field observed
by the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) on board the Solar Dynamics
Observatory (SDO). Continuum emission enhancement clearly appeared at the 3600
angstrom and 4250 angstrom bands, with peak contrasts of 25% and 12%,
respectively. The continuum emission enhancement closely coincided with the
impulsive increase in the hard X-ray emission and a microwave type III burst at
03:40 UT. We find that the WLF appeared at one end of either the sheared or
twisted field lines or both. There was also a long-lasting phase in the H-alpha
and soft X-ray bands after the white-light emission peak. In particular, a
second, yet stronger, peak appeared at 03:56 UT in the microwave band. This
event shows clear evidence that the white-light emission was caused by
energetic particles bombarding the lower solar atmosphere. A two-step magnetic
reconnection scenario is proposed to explain the entire process of flare
evolution, i.e., the first-step magnetic reconnection between the field lines
that are highly sheared or twisted or both, and the second-step one in the
current sheet, which is stretched by the erupting flux rope. The WLF is
supposed to be triggered in the first-step magnetic reconnection at a
relatively low altitude.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, published in A&A Lette
Bichromatic field generation from double-four-wave mixing in a double-electromagnetically induced transparency system
We demonstrate the double electromagnetically induced transparency
(double-EIT) and double four-wave mixing (double-FWM) based on a new scheme of
non-degenerate four-wave mixing (FWM) involving five levels of a cold 85Rb
atomic ensemble, in which the double-EIT windows are used to transmit the probe
field and enhance the third-order nonlinear susceptibility. The phase-matching
conditions for both four-wave mixings could be satisfied simultaneously. The
frequency of one component of the generated bichromatic field is less than the
other by the ground-state hyperfine splitting (3GHz). This specially designed
experimental scheme for simultaneously generating different nonlinear
wave-mixing processes is expected to find applications in quantum information
processing and cross phase modulation. Our results agree well with the
theoretical simulation.Comment: Accepted by NJ
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