Development of an urban FEW nexus online analyzer to support urban circular economy strategy planning

Growth of urban population around the world and, particularly, within urban areas, has placed various pressing challenges on Food, Energy, and Water (FEW) such as food security, water safety as well as energy scarcity and so on. Current studies on urban FEW nexus are mainly focused on the correlation analysis of elements by pairs, while these works are developed separately. With respect to the methods, the existing researches mostly adopt the bottom-up approach, accounting for the direct relationship between the individual production sectors. While the associations between the internal elements of the system still lack of simulation. In this study, we aim at developing an online open access tool for cities, the Urban Circular Economy Calculator (UCEC), which enables to develop different circular economy scenarios associated to FEW management. UCEC v1.0 uses Beijing data as test case. In particular, more than 20 circular economy policies related on food, energy and water are selected and divided into 6 categories. Long-term simulations on the social, economic and environmental impacts are provided to test the trajectories of policy effects. Being an open access tool, UCEC can be used also for supporting participatory processes as an urban management instrument. The solution is economically and financially feasible, due to the low level of technical requirements. The necessity of such a tool is proved by the societal need of transition toward a low-carbon and sustainable framework, which can be effectively supported by the introduction of circular economy. This transition, such as the idea behind UCEC, should preserve (or even improve) the societal wellbeing, while increasing basic resources (i.e.: FEW) accessibility, security and preservation

Design of a Broadband Inverted Conical Quadrifilar Helix Antenna

This paper introduces the design of a broadband inverted conical circularly polarized quadrifilar helix antenna (QHA). The antenna has many good characteristics, including wide beam and broad bandwidth, which are achieved by utilizing inverted conical geometry and adjusting the dimensions of the inverted conical support. The antenna is fed by a wideband network to provide 90° phase difference between the four arms with constant amplitude. The antenna impedance and axial ratio bandwidth values are more than 39% and 31.5%, respectively. The measured results coincide well with the simulated ones, which verified the effectiveness of the proposed design

Forecast of Power Grid Investment Scale Based on Support Vector Machine

Economic transformation creates a new environment for grid investment. In the situation of high quality development, the traditional investment scale prediction model is no longer applicable. Aiming at the problems of single parameter of grid-driven investment scale prediction model and poor linear fitting accuracy, a provincial medium- and long-term investment scale prediction model based on support vector machine was proposed. Aiming at the single parameter and poor line fitting accuracy of the grid-driven investment scale prediction model under the new situation, the new environment, new directions and new requirements for grid investment are analyzed. Based on the support vector machine algorithm, a medium-and long-term investment scale prediction model for provincial grids based on support vector machines is proposed. The scale of provincial grid investment is expected from 2019 to 2022. The empirical results show that the prediction model constructed in this paper is effective and feasible. It is of great significance to explore the prediction model of medium and long-term investment scale of power grid enterprises in the new situation

Development of an urban household food-energy-water policy nexus dynamic simulator

Increasing pressure from population growth and climate change has placed various challenges to urban systems concerning the sustainable supply and use of food, energy and water. To achieve the synergistic and sustainable management of food, energy and water demand, the inter-linkages between the three subsystems should be explored. Taking Beijing as the case study reproducible in a like manner for other urban systems, this research aims to develop a household Food-Energy-Water (FEW) nexus dynamic model to explore the influence of various factors on the end-uses. Three main innovation points are included in this research. Firstly, long-term simulations from 2010 to 2050 can be provided in this model to quantitatively estimate climate change potential under possible management strategies. Secondly, three different levels of influencing factors of household resource consumption are included in this model at the same time, including individual level (behaviors), household level (appliances) and government level (resource prices). Thirdly, multiple scenarios combinations are analyzed in this research. The results demonstrate the complex interconnections among the household food-energy-water uses. What’ more, short-term effects, lag effects as well as lock-in effects can influence the policy effectiveness, so that policy combinations or complements are needed to enhance the effects

Development of an Urban Household Food-Energy-Water Policy Nexus Dynamic Simulator

Increasing pressure from population growth and climate change has placed various challenges to urban systems concerning the sustainable supply and use of food, energy and water. To achieve the synergistic and sustainable management of food, energy and water demand, the inter-linkages between the three subsystems should be explored. Taking Beijing as the case study reproducible in a like manner for other urban systems, this research aims to develop a household Food-Energy-Water (FEW) nexus dynamic model to explore the influence of various factors on the end-uses. Three main innovation points are included in this research. Firstly, long-term simulations from 2010 to 2050 can be provided in this model to quantitatively estimate climate change potential under possible management strategies. Secondly, three different levels of influencing factors of household resource consumption are included in this model at the same time, including individual level (behaviors), household level (appliances) and government level (resource prices). Thirdly, multiple scenarios combinations are analyzed in this research. The results demonstrate the complex interconnections among the household food-energy-water uses. What’s more, short term effects, lag effects as well as lock-in effects can influence the policy effectiveness, so that policy combinations or complements are needed to enhance the effects

Prediction of clinical response to neoadjuvant therapy in advanced breast cancer by baseline B-mode ultrasound, shear-wave elastography, and pathological information

BackgroundNeoadjuvant therapy (NAT) is the preferred treatment for advanced breast cancer nowadays. The early prediction of its responses is important for personalized treatment. This study aimed at using baseline shear wave elastography (SWE) ultrasound combined with clinical and pathological information to predict the clinical response to therapy in advanced breast cancer.MethodsThis retrospective study included 217 patients with advanced breast cancer who were treated in West China Hospital of Sichuan University from April 2020 to June 2022. The features of ultrasonic images were collected according to the Breast imaging reporting and data system (BI-RADS), and the stiffness value was measured at the same time. The changes were measured according to the Response evaluation criteria in solid tumors (RECIST1.1) by MRI and clinical situation. The relevant indicators of clinical response were obtained through univariate analysis and incorporated into a logistic regression analysis to establish the prediction model. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to evaluate the performance of the prediction models.ResultsAll patients were divided into a test set and a validation set in a 7:3 ratio. A total of 152 patients in the test set, with 41 patients (27.00%) in the non-responders group and 111 patients (73.00%) in the responders group, were finally included in this study. Among all unitary and combined mode models, the Pathology + B-mode + SWE model performed best, with the highest AUC of 0.808 (accuracy 72.37%, sensitivity 68.47%, specificity 82.93%, P<0.001). HER2+, Skin invasion, Post mammary space invasion, Myometrial invasion and Emax were the factors with a significant predictive value (P<0.05). 65 patients were used as an external validation set. There was no statistical difference in ROC between the test set and the validation set (P>0.05).ConclusionAs the non-invasive imaging biomarkers, baseline SWE ultrasound combined with clinical and pathological information can be used to predict the clinical response to therapy in advanced breast cancer

Construction and demolition waste in the Metropolitan City of Naples, Italy: state of the art, circular design, and sustainable planning opportunities

This study deals with the perspective of circular economy (CE) transition in the Construction and Demolition Waste Management (C&DWM) system of the Metropolitan City of Naples (Italy). It assesses the current building materials stored in the existing buildings and C&DW generation, composition and management, by means of public databases, i-Tree Canopy software and SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats). The final goal is to provide useful feedbacks to the city Administration and stakeholders to increase and improve the management of existing C&DW flows. The statistical database and the use of i-Tree Canopy for geographical assessment point out a large amount of building materials stocked in the existing buildings and potentially available, while results of the SWOT analysis, combined with TOWS matrix, show that the transition to CE in the C&DW management systems in the Metropolitan City of Naples still is at an early stage due to several weaknesses. The latter regard the lack of demand for recycled products, the lack of data in the end-of-life stage of recycling, and the presence of a high fraction of mixed C&DW reflecting the low adoption of reduction measures on C&D sites. Solutions are proposed with the purpose of better realigning the C&DWM system according to the CE principles as well as to increased sustainability

Understanding of Hormonal Regulation in Rice Seed Germination

Seed germination is a critical stage during the life cycle of plants. It is well known that germination is regulated by a series of internal and external factors, especially plant hormones. In Arabidopsis, many germination-related factors have been identified, while in rice, the important crop and monocot model species and the further molecular mechanisms and regulatory networks controlling germination still need to be elucidated. Hormonal signals, especially those of abscisic acid (ABA) and gibberellin (GA), play a dominant role in determining whether a seed germinates or not. The balance between the content and sensitivity of these two hormones is the key to the regulation of germination. In this review, we present the foundational knowledge of ABA and GA pathways obtained from germination research in Arabidopsis. Then, we highlight the current advances in the identification of the regulatory genes involved in ABA- or GA-mediated germination in rice. Furthermore, other plant hormones regulate seed germination, most likely by participating in the ABA or GA pathways. Finally, the results from some regulatory layers, including transcription factors, post-transcriptional regulations, and reactive oxygen species, are also discussed. This review aims to summarize our current understanding of the complex molecular networks involving the key roles of plant hormones in regulating the seed germination of rice

Clinical and genetic characteristics of Chinese patients with familial or sporadic pediatric cataract

Abstract Background Pediatric cataract is a clinically and genetically heterogeneous disease which is a significant cause of lifelong visual impairment and treatable blindness. Our study aims to investigate the genotype spectrum in a group of Chinese patients with pediatric cataract. Methods We enrolled 39 families with pediatric cataract from October 2015 to April 2016. DNA samples of the probands were analyzed by target next-generation sequencing. Variants were validated using Sanger sequencing in the probands and available family members. Results In our cohort of 39 cases with different types of pediatric cataract, 23 cases were found to harbor putative pathogenic variants in 15 genes: CRYAA, CRYBA1, CRYBA4, CRYBB1, CRYGC, CRYGD, MIP, GCNT2, IARS2, NHS, BCOR, BFSP2, FYCO1, MAF, and PAX6. The mutation detection rates in the familial and sporadic cases were 75 and 47.8%, respectively. Of the 23 causative variants, over half were novel. Conclusions This is a rare report of systematic mutation screening analysis of pediatric cataract in a comparably large cohort of Chinese patients. Our observations enrich the mutation spectrum of pediatric cataract. Next-generation sequencing provides significant diagnostic information for pediatric cataract cases, especially when considering sporadic and subtle syndromal cases

RDON: A rack-scale disaggregated data center network based on a distributed fast optical switch

Aiming to solve the low utilization and high operational cost in current data centers and the diversified resource requirements for different application types, we propose and investigate what we believe to be a novel rack-scale disaggregated optical data center network (RDON). Different types of hardware resources (i.e., CPU, memory, and storage) are deployed in standalone resource pools of the RDON. The RDON architecture encompasses nanosecond distributed fast optical switches for the low latency and high bandwidth interconnects between the computing and memory nodes, while electrical packet switches are utilized to support the traffic of latency insensitivity and low bandwidth between memory nodes and storage nodes. By replacing the onboard data bus with a network interconnection, RDON architecture can provide a fine granularity hardware resource and relieve the constraints of server-centric architecture. To assess the performance of the RDON under realistic scenarios, statistics of diverse applications are captured from the data center lab. The RDON is modeled based on the OMNeT++ discrete event simulator and compared with the server-centric architecture. Numerical results show that the performance of the RDON is closely coupled with the type of deployed application. Compared to the server-centric architecture, the RDON can achieve up to {2.44\times}2.44× faster running time when running a single application, whereas at most {2.25\times}2.25× is the fastest running time under coexisting diverse types of applications. Finally, the analysis of costs and power consumption show that, with respect to server-centric architecture, the RDON requires 21.5% extra capital cost but 46.7% less power consumption