Research by Infrastructural Design: Systems thinking from the perspective of thermodynamics

Smog has contributed largely to the environmental problems of many cities in China. On the other hand, China has gone through a period of rapid infrastructure growth in the urbanisation process. People have noticed the potential of infrastructure in mega-cities as part of the built environment, and the paper presents three infrastructure-oriented proposals from a summer school project named “Design against Smog: Air through the Lens of Thermodynamic Architecture” which aims to deal with the problems in Lujiazui area of Shanghai. The proposals show their systems thinking on urban functions, use different types of infrastructure as bridges to connect the air to urban activities and give their possible strategies for purifying smog

A comparative study of short-term efficacy and safety for thyroid micropapillary carcinoma patients after microwave ablation or surgery.

Background: Although papillary thyroid microcarcinoma (PTMC) has a high incidence and excellent clinical outcome, debate continues as to the therapeutic approach that would be most appropriate after confirming the diagnosis. Methods: We retrospectively analyzed the medical records of 311 patients with T1aN0M0 PTMC between January 2013 and September 2018. In all, 168 underwent microwave ablation (MWA), and 143 underwent surgery. MWA was performed using extensive ablation with hydrodissection. The surgery comprised thyroid lobectomy (TL) with unilateral central lymph node dissection (CND). We examined clinical outcomes during mean follow-up periods of 824 ± 452 days for the TL group and 753 ± 520 days for the MWA group. Results: Postprocedural follow-up revealed that, in the MWA group, the tumors had completely disappeared in 34 patients, and the remainder were reduced to necrotic or carbonized tissue. The incidence of transient hypoparathyroidism was significantly lower in the MWA group than in the TL group (p \u3c .001). In addition, during the follow-up, we found no statistically significant differences between the two groups (TL vs MWA) for PTMC recurrence (1 vs 2 cases), lymph node metastasis (5 vs 5 cases), or disease-free survival [2001 days (5.5 years) vs 1702 days (4.7 years)] (p = .659, p = .795, and p = .974, respectively). Conclusions: If low-risk thyroid carcinoma (i.e., T1N0M0 PTMC) is accurately diagnosed early, MWA could be a minimally invasive alternative to surgery based on our short-term follow-up regarding recurrence and the low rates of complications and disease-free survival

Energy simulation and integration at the early stage of architectural design

This paper mainly focuses on the architectural design method of integrating energy simulation into the early design stage. This is a topic of great importance since there exist a series of deficiencies in current workflow, which is often referred to as the “retrospective checking calculation”. The paper first examines the characteristics of the early stage of design, which incorporates phasing feature, iterative nature, decisive impact, and uncertainties in the literature review. The significance of the integration is discussed in the following section that expresses the purpose and objective of the study. Then, this paper goes on to talk about the methodology and workflow of the integrative design method. Finally, the early design process of the Student Recreation Center of Tongji University in Jiading Campus in Shanghai is provided with a simulation tool EPC (Energy Performance Calculator) and its derivative features in order to show how the integrative method is applied

Form Follows Environmental Energy: Ecological Heat In Contemporary Vernacular Architecture

The aesthetic of architecture changes with the history, and its evolution is a dynamic, humane and regional process. The contemporary China is in the double transition periods of traditional and modern, modern and postmodern, therefore the value of architecture lost its order caused by the overlapping and conflicting of different values in different periods, either external “image” or intrinsic “meaning”, are in a state of disorder. With the advent of modernization, traditional architecture seems to be gradually forgotten and abandoned. However, many traditional villages still circulate the environmental wisdom that contemporary architects still use in their designs. Most of the traditional houses all over the world use local building material, make full use of renewable energy, using the natural energy of natural climate actively such as light, heat, wind to adapt to the climate environment, with good adaptability to the local climate, topography and, is a model of passive building technology. This article attempts from Three angles to explore, which are the diagram and theory, simulation software, and environment measurement of Chinese traditional village. Through the above research, we try to find the coupling between traditional local-style dwelling houses and modern residence in the design

Life Cycle Carbon Emission Assessment of Building Refurbishment: A Case Study of Zero-Carbon Pavilion in Shanghai Yangpu Riverside

Life cycle building carbon assessment can promote the development of carbon emission reduction. The main difficulties in the process of assessment are the boundary selection and inventory collection, especially when carbon emission assessment is needed in the early stage of design and construction, or when the calculation relates to disposal and refurbishment. It is significant to make full and rational use of design documents, standard documents, and related software. This paper focuses on the life cycle carbon emission assessment of building refurbishment. It explores the carbon emission assessment methodologies and procedures in every phase of the building life cycle, taking a zero-carbon pavilion refurbishment project as a case study. This case study is located in the Shanghai Yangpu Riverside Park, refurbished from an existing hydrologic monitoring building. The carbon emission reduction potential of renovation and the solar photovoltaic system applied in the building are analyzed. The data was collected referring to architectural design documents and related standards. The energy consumption during the operational phase is simulated using DesignBuilder. The life-cycle carbon emission per floor area of the existing building renovation scenario is 2.39 t, and the new building scenario is 2.69 t, which are both at a low level among other cases. The refurbished existing building saves nearly one-third of the carbon dioxide emissions during the construction phase compared to new construction. The application of a photovoltaic system also saves one-third of energy consumption and carbon emissions during the operational phase

Life Cycle Carbon Emission Assessment of Building Refurbishment: A Case Study of Zero-Carbon Pavilion in Shanghai Yangpu Riverside

Life cycle building carbon assessment can promote the development of carbon emission reduction. The main difficulties in the process of assessment are the boundary selection and inventory collection, especially when carbon emission assessment is needed in the early stage of design and construction, or when the calculation relates to disposal and refurbishment. It is significant to make full and rational use of design documents, standard documents, and related software. This paper focuses on the life cycle carbon emission assessment of building refurbishment. It explores the carbon emission assessment methodologies and procedures in every phase of the building life cycle, taking a zero-carbon pavilion refurbishment project as a case study. This case study is located in the Shanghai Yangpu Riverside Park, refurbished from an existing hydrologic monitoring building. The carbon emission reduction potential of renovation and the solar photovoltaic system applied in the building are analyzed. The data was collected referring to architectural design documents and related standards. The energy consumption during the operational phase is simulated using DesignBuilder. The life-cycle carbon emission per floor area of the existing building renovation scenario is 2.39 t, and the new building scenario is 2.69 t, which are both at a low level among other cases. The refurbished existing building saves nearly one-third of the carbon dioxide emissions during the construction phase compared to new construction. The application of a photovoltaic system also saves one-third of energy consumption and carbon emissions during the operational phase

Limit analysis approach for accessing stability of three-dimensional (3-D) slopes reinforced with piles

The stabilization of slopes by placing piles is one of the most innovative and effective slope reinforcement techniques in the coastal engineering in recent years. Due to the simplicity and efficiency, limit analysis method is the most common approach for assessing the stability of slopes. However, the majority of existing limit analysis methods is limited to slope without the presence of piles. In this technical note, a novel upper-bound limit analysis method was proposed to access the stability of three-dimensional slopes reinforced with piles incorporating the admissible rotational failure mechanism where toe failure, face failure, and base failure were taken into account. The effects of key designing parameters, e.g., pile location, pile spacing, slope angle, slope width on the stability of earth slopes, and geometry of critical slip surface were presented and discussed. The results demonstrate that the proposed approach is more appropriate for assessing the stability of slopes reinforced with piles and can be also utilized in the design of piles stabilizing the unstable slopes

Three-dimensional transient stability of slopes during pile driving using upper-bound limit analysis

A 3D rotational failure model for calculating the transient stability of a slope during pile driving was established based on the upper-bound limit analysis. The influences of the pile driving force and the lateral force between pile and soil on the slope stability were considered. The variation of the anti-slide safety factor of the slope during pile driving was analyzed in detail through examples. The parametric studies were carried out to explore the effects of pile diameter, pile location and slope angle on the anti-slide safety factor of the slope. The results demonstrate that the pile driving leads to a steady decrease of the safety factor during the earlier stage of pile driving and the safety factor increases significantly because of the anti-sliding effect of the pile body after the end of pile reaching the sliding surface. The greater the pile diameter is, the lower the safety factor is and the faster it drops during the earlier stage of pile driving. The closer to the top of the slope the pile location is, the faster the safety factor decreases and the lower the safety factor of the most dangerous depth is. The safety factor decreases dramatically with the increase of the slope angle during the whole process of pile driving

The effect of iron dextran on vitamin D3 metabolism in SD rats

Abstract Background Iron and vitamin D (VD) is essential to health. Previous studies have shown that iron homeostasis has a potential effect on VD metabolism, but the mechanism is not fully understood. Objectives To explore the relationship between VD metabolism and iron metabolism, as well as the regulatory mechanism of iron on VD metabolism. Methods 40 male rats were fed adaptively for 7 days and randomly divided into control (C, n = 6 normal diet) group and model (M, n = 24 iron deficient diet) by simple randomization, the latter was used to establish iron deficiency anemia (IDA) model. After 6 weeks of feeding, the M group was randomly divided into: iron deficiency group (DFe), low iron group (LFe), medium iron group (MFe) and high iron group (HFe) by block randomization. Different doses of iron dextran (based on iron content (100 g·bw·d)): 0, 1.1, 3.3 and 9.9 mg) were given respectively. After 4 weeks, the rats were anesthetized with 8% chloral hydrate, Blood (collected from the abdominal aorta), liver and kidney tissues were collected. The serum and tissues were separately packed and frozen at -80℃ for testing. Results The results showed that the levels of hemoglobin (Hb), red blood cell (RBC), serum iron (SI), liver iron, and kidney iron in DFe group were lower than those in the other four groups, while the levels of total iron-binding capacity (TIBC), transferrin (TF) and transferrin receptor (Tfr) in DFe group were higher than those in other groups; The serum levels of 25-(OH)D3 and 1,25-(OH)2D3 in DFe group were significantly lower than those in C group (P < 0.05). The correlation analysis showed that the levels of 25-(OH)D3 and 1,25-(OH)2D3 were negatively correlated with TIBC, TF and Tfr no correlation with SI. Western blotting, immunofluorescence, and q-PCR results showed that compared with C group, the protein and gene expressions of CYP2R1, CYP27A1, and CYP24A1 in DFe group were down-regulated, and the expression of CYP27B1 protein and gene was up-regulated in DFe group. Conclusion Iron may be involved in the metabolism of VD3 by regulating the expression of VD3 hydroxylase, suggesting that appropriate iron supplementation might promote the activation of VD3