Dynamic modelling for ecological and economic sustainability in a rapid urbanizing region

AbstractRecently years, most of China's rapidly developed regions are becoming China's large industrial cities and drawing the attention of the world. Consequently, the impacts of rapid urbanization to urban ecosystem will be greatly increased with the increasing economic development. If relationship between economic development and ecological sustainability is not fully realized, urban ecosystem will be degraded at a high rate. Therefore, study on ecological and economic sustainability for this area is of great importance. The objectives of this study are: (1) to find a balance between economic development and ecological protection in these regions; (2) to develop a process-based ecological and economic sustainable development model; (3) to supply the optimal controls for these reigns by conducting a policy analysis. To this end, a system dynamic model for urban sustainable development was constructed. The model was based on the analysis of many index and three subsystems, which are society system, economic system, and environmental system. We also selected typical development policies for a rapidly urbanizing region, Tianjin, in the future

Nanoparticle-Induced Unusual Melting and Solidification Behaviours of Metals

Effective control of melting and solidification behaviours of materials is significant for numerous applications. It has been a long-standing challenge to increase the melted zone (MZ) depth while shrinking the heat-affected zone (HAZ) size during local melting and solidification of materials. In this paper, nanoparticle-induced unusual melting and solidification behaviours of metals are reported that effectively solve this long-time dilemma. By introduction of Al(2)O(3) nanoparticles, the MZ depth of Ni is increased by 68%, while the corresponding HAZ size is decreased by 67% in laser melting at a pulse energy of 0.18 mJ. The addition of SiC nanoparticles shows similar results. The discovery of the unusual melting and solidification of materials that contain nanoparticles will not only have impacts on existing melting and solidification manufacturing processes, such as laser welding and additive manufacturing, but also on other applications such as pharmaceutical processing and energy storage

Experimental Study and Finite Element Analysis of Critical Stresses of Reinforced Thermoplastic Pipes under Various Loads

In this paper, reinforced thermoplastic pipes (RTP) were studied under various loads. A total of five groups of specimens were designed to study the mechanical properties of RTPs under internal pressure, bending, a combination of internal pressure and bending moment, external pressure, and tension. This study obtained the bursting pressure of RTPs under internal pressure, the minimum bending radius under the bending moment, and the failure pressure under external pressure. At the same time, the mechanical properties of RTPs under various loads were analyzed using the finite element analysis. Analytical results agree well with the experimental ones. The finite element model established in this paper can be used for further research on the mechanical properties of RTPs

Dimensional Crossover in the Effective Second Harmonic Generation of Films of Random Dielectrics

The effective nonlinear response of films of random composites consisting of a binary composite with nonlinear particles randomly embedded in a linear host is theoretically and numerically studied. A theoretical expression for the effective second harmonic generation susceptibility, incorporating the thickness of the film, is obtained by combining a modified effective-medium approximation with the general expression for the effective second harmonic generation susceptibility in a composite. The validity of the thoretical results is tested against results obtained by numerical simulations on random resistor networks. Numerical results are found to be well described by our theory. The result implies that the effective-medium approximation provides a convenient way for the estimation of the nonlinear response in films of random dielectrics.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures; accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

Size-resolved and bulk activation properties of aerosols in the North China Plain

Size-resolved and bulk activation properties of aerosols were measured at a regional/suburban site in the North China Plain (NCP), which is occasionally heavily polluted by anthropogenic aerosol particles and gases. A Cloud Condensation Nuclei (CCN) closure study is conducted with bulk CCN number concentration (NCCN) and calculated CCN number concentration based on the aerosol number size distribution and size-resolved activation properties. The observed CCN number concentration (NCCN-obs) are higher than those observed in other locations than China, with average NCCN-obs of roughly 2000, 3000, 6000, 10 000 and 13 000 cm−3 at supersaturations of 0.056, 0.083, 0.17, 0.35 and 0.70%, respectively. An inferred critical dry diameter (Dm) is calculated based on the NCCN-obs and aerosol number size distribution assuming homogeneous chemical composition. The inferred cut-off diameters are in the ranges of 190–280, 160–260, 95–180, 65–120 and 50–100 nm at supersaturations of 0.056, 0.083, 0.17, 0.35 and 0.7%, with their mean values 230.1, 198.4, 128.4, 86.4 and 69.2 nm, respectively. Size-resolved activation measurements show that most of the 300 nm particles are activated at the investigated supersaturations, while almost no particles of 30 nm are activated even at the highest supersaturation of 0.72%. The activation ratio increases with increasing supersaturation and particle size. The slopes of the activation curves for ambient aerosols are not as steep as those observed in calibrations with ammonium sulfate suggesting that the observed aerosols is an external mixture of more hygroscopic and hydrophobic particles. The calculated CCN number concentrations (NCCN-calc) based on the size-resolved activation ratio and aerosol number size distribution correlate well with the NCCN-obs, and show an average overestimation of 19%. Sensitivity studies of the CCN closure show that the NCCN at each supersaturation is well predicted with the campaign average of size-resolved activation curves. These results indicate that the aerosol number size distribution is critical in the prediction of possible CCN. The CCN number concentration can be reliably estimated using time-averaged, size-resolved activation efficiencies without accounting for the temporal variations

Mass measurements of neutron-deficient Y, Zr, and Nb isotopes and their impact on rp and νp nucleosynthesis processes

© 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This manuscript is made available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). For further details please see: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Using isochronous mass spectrometry at the experimental storage ring CSRe in Lanzhou, the masses of 82Zr and 84Nb were measured for the first time with an uncertainty of ∼10 keV, and the masses of 79Y, 81Zr, and 83Nb were re-determined with a higher precision. The latter are significantly less bound than their literature values. Our new and accurate masses remove the irregularities of the mass surface in this region of the nuclear chart. Our results do not support the predicted island of pronounced low α separation energies for neutron-deficient Mo and Tc isotopes, making the formation of Zr–Nb cycle in the rp-process unlikely. The new proton separation energy of 83Nb was determined to be 490(400) keV smaller than that in the Atomic Mass Evaluation 2012. This partly removes the overproduction of the p-nucleus 84Sr relative to the neutron-deficient molybdenum isotopes in the previous νp-process simulations.Peer reviewe

Structure of Schlafen13 reveals a new class of tRNA/rRNA- targeting RNase engaged in translational control

Cleavage of transfer (t)RNA and ribosomal (r)RNA are critical and conserved steps of translational control for cells to overcome varied environmental stresses. However, enzymes that are responsible for this event have not been fully identified in high eukaryotes. Here, we report a mammalian tRNA/rRNA-targeting endoribonuclease: SLFN13, a member of the Schlafen family. Structural study reveals a unique pseudo-dimeric U-pillow-shaped architecture of the SLFN13 N'-domain that may clamp base-paired RNAs. SLFN13 is able to digest tRNAs and rRNAs in vitro, and the endonucleolytic cleavage dissevers 11 nucleotides from the 3'-terminus of tRNA at the acceptor stem. The cytoplasmically localised SLFN13 inhibits protein synthesis in 293T cells. Moreover, SLFN13 restricts HIV replication in a nucleolytic activity-dependent manner. According to these observations, we term SLFN13 RNase S13. Our study provides insights into the modulation of translational machinery in high eukaryotes, and sheds light on the functional mechanisms of the Schlafen family

Measurements of the Mass and Full-Width of the ηc\eta_c Meson

In a sample of 58 million $J/\psi$ events collected with the BES II detector, the process J/$\psi\to\gamma\eta_c$ is observed in five different decay channels: $\gamma K^+K^-\pi^+\pi^-$, $\gamma\pi^+\pi^-\pi^+\pi^-$, $\gamma K^\pm K^0_S \pi^\mp$ (with $K^0_S\to\pi^+\pi^-$), $\gamma \phi\phi$ (with $\phi\to K^+K^-$) and $\gamma p\bar{p}$. From a combined fit of all five channels, we determine the mass and full-width of $\eta_c$ to be $m_{\eta_c}=2977.5\pm1.0 ({stat.})\pm1.2 ({syst.})$ MeV/$c^2$ and $\Gamma_{\eta_c} = 17.0\pm3.7 ({stat.})\pm7.4 ({syst.})$ MeV/$c^2$.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures and 4 table. Submitted to Phys. Lett.

A Measurement of Psi(2S) Resonance Parameters

Cross sections for e+e- to hadons, pi+pi- J/Psi, and mu+mu- have been measured in the vicinity of the Psi(2S) resonance using the BESII detector operated at the BEPC. The Psi(2S) total width; partial widths to hadrons, pi+pi- J/Psi, muons; and corresponding branching fractions have been determined to be Gamma(total)= (264+-27) keV; Gamma(hadron)= (258+-26) keV, Gamma(mu)= (2.44+-0.21) keV, and Gamma(pi+pi- J/Psi)= (85+-8.7) keV; and Br(hadron)= (97.79+-0.15)%, Br(pi+pi- J/Psi)= (32+-1.4)%, Br(mu)= (0.93+-0.08)%, respectively.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figure

Measurements of J/psi Decays into 2(pi+pi-)eta and 3(pi+pi-)eta

Based on a sample of 5.8X 10^7 J/psi events taken with the BESII detector, the branching fractions of J/psi--> 2(pi+pi-)eta and J/psi-->3(pi+pi-)eta are measured for the first time to be (2.26+-0.08+-0.27)X10^{-3} and (7.24+-0.96+-1.11)X10^{-4}, respectively.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figure