Revealing the impacts of passive cooling techniques on building energy performance: A residential case in Hong Kong

Environmental concerns and growing energy costs raise the importance of sustainable development and energy conservation. The building sector accounts for a significant portion of total energy consumption. Passive cooling techniques provide a promising and cost-efficient solution to reducing the energy demand of buildings. Based on a typical residential case in Hong Kong, this study aims to analyze the integration of various passive cooling techniques on annual and hourly building energy demand with whole building simulation. The results indicate that infiltration and insulation improvement are effective in regard to energy conservation in buildings, while the effectiveness of variations in building orientation, increasing natural ventilation rate, and phase change materials (PCM) are less significant. The findings will be helpful in the passive house standard development in Hong Kong and contribute to the further optimization work to realize both energy efficiency and favorably built environments in residential buildings.</jats:p

Inhibition of bacterial adhesion to HT-29 cells by lipoteichoic acid extracted from Clostridium butyricum

The aim of this experiment was to study the effect of the lipoteichoic acid (LTA) extracted from Clostridium butyricum on the adhesion of C. butyricum and Escherichia coli to HT-29 human intestinal cells. The method of extraction of lipoteichoic acid form C. butyricum by TX114 was evaluated. The purification of the LTA by DEAE-cellulose 52 anion exchange chromatography was also investigated. In addition, the LTA was assayed for its inhibition of the adhesion of C. butyricum and E. coli to HT-29 cells and antimicrobial activity. Our results showed that LTA could be extracted by TX114 and purified by DEAE-cellulose 52 anion exchange chromatography and could inhibit the adhesion of C. butyricum and E. coli to HT-29 cells. This result also revealed that the LTA from C. butyricum could inhibit the adhesion of C. butyricum and E. coli to intestinal cells.Key words: Lipoteichoic acid, Clostridium butyricum, HT-29 cells, adhesion, Escherichia col

Exploring the "energy-saving personality traits" in the office and household situation: An empirical study

Behavior-driven energy conservation has been a promising strategy for reducing building energy consumption as well as carbon emissions. With the intention of revealing the impacts of an individual’s personality basis on energy conservation behavioral attitudes and intentions in households and offices, the present study proposes and conducts an experiment in Xi’an, China with two groups for the investigation of such attitudes towards household energy-saving behavior (HESB) and office energy-saving behavior (OESB), respectively. The research adopts structural equation modeling for experiment data analysis. The analysis results suggest that the two personality traits, Agreeableness and Neuroticism, are significantly related to both HESB and OESB attitudes. Especially, agreeable people tend to present stronger energy-saving attitudes, while individuals with higher Neuroticism are less likely to do so. The results indicate that the impacts of these two traits on energy-saving attitude are found to be less influenced by different environment settings. Further, the results find that Extraversion positively influences energy-saving attitude in the office environment, while Openness only significantly works in the household environment. It is hoped that the findings of the present study can provide informative references to energy-saving intervention design as well as further studies on the spillover of pro-environmental behaviors.</jats:p

Thermal evolution history after collision of North China plate with Yangtze plate

对采自苏北一胶南一大别高压变质构造混杂岩带的片麻岩、糜棱岩和郑庐断裂带上的片麻岩中9个钾长石进行了40Ar-39Ar 年龄测定和多重扩散域(MDD)模式处理, 9个样品的热演化史表明上述地区存在5个不同的快速冷却时段, 并就其可能的构造含义, 提出了华北与扬子板块碰撞后的折返历史过程。40Ar-39Ar analyses and MDD（multiple diffusion domain）model treatements were performed for 9 K-feldspar samples. They were collected from gneiss and mylonite of North Jiangsu-Jiaonan-Dabie tectonic melange belt and Tancheng-Lujiang fault zone. The thermal evolution history exhibits five fast ccoling stages found in these samples．In relation with their possible tectonic implications a recovery process after the collision of the North China plate with the Yangtze plate is suggested here.published_or_final_versio

Surface runoff and phosphorus (P) loss from bamboo (Phyllostachys pubescens) forest ecosystem in southeast China

The effect of different fertilization treatments on runoff and nutrient losses under field conditions was investigated through setting runoff plots in bamboo (Phyllostachys pubescens) forests in a catchment of Taihu Lake. The results showed that, the runoff loss reached 356, 361 and 342 m3/hm2, while the soil particle loss reached 393, 392 and 442 kg/hm2, respectively, in the period from June 2009 to May 2010, under the treatments of control (CK), site-specific nutrient management (SSNM) and farmers’ fertilizer practice (FFP). The runoff and soil particle losses were highly correlated with the precipitation during the period. The largest phosphorus losses happened in August, when it had the largest rainfall of that year. The total phosphorus (TP) concentration of the 95% of the observed runoff samples exceeded 0.10 mg/l. The average bioavailable phosphorus (BAP) concentration of the runoff was 0.23 mg/l and the various phosphorus forms lost was strongly inter-correlated. Compared with FFP, the SSNM treatment reduced total P (TP) by 5%, total dissolved phosphorus (DP) loss by 15% and total bioavailable phosphorus (BAP) loss by 8%.Key words: Phyllostachys pubescens, ecosystem, surface runoff, phosphorus (P) loss

Recovery from Mercury Contamination in the Second Songhua River, China

Mercury pollution in the Second Songhua River (SSR) was serious in the last century due to effluent from a chemical corporation. Effects of riverine self-purification on mercury removal were studied by comparing monitoring data of mercury concentrations varieties in water, sediment, and fish in the past, about 30 years. The present work suggested that a river of such a size like the SSR possessed the potential ability to recover from mercury pollution under the condition that mercury sources were cut off, though it needs a very long time, which might be several decades or even a century of years. During the 30 years with no effluent containing mercury input, total mercury (T-Hg) of water and sediment in some typical segments, mostly near the past effluent outlet, had decreased radically but still higher than the background values, though the decrease amplitudes were over 90% compared with that in 1975. T-Hg had decreased by more than 90% in most fishes, but some were still not suitable for consumption. Methylmercury concentrations (MeHg) of water, sediment, and fish were higher or close to the background levels in 2004. In the coming decades, the purification processes in the SSR would be steady and slow for a long period

High resolution genomic analysis of sporadic breast cancer using array-based comparative genomic hybridization

INTRODUCTION: Genomic aberrations in the form of subchromosomal DNA copy number changes are a hallmark of epithelial cancers, including breast cancer. The goal of the present study was to analyze such aberrations in breast cancer at high resolution. METHODS: We employed high-resolution array comparative genomic hybridization with 4,134 bacterial artificial chromosomes that cover the genome at 0.9 megabase resolution to analyze 47 primary breast tumors and 18 breast cancer cell lines. RESULTS: Common amplicons included 8q24.3 (amplified in 79% of tumors, with 5/47 exhibiting high level amplification), 1q32.1 and 16p13.3 (amplified in 66% and 57% of tumors, respectively). Moreover, we found several positive correlations between specific amplicons from different chromosomes, suggesting the existence of cooperating genetic loci. Queried by gene, the most frequently amplified kinase was PTK2 (79% of tumors), whereas the most frequently lost kinase was PTK2B (hemizygous loss in 34% of tumors). Amplification of ERBB2 as measured by comparative genomic hybridization (CGH) correlated closely with ERBB2 DNA and RNA levels measured by quantitative PCR as well as with ERBB2 protein levels. The overall frequency of recurrent losses was lower, with no region lost in more than 50% of tumors; the most frequently lost tumor suppressor gene was RB1 (hemizygous loss in 26% of tumors). Finally, we find that specific copy number changes in cell lines closely mimicked those in primary tumors, with an overall Pearson correlation coefficient of 0.843 for gains and 0.734 for losses. CONCLUSION: High resolution CGH analysis of breast cancer reveals several regions where DNA copy number is commonly gained or lost, that non-random correlations between specific amplicons exist, and that specific genetic alterations are maintained in breast cancer cell lines despite repeat passage in tissue culture. These observations suggest that genes within these regions are critical to the malignant phenotype and may thus serve as future therapeutic targets

Psychological drivers of hotel guests’ energy‐saving behaviours—empirical research based on the extended theory of planned behaviour

The hospitality industry is an important energy consumer and carbon emitter. Behaviour-driven energy conservation is a strategy with great promise to strengthen the energy efficiency of hotel buildings. The aim of this study is to explore the driving psychological factors of hotel guests’ energy-saving intentions and behaviours. This paper constructs two extensions of the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) with personal norms, past behaviours, and self-determined motivation to explain the guests’ energy-saving behaviour in hotel buildings. This research compares the explanatory power of the original TPB and two extensions with structural equation modelling. The analysis is based on 530 valid, self-reported data from 827 surveyed hotel guests in Shanghai. The analysis suggests that the extended model gains greater explanatory power in predicting the behaviour patterns by employing the above three additional factors. In addition, self-determined motivation presents a more significant impact than other more developed TPB predictors, such as intention and perceived behaviour control. Aside from that, past behaviour replaces attitude as the most critical predictor of hotel energy-saving intention in the extended models. In addition to the existing interventions in office and residential buildings, the research highlights the role of self-determination in hotel energy conservation and further emphasises the long-term benefit of encouraging pro-environmental behaviours in hotel guests. The findings expand the existing research on pro-environmental behaviours and will contribute to energy-saving behaviour intervention in hotel buildings and policy formulations for sustainable hotel operation and maintenance.</jats:p

Superderivations for Modular Graded Lie Superalgebras of Cartan-type

Superderivations for the eight families of finite or infinite dimensional graded Lie superalgebras of Cartan-type over a field of characteristic $p>3$ are completely determined by a uniform approach: The infinite dimensional case is reduced to the finite dimensional case and the latter is further reduced to the restrictedness case, which proves to be far more manageable. In particular, the outer superderivation algebras of those Lie superalgebras are completely determined

Global entrainment of transcriptional systems to periodic inputs

This paper addresses the problem of giving conditions for transcriptional systems to be globally entrained to external periodic inputs. By using contraction theory, a powerful tool from dynamical systems theory, it is shown that certain systems driven by external periodic signals have the property that all solutions converge to a fixed limit cycle. General results are proved, and the properties are verified in the specific case of some models of transcriptional systems. The basic mathematical results needed from contraction theory are proved in the paper, making it self-contained