Overview of the application of ecological concrete in sponge city construction

As a prominent component of the construction field of sponge cities, ecological concrete is an essential tool to reach the goals of green, low-carbon living and sustainable development. A quantitative summary of the preliminary research on ecological concrete infrastructure in sponge city architecture is needed. Therefore, CiteSpace and VOSviewer were applied to perform a comparative analysis of the number of papers, countries, institutions, core authors, literature co-citations, research hotspots, and future trends in ecological concrete in the sponge city construction industry. The results show that the number of papers on ecological concrete is increasing, the research collaboration between domestic and foreign authors is relatively single, and there is insufficient interdisciplinary integration between institutions and the phenomenon of “relatively independent research.” The number of papers published in the field of ecological concrete construction has been on the rise, reaching more than 100 in each of the last 10 years, with China and the United States contributing more to the scientific output of the field. To meet the needs of global environmental protection and resource conservation, the theme of “promoting comprehensive resource conservation and recycling” will continue in the future, making concrete a feature of green, low-carbon, sustainable development and other areas of environmental protection in the construction field

MaNGA DynPop – IV. Stacked total density profile of galaxy groups and clusters from combining dynamical models of integral-field stellar kinematics and galaxy–galaxy lensing

We present the measurement of total and stellar/dark matter decomposed mass density profile around a sample of galaxy groupsand clusters with dynamical masses derived from integral-field stellar kinematics from the MaNGA survey in Paper I and weaklensing derived from the DECaLS imaging survey. Combining the two data sets enables accurate measurement of the radialdensity distribution from several kpc to Mpc scales. Intriguingly, we find that the excess surface density derived from stellarkinematics in the inner region cannot be explained by simply adding an NFW dark matter halo extrapolated from lensingmeasurement at a larger scale to a stellar mass component derived from the NASA-Sloan Atlas (NSA) catalogue. We find that agood fit to both data sets requires a stellar mass normalization about three times higher than that derived from the NSA catalogue,which would require an unrealistically too-heavy initial mass function for stellar mass estimation. If we keep the stellar massnormalization to that of the NSA catalogue but allow a varying inner dark matter density profile, we obtain an asymptotic slopeof γ gnfw = 1.82+0.15−0.25 and γ gnfw = 1.48+0.20 −0.41 for the group bin and the cluster bin, respectively, significantly steeper than the NFWcase. We also compare the total mass inner density slopes with those from TNG300 and find that the values from the simulationare lower than the observation by about 2σ level

Observation of SQUID-like behavior in fiber laser with intra-cavity epsilon-near-zero effect

Establishing relations between fundamental effects in far-flung areas of physics is a subject of great interest in the current research. We here report realization of a novel photonic system akin to the radio-frequency superconducting quantum interference device (RF-SQUID), in a fiber laser cavity with epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) nanolayers as intra-cavity components. Emulating the RF-SQUID scheme, the photonic counterpart of the supercurrent, represented by the optical wave, circulates in the cavity, passing through effective optical potential barriers. Different ENZ wavelengths translate into distinct spectral outputs through the variation of cavity resonances, emulating the situation with a frequency-varying tank circuit in the RF-SQUID. Due to the presence of the ENZ element, the optical potential barrier is far lower for selected frequency components, granting them advantage in the gain-resource competition. The findings reported in this work provide a deeper insight into the ultrafast ENZ photonics, revealing a new path towards the design of nanophotonic on-chip devices with various operational functions, and offer a new approach to study superconducting and quantum-mechanical systems.Comment: to be published in Laser & Photonics Review

The C-terminal cysteine-rich motif of NYE1/SGR1 is indispensable for its function in chlorophyll degradation in Arabidopsis

KEY MESSAGE The C-terminal cysteine-rich motif of NYE1/SGR1 affects chlorophyll degradation likely by mediating its self-interaction and conformational change, and somehow altering its Mg-dechelating activity in response to the changing redox potential. During green organ senescence in plants, the most prominent phenomenon is the degreening caused by net chlorophyll (Chl) loss. NON-YELLOWING1/STAY-GREEN1 (NYE1/SGR1) was recently reported to be able to dechelates magnesium (Mg) from Chl a to initiate its degradation, but little is known about the domain/motif basis of its functionality. In this study, we carried out a protein truncation assay and identified a conserved cysteine-rich motif (CRM, P-X3-C-X3-C-X-C2-F-P-X5-P) at its C terminus, which is essential for its function. Genetic analysis showed that all four cysteines in the CRM were irreplaceable, and enzymatic assays demonstrated that the mutation of each of the four cysteines affected its Mg-dechelating activity. The CRM plays a critical role in the conformational change and self-interaction of NYE1 via the formation of inter- and intra-molecular disulfide bonds. Our results may provide insight into how NYE1 responds to rapid redox changes during leaf senescence and in response to various environmental stresses

Ammonium chloride’s weakening effect on the copper activation of pyrite in flotation and the surface regulation mechanism behind it

The traditional separation process of pyrite and marmatite is carried out under highly alkaline conditions. Therefore, a large amount of lime is demanded and the zinc recovery cannot be guaranteed. However, under weakly alkaline conditions, copper-activated pyrite has good floatability, which is difficult to separate from marmatite. In this paper, ammonium chloride (NH4Cl) is used for depressing the flotation of copper-activated pyrite to achieve the separation of these two minerals under weakly alkaline environment. The flotation tests show that NH4Cl can significantly reduce the floatability of pyrite in weakly alkaline conditions. The results of adsorption tests and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analyses indicate that NH4Cl can obviously change the composition of pyrite surface by increasing the content of iron/copper hydroxide and reducing the content of copper sulfides. Calculation of the solution composition demonstrates that the addition of NH4Cl results in the occurrence of Cu(NH3)n2+ and the pH buffering property. Based on these results, it can be concluded that the depression of NH4Cl on copper activated pyrite is mainly derived from two aspects: 1) the pH buffering property of the conjugated acid-base pair (NH4+/NH3) can impede the decline of OH- concentration, which results in more hydroxide adsorbed on pyrite; 2) NH3 (aq) competes with the pyrite surface to consume Cu2+through complexation, which causes a reduction in the amount of copper sulfides formed on the pyrite surface

Effect of Ammonium Chloride on the Efficiency with Which Copper Sulfate Activates Marmatite: Change in Solution Composition and Regulation of Surface Composition

Zinc sulfide minerals are the primary choice for zinc extraction and marmatite is one of the two most common zinc sulphide minerals (sphalerite and marmatite), therefore it is of great significance to study and optimize the flotation of marmatite. To improve the activation of copper sulfate on marmatite, a method involving the addition of ammonium chloride is devised. The method has been proven to be an effective way of improving the activation efficiency of copper sulfate towards marmatite under alkaline conditions. The strengthening mechanism was studied using micro-flotation, adsorption test, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and by analyzing changes in solution composition. Flotation test results show that the activation effect of the copper sulfate towards marmatite is enhanced with the addition of ammonium chloride. According to the results of the adsorption measurements and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis, when the marmatite surface is activated using copper sulfate with added ammonia chloride, it adsorbs more copper sulfide and less copper hydroxide and zinc hydroxide. These changes in surface composition are believed to occur via the following process: NH3(aq) promotes the dissolution of zinc hydroxide and then facilitates the conversion of surface copper hydroxide to copper sulfide. In addition, the occurrence of Cu(NH3)n2+ can promote the adsorption of copper ions (Cu2+ can be stored as Cu(NH3)n2+ via complexation, and then, when the concentration of copper ions decreases, Cu2+ can be released through the decompositionof Cu(NH3)n2+. Hence, the copper ion concentration can be maintained and this can facilitate the adsorption of Cu2+ on marmatite). Based on a comprehensive analysis of all our results, we propose that adding ammonium chloride to the copper sulfate changes the solution components (i.e., the presence of NH3(aq) and Cu(NH3)n2+) and then regulates the surface composition of marmatite. The change in surface composition improves the hydrophobicity of mineral surface and this leads to an improvement in activation of marmatite

Study on Exchange Rate Forecasting with Stacked Optimization Based on a Learning Algorithm

The time series of exchange rate fluctuations are characterized by non-stationary and nonlinear features, and forecasting using traditional linear or single-machine models can cause significant bias. Based on this, the authors propose the combination of the advantages of the EMD and LSTM models to reduce the complexity by analyzing and decomposing the time series and forming a new model, EMD-LSTM-SVR, with a stronger generalization ability. More than 30,000 units of data on the USD/CNY exchange rate opening price from 2 January 2015 to 30 April 2022 were selected for an empirical demonstration of the model’s accuracy. The empirical results showed that the prediction of the exchange rate fluctuation with the EMD-LSTM-SVR model not only had higher accuracy, but also ensured that most of the predicted positions deviated less from the actual positions. The new model had a stronger generalization ability, a concise structure, and a high degree of ability to fit nonlinear features, and it prevented gradient vanishing and overfitting to achieve a higher degree of prediction accuracy

Table_1_The synergistic effect of diabetes mellitus and osteoporosis on the all-cause mortality: a cohort study of an American population.docx

BackgroundThe increasing incidence of diabetes mellitus (DM) and osteoporosis have different effects on prognosis. The two often co-occur, so we aimed to investigate whether DM and osteoporosis have an effect on all-cause death and whether DM and osteoporosis have a synergistic effect.MethodsThis study analyzed 18,658 subjects from five cycles of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). The primary endpoint was all-cause death. The subjects were divided into four groups based on the presence or absence of DM and osteoporosis. Survival curves and Cox regression analysis based on NHANES recommended weights were used to assess the risk of all-cause death between the diseased and non-diseased groups and to calculate additive interactions to assess whether there was a synergistic effect between diabetes and osteoporosis.ResultsThe group with DM and osteoporosis had the lowest survival rate. After full adjustment for confounders, patients with DM alone had a 30% higher risk of all-cause death compared with those without DM and osteoporosis (HR: 1.30, 95%CI: 1.09-1.55). Patients with osteoporosis alone had a 67% higher risk of all-cause death (HR: 1.67, 95%CI:1.16-2.43) and patients with combined DM and osteoporosis had a 127% higher risk of all-cause death (HR:2.27, 95%CI: 1.57-3.27). There was an additive interaction between DM and osteoporosis [RERI (95%CI): 1.03(0.55-1.50)] and excess mortality risk of 38% [AP (95% CI) 0.38(0.30-0.46)].ConclusionsThere might be a synergistic effect of DM and osteoporosis on all-cause mortality, and patients with both conditions have a higher risk of death.</p