The pathway to the natural gas industry: Financial development, coal consumption, and carbon dioxide emissions in P.R. China

This paper revisits the causal links between financial development, coal consumption, and CO2 emissions in P.R. China over the 1977–2017 period to validate the development of its natural gas industry. It uses a Bootstrap ARDL bound test with structural breaks to establish stationarity, short- and long-run dynamics, and causality of the series. The results show there are no long-run relationships among these three variables, but a Granger causality test does indicate the presence of both a two-way Granger causality between coal consumption and CO2 emissions, and a one-way Granger causality running from financial development to both coal consumption and CO2 emissions. These results have important policy implications for the Chinese government\u27s efforts to meet its commitment at the 75th UN General Assembly to achieve carbon neutrality. In that context, the promotion of its natural gas industry, including carbon pricing mechanisms and taxation schemes while enacting environmentally friendly energy abatement policies become a must

Computational Modelling of Concrete Time-Dependent Mechanics and Its Application to Large-Scale Structure Analysis

The goal of the proposed work is to systematically study the time-dependent mechanics of concrete with a focus on concrete creep and its effect on prestressed concrete bridges, which are creep-sensitive. With increasing demands for sustainable construction, a longer lifespan, i.e., over 100 years, is now generally expected for critical bridges in structural design. To ensure the safety and serviceability of prestressed concrete bridges throughout this prolonged lifespan, there is a call for deeper understanding of the concrete time-dependent mechanics and its effects on the structural performance of prestressed concrete bridges. The primary aim of this study is to build a numerical framework to estimate the time-dependent performance of prestressed concrete bridges based on the development of concrete creep and its coupling with other physical and chemical processes. The established framework will be used to capture the correlation between the long-term asymptotes of deformation curves, early age measurements, and distinctive concrete creep models. Based on the identified correlation and in-situ measurements, a suitable creep model can be identified and calibrated for the bridge under investigation. Then the framework is extended to take into account the effect of scatter in concrete creep on the deformation asymptote. Statistical analyses based on the Latin hypercube sampling scheme are employed to investigate the effectiveness and robustness of the established correlation. For bridges carrying heavy traffic flows, the intertwined effects of concrete static creep, cyclic creep, softening and cracking are recommended to be incorporated to enhance the predictive capacity of the proposed framework. To meet this need, a unified concrete constitutive model is formulated and then is integrated in the 3D rate-type formulation for full-scale creep structural analysis. Finally, to remedy the inadequacy resulting from the phenomenological formulas in concrete creep modeling, a multi-scale methodology residing at the meso-scale of concrete is developed. A representative volume element (RVE) of concrete is numerically generated for the multi-scale analysis and the macros-scale time-dependent behavior of concrete is approximated by a proper computational homogenization scheme

Economic growth, energy consumption, and carbon dioxide emissions in the E7 countries: a bootstrap ARDL bound test

Background International awareness of the impact of global warming and climate change is increasing. Developing countries face the task of achieving sustainable economic growth while also improving the efficiency of their energy consumption. The E7 countries (Brazil, India, Indonesia, Mexico, People’s Republic of China, Russia, and Turkey) are all highly concerned with the promotion of carbon-emission-reduction strategies. Methods This research uses a bootstrap autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bound test with structural breaks to examine the cointegration and causality relations between economic growth, energy consumption, and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the E7 countries. Results There is no cointegration between economic growth, energy consumption, and CO2 emissions for People’s Republic of China, Indonesia, Mexico, and Turkey. Evidence of cointegration is found for Brazil when CO2 emissions are the dependent variable and for India and Russia when energy consumption is the dependent variable. For all of the E7 countries except Indonesia, short-run Granger causality was found to exist from energy consumption to CO2 emissions and from economic growth to CO2 emissions for Brazil, India, Mexico, and People’s Republic of China. Short-run Granger causality was also found from economic growth to energy consumption for Brazil, India, Indonesia, Mexico, and People’s Republic of China, and from CO2 emissions to energy consumption for all E7 countries. Conclusions The results consistently show that energy consumption is the main cause of CO2 emissions, which has led to the emergence of global warming problems. Increases in CO2 emissions compel the E7 countries to develop sound policies on energy consumption and environmental pollution

Analysis and Design of Roof Turbine Ventilator for Wind Energy Harvest

Harvesting energy using roof turbine ventilator and electroactive material has been investigated to verify its performance. Since electric power gained from a single piece of regular size is usually small, auxiliary device to vibrate multiple pieces of electroactive materials in order to harvest more power is required. In this paper, an attempt of using the developed nozzle wind collector associated with the popular roof turbine ventilator employed with gear mechanism to impact and vibrate a group of electroactive material to generate electricity is proposed. Number of blade and blade angle of the roof turbine ventilator are influential to the effectiveness of wind collection. Also, number of electroactive material employed on the turbine ventilator under the wind speed in environment eventually determines the efficiency of wind harvest. A simple model is derived to estimate the minimum driving force from the wind power that needs to overcome the inertia of the turbine ventilator mechanism and the electromechanical energy conversion of electroactive materials. Wind drag force is calculated by using CFD is assumed to provide such driving force. Various combinations of the blade angle, number of blade and electroactive material actuators are investigated in simulations. Optimum design concerning the environment wind resource and configuration of turbine ventilator is discussed. According to several case studies, a few of design trends is addressed for better efficiency of energy harvest. Since multiple electroactive materials are employed, circuitry design with parallel input sources is implemented to sum up the current and integrate the power

Optimizing glycerosome formulations via an orthogonal experimental design to enhance transdermal triptolide delivery

Triptolide exerts strong anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory effects; however, its oral administration might be associated with side effects. Transdermal administration can improve the safety of triptolide. In this study, glycerosomes were prepared as the transdermal vehicle to enhance the transdermal delivery of triptolide. With entrapment efficiency and drug loading as dependent variables, the glycerosome formulation was optimized using an orthogonal experimental design. Phospholipid-to-cholesterol and phospholipid-to-triptolide mass ratios of 30:1 and 5:1, respectively and a glycerol concentration of 20 % (v/v) were used in the optimization. The glycerosomes prepared with the optimized formulation showed good stability, with an average particle size of 153.10 ± 2.69 nm, a zeta potential of –45.73 ± 0.60 mV and an entrapment greater than 75 %. Glycerosomes significantly increased the transdermal delivery of triptolide compared to conventional liposomes. As efficient carriers for the transdermal delivery of drugs, glycerosomes can potentially be used as an alternative to oral triptolide administration

Assessment of Urban Noise in School Environments - Case Study in Batu Pahat, Johor

In recent decades, urban noise has become well-known as one of the critical problems affecting the quality of life in urban areas around the world. Noise assessment is becoming more common in Malaysia as many cities in this country become highly populated and industrialized with serious noise pollution issues, particularly in schools. The aims of this study are to identify the factors and effects of noise in the school environments and evaluate the acoustic comfort of the teachers during the teaching lesson in the school environment. A total of 3 schools located in the urban area of Batu Pahat, Johor, which were Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan (SMK), Tinggi Batu Pahat, SMK Tun Aminah and SMK Semerah were chosen as study areas. In the present study, questionnaires survey using Google Form were distributed to teachers working in the selected schools. Expert reviews and a pilot study were carried out before the actual survey. The results indicated that the noise factors were coming from inside and outside the classroom, mainly from traffic noise and heavy vehicles near the school environment and noise from student activities and chattering. Teachers need to raise their voice during the teaching and learning process, and some of them had a sore throat.  SMK Tinggi Batu Pahat and SMK Tun Aminah teachers were uncomfortable with the existing acoustic comfort of the school environments

Assessment of Urban Noise in School Environments - Case Study in Batu Pahat, Johor

In recent decades, urban noise has become well-known as one of the critical problems affecting the quality of life in urban areas around the world. Noise assessment is becoming more common in Malaysia as many cities in this country become highly populated and industrialized with serious noise pollution issues, particularly in schools. The aims of this study are to identify the factors and effects of noise in the school environments and evaluate the acoustic comfort of the teachers during the teaching lesson in the school environment. A total of 3 schools located in the urban area of Batu Pahat, Johor, which were Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan (SMK), Tinggi Batu Pahat, SMK Tun Aminah and SMK Semerah were chosen as study areas. In the present study, questionnaires survey using Google Form were distributed to teachers working in the selected schools. Expert reviews and a pilot study were carried out before the actual survey. The results indicated that the noise factors were coming from inside and outside the classroom, mainly from traffic noise and heavy vehicles near the school environment and noise from student activities and chattering. Teachers need to raise their voice during the teaching and learning process, and some of them had a sore throat.  SMK Tinggi Batu Pahat and SMK Tun Aminah teachers were uncomfortable with the existing acoustic comfort of the school environments