Seizing the window of opportunity to mitigate the impact of climate change on the health of Chinese residents

The health threats posed by climate change in China are increasing rapidly. Each province faces different health risks. Without a timely and adequate response, climate change will impact lives and livelihoods at an accelerated rate and even prevent the achievement of the Healthy and Beautiful China initiatives. The 2021 China Report of the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change is the first annual update of China’s Report of the Lancet Countdown. It comprehensively assesses the impact of climate change on the health of Chinese households and the measures China has taken. Invited by the Lancet committee, Tsinghua University led the writing of the report and cooperated with 25 relevant institutions in and outside of China. The report includes 25 indicators within five major areas (climate change impacts, exposures, and vulnerability; adaptation, planning, and resilience for health; mitigation actions and health co-benefits; economics and finance; and public and political engagement) and a policy brief. This 2021 China policy brief contains the most urgent and relevant indicators focusing on provincial data: The increasing health risks of climate change in China; mixed progress in responding to climate change. In 2020, the heatwave exposures per person in China increased by 4.51 d compared with the 1986–2005 average, resulting in an estimated 92% increase in heatwave-related deaths. The resulting economic cost of the estimated 14500 heatwave-related deaths in 2020 is US$176 million. Increased temperatures also caused a potential 31.5 billion h in lost work time in 2020, which is equivalent to 1.3% of the work hours of the total national workforce, with resulting economic losses estimated at 1.4% of China’s annual gross domestic product. For adaptation efforts, there has been steady progress in local adaptation planning and assessment in 2020, urban green space growth in 2020, and health emergency management in 2019. 12 of 30 provinces reported that they have completed, or were developing, provincial health adaptation plans. Urban green space, which is an important heat adaptation measure, has increased in 18 of 31 provinces in the past decade, and the capacity of China’s health emergency management increased in almost all provinces from 2018 to 2019. As a result of China’s persistent efforts to clean its energy structure and control air pollution, the premature deaths due to exposure to ambient particulate matter of 2.5 μm or less (PM2.5) and the resulting costs continue to decline. However, 98% of China’s cities still have annual average PM2.5 concentrations that are more than the WHO guideline standard of 10 μg/m3. It provides policymakers and the public with up-to-date information on China’s response to climate change and improvements in health outcomes and makes the following policy recommendations. (1) Promote systematic thinking in the related departments and strengthen multi-departmental cooperation. Sectors related to climate and development in China should incorporate health perspectives into their policymaking and actions, demonstrating WHO’s and President Xi Jinping’s so-called health-in-all-policies principle. (2) Include clear goals and timelines for climate-related health impact assessments and health adaptation plans at both the national and the regional levels in the National Climate Change Adaptation Strategy for 2035. (3) Strengthen China’s climate mitigation actions and ensure that health is included in China’s pathway to carbon neutrality. By promoting investments in zero-carbon technologies and reducing fossil fuel subsidies, the current rebounding trend in carbon emissions will be reversed and lead to a healthy, low-carbon future. (4) Increase awareness of the linkages between climate change and health at all levels. Health professionals, the academic community, and traditional and new media should raise the awareness of the public and policymakers on the important linkages between climate change and health.</p

The privacy implications of online bonding, bridging and boundary crossing: An experimental study using emoticons in a social network map

This paper describes a study of privacy behaviour in situations of strong (bonding), weak and latent (bridging) and “boundary-crossing” relationships in online social network sites (SNS). An experimental study was conducted utilising screen capture, diaries, and a final interview. An innovative aspect of the experiment was the use of emoticons in a social network visualisation tool to represent emotional status. The contribution of the study is two-fold. We extend previous research with a more nuanced understanding of privacy concerns and behaviours in SNS in the context of different social ties. We also demonstrate an innovative research design using a social network visualization tool, and show the value of SNS visualization for researchers and social network users

Combined Effects of Land Use/Cover Change and Climate Change on Runoff in the Jinghe River Basin, China

In the context of global warming and intensified human activities, the quantitative assessment of the combined effects of land use/cover change (LUCC) and climate change on the hydrological cycle is crucial. This study was based on the simulation results of future climate and LUCC in the Jinghe River Basin (JRB) using the GFDL–ESM2M and CA–Markov combined with the SWAT models to simulate the runoff changes under different scenarios. The results revealed that the future annual precipitation and average temperature in the JRB are on the increase, and the future LUCC changes are mainly reflected in the increase in forest and urban lands and decrease in farmlands. Changes in runoff in the JRB are dominated by precipitation, and the frequency of extreme events increases with the increase in the concentration of CO2 emissions. Under four climate scenarios, the contribution of future climate change to runoff changes in the JRB is −8.06%, −27.30%, −8.12%, and +1.10%, respectively, whereas the influence of future LUCC changes is smaller, ranging from 1.14–1.64%. In response to the future risk of increasing water-resources stress in the JRB, the results of this study can provide a scientific basis for ecological protection and water-resources management and development

A Generalization of State Avoidance Policies for Controlled Petri Nets

This paper presents a generalization of forbidden state control synthesis methods for a broad class of controlled Petri nets (CtlPN). An algebra is defined for characterizing the interaction of paths in the Petri net. Given a specification of a forbidden marking set, the net structure is analyzed to determine an algebraic expression to represent the specification. For any net marking (state), evaluation of the expression will indicate whether forbidden markings are reachable and whether control is necessary. The expression is then used for determining the maximally permissive feedback control law. I. Introduction M UCH of the research in discrete event system (DES) control synthesis utilizes automata models as an underlying representation of the plant behavior (e.g. [1] [2]). Although these automata models have been a useful framework for establishing fundamental DES control theory, they have their limitations in representing large systems consisting of numerous interacting subsystem..

Analysis of Drought Characteristics Projections for the Tibetan Plateau Based on the GFDL-ESM2M Climate Model

Under conditions of continuous global warming, research into the future change trends of regional dry-wet climates is key for coping with and adapting to climate change, and is also an important topic in the field of climate change prediction. In this study, daily precipitation and mean temperature datasets under four representative concentrative pathway (RCP) scenarios in the geophysical fluid dynamics laboratory Earth system model with modular ocean model (GFDL-ESM2M) version 4 were used to calculate the standardized precipitation-evapotranspiration index of the Tibetan Plateau (TP) at different time scales. Using a multi-analytical approach including the Mann–Kendall trend test and run theory, the spatiotemporal variation characteristics of drought in the TP from 2016 to 2099 were studied. The results show that the overall future climate of the TP will develop towards warm and humid, and that the monthly-scale wet–dry changes will develop non-uniformly. As the concentration of carbon dioxide emissions increases in the future, the proportion of extremely significant aridification and humidification areas in the TP will significantly increase, and the possibility of extreme disasters will also increase. Moreover, influenced by the increase of annual TP precipitation, the annual scale of future drought in the region will tend to decrease slightly, and the spatial distributions of the frequency and intensity of droughts at all levels will develop uniformly. Under all four RCP scenarios, the drought duration of the TP was mainly less than 3 months, and the drought cycle in the southern region was longer than that in the northern region. The results of this study provide a new basis for the development of adaptive measures for the TP to cope with climate change

A Novel Microstructure Simulation Model for Direct Energy Deposition Process

The microstructure of additive manufacturing parts has unique characteristics. In this paper, a novel microstructure simulation model is proposed in grain level, called "Invasion Model", to simulate the transient competitive grain growth behaviour in direct energy deposition (DED) process. Different from the phase field method, the invasion model does not focus on the exact dendrite geometry immersed in the liquid phase which will usually lead into high computational cost. The key point of the invasion model is its capability to reflect the transient competitive grain growth behavior under the triensent thermal gradient located at the bottom of the melt pool. An ‘invasion factor' is proposed to represent the possibility that one single crystal will invade its adjacent crystals in each time step. This ‘invasion factor' is calculated by the relation between crystallographic orientation and a changing thermal gradient under the help of the grain boundary criterions in competitive grain growth. Furthermore, the shape and the cooling condition of the melt pool are vital to the final microstructure. The geometry of the melt pool is extracted from the temperature history data of finite element and CFD simulation. The melt pool geometry is analyzed quantitively from interpolated temperature history data and inputted into the invasion model. A vertical cross section of DED fabricated Ti-6Al-4V in multiple layers was investigated by the invasion model, and the competitive grain growth behavior is simulated between the crystals with random crystallographic orientations.Mechanical Engineerin