The energy rebound effect of residential buildings:Evidence from urban and rural areas in China

Technological progress in energy efficiency is generally considered as an effective measure to address climate change issues. However, the expected results of such progress might be impacted by the rebound effect. Employing the linear approximation of the Almost Ideal Demand System (LA-AIDS) model, this paper aims to measure the direct rebound effect of residential buildings, considering the differences in the rebound effect for residential buildings between urban and rural China over the period 1994–2016. The empirical results reveal the magnitudes of direct rebound effect for residential energy consumption. The anticipated energy savings in residential buildings cannot be fully achieved in either urban or rural areas, and even significant “back-fire” effect exists in rural China. More specifically, the magnitudes of the rebound effect for residential buildings in urban areas fluctuate between 79.43% and 110.00%, while that in rural areas increase from 115.28% to 120.40%. The main reason of rebound effect is that the energy demand for residential buildings would increase when energy efficiency improves. This study provides a significant reference for the formulation of more targeted policies to achieve the anticipated energy savings, such as development of energy efficiency education program for urban residents and clean energy project for rural residents

Cascading failure and recovery of metro–bus double-layer network considering recovery propagation

Normal operation of metros and buses is essential for sustainable urban development. Studies have shown that a disaster occurring on one transport station leads to the cascading failure of transportation networks, but the functions will be restored successively after post-disaster repairs. However, most studies have focused on cascading failures, ignoring the impact of recovery propagation. Therefore, this study proposes a cascading failure and recovery model to illustrate the evolution process of a metro–bus double-layer network considering recovery propagation and investigates factors including failure and recovery spreading mechanisms, different initial loads, node capacities, and repair speeds. The proposed model is applied to an actual case study of Xi’an City under different scenarios. The effects of node capacity and repair speed exhibit a marginal decreasing trend. The coexistence of cascading failure and recovery propagation enhances network minimum performance. This study has implications for strategic development of sustainable and stable transportation systems

Emotion recognition dysfunction after anesthesia and cardiac surgery

Cognitive dysfunction after anesthesia and surgery has long been recognized. Recently, researchers provided empirical evidence for social cognition dysfunction (SCD) after anesthesia and surgery. In the present study, we concentrated on the deficits in emotion recognition, one of the most important clinical perspectives in SCD, in patients who underwent cardiac surgery. Biological motion (BM) was considered as the stimulus of interest, and patients' abilities of BM emotion perception and action perception before and after anesthesia and surgery were examined. In total, 60 adult patients (40-72 years old) completed the BM recognition task, which required them to label the types of actions and emotions of perceived BM. The results showed that while action perception remained intact after cardiac surgery, 18.3% of patients exhibited deficits in emotion perception, further confirming the existence of SCD after anesthesia and surgery

Homeostatic Regulation of the Duox-ROS Defense System: Revelations Based on the Diversity of Gut Bacteria in Silkworms (<i>Bombyx mori</i>)

The Duox-ROS defense system plays an important role in insect intestinal immunity. To investigate the role of intestinal microbiota in Duox-ROS regulation herein, 16S rRNA sequencing technology was utilized to compare the characteristics of bacterial populations in the midgut of silkworm after different time-periods of treatment with three feeding methods: 1–4 instars artificial diet (AD), 1–4 instars mulberry leaf (ML) and 1–3 instars artificial diet + 4 instar mulberry leaf (TM). The results revealed simple intestinal microbiota in the AD group whilst microbiota were abundant and variable in the ML and TM silkworms. By analyzing the relationship among intestinal pH, reactive oxygen species (ROS) content and microorganism composition, it was identified that an acidic intestinal environment inhibited the growth of intestinal microbiota of silkworms, observed concurrently with low ROS content and a high activity of antioxidant enzymes (SOD, TPX, CAT). Gene expression associated with the Duox-ROS defense system was detected using RT-qPCR and identified to be low in the AD group and significantly higher in the TM group of silkworms. This study provides a new reference for the future improvement of the artificial diet feeding of silkworm and a systematic indicator for the further study of the relationship between changes in the intestinal environment and intestinal microbiota balance caused by dietary alterations

Honeycomb-ordered Na3Ni1.5M0.5BiO6 (M = Ni, Cu, Mg, Zn) as high-voltage layered cathodes for sodium-ion batteries

Developing high-voltage layered cathodes for sodium-ion batteries (SIBs) has always been a severe challenge. Herein, a new family of honeycomb-layered NaNiMBiO (M = Ni, Cu, Mg, Zn) with a monoclinic superstructure has been shown to combine good Na (de)intercalation activity with a competitive 3.3 V high voltage. By coupling the electrochemical process with ex situ X-ray absorption spectroscopy as well as in situ X-ray diffraction, the charge compensation mechanism and structural evolution of these new cathodes are clearly investigated. Interestingly, both Ni/Ni and Cu/Cu participate in the redox reaction upon cycling, and the succession of single-phase, two-phase, or three-phase regions upon Na extraction/insertion were identified with rather good accuracy. This research strategy could provide insights into the structure-function-property relationships on a new series of honeycomb-ordered materials with the general formula NaNiMBiO and also serve as a bridge to guide future design of high-performance cathodes for SIBs

Table_1_Emotion recognition dysfunction after anesthesia and cardiac surgery.xlsx

Cognitive dysfunction after anesthesia and surgery has long been recognized. Recently, researchers provided empirical evidence for social cognition dysfunction (SCD) after anesthesia and surgery. In the present study, we concentrated on the deficits in emotion recognition, one of the most important clinical perspectives in SCD, in patients who underwent cardiac surgery. Biological motion (BM) was considered as the stimulus of interest, and patients’ abilities of BM emotion perception and action perception before and after anesthesia and surgery were examined. In total, 60 adult patients (40–72 years old) completed the BM recognition task, which required them to label the types of actions and emotions of perceived BM. The results showed that while action perception remained intact after cardiac surgery, 18.3% of patients exhibited deficits in emotion perception, further confirming the existence of SCD after anesthesia and surgery.</p

Designing Air-Stable O3-Type Cathode Materials by Combined Structure Modulation for Na-Ion Batteries

As promising high-capacity cathode materials for Na-ion batteries, O3-type Na-based metal oxides always suffer from their poor air stability originating from the spontaneous extraction of Na and oxidation of transition metals when exposed to air. Herein, a combined structure modulation is proposed to tackle concurrently the two handicaps via reducing Na layers spacing and simultaneously increasing valence state of transition metals. Guided by density functional theory calculations, we demonstrate such a modulation can be subtly realized through cosubstitution of one kind of heteroatom with comparable electronegativity and another one with substantially different Fermi level, by adjusting the structure of NaNi_0.5Mn_0.5O₂ via Cu/Ti codoping. The as-obtained NaNi_0.45Cu_0.05Mn_0.4Ti_0.1O₂ exhibits an increase of 20 times in stable air-exposure period and 9 times in capacity retention after 500 cycles, and even retains its structure and capacity after being soaked in water. Such a simple and effective structure modulation reveals a new avenue for high-performance O3-type cathodes and pushes the large-scale industrialization of Na-ion batteries a decisive step forward