From the Ashes: Urban Reconstruction and Land Values after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871

Regulations on post-disaster reconstruction determine cities' long-term land use and building qualities, which are the durable capital for urban growth. The 1871 Chicago Fire and its subsequent ordinance limiting building materials provide exogenous variations in destruction and constrained reconstructions. I find that land values and building quality increased for the destroyed plots rebuilt under the limit ordinance, but not for the areas outside of the limit zone that also experienced destruction. Land value appreciation in Chicago's North Side cannot be attributed to the destruction in the Fire. Regulations on building materials capitalize on land values by leveraging individuals' preferences for endogenous amenities. I develop a model in which residents endogenously sort into the limit zone only when neighborhood effects exist

Engineering Ternary Copper-Cobalt Sulfide Nanosheets as High-performance Electrocatalysts toward Oxygen Evolution Reaction

The rational design and development of the low-cost and effective electrocatalysts toward oxygen evolution reaction (OER) are essential in the storage and conversion of clean and renewable energy sources. Herein, a ternary copper-cobalt sulfide nanosheets electrocatalysts (denoted as CuCoS/CC) for electrochemical water oxidation has been synthesized on carbon cloth (CC) via the sulfuration of CuCo-based precursors. The obtained CuCoS/CC reveals excellent electrocatalytic performance toward OER in 1.0 M KOH. It exhibits a particularly low overpotential of 276 mV at current density of 10 mA cm−2, and a small Tafel slope (58 mV decade−1), which is superior to the current commercialized noble-metal electrocatalysts, such as IrO2. Benefiting from the synergistic effect of Cu and Co atoms and sulfidation, electrons transport and ions diffusion are significantly enhanced with the increase of active sites, thus the kinetic process of OER reaction is boosted. Our studies will serve as guidelines in the innovative design of non-noble metal electrocatalysts and their application in electrochemical water splittin

A spatiotemporal atlas of mouse liver homeostasis and regeneration.

The mechanism by which mammalian liver cell responses are coordinated during tissue homeostasis and perturbation is poorly understood, representing a major obstacle in our understanding of many diseases. This knowledge gap is caused by the difficulty involved with studying multiple cell types in different states and locations, particularly when these are transient. We have combined Stereo-seq (spatiotemporal enhanced resolution omics-sequencing) with single-cell transcriptomic profiling of 473,290 cells to generate a high-definition spatiotemporal atlas of mouse liver homeostasis and regeneration at the whole-lobe scale. Our integrative study dissects in detail the molecular gradients controlling liver cell function, systematically defining how gene networks are dynamically modulated through intercellular communication to promote regeneration. Among other important regulators, we identified the transcriptional cofactor TBL1XR1 as a rheostat linking inflammation to Wnt/β-catenin signaling for facilitating hepatocyte proliferation. Our data and analytical pipelines lay the foundation for future high-definition tissue-scale atlases of organ physiology and malfunction