Assessing the effects of technological progress on energy efficiency in the construction industry: A case of China

Energy-saving technologies in buildings have received great attention from energy efficiency researchers in the construction sector. Traditional research tends to focus on the energy used during building operation and in construction materials production, but it usually neglects the energy consumed in the building construction process. Very few studies have explored the impacts of technological progress on energy efficiency in the construction industry. This paper presents a model of the building construction process based on Cobb-Douglas production function. The model estimates the effects of technological progress on energy efficiency with the objective to examine the role that technological progress plays in energy savings in China's construction industry. The modeling results indicated that technological progress improved energy efficiency by an average of 7.1% per year from 1997 to 2014. Furthermore, three main technological progress factors (the efficiency of machinery and equipment, the proportion change of the energy structure, and research and development investment) were selected to analyze their effects on energy efficiency improvement. These positive effects were verified, and results show the effects of first two factors are significant. Finally, recommendations for promoting energy efficiency in the construction industry are proposed

Earthquake source parameters of the 2009 Mw 7.8 Fiordland (New Zealand) earthquake from L-band InSAR observations

The 2009 MW7.8 Fiordland (New Zealand) earthquake is the largest to have occurred in New Zealand since the 1931 Mw 7.8 Hawke’s Bay earthquake, 1 000 km to the northwest. In this paper two tracks of ALOS PALSAR interferograms (one ascending and one descending) are used to determine fault geometry and slip distribution of this large earthquake. Modeling the event as dislocation in an elastic half-space suggests that the earthquake resulted from slip on a SSW-NNE orientated thrust fault that is associated with the subduction between the Pacific and Australian Plates, with oblique displacement of up to 6.3 m. This finding is consistent with the preliminary studies undertaken by the USGS using seismic data

Nuclear Three-body Force Effect on a Kaon Condensate in Neutron Star Matter

We explore the effects of a microscopic nuclear three-body force on the threshold baryon density for kaon condensation in chemical equilibrium neutron star matter and on the composition of the kaon condensed phase in the framework of the Brueckner-Hartree-Fock approach. Our results show that the nuclear three-body force affects strongly the high-density behavior of nuclear symmetry energy and consequently reduces considerably the critical density for kaon condensation provided that the proton strangeness content is not very large. The dependence of the threshold density on the symmetry energy becomes weaker as the proton strangeness content increases. The kaon condensed phase of neutron star matter turns out to be proton-rich instead of neutron-rich. The three-body force has an important influence on the composition of the kaon condensed phase. Inclusion of the three-body force contribution in the nuclear symmetry energy results in a significant reduction of the proton and kaon fractions in the kaon condensed phase which is more proton-rich in the case of no three-body force. Our results are compared to other theoretical predictions by adopting different models for the nuclear symmetry energy. The possible implications of our results for the neutron star structure are also briefly discussed.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figure

Electronic structure and superconductivity of BiS2-based compounds LaO1-xFxBiS2

Using the density-functional perturbation theory with structural optimization, we investigate the electronic structure, phonon spectra, and superconductivity of BiS2-based layered compounds LaO1-xFxBiS2. For LaO0.5F0.5BiS2, the calculated electron-phonon coupling constant is equal to lambda = 0.8, and obtained Tc = 9.1 K is very close to its experimental value, indicating that it is a conventional electron-phonon superconductor

Corrections to the thermodynamics of Schwarzschild-Tangherlini black hole and the generalized uncertainty principle

We investigate the thermodynamics of Schwarzschild-Tangherlini black hole in the context of the generalized uncertainty principle. The corrections to the Hawking temperature, entropy and the heat capacity are obtained via the modified Hamilton-Jacobi equation. These modifications show that the GUP changes the evolution of Schwarzschild-Tangherlini black hole. Specially, the GUP effect becomes susceptible when the radius or mass of black hole approach to the order of Planck scale, it stops radiating and leads to black hole remnant. Meanwhile, the Planck scale remnant can be confirmed through the analysis of the heat capacity. Those phenomenons imply that the GUP may give a way to solve the information paradox. Besides, we also investigate the possibilities to observe the black hole at LHC, the results demonstrate that the black hole can not be produced in the recent LHC.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figure

A survey on gain-scheduled control and filtering for parameter-varying systems

Copyright © 2014 Guoliang Wei et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.This paper presents an overview of the recent developments in the gain-scheduled control and filtering problems for the parameter-varying systems. First of all, we recall several important algorithms suitable for gain-scheduling method including gain-scheduled proportional-integral derivative (PID) control, H 2, H ∞ and mixed H 2 / H ∞ gain-scheduling methods as well as fuzzy gain-scheduling techniques. Secondly, various important parameter-varying system models are reviewed, for which gain-scheduled control and filtering issues are usually dealt with. In particular, in view of the randomly occurring phenomena with time-varying probability distributions, some results of our recent work based on the probability-dependent gain-scheduling methods are reviewed. Furthermore, some latest progress in this area is discussed. Finally, conclusions are drawn and several potential future research directions are outlined.The National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grants 61074016, 61374039, 61304010, and 61329301; the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province of China under Grant BK20130766; the Program for Professor of Special Appointment (Eastern Scholar) at Shanghai Institutions of Higher Learning; the Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University under Grant NCET-11-1051, the Leverhulme Trust of the U.K., the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation of Germany

Magnetic Moments of JP=3/2+J^P={3/2}^+ Pentaquarks

If the $J^P$ of $\Theta_5^+$ and $\Xi_5^{--}$ pentaquarks is really found to be ${1\over 2}^+$ by future experiments, they will be accompanied by $J^P={3\over 2}^+$ partners in some models. It is reasonable to expect that these $J^P={3\over 2}^+$ states will also be discovered in the near future with the current intensive experimental and theoretical efforts. We estimate $J^P={3/2}^+$ pentaquark magnetic moments using different models.Comment: 13 page

Hot Nuclear Matter Equation of State with a Three-body Force

The finite temperature Brueckner-Hartree-Fock approach is extended by introducing a microscopic three-body force. In the framework of the extended model, the equation of state of hot asymmetric nuclear matter and its isospin dependence have been investigated. The critical temperature of liquid-gas phase transition for symmetric nuclear matter has been calculated and compared with other predictions. It turns out that the three-body force gives a repulsive contribution to the equation of state which is stronger at higher density and as a consequence reduces the critical temperature of liquid-gas phase transition. The calculated energy per nucleon of hot asymmetric nuclear matter is shown to satisfy a simple quadratic dependence on asymmetric parameter $\beta$ as in the zero-temperature case. The symmetry energy and its density dependence have been obtained and discussed. Our results show that the three-body force affects strongly the high-density behavior of the symmetry energy and makes the symmetry energy more sensitive to the variation of temperature. The temperature dependence and the isospin dependence of other physical quantities, such as the proton and neutron single particle potentials and effective masses are also studied. Due to the additional repulsion produced by the three-body force contribution, the proton and neutron single particle potentials are correspondingly enhanced as similar to the zero-temperature case.Comment: 16 pages, 8 figure