An energy-saving control strategy for VRF and VAV combined air conditioning system in heating mode

Although variable refrigerant flow (VRF) systems have become attractive due to good energy performances in part load conditions, the shortcoming of no outdoor air intake has not been solved thoroughly. A VRF and VAV combined air conditioning system is proposed to solve this problem. VAV part of the combined system consists of an outdoor air processing (OAP) unit and VAV boxes. Generally the VRF unit operates to maintain indoor temperature and the OAP unit operates to process the outdoor air. A control strategy for the combined system aiming at reducing energy consumption is presented in this paper. When both VRF unit and OAP unit are operating, a load allocation optimization module is executed to find the best load allocation between them to minimize the energy consumption of the combined system. When the allocated load of the OAP unit is very small, the proposed control strategy stops the OAP unit, leaving only the VRF unit to operate to improve the overall energy efficiency of the combined system. When load requirements are met, the OAP unit is restarted and the load allocation optimization module is executed again. The proposed control strategy is evaluated based on the developed simulation platform. Results show that the proposed control strategy can effectively decrease the energy consumption of the combined system

Inhibition of RNA-binding protein HuR reduces glomerulosclerosis in experimental nephritis

Recent identification of an RNA-binding protein (HuR) that regulates mRNA turnover and translation of numerous transcripts via binding to an ARE in their 3′-UTR involved in inflammation and is abnormally elevated in varied kidney diseases offers a novel target for the treatment of renal inflammation and subsequent fibrosis. Thus, we hypothesized that treatment with a selective inhibition of HuR function with a small molecule, KH-3, would down-regulate HuR-targeted proinflammatory transcripts thereby improving glomerulosclerosis in experimental nephritis, where glomerular cellular HuR is elevated. Three experimental groups included normal and diseased rats treated with or without KH-3. Disease was induced by the monoclonal anti-Thy 1.1 antibody. KH-3 was given via daily intraperitoneal injection from day 1 after disease induction to day 5 at the dose of 50 mg/kg BW/day. At day 6, diseased animals treated with KH-3 showed significant reduction in glomerular HuR levels, proteinuria, podocyte injury determined by ameliorated podocyte loss and podocin expression, glomerular staining for periodic acid-Schiff positive extracellular matrix proteins, fibronectin and collagen IV and mRNA and protein levels of profibrotic markers, compared with untreated disease rats. KH-3 treatment also reduced disease-induced increases in renal TGFβ1 and PAI-1 transcripts. Additionally, a marked increase in renal NF-κB-p65, Nox4, and glomerular macrophage cell infiltration observed in disease control group was largely reversed by KH-3 treatment. These results strongly support our hypothesis that down-regulation of HuR function with KH-3 has therapeutic potential for reversing glomerulosclerosis by reducing abundance of pro-inflammatory transcripts and related inflammation

Real-time Power Aware Routing in Wireless Sensor Networks

Many mission-critical wireless sensor network applications must resolve the inherent conflict between the tight resource constraints on each sensor node, particularly in terms of energy, with the need to achieve desired quality of service such as end-to-end real-time performance. To address this challenge we propose the Real-time Power-Aware Routing (RPAR) protocol. RPAR achieves required communication delays at minimum energy cost by dynamically adapting the transmission power and routing decisions based on packet deadlines. RPAR integrates a geographic forwarding policy cognizant of deadlines, power, and link quality with new algorithms for on-demand power adaptation and efficient neighborhood discovery. Simulations based on a realistic radio model of MICA2 motes show that RPAR significantly reduces the number of deadline misses and energy consumption when compared to existing real-time and energy-efficient routing protocols and beacon based neighborhood management schemes

Prevalence and potential risk factors of self-reported diabetes among elderly people in China: A national cross-sectional study of 224,142 adults

AimTo evaluated the prevalence and potential risk factors of self-reported diabetes among the elderly in China, by demographic data, socioeconomic factors, and psychological factors.MethodsDescriptive analysis and Chi-square analysis were used to assess the prevalence and variation between self-reported diabetes and non-diabetes by demographic data, living habits, socioeconomic factors and comorbidities. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression were used to describe the odds ratios (OR) of diabetes prevalence in different groups, while stratification analysis was performed to describe prevalence based on gender, age, and urban/rural areas.Results215,041 elderly adults (102,692 males and 112,349 females) were eventually included in the analysis. The prevalence of self-reported diabetes among the elderly in China is about 8.7%, with the highest prevalence in Beijing (20.8%) and the lowest prevalence in Xizang (0.9%). Logistic regression analysis showed that urban area (P < 0.001), older age (65–84 years old, P < 0.001), female (P < 0.001), higher income(P < 0.001), poor sleep quality (P = 0.01) and some other factors were potential risk factors for diabetes.ConclusionsThis study illustrates the prevalence and potential risk factors of diabetes among the elderly in China Meanwhile, these results provide information to assist the government in controlling non-communicable diseases in the elderly

Serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D as a predictive biomarker of clinical outcomes in patients with primary membranous nephropathy

BackgroundPrimary membranous nephropathy (PMN) is an immune-related disease with increased morbidity and the most common cause of adult nephrotic syndrome (NS). The serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D)], a biomarker of vitamin D (VD) status, tends to decline in patients with kidney disease. However, the relationship between 25(OH)D and PMN is still unclear. Therefore, this study aims to clarify the association between 25(OH)D and disease severity and therapy response of PMN.MethodsA total of 490 participants diagnosed with PMN by biopsy from January 2017 to April 2022 were recruited at the First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University. The correlations between baseline 25(OH)D and manifestations of nephrotic syndrome (NS) or seropositivity of anti-PLA2R Ab were confirmed by univariate and multivariate logistic analyses. Spearman’s correlations were used to examine the associations between baseline 25(OH)D and other clinical parameters. In the follow-up cohort, Kaplan-Meier analysis was used to assess remission outcomes among groups with low, medium, and high levels of 25(OH)D. Furthermore, the independent risk factors for non-remission (NR) were explored by COX regression analysis.ResultsAt baseline, 25(OH)D was negatively related to 24-h urinary protein and serum anti-PLA2R Ab. The lower level of baseline 25(OH)D was associated with an increased risk for the incidence of NS in PMN (model 2, OR 6.8, 95% CI 4.4, 10.7, P < 0.001) and seropositivity of anti-PLA2R Ab (model 2, OR 2.4, 95% CI 1.6, 3.7, P < 0.001). Furthermore, the lower level of 25(OH)D during follow-up was demonstrated as an independent risk factor for NR even after adjusting age, gender, MBP, 24 h UP, serum anti-PLA2R Ab, serum albumin, and serum C3 [25(OH)D (39.2–62.3 nmol/L): HR 4.90, 95% CI 1.02, 23.53 P = 0.047; 25(OH)D < 39.2 nmol/L: HR 17.52, 95% CI 4.04, 76.03 P < 0.001); vs. 25(OH)D ≥ 62.3 nmol/L]. The Kaplan-Meier survival analysis also demonstrated that the higher level of follow-up 25(OH)D had a higher possibility of remission than the lower one (log-rank test, P < 0.001).ConclusionBaseline 25(OH)D was significantly correlated with nephrotic proteinuria and seropositivity of anti-PLA2R Ab in PMN. As an independent risk factor for NR, a low level of 25(OH)D during follow-up might serve as a prognostic tool for sensitively identifying cases with a high probability of poor treatment response

Prevalence and pattern of multimorbidity in China: a cross-sectional study of 224,142 adults over 60 years old

AimTo examine the prevalence and potential risk factors of multimorbidity among older adult in China. In addition, we investigated the pattern of multimorbidity.MethodsThis study is based on data from the fourth Sample Survey of the Aged Population in Urban and Rural China (SSAPUR) in 2015, a comprehensive survey of individuals aged 60 years or older in China. We calculated baseline data and prevalence rates for comorbidities, stratified by household registration, age, sex, education, exercise, and health insurance. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were conducted to identify potential risk factors for comorbidities. Furthermore, we determined the prevalence rates for the three most frequent disease combinations.ResultsA total of 215,040 participants were included in our analysis. The prevalence of multimorbidity was 50.5% among the older adult in China. The prevalence rate was slightly higher in rural areas than in urban areas, with rates of 51.5 and 49.6%, respectively (p < 0.001). Moreover, the prevalence rate was higher in females than in males, with rates of 55.2 and 45.3%, respectively (p < 0.001). Multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that individuals aged 70–79 years (OR:1.40, 95% CI: 1.38–1.43, p < 0.001) and over 80 years (OR:1.41, 95% CI: 1.38–1.45, p < 0.001) had a higher prevalence of multimorbidity than those aged 60–69 years. The most prevalent pair of comorbidities was hypertension and osteoarthropathy, with 19.6% of the participants having these two conditions, accounting for 5.4% of the total participants.ConclusionOur findings indicate a high prevalence of multimorbidity among the older adult in China. Increased expenditure on preventive health care, popularization of general medicine and popular medical education may be adopted by the Government to cope with the high prevalence of multimorbidity

Nodal s± pairing symmetry in an iron-based superconductor with only hole pockets

The origin of high-temperature superconductivity in iron-based superconductors is still not understood; determination of the pairing symmetry is essential for understanding the superconductivity mechanism. In the iron-based superconductors that have hole pockets around the Brillouin zone centre and electron pockets around the zone corners, the pairing symmetry is generally considered to be s±, which indicates a sign change in the superconducting gap between the hole and electron pockets. For the iron-based superconductors with only hole pockets, however, a couple of pairing scenarios have been proposed, but the exact symmetry is still controversial. Here we determine that the pairing symmetry in KFe2As2—which is a prototypical iron-based superconductor with hole pockets both around the zone centre and around the zone corners—is also of the s± type. Our laser-based angle-resolved photoemission measurements have determined the superconducting gap distribution and identified the locations of the gap nodes on all the Fermi surfaces around the zone centres and the zone corners. These results unify the pairing symmetry in hole-doped iron-based superconductors and point to spin fluctuation as the pairing glue in generating superconductivity

Neutrino Physics with JUNO

The Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO), a 20 kton multi-purposeunderground liquid scintillator detector, was proposed with the determinationof the neutrino mass hierarchy as a primary physics goal. It is also capable ofobserving neutrinos from terrestrial and extra-terrestrial sources, includingsupernova burst neutrinos, diffuse supernova neutrino background, geoneutrinos,atmospheric neutrinos, solar neutrinos, as well as exotic searches such asnucleon decays, dark matter, sterile neutrinos, etc. We present the physicsmotivations and the anticipated performance of the JUNO detector for variousproposed measurements. By detecting reactor antineutrinos from two power plantsat 53-km distance, JUNO will determine the neutrino mass hierarchy at a 3-4sigma significance with six years of running. The measurement of antineutrinospectrum will also lead to the precise determination of three out of the sixoscillation parameters to an accuracy of better than 1\%. Neutrino burst from atypical core-collapse supernova at 10 kpc would lead to ~5000inverse-beta-decay events and ~2000 all-flavor neutrino-proton elasticscattering events in JUNO. Detection of DSNB would provide valuable informationon the cosmic star-formation rate and the average core-collapsed neutrinoenergy spectrum. Geo-neutrinos can be detected in JUNO with a rate of ~400events per year, significantly improving the statistics of existing geoneutrinosamples. The JUNO detector is sensitive to several exotic searches, e.g. protondecay via the $p\to K^++\bar\nu$ decay channel. The JUNO detector will providea unique facility to address many outstanding crucial questions in particle andastrophysics. It holds the great potential for further advancing our quest tounderstanding the fundamental properties of neutrinos, one of the buildingblocks of our Universe