Study on the Co-Benefits of Air Pollution Control and Carbon Reduction in the Yellow River Basin: An Assessment Based on a Spatial Econometric Model

To assess the green and low-carbon development of the Yellow River Basin (YRB) in China, this study utilizes an evaluation index system based on the framework of driving force, pressure, state, impacts, response, and management, and it measured the comprehensive scores of the co-benefits of carbon reduction and air pollution control in the YRB. The global Moran index was used to analyze the spatial correlation characteristics of co-benefits, and a generalized spatial measurement model was constructed to demonstrate their spatial spillover effects. The results show that the co-benefits steadily increased every year. The co-benefits had a significant positive spatial correlation and showed a development trend of “up–down–up”. According to the spillover effect test, the economic development level, education level, and intensity of environmental regulations had significant positive effects, while the level of urbanization and foreign investment had significant negative effects. Considering these results and the aim of promoting green and low-carbon development, clear detection of the spatial spillover characteristics of the co-benefits should be prioritized, followed by an understanding of the spatial transmission mechanism of carbon and air pollutant emission and transfer. Policy recommendations are also proposed including upgrading industrial structure, focusing on the development of modern services and high-tech industry, and strictly implementing the industrial environment access system

Flexibility-enhanced strategies of generations to improve the integration of renewable energy considering uncertainties

Power systems with a high proportion of renewable energy are confronted with immense challenges and a huge amount of renewable energy has been curtailed. To promote the integration of renewable energy, this paper focus on exploiting the generation flexibilities. For hydropower units, a high-resolution dynamic regulation model of reservoir volume is proposed, in which the real-time situation of inflow is considered. The reservoir’s flexibility which is hindered by the static flood water limit level (FLWL) is exploited by this method. For thermal units, a deep peak regulation of thermal is constructed to enhance the system’s flexibility. Furthermore, considering the uncertainties of renewable energy, a chance-constrained reservoir flexible model influenced by random reservoir inflow and a chance-constrained spinning reserve and power flow model influenced by the wind uncertainty are developed. Based on those models and their coordination, an optimal dispatching model considering generation flexibilities and uncertainties is proposed. Simulation results on the IEEE 30-bus system show that the proposed model with multiple flexible resources can increase wind power penetration by 10% and save half of the cost compared with the conventional dispatching methods. These results demonstrated the efficiency of the proposed method whether the integration of renewable energy or the saving of operation costs

Synergic emissions reduction effect of China's "Air Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan": benefits and efficiency

Large amounts of fossil fuels that are consumed in association with the urbanization process, lead to billions of tons of greenhouse gases and air pollutants. Air pollution control policies have the synergic effects on carbon emissions reduction, but whether they can improve the synergic emission reduction efficiency (SERE) needs to be studied. 279 Chinese cities are selected as research samples. We evaluate the synergic effect of China's "Air Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan" (APPCAP) from the perspectives of benefits and efficiency with the Difference-in-differences (DID) model. We further decompose the SERE into synergic emission reduction technological efficiency change (SEREEC) and synergic emission reduction technological change (SERETC) to analyze the internal impact mechanisms. The result shows that: (1) SERE has increased by 8 % from 2010 to 2017, for the expansion of the possibility boundary. (2) The APPCAP has co-benefit of carbon emissions reduction by 1.5 %, but inhibits the SERE increase by 1.2 % because of the lack of resource allocation efficiency improvement. (3) The APPCAP has an inhibitory effect on SEREEC and a promoting effect on SERETC. Therefore, the government should emphasize the source control and treatment efficiency, and further strengthen the system innovation for achieving urban sustainable development effectively.This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant nos: 71774033 and 31961143006), and Fudan Tyndall Centre of Fudan University (grant no. IDH6286315)

Observation of Refractive Index Line Shape in Ultrafast XUV Transient Absorption Spectroscopy

Ultrafast extreme ultraviolet (XUV) transient absorption spectroscopy measures the time- and frequency-dependent light losses after light–matter interactions. In the linear region, the matter response to an XUV light field is usually determined by the complex refractive index [Formula: see text]. The absorption signal is directly related to the imaginary part of [Formula: see text], namely, the absorption index. The real part of [Formula: see text] refers to the real refractive index, which describes the chromatic dispersion of an optical material. However, the real refractive index information is usually not available in conventional absorption experiments. Here, we investigate the refractive index line shape in ultrafast XUV transient absorption spectroscopy by using a scheme that the XUV pulse traverses the target gas jet off-center. The jet has a density gradient in the direction perpendicular to the gas injection direction, which induces deflection on the XUV radiation. Our experimental and theoretical results show that the shape of the frequency-dependent XUV deflection spectra reproduces the refractive index line profile. A typical dispersive refractive index line shape is measured for a single-peak absorption; an additional shoulder structure appears for a doublet absorption. Moreover, the refractive index line shape is controlled by introducing a later-arrived near-infrared pulse to modify the phase of the XUV free induction decay, resulting in different XUV deflection spectra. The results promote our understanding of matter-induced absorption and deflection in ultrafast XUV spectroscopy

Identification of sulfhydryl-containing proteins and further evaluation of the selenium-tagged redox homeostasis-regulating proteins

Chemoproteomic profiling of sulfhydryl-containing proteins has consistently been an attractive research hotspot. However, there remains a dearth of probes that are specifically designed for sulfhydryl-containing proteins, possessing sufficient reactivity, specificity, distinctive isotopic signature, as well as efficient labeling and evaluation capabilities for proteins implicated in the regulation of redox homeostasis. Here, the specific selenium-containing probes (Se-probes) in this work displayed high specificity and reactivity toward cysteine thiols on small molecules, peptides and purified proteins and showed very good competitive effect of proteins labeling in gel-ABPP. We identified more than 6000 candidate proteins. In TOP-ABPP, we investigated the peptide labeled by Se-probes, which revealed a distinct isotopic envelope pattern of selenium in both the primary and secondary mass spectra. This unique pattern can provide compelling evidence for identifying redox regulatory proteins and other target peptides. Furthermore, our examiation of post-translational modification (PTMs) of the cysteine site residues showed that oxidation PTMs was predominantly observed. We anticipate that Se-probes will enable broader and deeper proteome-wide profiling of sulfhydryl-containing proteins, provide an ideal tool for focusing on proteins that regulate redox homeostasis and advance the development of innovative selenium-based pharmaceuticals

The complete chloroplast genome of Vandenboschia striata, a common and widespread filmy fern (Hymenophyllaceae)

Vandenboschia striata is a common and widespread filmy fern of Hymenophyllaceae. Its complete chloroplast genome is 147,014 bp in length, including a large single copy (LSC) region of 89,886 bp, a small single copy (SSC) region of 20,850 bp, and a pair of inverted repeats (IRs) of 18,139 bp. Totally, 132 genes are predicted in the cp genome embodies, including 88 protein coding genes, 36 tRNA genes, and eight rRNA genes. A maximum-likelihood tree was constructed to explore phylogenetic relationship. The result showed that V. striata was sister to V.speciosa with 100% bootstrap support. The complete chloroplast genome sequences of V. striata would be beneficial to further phylogenetic survey on classification of the related species or genera in Hymenophyllaceae

Phosphorene Nanoribbon-Augmented Optoelectronics for Enhanced Hole Extraction

Phosphorene nanoribbons (PNRs) have been widely predicted to exhibit a range of superlative functional properties; however, because they have only recently been isolated, these properties are yet to be shown to translate to improved performance in any application. PNRs show particular promise for optoelectronics, given their predicted high exciton binding energies, tunable bandgaps, and ultrahigh hole mobilities. Here, we verify the theorized enhanced hole mobility in both solar cells and space14 charge-limited-current devices, demonstrating the potential for PNR improving hole extraction in universal optoelectronic applications. Specifically, PNRs are demonstrated to act as an effective charge-selective interlayer by enhancing hole extraction from polycrystalline methylammonium lead iodide (MAPbI3) perovskite to the poly(triarylamine) semiconductor. Introducing PNRs at the hole-transport/MAPbI3 interface achieves fill factors above 0.83 and efficiencies exceeding 21% for planar p−i−n (inverted) perovskite solar cells (PSCs). Such efficiencies are typically only reported in single-crystalline MAPbI3-based inverted PSCs. Methylammonium-free PSCs also benefit from a PNR interlayer, verifying applicability to architectures incorporating mixed perovskite absorber layers. Device photoluminescence and transient absorption spectroscopy are used to demonstrate that the presence of the PNRs drives more effective carrier extraction. Isolation of the PNRs in space-charge-limited-current hole-only devices improves both hole mobility and conductivity, demonstrating applicability beyond PSCs. This work provides primary experimental evidence that the predicted superlative functional properties of PNRs indeed translate to improved optoelectronic performance