153 research outputs found
The research status of several technologies capable of integrating wastewater treatment with carbon capture
Since the Paris Agreement was proposed, many industries need to make efforts to save energy and reduce emissions. It is understood that the sewage treatment industry accounts for about 3% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and with the acceleration of urbanization and industrialization in some countries, the total sewage treatment capacity will further increase. This will also lead to a further increase in the industry's greenhouse gas emissions, exacerbating global climate change. Therefore, the sewage treatment industry needs to make technical changes, but under the premise of not affecting the effect and efficiency of sewage treatment. Under such basic requirements, technologies that combine sewage treatment with carbon capture have gradually emerged in recent years. This review selects 3 technologies, including microbial electrosynthesis (MES), constructed wetland and microalgae cultivation, with good development prospects in this area, then summarizes their carbon capture principles and capabilities, sewage treatment principles and capabilities, research status in recent years, and current problems, in order to provide some ideas for the carbon emission reduction plan of the sewage treatment industry
Does Residence in an Ethnic Community Help Immigrants in a Recession?
Research on how the residential segregation of immigrant populations has impacted their labor market outcomes presents many challenges because of the fact that immigrants often choose to locate near co-ethnics to share resources and cultural amenities. Because not all immigrants choose to live in these ethnic communities, identification of a causal effect on living in an ethnic community is problematic. The estimation of the effect of living in these ethnic communities is also difficult because it is ambiguous whether such residence will help or harm the labor market outcomes of immigrants. This study implements a number of approaches to help identify a causal effect, including using sample of adults whose residential location is plausibly exogenous with respect to their labor market outcomes and using the current recession as a source of exogenous variation. Results suggest that residence in an ethnic community after the recession increases the likelihood of working, albeit with longer commutes
Regional Industry Analysis: An Approach for Economies Large and Smaller
Interest in cluster analysis for economic development in regions has been significant over the years. Knowing the strengths and weaknesses of a community’s industry clusters or economic agglomerations can provide regions with resilience to economic changes. Large and smaller economies that are able to identify their industry clusters and know their competitive strengths and weaknesses may be more adaptable and able to thwart the negative effects of economic change. One example of the value of knowing about the strengths and weaknesses of an economy and the potential to shift to new areas of production and service in a local economy is evidenced in Walla Walla, Washington. Smaller communities such as Walla Walla (population estimate 31,957 (U.S. Census)) that have a competitive advantage in wheat production but have found the need to transform their economies because global competition has made their wheat crop production less competitive. Walla Walla packaged some of its natural amenities and strengths in crop production, made use of the education infrastructure at its community college, and created a new industry stronghold of wine production and tourism and increasing restaurant and hotel attractions (Public Broadcasting Service, 2012). Walla Wall capitalized on their completive advantage in crop production, moving from wheat to grapes. This was necessary to stay competitive, but would have been unlikely had they not built on its existing competitive advantage in agriculture and made use of its community college to disseminate knowledge about wine production
How does spatial structure affect psychological restoration? A method based on Graph Neural Networks and Street View Imagery
The Attention Restoration Theory (ART) presents a theoretical framework with
four essential indicators (being away, extent, fascinating, and compatibility)
for comprehending urban and natural restoration quality. However, previous
studies relied on non-sequential data and non-spatial dependent methods, which
overlooks the impact of spatial structure defined here as the positional
relationships between scene entities on restoration quality. The past methods
also make it challenging to measure restoration quality on an urban scale. In
this work, a spatial-dependent graph neural networks (GNNs) approach is
proposed to reveal the relation between spatial structure and restoration
quality on an urban scale. Specifically, we constructed two different types of
graphs at the street and city levels. The street-level graphs, using sequential
street view images (SVIs) of road segments to capture position relationships
between entities, were used to represent spatial structure. The city-level
graph, modeling the topological relationships of roads as non-Euclidean data
structures and embedding urban features (including Perception-features,
Spatial-features, and Socioeconomic-features), was used to measure restoration
quality. The results demonstrate that: 1) spatial-dependent GNNs model
outperforms traditional methods (Acc = 0.735, F1 = 0.732); 2) spatial structure
portrayed through sequential SVIs data significantly influences restoration
quality; 3) spaces with the same restoration quality exhibited distinct spatial
structures patterns. This study clarifies the association between spatial
structure and restoration quality, providing a new perspective to improve urban
well-being in the future.Comment: 33 pages, 7 figures, Under revie
Boise City-Nampa MSA Employment and Industry Analysis
This report is the first component of a four-part study on skills alignment of Boise State University graduates and Boise City-Nampa Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) employers. This report frames the local economic and social environment through a demographic and socio-economic comparative analysis of the Boise City -Nampa MSA and 20 peer MSAs across the western United States. An employment analysis of the Boise City-Nampa MSA at the industry sector and industry sub-sector is also provided, identifying how the industry composition has changed following the Great Recession, which industries show area competitiveness through resilience to employment loss, if not growth, as well as which industries are heavily embedded within the Treasure Valley when compared to the nation. The employment analysis \u27es directly into an industry sector analysis of the Treasure Valley. Interviews and focus groups with local business owners, economic developers and chambers of commerce representatives were conducted in early 2013 to provide insight into the local economy and its industry sectors. The report has potential to provide useful information for state and local representatives and institution a3emp\u27ng to foster a competitive region through policies and meeting employment and employer needs for successful outcomes. These three analyses comprise the first part of the larger four-part study
PO-119 Adrenergic Receptor β3 Up-regulates Uncoupling Protein 1 and Cyclooxygenase 2 Expressions in The Brown Adipocyte
Objective Brown adipose tissues (BAT) activation is important for losing weight as its high energy expenditure in Mammalian. Recent studies showed that exercise may also be essential for BAT activation. Uncoupling protein 1 (UCP1), specifically expressed in BAT's mitochondria, uncouples oxidative phosphorylation and dissipates energy from Free Fatty Acids into heat. Activating the Adrenergic Receptor β3 (Adrβ3) provides fuel for mitochondrial heat production and up-regulates Cyclooxygenase 2 (COX2), which is a key factor of UCP1 synthesis. Sympathetic nerve excitement stimulated by exercise can release norepinephrine as a neurotransmitter, which can affect Adrβ3. Brown adipocyte (BAC) is a kind of adipocyte in vitro as a model to study heat production. Isoprenaline Hydrochloride (ISO) is a widely used as an Adrβ agonist. In this research, we tried to figure out the response of BAC to Adrβ3 activations with different time points and whether ISO can be used as a BAC activator.
Methods C3H10T1/2 cells were maintained in a humidified, 37°C, 5% CO2 incubator in DMEM/F12 medium with 10% fetal bovine serum (FBS). For brown adipogenesis, cells were first split into differentiation medium (DMEM/F12 containing 10% FBS, 20nM insulin, 1nM 3,3’5-Triiodo-L-thyronine(T3)) for 4 days, the medium was changed every other day. Confluent cells were treated for 2 days with brown adipose adipogenesis cocktails (differentiation medium containing 2µg/mL dexamethasone, 0.5mM isobutylmethylxanthine (IBMX), 0.125mM indomethacin and 1µM rosiglitazone) on day 4. Then the medium was replaced by differentiation medium and changed every other day. At day 10, the full differentiation adipocytes were treated with 10µM ISO for 0 (as control), 1, 3, 6, 12 and 24 hours. For the lipid droplets staining, the cells were fixed by 4% paraformaldehyde solution then stained with Oil Red O. The cells were harvested and the total cell lysates were extracted for protein analysis after each time point. The UCP1, COX2, and Adrβ3 expression levels were detected by western blot, using Actin as the internal protein. The results were expressed as the mean ± standard error of the mean (SEM). Group comparisons were performed using two-way ANOVA and LSD’s post-hoc tests.
Results After differentiation, the cell shapes converted from fibroblastic to a spherical shape. Dispersed small lipid droplets were observed in the cells. After ISO treatment, the red color after Oil Red Staining became lighter and the size of the lipid droplets turned to smaller. The Adrβ3 protein expressions were 1.00±0.00, 1.34±0.32, 1.07±0.50, 4.65±1.84*, 2.44±0.73, and 3.43±1.09 at 0h, 1h, 3h, 6h, 12h, and 24h after ISO treatment, respectively. After introduced to ISO, the UCP1 expression levels were 1.00±0.00, 1.95±0.39, 2.72±0.57, 5.68±1.82*, 3.49±0.92, and 2.79±1.05 at 0h, 1h, 3h, 6h, 12h, and 24h, respectively. And for COX2, the protein expressions were 1.00±0.00, 2.13±0.67, 1.82±0.33, 4.67±1.82*, 2.88±0.44, and 2.65±0.54, respectively. The * means p ˂ 0.05, compared with oh controls. The proteins expressions were reached to peak after 6 hours ISO treatment from the above results.
Conclusions UCP1 and COX2 protein expressions were increased in BAC according to Adrβ3's expression in different time points, indicating that Adrβ3 may induce adipolysis in BAC and help to burn fat and produce heat
Land use regulations, transit investment, and commuting preferences
In the U.S., various anti-sprawl land use regulations have been implemented for over two decades. Previous studies primarily investigate the impacts of local land use regulations or neighborhood-level built environment attributes on travel behaviors within a narrow time frame. Through a different lens, this paper examines how various local land use regulations and transit investment, both measured at the aggregated metropolitan level, have affected people’s long-term travel behaviors over a 15-year period, and how these impacts differ between younger and older age groups. This study combines a set of land use regulation indices measured at the metropolitan level in 2003 with 15 years of travel data (2005–2019) from a pooled representative sample of over 8 million workers in the 50 largest U.S. metropolitan areas. Results show several local anti-sprawl land use regulations (e.g., growth containment, adequate public facilities, and moratoria), when combined at the metropolitan level, effectively reduced driving notwithstanding their marginal effects. Government investment in public transit also significantly increased commuters’ likelihood of using public transit and, carpooling, as well as increased carpool group size. Moreover, the commuting mode choices of younger workers are more responsive to transit improvements and land use regulations. Urban planners should commit to regional cooperative planning to promote effective land use regulations at the metropolitan level. Regional collaborative entities, such as metropolitan planning organizations should play a larger role in coordinating local land use planning and regulations. To reduce automobile dependency, planners should commit to improving public transit through enhanced financial assistance, harnessing land use regulations in a more targeted way, and accommodating the needs of different age cohorts
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