A Sustainable Digital Ecosystem: Digital Servitization Transformation and Digital Infrastructure Support

While the notion of digitalization and sustainability has become prominent in current research, more can be done to bridge these two concepts and explain the interaction between them. Plenty of literature has focused on the impact of digital technology applications and business model innovations on environmental performance but has not considered the counterforce of environmental performance on digitalization. We investigated this question from the perspective of digital ecosystem architects to explore more organic relationships. By analyzing data from 1083 listed firms from 2014 to 2019, we found various effective paths for architects to participate in the digital ecosystem and determined that improved environmental performance has led to more efficient convergence. Digital servitization adopted by private architects contributes to financial performance, whereas the addition of digital infrastructure enables public architects to play a greater role. This is reflected in the discovery that firms with “high” environmental performance can improve their financial performance far more significantly with the help of digital servitization compared to other firms. However, digital infrastructure development can benefit all firms almost indiscriminately. We encourage firms and governments to work together to strengthen digital infrastructure, build digital ecosystems, and focus on environmental performance while transitioning to digital servitization

Twofold Symmetry Observed in Bi2_{2}Te3_{3}/FeTe Interfacial Superconductor

Superconducting pairing symmetry are crucial in understanding the microscopic superconducting mechanism of a superconductor. Here we report the observation of a twofold superconducting gap symmetry in an interfacial superconductor Bi$_{2}$Te$_{3}$/FeTe, by employing quasiparticle interference (QPI) technique in scanning tunneling microscopy and macroscopic magnetoresistance measurements. The QPI patterns corresponding to energies inside and outside the gap reveal a clear anisotropic superconducting gap. Furthermore, both the in-plane angle-dependent magnetoresistance and in-plane upper critical field exhibit a clear twofold symmetry. This twofold symmetry align with the Te-Te direction in FeTe, which weakens the possible generation by bi-collinear antiferromagnetism order. Our finding provides key information in further understanding of the topological properties in Bi$_{2}$Te$_{3}$/FeTe superconducting system and propels further theoretical interests in the paring mechanism in the system

Exploring reasons for state-level variation in incidence of dialysis-requiring acute kidney injury (AKI-D) in the United States

Background: There is considerable state-level variation in the incidence of dialysis-requiring acute kidney injury (AKI-D). However, little is known about reasons for this geographic variation. Methods: National cross-sectional state-level ecological study based on State Inpatient Databases (SID) and the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) in 2011. We analyzed 18 states and six chronic health conditions (diabetes mellitus [diabetes], hypertension, chronic kidney disease [CKD], arteriosclerotic heart disease [ASHD], cancer (excluding skin cancer), and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease [COPD]). Associations between each of the chronic health conditions and AKI-D incidence was assessed using Pearson correlation and multiple regression adjusting for mean age, the proportion of males, and the proportion of non-Hispanic whites in each state. Results: The state-level AKI-D incidence ranged from 190 to 1139 per million population. State-level differences in rates of hospitalization with chronic health conditions (mostly \u3c 3-fold difference in range) were larger than the state-level differences in prevalence for each chronic health condition (mostly \u3c 2.5-fold difference in range). A significant correlation was shown between AKI-D incidence and prevalence of diabetes, ASHD, and COPD, as well as between AKI-D incidence and rate of hospitalization with hypertension. In regression models, after adjusting for age, sex, and race, AKI-D incidence was associated with prevalence of and rates of hospitalization with five chronic health conditions - diabetes, hypertension, CKD, ASHD and COPD - and rates of hospitalization with cancer. Conclusions: Results from this ecological analysis suggest that state-level variation in AKI-D incidence may be influenced by state-level variations in prevalence of and rates of hospitalization with several chronic health conditions. For most of the explored chronic conditions, AKI-D correlated stronger with rates of hospitalizations with the health conditions rather than with their prevalences, suggesting that better disease management strategies that prevent hospitalizations may translate into lower incidence of AKI-D

The relation between dialysis-requiring acute kidney injury and recovery from end-stage renal disease: a national study

Abstract Background Approximately 4–6% of incident end stage renal disease (ESRD) patients in the U.S. recover enough kidney function to discontinue dialysis but there is considerable geographic variation. We undertook this study to investigate whether state-level variations in renal recovery among incident ESRD patients correlated with state-level variations in incidence of acute kidney injury requiring dialysis (AKI-D). Methods We conducted a national cross-sectional ecological study at the state-level using data from State Inpatient Databases and U.S. Renal Data System. All hospital admissions and all ESRD patients in 18 US states (AZ, AR, CA, FL, IA, KY, MA, MD, MI, NJ, NM, NY, NV, OR, RI, SC, VT, and WA) were included. Correlation between AKI-D incidence and rate of renal recovery across states was determined using Pearson’s r (overall and in subgroups). We also calculated partial correlations adjusted for sex and age. Results AKI-D incidence ranged from 99.0 per million population (pmp) in Vermont to 490.4 pmp in Nevada. Rate of renal recovery among incident ESRD patients ranged from 8.8 pmp in Massachusetts to 29.3 pmp in Florida. A positive correlation between AKI-D incidence and rate of renal recovery among incident ESRD patients at state level was found overall (unadjusted r = 0.67; p = 0.002) and in age, sex, and race subgroups. The overall correlation persisted after adjusting for age (adjusted r = 0.62; p < 0.001) and sex (adjusted r = 0.65; p < 0.001). Conclusion Our findings suggest that AKI-D incidence is an important driver of renal recovery rates among incident ESRD patients.https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/152213/1/12882_2019_Article_1483.pd

The Overseeing Mother: Revisiting the Frontal-Pose Lady in the Wu Family Shrines in Second Century China

Located in present-day Jiaxiang in Shandong province, the Wu family shrines built during the second century in the Eastern Han dynasty (25–220) were among the best-known works in Chinese art history. Although for centuries scholars have exhaustively studied the pictorial programs, the frontal-pose female image situated on the second floor of the central pavilion carved at the rear wall of the shrines has remained a question. Beginning with the woman’s eyes, this article demonstrates that the image is more than a generic portrait (“hard motif ”), but rather represents “feminine overseeing from above” (“soft motif ”). This synthetic motif combines three different earlier motifs – the frontal-pose hostess enjoying entertainment, the elevated spectator, and the Queen Mother of the West. By creatively fusing the three motifs into one unity, the Jiaxiang artists lent to the frontal-pose lady a unique power: she not only dominated the center of the composition, but also, like a divine being, commanded a unified view of the surroundings on the lofty building, hence echoing the political reality of the empress mother’s “overseeing the court” in the second century during Eastern Han dynasty

A Search for Technosignatures Around 11,680 Stars with the Green Bank Telescope at 1.15-1.73 GHz

We conducted a search for narrowband radio signals over four observing sessions in 2020-2023 with the L-band receiver (1.15-1.73 GHz) of the 100 m diameter Green Bank Telescope. We pointed the telescope in the directions of 62 TESS Objects of Interest, capturing radio emissions from a total of ~11,680 stars and planetary systems in the ~9 arcminute beam of the telescope. All detections were either automatically rejected or visually inspected and confirmed to be of anthropogenic nature. In this work, we also quantified the end-to-end efficiency of radio SETI pipelines with a signal injection and recovery analysis. The UCLA SETI pipeline recovers 94.0% of the injected signals over the usable frequency range of the receiver and 98.7% of the injections when regions of dense RFI are excluded. In another pipeline that uses incoherent sums of 51 consecutive spectra, the recovery rate is ~15 times smaller at ~6%. The pipeline efficiency affects calculations of transmitter prevalence and SETI search volume. Accordingly, we developed an improved Drake Figure of Merit and a formalism to place upper limits on transmitter prevalence that take the pipeline efficiency and transmitter duty cycle into account. Based on our observations, we can state at the 95% confidence level that fewer than 6.6% of stars within 100 pc host a transmitter that is detectable in our search (EIRP > 1e13 W). For stars within 20,000 ly, the fraction of stars with detectable transmitters (EIRP > 5e16 W) is at most 3e-4. Finally, we showed that the UCLA SETI pipeline natively detects the signals detected with AI techniques by Ma et al. (2023).Comment: 22 pages, 9 figures, submitted to AJ, revise

Discutindo a educação ambiental no cotidiano escolar: desenvolvimento de projetos na escola formação inicial e continuada de professores

A presente pesquisa buscou discutir como a Educação Ambiental (EA) vem sendo trabalhada, no Ensino Fundamental e como os docentes desta escola compreendem e vem inserindo a EA no cotidiano escolar., em uma escola estadual do município de Tangará da Serra/MT, Brasil. Para tanto, realizou-se entrevistas com os professores que fazem parte de um projeto interdisciplinar de EA na escola pesquisada. Verificou-se que o projeto da escola não vem conseguindo alcançar os objetivos propostos por: desconhecimento do mesmo, pelos professores; formação deficiente dos professores, não entendimento da EA como processo de ensino-aprendizagem, falta de recursos didáticos, planejamento inadequado das atividades. A partir dessa constatação, procurou-se debater a impossibilidade de tratar do tema fora do trabalho interdisciplinar, bem como, e principalmente, a importância de um estudo mais aprofundado de EA, vinculando teoria e prática, tanto na formação docente, como em projetos escolares, a fim de fugir do tradicional vínculo “EA e ecologia, lixo e horta”.Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educació