295 research outputs found

    Current Situation, Principles and Strategies of Traffic Law Textbooks Writing

    Get PDF
    Textbooks are the carrier of the curriculum and the basic basis for teaching activities. The existing traffic law textbooks lag behind the teaching of traffic law. There are insufficient theoretical and methodological support for traffic law textbooks in the textbook writing.Therefore, in order to develop traffic law, it is necessary to update existing traffic law textbooks from a scientific, systematic and practical perspective. The traffic law textbooks could be enriched and improved in terms of system, concept and content

    Spatial and Temporal Sentiment Analysis of Twitter data

    Get PDF
    The public have used Twitter world wide for expressing opinions. This study focuses on spatio-temporal variation of georeferenced Tweets’ sentiment polarity, with a view to understanding how opinions evolve on Twitter over space and time and across communities of users. More specifically, the question this study tested is whether sentiment polarity on Twitter exhibits specific time-location patterns. The aim of the study is to investigate the spatial and temporal distribution of georeferenced Twitter sentiment polarity within the area of 1 km buffer around the Curtin Bentley campus boundary in Perth, Western Australia. Tweets posted in campus were assigned into six spatial zones and four time zones. A sentiment analysis was then conducted for each zone using the sentiment analyser tool in the Starlight Visual Information System software. The Feature Manipulation Engine was employed to convert non-spatial files into spatial and temporal feature class. The spatial and temporal distribution of Twitter sentiment polarity patterns over space and time was mapped using Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Some interesting results were identified. For example, the highest percentage of positive Tweets occurred in the social science area, while science and engineering and dormitory areas had the highest percentage of negative postings. The number of negative Tweets increases in the library and science and engineering areas as the end of the semester approaches, reaching a peak around an exam period, while the percentage of negative Tweets drops at the end of the semester in the entertainment and sport and dormitory area. This study will provide some insights into understanding students and staff ’s sentiment variation on Twitter, which could be useful for university teaching and learning management

    Sequential Catalytic Modification of the Lignin alpha-Ethoxylated beta-O-4 Motif To Facilitate C-O Bond Cleavage by Ruthenium-Xantphos Catalyzed Hydrogen Transfer

    Get PDF
    Lignin is an abundant natural biopolymer that has the potential to act as a renewable feedstock for valuable aromatic compounds via selective catalytic depolymerization. In recent years, elegant, mild, catalytic hydrogen neutral C-O bond cleavage methodologies have been developed on model compounds yielding acetophenone derivatives. However, none of these have been reported to be effective once applied to lignin. One of the reasons for this is the highly functionalized nature of the native lignin beta-O-4 motif; which is often not taken into account in the beta-O-4 model compounds used for methodology development. In this work, we demonstrate the development of a stepwise modification protocol on lignin beta-O-4 model compounds to overall yield a partially defunctionalized beta-O-4 motif. This was achieved by making use of an a-ethoxylated beta-O-4 motif that is readily available from ethanosolv extraction of lignocellulosic biomass. This specific motif allowed us to apply selective copper catalyzed aerobic oxidation and subsequent rhodium catalyzed decarbonylation of the primary hydroxyl group in the y position. The obtained partially defunctionalized beta-O-4 lignin motif allowed effective homogeneous ruthenium catalyzed hydrogen neutral C-O bond cleavage (>99% of 3,4-dimethoxyacetophenone and >99% of guaiacol). The stepwise modification strategy was extended to walnut ethanosolv lignin, demonstrating that the specific structural motifs are accessible from such a readily available lignin. Overall, this work illustrates that the structure of lignin can be strategically modified to allow access to otherwise inaccessible specific aromatic compounds via selective depolymerization methodologies

    Mild organosolv lignin extraction with alcohols : the importance of benzylic alkoxylation

    Get PDF
    C.S.L. thanks the Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship (ECF-2018-480). Z.W. acknowledges the China Scholarship Council for funding (grant number 201706300138).Lignin holds the key for maximizing value extraction from lignocellulosic biomass. This is currently hindered by the application of fractionation methods that significantly alter the lignin structure to give highly recalcitrant materials. For this reason, it can be highly beneficial to use less-severe fractionation conditions that allow for efficient extraction of lignin with retention of the β-aryl ether (β-O-4) content. Here, we present a detailed study on mild alcohol-based organosolv fractionation with the aim of understanding how to achieve a balance between efficiency of lignin extraction and the structure of the resulting lignin polymers, using walnut shells as model biomass. Monitoring different extraction conditions reveals how the structure of the extracted lignin changes depending on the extraction conditions in terms of molecular weight, alcohol incorporation, and H/G/S ratios. Moving from ethanol to n-pentanol, it was revealed that, in particular, alcohol incorporation at the benzylic α-position of β-aryl ether units not only plays a key role in protecting the β-O-4 linking motif but more importantly increases the solubility of larger lignin fragments under extraction conditions. This study shows that α-substitution already occurs prior to extraction and is essential for reaching improved extraction efficiencies. Furthermore, α-substitution with not only bulky secondary alcohols and tertiary alcohols but also chloride was revealed for the first time and the latter could be involved in facilitating α-alkoxylation. Overall, this study demonstrates how by tuning the fractionation setup and conditions, the resulting lignin characteristics can be influenced and potentially tailored to suit downstream demands.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

    Effects of variability of local winds on cross ventilation for a simplified building within a full-scale asymmetric array: overview of the Silsoe field campaign

    Get PDF
    The large body of natural ventilation research, rarely addresses the effects of the urban area on ventilation rates. A novel contribution to this gap is made by the REFRESH cube campaign (RCC). During 9 months of observations, the Silsoe cube was both isolated and surrounded by a limited asymmetrical staggered array. A wide range of variables were measured continuously, including: local, reference and internal flow, stability, background meteorological conditions, internal temperature, and ventilation rates (pressure difference techniques for cross ventilated cases). This paper tests the impact of the array on the relation between local and reference wind speeds as modified by wind direction and on cross ventilation rates. The presence of the array causes a 50% to 90% reduction in normalised ventilation rate when the reference wind direction is normal to the cube. The decrease in natural ventilation varies with wind direction with large amounts of scatter for both setups. The relation between local and reference wind speeds for the array case had two characteristic responses, not explained by reference wind (speed or direction) nor sensitive to averaging period, turbulence intensity or temperature differences. Given the singular response of the CIBSE approach, it is unable to capture these conditions

    Biallelic mutations in valyl-tRNA synthetase gene VARS are associated with a progressive neurodevelopmental epileptic encephalopathy.

    Get PDF
    Aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases (ARSs) function to transfer amino acids to cognate tRNA molecules, which are required for protein translation. To date, biallelic mutations in 31 ARS genes are known to cause recessive, early-onset severe multi-organ diseases. VARS encodes the only known valine cytoplasmic-localized aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase. Here, we report seven patients from five unrelated families with five different biallelic missense variants in VARS. Subjects present with a range of global developmental delay, epileptic encephalopathy and primary or progressive microcephaly. Longitudinal assessment demonstrates progressive cortical atrophy and white matter volume loss. Variants map to the VARS tRNA binding domain and adjacent to the anticodon domain, and disrupt highly conserved residues. Patient primary cells show intact VARS protein but reduced enzymatic activity, suggesting partial loss of function. The implication of VARS in pediatric neurodegeneration broadens the spectrum of human diseases due to mutations in tRNA synthetase genes

    Superconductivity above 30 K achieved in dense scandium

    Full text link
    Superconductivity is one of most intriguing quantum phenomena, and the quest for elemental superconductors with high critical temperature (Tc) is of great scientific significance due to their relatively simple material composition and the underlying mechanism. Here we report the experimental discovery of densely compressed scandium (Sc) becoming the first elemental superconductor with Tc breaking into 30 K range, which is comparable to the Tc values of the classic La-Ba-Cu-O or LaFeAsO superconductors. Our results show that Tconset of Sc increases from ~3 K at around 43 GPa to ~32 K at about 283 GPa (Tczero ~ 31 K), which is well above liquid neon temperature. Interestingly measured Tc shows no sign of saturation up to the maximum pressure achieved in our experiments, indicating that Tc might be even higher upon further compression.Comment: 22 pages, 16 figure
    • …
    corecore