498 research outputs found
3D hydrogel-based salt resistant self-floating solar-driven interfacial evaporator with efficient water-lifting capacity for desalination
No full textSolar desalination has been extensively researched as a promising way to address freshwater shortages. However, developing a salt resistant solar evaporator that can be easily extended and manufactured is still a challenge in practical applications. In this work, a 3D hydrogel-based salt resistant self-floating solar-driven interfacial evaporator with efficient water-lifting capacity was proposed using the prepared hydrogel with carbon black (CB) nanoparticles and extruded polystyrene (XPS) board as raw materials. The experimental results implied that the developed evaporator had the highest evaporation rate and evaporation efficiency at 0.05 g CB loading, which were 1.70 kg m- 2h- 1 and 92.8 % at a light intensity of 1 kW m- 2. Moreover, the evaporator also displayed prominent salt resistance in the evaporation of brine with high salinity and outstanding stability after 10 cycles. Significantly, the outdoor experiment demonstrated that 1 m2 evaporator can generate 5923.5 g freshwater per day, which was enough to meet the daily requirement of two adults for drinking water. In addition, the physical fields of the hydrogel with CB nanoparticles of the evaporator at evaporation equilibrium were simulated to analyze its long-term and high-performance operation capability. All in all, the 3D hydrogel-based salt resistant self-floating solar-driven interfacial evaporator with efficient water-lifting capacity presented an enormous application prospect in the field of solar desalination
Increased Mineral‐Associated Organic Carbon and Persistent Molecules in Allochthonous Blue Carbon Ecosystems
No full textABSTRACT Coastal wetlands contain very large carbon (C) stocks—termed as blue C—and their management has emerged as a promising nature‐based solution for climate adaptation and mitigation. The interactions among sources, pools, and molecular compositions of soil organic C (SOC) within blue C ecosystems (BCEs) remain elusive. Here, we explore these interactions along an 18,000 km long coastal line of salt marshes, mangroves, and seagrasses in China. We found that mineral‐associated organic C (MAOC) is enriched in BCEs dominated by allochthonous inputs and abundant active minerals, leading to an increased proportion of persistent organic molecules. Specifically, soils with large allochthonous inputs (> 50%) are characterized by a substantial contribution of MAOC (> 70%) to total SOC with a notable preservation of lipids (36%) across salt marshes, mangroves, and seagrasses. The burial of allochthonous particles, derived from external sources such as rivers or tidal influxes, facilitates the formation of stable MAOC through binding to mineral surfaces or occlusion within microaggregates. The proportions of particulate organic C (POC) and MAOC are important predictors for molecular compositions of soil organic matter. Lipid proportions within molecular composition decrease as POC and autochthonous C proportions increase. These findings provide new insights into the coupled control over SOC sequestration in BCEs, emphasizing the role of allochthonous inputs, proportions of carbon pools, and persistent organic components.National Natural Science Foundation of China https://doi.org/10.13039/501100001809National Key Research and Development Program of China https://doi.org/10.13039/501100012166Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province https://doi.org/10.13039/50110000712
Code for the mQTL analyses in 2023 Nature Genetics
No full textCitation:
Analysis of blood methylation quantitative trait loci in East Asians identifies ancestry-specific effects associated with complex trait variation.
Qianqian Peng, Xinxuan Liu, Wenran Li, Han Jing, Jiarui Li, Xingjian Gao, Qi Luo, Charles E. Breeze, Siyu Pan, Qiwen Zheng, Guochao Li, Jiaqiang Qian, Liyun Yuan, Na Yuan, Chenglong You, Siyuan Du, Yuanting Zheng, Ziyu Yuan, Jingze Tan, Peilin Jia, Jiucun Wang, Guoqing Zhang, Xianping Lu, Leming Shi, Shicheng Guo, Yun Liu, Ting Ni, Bo Wen, Changqing Zeng, Li Jin, Andrew E. Teschendorff, Fan Liu, Sijia Wang
Necessary and sufficient conditions for the BRI success
No full textAbstract This paper presents a general theoretical framework for understanding the Belt‐and‐Road Initiative (BRI). We begin with an introduction to the connotations of the BRI and a review of the initiative's main achievements since its inception. From these achievements, we identify the existence of a potential match between supply and demand in jointly building the BRI to be the foremost necessary condition for win–win cooperation for participating countries. Several features of China's contemporary economic structure are shown to provide the huge potential of supply that matches the massive demand of many Belt‐and‐Road countries for infrastructure development. To unleash the full potential of the BRI, a series of sufficient conditions must be met so that supply and demand interact in a virtuous manner. In the first stage of jointly building the BRI, the key to turn the initiative's potential into reality is to develop the “Five Links” of policy coordination, infrastructure connectivity, unimpeded trade, financial integration, and people‐to‐people bond. Now that the BRI has entered the high‐quality development stage, we demonstrate that China has taken or needs to work on policy measures in 10 areas to ensure the continuing and sustainable success of the BRI construction
FLFP: A fuzzy linear fractional programming approach with double-sided fuzziness for optimal irrigation water allocation
No full textA generalized fuzzy credibility-constrained linear fractional programming approach for optimal irrigation water allocation under uncertainty
No full textResearch on Risk Contagion in ESG Industries: An Information Entropy-Based Network Approach
No full textSustainable development is a practical path to optimize industrial structures and enhance investment efficiency. Investigating risk contagion within ESG industries is a crucial step towards reducing systemic risks and fostering the green evolution of the economy. This research constructs ESG industry indices, taking into account the possibility of extreme tail risks, and employs VaR and CoVaR as measures of tail risk. The TENET network approach is integrated to to capture the structural evolution and direction of information flow among ESG industries, employing information entropy to quantify the topological characteristics of the network model, exploring the risk transmission paths and evolution patterns of ESG industries in an extreme tail risk event. Finally, Mantel tests are conducted to examine the existence of significant risk spillover effects between ESG and traditional industries. The research finds strong correlations among ESG industry indices during stock market crash, Sino–US trade frictions, and the COVID-19 pandemic, with industries such as the COAL, CMP, COM, RT, and RE playing key roles in risk transmission within the network, transmitting risks to other industries. Affected by systemic risk, the information entropy of the TENET network significantly decreases, reducing market information uncertainty and leading market participants to adopt more uniform investment strategies, thus diminishing the diversity of market behaviors. ESG industries show resilience in the face of extreme risks, demonstrating a lack of significant risk contagion with traditional industries
An inexact CVaR two-stage mixed-integer linear programming approach for agricultural water management under uncertainty considering ecological water requirement
No full textPersistence of soil microbial function at the rock-soil interface in degraded karst topsoils
No full textThis is the author accepted manuscriptsExtensive and progressive rock emergence in karst ecosystems may cause localized variations in soil biogeochemical and microbial properties, and thus produce nutrient cycling 'hot spots' that could alter functional responses to perturbation. Here, we investigated the differences between microbial compositions and functions in topsoils at the rock-soil interface (RSI) compared with adjacent bulk soil along a gradient of increasing human perturbation in the Chinese Karst Critical Zone Observatory. Microbial abundance decreased with increasing perturbation and was higher at the RSI compared to bulk soil. Compared with the bulk soil, C-cycling and N cycling enzyme activities at the RSI were 72–427% higher, respectively, and those related to N cycling were 72–98% higher, and were greatest in primary forest and abandoned land. Mineral contents explained the large variances in enzyme activities suggesting that mineral availability modified microbial functions for nutrients acquisition in nutrient-poor karst system. The significantly larger nutrient contents of RSI soil in the primary forest suggest that weathering of the karst rocks in unperturbed environments is the primary source of nutrients, which is driven by microbial enzyme production. The enzyme activities related to C and N cycling were highest in abandoned land, which suggests a rapid switch in microbial function caused by nutrient limitation when cultivation ceased. In conclusion, soil microbial abundance and function next to karst rocks is higher than bulk soils and persists after recovery. This suggests that the potential for long-term recovery of very degraded karst landscapes is possible after abandonment because microbial functions for C and nutrient cycling persist in RSI 'hot spots'.Natural Environment Research Council (NERC
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