1,067 research outputs found
The Process of Cao Cao’s Attainment of Legitimacy for the Wei Dynasty: The Conferral of Shuli
No full textWhile it is a fact that the Han Dynasty was eventually succeeded by the Wei Dynasty, it was Liu Bei 劉備, blood descendant of former Han Emperor Jing and emperor of the Shuhan Kingdom, who had the natural claim as Han successor, meaning that the Wei Kingdom did not possess legitimacy at the beginning. Therefore, it is important when considering the legitimacy of the Wei Dynasty to ask the question of how the Wei was able to overcome its disadvantage in terms of genealogy and establish itself as the Han successor. This article discusses the historical background to the Wei’s attainment of legitimacy through the Han-Wei transition (shanrang 禅譲) by focusing on the concept of shuli 殊礼(lit. special privilege or distinction), which was bestowed by Emperor Xian 献帝of the existing Han Dynasty to Cao Cao 曹操, the actual founder of the succeeding Wei Dynasty. From the fact that Cao Cao was appointed chancellor, privilege based on the “tradition of Xiao He 蕭何” can be thought of as a qualification of him as a Han prime minister. However, in order for the bestowal of shuli to be placed in the proper chain of events, the “tradition” should be understood as the starting point of Cao Cao’s transcendence from Han vassal to Wei Dynasty founder. The nine highest privileges for any vassa1 (jiuci 九錫) that were bestowed on Cao Cao in the next year of bestowal of privilege based on the “tradition of Xiao He” were kinds of shuli based on the old order. These included the appointment of Cao Cao as Lord of Wei with the introduction of five classes of peerage, the granting of nine privileges accorded to feudatory princes (zhuhouwang 諸侯王), thus recognizing the establishment of the Wei as a principality and assuring Cao Cao as its de facto prince. Next came the bestowal of privileges based on the traditions of “Prince Qiang 彊 of Donghai 東海” and “Prince Wu 武of Liang梁,” which clarified Cao Cao’s favored relationship vis-à-vis the other princes. The “tradition of Prince Wu of Liang” qualified him as a possible successor to the throne, which means that he became the successor of the Liu Clan, the basis for succession to the Han Emperor. It was a half-year after receiving privilege based on the “tradition of Prince Wu of Liang” that Cao Cao was granted shuli, which carries with it a distinction afforded only to emperors, thus recognizing a status transcending the princes and completing the chain events involving the legitimacy of the Wei Dynasty.journal articl
Where to Meet a Driver Privately: Recommending Pick-Up Locations for Ride-Hailing Services
No full textRide-Hailing Service (RHS) has motivated the rise of innovative transportation services. It enables riders to hail a cab or private vehicle at the roadside by sending a ride request to the Ride-Hailing Service Provider (RHSP). Such a request collects rider’s real-time locations, which incur serious privacy concerns for riders. While there are many location privacy-preserving mechanisms in the literature, few of them consider mobility patterns or location semantics in RHS. In this work, we propose a pick-up location recommendation scheme with location indistinguishability and semantic indistinguishability for RHS. Specifically, we give formal definitions of location indistinguishability and semantic indistinguishability. We model the rider mobility as a time-dependent first-order Markov chain and generates a rider’s mobility profile. Next, it calculates the geographic similarity between riders by using the Mallows distance and classifies them into different geographic groups. To comprehend the semantics of a location, it extracts such information through user-generated content from two popular social networks and obtains the semantic representations of locations. Cosine similarity and unified hypergraph are used to compute the semantic similarities between locations. Finally, it outputs a set of recommended pick-up locations. To evaluate the performance, we build our mobility model over the real-world dataset GeoLife, analyze the computational costs of a rider, show the utility, and implement it on an Android smartphone. The experimental results show that it costs less than 0.12 ms to recommend 10 pick-up locations within 500 m of walking distance.Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Cyber Securit
Intrinsic Mechanisms of Morphological Engineering and Carbon Doping for Improved Photocatalysis of 2D/2D Carbon Nitride Van Der Waals Heterojunction
No full textPublished May 2023Van der Waals (VDW) heterojunctions in a 2D/2D contact provide thehighest area for the separation and transfer of charge carriers. In this work, atop-down strategy with a gas erosion process was employed to fabricate a2D/2D carbon nitride VDW heterojunction in carbon nitride (g-C3N4) withcarbon-rich carbon nitride. The created 2D semiconducting channel in theVDW structure exhibits enhanced electricfield exposure and radiationabsorption, which facilitates the separation of the charge carriers and theirmobility. Consequently, compared with bulk g-C3N4and its nanosheets, thephotocatalytic performance of the fabricated carbon nitride VDWheterojunction in the water splitting reaction to hydrogen is improved by 8.6and 3.3 times, respectively, while maintaining satisfactory photo-stability.Mechanistically, thefinite element method (FEM) was employed to evaluateand clarify the contributions of the formation of VDW heterojunction toenhanced photocatalysis, in agreement quantitatively with experimental ones.This study provides a new and effective strategy for the modification andmore insights to performance improvement on polymeric semiconductors inphotocatalysis and energy conversion.Jinqiang Zhang, Xiaoli Zhao, Lin Chen, Shuli Li, Haijun Chen, Yuezhao Zhu, Shuaijun Wang, Yang Liu, Huayang Zhang, Xiaoguang Duan, Mingbo Wu, Shaobin Wang, and Hongqi Su
Levels and Clinical Significance of Regulatory B Cells and T Cells in Acute Myeloid Leukemia
No full textAcute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a heterogeneous hematological malignancy, whose immunological mechanisms are still partially uncovered. Regulatory B cells (Bregs) and CD4+ regulatory T cells (Tregs) are subgroups of immunoregulatory cells involved in modulating autoimmunity, inflammation, and transplantation reactions. Herein, by studying the number and function of Breg and Treg cell subsets in patients with AML, we explored their potential role in the pathogenesis of AML. Newly diagnosed AML patients, AML patients in complete remission, and healthy controls were enrolled. Flow cytometry was used to detect percentages of Bregs and Tregs. ELISA was conducted to detect IL-10 and TGF-β in plasma. The mRNA levels of IL-10 and Foxp3 were measured with RT-qPCR. The relationship of Bregs and Tregs with the clinicopathological parameters was analyzed. There was a significant reduction in the frequencies of Bregs and an increase of Tregs in newly diagnosed AML patients compared with healthy controls. Meanwhile, patients in complete remission exhibited levels of Bregs and Tregs comparable to healthy controls. Furthermore, compared with healthy controls and AML patients in complete remission, newly diagnosed AML patients had increased plasma IL-10 but reduced TGF-β. IL-10 and Foxp3 mRNA levels were upregulated in the newly diagnosed AML patients. However, there were no significant differences in IL-10 and Foxp3 mRNA levels between patients in complete remission and healthy controls. Bregs and Tregs have abnormal distribution in AML patients, suggesting that they might play an important role in regulating immune responses in AML
Numerical Study of a High-Temperature Latent Heat Thermal Energy Storage Device with AlSi12 Alloy
No full textThis paper explores the potential of thermal storage as an energy storage technology with cost advantages. The study uses numerical simulations to investigate the impact of adding porous material to the HTF side during solidification to improve the heat transfer effect of TES using AlSi12 alloy as the phase-change material. The research also examines the effects of adding porous dielectric materials and increasing air velocity on the discharge temperature, discharge power, and discharge time of high-temperature phase-change energy storage systems. The study found that the temperature difference of the PCM (increased), solidification time (reduced more than 85%), the outlet temperature of the air, and heat discharge power of the LHS did not vary significantly across different porous materials (copper foam, nickel foam, and silicon carbide foam) added to the HTF tube. These findings offer important information for the design of high-temperature phase-change energy storage devices and can guide future developments in this field
Does looking mean liking? A comparison of decision processes across perceptual and preferential choice
No full textWhile both perceptual and preferential decision-making share the underlying iterative process of sampling and integrating information, it is difficult to make direct comparisons between these two types of decisions because they have been studied under separate disciplines, each with its own distinctive techniques. Research in perceptual decisions has highlighted how covert attention improves behavioral performance in a variety of sensory tasks, from contrast sensitivity and orientation discrimination (Liu, Abrams, & Carrasco, 2009) to motion coherence (Liu, Fuller, & Carrasco, 2006), as it enhances the processing of early visual information. Yet it has also been established that overt, relative attention, as measured by gaze exposure, is highly correlated with preferential choice in value-based decision making (Bird, Lauwereyns, & Crawford, 2012; Krajbich, Armel, & Rangel, 2010; Krajbich & Rangel, 2011; Shimojo, Simion, Shimojo, & Scheier, 2003).How do our higher-level intentions of being objective in perceptual choice versus being subjective in preference choice differentially impact choice formation? In this dissertation, I investigate how downstream decision processes, from information acquisition and evaluation to the eventual choice outcome, may be modulated by different task goals. In doing so, I explicate the role of selective attention in information search strategy, as it appears to have biasing effect in preferential but not perceptual choice. To compare choice formation in perceptual and preferential tasks, I used an experience-based paradigm that involved monitoring participants\u2019 eye movements as they chose between two rapidly updating options (fishing ponds). Specifically, participants were asked to look at the two ponds and choose the pond they would rather fish from (preference frame), or choose the pond which had more fish surfacing on average (perceptual frame). Results indicate that participants\u2019 eye gaze shifts toward the more favored option just before choice. However, this gaze bias was reduced in the perceptual frame. Moreover, perceptual participants maintained good discrimination accuracy even when they acquired less information. In contrast, preference participants were more likely to pick the option viewed for a relatively longer time, especially when less information was obtained. Data from both tasks are well described by a diffusion model of evidence accumulation which compares and integrates stimulus information based on eye gaze location, indicating a qualitatively similar choice process even when the higher-order tasks goals were different. However, consistent with behavioral results, the modeling reveals that distinction between task goals lies in quantitative differences across cognitive parameters as perceptual choice was associated with a lower gaze bias and greater information valuation than preferential choice. As it is expected that higher-order intentions are reflected in downstream choice processes, I sought to test if this differential impact of task goals depended on the ability to actively control information uptake. This was done by conducting a second study that directly manipulated stimulus exposure by presenting samples of information in a single continuous stream. Results indicate that perceptual and preference participants were equally susceptible to the gaze bias when they passively viewed the options. Together, these results highlight the importance of agency and voluntary control of relative attention during the processes of information search and valuation across perceptual and preferential choice.(Ph. D.)--Michigan State University. Psychology, 2015Includes bibliographical reference
A novel heat recovery/desiccant cooling system
No full textThe global air temperature has increased by 0.74± 0.18 °C since 1905 and scientists have shown that CO2 accounts for 55 percentages of the greenhouse gases. Global atmospheric CO2 has been sharply increased since 1751, however the trend has slowed down in last fifty years in the Western Europe. UK and EU countries have singed the Kyoto agreement to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by a collective average of 12.5% below their 1990 levels by 2020. In the EU, 40% of CO2 emission comes from the residential energy consumption, in which the HVAC system accounts for 50%, lighting accounts for 15% and appliances 10%. Hence, reducing the fossil-fuel consumption in residential energy by utilizing renewable energy is an effective method to achieve the Kyoto target. However, in the UK renewable energy only accounts for 2% of the total energy consumption in 2005. A novel heat recovery/desiccant cooling system is driven by the solar collector and cooling tower to achieve low energy cooling with low CO2 emission. This system is novel in the following ways: • Uses cheap fibre materials as the air-to-air heat exchanger, dehumidifier and regenerator core • Heat/mass fibre exchanger saves both sensible and latent heat from the exhaust air • The dehumidifier core with hexagonal surface could be integrated with windcowls/catchers draught • Utilises low electrical energy and therefore low CO2 is released to the environment The cooling system consists of three main parts: heat/mass transfer exchanger, desiccant dehumidifier and regenerator. The fibre exchanger, dehumidifier and regenerator cores are the key parts of the technology. Owing to its proper pore size and porosity, fibre is selected out as the exchanger membrane to execute the heat/mass transfer process. Although the fibre is soft and difficult to keep the shape for long term running, its low price makes its frequent replacement feasible, which can counteract its disadvantages. A counter-flow air-to-air heat /mass exchanger was investigated and simulation and experimental results indicated that the fibre membranes soaked by desiccant solution showed the best heat and mass recovery effectiveness at about 89.59% and 78.09%, respectively. LiCl solution was selected as the working fluid in the dehumidifier and regenerator due to its advisable absorption capacity and low regeneration temperature. Numerical simulations and experimental testing were carried out to work out the optimal dehumidifier/regenerator structure, size and running conditions. Furthermore, the simulation results proved that the cooling tower was capable to service the required low temperature cooling water and the solar collector had the ability to offer the heating energy no lower than the regeneration temperature 60℃. The coefficient-of-performance of this novel heat recovery/desiccant cooling system is proved to be as high as 13.0, with a cooling capacity of 5.6kW when the system is powered by renewable energy. This case is under the pre-set conditions that the environment air temperature is 36℃ and relative humidity is 50% (cities such as Hong Kong, Taiwan, Spain and Thailand, etc). Hence, this system is very useful for a hot/humid climate with plenty of solar energy. The theoretical modelling consisted of four numerical models is proved by experiments to predict the performance of the system within acceptable errors. Economic analysis based on a case (200m2 working office in London) indicated that the novel heat recovery/desiccant cooling system could save 5134kWh energy as well as prevent 3123kg CO2 emission per year compared to the traditional HVAC system. Due to the flexible nature of the fibre, the capital and maintenance cost of the novel cooling system is higher than the traditional HVAC system, but its running cost are much lower than the latter. Hence, the novel heat recovery/desiccant cooling system is cost effective and environment friendly technology.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo
Author Response to “Pushing the Limits of Strength Training”
No full textPhotothermal catalytic dry reforming of methane with CO₂ has emerged as a promising yet nascent strategy for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions and enabling clean energy conversion. However, achieving optimal performance requires advances in both catalyst design and mechanistic understanding. Herein, we adopted a double-emulsion-guided micelle assembly strategy to synthesize asymmetric supports (AMONs and AMOMs), featuring unidirectional open/closed pore channels. This distinctive architecture enabled the formation of an asymmetric catalyst configuration through ethylene glycol-assisted selective confinement of Ni nanoparticles at the open-pore termini. Compared to conventional symmetric catalysts, the optimized 5% Ni AMONs EG and 5% Ni AMOMs EG exhibited higher specific surface areas and improved metal dispersion, resulting in an abundance of active sites. Moreover, the asymmetric design strengthened the built-in electric fields, directing more photogenerated hot carriers and localized thermal energy toward reactant activation. Consequently, 5% Ni AMOMs EG achieved a remarkable H₂ production rate of 2314.2 mmol g⁻¹ h⁻¹ and sustained H₂ yields over 50 hours, outperforming symmetric counterparts and even some reported noble metal-based catalysts. This work offers a smart photothermal catalyst candidate and elucidates its structure–performance relationship, advancing photothermal catalytic technology for solar fuel production.Cheng Sang, Weiyi Xu, Kang Xue, Yajie Zou, Shuli Li, Shengjie Han, Haijun Chen, Hongqi Sun, Shaobin Wang, and Jinqiang Zhan
Soil organic matter availability and climate drive latitudinal patterns in bacterial diversity from tropical to cold temperate forests
No full textAbstract Bacteria are one of the most abundant and diverse groups of micro‐organisms and mediate many critical terrestrial ecosystem processes. Despite the crucial ecological role of bacteria, our understanding of their large‐scale biogeography patterns across forests, and the processes that determine these patterns lags significantly behind that of macroorganisms. Here, we evaluated the geographic distributions of bacterial diversity and their driving factors across nine latitudinal forests along a 3,700‐km north–south transect in eastern China, using high‐throughput 16S rRNA gene sequencing. Four of 32 phyla detected were dominant: Acidobacteria , Actinobacteria , Alphaproteobacteria and Chloroflexi (relative abundance > 5%). Significant increases in bacterial richness and phylogenetic diversity were observed for temperate forests compared with subtropical or tropical forests. The soil organic matter ( SOM ) mineralisation rate ( SOM min , an index of SOM availability) explained the largest significant variations in bacterial richness. Variation partition analysis revealed that the bacterial community structure was closely correlated with environmental variables and geographic distance, which together explained 80.5% of community variation. Among all environmental factors, climatic features ( MAT and MAP ) were the best predictors of the bacterial community structure, whereas soil pH and SOM min emerged as the most important edaphic drivers of the bacterial community structure. Plant functional traits (community weighted means of litter N content) and diversity resulted in weak but significant correlations with the bacterial community structure. Our findings provide new evidence of bacterial biogeography patterns from tropical to cold temperate forests. Additionally, the results indicated a close linkage among soil bacterial diversity, climate and SOM decomposition, which is critical for predicting continental‐scale responses under future climate change scenarios and promoting sustainable forest ecosystem services. A plain language summary is available for this article
Low-dose cyclophosphamide combined with chinese herbal medicine Shuli Fenxiao formula for the treatment of intermediate-to-high risk primary membranous nephropathy
No full textBackgroundAt present, the side effects of hormonal and immunosuppressant therapy for intermediate-to-high risk primary membranous nephropathy (PMN) are relatively large, and the remission rate is limited, so more safe and effective regimens are needed.MethodsThis study is a clinical prospective case series study. 31 patients were finally included. The intervention was cyclophosphamide (CTX) combined with “Shuli Fenxiao formula(SLFX formula)”, and the patients were treated for 24 weeks. The observation nodes were baseline, 2 weeks、12weeks and 24weeks after treatment.ResultsAt 12 weeks of treatment, 38.7% of patients achieved partial response. At 24 weeks of treatment, 61.3% of patients achieved partial response and 24.5% achieved complete response. All Anti-phosholipase A2 Receptor Antibody (Anti-PLA2R) seropositive patients achieved immune remission. 24-hour urine total protein quantification (24hUTP) decreased from a median of 6.1 (IQR, 4.6-8.4) g/d to 2.7 (IQR, 0.6-8.7) g/d (P<0.001). Serum albumin (ALB) increased from 27.2 ± 6.4 g/L to 31.9 ± 8.0 (P<0.05). Within 24 weeks of follow-up after discharge, no patients relapsed. During the treatment follow-up period, 6 adverse events occurred in 31 patients, 1 patient developed heart failure during the treatment period, which was not considered to be clearly associated with treatment regimen or nephrotic syndrome (NS), 3 patients were infected, and 2 patients had liver impairment.ConclusionThe results suggest that the combination of CTX and SLFX formula dramatically decreased Anti-PLA2R titers and 24hUTP levels, increased ALB in short term. The combination was safe and had few adverse effects. It has the potential to be used as a potential option for the clinical treatment of intermediate-to-high risk PMN patients, particularly for elderly patients with contraindications to corticosteroid use or those with refractory disease.International Traditional Medicine Clinical Trial Registryhttp://itmctr.ccebtcm.org.cn/, identifier ITMCTR2025000355
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