Circular economy is increasingly recognized as a better alternative to the dominant linear (take, make, and dispose) economic model. Circular Supply Chain Management (CSCM), which integrates the ...philosophy of the circular economy into supply chain management, offers a new and compelling perspective to the supply chain sustainability domain. Consequently, there is increasing research interest. However, a review of the extant literature shows that a comprehensive integrated view of CSCM is still absent in the extant literature. This prohibits a clear distinction compared to other supply chain sustainability concepts and hinders further progress of the field. In response, this research first classifies various terminologies related to supply chain sustainability and conceptualizes a unifying definition of CSCM. Using this definition as a base, it then conducts a structured literature review of 261 research articles on the current state of CSCM research. Based on the review results, the researchers call for further studies in the following directions that are important but received little or no attention: design for circularity, procurement and CSCM, biodegradable packaging, circular supply chain collaboration and coordination, drivers and barriers of CSCM, circular consumption, product liabilities and producer's responsibility, and technologies and CSCM.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
In response to an increasing desire for modern industries to be both green and sustainable, there has been increasing research focus on the reutilization of natural waste materials to effectively ...remove and degrade toxic wastewater effluents. One interesting food industry waste product is clam shell. Here a new photocatalytic nanomaterial derived from marine clam shells was successfully prepared and characterized. Thereafter the material was applied for the removal of two target dyes from aqueous solution, where the effect of both catalyst dose and initial dye concentration on adsorption and photocatalysis was investigated. The maximum adsorption capacities of methylene blue (100 mg/L) and Congo red (500 mg/L) were 123.45 mg/g and 679.91 mg/g, respectively, where adsorption followed pseudo second order kinetics predominantly via a chemical adsorption process. The photodegradation removal efficiencies of the two dye solutions under visible light irradiation were 99.6% and 83.3% for MB and CR, respectively. The excellent degradation performance in a mixed dye solution, with strong degradation capability and low cost, demonstrated that the clam shell catalyst material was a good candidate for practical field remediation of dye contaminated wastewater.
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IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
In a modern electronics system, charge‐coupled devices and data storage devices are the two most indispensable components. Although there has been rapid and independent progress in their development ...during the last three decades, a cofunctionality of both sensing and memory at single‐unit level is yet premature for flexible electronics. For wearable electronics that work in ultralow power conditions and involve strains, conventional sensing‐and‐memory systems suffer from low sensitivity and are not able to directly transform sensed information into sufficient memory. Here, a new transformative device is demonstrated, which is called “sen‐memory”, that exhibits the dual functionality of sensing and memory in a monolithic integrated circuit. The active channel of the device is formed by a carbon nanotube thin film and the floating gate is formed by a controllably oxidized aluminum nanoparticle array for electrical‐ and optical‐programming. The device exhibits a high on–off current ratio of ≈106, a long‐term retention of ≈108 s, and durable flexibility at a bending strain of 0.4%. It is shown that the device senses a photogenerated pattern in seconds at zero bias and memorizes an image for a couple of years.
Transformative nanodevices incorporate emerging nanotechnologies to meet future data‐intensive applications. A new flexible carbon nanotube transformative device named “sen‐memory” is developed, showing fused sensing‐and‐memory functionality and large scalability. The sen‐memory matrix realizes an in situ writing of optical data into nonvolatile memory without an auxiliary gate bias and the photogenerated pattern can be stored for a couple of years.
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
Objectives
To investigate the use of reverse attenuation gradient sign (RAGS) in CT angiography (CTA) to differentiate total from subtotal occlusion in lower extremities which poses different ...challenges for the procedure and carries different prognoses.
Methods
Eighty patients with 91 lesions in the lower extremities were divided into total occlusion (TO) group and subtotal occlusion (SO) group confirmed by digital subtraction angiography. The CT numbers of vascular lumen at the end of lesion (proximal, P) and at the first entrance (distal, D) of the lateral branch were measured and their difference (CT(PD) = CT(P) − CT(D)) of each lesion was calculated. The CT number gradient (G(DP) = 2 * CT(PD)/CT(P) + CT(D)) was calculated by dividing the CT number difference by the average CT number of the two points. The existence of RAGS where the CT number at the distal point is higher than that at the proximal point (CT(PD) and G(PD) < 0) was determined and the diagnostic efficacy of using RAGS in CTA for differentiating total from subtotal occlusive lesions in lower extremities was calculated.
Results
The SO group had higher CT numbers than the TO group (
p
< 0.001). More importantly, the SO group had positive CT number gradient (G(PD) > 0), while the gradient was negative (G(PD) < 0) in the TO group. The specificity and sensitivity of using RAGS (G(PD) < 0) in images for diagnosing TO of lower extremity were 97.6% and 92.0%, respectively, and 87.8% and 88.0% using the standard CTA images.
Conclusion
The use of RAGS in CTA images has high diagnostic accuracy to differentiate TO from SO in lower extremities.
Key Points
• Total occlusions often exhibit higher CT number at distal point than at proximal point to the occlusion.
• The reverse attenuation gradient sign (RAGS) may be determined using the CT number measurements between the proximal and distal points after occlusion.
• RAGS can be used to improve the diagnostic efficiency in CTA to differentiate between total and subtotal occlusions of lower extremity arteries.
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EMUNI, FIS, FZAB, GEOZS, GIS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, MFDPS, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, SBMB, SBNM, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VKSCE, VSZLJ, ZAGLJ
The existence of so-called blue-green cavities in the luminescence spectrum has been a hindrance to the improvement in the performance of traditional phosphor-converted white light emitting diodes. ...The commercial phosphors synthesized in reducing atmospheres can also cause problems such as equipment complexity, increased cost, and environmental pollution. Herein, a series of cyan-emitting Lu3GaxAl5−xO12: Ce3+ (x = 0, 1, 2, 3, 4) garnet phosphors were synthesized by a traditional solid-state reaction in a nonreducing atmosphere at different temperatures. The crystal structure, grain morphology, optical properties, and thermal quenching behavior were used to analyze the optical properties of the as-prepared phosphors. The luminescence intensity of samples is affected by the synthesis temperature and energy gap between the conduction band and the lowest energy of the 5d excited state of the host lattice. With the substitution of Al3+ by Ga3+, the regularity of the excitation and emission band movement is determined by the combined effects of crystal field splitting (CFS) and the nephelauxetic effect (NE). The temperature dependence of luminescence was studied. The thermal quenching mechanism was clarified by the thermal ionization model. Finally, by employing Lu2.94Ga2Al3O12: Ce3+0.06 as a cyan component, a w-LED with a high color rendering index of 93.2 and low correlation color temperature of 3880 K based on a blue chip and commercial red phosphors were fabricated in order to explore its possible application in high quality w-LED.
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IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Accurate perception, especially situational awareness, is central to the evolution of autonomous driving. This necessitates understanding both the traffic conditions and driving intentions of ...surrounding vehicles. Given the unobservable nature of driving intentions, the hidden Markov model (HMM) has emerged as a popular tool for intention recognition, owing to its ability to relate observable and hidden variables. However, HMM does not account for the inconsistencies present in time series data, which are crucial for intention recognition. Specifically, HMM overlooks the fact that recent observations offer more reliable insights into a vehicle’s driving intention. To address the aforementioned limitations, we introduce a time-sequenced weights hidden Markov model (TSWHMM). This model amplifies the significance of recent observations in recognition by integrating a discount factor during the observation sequence probability computation, making it more aligned with practical requirements. Regarding the model’s input, in addition to easily accessible states of a target vehicle, such as lateral speed and heading angle, we also introduced lane hazard factors that reflect collision risks to capture the traffic environment information surrounding the vehicle. Experiments on the HighD dataset show that TSWHMM achieves recognition accuracies of 94.9% and 93.4% for left and right lane changes, surpassing both HMM and recurrent neural networks (RNN). Moreover, TSWHMM recognizes lane-changing intentions earlier than its counterparts. In tests involving more complex roundabout scenarios, TSWHMM achieves an accuracy of 87.3% and can recognize vehicles’ intentions to exit the roundabout 2.09 s in advance.
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IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Reinforcement learning is regarded as a potential method to be applied in automated vehicles, but the stability and efficiency of algorithms are concerns. To improve them, the deterministic promotion ...reinforcement learning method is put forward, which can promote the policy determinately. Correspondingly, the policy evaluation in critic and the exploration in actor are improved, which combines a normalization-based evaluation and a model-free search guide. The aim is finding the right action exploration direction by critic, then the direction is used to update and guide action exploration in actor. The modified method decreases the dependencies of exploring a good action for promotional updating and only makes deterministic promotion in policy. Consequently, the efficiency of the algorithm is improved without loss in stability. More notably, it can relieve the cold-start and circumvent the limitations in learning with constrained physical systems. To verify the proposed method, the longitudinal velocity control problem for automated vehicles is considered, which contains car-following and non-car-following conditions in a unitized form. The learning system is established in Carsim. Furthermore, some different reinforcement learning technologies are used to accelerate learning. Real-vehicle experiments for validation are also given. The results indicate that the proposed method can achieve permissible learning performance in the longitudinal velocity continuous control problem.
For sustainable development, a refinery is required to save energy as much as possible so as to reduce the emission of greenhouse gas. In crude oil operations, oil transportation from storage tanks ...to charging tanks via a pipeline consumes a large portion of energy. It is vitally important to minimize energy consumption for this process. Since the oil flow resistance is proportional to the square of oil flow rate, the relation between energy efficiency and flow rate is nonlinear, which makes the problem complicated. This work addresses this important issue by formulating a linear programming model for the considered problem such that it can be efficiently solved. A real-world industrial case study is used to demonstrate the applications and significance of the proposed method.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZRSKP
This study aims to explore the epidemiology, clinical profile and strain characteristics of cryptococcosis from 2013 to 2017 in a major teaching hospital in China.
Trends in antifungal drug ...susceptibility of 217 consecutive non-repetitive cryptococcal isolates collected from patients of an university hospital in China were analyzed between 2013 and 2017. Of those, 98 isolates were conserved for identification by internal transcribed spacer (ITS) sequencing and matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization-time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) system. Multilocus sequence typing (MLST) was used to designate molecular types. Clinical characteristics of the 98 patients with cryptococcosis during the period of 2013–2017 were retrospectively evaluated.
There was a trend for gradual increase in the MIC range of fluconazole was from 2013 to 2017. The conserved 98 clinical cryptococcal isolates included 97 C. neoformans and one C. gattii, and 90 (91.8%) isolates belonged to ST5 genotype VNI. Out of the 98 patients with cryptococcosis, 28 (28.6%) were HIV-infected and 32 (32.7%) had no underlying diseases. HIV-infected patients had higher mortality than HIV-uninfected patients (28.6% vs 14.3%, p=0.147).
Most of the patients with cryptococcosis were not HIV-infected in this study, while patients with HIV had a higher mortality. Reduced susceptibility to fluconazole was observed among C. neoformans isolates, most of them belonged to ST5 genotype VNI having an impact on the effective dose of fluconazole.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
Intracranial infections caused by multidrug-resistant Gram-negative bacterium have led to considerable mortality due to extremely limited treatment options. Herein, we firstly reported a clinical ...carbapenem-resistant
Escherichia coli
isolate coharboring
bla
NDM
–
5
and
bla
CTX
–
M
–
65
from a patient with post-craniotomy meningitis. The carbapenem-resistant
Escherichia coli
strain CNEC001 belonging to Sequence Type 410 was only susceptible to amikacin and tigecycline, both of which have poor penetration through the blood-brain barrier (BBB). The
bla
CTX
–
M
–
65
gene was expressed on a 135,794 bp IncY plasmid. The
bla
NDM
–
5
gene was located on a genomic island region of an IncX3-type plasmid pNDM5-CNEC001. Based on the characteristics of the strain, we presented the successful treatment protocol of intravenous (IV) tigecycline and amikacin combined with intrathecal (ITH) amikacin in this study. Intracranial infection caused by
Escherichia coli
coharboring
bla
NDM
–
5
and
bla
CTX
–
M
–
65
is rare and fatal. Continuous surveillance and infection control measures for such strain need critical attention in clinical settings.
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