Conventional wisdom argues that environmental regulation can trigger both structural adjustments and enhanced innovation. We test this conjecture by using a difference-in-differences approach to ...analyze the impacts of China’s carbon emission trading (CET) pilot policy on energy consumption. We find that compliance with the CET regulation has triggered statistically significant adjustments in energy structure, industrial structure, and technological innovation. Adjustments in industrial structure also contribute to enhanced total factor energy efficiency, whereas increased technological innovation has mixed effects on energy efficiency. We show that in the short run, government-led innovation does not immediately contribute to improvement in energy efficiency, whereas enterprise-led innovation has a negative impact. It indicates that CET regulation can affect energy efficiency through industrial structure and technological innovation. Overall, our results provide new evidence for the strong version of the Porter hypothesis. Our results also provide strong scientific support for China’s recent transition towards market-based carbon mitigation strategies.
We present a series of tools working together that facilitate the determination of dislocation Burgers vectors and slip planes, interface plane normals and misorientation between two crystals from a ...series of Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) micrographs and diffraction patterns. To that purpose, we developed graphical user interface programs that allow crystal orientation determination from spot diffraction patterns taken at various tilt angles or from Kikuchi patterns crystal representation from stereographic projection plots and determination of geometrical features from series of conventional images taken at different tilt angles. We present working examples that allow a faster and easier way to analyse data that can especially be retrieved during in situ straining experiments where dislocations and grain boundaries need to be characterized. More generally, these tools target material scientists interested in daily microstructural characterization in TEM.
•We explore the effects of transportation infrastructure on urban carbon emissions.•We use an improved STIRPAT model to analyze effects of transportation infrastructure on urban carbon emission by ...city scale.•We analyze channels through which transportation infrastructure affects emissions.•Transportation infrastructure increases urban carbon emissions and intensity.
Against the background of global warming, China faces the dual pressures of economic structural transformation and carbon emission reduction. While promoting economic development, the development and construction of transportation infrastructure has contributed to urban carbon emissions. Using an improved STIRPAT model, we examine panel data for 283 cities between 2003 and 2013 to explore the effects of transportation infrastructure on urban carbon emissions. The results show that transportation infrastructure increases urban carbon emissions and intensity. In addition, while the population scale effect of transportation infrastructure is conducive to decreasing carbon emissions, the economic growth and technological innovation effects of transportation infrastructure increase carbon emissions. Results also demonstrate that in large and medium-scale cities, construction of transportation infrastructure increases carbon emissions. In small cities, this relationship is not significant. Robustness tests support all findings. These results indicate that the effective development of carbon-abatement policies requires an examination of the effects of transportation infrastructure.
A new species of Liobagrus is unearthed in the Nan‐Jiang flowing into the Jialing‐Jiang of the upper Chang‐Jiang basin in which currently recognized Chinese congeners have a concentrated ...distribution. This small‐sized (less than 100.0 mm LS) torrent fish belongs to the species group defined by the presence of a smooth posterior edge of the pectoral‐fin spine and upper and lower jaws of equal length or a lower jaw slightly longer than the upper jaw in length. It is distinct from Liobagrus aequilabris and Liobagrus formosanus by the presence of a pectoral‐fin spine extending short of (vs. beyond) the vertical through the dorsal‐fin origin, maxillary barbels reaching the middle of the pectoral fin (vs. pectoral‐fin insertion or slightly beyond), 17–19 anal‐fin rays (vs. 15–16 in L. formosanus), 39–41 (vs. 35–37 in L. aequilabris) post‐Weberian vertebrae and the pectoral‐fin spine length 3.6%–7.4% of LS (vs. 7.6–10.5 in L. aequilabris). It differs from Liobagrus marginatoides by the presence of upper and lower jaws of equal length (vs. a lower jaw slightly longer than the upper jaw in length) and a rounded or unevenly rounded (vs. subtruncate) caudal fin. The validity of the new species is confirmed by its monophyly recovered in a cytochrome b gene‐based phylogenetic analysis and its significant genetic distance with sampled congeneric species.
The growth of teleost fish can be enhanced by several means. A fat-enriched feed provides substantial energy for fish in aquaculture. However, fat is an expensive feed component and one of the ...highest cost components of the feed for cultured species in the aquaculture industry. Therefore, in recent years, nutritionists increasingly focus on improving the fat efficacy of feed components utilized in commercial feeds. To achieve this, precise, comprehensive, and homogeneous analytical procedures are required to quantify fat in feed components. This study assessed the influence of the feed fat level on growth performance, body composition, and serum biochemical indices of the 8 weeks old juvenile hybrid grouper (8 cm) with average body weight of 7.2 g. The results show that the level of feed fat has no substantial effect on the survival rate of the hybrid grouper, which indicates that hybrid grouper juveniles can tolerate high feed fat levels. In addition, the results also show that increasing the level of feed fat can increase the growth rate of fish and feed efficiency, while decreasing their ammonia nitrogen excretion rate. The suitable dietary fat level of hybrid grouper was identified to be 9.72–10.28%. This offers valuable insight into the effects of the feed fat level on the growth performance of the hybrid grouper, which can inform the culture of other species in aquaculture.
•The level of feed fat has no substantial effect on the survival rate of hybrid grouper•Juveniles hybrid grouper can tolerate high feed fat.•The increasing level of feed fat can improve the growth rate of fish, feed efficiency, and reduce ammonia nitrogen excretion rate.•The suitable dietary fat level of hybrid grouper is 9.72% -10.28%.
Increasing plant density is an effective way to enhance maize yield, but often increases lodging rate and severity, significantly elevating the risk and cost of maize production. Therefore, lodging ...is a major factor restricting future increases in maize yield through high-density planting. This paper reviewed previous research on the relationships between maize lodging rate and plant morphology, mechanical strength of stalks, anatomical and biochemical characteristics of stalks, root characteristics, damage from pests and diseases, environmental factors, and genomic characteristics. The effects of planting density on these factors and explored possible ways to improve lodging resistance were also analyzed in this paper. The results provide a basis for future research on increasing maize lodging resistance under high-density planting conditions and can be used to develop maize cultivation practices and lodging-resistant maize cultivars.
Atomically dispersed iron sites on nitrogen-doped carbon (Fe-NC) are the most active Pt-group-metal-free catalysts for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). However, due to oxidative corrosion and the ...Fenton reaction, Fe-NC catalysts are insufficiently active and stable. Herein, w e demonstrated that the axial Cl-modified Fe-NC (Cl-Fe-NC) electrocatalyst is active and stable for the ORR in acidic conditions with high H
O
tolerance. The Cl-Fe-NC exhibits excellent ORR activity, with a high half-wave potential (E
) of 0.82 V versus a reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE), comparable to Pt/C (E
= 0.85 V versus RHE) and better than Fe-NC (E
= 0.79 V versus RHE). X-ray absorption spectroscopy analysis confirms that chlorine is axially integrated into the FeN4. More interestingly, compared to Fe-NC, the Fenton reaction is markedly suppressed in Cl-Fe-NC. In situ electrochemical impedance spectroscopy reveals that Cl-Fe-NC provides efficient electron transfer and faster reaction kinetics than Fe-NC. Density functional theory calculations reveal that incorporating Cl into FeN4 can drive the electron density delocalization of the FeN4 site, leading to a moderate adsorption free energy of OH* (∆G
), d-band center, and a high onset potential, and promotes the direct four-electron-transfer ORR with weak H
O
binding ability compared to Cl-free FeN4, indicating superior intrinsic ORR activity.
Gene expression is a key intermediate level that genotypes lead to a particular trait. Gene expression is affected by various factors including genotypes of genetic variants. With an aim of ...delineating the genetic impact on gene expression, we build a deep auto-encoder model to assess how good genetic variants will contribute to gene expression changes. This new deep learning model is a regression-based predictive model based on the MultiLayer Perceptron and Stacked Denoising Auto-encoder (MLP-SAE). The model is trained using a stacked denoising auto-encoder for feature selection and a multilayer perceptron framework for backpropagation. We further improve the model by introducing dropout to prevent overfitting and improve performance.
To demonstrate the usage of this model, we apply MLP-SAE to a real genomic datasets with genotypes and gene expression profiles measured in yeast. Our results show that the MLP-SAE model with dropout outperforms other models including Lasso, Random Forests and the MLP-SAE model without dropout. Using the MLP-SAE model with dropout, we show that gene expression quantifications predicted by the model solely based on genotypes, align well with true gene expression patterns.
We provide a deep auto-encoder model for predicting gene expression from SNP genotypes. This study demonstrates that deep learning is appropriate for tackling another genomic problem, i.e., building predictive models to understand genotypes' contribution to gene expression. With the emerging availability of richer genomic data, we anticipate that deep learning models play a bigger role in modeling and interpreting genomics.
Although dietary calcium intake has long been recommended for disease prevention, the influence of calcium in development of cancer in the upper gastrointestinal tract has not been explored. Here, we ...assess the roles of calcium and calcium-sensing receptor (CaSR) in gastric cancer development. CaSR expression was enhanced in gastric cancer specimens, which positively correlated with serum calcium concentrations, tumor progression, poor survival, and male gender in gastric cancer patients. CaSR and transient receptor potential cation channel subfamily V member 4 (TRPV4) were colocalized in gastric cancer cells, and CaSR activation evoked TRPV4-mediated Ca
entry. Both CaSR and TRPV4 were involved in Ca
-induced proliferation, migration, and invasion of gastric cancer cells through a Ca
/AKT/β-catenin relay, which occurred only in gastric cancer cells or normal cells overexpressing CaSR. Tumor growth and metastasis of gastric cancer depended on CaSR in nude mice. Overall, our findings indicate that calcium may enhance expression and function of CaSR to potentially promote gastric cancer, and that targeting the novel CaSR/TRPV4/Ca
pathway might serve as preventive or therapeutic strategies for gastric cancer.
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To reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions attributed widely to human activities, previous studies have paid great attention to the relationships between socioeconomic development, urban forms and CO2 ...emissions in cities, and provided relevant emission mitigation policies through the effective urban spatial planning. However, whether and how different features of urban forms (such as compactness) affecting the levels of CO2 emissions is still debatable, specifically considering the different development levels of the cities. Therefore, this study is to synthetically explore how socioeconomic factors and urban forms work together to affect CO2 emissions with the consideration of differences in development levels of five city tiers in China. First, CO2 emissions in each city were derived from provincial energy statistics, radiance-calibrated nighttime light imageries, and population distribution data based on a disaggregating model. Then, a set of variables representing socioeconomic factors and urban forms were acquired from the city statistics and land use data, respectively. After obtaining the balanced dataset of these five city tiers from 1995 to 2015, the panel data analysis was finally applied to evaluate the consequences of socioeconomic factors and urban forms on CO2 emissions under different development stages. The estimation results show that the economic development, population growth, and urban land expansion are important factors that accelerating CO2 emissions in all the city tiers. Besides, irregular or fragmented structures of urban land use could result in more CO2 emissions due to the increase in potential transportation requirements in all the city tiers. Notably, an increasing concentrated pattern in the urban core is found to increase CO2 emissions in the tier-one cities, but to promote the reduction of CO2 emissions in other four city tiers. The urban spatial development with a compact and multiple-nuclei pattern is suggested to be closely linked with a lower level of CO2 emissions. Such results highlight the importance of a city's development level for decision-making involving the mitigation of CO2 emissions, and provide scientific support for building a low-carbon city from the perspective of both socioeconomic development and urban spatial planning.
•Differentiated impacts of socioeconomic factors and urban forms on CO2 emissions are explored.•Socioeconomic growth and urban land expansion promote CO2 emissions in all city tiers.•Urban forms in different development levels have different impacts on CO2 emissions.•Fragmented patterns of urban land can result in more CO2 emissions in all city tiers.•Compact and centralized developments do little to reduce emissions in tier-one cities.
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