Alleviating the urban heat-island effect (UHI) is one of the important means to meet energy conservation and pollution reduction targets by demand side. Rational architectural layout and landscape ...design are significant measures to achieve building energy efficiency and sustainable building. In this study, the effects of building layout patterns and trees arrangement on the outdoor wind environment and thermal comfort at the pedestrian level were investigated by using Simulation Platform for Outdoor Thermal Environment (SPOTE). The conclusions were summarized as follows: 1) it has been found that trees arrangement, buildings layout patterns and their orientations with respect to wind have significant effects on the outdoor wind environment and pedestrian level thermal comfort. The long facades of building, which are parallel to the prevailing wind direction, can accelerate horizontal vortex airflow at the edges and obtain pleasant thermal comfort and wind environment at pedestrian level. 2) Configurations that contain a square central space articulated by buildings and oriented toward the prevailing wind can offer better exposure to air currents as a result of attenuated revised standard effective temperature (SET*). Such configurations are regarded as the optimum building layout patterns and trees arrangement.
•Six typical configurations of building layouts and trees arrangement are modeled.•Effects of building layouts and trees arrangement are evaluated by simulation.•Influencing parameters of building layouts and trees arrangement are analyzed.•The pressure difference of the highest and lowest NVP is 28.63 Pa.•A difference of 2.8 °C exists between the highest and lowest SET*.
In this paper, the effects of thermal environment on occupant IEQ perception and productivity were studied. Seven groups of experiments were carried out in a controlled office environment and the ...physical parameters, including air temperature, globe temperature, relative humidity, carbon dioxide concentration, illuminance and background noise level, were measured. In the experiments, indoor air temperature was the independent variable, which varied from 16 °C to 28 °C with a step of 2 °C, and other constant IEQ parameters were the control variables. The dependent variable would be human perception of various control variables and productivity. Subjects (9 females and 12 males) were recruited to participate every experiment for 2 h. During each experiment, they voted their perceptions of thermal comfort, indoor air quality, lighting and acoustic environment, and performed simulated office tasks to evaluate the productivity. The results showed that the variation of thermal environment not only affected thermal comfort but also had a “comparative” impact on the perception of other IEQ factors. When thermal environment was unsatisfactory, it weakened the “comfort expectation” of other IEQ factors, which accordingly resulted in the less dissatisfaction with other IEQ factors. Conversely, when thermal environment was quite satisfying, it raised “comfort expectation” of other IEQ factors, which lowered the evaluation of the real performance of other IEQ factors retroactively. The quantitative relationship between productivity and thermal environment was established. The optimal productivity was obtained when people felt “neutral” or “slightly cool”, and the increase of thermal satisfaction had a positive effect on productivity.
•Experiments were conducted in a controlled office under conditions from 16 °C to 28 °C.•Objective measurement, subjective survey and productivity test were carried out.•The “comparative” impact between thermal environment and other IEQ factors was found.•The optimal productivity was obtained when people felt “neutral” or “slightly cool”.•The increase of thermal satisfaction had a positive effect on productivity.
Radiant heating systems are increasingly widely utilized in buildings for its energy conservation potential and enhanced thermal comfort. This paper presented an experiment to compare the thermal ...comfort performance of radiant heating system with convective heating system through objective measurement and subjective survey. Six physical parameters which might influence occupants’ thermal satisfaction, including the Mean Radiant Temperature (MRT), humidity, air movement, A-weighted sound level, temperature fluctuation and vertical temperature difference, were measured. In addition, 97 subjects participated in the subjective survey part of this experiment, experiencing all the three environments heated by air source heat pump, radiator and floor heating. And they were asked to vote in six thermal comfort related aspects, i.e. thermal sensation, humidity, draught, local discomfort, overall thermal satisfaction and overall preferences, plus the acoustic environment, since the operation noise of heating system might lead to complains of the occupants. It was found that in continuous heating, no significant difference between radiant and convective heating system was observed in the Mean Radiant Temperature (MRT), indoor humidity and noise issue. Though radiant heating systems resulted in lower draught risk and less local discomfort complains in the feet region due to the less significant temperature fluctuations and vertical temperature gradients, radiant heating did not have significantly higher overall thermal satisfaction votes and was not significantly more preferred by occupants.
•Thermal comfort of air source heat pump, radiator and floor heating, were compared.•Six physical parameters which influence occupants’ thermal comfort were measured.•97 subjects voted in seven thermal comfort related aspects.•Convective heating terminals result in higher draught and local discomfort risks.•Radiant heating terminals doesn’t have significantly higher thermal comfort votes.
Host-pathogen interactions are fundamental to our understanding of infectious diseases. Protein glycosylation is one kind of common post-translational modification, forming glycoproteins and ...modulating numerous important biological processes. It also occurs in host-pathogen interaction, affecting host resistance or pathogen virulence often because glycans regulate protein conformation, activity, and stability, etc. This review summarizes various roles of different glycoproteins during the interaction, which include: host glycoproteins prevent pathogens as barriers; pathogen glycoproteins promote pathogens to attack host proteins as weapons; pathogens glycosylate proteins of the host to enhance virulence; and hosts sense pathogen glycoproteins to induce resistance. In addition, this review also intends to summarize the roles of lectin (a class of protein entangled with glycoprotein) in host-pathogen interactions, including bacterial adhesins, viral lectins or host lectins. Although these studies show the importance of protein glycosylation in host-pathogen interaction, much remains to be discovered about the interaction mechanism.
How to control the growth of building energy consumption and achieve the goal of energy saving and emission reduction while ensuring people’s growing demand for indoor comfort is of great practical ...significance in the new era. The rapid and accurate prediction of the building energy consumption at the early design stage can provide a quantitative basis for the energy-saving design. ANN (artificial neural network) model is the most widely used artificial intelligence model in the field of building performance optimization due to its high speed, high accuracy, and capability of handling nonlinear relationships between variables. In this paper, an ANN-based fast building energy consumption prediction method for complex architectural form for the early design stage was proposed. Under this method, the authors proposed an idea of architectural form decomposition, to eliminate the complexity of building shape at the early design stage, thus transforming the energy consumption prediction problem of one complex architectural form into several energy consumption prediction problems of multiple simple blocks: the method of characterization decomposition (MCD) and the method of spatial homogenization decomposition (MSHD). The ANN model was introduced to realize energy consumption prediction, which fully utilized the two advantages: high speed and good response to complicated relationships. Accuracy verification shows that the relative deviation of cooling and heating energy consumption is within ±10% using the MCD method. The relative deviation of total energy consumption is within 10% using the MSHD method.
Plant pathogen effectors can recruit the host post-translational machinery to mediate their post-translational modification (PTM) and regulate their activity to facilitate parasitism, but few studies ...have focused on this phenomenon in the field of plant-parasitic nematodes. In this study, we show that the plant-parasitic nematode Meloidogyne graminicola has evolved a novel effector, MgGPP, that is exclusively expressed within the nematode subventral esophageal gland cells and up-regulated in the early parasitic stage of M. graminicola. The effector MgGPP plays a role in nematode parasitism. Transgenic rice lines expressing MgGPP become significantly more susceptible to M. graminicola infection than wild-type control plants, and conversely, in planta, the silencing of MgGPP through RNAi technology substantially increases the resistance of rice to M. graminicola. Significantly, we show that MgGPP is secreted into host plants and targeted to the ER, where the N-glycosylation and C-terminal proteolysis of MgGPP occur. C-terminal proteolysis promotes MgGPP to leave the ER, after which it is transported to the nucleus. In addition, N-glycosylation of MgGPP is required for suppressing the host response. The research data provide an intriguing example of in planta glycosylation in concert with proteolysis of a pathogen effector, which depict a novel mechanism by which parasitic nematodes could subjugate plant immunity and promote parasitism and may present a promising target for developing new strategies against nematode infections.
•An experiment for metabolic rate measurement by CO2 variation in an airtight chamber have been carried out, and it has been confirmed to be feasible and accurate approach.•The laws of metabolic rate ...changes at different exercise intensity have been observed, and the time lengths required to get to steady conditions both in exercise state and after exercise have been found.•The effects of metabolic rate variation on human thermal sensation and thermal comfort have been described.
The human metabolic rate is probably the most fundamental but least accurately assessed parameter in thermal comfort research and practice. This study aims to test the dynamic changes of the metabolic rate and its effects on thermal comfort perception. An airtight chamber (2 × 2 × 2 m3) was utilized to measure subjects’ accumulated CO2 production, and metabolic values then were calculated based on indirect calorimetry theory. During the test, 31 subjects were first asked to ride a spinning bike for 8 min at different intensities, and then asked to remain sitting for 22 min. The results showed how the human metabolic rate changed during different exercise periods. It took the human body 5–6 min to reach a new exercising metabolic level while the human body needed 7–9 min to recover from exercise to a normal sedentary state. The dramatic changes in metabolic rate markedly influenced subjects’ thermal sensation and thermal comfort perception. These findings provide a general principle of metabolic rate changes and could serve as a reference for future thermal comfort research.
In this paper, objective environmental measurements and subjective questionnaire surveys are conducted in 8 major Chinese airport terminals to investigate Indoor environment quality (IEQ) and explore ...the relationship between individual IEQ factors and overall satisfaction. The objective measurements show that the qualification rate of indoor thermal environment is above 70%, according to Chinese thermal standard; the average CO2 concentration is controlled between 350 PPM and 700 PPM; the average value of natural light illuminance ranges from 300 lx to 500 lx; and the noise intensity stays at a high level, whose average value is between 55 dB(A) and 70 dB(A). The analysis of subjective surveys finds the majority of passengers are just satisfied with IEQ in the airport terminals. It is also found that the subjective satisfactory level is highly correlated with the objective environmental measurement. Based on Kano's model, the impacts of individual IEQ factors on overall satisfaction are analyzed. The results indicate ‘Thermal Comfort’ and ‘Space Layout’ are Basic Factors, which have prominently negative influences on passengers' overall satisfaction when they are underperformed. Conversely, ‘Service Facility’ is Bonus Factor, which means a greater positive effect on overall satisfaction if it performs well. In addition, ‘Acoustic Quality’, ‘Air Quality’ and ‘Lighting’ are Proportional Factors, whose impact on overall satisfaction is in linear proportion to its performance.
•IEQ in eight Chinese airport terminals has been investigated.•The physical parameters of four main IEQ factors are measured in the long term.•3489 subjects voted in six IEQ factors and overall satisfaction.•The subjective satisfaction is highly correlated with the objective measurement.•IEQ factors have different impacts on overall satisfaction, according to Kano's model.
Evidence is emerging that plant‐parasitic nematodes can secrete effectors to interfere with the host immune response, but it remains unknown how these effectors can conquer host immune responses. ...Here, we depict a novel effector, MjTTL5, that could suppress plant immune response. Immunolocalization and transcriptional analyses showed that MjTTL5 is expressed specifically within the subventral gland of Meloidogyne javanica and up‐regulated in the early parasitic stage of the nematode. Transgenic Arabidopsis lines expressing MjTTL5 were significantly more susceptible to M. javanica infection than wild‐type plants, and vice versa, in planta silencing of MjTTL5 substantially increased plant resistance to M. javanica. Yeast two‐hybrid, coimmunoprecipitation and bimolecular fluorescent complementation assays showed that MjTTL5 interacts specifically with Arabidopsis ferredoxin : thioredoxin reductase catalytic subunit (AtFTRc), a key component of host antioxidant system. The expression of AtFTRc is induced by the infection of M. javanica. Interaction between AtFTRc and MjTTL could drastically increase host reactive oxygen species‐scavenging activity, and result in suppression of plant basal defenses and attenuation of host resistance to the nematode infection. Our results demonstrate that the host ferredoxin : thioredoxin system can be exploited cunningly by M. javanica, revealing a novel mechanism utilized by plant–parasitic nematodes to subjugate plant innate immunity and thereby promoting parasitism.
Since the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) outbreak, the nosocomial infection rate worldwide has been reported high. It is urgent to figure out an affordable way to monitor and alarm nosocomial ...infection. Carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration can reflect the ventilation performance and crowdedness, so CO2 sensors were placed in Beijing Tsinghua Changgung Hospital's fever clinic and emergency department where the nosocomial infection risk was high. Patients’ medical records were extracted to figure out their timelines and whereabouts. Based on these, site‐specific CO2 concentration thresholds were calculated by the dilution equation and sites’ risk ratios were determined to evaluate ventilation performance. CO2 concentration successfully revealed that the expiratory tracer was poorly diluted in the mechanically ventilated inner spaces, compared to naturally ventilated outer spaces, among all of the monitoring sites that COVID‐19 patients visited. Sufficient ventilation, personal protection, and disinfection measures led to no nosocomial infection in this hospital. The actual outdoor airflow rate per person (Qc) during the COVID‐19 patients’ presence was estimated for reference using equilibrium analysis. During the stay of single COVID‐19 patient wearing a mask, the minimum Qc value was 15–18 L/(s·person). When the patient was given throat swab sampling, the minimum Qc value was 21 L/(s·person). The Qc value reached 36–42 L/(s·person) thanks to window‐inducted natural ventilation, when two COVID‐19 patients wearing masks shared the same space with other patients or healthcare workers. The CO2 concentration monitoring system proved to be effective in assessing nosocomial infection risk by reflecting real‐time dilution of patients’ exhalation.
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