Recycled aggregate concrete is used as an alternative material in construction engineering, aiming to environmental protection and sustainable development. However, the compressive strength of this ...concrete material is considered as a crucial parameter and an important concern for construction engineers regarding its application. In the present work, the 28-days compressive strength of recycled aggregate concrete is investigated through four artificial intelligence techniques based on a meta-heuristic search of sociopolitical algorithm (i.e. ICA) and XGBoost, called the ICA-XGBoost model. Based on performance indices, the optimum among these developed models proved to be ICA-XGBoost model. Namely, findings demonstrated that the proposed ICA-XGBoost model performed better than the other models (i.e. ICA-ANN, ICA-SVR, and ICA-ANFIS models) in estimating compressive strength of recycled aggregate concrete. The suggested model can be used in construction engineering in order to ensure adequate mechanical performance of the recycled aggregate concrete and allow its safe use for building purposes.
The rapid development of technology and economy in past years has largely enhanced the quality of life. However, the emergence of various social and environmental problems could be discovered when ...looking back. Implementing the idea of environmental education in school systems therefore becomes a primary issue to promote environmental education. In this case, the practice of governmental policies has to implement the idea of environmental education in school systems, provide complete and comprehensive resources, information, and channels for environmental education, and positively promote the practice of Environmental Protection Law of China and the legislation revision. Aiming at college students in Beijing City, total 322 students in 6 different departments of Minzu University of China are selected as the research objects for the 16-week (3hrs per week for total 48 hours) experimental teaching. Total 322 copies of questionnaire are distributed, and 287 valid copies are retrieved, with the retrieval rate 89%. The research results reveal significantly positive effects of 1.environmental education on environmental awareness, 2.environmental awareness on environmental attitude, and 3.environmental education on environmental attitude. It is expected to enhance environmental awareness, attitudes, and behaviors related to environmental education based on the revision of Environmental Protection Law of the People’s Republic of China.
Uranium is not only a strategic resource for the nuclear industry but also a global contaminant with high toxicity. Although several strategies have been established for detecting uranyl ions in ...water, searching for new uranium sensor material with great sensitivity, selectivity, and stability remains a challenge. We introduce here a hydrolytically stable mesoporous terbium(III)-based MOF material compound 1, whose channels are as large as 27 Å × 23 Å and are equipped with abundant exposed Lewis basic sites, the luminescence intensity of which can be efficiently and selectively quenched by uranyl ions. The detection limit in deionized water reaches 0.9 μg/L, far below the maximum contamination standard of 30 μg/L in drinking water defined by the United States Environmental Protection Agency, making compound 1 currently the only MOF material that can achieve this goal. More importantly, this material exhibits great capability in detecting uranyl ions in natural water systems such as lake water and seawater with pH being adjusted to 4, where huge excesses of competing ions are present. The uranyl detection limits in Dushu Lake water and in seawater were calculated to be 14.0 and 3.5 μg/L, respectively. This great detection capability originates from the selective binding of uranyl ions onto the Lewis basic sites of the MOF material, as demonstrated by synchrotron radiation extended X-ray adsorption fine structure, X-ray adsorption near edge structure, and first principles calculations, further leading to an effective energy transfer between the uranyl ions and the MOF skeleton.
Urbanization is a fundamental driver of sustained economic growth, but uncontrolled urbanization without appropriate information and communication technology (ICT) and transport networks leads to ...undesirable effects, such as pollution, accidents, and congestion. This study extends the environmental literature by investigating whether ICT helps to improve environmental protection when adopted in urban areas, using a panel dataset comprising 60 developing and 34 developed countries between 1998 and 2016. Empirically, we employ the 2-step system Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) strategy including two empirical specifications: with and without control variables. The estimates show that (1) ICT adoption within urban areas can improve environmental quality for developing and developed countries. For instance, a 10% rise in the interaction between ICTs and urbanization can reduce pollution between 1% and 6.5% for developed countries. (2) The variables urbanization and ICTs negatively affect environmental protection. (3) Telephone use within urban areas is more efficient in reducing environmental damages compared to mobile phones and internet technologies. (4) The positive effect of the interaction between ICTs and urbanization is very weak for developing economies. A 10% rise in the association between urbanization and ICTs can reduce pollution by between 0.1% and 1%. Public policies should concentrate on the adoption of ICT inside urban areas to ensure environmental protection. The integration of the smart cities approach can help in reducing urban pollution.
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•The role of ICT adoption in urban areas is explored using a panel data of world economies.•Urbanization negatively affects environmental protection.•ICT adoption within urban areas can improve environmental quality.•Telephone use within urban areas is more efficient in reducing environmental damages.•The environment improving effect of ICT is very weak for developing economies.
In recent times, increasing environmental pollution alongside depletion of fossil fuel reserves has led to a rejuvenated interest in utilizing biomass and waste materials. Advanced porous carbons ...derived from such abundantly available and carbon rich feedstock precursors have been extensively used for clean energy storage and environmental remediation applications. This is credited to the exclusive properties like high specific surface area with tunable pore size, developed pore architecture and chemical stability. Simultaneously, several techniques have been progressively designed and upgraded for pollutant abatement in terms of economical and facile methodologies. The review aims to highlight the importance of biomass/waste-derived nanoporous carbon materials for energy and environmental applications. Various bio-synthetic activation methods and up to date research activities in the design and sustainable development of such state-of-the-art materials have been introduced. In addition, promising applications of nanoporous carbons in electrochemical systems and for environmental protection are briefly reviewed. Finally, current challenges and strategies for future research are summarized. It is expected that this review paper would assist the reader to acquire concise and systematic information as well as contribute novel ideas over a wide spectrum of disciplines.
The review summarizes the most recent advances, challenges and future perspectives in biomass/waste-derived nanoporous carbon materials for energy and environmental remediation applications.
Waste sorting plays a vital role in establishing a sustainable society by effectively reducing resource waste and promoting its recycling. However, traditional garbage sorting heavily relies on ...manual labor, which is inefficient, costly, and constrained by limited human resources. To address these challenges, this paper employs the convolutional neural network technique in deep learning for intelligent waste sorting. Firstly, a multi-scale processing strategy is introduced to enhance the system's resilience and accuracy by considering feature information at various scales. Secondly, a lightweight approach using tiny convolutions instead of large convolutions is adopted to reduce model parameters. Combining the advantages of both, we constructed a lightweight multiscale convolution (LMConv) and experiments the Lightweight Multiscale Convolutional Neural Network (LMNet) based on LMConv, and its optimal convolutional architecture is determined through ablation experiments. The experiment results demonstrate that LMNet outperforms other well-known convolutional neural network models in the area of garbage sorting.
Granting rights to elements of nature examined from a legal-social and ethical perspectiveOver forty countries around the world are taking an innovative legal path in the field of nature protection ...and environmental law by granting legal rights to elements of nature. Given the challenges which the Netherlands needs to solve regarding biodiversity loss and pollution of land, water and air, it is high time to reconsider past practices. In this article, the authors explore whether this innovative ‘Rights of Nature’ path could strengthen nature protection and environmental law in the Netherlands as well. The authors address that question from a legal-social and ethical perspective.
The possible differential response to the climatic fluctuations of co-occurring trees of different ages is still poorly known and rather controversial. Moreover, in managed forests, such a picture is ...further complicated by the impact of silvicultural practices. With this concern, in a multi-aged umbrella pine stand in the Maremma Regional Park (Tuscany, Italy), the spatial patterns and tree-ring response to the climate were investigated by differentiating trees into three classes, i.e., young, mature, and old. The aim was to assess the role of past management in shaping the current stand structure and affecting the growth dynamics at different ages, as well as to evaluate the possible shifting of tree adaptation to the climatic variables throughout plant aging. Our outcomes proved that the current mosaic of even-aged small patches results from a multifaceted forest management history. Until the 1960s, silvicultural treatments seemed more suitable in promoting tree growth and regeneration. Later on, inappropriate and/or untimely thinning probably triggered excessive competition from the top canopy trees, involving reduced stem and root system development in the younger plants living in the understory. Also, the intra-annual growth response to the climate showed some dependence on age. Younger trees are assumed not to be able to efficiently exploit water resources from the deep aquifer during the dry season, probably due to an insufficiently developed taproot, differently than older trees. Accordingly, appropriate and timely thinning, simulating frequent natural disturbances on small areas, could be a suitable management approach to promote sustained growth rates and regeneration processes, as well as healthy and vital trees at all life stages.
Environmental problems, associated with climate change and air pollution, have become increasingly serious for China in recent years, which have aroused great domestic and international concerns. To ...mitigate these problems with great efforts, the Chinese government has implemented the Environmental Protection Tax Law in the whole country since the beginning of 2018. Although the new tax law is perceived as an aggressive policy that tends to establish a taxation system for promoting air pollution control, evaluations of its effectiveness are insufficient and urgently needed for China. Using a multiregion multisector Computable General Equilibrium model, we, for the first time, quantify the impacts of this 'pollution tax' policy on modulating air pollutants emissions. Our analysis shows that current tax policy is generally able to reduce many short-lived air pollutants emissions (e.g. SO2, NOX, TSP, PM10, PM2.5, CO, VOCs, OC, NH3 and BC), but the significant effects only happen in regions with large economic scale (i.e. Guangdong, Shandong and Zhejiang provinces) and in sectors with high emission intensity (i.e. the electric power and nonmetal manufacturing sectors). However, at the national level, the overall effect of the current policy on air pollution mitigation is relatively small, less than 2% compared to a business-as-usual scenario. Large emission reduction potentials exist if the tax increases. Therefore, a more ambitious tax policy is urgently needed in order to achieve China's air pollution mitigation target of 2020. We also find that in China for implementing any pollution tax policies, the rate of decline in CO2 emissions is much larger than those of short-lived pollutants, which indicates a huge co-benefit on global climate change mitigation.
An All‐Natural Wood‐Inspired Aerogel Han, Zi‐Meng; Sun, Wen‐Bin; Yang, Kun‐Peng ...
Angewandte Chemie International Edition,
February 1, 2023, 2023-Feb-01, 2023-02-00, 20230201, Letnik:
62, Številka:
6
Journal Article
Recenzirano
The oriented pore structure of wood endows it with a variety of outstanding properties, among which the low thermal conductivity has attracted researchers to develop wood‐like aerogels as excellent ...thermal insulation materials. However, the increasing demands of environmental protection have put forward new and strict requirements for the sustainability of aerogels. Here, we report an all‐natural wood‐inspired aerogel consisting of all‐natural ingredients and develop a method to activate the surface‐inert wood particles to construct the aerogel. The obtained wood‐inspired aerogel has channel structure similar to that of natural wood, endowing it with superior thermal insulation properties to most existing commercial sponges. In addition, remarkable fire retardancy and complete biodegradability are integrated. With the above outstanding performances, this sustainable wood‐inspired aerogel will be an ideal substitute for the existing commercial thermal insulation materials.
An interesting surface nanocrystallization method was developed to make the surface‐inert and weakly interacting wood particles better assemble to construct the aerogel. This bottom‐up method allows the preparation of large‐size composite aerogels. The wood‐inspired oriented channel structure endows the obtained aerogel with superior thermal insulation properties to natural wood and most existing commercial sponges.
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