Sustainable urban renewal has received tremendous academic attention and has been put into wide practice around the world. In order to avoid unsustainable renewal projects, the evaluation of the ...sustainability of urban renewal has become a critical procedure. However, there is an insufficient number of relevant studies on ex-ante evaluation compared to a large amount of literature focusing on ex-post evaluation. Most literature does not fully consider the interdependency between the dimensions/criteria of evaluation. How to utilize this to evaluate real cases is shortage. Hence, this study presents an ex-ante decision-making model for evaluating the sustainability of urban renewal projects based on hybrid multiple-attribute decision-making (MADM) from a government perspective, and includes three classical dimensions: economic (D1), social and cultural (D2), and environment (D3), as well as 13 relevant criteria. A case in Taiwan is used to evaluate the potential performance of sustainability and explore improvement strategies. Empirical results from the Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) reveal that the social and cultural (D2) dimension impact the environment (D3) and economic (D1) dimensions, with the economic (D1) dimension being the most impacted by other dimensions. Enhancing transportation (C5), strengthening the accessibility of various public facilities (C4), preserving local culture (C9), increasing greening and open space (C10), and improving land-use efficiency (C3) are the criteria in the “cause” position, among which strengthening the accessibility of various public facilities (C4) and improving land-use efficiency (C3) are considered to be the core of urban renewal project sustainability based on DEMATEL and the DEMATEL-based analytic network process (DANP). The modified VlseKriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje (VIKOR) method indicated that the social and cultural (D2) and the environment (D3) dimensions have poor performance. Thereafter relevant improvement strategies and paths are suggested based on an influence network relation map (INRM). The results imply that recent urban renewal policy reform in Taiwan represents a step toward sustainable development.
•Exploring the interdependency between the dimension/criteria for ex-ante sustainable evaluation of urban renewal projects.•A new model of hybrid multiple-attribute decision-making is utilized.•A case in Taiwan is used to evaluate the potential of sustainability and explore improvement strategies.•Results indicate that social and cultural (D2) dimension impact the environment (D3) and economic (D1) dimensions.
Although certain countries have proposed revitalization to address the issue of inefficient industrial parks in recent years, there is little research exploring the causes of inefficient industrial ...parks—although this would help in formulating improvement strategies and further resource allocation. This study presents an evaluation framework for the causes of inefficient urban industrial parks based on a novel hybrid modified multi-attribute decision-making model in real cases, which includes three dimensions and 10 criteria. Two cases of “industrial parks designated by urban planning” in Taiwan were examined. The results of the Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) and the DEMATEL technique based on the basic concept of the analytic network process indicated that the parcel dimension (
A
1
) and policy dimension (
A
3
) had more influence on causing inefficiency in industrial parks. The criteria with bigger impact were “property rights (
B
1
),” “size and shape (
B
2
),” “location (
B
3
),” “planning and development mechanisms (
B
8
),” “management mechanisms (
B
9
),” and “spatial planning policy for industry (
B
10
).” The modified Vlse Kriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje (VIKOR) revealed that policy dimension (
A
3
) and its criteria have relatively poor performance in two cases; solving the policy dimension is the most critical strategy for IPDUP. This presented decision-making model not only identifies the key causes of the inefficient industrial park and further improvements to it, but also provides a direction for evaluating, planning, and developing sustainable industrial parks.
This study proposes a framework that contains four dimensions (environment, economy, socio-cultural, and technology) and nine relevant criteria for evaluating smart office buildings through a hybrid ...multi-attribute decision-making (MADM) model. A Taiwanese case study of the silver-level label office building is evaluated within this study. Using the Decision making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) (di + ri = central degree, di-ri = cause degree) this study reveals that the core dimension for evaluating smart office buildings more sustainable is the technological dimension (D4) (34.007, 0.967), followed by the economic dimension (D2) (38.725, 0.175) and the socio-cultural dimension (D3) (37.743, 0.047); improvements to these three dimensions drives the environmental dimension (D1) (48.694, −1.190). In terms of the criteria, automation (C8) (19.328, 0.587), interactivity (C9) (14.679, 0.380), waste management (C3) (13.884, 0.300), architectural innovation (C7) (18.882, 0.226) and affordability (C4) (19.070, 0.201) are five critical criteria. Although the performance of the Taiwanese case study is, in terms of its sustainability, acceptable (Total performance = 9.530 and the gap ratio to aspiration level = 0.046) based on the modified VlseKriterjumska Optimizacija i Kompromisno Resenje (VIKOR), there is still room for further improvements to be made in terms of sustainability.
•A model of hybrid MADM is constructed to evaluate the smart office buildings from a sustainability perspective.•Four dimensions of environment, economy, socio-cultural, and technology, and relevant nine criteria are included.•The DEMATEL and DANP reveal the Technological dimension (D4) as the core dimension.•Five core criteria with cause positioning are highlighted for the evaluation of recommendations.•The modified VIKOR suggest further improvement strategies for case although sustainable performance is acceptable.
With the expansion of urbanization caused by the growth of population and industrial activities, the urban/city and suburban areas are facing a variety of environmental threats. Although more ...research and urban policy has advocated and practiced the development of green infrastructure (GI) to support urban sustainable environment, the evaluation framework for the development of GI for promoting environmental sustainability is still insufficient. Moreover, the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) commonly applied in published literature, makes an unrealistic assumption of independent relationships among dimensions/criteria in decision making for satisfying the real-world problem. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to construct the evaluation framework, including four dimensions and related ten criteria, using a new hybrid-modified multiple attribute decision-making (MADM) model for developing and improving the GI for promoting environmental sustainability. This MADM model is combined with three different methodologies of MADM, including the Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) for constructing the influential network relation map (INRM) to explore the complex influential inter-relationships and DEMATEL based on Analytic Network Process (DANP) for determining the influential weights with the VIse Kriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje (VIKOR) for evaluating and presenting improvement strategies for six different GIs. The empirical study indicates that DEMATEL and DANP Results suggest that decision-makers should pay more attention to the improvement of Design (D4) and Materials (D2) in terms of dimensions when utilizing the GI to promote environmental sustainability. Because these dimensions are enhanced, Species (D1) and Energy (D3) will be improved in synchronization. From the perspective of criteria, five are key core criteria and need to be focused on first: increasing the green coverage rate (B9), utilizing sustainable materials (B4), using ecological engineering (B8), shaping species biodiversity (B1), and reducing energy consumption (B5). Modified VIKOR reveals that “grass swales” are a comparatively better choice among six GIs for promoting environmental sustainability toward achieving the aspiration level. Therefore, this MADM model is beneficial to provide a more convincing assessment framework and improvement strategies for the development of GI for promoting environmental sustainability. As a result, these modified MADM models can be shown more conveniently and reasonably than traditional methods such as traditional AHP or ANP method.
•Providing an evaluation framework for green infrastructure (GI) for promoting environmentally sustainability.•A new hybrid modified multiple attribute decision-making (MADM) model is presented.•Considering the influential relationship among dimension/criteria improves the un-realistic shortcoming.•The result of DEMATEL and DANP indicate that Design (D2) and Materials (D2) and relevant criteria should be focused.•Modified VIKOD suggests that “Grass swales” have better performance among six GI.
Adlay (
L. var.
Stapf) contains various phytonutrients for treating many diseases in Asia. To investigate whether orally administered adlay bran oil (ABO) can cause drug interactions, the effects of ...ABO on the pharmacokinetics of five cytochrome P450 (CYP) probe drugs were evaluated. Rats were given a single oral dose (2.5 mL/kg BW) of ABO 1 h before administration of a drug cocktail either orally or intravenously, and blood was collected at various time points. A single oral dose of ABO administration did not affect the pharmacokinetics of five probe drugs when given as a drug cocktail intravenously. However, ABO increased plasma theophylline (+28.4%), dextromethorphan (+48.7%), and diltiazem (+46.7%) when co-administered an oral drug cocktail. After 7 days of feeding with an ABO-containing diet, plasma concentrations of theophylline (+45.4%) and chlorzoxazone (+53.6%) were increased after the oral administration of the drug cocktail. The major CYP enzyme activities in the liver and intestinal tract were not affected by ABO treatment. Results from this study indicate that a single oral dose or short-term administration of ABO may increase plasma drug concentrations when ABO is given concomitantly with drugs. ABO is likely to enhance intestinal drug absorption. Therefore, caution is needed to avoid food-drug interactions between ABO and co-administered drugs.
Joint image filters leverage the guidance image as a prior and transfer the structural details from the guidance image to the target image for suppressing noise or enhancing spatial resolution. ...Existing methods either rely on various explicit filter constructions or hand-designed objective functions, thereby making it difficult to understand, improve, and accelerate these filters in a coherent framework. In this paper, we propose a learning-based approach for constructing joint filters based on Convolutional Neural Networks. In contrast to existing methods that consider only the guidance image, the proposed algorithm can selectively transfer salient structures that are consistent with both guidance and target images. We show that the model trained on a certain type of data, e.g., RGB and depth images, generalizes well to other modalities, e.g., flash/non-Flash and RGB/NIR images. We validate the effectiveness of the proposed joint filter through extensive experimental evaluations with state-of-the-art methods.
We investigated the electron-pairing mechanism in an iron-based superconductor, iron selenide (FeSe), using scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy. Tunneling conductance spectra of ...stoichiometric FeSe crystalline films in their superconducting state revealed evidence for a gap function with nodal lines. Electron pairing with twofold symmetry was demonstrated by direct imaging of quasiparticle excitations in the vicinity of magnetic vortex cores, Fe adatoms, and Se vacancies. The twofold pairing symmetry was further supported by the observation of striped electronic nanostructures in the slightly Se-doped samples. The anisotropy can be explained in terms of the orbital-dependent reconstruction of electronic structure in FeSe.
Interfaces play a decisive role in perovskite solar cells’ power conversion efficiency and their long‐term durability. Small‐molecule hole‐transporting materials (HTMs) have grabbed enormous ...attention due to their structural flexibility, material properties, and stabilities, allowing for improved operational durability in perovskite photovoltaics. This study synthesizes and investigates a new class of benzimidazole‐based small molecules, named YJS001 and YJS003, serving as the HTMs to enable high‐efficiency mixed‐cation mixed‐halide perovskite solar cells. The benzimidazole‐based materials are dopant‐free HTMs composed of donor and acceptor building blocks that are designed to engineer the energy level alignment near the HTM/perovskite interface. Mixed‐cation mixed‐halide perovskites can be grown uniformly on both HTMs with large crystalline grains. It is discovered that the donor‐rich YJS003‐based solar cell exhibits a high open‐circuit voltage of 1.09 V with a champion power conversion efficiency of over 20%. Power‐dependent current–voltage characteristics of the solar cells are analyzed, from which the high performance of YJS003's excellent hole mobility and well‐aligned energy level is attributed. This work introduces a new class of benzimidazole‐based small molecules as HTMs, that paves the path for dopant free interface material development for commercialization of perovskite solar cells.
Two new hole‐transporting materials (HTMs) with acceptor‐rich (YJS001) and donor‐rich (YJS003) are synthesized and characterized for hybrid perovskite photovoltaics applications. Under similar conditions, the efficiency of HTM YJS001 and YJS003‐based devices is 17.43% and 20.81%, respectively. The superior performance of YJS003 over YJS001 is attributed to higher open‐circuit voltage and fill factor from good hole transport, lower trap density, and lower electric resistance of cells.
To test the application of a target enrichment next-generation sequencing (NGS) jaundice panel in genetic diagnosis of pediatric liver diseases.
We developed a capture-based target enrichment NGS ...jaundice panel containing 42 known disease-causing genes associated with jaundice or cholestasis and 10 pathway-related genes. During 2015-2017, 102 pediatric patients with various forms of cholestasis or idiopathic liver diseases were tested, including patients with initial diagnosis of cholestasis in infancy, progressive familial intrahepatic cholestasis, syndromic cholestasis, Wilson disease, and others.
Of the 102 patients, 137 mutations/variants in 44 different genes were identified in 84 patients. The genetic disease diagnosis rate was 33 of 102 (32.4%). A total of 79 of 102 (77.5%) of patients had at least 1 heterozygous genetic variation. Those with progressive intrahepatic cholestasis or syndromic cholestasis in infancy had a diagnostic rate of 62.5%. Disease-causing mutations, including ATP8B1, ABCB11, ABCB4, ABCC2, TJP2, NR1H4 (FXR), JAG1, AKR1D1, CYP7B1, PKHD1, ATP7B, and SLC25A13, were identified. Nine patients had unpredicted genetic diagnosis with atypical phenotype or novel mutations in the investigational genes. We propose an NGS diagnosis classification categorizing patients into high (n = 24), moderate (n = 9), or weak (n = 25) levels of genotype–phenotype correlations to facilitate patient management.
This panel enabled high-throughput detection of genetic variants and disease diagnosis in patients with a long list of candidate causative genes. A NGS report with diagnosis classification may aid clinicians in data interpretation and patient management.
Photocatalytic hydrogen evolution from natural seawater faces the severe challenges of abundant salts, which adsorb on the active sites and result in undesirable side reactions and photocatalyst ...poisoning. Herein, a series of main‐chain‐engineered discontinuously conjugated polymer (DCP) photocatalysts is presented with bifunctional crown ether (CE) structures for hydrogen evolution from seawater. The hydrophilic CE can significantly inhibit the aggregation of DCPs induced by salts. Meanwhile, cyclic CE can effectively adsorb cations to uncover the active sites to increase their interaction with protons, which can increase the hydrogen evolution rates and significantly reduce the efficiency roll‐off in natural seawater. Through atomistic studies, the formation of hydrogen bonds with bifunctional CE is elucidated and further analysis of the microscale mechanisms is also conducted using molecular dynamics and ab initio techniques. This work suggests that CE‐based polymer has the potential to enhance its ability to produce hydrogen through photocatalysis using seawater.
The first example of incorporating crown ether structure into polymer photocatalysts is demonstrated via a main‐chain‐engineering strategy. The innovative approach significantly reduces ion adsorption on the active sites, resulting in less hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) roll‐off in natural seawater. P‐8CE, in particaular, shows remarkable results with 200% and 258% higher HER than the model photocatalyst, PCzDBTO, in pure water and natural seawater, respectively.
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