The urban infrastructures of municipal solid waste (MSW) disposal play important roles in carbon reduction and building sustainable cities. China, with the world's largest MSW generation, has witnessed a relatively slow and spatially uneven transition progress of MSW disposal management. This study analysed the MSW disposal management transition and its determinants in Chinese cities of different sizes. Furthermore, the carbon reduction potential of MSW disposal management transition was estimated under different settings of policy reform. The results indicate that the MSW disposal management transition has made faster progress in cities with larger sizes, which could be ascribed to larger contradiction between city development and public service. The prediction results suggest that 73.13%–287.28% of carbon emission could be reduced by various policy reforms compared with the baseline scenario without policy intervention. Moreover, technological transformation should be specially underlined in mega cities, and household sorting should be specially underlined in medium cities.
As curator of laws and morals (curator legum et morum), a charge bestowed by the Senate and the Roman people on three separate occasions (19 BCE, 18 BCE, 11 BCE, cf. RGDA 6, Dio Cass. 54.30.1, Suet. Aug. 27), Augustus legislated marriage, using the mos maiorum as guidance for a new Roman society that was his to fashion (RGDA 8; Eck 2022). The Lex Iulia de maritandis ordinibus (LIMO) of 18 BCE became a centerpiece legislation with socio-politically comprehensive and enduring impact, leading to subsequent legislative interventions on the Roman institution of marriage from the Augustan period down to the Age of Constantine (Treggiari 1991, 13-36; Grubbs 1993). In some interpretations, the legislative interventions of marriage effectively "collapsed" Roman private life (Raditsa 1980), merging it with a new Roman state apparatus that "officially made proper family behavior part of a citizen's duty," including the obligation "to marry and procreate in a chaste and respectable manner" (Severy 2003, 55). Legislating marriage was effectively a social engineering project (Dolganov 2022), and not without risks to the legislators. Direct evidence of opposition can be found in historial and biographical accounts, and the equestrian order was particularly vocal (Suet. Aug. 34; Dio Cass. 56.4-10). Recently, Warner Eck's study on the commentarius of 5 CE integrated into the Lex Troesmensium provided convincing evidence that significant socio-political resistance against legislative intervention forced Augustus to retract a commentarius of 5 CE which the Lex Papia Poppaea of 9 CE was based upon (ex quo lex P(apia) P(oppaea) lata est), though with noticeable differences in the numbering of chapters (Eck 2022, 2019, 2016).
Eck also made the interesting observation that known resistance efforts were not necessarily direct public agitation, but rather could be described as "ingenious attempts" (ingeniöse Versuche) to frustruate the utility of the legislation (Eck 2022, 73). The observation highlights the potentially simplistic approach in describing the range of reactions and counter-reactions associated with Augustan marriage laws as resistance and counter-resistance. The difficulty in taking this approach to study complexities in the range of responses towards the legislating of marriage lies in the availability of sources and the quality of those available. Shades of commentary and other complex reflections on Augustan marriage legislations – for example Horace's Carmina of 23 BCE (C. 3.6, 3.24) and 13 BCE (C. 4.15), Propertius's elegies of 28 BCE (2.7) and 18 BCE (4.11), and Ovid's Ars Amatoria of 2 CE, the latter of which has recently received particular treatment (Hutchinson 2017) – can be elicited from Augustan literary evidence, but hardly straightforward firsthand reports. Historical and biographical accounts may be vivid, as those from Cassius Dio's (54.16; 56.1-10) and to a lesser extent Suetonius (Suet. Aug. 34) and Tacitus (Ann. 3.25-28), but much more removed from immediate context. To extend the scope of discovery, this paper asks what other Augustan inscriptions can inform us on the shades of reactions in the Augustan period. Inscribed texts were more than verbatim transcriptions of documents produced in response to and within the context of social movements. The act of inscribing and setting up were performative aspects of immediate socio-political importance, acting as the legislator/reformer's attempt to impress and opress on the one hand, and responses from those who can afford to engage in a public and formal dialogue regarding an issue.
This paper argues that the performative acts seen on inscribed texts in the Augustan period that specifically respond to marriage legislation or the institution of marriage ought to be understood as persuasive acts. Two inscriptions are discussed in this paper: the SC de ludis saecularibus of 17 BCE and the so-called Laudatio Turiae of 8 CE. Hugh Lindsay (2009) and Josaiah Osgood (2014) focused on aspects of social response regarding the latter, and Warner Eck (2019) has highlighted social resistance regarding the former. This paper seeks to combine the two strands of study on two inscriptions that seem to speak to Roman audiences with deeply entrenched positions on the question of legislating marriage, and read them as attempts of persuasion, both to convey the concerns of their respective parties and impressing upon their respective oppositions on the importance of their approaches toward social order under the curator legum et morum.
In this work, we propose a novel framework for density forecast combination by constructing time-varying weights based on time-varying features. Our framework estimates weights in the forecast combination via Bayesian log predictive scores, in which the optimal forecast combination is determined by time series features from historical information. In particular, we use an automatic Bayesian variable selection method to identify the importance of different features. To this end, our approach has better interpretability compared to other black-box forecasting combination schemes. We apply our framework to stock market data and M3 competition data. Based on our structure, a simple maximum-a-posteriori scheme outperforms benchmark methods, and Bayesian variable selection can further enhance the accuracy for both point forecasts and density forecasts.
As novel photocatalysts, covalent organic frameworks (COFs) have potential for water purification. Insufficient exciton dissociation and low charge mobility in COFs yet restricted their photocatalytic activity. Excitonic dissociation and charge transfer in COFs could be optimized via regulating the donor–acceptor (D–A) interactions through adjusting the number of donor units within COFs, yet relevant research is lacking. By integrating the 1,2,4-triazole or bis-1,2,4-triazole unit with quinone, we fabricated COF-DT (with a single donor unit) and COF-DBT (with double donor units) via a facile sonochemical method and used to decontaminate emerging contaminants. Due to the stronger D–A interactions than COF-DT, the exciton binding energy was lower for COF-DBT, facilitating the intermolecular charge transfer process. The degradation kinetics of tetracycline (model contaminant) by COF-DBT (k = (12.21 ± 1.29) × 10–2 min–1) was higher than that by COF-DT (k = (5.11 ± 0.59) × 10–2 min–1) under visible-light irradiation. COF-DBT could efficiently photodegrade tetracycline under complex water chemistry conditions and four real water samples. Moreover, six other emerging contaminants, both Gram-negative and Gram-positive strains, could also be effectively eliminated by COF-DBT. High tetracycline degradation performance achieved in a continuous-flow system and in five reused cycles in both laboratory and outdoor experiments with sunlight irradiation showed the stability and the potential for the practical application of COF-DBT.
With the developing technologies of artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things, intelligent IoT (iIoT) is prevailing currently. Design and implementation of integrated IoT nodes with continuous perception capability are indispensable to realize various smart terminal devices, which would also be vital to reduce the power consumption, improve the real-time performance, and enhance the security/privacy of the IoT system. In this paper, we present the architecture of “Sensing with Computing” and its chip design for smart sensing applications, which would support multi-modal perception signal processing with multi-dimension extension ability. Specially, we explore the analog/mixed-signal circuit designs and algorithm-hardware co-design methodologies for perception signal processing, and we also study the multi-modal integration of novel sensors and their interface technologies. Additionally, some multi-modal smart sensing systems with “Sensing + Computing in Memory” mixed-signal chips would be fabricated, which would support typical always-on smart sensing tasks.
Halogenated pharmaceuticals exhibit high toxicity if released to natural environment, and dehalogenation is a key process for their degradation. In this study, a reductive and directional dehalogenation technique, heterogenous formic acid (HCOOH) catalytic activation system, was proposed for diclofenac (DCF) dechlorination and detoxification. A functional material of Pd nanocluster decorated graphitic carbon nitride (Pd/g-C3N4) was developed for HCOOH activation. Although the optimized material (Pd1/g-C3N4) showed lower HCOOH decomposition rate (k1 = 0.287 ± 0.017 min−1) than the pristine Pd particles (k1 = 0.401 ± 0.031 min−1), it processed higher DCF degradation efficiency (97.9% within 30 min) than Pd particles. The enhancement mechanism was revealed by both experiments and theoretical calculations. Firstly, the six-fold cavities of g-C3N4 acted as anchor sites, which offered strong coordination environment for Pd nanoclusters. Secondly, the strong coordination environment of Pd led to upshifted d-band center of Pd 4d with enhanced bonding state, and then promoted HCOOH adsorption on Pd/g-C3N4, thus facilitating HCOOH decomposition through formate pathway rather than carboxyl pathway. Thirdly, Pd/g-C3N4 ensured HCOOH selectively decomposed as dehydrogenation reaction, which generated more H* (adsorbed H on Pd) than the dehydration reaction. The H* was proved to be the dominant reductive species for DCF hydrodechlorination. Moreover, the toxicities of DCF dechlorination products were greatly reduced.
Events are not isolated but rather linked to one another in various dimensions. In language processing, various sources of information—including real-world knowledge, (representations of) current linguistic input and non-linguistic visual context—help establish causal connections between events. In this review, we discuss causal inference in relation to events and event knowledge as one aspect of world knowledge, and their representations in language comprehension. To evaluate the mechanism and time course of causal inference, we gather insights from studies on (1) implicit causality/consequentiality as a specific form of causal inference regarding the protagonists of cause/consequence events, and (2) the processing of causal relations. We highlight the importance of methodology in measuring causal inference, compare the results from different research methods, and emphasize the contribution of the visual-world paradigm to achieve a better understanding of causal inference. We recommend that further investigations of causal inference consider temporally sensitive measures and more detailed contexts.
A series of C-doped Bi3O4X (X = Cl, Br, I) photocatalysts with layer-stacked structure was synthesized using glucose as carbon source, and the carbon doping and halogen species on harvesting broader solar spectrum and promoting charge carrier separation were systematically investigated. For pyrene photolysis, the photodegradation rate of pristine materials followed the order of Bi3O4I > Bi3O4Br > Bi3O4Cl, which was attributed to the difference in electronegativity of the halogen elements. The doped carbon boosted photocatalytic performance and the optimal C/Bi3O4I achieved 100% pyrene removal within 20 min, which primarily benefited from the dramatic improvement of the internal electric field (IEF). The improved IEF further increased the separation and transfer efficiency of photogenerated charge carriers. XRD and XPS characterizations confirmed that the doped carbon implanted into the lattice of [X] layers, and mainly affected the X np states. The X np orbitals contributed to the valence band (VB) of Bi3O4X, thus the local occupied states induced by doped carbon formed above VB and significantly decreased the VB potential. Meanwhile, the doped carbon narrowed the band gap and greatly improved visible light utilization. The O2−, h+ and OH were identified as dominant active species for pyrene degradation, and the generation rate of O2− and OH was further measured by the probe technique. Moreover, the photodegradation pathways of pyrene were proposed and the ecotoxicity of intermediates was assessed. This study reveals the effect of halogen species on photocatalytic activity and provides guidance for enhancing IEF by doping inorganic element.
A novel carbon quantum dots decorated C-doped α-Bi2O3 photocatalyst (CBO/CQDs) was synthesized by solvothermal method. The synergistic effect of adsorption and photocatalysis highly improved contaminants removal efficiencies. The ceftriaxone sodium degradation rate constant (k) of CBO/CQDs was 11.4 and 3.2 times that of pure α-Bi2O3 and C-doped α-Bi2O3, respectively. The interstitial carbon doping generated localized states above the valence band, which enhanced the utilization of visible light and facilitated the separation of photogenerated electrons and holes; the loading of CQDs improved the charge carrier separation and extended the visible light response; the reduced particle size of CBO/CQDs accelerated the migration of photogenerated carriers. The •O2− and h+ were identified as the dominant reactive species in ceftriaxone sodium degradation, and the key role of •O2− was further investigated by NBT transformation experiments. The Fukui index was applied to ascertain the molecular bonds of ceftriaxone sodium susceptible to radical attack, and intermediates analysis was conducted to explore the possible degradation pathways. The toxicity evaluation revealed that some degradation intermediates possessed high toxicity, thus the contaminants require sufficient mineralization to ensure safe discharge. The present study makes new insights into synchronous carbon dopping and CQDs decoration on modification of α-Bi2O3, which provides references for future studies.
Numerical resolution for 6-D Wigner dynamics under the Coulomb potential is faced with the combined challenges of high dimensionality, nonlocality, oscillation, and singularity. In particular, the extremely huge memory storage of 6-D grids hinders the usage of all existing deterministic numerical schemes, which is well known as the curse of dimensionality. To surmount these difficulties, we propose a massively parallel solver, termed the characteristic-spectral-mixed (CHASM) scheme, by fully exploiting two distinct features of the Wigner equation: locality of spatial advection and nonlocality of quantum interaction. Our scheme utilizes the local cubic B-spline basis to interpolate the local spatial advection. The key is to use a perfectly matched boundary condition to give a closure of spline coefficients, so that distributed pieces can recover the global one as accurately as possible owing to the rapid decay of wavelet basis in the dual space, and communication costs are significantly reduced. To resolve the nonlocal pseudodifferential operator with a singular symbol, CHASM further adopts the truncated kernel method to attain a highly efficient approximation. Several typical experiments including the quantum harmonic oscillator and the 1s state of hydrogen demonstrate the accuracy and efficiency of CHASM. Nonequilibrium electron-proton couplings are also clearly displayed and illuminate the uncertainty principle and quantum tunneling in phase space. Finally, the scalability of CHASM up to 16000 cores is presented.
