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Heat stress is being exacerbated by global warming, jeopardizing human and social sustainability. As a result, reliable and energy-efficient cooling methods are highly sought-after. Here, we report a polyacrylate film fabricated by self-moisture-absorbing hygroscopic hydrogel for efficient hybrid passive cooling. Using one of the lowest-cost industrial materials (e.g., sodium polyacrylate), we demonstrate radiative cooling by reducing solar heating with high solar reflectance (0.93) while maximizing thermal emission with high mid-infrared emittance (0.99). Importantly, the manufacturing process utilizes only atmospheric moisture and requires no additional chemicals or energy consumption, making it a completely green process. Under sunlight illumination of 800 W m −2 , the surface temperature of the film was reduced by 5 °C under a partly cloudy sky observed at Buffalo, NY. Combined with its hygroscopic feature, this film can simultaneously introduce evaporative cooling that is independent of access to the clear sky. The hybrid passive cooling approach is projected to decrease global carbon emissions by 118.4 billion kg/year compared to current air-conditioning facilities powered by electricity. Given its low-cost raw materials and excellent molding feature, the film can be manufactured through simple and cost-effective roll-to-roll processes, making it suitable for future building construction and personal thermal management needs. Gan et al. have developed sodium polyacrylate-based films for passive radiative cooling that can be fabricated using atmospheric moisture alone, offering radiative and evaporative cooling, reducing temperatures by up to 5 °C under partly cloudy skies.

This work provides two feasible processes for manufacturing large-scale Al-Cu-Mg-Ag alloy wheel hub forgings. Microstructure, mechanical properties, and corrosion resistance of the forgings prepared by extrusion-forging blooming or forging blooming are comprehensively evaluated and analyzed. The results reveal that compared with forging blooming, the yield and tensile strength at 25 °C of extrusion-forging blooming are almost equivalent. At high temperatures of 150 °C, 200 °C, and 250 °C, the yield strength shows little difference, while the tensile strength of extrusion-forging blooming is 2.4 %, 5.8 %, and 4.3 % higher, with lower elongations at all tested temperatures, respectively. Under the experimental conditions of Kt = 1 and R = 0.1, the 25 °C and 200 °C fatigue limits of extrusion-forging blooming are lower by 11.4 % and 5.0 % at the cycle of 10 7 , respectively. Both the intergranular corrosion and stress corrosion resistance of extrusion-forging blooming are superior to forging blooming. The reason is mainly correlated to the microstructure at the grain level, the deformation area fraction, and the mean grain size of the extrusion-forging blooming is 27.2 % and 43.9 % higher than forging blooming, respectively. The relatively coarse deformation structure mixed with fine grains may lead to load concentration in some areas, resulting in lower fatigue properties. On the other hand, the coarse grains reduce the diversity of corrosion paths compared to fine grains, reducing the tendency for large area flaking during corrosion, thus improving corrosion properties. The findings indicate that extrusion combined with forging blooming may sacrifice fatigue properties but improve corrosion resistance compared to simply forging blooming in Al-Cu-Mg-Ag wheel hub forgings manufacturing.

The surface crack of ballastless track slab can seriously reduce the serviceability and durability of high-speed railway (HSR). Aiming at accurately and efficiently detecting the slab cracks, this research proposes an infrared thermography (IRT)-based method for the surface crack, which is the most serious and common crack type in track slab. A three dimensional finite element (FE) model of IRT detection of concrete slab with surface cracks is established. The relation between the width of detectable cracks and the ambient temperature can be thereby obtained by inputting the measured thermodynamic parameters in the model. Parametric study shows that with ambient temperature higher than 15 °C, cracks with a width of no less than 0.2 mm can be well detected. Scale model test and field test are conducted, IRT method can effectively locate the slab surface cracks with width as small as 0.14 mm when ambient temperature is no less than 20 °C.

Slab track is widely used in many newly built high-speed rail (HSR) lines as it offers many advantages over ballasted tracks. However, in actual operation, slab tracks are subjected to operational and environmental factors, and structural damages are frequently reported. One of the most critical problems is temperature-induced slab-warping deformation (SWD) which can jeopardize the safety of train operation. This paper proposes an automatic slab deformation detection method in light of the track geometry measurement data, which are collected by high-speed track geometry car (HSTGC). The characteristic of track vertical irregularity is first analyzed in both time and frequency domain, and the feature of slab-warping phenomenon is observed. To quantify the severity of SWD, a slab-warping index (SWI) is established based on warping-sensitive feature extraction using discrete wavelet transform (DWT). The performance of the proposed algorithm is verified against visual inspection recorded on four sections of China HSR line, which are constructed with the China Railway Track System II (CRTSII) slab track. The results show that among the 24,806 slabs being assessed, over 94% of the slabs with warping deformation can be successfully identified by the proposed detection method. This study is expected to provide guidance for efficiently detecting and locating slab track defects, taking advantage of the massive track inspection data.

The integration of renewable energy, such as solar photovoltaics (PV), is critical to reducing carbon emissions but has exerted pressure on power grid operations. Microgrids with buildings, distributed energy resources, and energy storage systems are introduced to alleviate these issues, where optimal operation is necessary to coordinate different components on the grid. Model predictive control (MPC) and reinforcement learning (RL) have been proven capable of solving such operation problems in proof-of-concept studies. However, their applications in real-world buildings are limited by the low reproducibility and the high implementation costs. There is a lack of systematic and quantitative understanding of their strength and weakness in actual applications. Hence, this study aims to improve the scalability of optimal control solutions for smart grid operations by comparing MPC and RL regarding their requirements and control performance. We leveraged the CityLearn simulation framework to implement and compare alternative control solutions based on MPC and RL for the energy management of microgrids. In addition to the control performance of cost saving and carbon reduction, other factors such as robustness and transferability were also examined. While both methods achieved promising results, MPC had slightly better performance and could be transferred more smoothly. Given the standardized framework, MPC is more suitable in most cases for the purpose of microgrid operations. However, RL could be preferable for its quickness in making decisions if a large number of energy systems are involved.

Symbiotic bacteria are important drivers of phenotypic diversity in insects. One of the widespread symbionts to have emerged belongs to the genus Arsenophonus, however, its biological functions in most host insects remain entirely unknown. Here we report two distinct Arsenophonus strains in the brown planthopper (BPH), Nilaparvata lugens, a major pest insect in Asian countries that causes significant economic damage through rice crop destruction. Genomic resequencing data suggested that one Arsenophonus strain (S-type) negatively affected the insecticide resistance of the host. Indeed, replacement of the resident Arsenophonus with the S-type Arsenophonus significantly decreased host insecticide resistance. Transcriptome and metabolome analysis revealed down-regulation of xenobiotic metabolism and increased amino acid accumulation in the S-type Arsenophonus infected host. This study demonstrates how a symbiont-mediated phenotypic change can occur. The results of this study will aid in developing strategies that work through imposing an ecological disadvantage on insect pests, which will be of great value for pest control in agricultural industry.

Background Diabetic nephropathy (DN) is one of the most common and serious complications of diabetes, and is the most important cause of death for diabetic patients. Baicalin (BAI) has anti-oxidative, anti-inflammatory and anti-apoptotic activities, which play a role in attenuating insulin resistance and protecting the kidney. Moreover, cell-specific targeting of renal tubular cells is an approach to enhance drug accumulation in the kidney. Methods Forty-five Sprague-Dawley rats were divided into four groups. A diabetes model was created using streptozotocin (STZ) intraperitoneally injection. The four groups included: Control group ( n  = 10), DN ( n  = 15), BAI treatment (BAI; n  = 10) and BAI-LZM treatment (BAI-LZM; n  = 10) groups. In the current study, the renoprotection and anti-fibrotic effects of BAI-lysozyme (LZM) conjugate were further investigated in rats with DN induced by STZ compared with BAI treatment alone. Results The results suggest that BAI-LZM better ameliorates renal impairment, metabolic disorder and renal fibrosis than BAI alone in rats with DN, and the potential regulatory mechanism likely involves inhibiting inflammation via the nuclear factor-κB signaling pathway, inhibiting extracellular matrix accumulation via the transforming growth factor-β/Smad3 pathway and regulating cell proliferation via the insulin-like growth factor (IGF)-1/IGF-1 receptor/p38 Mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway. BAI and the kidney-targeted BAI-LZM can utilize the body’s cytoprotective pathways to reactivate autophagy (as indicated by the autophagy markers mechanistic target of rapamycin and sirtuin 1 to ameliorate DN outcomes. Conclusions Our data support the traditional use of S. baicalensis as an important anti-DN traditional chinese medicine (TCM), and BAI, above all BAI-LZM, is a promising source for the identification of molecules with anti-DN effects.

The well-organized medical security system plays an important role in improving public health. This study investigates the effect of the diagnosis-related groups (DRG) policy, which is a way to control cost, on medical care services, including hospital revenue status. Based on the panel data on derived from public medical institutions in Sanming City from 2014 to 2022, the average length of stay for discharged patients, number of admissions per 100 visits, and bed utilization rate were used to measure medical services status. The difference-in-difference method was used to explore the impact of the DRG policy implementation on the overall hospital operation in medical care services in Sanming City, China. We found the DRG policy introduction has a negative effect on the average length of stay for discharged patients, emergency admissions per 100 visits, and the hospital bed occupancy rate. On the contrary, the DRG policy reduces the total medical revenue in terms of the reduced drug revenue. However, the DRG policy increases the examination and the test income, average charge per emergency visit, and drug cost per discharged patient. In sum, the introduction of the DRG policy reduces the medical care system operating cost by reducing drug revenue and bed occupancy, reducing the length of hospitalization, worsening hospital revenue, and increasing the charge for examination and test, emergency visits, and drug cost per discharge. The C-DRG policy implementation in Sanming city effected improvements in public health and overall medical care system services.

A bstract We study a two-matrix toy model with a BFSS-like interaction term using the collective field formalism. The main technical simplification is obtained by gauge-fixing first, and integrating out the off-diagonal elements, before changing to the collective field variable. We show that the resulting (2 + 1)-dimensional collective field action has novel features with respect to non-locality, and that we need to add a mass term to get a time-local potential. As is expected, one recovers the single matrix quantum mechanical collective field Hamiltonian in the proper limit.

Hydraulic fracturing is a key technology for enhancing coalbed methane recovery. Preconditioning the reservoir with acidizing or oxidative fluids can significantly improve stimulation outcomes; however, comparative studies evaluating these fluids in coal seams are still limited. In this work, deep coal samples (depth > 2500 m) were treated with five different pre-fracturing fluids—slick water (PAM), hydrochloric acid (HCl), hydrochloric and hydrofluoric (HCl + HF) acid, sodium hypochlorite (NaClO), and hydrogen peroxide (H 2 O 2 )—and their effects on porosity, permeability, and mechanical properties were systematically compared using low-field NMR, SEM, and mechanical testing. The potential relationships between changes in mechanical parameters and pore-fracture structure were also examined. Results show that all five fluids increased total porosity by 33.98 ~ 45.04%. The HCl + HF produced the most dramatic permeability enhancement (13,561.54%), whereas HCl alone reduced permeability by 78.01%. Moreover, HCl + HF led to the most pronounced reduction in both compressive and tensile strength. Kendall correlation analysis revealed several significant relationships: Young’s modulus ( E ) correlated negatively with total porosity ( φ t ) and average roughness ( R a ); Poisson’s ratio ( ν ) showed a positive correlation with φ t ; and tensile strength ( R t ) was negatively correlated with R a . These findings provide practical insights for selecting pre-fracturing fluids based on desired reservoir weakening or permeability enhancement objectives.