Indoor solid fuel use for heating and cooking with blood pressure and hypertension: A cross-sectional study among middle-aged and older adults in China

A cross-sectional study was conducted to investigate the impact of solid fuel use for heating and cooking on blood pressure (BP) and hypertension, using data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS). The primary fuels used for indoor heating and cooking were collected by questionnaires, respectively. Hypertension was defined based on self-report of physician's diagnosis, and/or measured BP, and/or anti-hypertensive medication use. Multivariate logistic regression models were constructed to assess the associations. Among 10 450 eligible participants, 68.2% and 57.2% used indoor solid fuel for heating and cooking, respectively. Compared with none/clean fuel users, solid fuel for heating was associated with elevated BP (adjusted β: 2.02, 95% CI: 1.04–3.01 for systolic BP; adjusted β: 1.36, 95% CI: 0.78–1.94 for diastolic BP) and increased risk of hypertension (adjusted odds ratio: 1.15, 95% CI: 1.03–1.29). The impact of indoor solid fuel for heating on BP was more evident in rural and north residents, and hypertensive patients. We did not detect any significant associations between solid fuel use for cooking and BP/hypertension. Indoor solid fuel use is prevalent in China, especially in the rural areas. Its negative impact on BP suggested that modernization of household fuel use may help to reduce the burden of hypertension in China.     

超生雾化降尘研究及应用

为解决某矿破碎筛分车间粉尘污染问题，采用喷嘴雾化理论设计喷嘴雾化降尘实验，并根据实验结果在该矿破碎筛分车间应用了超声雾化降尘技术。实验及应用结果表明：超声雾化发生器的液体雾化装置，气体辅助雾化装置和雾束形成器的几何结构影响喷雾的雾化参数与流量特性，液体雾化器与气体辅助雾化装置影响液体初次破碎与雾化，雾束形成器影响雾滴的二次破碎与约束液束形态；超声雾化发生器的气液比与气液压力比存在幂函数关系，幂指数为-1.09；雾滴粒径越小，雾滴的降尘效率越高，当雾滴D50为23 μm时，雾滴的降尘效率在94%以上；在破碎筛分车间振动筛给料皮带和筛上皮带受料点布置超声雾化发生器，超声雾化发生器开启后，车间内粉尘浓度降低至586～10.54 mg/m3，降尘效率在71.38%以上。     

Synergic effect of various amino acids and ferric oxide on hydrogen production

To overcome nitrogen and iron deficiency in the organic fraction of municipal solid waste, amino acids and ferric oxide were separately added in the feedstock to evaluate their effect on hydrogen production. Furthermore, synergic effect of amino acids and ferric oxide on hydrogen production was evaluated. The co-culture of E. coli and Enterobacter aerogenes was used in the present study. The amino acids were applied in the concentration range of 1.0, 2.5, 5.0, 7.5 and 10.0 g/L while ferric oxide was used in the concentration range of 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 100, 150, 200 and 500 mg/L. Modified Gompertz model was used to analyze cumulative hydrogen production (P), maximum hydrogen production rate (Rmax) and lag phases (λ). The results exhibited that the hydrogen production was positively affected by each amino acid at every concentration applied. Application of alanine resulted in the highest cumulative and volumetric hydrogen production of 685.4 ± 10.1 mL and 1.9561L_H2/L_substrate respectively which increased to 872.5 ± 10.1 mL and 2.492L_H2/L_substrate for ferric oxide addition along with alanine. COD removal and VFA generation were positively affected by the synergic effect of amino acid and ferric oxide.     

Magnetic induction based cluster optimization in non-conventional WSNs: A cross layer approach

Conventional Radio Frequency (RF) communication technique is unsuitable for communication in non-conventional media (water, soil, rocks, etc.) because of heavy losses incurred due to dynamic channel characteristics. Magnetic Induction (MI) communication overcomes these losses as it is least affected by such varying channel characteristics. In non-conventional media based Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) the deployed sensor nodes cannot replace or replenish their batteries. Thus, energy consumption should be minimized and that can be achieved by clustering process. This process involves data sensing, aggregation and routing to the base station. These sub-tasks are performed under Physical (PHY), Medium Access Control (MAC) and Network (NET) layers of OSI Network model. Having lesser or larger number of clusters has different impact on energy consumption in different layers’ perspective. A large number of clusters decreases energy consumption as per PHY layer whereas it results in increased energy consumption as per MAC and NET layers. Thus, a trade-off is required to minimize the overall energy consumption. To this end, we found an optimal number of clusters considering the simultaneous influence of all three layers. The above analysis is performed for three media viz. sea water, fresh water and dry soil.     

复合固体推进剂中固体填料的安息角测试与仿真

复合固体推进剂含有固体颗粒较多，离散单元法是一种适合固体推进剂生产过程数值仿真的有效方法，颗粒物料的接触参数是保证离散单元法仿真精度的关键。本文以复合固体推进剂的主要组分铝粉和高氯酸铵固体颗粒为研究对象，通过实验测试获得了相关物料的安息角，利用专业离散元软件EDEM仿真模拟了安息角测试实验过程，建立了物料安息角与接触参数之间的联系。研究表明，滚动摩擦系数和滑动摩擦系数越大，安息角越大，物料流动性越差。对比仿真与实验结果，通过逆向反推法确定了物料的滑动摩擦系数和滚动摩擦系数两个关键接触参数。铝粉与高氯酸铵1∶2混合颗粒的滑动摩擦系数为0.2，滚动摩擦系数为0.05。为固体推进剂加工生产过程离散元数值仿真提供了关键基础数据。     

An energy-efficient two-stage hybrid flow shop scheduling problem in a glass production

Energy-efficient scheduling is highly necessary for energy-intensive industries, such as glass, mould or chemical production. Inspired by a real-world glass-ceramics production process, this paper investigates a bi-criteria energy-efficient two-stage hybrid flow shop scheduling problem, in which parallel machines with eligibility are at stage 1 and a batch machine is at stage 2. The performance measures considered are makespan and total energy consumption. Time-of-use (TOU) electricity prices and different states of machines (working, idle and turnoff) are integrated. To tackle this problem, a mixed integer programming (MIP) is formulated, based on which an augmented ε-constraint (AUGMECON) method is adopted to obtain the exact Pareto front. A problem-tailored constructive heuristic method with local search strategy, a bi-objective tabu search algorithm and a bi-objective ant colony optimisation algorithm are developed to deal with medium- and large-scale problems. Extensive computational experiments are conducted, and a real-world case is solved. The results show effectiveness of the proposed methods, in particular the bi-objective tabu search.     

Self-assembled cubic-hexagonal perovskite nanocomposite as intermediate-temperature solid oxide fuel cell cathode

Self-assembly is an emerging strategy for preparing composite cathodes with good oxygen electrochemical reduction activity and congenital chemical compatibility for intermediate-temperature solid oxide fuel cell (IT-SOFC). Here we report that a self-assembled BaCo_0.6Zr_0.4O_3-δ (BZC-BC) nanocomposite is prepared through one-pot glycine-nitrate process and exhibits high cathode performance. The BZC-BC nanocomposite is composed of 62 mol% cubic perovskite BaZr_0.82Co_0.18O_3-δ (BZC) as an ionic conductor and 38 mol% hexagonal perovskite BaCo_0.96Zr_0.04O_2.6+δ (12H-BC) as a mixed ionic and electronic conductor. The BZC-BC nanocomposite has the pomegranate-like particles aggregated with a larger number of nanoparticles (50-100 nm) which greatly enlarge the three-phase boundary sites. The BZC-BC nanocomposite exhibits a thermal expansion coefficient of 12.89 × 10⁻⁶ K⁻¹ well-matched with that of Ce_0.8Gd_0.2O_3-δ (12.84 × 10⁻⁶ K⁻¹) electrolyte. The high electro-catalytic activity of BZC-BC nanocomposite cathode for oxygen reduction is reflected by the low polarization resistances of oxygen ions incorporation at cathode/electrolyte interface (0.02823 Ω cm²), oxygen species diffusion (0.03702 Ω cm²) and oxygen adsorptive dissociation (0.07609 Ω cm²) at 700 °C. The single cell with BZC-BC nanocomposite cathode achieves the maximum power density of 1094 mW cm⁻² at 650 °C and shows good stability under 25 h run.