Excessive Reduction Research Articles

Steady-state power distribution in VSC-based MTDC systems and dc grids under mixed P/V and I/V droop control

This paper proposes a steady-state power distribution derivation method for voltage source converter (VSC)-based multi-terminal HVDC (MTDC) systems and dc grids under mixed power/voltage (P/V) and current/voltage (I/V) droop control. P/V and I/V droop control are two commonly used control schemes, which can be combined to achieve co-regulation of powers & currents in MTDC systems and dc grids. The proposed method can be used to estimate the power distributions under different scenarios for MTDC systems and dc grids based on VSCs with mixed P/V and I/V droop control. After determining the initial operating point based on an estimation-correction algorithm, redistributed power due to power disturbances, current changes or converter outages is analyzed in detail considering converter overload. An excess power reduction strategy is further proposed to avoid violation of power limits after converter outage. The accuracy of the proposed method is validated through multiple scenarios in a modular multilevel converter (MMC)-based four-terminal dc grid. The comparison between the proposed method and other approaches in the current literature further demonstrates the advantages of proposed power distribution derivation method. • Determination of initial operating point for mixed P/V and I/V droop control by proposed estimation-correction algorithm. • Derivation of power redistribution after dc power/ current reference changes and converter outages. • Consideration of possible converter overloads caused by different system disturbances.

A Combined Hydro-Mechanical and Pyrometallurgical Recycling Approach to Recover Valuable Metals from Lithium-Ion Batteries Avoiding Lithium Slagging

Meeting the increasing demand for energy storage based on lithium-ion batteries (LIB) is not only a question of resource availability but also an issue of resource conservation and efficient recycling management. In this respect, sustainable recycling concepts play a central role in mindful interactions with valuable materials. Based on this approach, a process interconnection of hydromechanical preparation, flotation, and pyrometallurgical treatment was investigated. The hydromechanical preparation showed promising results in achieving highly pure mixtures of LIB-active material. It was found that a pre-opening step could achieve an even better separation of impurities for downstream processes such as Cu and Al to avoid excessive particle size reduction. According to an optimized mixing stage during flotation, the C amount was reduced from 33 wt.% to 19.23 wt.%. A Li-free metal alloy was obtained through the subsequent pyrometallurgical treatment, and evidence for Li removal via the gas phase was provided. Furthermore, heating microscope trials confirmed the results of the process interconnection and showed that further optimization steps for the pre-treatment are necessary for favorable product quality. Therefore, a high-stratification plot was created, which allows a quick future statement about the suitability of the input material for use in the process.

Advanced numerical modelling for predicting residual compressive strength of corroded stiffened plates

An advanced methodology for predicting the residual compressive strength of corroded stiffened plates is developed here using the non-linear finite element method. The non-uniform loss of a plate thickness is accounted for on a macro-scale. In contrast, mechanical properties are changed using the constitutive model to reflect the corrosion degradation impact on a micro-scale. Three different stiffened plate thicknesses are considered, and ultimate compressive capacity is analysed for different severity of corrosion degradation. First, the deterministic analysis is performed, and numerical results are validated against the experiment. Then, the corrosion fields are modelled with the use of random fields. Different statistical characteristics of the generated random fields are investigated to identify their impact on the resulting structural behaviour. It was found that severe corrosion degradation could cause an excessive reduction of structural capacity even at 50%. Finally, the results of the present study are compared with the already studied corrosion models showing a highly non-conservative solution of the latter, where the plate thickness is reduced only due to the corrosion degradation progress.

How Do FDI and Technological Innovation Affect Carbon Emission Efficiency in China?

China’s economic development is characterized by openness, and trade and investment are important engines for promoting economic development. China’s economy is now in a transitional period, during which excessive carbon emission reduction would inevitably hinder economic development. In this context, improving carbon emission efficiency is an effective way to achieve sustainable development. This paper deals with the relationships among foreign direct investment, technological innovation and carbon emission efficiency. Our research findings include the following. First, carbon efficiency shows regional differences. East China has the highest mean value of carbon emission efficiency, followed by central China and west China over the sample period. Second, FDI exerts both direct and indirect impacts on carbon emission efficiency through technological innovation, which confirms the intermediate effect of technological innovation. Finally, sub-sample analysis indicates that the impact of FDI and technological innovation on carbon emission efficiency show regional heterogeneity. According to these findings, we offer policy recommendations as follows. The government should stimulate independent innovation, promote technological progress in renewable energy and green energy, and attract environmentally friendly foreign investment to improve carbon emission efficiency and boost green development.

One Visit Endodontic with Internal Bleaching on Tooth 12 Post Trauma: A Case Report

Introduction: Post-traumatic non-vital teeth is one of the indications for One Visit Endodontic. Trauma to the teeth may arise from conditions that cause the teeth to become necrotic so that the teeth will look darker and experience discoloration. Clinical conditions that indicate the death of the dental pulp and teeth require endodontic treatment. This situation will cause discoloration of the teeth that occur as a result of the metamorphosis of calcified pulp. Internal whitening is a treatment that can be done after the first treatment. Purpose: To provide information about discolored teeth management after trauma which causes pulp necrosis by doing root canal treatment and internal bleaching to change tooth color. Case: A 31-year-old woman came to the RSKGMP Universitas Airlangga with a referral from the orthodontics department where her teeth were darker in color and interfered with her appearance. In the previous history, the patient had an accident and trauma 10 years ago. Case Management: The first step is access opening and a good glide path. Root canal preparation was performed using the Crown Down Pressureless technique. The obturation technique used is Single Cone. The results were good and there were no symptoms during the control. Conclusion: One visit endodontic can be a treatment option for post-traumatic non-vital teeth. Internal bleaching with Walking Bleach Technique is also proven effective in restoring the original tooth color without excessive reduction of the dental crown.

The impact of solids retention time on Greenhouse Gases Emissions from biological wastewater treatment processes

Biological wastewater treatment is linked to direct and indirect greenhouse gases (GHGs) emissions, thus new approaches on design and operation of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) must be adopted aiming towards GHGs emissions’ mitigation. This study evaluates the impact of solids retention time (SRT) on GHGs (CO2 and N2O) emissions of activated sludge (AS) wastewater treatment processes with nutrients removal operating at 10, 30 and 180 days SRT. The 180 days SRT represents the complete solids retention AS process (CRAS), which introduces a novel WWTP design and operation approach for excess sludge reduction. The evaluation of GHGs emissions and process performance via ASDM model and Bridle methodology showed that the total N2O emissions increased together with increasing dissolved oxygen and SRT. CRAS process achieved 97,4% and 96,2% excess sludge reduction compared to AS process with SRT of 10 d and 30 d respectively, with total direct emissions in CRAS process being respectively higher by 20,0% and 12,2%. The lower total indirect emissions in CRAS process compensate for the higher direct emissions. At high influent loads, the balance in GHGs emissions tilts in favour of CRAS process due to management of increased excess sludge quantities, rendering CRAS process a more sustainable choice.

IEACC: An Intelligent Edge-Aided Congestion Control Scheme for Named Data Networking With Deep Reinforcement Learning

As a promising implementation of Information-Centric Networking (ICN), Named Data Networking (NDN) has potential advantages over the TCP/IP network in content distribution, mobility support, etc. However, the research on NDN is still in its infancy, and congestion control, NDN’s most important functional element, poses many challenges, such as congestion detection, excessive window reduction for non-congested paths, and unfairness. In this paper, we propose an Intelligent Edge-Aided Congestion Control (IEACC) scheme for the NDN network based on Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL). The proposed IEACC provides a proactive congestion detector that utilizes intermediate routers to transmit accurate congestion information along the path to consumers through data packets. Furthermore, considering the multi-source transmission in NDN, IEACC divides data packets into different congestion degrees by a lightweight clustering algorithm and provides suitable inputs for DRL, thereby obtaining a reasonable transmission rate. Then, it distributes the estimated bandwidth resources to consumers with transmission needs to maintain fairness. Finally, we implement our proposed scheme in the simulation platform and evaluate the performance in different scenarios. The results show that it can improve data transmission rate, reduce packet loss, and maintain fairness compared with others.

Investigating impacts of various operational conditions on fuel consumption and stop penalty at signalized intersections

When optimizing signals relevant traffic agencies adopt policies to either improve mobility performance measures (e.g., delay and stops), environmental aspects, or safety of signalized intersections. One of such policies, mainly implemented through so-called Performance Index (PI), advocates that reduction of excess fuel consumption (FC) should be achieved by minimizing the PI - a linear combination of delays and stops. The key factor of such a PI is the stop penalty “K”, which represents a weighting factor, or a stop equivalency measured in seconds of delay. In the contemporary signal optimization practice, this K is given a constant value (e.g., 10 seconds) and it is not recognized as a parameter that is dependent on various operational conditions. This study challenges that common view and presents a methodology to derive the K factor and investigate impacts of various operational conditions (e.g., cruising speed) on the K value. The study uses traffic simulation model coupled with a modal fuel consumption and emission model to investigate second-by-second FC during stopping events at a signalized intersection. The experiments are performed on a hypothetical, yet realistic, intersection under several operational scenarios. The findings show that the K varies significantly with all the investigated operational conditions. More importantly, results indicate that the K factor should be much larger than used by current signal timing practices. The implications of these findings may lead to significant changes in current polices for signal timing optimization. Future research shall validate these findings with second-by-second vehicle trajectory and FC data from the field.

Collaborative strategy within China's emission trading scheme: Evidence from a tripartite evolutionary game model

Emission trading scheme (ETS) is considered as a tool to reduce emissions at a low cost, which can effectively promote the carbon peak and carbon neutrality. As the main participants in the carbon emission trading (CET) market, the behavior and strategies for governments and different types of enterprises affect the final emission reduction performance. Taking the national carbon market as an example, this paper constructs a tripartite evolutionary game model including governments and power generation enterprises with different emission reduction capacity to analyze the possible game situations in the development process of the CET market. The results show that with the development of the CET market, the governments and power generation enterprises will have different game results. In order to achieve the optimal stable equilibrium and maximize carbon emission reduction, governments should improve regulatory efficiency and formulate appropriate incentive strategies for excess emission reduction and punishment strategies for insufficient emission reduction. In addition, the initial willingness will not affect the final strategy choice of the three parties. Reasonable free carbon quota ratio, lower technology emission reduction cost and higher carbon price can stimulate the enthusiasm of governments and enterprises to reduce emissions. The above results provide a reference for coordinating the relationships between governments and power generation enterprises with different emission reduction capacity in the construction of the CET market in the future.

Microbiome analysis revealing microbial interactions and secondary bacterial infections in COVID-19 patients comorbidly affected by Type 2 diabetes.

The mortality of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) disease is very high among the elderly or individuals having comorbidities such asobesity, cardiovascular diseases, lung infections, hypertension, and/or diabetes. Our study characterizes the metagenomic features in severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2)-infected patients with or without type 2 diabetes, to identify the microbial interactions associated with its fatal consequences.This study compared the baseline nasopharyngeal microbiome of SARS-CoV-2-infected diabetic and nondiabetic patients with controls adjusted for age and gender. The metagenomics based on next-generation sequencingwas performed using Ion GeneStudio S5 Series and the data were analyzed by the Vegan-package in R. All three groups possessed significant bacterial diversity and dissimilarity indexes (p < 0.05). Spearman's correlation coefficient network analysis illustrated 183 significant positive correlations and 13 negative correlations of pathogenic bacteria (r = 0.6-1.0, p < 0.05), and 109 positive correlations betweennormal flora and probiotic bacteria (r > 0.6, p < 0.05). The SARS-CoV-2 diabetic group exhibited a significant increase in pathogens and secondary infection-causing bacteria (p < 0.05) with a simultaneous decrease of normal flora (p < 0.05). The dysbiosis of the bacterial community might be linked with severe consequences of COVID-19-infected diabetic patients, although a few probiotic strains inhibited numerous pathogens in the same pathological niches. This study suggested that the promotion of normal flora and probiotics through dietary supplementation and excessive inflammation reduction by preventing secondary infections might lead to a better outcome for those comorbid patients.

Obesity Pillars roundtable: Excessive weight reduction with highly effective anti-obesity medications (heAOMs)

BackgroundHistorically, many anti-obesity medications (AOMs) were withdrawn from development and/or the market due to safety concerns. Another challenge was that, with some exceptions, most of these AOMs had limited weight reducing efficacy. Approved AOMs often did not meet the weight reduction expectations of either clinicians, or their patients. Currently, newer approved and investigational AOMs achieve greater weight reduction than older AOMs. This has prompted an emerging new challenge of “too much weight loss” with some of these highly effective anti-obesity medications (heAOM) – something many did not think possible prior to year 2020. MethodsThis roundtable review includes perspectives from 3 obesity specialists with experience in the clinical use of AOMs. The intent is to provide perspectives and guidance in managing patients with obesity who experience “too much weight loss” with heAOM. ResultsThe panelists generally agreed that before treatment with heAOMs, patients with obesity are best informed about the importance of healthful nutrition, adequate hydration, routine physical activity, behavior modification techniques, goals of treatment, and anticipated changes not only from a medical standpoint, but also from a psychosocial standpoint. Clinicians might best recognize that the definition of “excessive weight reduction” may have both objective and subjective considerations, with body composition analyses often essential to accurately assess adiposity. ConclusionsThe consensus of the panelists is reflected in a proposed structured and algorithmic approach to the patient with excessive weight reduction. Once properly evaluated, if the excessive weight reduction is determined most likely due to the heAOM hyper-responders, then this should prompt the clinician to educate the patient (and possibly family and friends) on the health and psychosocial aspects of weight reduction, and engage in a shared decision-making process that determines if the heAOM is best kept at the same dose, decreased in dose, temporarily held, or rare cases, best discontinued.

Effect of Intermittent Fasting on Muscle Glycogen Stores in Rats with High-Calorie Diet

Insulin resistance in skeletal muscle is important since it is normally responsible for most of the insulin-mediated glucose disposal and contains the largest glycogen storage regulated by insulin sensitivity. A high-calorie diet is known to be a risk factor for insulin resistance. Lifestyle modification by regulating caloric intake through intermittent fasting (IF) is recommended to prevent insulin resistance. This study aims to analyze the effect of eight weeks of intermittent fasting on skeletal muscle glycogen stores in rats with a four-week high-calorie diet. A total 24 healthy male Wistar rats were divided into four groups, Ad-libitum with a standard diet (AL-SD) Ad-libitum with a high-calorie diet (AL-HCD) IF with a standard diet (IF-SD) IF with a high-calorie diet (IF-HCD). Muscles were obtained and stained with PAS stain to evaluate glycogen expression based on color intensity. The results of the glycogen expression score were obtained as follows, AL-SD=2.113±0.589 AL-HCD=1.827±0.375 IF-SD=2.109±0.499 IF-HCD=1.979±0.334. Although there was no significant difference between groups (p> 0.05), IF can prevent excessive reduction of glycogen stores in subjects with a HCD compared to the AL-HCD group. In conclusion, this study suggests that IF might improve the reduction of glycogen stores in muscles due to a high-calorie diet.

Experimental Study of Excessive Local Refinement Reduction Techniques for Global Optimization DIRECT-Type Algorithms

This article considers a box-constrained global optimization problem for Lipschitz continuous functions with an unknown Lipschitz constant. The well-known derivative-free global search algorithm DIRECT (DIvide RECTangle) is a promising approach for such problems. Several studies have shown that recent two-step (global and local) Pareto selection-based algorithms are very efficient among all DIRECT-type approaches. However, despite its encouraging performance, it was also observed that the candidate selection procedure has two possible shortcomings. First, there is no limit on how small the size of selected candidates can be. Secondly, a balancing strategy between global and local candidate selection is missing. Therefore, it may waste function evaluations by over-exploring the current local minimum and delaying finding the global one. This paper reviews and employs different strategies in a two-step Pareto selection framework (1-DTC-GL) to overcome these limitations. A detailed experimental study has revealed that existing strategies do not always improve and sometimes even worsen results. Since 1-DTC-GL is a DIRECT-type algorithm, the results of this paper provide general guidance for all DIRECT-type algorithms on how to deal with excessive local refinement more efficiently.

Sex difference in 5-year relative survival following percutaneous coronary intervention

Abstract Background Sex-specific survival following percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) varies among studies. This might be clarified using relative survival, which adjusts observed survival in relation to that seen in sex- and age-matched general population. We investigated sex-specific relative survival after PCI. Methods A total of 48,783 patients were enrolled in the year 2011 Korean nationwide PCI cohort. Primary outcome was all-cause death. Observed and relative survival at 5 years conditional on surviving 0 days, 30 days, 1 year, and 2 years were assessed. Sex-specific differences in cardiovascular risk factors were adjusted via age-group stratified propensity score matching. Results In the unadjusted analyses, 15,710 female patients had a higher frequency of cardiovascular risk factors compared with 33,073 male patients. Both observed survival (hazard ratio [HR]=1.28, 95% confidence interval [CI]=1.22–1.34) and relative survival (HR=1.21, 95% CI: 1.16–1.27) were worse in female compared with male (p&amp;lt;0.001, all). In analyses of propensity score-matched 14,454 pairs, female showed a higher observed survival (HR=0.78, 95% CI: 0.74–0.82) but a lower relative survival (HR=1.19, 95% CI: 1.13–1.26) compared with male (p&amp;lt;0.001, all). Neither observed nor relative survival differed between female of age≤50s and age-matched male, but they were lower in female of age≥60s than age-matched male. These findings were consistent in further analyses conditional on surviving 30 days, 1 year, and 2 years. Conclusions The 5-year relative survival of female aged≥60 years adjusted by clinical risk factors was lower than that of age-matched male, which mandates the need for the excessive risk reduction in older female undergoing PCI. Funding Acknowledgement Type of funding sources: None.

43.3: Metal‐Oxide Thin‐Film Transistors for Driving High‐Resolution Active‐Matrix Ferroelectric Liquid‐Crystal Displays

43.3: Metal‐Oxide Thin‐Film Transistors for Driving High‐Resolution Active‐Matrix Ferroelectric Liquid‐Crystal Displays

Fusion Separation of Vanadium-Titanium Magnetite and Enrichment Test of Ti Element in Slag.

In view of the problem that the enrichment and migration law of the Ti element in the slag of vanadium-titanium magnetite during the melting process is not clear, the phase transformation is not clear and the enrichment effect is not obvious, the single factor experiment and orthogonal experiment are used to optimize the melting conditions of Ti enrichment. Through XRD, SEM and EDS analysis, the effects of melting temperature, alkalinity and carbon content on the Ti phase in the slag are studied, and the occurrence form and migration law of the Ti element in the slag system under different melting conditions are clarified. The results demonstrate that increasing the basicity and melting temperature is beneficial to the enrichment of Ti, but it is too high it will lead to the formation of pyroxene, diopside and magnesia-alumina spinel, affecting the enrichment of Ti. The increase in carbon content can make Ti occur in slag in the form of titanium oxides such as TiO, TiO2, Ti2O3 and Ti3O5, but excessive carbon content leads to the excessive reduction of Ti compounds to TiCN and TiC. After optimization, under the melting conditions of alkalinity 1.2, the melting temperature 1500 °C and carbon content 15%, the content of Ti in slag can reach 18.84%, and the recovery rate is 93.54%. By detecting the content of Fe and V in molten iron, the recovery rates are 99.86% and 95.64%, respectively.

A rapid self-heating strategy of lithium-ion battery at low temperatures based on bidirectional pulse current without external power

Polarization is a major problem for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) at low temperatures. To realize rapid preheating of LIBs at low temperatures, a self-heating strategy based on bidirectional pulse current without external power is proposed. Four inductances and one direct current/direct current (DC/DC) converter are applied to the system. An electrothermal coupling model of LIBs and a performance evaluation model of the system are established to investigate the effects of circuit parameters and initial state-of-charge (SOC) on the heating performance, including the heating time, SOC utilization ratio (SUR), and heating efficiency. The results show that the LIBs can be warmed up from −10 °C to 0 °C in approximately 120 s. It is concluded that reducing the discharge inductance can increase the heating rate, SUR, and heating efficiency. However, the excessive reduction of the discharge inductance would cause a significant voltage drop, which will reduce the voltage to below the cut-off voltage. In addition, a comparative study shows that when the initial SOC values of the two battery packs are different, the heating time will be reduced. A higher initial SOC for one battery pack can increase the heating speed and SUR at the expense of the heating efficiency.

Are Mentalizing Systems Necessary? An Alternative Through Self–other Distinction

Recent studies have identified two important findings on infants’ capability of taking others’ perspectives and the difficulty of ignoring perspectives irrelevant to the acquired perspective. Unfortunately, there is insufficient consensus on the interpretation of these phenomena. Two important features of perspective-taking, embodiment and aging, should be considered to reach a more appropriate hypothesis. In this paper, the mechanism of perspective-taking can be redefined through the well-known process of self–other distinction, which is inherent to humans, without resorting to either the assumption of controversial systems or an excessive reduction to executive functions. Therefore, it is hypothesized that the implicit mentalizing observed in infancy comes from the loosening phenomenon and lasts lifelong and that the self-representation separated from one’s own body by the detachment function is sent to other perspectives for explicit perspective-taking. This hypothesis can not only explain both the robustness of perspective-taking in the older adults and the appearance of egocentric/altercentric bias in adults but also is consistent with the findings in brain science and neuropathology. Finally, some issues to be considered are presented to improve the validity of this hypothesis.

Continued exposure to D-galactose in postnatal period may inhibit excessive primordial follicle reduction in rats exposed prenatally to D-galactose.

We aimed to compare the ovarian reserve of rats exposed to oral D-galactose during prenatal and early life with rats exposed to D-galactose only during the prenatal period. Fifteen female pregnant Wistar rats were randomly divided into three groups. The first and second groups were fed a D-galactose enriched diet (35%) from the third day of pregnancy to parturition (PP)and the third day to the end of lactation (PL), respectively. The control group (C group) was fed a standard diet. The study population was the female offspring of three groups (PP', PL', and C'), in which some reproductive factors were examined between 45 and 50 days of age. When compared with the PP' group, the number of primordial follicles was significantly higher in the PL' group at PND 45-50 (40 vs. 30; p= .01); however, the antimullerian hormone level was significantly reduced in the PL' group versus control group (-2.2, 95% confidence interval [CI]: -2.83, -1.53 ng/ml p=.000), and follicle-stimulating hormone level significantly increased in PP' group versus control (4.5 mIU/ml, 95% CI: 1.40-7.62, p=.005). There was no significant difference in leukocyte infiltration or antiovarian antibody among the groups. Continued exposure to D-galactose during the lactation period inhibits the primordial follicle loss in rats in terms of producing fewer atretic follicles.

Excess CO2 Reductions during CH3 COOH Formation from CH4 and CO2 under Periodic Operation: Downhill Side Reactions in an Uphill Target Reaction under Unsteady Conditions.

Acetic acid (CH3 COOH) formation from methane (CH4 ) and carbon dioxide (CO2 ) is an ideal reaction for chemical production, whereas this reaction possesses a severe thermodynamic limitation. To address this issue, it has been reported that periodic operation allowing a non-equilibrium condition can overcome the thermodynamic limitation. However, although an intrinsic issue of uphill reactions in non-equilibrium conditions generally is occurrence of unfavorable downhill reactions, this issue has seldom been discussed for the CH3 COOH formation under periodic operation. Herein, excess CO2 reductions were found to be the unfavorable downhill reactions possibly occurring in the reaction aiming at CH3 COOH formation under periodically operated CH4 and CO2 feeds. The reaction using an isotopic reactant (i. e., 13 CH4 ) unveiled that excess CO2 reductions to CO and even to CH3 moiety could occur, indicating importance of catalyst development. Furthermore, it was proposed that H2 O vapor introduction into the CO2 feed, which increased the CH3 COOH product, most likely facilitated the reverse reaction of the excess CO2 reductions and thereby is effective to hamper the unfavorable side reaction.