Minor Costs Research Articles

Performance optimization of latent heat storage device based on surrogate-assisted multi-objective evolutionary algorithm and CFD method

The design of fin structures and the formulation of heat conductivity enhancers have always been critical factors influencing the performance of latent heat storage devices. However, achieving the optimal parameters of fin structures and the fraction of heat conductivity enhancers when adjusting multiple parameters simultaneously remains a time-consuming and labor-intensive task. In this paper, a combination of machine learning methods and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) was employed to optimize the parameters of fin structures and the mass fraction of expanded graphite with minor computational resources and time costs, thereby obtaining a set of Pareto optimal latent heat storage (LHS) devices that simultaneously considers energy storage power and energy storage capacity. The combination essentially is a surrogate assistant multi-objective evolutionary optimization algorithm, which utilizes batch recommendation strategies to recommend multiple high-quality candidate solutions that achieve a balance between two conflicting optimization objectives in CFD simulations. This method significantly reduces the number of model iterations and saves the time and computational resources required for multi-objective optimization. The results showed that the proposed algorithm only required 80 cases of CFD calculations to obtain two well-fitted Gaussian process models, leading to a 91 % improvement in computational efficiency. According to the recommendations from the algorithm, the LHS device with 78 fins of 2.0 mm thickness and 20 % mass fraction of expanded graphite could achieve the optimal trade-off of energy storage power and energy storage capacity. Compared to the prototype, the energy storage power and total energy storage capacity increased by 46.7 % and 22.1 %, respectively. The method proposed in this study can provide guidance for the optimal configuration design of LHS devices.

Multi-Objective Optimization in Support of Life-Cycle Cost-Performance-Based Design of Reinforced Concrete Structures

Surveys on the optimum seismic design of structures reveal that many investigations focus on minimizing initial costs while satisfying performance constraints. Although reducing initial costs while complying with earthquake design codes significantly ensures occupant safety, it may still cause considerable economic losses and fatalities. Therefore, calculating potential earthquake damages over the structure’s lifetime is essential from an optimal Life-Cycle Cost (LCC) design perspective. LCC analysis evaluates economic feasibility, including construction, operation, occupancy, maintenance, and end-of-life costs. The population-based, meta-heuristic Ideal Gas Molecular Movement (IGMM) algorithm has proven effective in solving highly nonlinear mono- and multi-objective engineering problems. This paper investigates the LCC-based mono- and multi-objective optimum design of a 3D four-story concrete building structure using the Endurance Time (ET) method, which is employed for its efficiency in estimating structural responses under varying seismic hazard levels. The novelty of this work lies in integrating the ET method with the IGMM algorithm to comprehensively address both economic and performance criteria in seismic design. The results indicate that the proposed technique significantly reduces minor injury costs, rental costs, and income costs by 22%, 16%, and 16%, respectively, achieving a total reduction of 10% in all structural Life-Cycle Costs, which is considered significant.

Transferable AmpCs in Klebsiella pneumoniae: interplay with peptidoglycan recycling, mechanisms of hyperproduction, and virulence implications.

Chromosomal and transferable AmpC β-lactamases represent top resistance mechanisms in different gram-negatives, but knowledge regarding the latter, mostly concerning regulation and virulence-related implications, is far from being complete. To fill this gap, we used Klebsiella pneumoniae (KP) and two different plasmid-encoded AmpCs [DHA-1 (AmpR regulator linked, inducible) and CMY-2 (constitutive)] as models to perform a study in which we show that blockade of peptidoglycan recycling through AmpG permease inactivation abolished DHA-1 inducibility but did not affect CMY-2 production and neither did it alter KP pathogenic behavior. Moreover, whereas regular production of both AmpC-type enzymes did not attenuate KP virulence, when blaDHA-1 was expressed in an ampG-defective mutant, Galleria mellonella killing was significantly (but not drastically) attenuated. Spontaneous DHA-1 hyperproducer mutants were readily obtained in vitro, showing slight or insignificant virulence attenuations together with high-level resistance to β-lactams only mildly affected by basal production (e.g., ceftazidime, ceftolozane/tazobactam). By analyzing diverse DHA-1-harboring clinical KP strains, we demonstrate that the natural selection of these hyperproducers is not exceptional (>10% of the collection), whereas mutational inactivation of the typical AmpC hyperproduction-related gene mpl was the most frequent underlying mechanism. The potential silent dissemination of this kind of strains, for which an important fitness cost-related contention barrier does not seem to exist, is envisaged as a neglected threat for most β-lactams effectiveness, including recently introduced combinations. Analyzing whether this phenomenon is applicable to other transferable β-lactamases and species as well as determining the levels of conferred resistance poses an essential topic to be addressed.IMPORTANCEAlthough there is solid knowledge about the regulation of transferable and especially chromosomal AmpC β-lactamases in Enterobacterales, there are still gaps to fill, mainly related to regulatory mechanisms and virulence interplays of the former. This work addresses them using Klebsiella pneumoniae as model, delving into a barely explored conception: the acquisition of a plasmid-encoded inducible AmpC-type enzyme whose production can be increased through selection of chromosomal mutations, entailing dramatically increased resistance compared to basal expression but minor associated virulence costs. Accordingly, we demonstrate that clinical K. pneumoniae DHA-1 hyperproducer strains are not exceptional. Through this study, we warn for the first time that this phenomenon may be a neglected new threat for β-lactams effectiveness (including some recently introduced ones) silently spreading in the clinical context, not only in K. pneumoniae but potentially also in other pathogens. These facts must be carefully considered in order to design future resistance-preventive strategies.

Targeted optimization in small-scale atomic structure calculations: application to Au I

The lack of reliable atomic data can be a severe limitation in astrophysical modelling, in particular of events such as kilonovae that require information on all neutron-capture elements across a wide range of ionization stages. Notably, the presence of non-orthonormalities between electron orbitals representing configurations that are close in energy can introduce significant inaccuracies in computed energies and transition probabilities. Here, we propose an explicit targeted optimization (TO) method that can effectively circumvent this concern while retaining an orthonormal orbital basis set. We illustrate this method within the framework of small-scale atomic structure models of Au I, using the Grasp2018 multiconfigurational Dirac–Hartree–Fock atomic structure code. By comparing to conventional optimization schemes we show how a TO approach improves the energy level positioning and ordering. TO also leads to better agreement with experimental data for the strongest E1 transitions. This illustrates how small-scale models can be significantly improved with minor computational costs if orbital non-orthonormalities are considered carefully. These results should prove useful to multi-element atomic structure calculations in, for example, astrophysical opacity applications involving neutron-capture elements.

An Intelligent Automatic Sea Forecasting System Targeting Specific Areas on Sailing Routes

Sailing vessel navigators always want to receive state-of-the-art prompt and accurate marine weather-forecasting services. However, the weather-routing services by private sectors are expensive. Further, forecasting results from public institutes are usually free, and they are not in real-time or numerical modes, so they are not quite suitable for small-size or offshore vessels. In this study, an intelligent system was constructed for delivering sea forecasting at specific areas according to the navigator’s order. The system can automatically obtain web-based forecasting charts issued from multi-source meteorological agencies and convert the regional information into numerical text at requested points. During this step, several intelligent algorithms, like the OpenCV digital image processing algorithm and the YOLO wind vector deep learning recognition method, were applied. By applying this state-of-the-art system, navigators on board do not need to download different institutional graphics (usually with large stream bytes) to explore the future states of the sea surface in a specific area in the sailing route but can obtain the multi-source text forecasting information just by sending the area coordinates to a designated email address. The field tests confirmed that this auto-intelligent system could assist the navigator within a few minutes and thus greatly enhance the navigation safety with minor text-based communication costs. It is expected that by improving the efficiency of marine services and bringing in more artificial intelligence technology, maritime security would be more sustainable.

Concentration versus diversification: A spatial deployment approach to improve the economics of wind power

Previous studies on the economics of onshore wind parks in Germany found that geographic diversification results in minor system costs savings (Pfluger et al., 2017a). Furthermore, such diversification does not necessarily result in higher market values (Eising et al., 2020) or better merchant profitability (Klie and Madlener, 2022). Therefore, the question arises whether an alternative allocation (i.e. concentration rather than diversification) of the German wind park fleet is more economical. In this paper, we compare the future (2030) market values, subsidy needs and total system costs (excl. intra-national grid costs due to congestion, redispatch and curtailment) of a more concentrated versus a more diversified allocation of onshore wind turbines in Germany. The results show that a concentration of turbines, in areas where the gap between market values and levelized costs of electricity is smallest (i.e. Northern Germany), is more beneficial in terms of subsidy need and system costs (ignoring congestion, redispatch and curtailment). The analysis further shows that these areas are also more beneficial in terms of market values, when using system-friendly turbine configurations selected based on the same approach. To incentivize such a selection of areas and turbine configurations based on minimal gaps between market values and levelized costs an alternative renewables support scheme is presented, which favors such minimal gaps in its auctioning process.

Nest Construction Costs Bald Eagles Time But not Breeding Success or Productivity

ABSTRACT Constructing nests costs birds time and energy and may influence breeding success and productivity. The precise nature and extent of these costs is understudied, particularly among raptor species. We used linear and generalized linear mixed models to examine the time and reproductive costs of nest construction to Bald Eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) in New Jersey, USA, from 2009 to 2021. To differentiate nest construction costs from the influence of experience, we separately analyzed the breeding performance and phenology of new pairs constructing nests, established pairs constructing nests, and established pairs reusing nests. We also considered the influence of weather, year, and ecoregion. New territorial pairs building nests were generally less successful and productive than established pairs building or reusing nests. However, these trends were largely attributable to a greater egg-laying rate among established pairs. Nest building pairs, new and established, were generally delayed in egg laying, hatching, and nestling fledging compared to established pairs reusing nests; new pairs were notably more delayed than established pairs building nests. Territorial pairs in the Atlantic Coastal Pine Barrens were less successful and productive than pairs in other ecoregions. Higher precipitation around the egg laying period was predictive of lower nest success and productivity rates but did not appear to affect phenology. Higher temperatures around this period also lowered these rates, with the further effect of advancing phenology. In New Jersey, climate change appears to be advancing breeding phenology and could constrain productivity by century’s end, though we anticipate that density dependence will regulate and lower Bald Eagle breeding performance prior to this period. Breeding success and productivity rates, as well as the effects of year in our models, indicate that New Jersey’s breeding Bald Eagle population is still healthy and growing. Overall, our results indicate that nest construction imposes minor temporal costs on Bald Eagles but does not meaningfully affect their breeding success or productivity, which may help inform management of Bald Eagle nests and populations.

Fossil energy use and carbon emissions: An easy-to-implement technical policy experiment

<p>Macroeconomic research on carbon policy mostly revolves around carbon pricing mechanisms such as carbon taxes, cap-and-trade-schemes, and a mix of them. Despite their relevance, however, carbon pricing is not the only policy available to mitigate carbon emissions. A richer and diversified arsenal of carbon policies may prove more effective in addressing carbon mitigation across different social, economic and geographic contexts. We proposed a policy experiment, which took the form of a <italic>technical tax</italic> on fossil energy use aiming at stabilizing carbon dioxide emissions. The <italic>technical tax</italic> responded to variations in all elements that are supposed to alter climatic phenomena, that is, domestic carbon emissions, domestic fossil energy use, and the industrial stock of atmospheric carbon dioxide, to which all world economies contribute. The macro-effects of the <italic>technical tax</italic> were simulated using an off-the-shelf Real Business Cycles (RBC) model targeting the economy of the United States and featuring a climatic block. The economy was perturbed by a technology shock and an energy-price shock. Special care was devoted to the processes of validation and calibration. The tax was responsive to the business cycle and showed positive aspects. When a technology shock hit the economy, it curbed carbon emissions with minor costs in terms of potential output losses. It also protected the economy from an increase in energy prices, mitigating the fall in output despite the drop in fossil energy use. Last but not least, the tax effectively stabilized carbon dioxide emissions by reducing their variance.</p>

Statistical Analysis of Minor Highway Maintenance Costs

Statistical Analysis of Minor Highway Maintenance Costs

The diagnostic role of arginine-stimulated copeptin in the differential diagnosis of polyuria-polydipsia syndrome (PPS) in pediatric age.

In recent years, copeptin stimulation through arginine administration has been evaluated as a new potential tool in the differential diagnosis of polyuria-polydipsia syndrome (PPS) in adults; to date very few data, all retrospective, exist in pediatric age. The aim of this prospective study is to evaluate the diagnostic performance of the arginine-stimulation test for copeptin in a cohort of pediatric patients affected by PPS. All children (<18 years) referred to the Department of Pediatric Endocrinology of the Regina Margherita Children Hospital for polyuria-polydipsia in the period January 2021-June 2023 were enrolled. The Arginine-stimulation test for copeptin was performed in all patients presenting PPS after water deprivation test (WDT). Patients with polyuria-polydipsia were then classified as having primary polyuria (PP), complete and partial central diabetes insipidus (CDI), according to the standardized interpretation. Arginine-stimulation test for copeptin was also performed in a control cohort. A significant difference in arginine-stimulated copeptin values was observed at baseline (p = 0.005), at 60 min (p = 0.01), and at 90 min (p = 0.005) in 7 subjects presenting PP, 6 patients affected by CDI and 50 subjects of the control cohort. Plasma osmolality values remained stable at all measurements. The arginine-stimulated copeptin test demonstrated sensitivity and specificity of 100%, whereas the sensitivity of the WDT test was 83.3% and the specificity was 85.7%. Given the reliability and the minor adverse effects and costs, the copeptin level after arginine administration could replace the WDT in the diagnostic workup of these in pediatric age.

Evaluation of Surveillance System Changes to Improve Detection of Disseminated Gonococcal Infections in Virginia, 2018 to 2021.

Disseminated gonococcal infection (DGI), a complication of untreated gonorrhea, is rarely reported through routine surveillance. We sought to improve local surveillance system capacity to estimate and monitor the incidence of DGI in Virginia. We modified surveillance protocols to identify possible DGI cases using information extracted from gonorrhea case reports and performed provider follow-up using standardized case report forms to confirm DGI diagnosis and collect clinical information. Suspect cases included those with a laboratory report indicating sterile site of specimen collection (e.g., blood, synovial fluid) and/or intravenous (IV) treatment. We performed descriptive analyses to summarize the characteristics of suspect and confirmed DGIs and estimated incidence. After piloting protocols in 2018 to 2019, we identified 405 suspect DGI cases from 29,294 gonorrhea cases reported in 2020 to 2021 (1.4%). We initiated investigations for 298 (73.6%) of the suspect cases, received provider responses for 105 (25.9%), and confirmed 19 DGI cases (4.7%). Positive laboratory reports from nonmucosal sites were the most reliable predictor of confirmed DGI status, but most were not confirmed as DGI even when provider follow-up was successful. The confirmed and estimated incidence of DGI were 0.06% and 0.22%, respectively. Sixteen (84%) of the confirmed cases were older than 25 years, 3 (16%) were HIV positive, and approximately half were male and non-Hispanic Black. Most (15 [74%]) were hospitalized, and common manifestations included septic arthritis and bacteremia. We improved surveillance for DGI in Virginia while incurring minor programmatic costs. Additional efforts to improve the completeness and quality of surveillance data for DGI are needed.

Bringing markets back into economics: On economy wide self - coordination by boundedly rational market agents

Markets, I argue, matter significantly for macroeconomic development. The reason for this strange statement is that policy practice in industrialized market economies is routinely governed by models that ignore the role of markets. Policy makers are therefore at risk of misunderstanding the economic situation and of mismanaging the economy.Some macroeconomic models with sufficient nonlinearities and a production lag, two pioneering articles by Day (1982,1983) demonstrated, exhibit phases of erratic fluctuations (or deterministic chaos). Shortly thereafter Eliasson (1983, 1984) observed the endogenous emergence of similar unpredictable irregularities in simulating a complex, agent based, market self-coordinated economy wide model implemented on Swedish data. The irregularities originated in a failure of markets to coordinate production, employment, and investment decisions as they were pushed excessively by policy to become more efficient. In this agent based model of an Experimentally Organized Economy, called MOSES, progress is governed by a dominant flow of successful business experiments conducted by firms, trailed by a flow of mistaken projects. The coordination of these flows by autonomous market agents was shown to be easily disturbed by external interferences, for instance unwitting policies. Markets, simulation experiments however also showed have great endogenous capacities to restore disturbed order. Large private investment mistakes at the agent level, experiments furthermore indicate, incur only minor social costs if production on the site is promptly terminated, and markets organized to efficiently reallocate resources. Bold private investments should therefore be encouraged, corrections of identified mistakes made without delay, and the efficiency of markets to reallocate resources paid attention to. I conclude that central policy in “Sweden like industrial economies” can only effectively be pursued by taking advantage of the endogenous capacity of functioning markets of effective self-coordination. Coordination failure being created by policy failure masquerading as market failure should be considered before market failure is blamed.

Numerical analysis of insulated and conventional cross arms for transmission line tower

The development of the world power industry has led to studies focused on high-performance materials to enhance the durability and prolong the service life of existing structures. In this context, cross arm is one of the main components of an electricity-transmission structure. The application of composite units (insulated cross arm) on lattice transmission towers was evaluated using the software Ansys 2020 R2 in terms of efficiency, cost, and mechanical performance, compared to conventional transmission towers. Finite-element analysis results demonstrated reductions in internal forces, displacements, and support reactions when the insulated cross-arm (IC) tower structure was employed instead of the conventional cross-arm (CC) tower structure. This could lead to minor structural costs. The IC tower exhibited a better stability under free vibrations owing to its higher stiffness than that of the CC tower. The main reason for these results was the height reduction proportioned by IC structures.

P44 Can dermatologists help save the planet?

Abstract The National Health Service (NHS) is England’s largest contributor to public greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for 6.3% of the country’s carbon footprint (Tennison I, Roschnik S, Ashby B et al. Health care’s response to climate change: a carbon footprint assessment of the NHS in England. Lancet Planet Health 2021; 5:e84–92). Promoting sustainable practices within dermatology is often overlooked and remains an understudied area of research. Dermatologists should consider environmental sustainability when choosing their day-to-day personal protective equipment (PPE). An over-reliance on sterile PPE for minor surgical practices costs millions of pounds annually, ultimately occupying landfills and causing detrimental effects to our ecosystem. Are these sterile practices really improving clinical outcomes and reducing the prevalence of surgical site infections (SSIs)? Over the last decade, there has been an emphasis on comparing the use of sterile vs. nonsterile gloves and associated SSI rates in dermatology and Mohs micrographic surgery (MMS). MMS is often conducted with two sterile gloves and two surgical gowns. According to the sustainability guidance published by the British Society for Dermatological Surgery, surgical aprons and nonsterile gloves are preferred to surgical gowns and sterile gloves in procedures such as diagnostic biopsies, simple excision, tumour extirpation stages in MMS and outpatient reconstructive surgeries (https://bsds.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/2022-BSDS_Sustainability_Guidance.pdf). Based on this guidance and to reduce our carbon footprint, we decided to use two plastic aprons, one pair of nonsterile and one pair of sterile gloves from August 2020 to September 2022. Of 410 MMS procedures conducted, only 1.7% resulted in a minor postoperative complication related to infection. Our data suggest no significant difference in postoperative wound infections with the use of nonsterile PPE vs. sterile PPE. Moreover, the use of nonsterile PPE has saved our department £1471.90, allowing funding to be distributed to other areas. In line with the NHS multiyear plan to become the world’s first carbon net zero national health system by 2040, we should invest in processes that facilitate sustainable alternatives to construct a fully operational eco-friendly healthcare system. By using less PPE in reconstructive surgeries, we reduce plastic waste. Despite not being able to remove PPE completely, we can make dermatology more sustainable, to help save the planet we live on.

Efficient spatiotemporal context modeling for action recognition

Contextual information is essential in action recognition. However, local operations have difficulty in modeling two distant elements, and directly computing the dense relations between any two points brings huge computation and memory burden. Inspired by the recurrent 2D criss-cross attention (RCCA-2D) in image segmentation, we propose a recurrent 3D criss-cross attention (RCCA-3D) that factorizes the global relation map into sparse relation maps to model long-range spatiotemporal context with minor costs for video-based action recognition. Specifically, we first propose a 3D criss-cross attention (CCA-3D) module. Compared with the CCA-2D which only works in space, it can capture the spatiotemporal relationship between the points in the same line along the direction of width, height and time. However, only replacing the two CCA-2Ds in the RCCA-2D with our CCA-3Ds cannot model the spatiotemporal context in videos. Therefore, we further duplicate the CCA-3D with a recurrent mechanism to transmit the relation between the points in a line to a plane and finally to the whole spatiotemporal space. To make the RCCA-3D adaptive for action recognition, we propose a novel recurrent structure rather than directly extending the original 2D structure to 3D. In the experiments, we make a thorough analysis of different structures of RCCA-3D, verifying the proposed structure is more suitable for action recognition. We also compare our RCCA-3D with the non-local attention, showing that the RCCA-3D requires 25% fewer parameters and 30% fewer FLOPs with even higher accuracy. Finally, equipped with our RCCA-3D, 3 networks achieve better and leading performance on 5 RGB-based and skeleton-based datasets.

Design and simulation of a User-Friendly solar operated grass cutting device

Conventional grass cutting devices are basically operated either by fuel or electrical energy. These are not environment-friendly and, furthermore, they demand high operational and maintenance costs. Encouraging the use of renewable energy resources is essential for sustainability. This paper proposes the design and fabrication of a solar operated lawn mower. Its blade cutting operation is based on the scotch yoke mechanism. The lawn mower components are presented. In addition, all necessary calculations of converting the solar energy into electrical energy are performed, as well as the calculations on the battery capacity needed and the time to charge. Moreover, structural analysis is done to check the strength of the developed frame and of the blades. The 3D CAD prototype is created, and the structural analysis of the lawn mower are performed by using SolidWorks© software. The design and calculations demonstrate that an efficient and sustainable solar operated lawn mower can be produced at minor costs.

Alternative culture medium design for biomass production of autochthonous meat starter Latilactobacillus sakei sp. sakei ACU-2

The autochthonous strain Latilactobacillus sakei sp. sakei ACU-2 was selected as a meat starter culture for dry sausage production. Transferring this strain from laboratory scale to industry requires an increase in biomass production, while lowering process costs. In this study, a combination of techniques was applied in order to optimize the culture medium composition to enhance biomass production of L. sakei ACU-2. One variable at a time experiments, Plackett–Burman design, and mixture design were performed to fulfill the strain nutritional requirements. Eventually, the optimized formulation contained 19.46 g/L yeast extract; 8.28 g/L whey protein concentrate; 2.26 g/L soy peptone; 30 g/L cerelose; 1 g/L Tween 80; 5 g/L sodium acetate; 0.2 g/L magnesium sulfate and 0.05 g/L manganese sulfate. When L. sakei ACU-2 was cultivated in a bioreactor using the alternative medium, an enhancement of 75.5% of biomass production was achieved, in comparison to its growth in the commercial de Man, Rogosa, and Sharpe medium. Furthermore, a reduction of 62–86% of the cost was also attained. These results support a promising large-scale application of the designed medium for high biomass yields of the starter culture at minor costs.

Indiscriminate Mating and the Coevolution of Sex Discrimination and Sexual Signals.

AbstractThe presence of same-sex sexual behavior across the animal kingdom is often viewed as unexpected. One explanation for its prevalence in some taxa is indiscriminate mating-a strategy wherein an individual does not attempt to determine the sex of its potential partner before attempting copulation. Indiscriminate mating has been argued to be the ancestral mode of sexual reproduction and can also be an optimal strategy given search costs of choosiness. Less attention has been paid to the fact that sex discrimination requires not just the attempt to differentiate between the sexes but also some discernible difference (a signal or cue) that can be detected. To address this, we extend models of mating behavior to consider the coevolution of sex discrimination and sexual signals. We find that under a wide range of parameters, including some with relatively minor costs, indiscriminate mating and the absence of sexual signals will be an evolutionary end point. Furthermore, the absence of both sex discrimination and sexual signals is always evolutionarily stable. These results suggest that an observable difference between the sexes likely arose as a by-product of the evolution of different sexes, allowing discrimination to evolve.

Magnetic field assisted synthesis of JANUS Fe3C@ Enteromorpha doped graphene aerogels for simultaneous recovery of fresh water and salt in high salinity wastewater

Solar-driven evaporation technology has captured great attention in the fields of desalination and separation due to its eco-friendliness and minor energy costs. It is difficult to maintain durable stability and high efficiency for the evaporation process due to salt contamination. Herein, Fe3C@ Enteromorpha doped graphene aerogel (GEF) was synthesized by a one-step hydrothermal reduction method for the simultaneous recovery of fresh water and salt in high salinity wastewater. Enteromorpha was doped between graphene lamellae to construct the structural basis for the rapid water evaporation and salt resistance of aerogel. Fe3C was concentrated on the surface of aerogel with the assist of magnetic field, which not only improves the hydrophilicity of GEF by increasing the roughness and increasing hydrophilic groups, but also concentrates the heat on the evaporation surface. The rich microporous structure with super hydrophilicity endows the GEF with exceptional evaporation performance. Water evaporation rate and photothermal conversion efficiency can reach 3.76 kg·m−2·h−1 and 127 %, respectively, under 1 sun irradiation. The multi-layer structure of GEF enables the salt precipitation on the side, assisting the evaporation and crystallization. GEF has a stable evaporation rate of 3.2 kg·m−2·h−1 for 20 % NaCl solution during 10 h continuous evaporation for 5 days. The GEF aerogel shows excellent photothermal properties and salt resistance, and practical ability to recover clean water and salt resources from the actual treatment of high-salt wastewater.

DDSM: Design-Oriented Dual-Scale Shape-Material Model for Lattice Material Components.

This paper proposes a new CAD model for the design of lattice material components. The CAD model better captures the user's design intent and provides a dual-scale framework to represent the geometry and material distribution. Conventional CAD model formats based on B-Rep generate millions of data files, which also makes design intent and material information missing. In the present work, a new shape-material model for lattice material components is proposed. At the macroscopic scale, a compact face-based non-manifold topological data structure is proposed to express the lattice shape-material information without ambiguity. At the microscopic scale, implicit function is adopted for the representation of lattice material components. Numerical experiments verify that the proposed CAD model provides a powerful support for design intent with minor space costs. Meanwhile, the representation method supports solid modeling queries of geometric and material information on each scale.