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Abstract Implementation of environmental taxation to internalize environmental externalities has been conducted for several decades in developed countries. With social and economic development, many developing countries arrive at their stage of carrying out environmental taxation reform in order to realize cleaner production and sustainable development. Aiming at providing experiences on establishing environmental taxation system for developing countries, current study reviewed scope, tax base, tax rate, tax preferences, monitoring and calculation method of pollutants, collection and management modes and implementation effects based on data retrieved from institutional and governmental website, and related research articles. The structure of tax base, typical economic instruments used, operation mechanism, and management mode were summarized. Legislation and Institutional design, education and publicity, and administration and management were found to be the key aspects of implementation. Current trends in development were also discussed. This work contributes to provide reference and inspiration for developing countries to establish environmental taxation system in accordance with their national conditions based on social and historical background and economic structure.

This paper presents copper filling of TSV using an acidic cupric methanesulfonate electroplating electrolyte containing chloride and a poloxamine suppressor. The process was accomplished utilizing a single component suppressor system. Such a plating system might simplify the additive replenishment procedure during the TSV filling. The influence of the poloxamine on the copper deposition was also investigated. The poloxamine greatly inhibited the copper electrodeposition on a platinum rotating electrode and might function as an effective suppressor. Compared with the conventional suppressor PEG, poloxamine had a larger time constant and smaller diffusion constant.

AbstractAn organic redox couple tetramethylthiourea/tetramethylformaminium disulfide (TMTU/TMFDS2+) is evaluated in dye‐sensitized solar cells in conjunction with a series of indoline and ruthenium‐based dyes. Of these, devices with indoline dye D205 show the best performance, with an optimized power conversion efficiency of 7.6 % under AM 1.5G 1 sun illumination. Charge collection and injection are highly efficient in all TMTU‐based DSCs studied. Regeneration of indoline dyes is highly efficient, whereas regeneration of ruthenium dyes by TMTU is less efficient, accounting for their inferior performance. Impedance spectroscopy results reveal that using an optimized TMTU/TMFDS2+ electrolyte solution, the TiO2 conduction band edge is 300–400 meV lower than when an optimized I3−/I− electrolyte is used. The would‐be loss in open‐circuit voltage caused by the downward conduction band shift is mostly compensated by approximately the 200 meV lower redox level of the TMTU/TMFDS2+ electrolyte and up to 1000 times slower recombination rates. This makes TMTU/TMFDS2+ a promising redox couple in the development of highly efficient solar energy conversion devices.

We previously developed a model for projection of heat-related mortality attributable to climate change. The objective of this paper is to improve the fit and precision of and examine the robustness of the model.We obtained daily data for number of deaths and maximum temperature from respective governmental organizations of Japan, Korea, Taiwan, the USA, and European countries. For future projection, we used the Bergen climate model 2 (BCM2) general circulation model, the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) A1B socioeconomic scenario, and the mortality projection for the 65+-year-old age group developed by the World Health Organization (WHO). The heat-related excess mortality was defined as follows: The temperature-mortality relation forms a V-shaped curve, and the temperature at which mortality becomes lowest is called the optimum temperature (OT). The difference in mortality between the OT and a temperature beyond the OT is the excess mortality. To develop the model for projection, we used Japanese 47-prefecture data from 1972 to 2008. Using a distributed lag nonlinear model (two-dimensional nonparametric regression of temperature and its lag effect), we included the lag effect of temperature up to 15 days, and created a risk function curve on which the projection is based. As an example, we perform a future projection using the above-mentioned risk function. In the projection, we used 1961-1990 temperature as the baseline, and temperatures in the 2030s and 2050s were projected using the BCM2 global circulation model, SRES A1B scenario, and WHO-provided annual mortality. Here, we used the "counterfactual method" to evaluate the climate change impact; For example, baseline temperature and 2030 mortality were used to determine the baseline excess, and compared with the 2030 excess, for which we used 2030 temperature and 2030 mortality. In terms of adaptation to warmer climate, we assumed 0 % adaptation when the OT as of the current climate is used and 100 % adaptation when the OT as of the future climate is used. The midpoint of the OTs of the two types of adaptation was set to be the OT for 50 % adaptation.We calculated heat-related excess mortality for 2030 and 2050.Our new model is considered to be better fit, and more precise and robust compared with the previous model.

AbstractSoil micronutrients are capital for the delivery of ecosystem functioning and food provision worldwide. Yet, despite their importance, the global biogeography and ecological drivers of soil micronutrients remain virtually unknown, limiting our capacity to anticipate abrupt unexpected changes in soil micronutrients in the face of climate change. Here, we analyzed >1300 topsoil samples to examine the global distribution of six metallic micronutrients (Cu, Fe, Mn, Zn, Co and Ni) across all continents, climates and vegetation types. We found that warmer arid and tropical ecosystems, present in the least developed countries, sustain the lowest contents of multiple soil micronutrients. We further provide evidence that temperature increases may potentially result in abrupt and simultaneous reductions in the content of multiple soil micronutrients when a temperature threshold of 12–14°C is crossed, which may be occurring on 3% of the planet over the next century. Altogether, our findings provide fundamental understanding of the global distribution of soil micronutrients, with direct implications for the maintenance of ecosystem functioning, rangeland management and food production in the warmest and poorest regions of the planet.

Abstract One of the most significant current discussions in climate change is around the issue of low carbon emission and its effect on human health. It is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the transport share of world emissions. Recent developments in this field have heightened the need for Driving Cycle establishment in order to understand and reduce vehicle emissions. However, a major problem with this Driving Cycle characteristic is that it varies from one city to another due to the type of principle activities (industrial, agricultural) present. Therefore, individual testing is necessary for each region in order to establish a representative tool for Local Authorities to identify the air quality in terms of traffic emissions. To date, there has been little discussion about Driving Cycle developments, so in this paper, experimental studies, which predict sufficient parameters in driving cycle modelling, were summarized in the literature review and gave comprehensive feedback to the field for further investigations. Subsequently, the author presented a simple method for establishing the driving cycle, and estimating vehicle emission. As COPERT software is one of the most commonly deployed tools in Europe, the methodology involved a formula that is being obtained from COPERT. Later this formula is being used in a program which makes use of bulk traffic movements and average vehicle speeds in order to estimate emissions. The combination of On-board diagnostic data extraction incorporated in all modern passenger cars and program used to allow real world vehicular activities to be recorded, in order to better estimate the contribution of private cars to local emissions inventories. Representative driving cycles reflecting the real-world driving conditions of two cities were proposed and estimated vehicle emissions were compared with measured results.

Abstract Proper water management plays an essential role in the performance and durability of Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cells (PEFCs), but it is challenged by the variety of water transport phenomena that take place in these devices. Previous experimental work has shown the existence of fluctuations between low and high current density levels in PEFCs operated with wet hydrogen and dry air feed. The alternation between both performance states is accompanied by strong changes in the high frequency resistance, suggesting a cyclic hydration and dehydration of the membrane. This peculiar scenario is examined here considering liquid water distributions from neutron imaging and predictions from a 3D two-phase non-isothermal model. The results show that the hydration-dehydration cycles are triggered by the periodic condensation and shedding of liquid water at the anode inlet. The input of liquid water humidifies the anode channel and offsets the membrane dry-out induced by the dry air stream, thus leading to the high-performance state. When liquid water is flushed out of the anode channel, the dehydration process takes over, and the cell comes back to the low-performance state. The predicted amplitude of the current oscillations grows with decreasing hydrogen and increasing air flow rates, in agreement with previous experimental data.

Management of natural resources is pivotal for sustained economic growth—the increasing ecological footprints causing biocapacity deficit threaten the resource conversation agenda. The study identified the potential causes and consequences of natural resource depletion in a broad cross-section of 138 countries. Ecological footprints, international migrant stocks, industrial value-added, and population growth influenced natural resource capital across countries. The results show that ecological footprints, industrial value-added, and population growth are the detrimental factors of resource capital. In contrast, continued economic growth is helpful to conserve natural resources for future generations. The rise and fall in the natural resource degradation are evident in the wake of international migrants’ stocks to support an inverted U-shaped relationship between them. The Granger causality inferences confirmed the one-way linkages, running from international migrant stocks, economic growth, and population growth to natural resource degradation. It verifies migrants-led, affluence-led, and population-led resource degradation. Ecological footprints Granger causes industrial value-added across countries. The forecasting estimates suggested that economic growth would likely to influenced greater in magnitude to resource degradation by its innovation shocks of 4.791%, followed by international migrant stocks, population growth, ecological footprints, and industrial value added by their innovation shocks of 4.709%, 1.829%, 1.247%, and 0.700%, respectively. The study concludes that international migrant stocks should manage smartly, causing more resource degradation via a channel of increasing biocapacity deficit across countries.