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Abstract The South Korean government has been actively promoting an educational-facility improvement program as part of its energy-saving efforts. This research seeks to develop a decision support model for selecting the facility expected to be effective in generating energy savings and making the facility improvement program more effective. In this research, project characteristics and electric-energy consumption data for the year 2009 were collected from 6282 elementary schools located in seven metropolitan cities in South Korea. In this research, the following were carried out: (i) a group of educational facilities was established based on electric-energy consumption, using a decision tree; (ii) a number of similar projects were retrieved from the same group of facilities, using case-based reasoning; and (iii) the accuracy of prediction was improved, using the combination of genetic algorithms, the artificial neural network, and multiple regression analysis. The results of this research can be useful for the following purposes: (i) preliminary research on the systematic and continuous management of educational facilities’ electric-energy consumption; (ii) basic research on electric-energy consumption prediction based on the project characteristics; and (iii) practical research for selecting an optimum facility that can more effectively apply an educational-facility improvement program as a decision support model.

The generally accepted hypothesis for the pathogenesis of alcoholic liver disease (ALD) is the two-hit model, which proposes that fat accumulation in the liver increases the sensitivity of the liver to a second hit that leads to inflammatory liver cell damage. In this study we evaluated the effects of Magnolia officinalis (MO), which contains honokiol and magnolol as the primary pharmacological components, to eradicate fatty liver in rats fed an ethanol diet. In vitro studies showed that MO was able to protect RAW 264.7 cells from ethanol-induced production of tumor necrosis factor-alpha, reactive oxygen species, and superoxide anion radicals; the activation of NADPH oxidase; and subsequent cell death. We also investigated the therapeutic effects of MO on alcoholic fatty liver in Lieber-DeCarli ethanol diet-fed rats. MO treatment of the rats for the last 2 weeks of ethanol feeding completely reversed all the serum, hepatic parameters, and fatty liver changes. The increased maturation of sterol regulatory element-binding protein-1c in the liver by ethanol treatment was completely inhibited by treatment with MO. Therefore, MO may be a promising candidate for development as a therapeutic agent for ALD.

Abstract Rice husk (RH), an agricultural waste, is abundantly available in rice producing countries like China, India, Bangladesh, Brazil, US, Cambodia, Vietnam, Myanmar, and South East Asia. Despite the massive amount of annual production worldwide, so far RHs have been recycled only for low-value applications. In recent years, many rice mills in rice producing countries have started using RH for the energy production for mill operations as well as household lighting in rural regions. Burning of RHs produces the rice husk ash (RHA). The disposal in landfills or open fields can be problematic and may cause a serious environmental and human health related problems due to the low bulk density of RHA. Several ways are being thought of for disposing RHA by making its commercial use. The amorphous silica forms the main component (83–90%) of RHA. The amorphous silica rich RHA has wide range of applications. High-value applications and current research investigations such as the use of RHA in manufacturing of silica gels, silicon chip, synthesis of activated carbon and silica, production of light weight construction materials and insulation, catalysts, zeolites, ingredients for lithium ion batteries, graphene, energy storage/capacitor, carbon capture, and in drug delivery vehicles are presented. Use of RHA in potential future applications is also discussed. It is suggested that the amorphous silica rich RHA could become a potential resource of low cost precursor for the production of value-added silica based materials for practical applications.

Taraxacum coreanum Nakai has been traditionally used for treating inflammatory diseases including gastrointestinal diseases.We studied whether water extracts of Taraxacum coreanum Nakai (TCN) had a protective effect on acute and chronic gastritis induced by ethanol/HCl in an animal model of gastritis and its mechanism was also explored.In the acute study, rats were orally administered 0.15g/mL dextrin (normal-control), 0.15g/mL dextrin (control), 0.05g/mL TCN (TCN-L), 0.15g/mL TCN (TCN-H), or 0.01g/mL omeprazole (orally; positive-control), followed by oral administration of 1mL of 60% ethanol plus 150mM HCl (inducer). In the chronic study, rats were administered 10% diluted inducer in drinking water, and 0.6% dextrin, 0.2% or 0.6% TCN, and 0.05% omeprazole were administered in chow for 4 weeks. Acid content, gastric structure, oxidative stress, and markers of inflammation in the stomach tissue were measured at the end of experiment.Acute and chronic ethanol/HCl administration caused the inner layer of the stomach to redden, hemorrhage, and edema in the control group; TCN-H reduced these symptoms more effectively than did the omeprazole positive-control. Acid production and total acidity in the stomach increased in the control group, which was markedly suppressed by omeprazole. TCN also reduced the acid production and acidity, but not to the same degree as omeprazole. H-E and PAS staining revealed that in the inner layer of the stomach, cellular structure was disrupted, with an increased nuclear size and thickness, disarrangement, and decreased mucin in the control group. TCN prevented the cellular disruption in the inner layer, and TCN-H was more effective than the positive-control. This was associated with oxidative stress and inflammation. TCN dose-dependently reduced the infiltration of mast cells and TNF-α expression in the inner layer of the stomach, and decreased lipid peroxides by increasing superoxide dismutase and glutathione peroxidase expression.TCN-H acutely and chronically protected against gastritis and gastric ulcer by reducing oxidative stress and inflammation, not by completely suppressing gastric acid production.

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.

Abstract Sodium-promoted vanadium oxide catalysts supported on MCM-41 and TiO 2 (anatase) were investigated for the partial oxidation of ethanol to acetaldehyde. The catalysts were prepared by incipient wetness impregnation with a vanadium oxide content of 6 wt.%. The experimental characterization was performed by X-ray diffraction (XRD), N 2 adsorption, temperature-programmed reduction (TPR), and diffuse reflectance UV–vis. Temperature-programmed oxidation (TPO) was also used to identify carbon deposits on the spent catalysts. The presence of sodium plays a strong role in the dispersion and reducibility of the vanadium species as detected by TPR analysis and optical absorption spectroscopy. While sodium addition increases the dispersion of the VO x species, its presence also decreases their reducibility. Additionally, TPO of the spent catalysts revealed that an increase in the Na loading decreases the carbon deposition during reaction. In the case of the catalysts supported on MCM-41, these modifications were mirrored by a change in the activity and selectivity to acetaldehyde. Additionally, on the VO x /TiO 2 catalysts the catalytic activity decreased with increasing sodium content in the catalyst . A model in which sodium affects dispersion, reducibility and also acidity of the supported-vanadia species is proposed to explain all these observations.

AbstractWe report on the synthesis and characterization of an electrospun gel polymer electrolyte (GPE) membrane based on polyacrylonitrile nanofibers (PAN) swollen in a polyethylene glycol dimethyl ether/Na‐salt electrolyte solution, for application in room temperature sodium–sulfur (Na–S) batteries. The membranes show a high ionic conductivity, wide electrochemical stability window, and good thermal stability. We demonstrate the performance of the membrane in an Na–S cell using a sulfur–carbon nanotubes composite cathode and Na metal as anode. Our results show that the GPE membrane stabilizes the Na metal anode resulting in stable cycling behavior. The capacity of the Na–S cell, using the GPE membrane and operating at room temperature, is approximately 500 mAh g−1 over 40 cycles. The selected electrolyte configuration also provides improved safety by replacing the highly reactive sodium perchlorate (NaClO4) salt previously used in literature. All these benefits make the gel‐polymer electrolyte membrane a very promising system for application in room‐temperature sodium and sodium–sulfur batteries.

We investigated the effect of electrolyte thickness and operating temperature on the heat and mass transfer characteristics of solid oxide fuel cells. We conducted extensive numerical simulations to analyze single cell performance of a planar solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) with electrolyte thicknesses from 80 to 100 μm and operating temperatures between 700 °C and 800 °C. The commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code was utilized to simulate the transport behavior and electrochemical reactions. As expected, the maximum power density increased with decreasing electrolyte thickness, and the difference became significant when the current density increased among different electrolyte thicknesses at a fixed temperature. Thinner electrolytes are beneficial for volumetric power density due to lower ohmic loss. Moreover, the SOFC performance enhanced with increasing operating temperature, which substantially changed the reaction rate along the channel direction. This study can be used to help design SOFC stacks to achieve enhanced heat and mass transfer during operation.