The Technology and Economy of Care

This paper studies the idea of care in the science fiction of Japanese writer Gen Urobuchi: The Song of Saya (2003), Puella Magi Madoka Magica (2011), and its sequel Rebellion (2013). Utilizing Jacques Derrida’s notion of the gift, Bernard Stiegler’s critique of entropy, and Takeo Doi’s analysis of amae, I examine how these works situate care in relation to thermodynamic and libidinal economy. I demonstrate that care is always an embodied act intertwined with technology and economy, and that by reading care as a pharmakon that both heals and poisons, a "neganthropic" hope can emerge from the entropic system of the Anthropocene.

A multi-sided market of personal data resource allocation: An empirical study of China’s car-hailing platform

The current rapid development of online car-hailing services creates a serious challenge to the existing paradigm of market governance and antitrust policy. However, the debate on the market structure of the car-hailing platform requires more empirical evidence to uncover its functions. This research adopts an interdisciplinary methodology based on computer science and economics, and including software reverse engineering tools applied to the interoperability of the terminal application and resource allocation model, to demonstrate the topological market structure of personal data resources allocation in China’s car-hailing industry. Within the discussion of the hybrid nature of technology and economy, the analysis results clearly show that China’s car-hailing platform services present a multi-sided market structure when seen from the perspective of personal data resource allocation. Personal data resource (PDR), that is considered an essential market resource, is applied as an asset transferred unhindered between platforms via the application programming interface, and thus, creating a new market allocation mechanism. The connection between the car-hailing platforms and social media platforms is an essential aspect of the market competition in the domain. As applications of online platforms increase in the global context, this research offers a new perspective in personal data resource allocation with implications for the governance of the platform economy.

Technoeconomic Assessment Based on Active Context-Knowledge Orchestration for Power Internet of Things

Power Internet of Things (abbreviated as PIoT) is the information infrastructure to provide ubiquitous perception ability for smart grid (abbreviated as SG). To better deploy and utilize PIoT, its perception ability must be comprehensively assessed in terms of technical performance and economic benefits. However, at present, there is no assessment framework for PIoT due to the high diversity and heterogeneousness of SG scenarios. Additionally, there is information overlap between metrics in the assessment framework. The assessment model which could remove redundant information between metrics and simplify the assessment framework is an urgent demand to improve the effectiveness and timeliness of assessment. Consequently, first, aiming at the power system requirements of complex and diverse, a general assessment framework is put forward to assess the ability of PIoT in terms of technology and economy. Next, the requirement characteristics of power distribution scenario (abbreviated as PDS) are precisely analyzed with active context-knowledge orchestration technology. The general assessment framework is instantiated to build an instantiation assessment scheme in PDS. Moreover, an assessment model is established based on the instantiation assessment scheme to assess the efficiency of PIoT in Beijing. Finally, the assessment model is further refined with the machine learning technology to improve the efficiency of assessment. This refinement model achieves the extraction of 4-dimensional metrics from 23-dimensional metrics for assessment and finally improves assessment efficiency by 82.6%.

Rare Earths’ Recovery from Phosphogypsum: An Overview on Direct and Indirect Leaching Techniques

The need for rare earths elements (REEs) in high tech electrical and electronic based materials are vital. In the global economy, deposits of natural REEs are limited except for countries such as China, which has prompted current attempts to seek alternative resources of REEs. This increased the dependence on major secondary rare earth-bearing sources such as scrap alloy, battery waste, spent catalysts, fly ash, spent magnets, waste light-emitting diodes (LEDs), and phosphogypsum (PG) for a substantial recovery of REEs for use. Recycling of REEs from these alternative waste sources through hydrometallurgical processes is becoming a sustainable and viable approach due to the low energy consumption, low waste generation, few emissions, environmentally friendliness, and economically feasibility. Industrial wastes such as the PG generated from the production of phosphoric acid is a potential secondary resource of REEs that contains a total REE concentration of over 2000 mg/kg depending upon the phosphate ore from which it is generated. Due to trace concentration of REEs in the PG (normally < 0.1% wt.) and their tiny and complex occurrence as mineral phases the recovery process of REE from PG would be highly challenging in both technology and economy. Various physicochemical pre-treatments approaches have been used up to date to up-concentrate REEs from PG prior to their extraction. Methods such as carbonation, roasting, microwave heating, grinding or recrystallization have been widely used for this purpose. This present paper reviews recent literature on various techniques that are currently employed to up-concentrate REs from PG to provide preliminary insight into further critical raw materials recovery. In addition, the advantages and disadvantages of the different strategies are discussed as avenues for realization of REE recovery from PG at a larger scale. In all the different approaches, recrystallization of PG appears to show promising advantages due to both high REE recovery as well as the pure PG phase that can be obtained.

Program initiatives of public authorities in the field of hydrogenation of the economy in a global perspective, as of the end of 2020

In the years 2016-2020, there has been a significant acceleration in the development of technologies for the hydrogen energy use and their popularization in practice. The value of the global hydrogen market in 2018 was estimated at US $ 122 billion, predicted that it will increase to US $ 155 billion by the 2022. The appropriate policy framework has a major impact on the development of new technologies, in particular during research, prototype implementations and the initial phase of their commercialization. The spearheading countries intensively involved in the development and dissemination of hydrogen technologies are primarily : Japan, China, South Korea, Germany, France, UK, Scandinavian and Benelux countries, as well as Canada and the USA. The scale of the global development of hydrogen technologies is illustrated by the fact that at the end of 2019, vehicles with hydrogen fuel cells and the publicly accessible hydrogen refuelling stations serving them already operated in 18 countries. An effective use of the incurred expenditures undoubtedly requires the interested states to formulate an appropriate policy (strategy) for the hydrogenation of the economy, including, in addition to precisely defined long-term objectives, e.g. elements of support from public administration, assurance of: stable investment conditions and the necessary regulatory conditions. The article attempts to synthetically present the political framework, i.e. the functioning plans and programs as well as national strategies for the development of hydrogen technology and economy in 19 countries

Customer-Classified Intracity Fruit Distribution Path Optimization: A Case Study in Jining, China

With the development of technology and economy, customer satisfaction is becoming increasingly important to businesses. Customers expect more in regard to product quality, personalised service and delivery date. This study randomly selected customers from a small-to-medium sized company in China as case study and used a K-Means cluster analysis approach to present the available management in logistics. The mileage saving method was also used to contribute the distribution path planning. This resulted in a more scientific distribution route based on comparative analysis, which helped the target company save resources and improve efficiency. This study helped companies effectively identify customer value by combining customer classification with intracity distribution path optimization. Simultaneously, it provides possible empirical reference to service quality improvement, the distribution path optimization, the resource wasting reduction and the companies’ operation efficiency enhancement. It enriches the current literature about food distribution path optimization for small and medium sized food company.

Resilience Training of Preschool Children Based on Traditional Folk Games

Traditional folk games inherit the history, culture and identity of a country and nation, and they have even more important meanings for China, which has a long history and many ethnic groups. However, with the rapid globalization of modern technology and economy, many Chinese traditional folk games are facing the crisis of disappearing. This article discusses how to develop and utilize the new functions of traditional folk games. That is to use them to train the resilience of preschool children, thus to initiate a new understanding of traditional folk games by teachers and parents. The article firstly discusses the importance of cultivating preschool children’s resilience, then analyzes the role of games in cultivating preschool children’s resilience, studies the traditional folk game classification method for preschool children’s resilience, and gives the development orientation traditional folk game teaching strategies and steps for the cultivation of resilience. This research not only inherits Chinese traditional culture in preschool education, but also trains preschool children’s resilience and strengthens their minds. It has important practical significance and reference value for the current training and education of preschool children in China and East Asia.

The Development Status of Decommissioning Technology of Nuclear Facilities: An Insight From Patents

The decommissioning technology of nuclear facilities has been one of the most important research directions of nuclear industry for several decades, and further enhancements are being carried out in the world. The global published patents about the decommissioning technology of nuclear facilities are investigated in this work. The technology forecasting and the development strategy of the decommissioning technology of nuclear facilities was provided from the view of patents, based on the nations, the technology field, the trend in the number of patents applications. This work will contribute to understanding the advanced developments of the decommissioning technology of nuclear facilities by a new perspective. Through quantitative statistics and content analysis, the understanding of relevant industries and technology development trend of personnel in the industry is promoted from the perspective of open patent data, a complex of technology, law and economy. Through the technology and economy behind the patent data to ensure its reliability and authenticity, this paper puts forward suggestions and prospects for the practitioners in the field of nuclear facilities decommissioning from the aspects of how to combine the research and analysis of patent situation with the development of the industry.