Evaluation of the Water Quality and Farming Growth Benefits of an Intelligence Aquaponics System

In 2019, the degree of food self-support in Taiwan was 32.08%, which was lower than that in the previous year by 2.4%. Taiwan does not have the ability to control the availability of food in the face of a food crisis. This study used an aquaponics system to implement the mutualism of fish, flowers, vegetables, and water, as well as to implement the cyclic utilization of water, so that vegetables and fruit could be produced to relieve food shortages in the world. The simulation site of this study was located on a gentle grassy slope alongside Li-tze Lake in Changhua County, Taiwan. In the simulation, three light-tight experimental buckets, with an upper rim diameter of 130 cm, a bottom rim diameter of 125 cm, and a height of 180 cm, were embedded in the ground. The target vegetables and flowers were planted in pots at 17 cm apart, and they were planted on the water surface using the floating island principle. A solar power system enabled a motorized pump to irrigate the plants. An aerator provided adequate aeration to achieve an elementary purifying effect. The experimental results showed that, in terms of the dissolved oxygen, the mean difference of the experimental group was about 1 mg/L, that of the control group was 2 mg/L, and the maximum difference was 6.5 mg/L. As the fish died in April, the ammonia nitrogen value of the control group was 68 times higher than that of the experimental group. Due to the nitrification in July, the ammonia nitrogen decomposed into NO2, which suddenly increased to 13 mg/L and was extremely unsuitable for the existence of aquatic organisms. This amount was five to six times higher than that of the experimental group. In terms of the fish growth rate, the control group could not bear the drastic changes in the water body at the intermediate stage, and all the fish died, whereas the fish in the experimental group were not affected. The results of this study could provide useful data for gardening, aquatic products, and space design staff.

The Welfare Effects of Carbon Tax on Chinese Households: A Study Based on the 2013 Chip Survey Data

Based on the micro-data from the 2013 Chinese Household Income Project (CHIP) Survey, the authors use a Quadratic Almost Ideal Demand System (QUAIDS) model to simulate and measure the impacts on the welfare of urban and rural households with different incomes after a carbon tax at 50[Formula: see text]RMB/ton was levied in China. The results show that the collection of carbon tax will increase households’ consumer spending to varying degrees. In urban areas, the carbon tax exerts the greatest impact on low-income households, followed by high-income households; while in rural areas, it has the most significant effects on high-income households and the least on low-income households. On the whole, carbon tax’s impact on urban households is greater than that on rural households. To a certain extent, it can help the household income inequality change for the better and narrow the urban–rural income gap. Since the carbon tax does not act on the distribution of Chinese household income in a simply regressive or progressive way, the authors believe that China should implement supporting policies such as tax subsidies or tax refund as supplements to carbon taxation in an effort to establish a mechanism for cyclic utilization of carbon tax revenue.

Cyano-containing tetraphenylethene isomers: similar bright mechanoluminescence, but diverse recoverable processes

Cyano-substituted tetraphenylethene derivatives demonstrated cyclic utilization of bright mechanoluminescence, an irreversible structural transition between polymorphs and thermochromism.

Rapid demulsification of pickering emulsions triggered by controllable magnetic field

Pickering emulsions with on–off properties provide significant advantages over simple solid-stabilized emulsions for the development of novel materials, such as oil-displacing agents for enhanced oil recovery and templates for the fabrication of porous materials. However, the irreversible adsorption of particles as emulsion stabilizers endows the Pickering emulsions with kinetically stable property, resulting in a huge challenge to break the stability. Here we fabricated microscale Pickering emulsions, by the use of paramagnetic particles, which possess excellent stability for several months and more interestingly perform complete demulsification under controllable magnetic fields in several minutes. The alternating asymmetrical magnetic field endows oil-in-water droplets ‘‘big’’ N and S poles on the outer particle layers, and attracts the solid particles to the bottom of the vial after the coalescence and the deformation of the droplets, bringing the prevention of re-emulsion and the cyclic utilization. This facile strategy to produce stable Pickering emulsions with a magnetic-response opens a promising avenue for various practical applications including oil recovery, wastewater treatment, and sludge removal.