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Scientists use sunlight and modified sawdust to reversibly capture carbon dioxide

In a study published in Green Energy & Environment, a group of researchers from Renmin University of China propose a new method to capture CO2 using sunlight as the energy source and modified sawdust as the CO2 absorbent. In addition to capturing CO2, their method also avoids using the fossil fuels that would create additional CO2. Importantly, the absorption method they have developed is reversible, so the captured CO2 can be used to generate other products, such as methanol, ethanol and methane.

‘Divide and conquer’ algorithm offers promising route for big data analysis

In this study, the researchers have focused on the large-scale inference of a linear expectile regression model, which has wide applications in risk management. They propose a communication-effective, divide and conquer algorithm, in which the summary statistics from the subsystems are combined by the confidence distribution.

New 3D, self-supported electrode could pave the way for large-scale hydrogen production

The numerous submicron channels on the surface of the honeycomb alloy, a large amount of nickel element migrates to the surface and transforms into another highly-active species, which greatly promotes oxygen production. As the method developed in this work can be readily scaled up, it may pave the way for fabricating more efficient, foam, metal-based materials for large-scale hydrogen production.

Study proposes a two-step plan to combat China’s waning agricultural exports

In order to improve the export competitiveness of agricultural products and promote sustainable agricultural development, we recommend that China focuses on producing and trading in traditional agricultural products with distinctive regional characteristics. It should also focus on taking comprehensive measures to enhance the international competitiveness of disadvantaged agricultural products.

Friend or foe: Do online recommender tools really improve decision making?

The researchers conducted two experiments using Jingdong and Taobao, the two biggest online shopping platforms in China. According to author Jian Mou, of Korea’s Pusan National University, “we found that AI recommendation augmented the information cocoon effect. In other words, people see what they want to see, and then the website’s AI recommender algorithm selects content for them based on those preferences. This negatively impacts the quality of the customer’s purchasing decisions.”

Why long samples are one of the keys to improving predictive algorithms in finance

In a study published in the KeAi The Journal of Finance and Data Science, Guillaume Coqueret, a Professor of Finance and Data Science at France’s EMLYON Business School, considered three dimensions of factor models based on ML: the persistence of the dependent variable, the size of the samples, and the holding period (i.e., the rebalancing frequency of the portfolio). His analysis focused on the US stock market.

A new cell factory for high-efficiency production of ectoine

A study published in the KeAi journal Green Chemical Engineering, has reported the biotechnological construction of an efficient ectoine cell factory based on E. coli BL21(DE3). Using metabolic engineering, researchers synthesised the ectoine with the E. coli, using glucose as the sole carbon source. By reconstructing the ectoine synthetic pathway, and enhancing the biosynthesis of ectoine precursor in E. coli, a high level of 60.7 g/L of ectoine was produced using a fed-batch fermentation approach.

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