This paper proposes a floating-interest-rate infrastructure bond, where the interest of a government bond is paid to investors during the period of construction and the early period of operation. Unlike the usual government bond, which provides a fixed interest rate, the proposed floating-interest-rate infrastructure bond pays a floating interest, the rate of which depends on spillover tax revenues. Effective infrastructure projects have a positive effect on the economic growth of a region, known as the spillover effect. When user charges and the return from spillover tax revenues are below the fixed rate of the government bond, the interest rate will equal to the fixed rate of the government bond. In this case, investors in the infrastructure will receive interest on the government bond at the minimum rate. As the spillover effect of the infrastructure increases, the rate of return for infrastructure investment will become greater than the fixed rate of the government bond. The success of the floating-interest-rate infrastructure bond depends on the spillover effect and on transparency and accountability. Policy recommendations are provided in this paper on how to increase the spillover effect and improve transparency and accountability. 

Based on first-principles methods, the authors of this paper investigate spin thermoelectric effects of one-dimensional spin-based devices consisting of zigzag-edged graphene nanoribbons (ZGNRs), carbon chains and graphene nanoflake. It is found that the spin-down transmission function is suppressed to zero, while the spin-up transmission function is about 0.25. Therefore, an ideal half-metallic property is achieved. In addition, the phonon thermal conductance is obviously smaller than the electronic thermal conductance. Meantime, the spin Seebeck effects are obviously enhanced at the low-temperature regime (about 80K), resulting in the fact that spin thermoelectric figure of merit can reach about 40. Moreover, the spin thermoelectric figure of merit is always larger than the corresponding charge thermoelectric figure of merit. Therefore, the study shows that they can be used to prepare the ideal thermospin devices.

Phytomediation is an environmentally friendly green rehabilitation technology that is often incorporated with an application to improve calcium peroxide and phytohormones required for the growth of agricultural plants with the expectation to improve the effectiveness of plant rehabilitation. This study mainly consists of two parts: (1) water culture experiment and (2) pot culture experiment. In the water culture experiment, we attempt to understand the influence of the addition of calcium peroxide, phytohormones (IAA and GA₃) and a chelating agent on the growth of sunflower plants. However, in the pot culture experiment, when hormones and the chelating agent EDTA are introduced to different plant groups at the same time, if the nutrition in the water required by plants is not available, the addition of the hormone cannot negate the toxicity caused by EDTA. In terms of calcium peroxide, due to quick release of oxygen in water, this study fails to apply calcium peroxide to the water culture experiment.

When the pot culture experiment is used to examine the influence of hormones at different concentration levels on the growth of sunflowers, GA₃ 10^-8 M is reported to have the optimal effectiveness, followed by IAA 10^-8 M; IAA 10^-12 M has the lowest effectiveness. According to an accumulation analysis of heavy metals at different levels, GA₃ concentrates in leaves to transport nutrition in soil to leaves. This results in an excellent TF value of 2.329G of GA₃ than 1.845 of the control group indicating that the addition of the hormone and chelating agent to GA₃ increases the TF value and the chelating agent is beneficial to the sunflower plant. If we examine phytoattenuation ability, the one-month experiment was divided into three stages for ten days each. The concentration level of heavy metals in the soil at each stage dropped continuously while that of the control group decreased from 31.63 mg/kg to 23.96 mg/kg, GA₃ from 32.09 mg/kg to 23.04 mg/kg and EDTA from 30.65 mg/kg to 25.93 mg/kg indicating the quickest growth period of the sunflowers from the formation of the bud to blossom. During the stage, the quick upward transportation of nutrition results in quick accumulation of heavy metals; the accumulated speed of heavy metals is found higher than that of directly planted plants. This study shows an improvement in the effectiveness of the addition of hormones on plant extraction and when rehabilitation is incorporated with sunflowers with the beginning bud formation, better treatment effectiveness can be reached.

We have studied the effect of the series resistance on the heating of the cathode, which is based on carbon nanotubes and serves to realize the field emission of electrons into the vacuum. The experiment was performed with the single multi-walled carbon nanotube (MCNT) that was separated from the array grown by CVD method with thin-film Ni-Ti catalyst (nickel 4 nm/Ti 10 nm). The heating of the cathode leads to the appearance of a current of the thermionic emission. The experimental voltage current characteristic exhibited the negative resistance region caused by thermal field emission. This current increases strongly with increasing voltage and contributes to the degradation of the cold emitter. The calculation of the temperature of the end of the cathode is made taking into account the effect of the phenomenon that warms up and cools the cathode. We have developed a method for processing of the emission volt-ampere characteristics of a cathode, which relies on a numerical calculation of the field emission current and the comparison of these calculations with experiments. The model of the volt-ampere characteristic takes into account the CNT’s geometry, properties, its contact with the catalyst, heating and simultaneous implementation of the thermionic and field emission. The calculation made it possible to determine a number of important parameters, including the voltage and current of the beginning of thermionic emission, the temperature distribution along the cathode and the resistance of the nanotube. The phenomenon of thermionic emission from CNTs was investigated experimentally and theoretically. The conditions of this type emission occurrence were defined. The results of the study could form the basis of theory of CNT emitter’s degradation.

Forest is the main carbon sink of terrestrial ecosystem. Due to the unique growth characteristics of plants, the response of their growth status and physiological activities to climate change will affect the carbon cycle process of forest ecosystem. Based on the local scale CO₂ flux and temperature observation data recorded by the FLUXNET registration site and Harvard Forest FLUX observation tower from 2000 to 2012, combined with the phenological model, this paper analyzes the impact of temperature changes on CO₂ flux in temperate forest ecosystems. The results show that: (1) the maximum NEE in 2000–2012 was 298.13 g·m^-2·a^-1, which occurred in 2010. Except in the 2010 and 2011, the annual NEE in other years was negative. (2) NEE, GPP, temperature and phenology models have good fitting effects (R² > 0.8), which shows that the stable period of photosynthesis in temperate mixed forest ecosystem is mainly concentrated in summer, and vegetation growth is the dominant factor of carbon cycle in temperate mixed forest ecosystem. (3) The linear fitting results of the change time points of air temperature (maximum point, minimum point and 0 point date) and the change time points of NEE and GPP (maximum point, minimum point and 0 point date) show that there is a significant positive correlation between air temperature and CO₂ flux (P < 0.01), and the change of air temperature affects the carbon cycle process of temperate mixed forest ecosystem.

Quartz sand was used as bed material in a small fluidized bed reactor with 1 kg/h feed. Corn straw powder with particle size of 20–40 mesh, 40–60 mesh, 60–80 mesh and 80–120 mesh was used as raw material for rapid pyrolysis at reaction temperatures of 400 °C, 450 °C, 500 °C and 550 °C. The bio-oil obtained after liquefaction of pyrolysis gas was analyzed. The variation trend of bio-oil composition in pyrolysis of corn straw powder with different reaction temperatures and raw material sizes was compared. The results show that: (1) the content of 3-hydroxyl-2-phenyl-2-acrylic acid in bio-oil increases with the decrease of raw material particle size, but it is less at 450 °C; (2) with the increase of reaction temperature, the content of hydroxyacetaldehyde in bio-oil increases at first and then decreases: the content of hydroxyacetaldehyde in bio-oil is the highest at 500 °C when the particle size is 20–40 mesh, and the highest at 450 °C with the other three particle sizes. Compared with other particle sizes, raw material with the particle size of 60–80 mesh is not conducive to the formation of aldehyde compounds; (3) the reaction temperature of 500 °C and the particle size of 60–80 mesh of raw materials are more conducive to the formation of phenolic compounds in bio-oil; (4) the ester compounds with particle size of 20–40 mesh in bio-oil is 20% higher than that of other particle sizes; (5) the reaction temperature and the particle size of raw materials had no significant effect on the formation of ketones, alcohols and alkane compounds in bio-oils.