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Hydropower is one of the dominating renewable energy sources of the modern era, generating around 17% of the world’s total electricity. Pumped storage hydropower in particular is rapidly growing within the industry, making it a topic of interest. This report will give an overview of the history of hydropower as a whole and specifically pumped storage, examine the physical principles and current technological implementations, and discuss the environmental and economic impacts. We have concluded that despite the seemingly long-term investment, pumped storage remains a reliable and necessary form of renewable energy.

The strategic deployment of building a comprehensive socialist modern state has put forward new requirements for the green and low-carbon transformation of China's economic and social development. As the core subject of promoting this process, the incentive mechanism for enterprises to practice environmental protection and emission reduction and take on green responsibilities has become a hot topic of social and academic attention. This paper examined the impact of the implementation of the low-carbon city pilot policy on the quality of environmental, social and governance (ESG) of listed companies using the staggered difference-in-differences model based on microdata of Chinese listed companies from 2009 to 2021 as a representative low carbon transition policy and a quasi-natural experiment. The findings were as follows: 1 The low-carbon city pilot policy implemented in China since 2010 significantly improved the ESG quality of listed companies. The policy resulted in an average increase of 27.42% in the ESG index of listed companies in pilot cities. This result held after a series of robustness tests, including controlling for other policy interferences, propensity score matching, and placebo tests. 2 Under the influence of this policy, pressure from government regulation and public opinion supervision became a crucial driver for companies to autonomously enhance their ESG quality. 3 Green financial support helped alleviate corporate financing constraints and promoted green technological innovation, serving as an important mechanism for improving corporate ESG quality under the low-carbon transformation policy. Among these mechanisms, green technological innovation exhibited a trend toward both quantity and quality improvement. Innovation in energy-saving green technologies played a more significant role in enhancing corporate ESG quality in the context of the low-carbon city pilot policy. This study demonstrates that China's low-carbon city pilot policy not only promoted regional green and low-carbon transformation at the macro level but also encouraged enterprises to embrace the concept of low-carbon transformation and undertake responsibilities for sustainable and green development at the micro level. While enriching and supplementing the research on factors influencing corporate ESG quality, this study also provides theoretical and decision-making support for China's achievement of its 'dual carbon' goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the trend of digitalization, intelligence, and networking sweeping the world, functional safety and cyber security are increasingly intertwined and overlapped, evolving into the issue of generalized functional safety. Traditional system reliability technology and network defense technology cannot provide quantifiable design implementation theories and methods. As the cornerstone of software systems, operating systems in particular are in need of efficient safety assurance. The DHR architecture is a mature and comprehensive solution, and it is necessary to implement an OS-level DHR architecture, for which the multi-kernel operating system is a good carrier. The multi-kernel operating system takes the kernel as the processing scenario element and constructs redundancy, heterogeneity, and dynamism on the kernel, so it has the generalized robustness of the DHR architecture. This article analyzes the significance and requirements of OS-level DHR architecture, and systematically explains how the multi-kernel operating system responds to the requirements of OS-level DHR architecture by analyzing the technical routes of multi-kernel operating systems and develops an operating system solution idea for the generalized functionally safety.

[Objective] Low-carbon transition is an international consensus, accelerating low-carbon development is the focus of the work of all countries in the world, therefore it is necessary to explore the impact of geopolitical risks, a major risk-causing factor, on the process of low-carbon transition in countries. [Methods] Based on a systematic elaboration of the impact of geopolitical risks on the low-carbon transition process of each country, this study empirically examined the impact of geopolitical risks on countries’ low-carbon transition and regulatory role based on the national panel data and geopolitical risk index from 2010 to 2020, and the moderating effect model. [Results] (1) Geopolitical risks can significantly slow down the process of national low-carbon transition, and this result still holds after sample truncation, replacement of explanatory variables and explained variables, and placebo test; (2) The negative moderating effects of financing constraints and trade barriers are significant, exacerbating the disincentive effect of geopolitical risk on countries’ low-carbon transitions, while green technology R&D capacity positively moderates the relationship between geopolitical risk and countries’ low-carbon transitions; (3) Optimizing the industrial structure and the green technology development capacity is the most important mechanism for the low-carbon transition of countries; (4) In regions with a high level of geopolitical actions and threats, the inhibition of geopolitical risks on the process of their low-carbon transition is more pronounced, and this adverse impact is more obvious in developing countries than in developed countries. [Conclusion] Countries should pay attention to the adverse impact of geopolitical risks in the process of national low-carbon transition, pay attention to financing constraints, and actively optimize industrial structure and improve renewable energy production capacity, so as to hedge the negative impact of geopolitical risks and accelerate the process of low-carbon transition.

Purpose: To investigate the association between the Dietary Inflammatory Index (DII) and disease severity as well as complications in children diagnosed with Henöch-Schönlein purpura (HSP), shedding light on the potential influence of dietary factors on HSP., Methods: A retrospective cohort study was conducted, enrolling children aged 2-14 years diagnosed with HSP. Participants were divided into low and Pro-inflammatory dietary groups based on their DII scores. Biomarkers, nutrient intake, blood lipid profiles and disease complications were compared between the two groups. Spearman correlation analysis was performed to assess the relationship between DII and complications., Results: A total of 115 patients, including 56 patients with anti-inflammatory dietary and 59 with pro-inflammatory dietary, were included. The pro-inflammatory dietary group demonstrated significantly elevated of C-reactive protein, tumor necrosis factor-α, interleukin-6, erythrocyte sedimentation rate, white blood cell count, eosinophils, IgE, consumption of total calories, protein, carbohydrates, fiber, fat intake, total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, triglycerides, VLDL cholesterol, complications of renal, skin, gastrointestinal, coagulation and respiratory in comparison to the anti-inflammatory dietary group. DII was positively correlated with renal, skin, gastrointestinal, coagulation and respiratory complications., Conclusion: The study highlights the potential influence of dietary inflammatory potential, as quantified by the DII, on disease severity and complications in children with HSP. Understanding the interplay between dietary patterns and inflammatory responses in pediatric vasculitis has implications for the management of HSP, emphasizing the relevance of considering dietary interventions to optimize clinical outcomes and improve the overall well-being of affected children., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no competing interests., (© 2024 Chen et al.)