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This paper aims to examine gender gaps in work-related outcomes in the context of Covid-19. The authors hypothesized that the Covid-19 pandemic would create a gender gap in perceived work productivity and job satisfaction. This is because when couples are working from home the whole day and when schools are closed, women are expected to devote more time to housework and childcare.

The authors used a sample of employed women and men from dual-career families who were working from home since Covid-19 lockdowns started. In total, 286 US-resident full-time employees participated in this study. Participants were asked to report their work productivity and job satisfaction before and since Covid-19 lockdowns.

It is found that before the Covid-19 pandemic, there were no gender differences in self-rated work productivity and job satisfaction. However, during the lockdown, women reported lower work productivity and job satisfaction than men.

Participants retrospectively reported their work productivity and job satisfaction before Covid-19. However, there are unlikely to be systematic gender differences in retrospective reports of these measures. Further, the authors only sampled opposite-sex dual career parents. Future research needs to examine the effects of lockdowns on women and men in other types of households.

Given the nature of the Covid-19 pandemic, many regions might experience multiple periods of lockdown, and many workplaces have already adopted or are likely to adopt long-term work-from-home policies. The findings indicate that these long-term changes in the workplace might have long-term negative effects on women’s perceived productivity and job-satisfaction in dual-career families.

The findings suggest that society needs provide additional support to women working from home and taking care of children or other dependents, particularly during lockdowns or during times when schools and daycare centers are closed.

The current research is one of the first to claim that despite the greater amount of time that women spend in housework and childcare than men, during normal times, they are as productive and as satisfied with their job as men. However, the Covid-19 pandemic increased women’s housework and childcare beyond a threshold, thereby creating a gender gap in work productivity and job satisfaction.

Although the tasks of managing carbon peaks and achieving carbon neutrality in China are arduous, they are also of great significance, which highlights China’s determination and courage in dealing with climate change. The power industry is not only a major source of carbon emissions but also an important area for carbon emission reduction. Thus, against the backdrop of carbon neutrality, understanding the development status of China’s power industry guided by the carbon neutrality background is important because it largely determines the completeness of China’s carbon reduction promises to the world. This study aims to review China’s achievements in carbon reduction in the electric industry, its causes and future policy highlights.

The methods used in this study include descriptive analyses based on official statistics, government documents and reports.

The research results show that, after years of development, the power industry has achieved positive results in low-carbon provisions and in the electrification of consumption, and carbon emission intensity has continued to decline. Policy initiatives play a key role in this process, including, but not limited to, technology innovations, low-carbon power replacement and supported policies for low-carbon transformation toward low-carbon economies.

This study provides a full picture of China’s power industry against the backdrop of low-carbon development, which could be used as a benchmark for other countries engaging in the same processes. Moreover, a careful review of China’s development status may offer profound implications for policymaking both for China and for other governments across the globe.

The purpose of this study is to provide ideas and theoretical guidance for green, environmentally friendly and efficient “bacteriostasis with bacteria” technology.

In this paper, a beneficial strain of bacteria was extracted and purified from marine mud. Weight-loss test, morphological observation and electrochemical test were used to systematically study the effect of sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRB)-induced corrosion inhibition on X65 steel in simulated offshore oil field production water.

The results showed that a beneficial strain was selected and identified as Vibrio alginolyticus. Under the condition of co-culture of SRB, the average corrosion rate of X65 steel was significantly reduced. In the mixed bacterial system, the surface of X65 steel samples was relatively flat, and the structure of biofilm and corrosion product film was dense. The number of corrosion pits, the average diameter and depth of corrosion pits were significantly reduced. The localized corrosion of X65 steel was significantly inhibited.

The complex and changing marine environment makes the corrosion problem of marine steel increasingly severe, and the microbiologically influenced corrosion (MIC) caused by SRB is particularly serious. The research and development of environmentally friendly corrosion protection technology is a long-term and difficult problem. The use of beneficial microorganisms to control MIC is a green and efficient anticorrosion measure. Compared with terrestrial microorganisms, marine microorganisms can adapt to complex environments, and their metabolites exhibit special biological activities. The use of marine beneficial bacteria can inhibit SRB activity to achieve the corrosion inhibition effect.

When a manipulator captures an unknown space object, inertia parameters of endpoint payload should be timely obtained to handle possible unexpected parameter variations and monitor the system’s operating conditions. Therefore, this study aims to present an identification method for estimating the inertia parameter of the payload carried by a flexible two-link space manipulator.

The original nonlinear dynamics model of the manipulator is linearized at a selected working point. Subsequently, the system modal frequencies with and without payload are determined using the subspace identification algorithm, and the difference of these frequencies is computed. Furthermore, by adjusting the structural configuration of the manipulator, multiple sets of frequency differences are obtained. Therefore, the inertia parameters of the payload, i.e. the mass and the moment of inertia, can be derived from the frequency differences by solving a least-squares problem.

The proposed method can effectively estimate the payload parameters and has satisfactory identification accuracy.

The approach’s implementation provides a practical reference for determining inertia parameters of an unknown space target in the capture process.

The study proposes a novel method for identifying the inertia parameters of the payload of a flexible two-link space manipulator using the estimated system frequencies.