Effects of thinning and understory removal on water use efficiency of Pinus massoniana:evidence from photosynthetic capacity and stable carbon isotope analyses

Understanding the relationship between forest management and water use efficiency(WUE)is important for evaluating forest adaptability to climate change.However,the effects of thinning and understory removal on WUE and its key controlling processes are not well understood,which limits our comprehension of the physiological mechanisms of various management practices.In this study,four forest management measures(no thinning:NT;understory removal:UR;light thinning:LT;and heavy thinning:HT)were carried out in Pinus massoniana plantations in a subtropical region of China.Photosynthetic capacity and needle stable carbon isotope composition(δ^(13)C)were measured to assess instantaneous water use efficiency(WUE_(inst))and long-term water use efficiency(WUE_(i)).Multiple regression models and structural equation modelling(SEM)identified the effects of soil properties and physiological performances on WUE_(inst)and WUE_(i).The results show that WUE_(inst)values among the four treatments were insignificant.However,compared with the NT stand(35.8μmol·mol^(-1)),WUE_(i)values significantly increased to 41.7μmol·mol^(-1)in the UR,50.1μmol·mol^(-1)in the LT and 46.6μmol·mol^(-1)in HT treatments,largely explained by photosynthetic capacity and soil water content.Understory removal did not change physiological performance(needle water potential and photosynthetic capacity).Thinning increased the net photosynthetic rate(A_n)but not stomatal conductance(g_s)or predawn needle water potential(ψ_(pd)),implying that the improvement in water use efficiency for thinned stands was largely driven by radiation interception than by soil water availability.In general,thinning may be an appropriate management measure to promote P.massoniana WUE to cope with seasonal droughts under future extreme climates.

Preliminary Study of Flora from the Upper Lower Cretaceous Dalazi Formation in Luozigou Basin, Wangqing, Jilin Province, Northeast China

In the middle Cretaceous vegetation changed rapidly for the diversification of angiosperms, there are few extensive analyses of the plant fossils (including leaves, fruits, seeds and woods) from this period in China. New abundant fossil plants collected from the upper Lower Cretaceous Dalazi Formation in the Luozigou Basin, Wangqing, Jilin Province were studied and 25 species belonging to 17 genera were recognized. Up to date totally 39 species belonging to 25 genera were discovered in the Luozigou Basin. The assemblage is composed mainly of conifers (47.5%) and early angiosperms (30%) and indicates that the vegetation was a transitional flora between the Early Cretaceous fern-gymnosperm flora and the Late Cretaceous angiosperm flora. The flora was a Pseudofrenelopsis-angiosperm assemblage in succession of Early Cretaceous flora and the late Early Cretaceous, probable Albian in age. During the late Early Cretaceous, the Luozigou Basin was dominated by hot and arid climate and sometimes probably interrupted by wet climate.

Molecular chaperones in stroke-induced immunosuppression

Stroke-induced immunosuppression is a process that leads to peripheral suppression of the immune system after a stroke and belongs to the central nervous system injury-induced immunosuppressive syndrome.Stroke-induced immunosuppression leads to increased susceptibility to post-stroke infections,such as urinary tract infections and stroke-associated pneumonia,worsening prognosis.Molecular chaperones are a large class of proteins that are able to maintain proteostasis by directing the folding of nascent polypeptide chains,refolding misfolded proteins,and targeting misfolded proteins for degradation.Various molecular chaperones have been shown to play roles in stroke-induced immunosuppression by modulating the activity of other molecular chaperones,cochaperones,and their associated pathways.This review summarizes the role of molecular chaperones in stroke-induced immunosuppression and discusses new approaches to restore host immune defense after stroke.

A Hybrid Ensemble Deep Learning Approach for Early Prediction of Battery Remaining Useful Life

Accurate estimation of the remaining useful life(RUL)of lithium-ion batteries is critical for their large-scale deployment as energy storage devices in electric vehicles and stationary storage.A fundamental understanding of the factors affecting RUL is crucial for accelerating battery technology development.However,it is very challenging to predict RUL accurately because of complex degradation mechanisms occurring within the batteries,as well as dynamic operating conditions in practical applications.Moreover,due to insignificant capacity degradation in early stages,early prediction of battery life with early cycle data can be more difficult.In this paper,we propose a hybrid deep learning model for early prediction of battery RUL.The proposed method can effectively combine handcrafted features with domain knowledge and latent features learned by deep networks to boost the performance of RUL early prediction.We also design a non-linear correlation-based method to select effective domain knowledge-based features.Moreover,a novel snapshot ensemble learning strategy is proposed to further enhance model generalization ability without increasing any additional training cost.Our experimental results show that the proposed method not only outperforms other approaches in the primary test set having a similar distribution as the training set,but also generalizes well to the secondary test set having a clearly different distribution with the training set.The PyTorch implementation of our proposed approach is available at https://github.com/batteryrul/battery_rul_early_prediction.

Metal organic polymers with dual catalytic sites for oxygen reduction and oxygen evolution reactions

Metal-organic frameworks and covalent organic frameworks have been widely employed in electrochemical catalysis owing to their designable skeletons,controllable porosities,and well-defined catalytic centers.However,the poor chemical stability and low electron conductivity limited their activity,and single-functional sites in these frameworks hindered them to show multifunctional roles in catalytic systems.Herein,we have constructed novel metal organic polymers(Co-HAT-CN and Ni-HAT-CN)with dual catalytic centers(metal-N_(4) and metal-N_(2))to catalyze oxygen reduction reaction(ORR)and oxygen evolution reaction(OER).By using different metal centers,the catalytic activity and selectivity were well-tuned.Among them,Co-HAT-CN catalyzed the ORR in a 4e^(-)pathway,with a half-wave potential of 0.8 V versus RHE,while the Ni-HAT-CN catalyze ORR in a 2e^(-)pathway with H_(2)O_(2) selectivity over 90%.Moreover,the Co-HAT-CN delivered an overpotential of 350 mV at 10 mA cm^(-2) with a corresponding Tafel slope of 24 mV dec^(-1) for OER in a 1.0 M KOH aqueous solution.The experimental results revealed that the activities toward ORR were due to the M-N_(4) sites in the frameworks,and both M-N_(4) and M-N_(2) sites contributed to the OER.This work gives us a new platform to construct bifunctional catalysts.

MXene-based flexible pressure sensor with piezoresistive properties significantly enhanced by atomic layer infiltration

The flexible pressure sensor has been credited for leading performance including higher sensitivity,faster response/recovery,wider detection range and higher mechanical durability,thus driving the development of novel sensing materials enabled by new processing technologies.Using atomic layer infiltration,Pt nanocrystals with dimensions on the order of a few nanometers can be infiltrated into the compressible lamellar structure of Ti3C2Tx MXene,allowing a modulation of its interlayer spacing,electrical conductivity and piezoresistive property.The flexible piezoresistive sensor is further developed from the Pt-infiltrated MXene on a paper substrate.It is demonstrated that Pt infiltration leads to a significant enhancement of the pressure-sensing performance of the sensor,including increase of sensitivity from 0.08 kPa^(-1)to 0.5 kPa^(-1),extension of detection limit from 5 kPa to 9 kPa,decrease of response time from 200 ms to 20 ms,and reduction of recovery time from 230 ms to 50 ms.The mechanical durability of the flexible sensor is also improved,with the piezoresistive performance stable over 1000 cycles of flexure fatigue.The atomic layer infiltration process offers new possibilities for the structure modification of MXene for advanced sensor applications.

Dual atomic catalysts from COF-derived carbon for CO_(2)RR by suppressing HER through synergistic effects

The electrochemical carbon dioxide reduction reaction(CO_(2)RR)for highvalue-added products is a promising strategy to tackle excessive CO_(2) emissions.However,the activity of and selectivity for catalysts for CO_(2)RR still need to be improved because of the competing reaction(hydrogen evolution reaction).In this study,for the first time,we have demonstrated dual atomic catalytic sites for CO_(2)RR from a core-shell hybrid of the covalent-organic framework and the metal-organic framework.Due to abundant dual atomic sites(with CoN_(4)O and ZnN_(4) of 2.47 and 11.05 wt.%,respectively)on hollow carbon,the catalyst promoted catalysis of CO_(2)RR,with the highest Faradic efficiency for CO of 92.6%at-0.8 V and a turnover frequency value of 1370.24 h^(-1) at-1.0 V.More importantly,the activity and selectivity of the catalyst were well retained for 30 h.The theoretical calculation further revealed that CoN_(4)O was the main site for CO_(2)RR,and the activity of and selectivity for Zn sites were also improved because of the synergetic roles.

Oxygen defect modulating the charge behavior in titanium dioxide for boosting photocatalytic nitrogen fixation performance

Extremely high-temperature and high-pressure requirement of Haber-Bosch process motivates the search for a sustainable ammonia synthesis approach under mild conditions.Photocatalytic technology is a potential solution to convert N2 to ammonia.However,the poor light absorption and low charge carrier separation efficiency in conventional semiconductors are bottlenecks for the application of this technology.Herein,a facile synthesis of anatase TiO_(2)nanosheets with an abundance of surface oxygen vacancies(TiO_(2)-OV)via the calcination treatment was reported.Photocatalytic experiments of the prepared anatase TiO_(2)samples showed that TiO_(2)-OV nanosheets exhibited remarkably increased ammonia yield for solar-driven N2 fixation in pure water,without adding any sacrificial agents.EPR,XPS,XRD,UV-Vis DRS,TEM,Raman,and PL techniques were employed to systematically explore the possible enhanced mechanism.Studies revealed that the introduced surface oxygen vacancies significantly extended the light absorption capability in the visible region,decreased the adsorption and activation barriers of inert N2,and improved the separation and transfer efficiency of the photogenerated electronhole pairs.Thus,a high rate of ammonia evolution in TiO_(2)-OV was realized.This work offers a promising and sustainable approach for the efficient artificial photosynthesis of ammonia.

End-to-End Joint Multi-Object Detection and Tracking for Intelligent Transportation Systems

Environment perception is one of the most critical technology of intelligent transportation systems(ITS).Motion interaction between multiple vehicles in ITS makes it important to perform multi-object tracking(MOT).However,most existing MOT algorithms follow the tracking-by-detection framework,which separates detection and tracking into two independent segments and limit the global efciency.Recently,a few algorithms have combined feature extraction into one network;however,the tracking portion continues to rely on data association,and requires com‑plex post-processing for life cycle management.Those methods do not combine detection and tracking efciently.This paper presents a novel network to realize joint multi-object detection and tracking in an end-to-end manner for ITS,named as global correlation network(GCNet).Unlike most object detection methods,GCNet introduces a global correlation layer for regression of absolute size and coordinates of bounding boxes,instead of ofsetting predictions.The pipeline of detection and tracking in GCNet is conceptually simple,and does not require compli‑cated tracking strategies such as non-maximum suppression and data association.GCNet was evaluated on a multivehicle tracking dataset,UA-DETRAC,demonstrating promising performance compared to state-of-the-art detectors and trackers.

Observation and mitigation of image distortion in high-energy electron radiography

Image distortion caused by the angular misalignment of quadrupole magnets in high-energy electron radiography has been studied systematically.We propose that the distortion originates from the coupling of the electron motions in the transverse directions,based on a theoretical analysis and the transfer-matrix method.The relative angular rotation between the second and third magnetic quadrupoles was identified as the main contributor to image distortion.This was verified by both a beam-dynamics simulation and experiments.Different strategies to mitigate this image distortion are also explored,including magnets online tuning,higher beam energy and larger magnification factor.This study provides criteria for designing experiments and paves the way for achieving higher image precision.

Phytoplanktonic biogeography in the subtropical coastal waters,East China Sea along intensive anthropogenic stresses: roles of environmental versus spatial factors

Understanding the relative roles of local environmental effects and spatial effects on phytoplankton community is of essential importance to study the biogeography of them at regional scale. However, the determinants that driving the biogeography of phytoplankton communities in the coastal area of northern Zhejiang still remained unclear. We surveyed phytoplankton community compositions in water columns associated with environmental and spatial influences across five subzones that geographically covering this region over four seasons. Diatoms and dinoflagellates were recorded as the main dominant groups and Coscinodiscus oculs-iridis, Coscinodiscus jonesianus, and Skeletonema costatum, were identified as the major abundant species existing in all seasons.Spatially structured environmental conditions, rather than pure spatial or environmental factors, substantially shaped the biogeography of phytoplankton community, with the former mainly comprised of water temperature,dissolved oxygen, phosphate, pH, and salinity, and the latter referring to a non-negligible factor. This study was the first integrated research that combining environmental filtering with spatial factors in structuring phytoplankton communities at a complete tempo-spatial scale. Our results may facilitate to the further study of harmful algal blooms early-warning in this region.

Repeated atrial arrhythmia induced by cochineal red poisoning:A case report

BACKGROUND Cochineal red is an organic compound widely used in food,cosmetics,pharmaceuticals,textiles,and other fields due to its excellent safety profile.Poisoning caused by eating foods containing cochineal red is rare,and repeated atrial arrhythmia due to cochineal red poisoning is even rarer.CASE SUMMARY An 88-year-old Asian female patient was admitted to hospital due to a disturbance of consciousness.Twelve hours prior to presentation,the patient consumed 12 eggs containing cochineal red over a period of 2 h.At presentation,the patient was in a coma and had a score of 6 on the Glasgow Coma Scale(E2+VT+M4).The patient’s skin and mucous membranes were pink.Electrocardiography(ECG)revealed rapid atrial fibrillation without any signs of ischemia.We prescribed cedilan and fluid replacement for arrhythmia correction.Shortly after admission,the atrial fibrillation corrected to a normal sinus rhythm.On the day 2 of admission,the patient had a sudden atrial flutter accompanied by hemodynamic instability and rapidly declining arterial oxygen saturation between 85%and 90%.The sinus rhythm returned to normal after two electrical cardioversions.Six days after admission,the skin color of the patient returned to normal,and the ECG results were normal.The patient was transferred out of the intensive care unit and eventually discharged after 12 d in hospital.At the 2-mo follow-up visit,the patient was in good health with no recurrence of arrhythmia.CONCLUSION Although cochineal red is a safe,natural food additive,excessive consumption or occupational exposure can induce cardiac arrhythmias.

Autologous bone marrow infusion via portal vein combined with splenectomy for decompensated liver cirrhosis: A retrospective study

BACKGROUND In a previous study,autologous bone marrow infusion(ABMI)was performed in patients with decompensated liver cirrhosis(DLC)and acquired immunodefi-ciency syndrome and achieved good results,but whether splenectomy affected outcome was unclear.AIM To investigate the efficacy of ABMI combined with splenectomy for treatment of DLC.METHODS Eighty-three patients with DLC were divided into an intervention group(43 cases)and control group(40 cases)according to whether splenectomy was performed.The control group was treated with ABMI through the right omental RESULTS After ABMI,the prothrombin time,serum total bilirubin levels,ascites volume and model for end-stage liver disease score in both groups were significantly lower,while the albumin levels were significantly higher than before ABMI(P<0.01),but there were no significant differences between the groups(P>0.05).After ABMI,the white blood cell and platelets counts in both groups were significantly higher than before ABMI(P<0.01),and the counts in the intervention group were significantly higher than in the control group(P<0.01).After ABMI the CD4+and CD8+T cell counts in both groups were significantly higher than before ABMI(P<0.01).The CD8+T cell counts in the intervention group increased continuously and the increase had a shorter duration compared with control group.CONCLUSION ABMI through the portal vein in patients with DLC can significantly improve liver synthetic and secretory functions,and splenectomy promotes improvement of bone marrow hematopoietic and cellular immune functions.

Breeding of a Weak Gluten Wheat Variety Wanmai 788 with High Yield,High Resistance and High Quality

Wanmai 788 is a new wheat variety bred by Nanyang Academy of Agricultural Sciences and approved by Henan Province in 2021.This variety is characterized by high yield,multiple resistance,wide adaptability and high quality weak gluten,and is suitable for planting in wheat areas in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River in the central and southern part of Henan Province.This paper introduces the breeding process,characteristics,yield performance and brief cultivation techniques of Wanmai 788,and discusses the key breeding techniques of the variety.

学以致用,教以致远——基于TiO_(2)/g-C_(3)N_(4)光催化降解水中有机染料的综合实验

创设模拟污水中有机染料废物的治理情境,结合无机光催化剂的光生载流子驱动反应理论,介绍了一个基于TiO_(2)/g-C_(3)N_(4)光催化降解水中有机染料的绿色环保化学综合实验。本实验通过焙烧法制备TiO_(2)/g-C_(3)N_(4)复合材料,利用X射线衍射、透射电镜、X射线光电子能谱仪、自动物理吸附仪、紫外-可见分光光度计对其结构和降解性能进行研究。该综合实验涵盖制备、表征、污染物降解等多个实验环节,实现无机化学、物理化学等多学科交叉融合,蕴含绿色化学的理念,并与当前学科热点无机纳米材料光催化污染物降解结合,有利于促进理论知识与合成实践之间的有机融合,为实现我国现代化建设培养具有远大理想的创新性应用人才。

The forced activation of asexual conidiation in Aspergillus niger simplifies bioproduction

Aspergillus niger is an efficient cell factory for organic acids production,particularly l-malic acid,through genetic manipulation.However,the traditional method of collecting A.niger spores for inoculation is labor-intensive and resource-consuming.In our study,we used the CRISPR-Cas9 system to replace the promoter of brlA,a key gene in Aspergillus conidiation,with a xylose-inducible promoter xylP in l-malic acid-producing A.niger strain RG0095,generating strain brlAxylP.When induced with xylose in submerged liquid culture,brlAxylP exhibited significant upregulation of conidiation-related genes.This induction allowed us to easily collect an abundance of brlAxylP spores(>7.1×106/mL)in liquid xylose medium.Significantly,the submerged conidiation approach preserves the substantial potential of A.niger as a foundational cellular platform for the biosynthesis of organic acids,including but not limited to l-malic acid.In summary,our study offers a simplified submerged conidiation strategy to streamline the preparation stage and reduce labor and material costs for industrial organic acid production using Aspergillus species.

SAR Change Detection Algorithm Combined with FFDNet Spatial Denoising

Objectives:When detecting changes in synthetic aperture radar(SAR)images,the quality of the difference map has an important impact on the detection results,and the speckle noise in the image interferes with the extraction of change information.In order to improve the detection accuracy of SAR image change detection and improve the quality of the difference map,this paper proposes a method that combines the popular deep neural network with the clustering algorithm.Methods:Firstly,the SAR image with speckle noise was constructed,and the FFDNet architecture was used to retrain the SAR image,and the network parameters with better effect on speckle noise suppression were obtained.Then the log ratio operator is generated by using the reconstructed image output from the network.Finally,K-means and FCM clustering algorithms are used to analyze the difference images,and the binary map of change detection results is generated.Results:The experimental results have high detection accuracy on Bern and Sulzberger’s real data,which proves the effectiveness of the method.

Summarizing vehicle driving decision-making methods on vulnerable road user collision avoidance

With the development of intelligent vehicles and autonomous driving technology,the safety of vulnerable road user(VRU)in traffic has been more guaranteed,and many research achievements have been made in the key area of collision avoidance decision-making methods.In this paper,the knowledge mapping method is used to mine the available literature in depth,and it is found that the research focus has shifted from the traditional accident cause analysis to emerging deep learning and virtual reality technology.This paper summarizes research on the three core dimensions of environmental perception,behavior cognition and collision avoidance decision-making in intelligent vehicle systems.In terms of perception,accurate identification of pedestrians and cyclists in complex environments is a major demand for VRU perception;in terms of behavior cognition,the coupling of VRU intention identification and motion trajectory prediction and other multiple factors needs further research;in terms of decision-making,the intention identification and trajectory prediction of collision objects are not included in the risk assessment model,and there is a lack of exploration specifically for cyclists'collision risk.On this basis,this paper provides guidance for the improvement of traffic safety of contemporary VRU under the conditions of intelligent and connected transportation.

某航空大学飞行学员对比度远视力的影响因素分析

目的:记录并调查某航空大学飞行学员在理论学习阶段对比度远视力以及用眼习惯,分析飞行学员对比度远视力变化情况与用眼习惯影响因素的关系。方法:记录并分析某航空大学理论学习阶段一年级及二年级期末飞行学员对比度远视力,并采用问卷调查方式对用眼习惯进行记录分析。结果:总计对117名一年级飞行学员、210名二年级飞行学员进行对比度远视力检查,其中双眼视力均在1.0以上者一年级为83人(70.9%)、二年级为174人(82.9%)(P<0.05)。对上述学员进行用眼习惯的问卷调查:一、二年级飞行学员每日阅读学习时间≤6h者分别为87.2%、93.3%,每日运动时间≤2h者分别为34.2%、13.8%,采用综合运动者分别为57.3%、90.0%,每日使用电子产品≤2h分别为38.5%、43.3%,夜间曾使用电子产品者分别为85.5%、75.7%,对健康用眼知识知晓情况分别为61.5%、81.0%(P<0.05)。结论:航空大学理论学习阶段的飞行学员对比度远视力略有提高,主要与理论学习阶段阅读时间减少、户外运动时间增加、运动方式改善、电子产品使用时间减少及用眼知识加强因素相关。

Impaired balance of T helper 17/T regulatory cells in carbon tetrachloride-induced liver fibrosis in mice

AIM: To investigate the effect of T helper (Th) 17/T regulatory (Treg) cells on hepatic fibrosis in mice and its possible mechanism.