The Effect of Boreal Summer Intraseasonal Oscillation on Mixed Layer and Upper Ocean Temperature over the South China Sea

Intraseasonal oscillation of the mixed layer and upper ocean temperature has been found to occur over the South China Sea(SCS)in the summer monsoon season based on the multiple reanalysis and observational data in this study.The method of composite analysis and an upper ocean temperature equation assisted the analysis of physical mechanisms.The results show that the mixed layer depth(MLD)in the SCS has a significant oscillation with a 30-60 d period over the SCS region,which is closely related to boreal summer intraseasonal oscillation(BSISO)activities.The MLD can increase(decrease)during the positive(negative)phase of the BSISO and usually lags behind by approximately one-eighth of the lifecycle(5 days)of the BSISO-related convection.The BSISO may cause periodic anomalies at the air-sea boundary,such as wind stress and heat flux,so it can play a dominant role in modulating the variation in MLD.There also are significant intraseasonal seawater temperature anomalies in both the surface and subsurface layers of the SCS.In addition,during the initial phase of the BSISO,the temperature anomaly signals of the thermocline are obviously opposite to the sea surface temperature(SST),especially in the southern SCS.According to the results from the analysis of the temperature equation,the vertical entrainment term caused by BSISO-related wind stress is stronger than the thermal forcing during the initial stage of convection,and it is more significant in the southern SCS.

The effect of the wave-induced mixing on the upper ocean temperature in a climate model

The significant underestimation of sea surface temperature （SST） and the temperature in the upper ocean is one of common problems in present climate models. The influence of the wave-induced mixing on SST and the temperature in the upper ocean was examined based on a global climate model. The results from the model coupled with wave-induced mixing showed a significant improvement in the simulation of SST and the temperature in the upper ocean compared with those of the original model without wave effects. Although there has still a cold bias, the new simulation is much closer to the climatology, especially in the northern ocean and tropical ocean. This study indicates that some important physical processes in the accurate simulation of the ocean may be ignored in present climate models, and the wave-induced mixing is one of those factors. Thus, the wave-induced mixing （ or the effect of surface waves） should be incorporated properly into climate models in order to simulate or forecast the ocean, then climate system, more accurately.

Missing Data Imputations for Upper Air Temperature at 24 Standard Pressure Levels over Pakistan Collected from Aqua Satellite

This research was an effort to select best imputation method for missing upper air temperature data over 24 standard pressure levels. We have implemented four imputation techniques like inverse distance weighting, Bilinear, Natural and Nearest interpolation for missing data imputations. Performance indicators for these techniques were the root mean square error (RMSE), absolute mean error (AME), correlation coefficient and coefficient of determination ( R2 ) adopted in this research. We randomly make 30% of total samples (total samples was 324) predictable from 70% remaining data. Although four interpolation methods seem good (producing <1 RMSE, AME) for imputations of air temperature data, but bilinear method was the most accurate with least errors for missing data imputations. RMSE for bilinear method remains <0.01 on all pressure levels except 1000 hPa where this value was 0.6. The low value of AME (<0.1) came at all pressure levels through bilinear imputations. Very strong correlation (>0.99) found between actual and predicted air temperature data through this method. The high value of the coefficient of determination (0.99) through bilinear interpolation method, tells us best fit to the surface. We have also found similar results for imputation with natural interpolation method in this research, but after investigating scatter plots over each month, imputations with this method seem to little obtuse in certain months than bilinear method.

Polymer Vesicles with Upper Critical Solution Temperature for Near-infrared Light-triggered Transdermal Delivery of Metformin in Diabetic Rats

Near-infrared light(NIR)triggered transdermal drug delivery systems are of great interest due to their on-demand drug release,which enable to enhance drug treatment efficiency as well as reduce side effect.Herein,a NIR-triggered microneedle(MN)patch array has been fabricated through depositing the photothermal conversion agent and anti-diabetic drug-loaded polymer vesicles with upper critical solution temperature(UCST)into dissolvable polymer matrix.The UCST-type polymer has a clearing point temperature of 41℃ and the drug-loaded polymer vesicles present excellent NIR-triggered and temperature responsive drug release behavior in vitro due to the disassociation of polymer vesicles upon NIR irradiation.After applying MNs to diabetic rats,significant hypoglycemic effect is achieved upon interval NIR irradiation and the blood glucose concentration can decrease to normal state for several hours,which enables to achieve the goal of on-demand drug release.This work suggests that the NIR-triggered MN drug release device has a potential application in the treatment of diabetes,especially for those requiring an active drug release manner.

Visualizing phase transition of upper critical solution temperature (UCST) polymers with AIE

The stimuli-responsive polymers with upper critical solution temperatures(UCST) are highly attractive for drug delivery applications. However, the phase transition process of UCST polymer is usually characterized by turbidity measurement and electron microscopy, which are significantly restricted by low sensitivity and static observation. In contrary, the fluorescence technique has significant advantages in terms of high sensitivity, easy operation, and dynamic observation. However, the conventional fluorophores suffer from the drawbacks of aggregation-caused quenching(ACQ) after being encapsulated by UCST polymers, which are not suitable for direct visualization of the phase transition process. To tackle this challenge, we herein developed a series of UCST polymers based on polyacrylamides decorated with bile acid and aggregation-induced emission(AIE)-active tetraphenylethene(TPE) groups, which can be used for direct fluorescence monitoring of the phase transition process. Moreover, the AIE-active UCST polymers can serve as drug carriers, which can not only monitor the drug release process under thermal stimuli, but also verify the drug release by fluorescence recovery after thermal stimuli. It is expected that the AIE-active UCST polymers with self-monitoring ability are promising for biomedical applications.

Design and Range of Application of Slot Bushings with Volumetric Orifice Fields

A design of a slot bushing with a volumetric field has been developed, which allows to produce continuous fibers from melts with difficult processing characteristics in order to produce fibers with better operating characteristics. The operability of the design was confirmed when solving two problems of special technological complexity. 1. 400 and 800 orifice bushings for production of continuous fibers from the basalt melt have been developed and recommended for manufacture. 2. The process of production of continuous fibers from standard glass using 2400 orifice bushing with perforated plates instead of orifice tips without air cooling, has been realized for the first time.

Multifunctional Gd-CuS loaded UCST polymeric micelles for MR/PA imaging-guided chemo-photothermal tumor treatment

Hepatocellular carcinoma(HCC)is a life-threatening disease for which there is no effective treatment currently.Novel theranostics simultaneously having excellent imaging and therapeutic functions are highly desired in cancer therapy.Herein,we develop the sialic acid(SA)modified polymeric micelles at an upper critical solution temperature(UCST)of 43℃(sialic acid-poly(ethylene glycol)-poly(acrylamide-co-acrylonitrile),SA-PEG-p(AAm-co-AN)),which further encapsulated with doxorubicin(DOX)and Gd-CuS nanoparticles(Gd-CuS NPs)for chemo-photothermal treatment of HCC guided by magnetic resonance(MR)/photoacoustic(PA)dual-mode imaging.The resultant SA-PEG-p(AAm-co-AN)/DOX/Gd-CuS(SPDG)had an excellent photothermal conversion efficiency,enabling SPDG with an instantaneous release behavior of DOX under near-infrared(NIR)irradiation.This study also revealed that SPDG could actively target to HCC,which was due to that SA had a high affinity with E-selectin overexpressed at the tumor site.Moreover,benefiting from the HCC-targeted ability and NIR light-controlled on-demand delivery of DOX,SPDG showed a superior potential in MR/PA dual-mode imaging-guided chemo-photothermal treatment.Overall,our study reveals that the designed SPDG may be used as an ideal multifunctional nanoplatform for cancer theranostics.