Distribution and mapping of temperate savanna in the sandy lands of eastern China

Savannas are distributed globally across various regions.They perform a significant socioeconomic role in regulating net primary productivity and the terrestrial carbon cycle.Owing to the high spatial heterogeneity induced by the mixed distribution of trees and grasses,current global land-cover classification maps often classify savannas as forests or grasslands Temperate savannas in China cover a vast area,yet their spatial patterns and extent remain poorly understood.This study developed a novel remote sensing temperate savannas mapping method by integrating very high-resolution(VHR)unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV)and GF-6 satellite imagery based on the vegetation structure characteristics of temperate savannas using the FAO definition of savannas.Training and validation datasets were collected from VHR UAV imagery covering the main temperate savannah types with a ground area of 1818 ha.The fractional woody vegetation cover(FWVC)and fractional herbaceous vegetation cover(FHVC)in temperate savannas were estimated by integrating Classification and Regression Tree and Random Forest algorithms.The current distribution of temperate savannas in the Horqin and Otindag Sandy Lands of Eastern China was mapped to a unit area of 0.5 ha.The root-mean-square error(RMSE)values for the FWVC and FHVC models were 10.69%and 11.67%,and the R^(2)values were 0.66 and 0.63,respectively.The assessment indicated that the new temperate savanna map had high identification accuracy,with a Kappa coefficient of 0.70,overall accuracy of 0.88,and average accuracy of 0.85.Temperate savannas in the sandy lands of eastern China were primarily distributed in the northern Horqin Sandy Land the central and eastern regions of the Otindag Sandy Land,and the transition zone from the southern slopes of the Greater Khingan Mountains to the plains,covering a total area of 3.27×10^(6)ha.The main savannah types were elm,oak/maple,and shrub savannas.Elm savannas were widely distributed in the Otindag Sandy Land and the eastern and northern Horqin Sandy Land arranged in stripes and distributed alternately with mobile dunes.Oak/maple savannas were mainly found in northern Horqin Sandy Land and grew on low hills.The largest temperate savannas were shrub savannas,which were primarily distributed in the western Otindag Sandy Land and the central and western Horqin Sandy Land.This study developed a detailed map of temperate savannas in Horqin Sandy Land and Otindag Sandy Land in eastern China,providing their precise area and geographical distribution.This map can support the conservation and utilization of temperate savannas,scientific research,and decisionmaking related to combating desertification and ecosystem restoration in the sandy lands of eastern China.This method provides a new vision for precisely mapping savannas on a global scale and analyzing savanna dynamics.

Calibration of the Solar X-ray Detector on-board the Macao Science Satellite-1B for Soft X-ray Detection

The Solar X-ray Detector(SXD)on-board the Macao Science Satellite-1B(MSS-1B)was successfully launched via the Chinese Long March-2C rocket on 21 May 2023,and commenced operations in early June of the same year.The MSS-1B/Soft X-ray Detection Units(SXDUs)employ two silicon drift detectors(SDDs),providing a wide range of energy spectra spanning from 0.7 to 24 keV.Notably,the SXDUs deliver a high-resolution capability of 0.14 keV@5.9 keV and operate with a time cadence of 1 second.Here,we perform thorough calibrations of the MSS-1B/SXDUs,employing a combination of ground experiments and simulations.In addition,quantitative analysis comparing the flux measurements obtained by the MSS-1B/SXDUs to the data collected by the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite(GOES),provides compelling evidence of their consistency.Furthermore,the preliminary spectral analysis results showcase the robustness and expected performance of the MSS-1B/SXDUs,unlocking their potential for facilitating the study of dynamic evolution of solar flares.Moreover,the innovative MSS-1B/Solar X-ray Detector facilitates concurrent observations of solar soft and hard X-rays,thereby making valuable contributions to the advancements in solar research.

A Weakly-Supervised Crowd Density Estimation Method Based on Two-Stage Linear Feature Calibration

In a crowd density estimation dataset,the annotation of crowd locations is an extremely laborious task,and they are not taken into the evaluation metrics.In this paper,we aim to reduce the annotation cost of crowd datasets,and propose a crowd density estimation method based on weakly-supervised learning,in the absence of crowd position supervision information,which directly reduces the number of crowds by using the number of pedestrians in the image as the supervised information.For this purpose,we design a new training method,which exploits the correlation between global and local image features by incremental learning to train the network.Specifically,we design a parent-child network(PC-Net)focusing on the global and local image respectively,and propose a linear feature calibration structure to train the PC-Net simultaneously,and the child network learns feature transfer factors and feature bias weights,and uses the transfer factors and bias weights to linearly feature calibrate the features extracted from the Parent network,to improve the convergence of the network by using local features hidden in the crowd images.In addition,we use the pyramid vision transformer as the backbone of the PC-Net to extract crowd features at different levels,and design a global-local feature loss function(L2).We combine it with a crowd counting loss(LC)to enhance the sensitivity of the network to crowd features during the training process,which effectively improves the accuracy of crowd density estimation.The experimental results show that the PC-Net significantly reduces the gap between fullysupervised and weakly-supervised crowd density estimation,and outperforms the comparison methods on five datasets of Shanghai Tech Part A,ShanghaiTech Part B,UCF_CC_50,UCF_QNRF and JHU-CROWD++.

Non-crossing Quantile Regression Neural Network as a Calibration Tool for Ensemble Weather Forecasts

Despite the maturity of ensemble numerical weather prediction(NWP),the resulting forecasts are still,more often than not,under-dispersed.As such,forecast calibration tools have become popular.Among those tools,quantile regression(QR)is highly competitive in terms of both flexibility and predictive performance.Nevertheless,a long-standing problem of QR is quantile crossing,which greatly limits the interpretability of QR-calibrated forecasts.On this point,this study proposes a non-crossing quantile regression neural network(NCQRNN),for calibrating ensemble NWP forecasts into a set of reliable quantile forecasts without crossing.The overarching design principle of NCQRNN is to add on top of the conventional QRNN structure another hidden layer,which imposes a non-decreasing mapping between the combined output from nodes of the last hidden layer to the nodes of the output layer,through a triangular weight matrix with positive entries.The empirical part of the work considers a solar irradiance case study,in which four years of ensemble irradiance forecasts at seven locations,issued by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts,are calibrated via NCQRNN,as well as via an eclectic mix of benchmarking models,ranging from the naïve climatology to the state-of-the-art deep-learning and other non-crossing models.Formal and stringent forecast verification suggests that the forecasts post-processed via NCQRNN attain the maximum sharpness subject to calibration,amongst all competitors.Furthermore,the proposed conception to resolve quantile crossing is remarkably simple yet general,and thus has broad applicability as it can be integrated with many shallow-and deep-learning-based neural networks.

Dynamic Calibration of the Cutting Temperature Sensor of NiCr/NiSi Thin-film Thermocouple

In high-speed cutting, natural thermocouple, artificial thermocouple and infrared radiation temperature measurement are usually adopted for measuring cutting temperature, but these methods have difficulty in measuring transient temperature accurately of cutting area on account of low response speed and limited cutting condition. In this paper, NiCr/NiSi thin-film thermocouples（TFTCs） are fabricated according to temperature characteristic of cutting area in high-speed cutting by means of advanced twinned microwave electro cyclotron resonance（MW-ECR） plasma source enhanced radio frequency（RF） reaction non-balance magnetron sputtering technique, and can be used for transient cutting temperature measurement. The time constants of the TFTCs with different thermo-junction film width are measured at four kinds of sampling frequency by using Ultra-CFR short pulsed laser system that established. One-dimensional unsteady heat conduction model is constructed and the dynamic performance is analyzed theoretically. It can be seen from the analysis results that the NiCr/NiSi TFTCs are suitable for measuring transient temperature which varies quickly, the response speed of TFTCs can be obviously improved by reducing the thickness of thin-film, and the area of thermo-junction has little influence on dynamic response time. The dynamic calibration experiments are made on the constructed dynamic calibration system, and the experimental results confirm that sampling frequency should be larger than 50 kHz in dynamic measurement for stable response time, and the shortest response time is 0.042 ms. Measurement methods and devices of cutting heat and cutting temperature measurement are developed and improved by this research, which provide practical methods and instruments in monitoring cutting heat and cutting temperature for research and production in high-speed machining.

Verification and recalibration of HY-2A microwave radiometer brightness temperature

HY-2A is the first one of the Chinese HY-2 ocean satellite series carrying a microwave radiometer(RM)to measure sea surface temperature,sea surface wind speed,atmospheric water vapor,cloud liquid water content,and rain rate.We verified the RM level 1B brightness temperature(T B)to retrieve environmental parameters.In the verification,TB that simulated using the ocean-atmosphere radiative transfer model(RTM)was used as a reference.The total bias and total standard deviation(SD)of the RM level 1B TB,with reference to the RTM simulation,ranged-20.6-4.38 K and 0.7-2.93 K,respectively.We found that both the total bias and the total SD depend on the frequency and polarization,although the values for ascending and descending passes are different.In addition,substantial seasonal variation of the bias was found at all channels.The verification results indicate the RM has some problems regarding calibration,e.g.,correction of antenna spillover and antenna physical emission,especially for the 18.7-GHz channel.Based on error analyses,a statistical recalibration algorithm was designed and recalibration was performed for the RM level 1B TB.Validation of the recalibrated TB indicated that the quality of the recalibrated RM level 1B TB was improved significantly.The bias of the recalibrated T B at all channels was reduced to<0.4 K,seasonal variation was almost eradicated,and SD was diminished(i.e.,the SD of the 18.7-GHz channel was reduced by more than 0.5K).

Temperate Stutzerimonas Phage Encoding Toxin-Antitoxin System Genes Represents a Novel Genus

Stutzerimonas have been extensively studied due to their remarkable metabolic and physiological diversity.However,research on its phages is currently limited.In this study,we isolated a novel double-stranded DNA(dsDNA)phage,vB_SstM-PG1,from the marine environment that infects Stutzerimonas stutzeri G1.Its dsDNA genome is 37204 bp long with a G/C content of 64.14%and encodes 54 open reading frames.The phage possesses a tail packaging structure that is different from known Stutzerimonas stutzeri phages and exhibits structural protein characteristics similar to those of temperate phages.In addition,two genes of toxin-antitoxin system,including YdaS_antitoxin and HEPN_SAV_6107,were found in the vB_SstM-PG1 genome and play important roles in regulating host growth and metabolism.With phylogenetic tree and comparative genomic analysis,it has been determined that vB_SstM-PG1 is not closely related to any phages previously identified in the GenBank database.Instead,it has a connection with enigmatic,uncultured viruses.Specifically,the vB_SstM-PG1 virus exhibits an average nucleotide identity of over 70%with six uncultivated viruses identified in the IMG/VR v4 database.This significant finding has resulted in the identification of a novel viral genus known as Metabovirus.

A real-time calibration method based on time-to-digital converter for accelerator timing system

The high-intensity heavy-ion accelerator facility(HIAF)is a scientific research facility complex composed of multiple cas-cade accelerators of different types,which pose a scheduling problem for devices distributed over a certain range of 2 km,involving over a hundred devices.The white rabbit,a technology-enhancing Gigabit Ethernet,has shown the capability of scheduling distributed timing devices but still faces the challenge of obtaining real-time synchronization calibration param-eters with high precision.This study presents a calibration system based on a time-to-digital converter implemented on an ARM-based System-on-Chip(SoC).The system consists of four multi-sample delay lines,a bubble-proof encoder,an edge controller for managing data from different channels,and a highly effective calibration module that benefits from the SoC architecture.The performance was evaluated with an average RMS precision of 5.51 ps by measuring the time intervals from 0 to 24,000 ps with 120,000 data for every test.The design presented in this study refines the calibration precision of the HIAF timing system.This eliminates the errors caused by manual calibration without efficiency loss and provides data support for fault diagnosis.It can also be easily tailored or ported to other devices for specific applications and provides more space for developing timing systems for particle accelerators,such as white rabbits on HIAF.

Variations and determinants of tissue carbon concentration of 32 sympatric temperate tree species

Plant carbon(C)concentration is a fundamental trait for estimating C storage and nutrient utilization.However,the mechanisms of C concentration variations among different tree tissues and across species remains poorly understood.In this study,we explored the variations and determinants of C concentration of nine tissues from 216 individuals of 32 tree species,with particular attention on the effect of wood porosity(i.e.,non-porous wood,diffuse-porous wood,and ring-porous wood).The inter-tissue pattern of C concentration diverged across the three porosity types;metabolically active tissues(foliage and fine roots,except for the foliage of ring-porous species)generally had higher C levels compared with inactive wood.The poor inter-correlations between tissue C concentrations indicated a necessity of measuring tissue-and specific-C concentrations.Carbon concentration for almost all tissues generally decreased from non-porous,to diffuse-porous and to ring-porous.Tissue C was often positively correlated with tissue(foliage and wood)density and tree size,while negatively correlated with growth rate,depending on wood porosity.Our results highlight the mediating effect of type of wood porosity on the variation in tissue C among temperate species.The variations among tissues were more important than that among species.These findings provided insights on tissue C concentration variability of temperate forest species.

Grouping tree species to estimate basal area increment in temperate multispecies forests in Durango,Mexico

Multispecies forests have received increased scientific attention,driven by the hypothesis that biodiversity improves ecological resilience.However,a greater species diversity presents challenges for forest management and research.Our study aims to develop basal area growth models for tree species cohorts.The analysis is based on a dataset of 423 permanent plots(2,500 m^(2))located in temperate forests in Durango,Mexico.First,we define tree species cohorts based on individual and neighborhood-based variables using a combination of principal component and cluster analyses.Then,we estimate the basal area increment of each cohort through the generalized additive model to describe the effect of tree size,competition,stand density and site quality.The principal component and cluster analyses assign a total of 37 tree species to eight cohorts that differed primarily with regard to the distribution of tree size and vertical position within the community.The generalized additive models provide satisfactory estimates of tree growth for the species cohorts,explaining between 19 and 53 percent of the total variation of basal area increment,and highlight the following results:i)most cohorts show a"rise-and-fall"effect of tree size on tree growth;ii)surprisingly,the competition index"basal area of larger trees"had showed a positive effect in four of the eight cohorts;iii)stand density had a negative effect on basal area increment,though the effect was minor in medium-and high-density stands,and iv)basal area growth was positively correlated with site quality except for an oak cohort.The developed species cohorts and growth models provide insight into their particular ecological features and growth patterns that may support the development of sustainable management strategies for temperate multispecies forests.

Wavelength calibration and spectral analysis of vacuum ultraviolet spectroscopy in EAST

A vacuum ultraviolet(VUV)spectroscopy with a focal length of 1 m has been engineered specifically for observing edge impurity emissions in Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak(EAST).In this study,wavelength calibration for the VUV spectroscopy is achieved utilizing a zinc lamp.The grating angle and charge-coupled device(CCD)position are carefully calibrated for different wavelength positions.The wavelength calibration of the VUV spectroscopy is crucial for improving the accuracy of impurity spectral data,and is required to identify more impurity spectral lines for impurity transport research.Impurity spectra of EAST plasmas have also been obtained in the wavelength range of 50–300 nm with relatively high spectral resolution.It is found that the impurity emissions in the edge region are still dominated by low-Z impurities,such as carbon,oxygen,and nitrogen,albeit with the application of fulltungsten divertors on the EAST tokamak.

A new calibration method for radon detector in seismic systems

Radon observation is an important measurement item of seismic precursor network observation.The radon detector calibration is a key technical link for ensuring radon observation accuracy.At present,the radon detector calibration in seismic systems in China is faced with a series of bottleneck problems,such as aging and scrap,acquisition difficulties,high supervision costs,and transportation limitations of radon sources.As a result,a large number of radon detectors cannot be accurately calibrated regularly,seriously affecting the accuracy and reliability of radon observation data in China.To solve this problem,a new calibration method for radon detectors was established.The advantage of this method is that the dangerous radioactive substance,i.e.,the radon source,can be avoided,but only“standard instruments”and water samples with certain dissolved radon concentrations can be used to realize radon detector calibration.This method avoids the risk of radioactive leakage and solves the current widespread difficulties and bottleneck of radon detector calibration in seismic systems in China.The comparison experiment with the traditional calibration method shows that the error of the calibration coefficient obtained by the new method is less than 5%compared with that by the traditional method,which meets the requirements of seismic observation systems,confirming the reliability of the new method.This new method can completely replace the traditional calibration method of using a radon source in seismic systems.

Kinematic calibration under the expectation maximization framework for exoskeletal inertial motion capture system

This study presents a kinematic calibration method for exoskeletal inertial motion capture (EI-MoCap) system with considering the random colored noise such as gyroscopic drift.In this method, the geometric parameters are calibrated by the traditional calibration method at first. Then, in order to calibrate the parameters affected by the random colored noise, the expectation maximization (EM) algorithm is introduced. Through the use of geometric parameters calibrated by the traditional calibration method, the iterations under the EM framework are decreased and the efficiency of the proposed method on embedded system is improved. The performance of the proposed kinematic calibration method is compared to the traditional calibration method. Furthermore, the feasibility of the proposed method is verified on the EI-MoCap system. The simulation and experiment demonstrate that the motion capture precision is significantly improved by 16.79%and 7.16%respectively in comparison to the traditional calibration method.

Calibration of CO and CO2 Monitors Used in Periodic Inspection of Vehicles at Fixed Stations for Environmental Control

Global efforts for environmental cleanliness through the control of gaseous emissions from vehicles are gaining momentum and attracting increasing attention. Calibration plays a crucial role in these efforts by ensuring the quantitative assessment of emissions for informed decisions on environmental treatments. This paper describes a method for the calibration of CO/CO2 monitors used for periodic inspections of vehicles in cites. The calibration was performed in the selected ranges: 900 - 12,000 µmol/mol for CO and 2000 - 20,000 µmol/mol for CO2. The traceability of the measurement results to the SI units was ensured by using certified reference materials from CO/N2 and CO2/N2 primary gas mixtures. The method performance was evaluated by assessing its linearity, accuracy, precision, bias, and uncertainty of the calibration results. The calibration data exhibited a strong linear trend with R² values close to 1, indicating an excellent fit between the measured values and the calibration lines. Precision, expressed as relative standard deviation (%RSD), ranged from 0.48 to 4.56% for CO and from 0.97 to 3.53% for CO2, staying well below the 5% threshold for reporting results at a 95% confidence level. Accuracy measured as percent recovery, was consistently high (≥ 99.1%) for CO and ranged from 84.90% to 101.54% across the calibration range for CO2. In addition, the method exhibited minimal bias for both CO and CO2 calibrations and thus provided a reliable and accurate approach for calibrating CO/CO2 monitors used in vehicle inspections. Thus, it ensures the effectiveness of exhaust emission control for better environment.

A stepwise camera calibration method incorporating compensation for eccentricity error

In visual measurement,high-precision camera calibration often employs circular targets.To address issues in mainstream methods,such as the eccentricity error of the circle from using the circle’s center for calibration,overfitting or local minimum from fullparameter optimization,and calibration errors due to neglecting the center of distortion,a stepwise camera calibration method incorporating compensation for eccentricity error was proposed to enhance monocular camera calibration precision.Initially,the multiimage distortion correction method calculated the common center of distortion and coefficients,improving precision,stability,and efficiency compared to single-image distortion correction methods.Subsequently,the projection point of the circle’s center was compared with the center of the contour’s projection to iteratively correct the eccentricity error,leading to more precise and stable calibration.Finally,nonlinear optimization refined the calibration parameters to minimize reprojection error and boosts precision.These processes achieved stepwise camera calibration,which enhanced robustness.In addition,the module comparison experiment showed that both the eccentricity error compensation and the camera parameter optimization could improve the calibration precision,but the latter had a greater impact.The combined use of the two methods further improved the precision and stability.Simulations and experiments confirmed that the proposed method achieved high precision,stability,and robustness,suitable for high-precision visual measurements.

Parameter calibration of the tensile-shear interactive damage constitutive model for sandstone failure

The tensile-shear interactive damage(TSID)model is a novel and powerful constitutive model for rock-like materials.This study proposes a methodology to calibrate the TSID model parameters to simulate sandstone.The basic parameters of sandstone are determined through a series of static and dynamic tests,including uniaxial compression,Brazilian disc,triaxial compression under varying confining pressures,hydrostatic compression,and dynamic compression and tensile tests with a split Hopkinson pressure bar.Based on the sandstone test results from this study and previous research,a step-by-step procedure for parameter calibration is outlined,which accounts for the categories of the strength surface,equation of state(EOS),strain rate effect,and damage.The calibrated parameters are verified through numerical tests that correspond to the experimental loading conditions.Consistency between numerical results and experimental data indicates the precision and reliability of the calibrated parameters.The methodology presented in this study is scientifically sound,straightforward,and essential for improving the TSID model.Furthermore,it has the potential to contribute to other rock constitutive models,particularly new user-defined models.

Global Calibration Method for Monocular Multi-View System Using Rotational Dual-Target

To make the problems of existing high requirements of calibration tools, complex global calibration process addressed for monocular multi-view visual measurement system during measurement, in the paper, a global calibration method is proposed for the geometric properties of rotational correlation motion and the absolute orientation of the field of view without over lap. Firstly, a dual-camera system is constructed for photographing and collecting the rotating image sequence of two flat targets rigidly connected by a long rod at different positions, and based on the known parameters, such as, target feature image, world coordinates, camera internal parameters and so on, then the global PnP optimization method is used to solve the rotation axis and the reference point at different positions;Then, the absolute orientation matrix is constructed based on the parameters of rotation axis, reference point and connecting rod length obtained by this method. In the end, the singular value decomposition method is used to find the optimal rotation matrix, and then get the translation matrix. It’s shown based on simulation and actual tests that in comparison with the existing methods, the maximum attitude and pose errors is 0.0083˚ and 0.3657 mm, respectively, which improves the accuracy by 27.8% and 24.4%, respectively. The calibration device in this paper is simple, and there are no parallel, vertical and coplanar requirements between multiple rotating positions. At the same time, in view of the calibration accuracy, the accuracy requirements of most application scenarios can be met.

In-situ ultrasonic calibrations of pressure and temperature in a hinge-type double-stage cubic large volume press

Here,simultaneous in-situ calibration of pressures and temperatures was performed in a hinge-type second-stage cubic large volume press(LVP)up to 15 GPa and 1400 K by an acoustic travel-time approach.Based on the recently reported P-tSand P-T-tP-tSequations for Al2O3buffer rod,the cell pressures and temperatures in the chamber of LVP were insitu determined,in comparison with those by conventional off-line(or fixed-points)pressure calibration method and direct thermocouple measurement,respectively.It is found that the cell pressures of the LVP chamber are significantly reduced after annealing at simultaneous high pressures and high temperatures,owing to the stress relaxation as accumulate in the LVP chamber.This acoustic travel-time method is verified to be a good way for precise determination of thermal(cell)pressures at high temperature conditions,and is of great importance and necessity to conduct in-situ physical property measurements under extreme high P-T conditions,especially when the precious synchrotron x-ray/neutron diffraction beams are not available.

The Study of In-Orbit Calibration Accuracy of NOAA Satellite Infrared Sounder and Its Effect on Temperature Profile Retrievals

The calibration accuracy of High Resolution Infrared Radiation Sounder Mod. 2 (HIRS / 2) on NOAA-10 satellite is analyzed in this paper. The non-linear effect in the linear calibration curve induces a deviation of 1.5 degrees (k) of brightness temperature in the tenth channel (8.3 um, water vapor absorption) of the HIRS/2 and the non-linear effect affects the other channels to a different extent. Based on analyzing non- linearity in two-point calibration curve, a tri-point calibration equation is given. A numerical test of effects of the linear and non-linear calibration models on the accuracy of atmospheric temperature retrievals is carried out.

Contact High-Temperature Strain Automatic Calibration and Precision Compensation Research

Automated control and calibration are important components in industrial process and in artificial intelligence system and robotics.In order to solve the problem of contact high-temperature strain precision measurement,this paper established an automatic calibration device for high-temperature strain gauges.The temperature of the high-temperature furnace is automatically controlled by the temperature control device.The electric cylinder is driven by the servo motor to apply the load to the calibration beam.The output signal of the high-temperature strain gauge,the thermocouple signal,and the displacement signal of the grating ruler are collected at the same time.The deformation measurement results obtained after temperature correction are used to calculate the theoretical mechanical strain,which are fed back to control the loading action to complete the automatic calibration process.Based on the above calibration device,the hightemperature strain measurement accuracy correction software is developed to calibrate the high-temperature strain gauge with multiparameters,and the curves of sensitivity coefficient,thermal output,zero drift,and creep characteristics with temperature are obtained,and a strain measurement accuracy compensation model is established.The high-temperature strain measurement experiment is carried out to verify that the modified model can meet the requirements in each temperature range.