Trends in Temperature Extremes in Association with Weather-Intraseasonal Fluctuations in Eastern China

Trends in the frequencies of four temperature extremes （the occurrence of warm days, cold days, warm nights and cold nights） with respect to a modulated annual cycle （MAC）, and those associated exclusively with weather-intraseasonal fluctuations （WIF） in eastern China were investigated based on an updated homogenized daily maximum and minimum temperature dataset for 1960–2008. The Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition （EEMD） method was used to isolate the WIF, MAC, and longer-term components from the temperature series. The annual, winter and summer occurrences of warm （cold） nights were found to have increased （decreased） significantly almost everywhere, while those of warm （cold） days have increased （decreased） in northern China （north of 40°N）. However, the four temperature extremes associated exclusively with WIF for winter have decreased almost everywhere, while those for summer have decreased in the north but increased in the south. These characteristics agree with changes in the amplitude of WIF. In particular, winter WIF of maximum temperature tended to weaken almost everywhere, especially in eastern coastal areas （by 10%–20%）; summer WIF tended to intensify in southern China by 10%–20%. It is notable that in northern China, the occurrence of warm days has increased, even where that associated with WIF has decreased significantly. This suggests that the recent increasing frequency of warm extremes is due to a considerable rise in the mean temperature level, which surpasses the effect of the weakening weather fluctuations in northern China.

On Multi-Timescale Variability of Temperature in China in Modulated Annual Cycle Reference Frame

The traditional anomaly （TA） reference frame and its corresponding anomaly for a given data span changes with the extension of data length. In this study, the modulated annual cycle （MAC）, instead of the widely used climatological mean annual cycle, is used as an alternative reference frame for computing climate anomalies to study the multi-timescale variability of surface air temperature （SAT） in China based on homogenized daily data from 1952 to 2004. The Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition （EEMD） method is used to separate daily SAT into a high frequency component, a MAC component, an interannual component, and a decadal-to-trend component. The results show that the EEMD method can reflect historical events reasonably well, indicating its adaptive and temporally local characteristics. It is shown that MAC is a temporally local reference frame and will not be altered over a particular time span by an exten-sion of data length, thereby making it easier for physical interpretation. In the MAC reference frame, the low frequency component is found more suitable for studying the interannual to longer timescale variability （ILV） than a 13-month window running mean, which does not exclude the annual cycle. It is also better than other traditional versions （annual or summer or winter mean） of ILV, which contains a portion of the annual cycle. The analysis reveals that the variability of the annual cycle could be as large as the magnitude of interannual variability. The possible physical causes of different timescale variability of SAT in China are further discussed.

The Role of Changes in the Annual Cycle in Earlier Onset of Climatic Spring in Northern China

Climatic changes in the onset of spring in northern China associated with changes in the annual cycle and with a recent warming trend were quantified using a recently developed adaptive data analysis tool, the Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition. The study was based on a homogenized daily surface air temperature （SAT） dataset for the period 1955–2003. The annual cycle here is referred to as a refined modulated annual cycle （MAC）. The results show that spring at Beijing has arrived significantly earlier by about 2.98 d （10 yr）-1, of which about 1.85 d （10 yr）-1 is due to changes in the annual cycle and 1.13 d （10 yr）-1 due to the long-term warming trend. Variations in the MAC component explain about 92.5% of the total variance in the Beijing daily SAT series and could cause as much as a 20-day shift in the onset of spring from one year to another. The onset of spring has been advancing all over northern China, but more significant in the east than in the west part of the region. These differences are somehow unexplainable by the zonal pattern of the warming trend over the whole region, but can be explained by opposite changes in the spring phase of the MAC, i.e. advancing in the east while delaying in the west. In the east of northern China, the change in the spring phase of MAC explains 40%–60% of the spring onset trend and is attributable to a weakening Asian winter monsoon. The average sea level pressure in Siberia （55°–80°N, 50°–110°E）, an index of the strength of the winter monsoon, could serve as a potential short-term predictor for the onset of spring in the east of northern China.

TELOMERASE: A NOVEL TARGET OF ANTITUMOR AGENTS

Telomerase activity was found to be high in various human cancers, but absent in most normal tissues. Its expression pattern made it a novel target for antitumor agents. Several strategies against telomerase were presented in this review. Targeting the telomerase RNA component by oligonucleotide/ribozyme was considered to be one of the most hopeful approaches. Some progresses were made in this area, such as the use of PANs and 2–5A antisense compounds. The relationships among telomerase activity and cell differentiation, signal transduction, oncogene, tumor suppressor gene as well as cell cycle modulation also provided a series of valuable ideas in designing anti-telomerase drugs for cancer therapy. In conclusion, although there is still a long way in understanding the mechanism and regulation of telomerase, the advance of studies on telomerase has allowed the development of numerous strategies for the treatment of cancer.

On peak current in atmospheric pulsemodulated microwave discharges by the PIC-MCC model

Pulse modulation provides a new way to tailor the electron density, electron energy and gas temperature in atmospheric radio-frequency（rf） discharges. In this paper, by increasing the rf frequency to several hundreds of MHz, or even much higher to the range of GHz, a very strong peak current in the first period（PCFP） with much larger electron energy can be formed during the power-on phase, which is not observed in the common pulse modulation discharges at a rf frequency of 13.56 MHz. The PIC-MCC model is explored to unveil the generation mechanism of PCFP, and based on the simulation data a larger voltage increasing rate over a quarter of a period and the distribution of electron density just before the power-on phase are believed to play key roles; the PCFP is usually produced in the microplasma regime driven by the pulsed power supply. The effects of duty cycle and pulse modulation frequency on the evolution of PCFP are also discussed from the computational data. Therefore, the duty cycle and pulse modulation frequency can be used to optimize the generation of PCFP and high-energy electrons.

A New Buck-Based Configuration AC Chopper Voltage Conditioner

This paper presents a new AC chopper voltage conditioner, which can generate high quality sinusoidal waveforms with adjustable amplitudes. The circuit structure, operation principle, and control mode are analyzed in detail, the system essentially consisting of an equal duty cycle modulation AC voltage buck chopper and a voltage polarity change H-bridge, a full-wave rectifier, to perform tightly closed-loop control of the AC chopper voltage condtioner, a digital controller on a new converter model has been developed. The controller has very well dynamic response. To evaluate the new circuit and proposed control scheme, a 5kW conditioner is developed and the experimental results demonstrate that the system has good performances.

Performance and Stability of Supercapacitor Modules based on Porous Carbon Electrodes in Hybrid Powertrain

Hybrid power sources have attracted much attention in the electric vehicle area. Particularly, electric-electric hybrid powertrain system consisting of supercapacitor modules and lithium-ion batteries has been widely applied because of the high power density of supercapacitors. In this study, we design a hybrid powertrain system containing two porous carbon electrode-based supercapacitor modules in parallel and one lithium ion battery pack. With the construction of the testing station, the performance and stability of the used supercapacitor modules are investigated in correlation with the structure of the supercapacitor and the nature of the electrode materials applied. It has been shown that the responding time for voltage vibration from 20 V to 48.5 V during charging or discharging process decreases from about 490 s to 94 s with the increase in applied current from 20 A to 100 A. The capacitance of the capacitor modules is nearly independent on the applied current. With the designed setup, the energy efficiency can reach as high as 0.99. The results described here provide a guidance for material selection of supercapacitors and optimized controlling strategy for hybrid power system applied in electric vehicles.

A New Control Approach of a Three-Phase Inverter Two Levels

In this paper, we present the study, modelling and simulation of the duty cycle modulation (DCM) based on SVPWM control technique using Matlab/Simulink software. It is one of the most advanced control techniques of space vector modulation (SVM), which can be used for controlling static converters or for controlling electrical machines to achieve better dynamic performance. DCSVM is a control technique that generates control signals for the two-level voltage converter as well as for the intermediate times. The main advantage of this control technique is the reduction of the number of calculations, especially for the trigonometric functions and the generation of the reference voltage. In order to reduce the computational effort, we have designed a DCSVM controller that is able to faithfully reproduce the same vectors and output quantities as a classical SVM. In order to test the functionality and validity of the DCSVM control, we have developed different simulations that result in a total harmonic distortion (THD) of the voltage and current of 41.19% and 15.19% respectively with fundamental values of 61.51 V for the voltage and 2.80 A for the current;in contrast to the SVM which gives 47.27 V for the voltage and 2.01 A for the current with THDs of 77.16% for the voltage and 16.00% for the current. This results in an improvement in the distortion rate of around 25.5%. The results obtained are very satisfactory. The DCSVM is a real competitor to the SVM and its various variants.

Down-Regulation of CD44 Contributes to the Differentiation of HL-60 Cells Induced by ATRA or HMBA

CD44 is highly expressed in human acute myeloid leukemia （AML） cells. Some experiments had shown that it was possible to reverse differentiation blockage in AML cells by CD44 ligation with specific antibodies, indicating that CD44 was closely related to the differentiation of leukemia cells. The differentiation of acute promyelocytic leukemia cell line HL-60 cells could be induced by all trans-retinoic acid （ATRA） and hexamethylene bisacetamide （HMBA）, but so far the mechanism was not demonstrated clearly. In the present study, we investigated whether ATRA or HMBA induced the growth arrest of HL-60 cells by down-regulating the expression of CD44. The results indicated that the proliferation of HL-60 cells was obviously inhibited and the differentiation was induced by both ATRA and HMBA. The decreased expression of CD44 and cyclin E mRNA, and the increased expression of p27 and p21 at mRNA levels were observed. Furthermore, there was a negative correlation between the expression of CD44 and p27. It was concluded that ATRA and HMBA played a role in the differentiation induction of HL-60 cells, which was mediated by the down-regulation of CD44, accompanied by down-regulation of cyclin E, and up-regulation of p27 and p21 mRNA. Cellular ＆ Molecular Immunology. 2007;4（1）：59-63.