Demand-driven air pollutant emissions for a fast-developing region in China

Guangdong is one of many fast-developing regions in China that are confronting the challenges of air pollution mitigation and sustainable economic development. Previous studies have focused on the characterization of production-based emissions to formulate control strategies, but the drivers of emission growth and pattern changes from the consumption side have rarely been explored. In this study, we used environmentally extended input-output analysis with well-established production-based emission inventories to develop a consumption-based emission inventory for seven pollutants in the years 2007 and 2012. The results showed that the demands of construction, transport and other services dominated the emissions from the consumption perspective, followed by electric power and some machinery and light industries. The varying trends of air pollutants from 2007 to 2012 were associated with production-based control measures and changes in economic structure and trading patterns. From the consumption perspective, due to the stringent control of SO2 in power plants and key industries, the SO2 emissions underwent substantial declines, while the less controlled PM10, PM2.5, VOC and CO emissions continued to grow. The contributions of the cleaner (that is, with lower emission intensity) service sectors (third-sector industries, excluding transport, storage and post) to all seven pollutants increased. This increase could be a consequence of the expansion of the service sector in Guangdong; in this five-year period, the service sector grew by 41% in terms of its contributions to Guangdong's gross domestic product. Meanwhile, exports accounted for more than half of the emissions, but their share had started to decrease for most pollutants except VOC and CO. The results suggest that Guangdong moved towards a cleaner production and consumption pathway. The transformation of the industrial structure and increase in of urban demand should help to further reduce emissions while maintaining economic development

Spatial-temporal dynamics of China's terrestrial biodiversity: A dynamic habitat index diagnostic

Biodiversity in China is analyzed based on the components of the Dynamic Habitat Index (DHI). First, observed field survey based spatial patterns of species richness including threatened species are presented to test their linear relationship with remote sensing based DHI (2001-2010 MODIS). Areas with a high cumulative DHI component are associated with relatively high species richness, and threatened species richness increases in regions with frequently varying levels of the cumulative DHI component. The analysis of geographical and statistical distributions yields the following results on interdependence, polarization and change detection: (1) The decadal mean Cumulative Annual Productivity (DHI-cum 4) in Southeast China are in a stable (positive) relation to the Minimum Annual Apparent Cover (DHI-min) and is positively (negatively) related to the Seasonal Variation of Greenness (DHI-sea); (2) The decadal tendencies show bimodal frequency distributions aligned near DHI-min~0.05 and DHI-sea~0.5 which separated by zero slopes; that is, regions with both small DHI-min and DHI-sea are becoming smaller and vice versa; (3) The decadal tendencies identify regions of land-cover change (as revealed in previous research). That is, the relation of strong and significant tendencies of the three DHI components with climatic or anthropogenic induced changes provides useful information for conservation planning. These results suggest that the spatial-temporal dynamics of China's terrestrial species and threatened species richness needs to be monitored by first and second moments of remote sensing based information of the DHI. © 2016 by the authors

Seasonal evolution of the Yellow Sea Cold Water Mass and its interactions with ambient hydrodynamic system

The Yellow Sea Cold Water Mass (YSCWM) is an important component of the hydrodynamic system in the South Yellow Sea (SYS). However, its intricate interactions with the ambient flows over long time scales are not fully understood. This paper presents the analysis of the data set obtained from a seabed‐mounted Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) deployed for nearly 1 year in the western SYS. It allowed us to study the evolution of YSCWM, including the seasonal changes of tidal currents, near‐inertial oscillations (NIOs), and the wind‐driven currents due to typhoons and winter storms. Strong NIOs were found near the bottom of mixed layer and in the pycnocline with nearly opposite current directions, with maximum velocity of nearly 20 cm·s−1 in summer. The YSCWM can also inhibit the direct downward energy transport in the water column due to typhoons. Conversely, the hydrodynamic system also feeds back to influence the change of YSCWM. A large current shear (S) of 20 cm·s−1·m−1 is generated near the top of pycnocline. Generally, the intensity and depth of the pycnocline determine S's magnitude and vertical location, respectively. Based on the monthly averaged density profile data, the Richardson number and wavelet analysis, the NIOs are considered to be capable of inducing predominant shear instability around the pycnocline. However, the NIOs are not strong enough to influence the lower YSCWM. In addition, in autumn, each fortnightly spring tide corresponds with a bottom temperature increase of nearly 2°C, indicating that tidal currents are the leading hydrodynamic driving force to decline the YSCWM

Advances in Studies on Toxicity and Transformation of Zearalenone and Its Derivatives

Zearalenone (ZEN) is a mycotoxin produced by the Fusarium species, which has various toxic effects. The chemical structures of ZEN and its derivatives are similar to that of estrogen. When ingested by animals or humans, ZEN and its derivatives can lead to disturbance of estrogen balance, thereby harming the reproductive system. Moreover, they can alter gene structure and consequently affect gene expression, and can even cause damage to the immune system, thus weakening the immune response. ZEN is transformed and metabolized into ZEN derivatives during food processing or after absorption by animals and plants, and its toxicity is altered due to structural and physicochemical changes. Studying the toxicity of ZEN and its derivatives as well as their transformation and metabolism in various organisms is important for ensuring food security and mycotoxin toxicity risk assessment

Increased endothelin-1 in the rabbit model of middle cerebral artery occlusion

Endothelin-mediated vasoconstriction may theoretically aggravate ischemic neuronal damage. Although investigators have demonstrated that endothelins are produced by cerebral microvessel endothelial cells, astrocytes and neurons in vitro, whether endothelins are produced during cerebral ischemia is still unclear. The purpose of this study, therefore, was to measure endothelin-1 in brain tissue and plasma following middle cerebral artery occlusion and to examine the relationship between brain tissue and plasma endothelin-1 levels. The middle cerebral artery of rabbits was occluded for 2, 4 or 24 h. The amount of endothelin-1 in both brain tissue and plasma was determined by RIA. The results demonstrate that the concentrations of endothelin-1 in the ischemic brain tissue and plasma are both significantly increased after focal cerebral ischemia (P < 0.01). The data confirm that an acute and marked increase of endothelin-1 in brain tissue and plasma is associated with focal ischemic events. The possibility that endothelin-1 has a role in neuronal cell damage following focal ischemia warrants further attention.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/31509/1/0000431.pd

Systemic delivery of microRNA-101 potently inhibits hepatocellular carcinoma in vivo by repressing multiple targets

Targeted therapy based on adjustment of microRNA (miRNA)s activity takes great promise due to the ability of these small RNAs to modulate cellular behavior. However, the efficacy of miR-101 replacement therapy to hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remains unclear. In the current study, we first observed that plasma levels of miR-101 were significantly lower in distant metastatic HCC patients than in HCCs without distant metastasis, and down-regulation of plasma miR-101 predicted a worse disease-free survival (DFS, P<0.05). In an animal model of HCC, we demonstrated that systemic delivery of lentivirus-mediated miR-101 abrogated HCC growth in the liver, intrahepatic metastasis and distant metastasis to the lung and to the mediastinum, resulting in a dramatic suppression of HCC development and metastasis in mice without toxicity and extending life expectancy. Furthermore, enforced overexpression of miR-101 in HCC cells not only decreased EZH2, COX2 and STMN1, but also directly down-regulated a novel target ROCK2, inhibited Rho/Rac GTPase activation, and blocked HCC cells epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and angiogenesis, inducing a strong abrogation of HCC tumorigenesis and aggressiveness both in vitro and in vivo. These results provide proof-of-concept support for systemic delivery of lentivirus-mediated miR-101 as a powerful anti-HCC therapeutic modality by repressing multiple molecular targets. © 2015 Zheng et al.published_or_final_versio

HEIR: A Unified Representation for Cross-Scheme Compilation of Fully Homomorphic Computation

We propose a new compiler framework that automates code generation over multiple fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) schemes. While it was recently shown that algorithms combining multiple FHE schemes (e.g., CKKS and TFHE) achieve high execution efficiency and task utility at the same time, developing fast cross-scheme FHE algorithms for real-world applications generally require heavy hand-tuned optimizations by cryptographic experts, resulting in either high usability costs or low computational efficiency. To solve the usability and efficiency dilemma, we design and implement HEIR, a compiler framework based on multi-level intermediate representation (IR). To achieve cross-scheme compilation of efficient FHE circuits, we develop a two-stage code-lowering structure based on our custom IR dialects. First, the plaintext program along with the associated data types are converted into FHE-friendly dialects in the transformation stage. Then, in the optimization stage, we apply FHE-specific optimizations to lower the transformed dialect into our bottom-level FHE library operators. In the experiment, we implement the entire software stack for HEIR, and demonstrate that complex end-to-end programs, such as homomorphic K-Means clustering and homomorphic data aggregation in databases, can easily be compiled to run $72$--$179\times$ faster than the program generated by the state-of-the-art FHE compilers