The properties of small magnetic flux ropes inside the solar wind come from coronal holes, active regions, and quiet Sun

The origination and generation mechanisms of small magnetic flux ropes (SFRs), which are important structures in solar wind, are not clearly known. In present study, 1993 SFRs immersed in coronal holes, active regions, and quiet Sun solar wind are analyzed and compared. We find that the properties of SFRs immersed in three types of solar wind are signicantly different. The SFRs are further classifed into hot-SFRs, cold-SFRs, and normal-SFRs, according to whether the O7+/O6+ is 30% elevated or dropped inside SFRs as compared with background solar wind. Our studies show that the parameters of normal-SFRs are similar to background in all three types of solar wind. The properties of hot-SFRs and cold-SFRs seem to be lying in two extremes. Statistically, the hot-SFRs (cold-SFRs) are associated with longer (shorter) duration, lower (higher) speeds and proton temperatures, higher (lower) charge states, helium abundance, and FIP bias as compared with normal-SFRs and background solar wind. The anti-correlations between speed and O7+/O6+ inside hot-SFRs (normal-SFRs) are different from (similar to) those in background solar wind. Most of hot-SFRs and cold-SFRs should come from the Sun. Hot-SFRs may come from streamers associated with plasma blobs and/or small-scale activities on the Sun. Cold-SFRs may be accompanied by small-scale eruptions with lower-temperature materials. Both hot-SFRs and cold-SFRs could also be formed by magnetic erosions of ICMEs that do not contain or contain cold-filament materials. The characteristics of normal-SFRs can be explained reasonably by the two originations, from the Sun and generated in the heliosphere both.Comment: 19 pages, 5 figure

Large-scale displacement along the Altyn Tagh Fault (North Tibet) since its Eocene initiation: Insight from detrital zircon U–Pb geochronology and subsurface data

International audienceMarking the northern boundary of the Tibetan plateau, the Altyn Tagh fault plays a crucial role in accommodatingthe Cenozoic crustal deformation affecting the plateau. However, its initiation time and amount of offset are stillcontroversial despite being key information for the understanding of Tibet evolution. In this study, we present1122 single LA-ICP-MS detrital zircon U–Pb ages obtained from 11 Mesozoic to Cenozoic sandstone samples, collectedalong two sections in the northwestern Qaidam basin (Eboliang and Huatugou). These data are combinedwith new3D seismic reflection profiles to demonstrate that: (1) fromthe Paleocene to early Eocene, the Eboliangsection was approximately located near the present position of Anxi, 360 ± 40 km southwest from its currentlocation along the Altyn Tagh fault, and sediments were mainly derived from the Altyn Tagh Range. At thesame period, the Huatugou section was approximately located near the present position of Tula, ca. 360 kmsouthwest from its current location along the Altyn Tagh fault, and the Eastern Kunlun Range represented a significantsediment source. (2) Left-lateral strike-slip movement along the Altyn Tagh fault initiated during theearly-middle Eocene, resulting in northeastward displacement of the two sections. (3) By early Miocene, the intensivedeformation within the Altyn Tagh Range and northwestern Qaidam basin strongly modified the drainagesystem, preventing the materials derived fromthe Altyn Tagh Range to reach the Eboliang and the Huatugousections. The post-Oligocene clastic material in the western Qaidam basin is generally derived fromlocal sourcesand recycling of the deformed Paleocene to Oligocene strata. From these data, we suggest enhanced tectonic activitywithin the Altyn Tagh Range and northwestern Qaidam basin since Miocene time, and propose an earlymiddleEocene initiation of left-lateral strike-slip faulting leading to a 360 ± 40 km offset along the Altyn Taghfaul

Role of vascular smooth muscle cell clonality in atherosclerosis

Atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease remains the leading cause of death worldwide. While many cell types contribute to the growing atherosclerotic plaque, the vascular smooth muscle cell (SMC) is a major contributor due in part to its remarkable plasticity and ability to undergo phenotype switching in response to injury. SMCs can migrate into the fibrous cap, presumably stabilizing the plaque, or accumulate within the lesional core, possibly accelerating vascular inflammation. How SMCs expand and react to disease stimuli has been a controversial topic for many decades. While early studies relying on X-chromosome inactivation were inconclusive due to low resolution and sensitivity, recent advances in multi-color lineage tracing models have revitalized the concept that SMCs likely expand in an oligoclonal fashion during atherogenesis. Current efforts are focused on determining whether all SMCs have equal capacity for clonal expansion or if a “stem-like” progenitor cell may exist, and to understand how constituents of the clone decide which phenotype they will ultimately adopt as the disease progresses. Mechanistic studies are also beginning to dissect the processes which confer cells with their overall survival advantage, test whether these properties are attributable to intrinsic features of the expanding clone, and define the role of cross-talk between proliferating SMCs and other plaque constituents such as neighboring macrophages. In this review, we aim to summarize the historical perspectives on SMC clonality, highlight unanswered questions, and identify translational issues which may need to be considered as therapeutics directed against SMC clonality are developed as a novel approach to targeting atherosclerosis

The treatment practices for anterior urethral strictures in China: A case-based survey

ObjectiveTo investigate the treatment concept of Chinese urologists for anterior urethral strictures based on actual cases.MethodsA self-designed case-based questionnaire was distributed to the members of Official WeChat account of Learning Union from March 19, 2020, to April 10, 2020. Questionnaires requested respondents' demographic information and responses to five cases of anterior urethral stricture: short obliterative bulbar urethral stricture caused by straddle injury (Case 1), idiopathic bulbar urethral stricture after failure of multiple endoscopic therapy (Case 2), iatrogenic long penile urethral stricture (Case 3), lichen sclerosis-related urethral stricture (Case 4), and anterior urethral stricture in indwelling catheter after multiple failure of endoscopic surgery (Case 5). Data was described by frequency and percentage.ResultsA total of 1,267 valid anonymous questionnaires were received. Urethroplasty was recommended more frequently than endoscopic surgery (Case 1: 47.8% vs. 32.8%,Case 2: 42.5% vs. 33.8%, Case 3: 36.1% vs. 26.7%). Referrals patients to other urologists engaged in urethral repair and reconstruction account for a high portion of the treatment (Case 1:18.4%, Case 2:23.1%, Case 3:36.5%, Case 4:27.7%,Case 5:9.3%). Excision and primary anastomosis urethroplasty (EPA) was preferred for treatment of Case 1 (42.5%). For Case 2, the most popular choice was EPA (30.6%). Although the patient has a history of failure in endoscopic surgery, 33.8% of urologists continue to choose endoscopic surgery. For Case 3, 20.0% of urologists would perform oral mucosal urethroplasty. Surprisingly, 5.9% chose EPA. For Case 4, 37.3% of urologists selected meatotomy, 30.4% suggested that glans and urethral biopsies should be performed. 21.0% chose to use steroid ointment after surgery. For Case 5, 26.3% of the respondents believed that urethrography should be performed after removing catheter more than one week, if the urine is obstructed during the period, performing cystostomy firstly.ConclusionsIn China, the concept of urethroplasty is more widely accepted than endoscopic surgery for the treatment of anterior urethral strictures. The concept of referral has been widely formed among Chinese urologists. Better understanding of the comprehensive treatment of lichen sclerosis related anterior urethral stricture and the principle of urethral rest should be strengthened

Rifle Shooting Performance Correlates with Electroencephalogram Beta Rhythm Network Activity during Aiming

To study the relationship between brain network and shooting performance during shooting aiming, we collected electroencephalogram (EEG) signals from 40 skilled shooters during rifle shooting and calculated the EEG functional coupling, functional brain network topology, and correlation coefficients between these EEG characteristics and shooting performance. Our result shows a significant negative correlation between shooting performance and functional coupling between the prefrontal, frontal, and temporal regions of the right brain in the Beta1 and Beta2 frequency bands. Global and local brain network topology characteristics were also significantly correlated with shooting performance. These findings indicate that under these experimental conditions, shooters with higher shooting performances exhibit lower functional coupling, higher global, and lower local information integration efficiency during shooting. These conclusions may provide a theoretical basis of the EEG brain network for studying the mental status of shooters while shooting

Research on the Corn Stover Image Segmentation Method via an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) and Improved U-Net Network

The cover of corn stover has a significant effect on the emergence and growth of soybean seedlings. Detecting corn stover covers is crucial for assessing the extent of no-till farming and determining subsidies for stover return; however, challenges such as complex backgrounds, lighting conditions, and camera angles hinder the detection of corn stover coverage. To address these issues, this study focuses on corn stover and proposes an innovative method with which to extract corn stalks in the field, operating an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) platform and a U-Net model. This method combines semantic segmentation principles with image detection techniques to form an encoder–decoder network structure. The model utilizes transfer learning by replacing the encoder with the first five layers of the VGG19 network to extract essential features from stalk images. Additionally, it incorporates a concurrent bilinear attention module (CBAM) convolutional attention mechanism to improve segmentation performance for intricate edges of broken stalks. A U-Net-based semantic segmentation model was constructed specifically for extracting field corn stalks. The study also explores how different data sizes affect stalk segmentation results. Experimental results prove that our algorithm achieves 93.87% accuracy in segmenting and extracting corn stalks from images with complex backgrounds, outperforming U-Net, SegNet, and ResNet models. These findings indicate that our new algorithm effectively segments corn stalks in fields with intricate backgrounds, providing a technical reference for detecting stalk cover in not only corn but also other crops

Oxygen isotopic compositions and geological significance of zircons from the Yanshanian felsic intrusions in the Xidamingshan cluster, southeastern margin of the Youjiang fold belt, South China : In situ SHRIMP analysis

The source and petrogenesis of the Late Cretaceous magmatism and associated Sn-W mineralization in the South China are yet well documented. This paper reports the oxygen isotope compositions of previously analyzed zircons from the Yanshanian felsic intrusions in the Xidamingshan cluster, along the southeastern margin of the Youjiang fold belt, Guangxi, South China. Zircon (Zrn) delta(18) O for quartz porphyry ranges from 5. 31 parts per thousand to 9. 31 parts per thousand, VSMOW, averaging at 7. 61 +/- 2. 17 parts per thousand. delta(18) O-Zrn for beresitization biotite granite, fine biotite granite and medium biotite granite range from 7. parts per thousand to 9. 79 parts per thousand ( average = 8. 36 +/- 1. 33 parts per thousand) , from 5.48 parts per thousand to 9. 27 parts per thousand ( average = 7. 73 +/- 2. 23 parts per thousand) and from 6. 27 parts per thousand to 9. 77 parts per thousand (average =8. 04 +/- 1. 75 parts per thousand) , respectively. Monzonitic granite records a wide range in delta(18) O-Zrn. (5. 48 parts per thousand similar to 10. 99 parts per thousand) with average of 7. 55 +/- 2. 77 parts per thousand. The majorities are greater than the "mantle-like" values (delta(18) O: 5. 3 +/- 0. 6 parts per thousand 2 sigma). Except beresitization biotite granite, five samples have bimodal or multi-modal distribution characteristics and Hf-O plots of zircons have a negative correlation, indicating a crust-mantle interaction. Hf-O isotopic compositions suggest that the source of the magma was mainly derived from partial melting of crustal material with input of mantle-derived components. The mantle-derived melts imply that these melts not only provided necessary heat energy for crust partial melting, but also put got involved in the generation of granitic melts. Low oxygen fugacity as indicated by low Ce(IV)/Ce(III) ratios may be responsible for formation of large Pb-Zn-dominated skarn deposits. Our current research illustrates that combination of zircon Hf-O isotope could more accurately trace the source of magma through distinguish juvenile components and parental magmas derived from reworking of pre-existing crustal material. And zircon O isotope is one of the most efficient techniques to study the metallogenetic regularity

Comprehensive Analysis of Network Robustness Evaluation Based on Convolutional Neural Networks with Spatial Pyramid Pooling

Connectivity robustness, a crucial aspect for understanding, optimizing, and repairing complex networks, has traditionally been evaluated through time-consuming and often impractical simulations. Fortunately, machine learning provides a new avenue for addressing this challenge. However, several key issues remain unresolved, including the performance in more general edge removal scenarios, capturing robustness through attack curves instead of directly training for robustness, scalability of predictive tasks, and transferability of predictive capabilities. In this paper, we address these challenges by designing a convolutional neural networks (CNN) model with spatial pyramid pooling networks (SPP-net), adapting existing evaluation metrics, redesigning the attack modes, introducing appropriate filtering rules, and incorporating the value of robustness as training data. The results demonstrate the thoroughness of the proposed CNN framework in addressing the challenges of high computational time across various network types, failure component types and failure scenarios. However, the performance of the proposed CNN model varies: for evaluation tasks that are consistent with the trained network type, the proposed CNN model consistently achieves accurate evaluations of both attack curves and robustness values across all removal scenarios. When the predicted network type differs from the trained network, the CNN model still demonstrates favorable performance in the scenario of random node failure, showcasing its scalability and performance transferability. Nevertheless, the performance falls short of expectations in other removal scenarios. This observed scenario-sensitivity in the evaluation of network features has been overlooked in previous studies and necessitates further attention and optimization. Lastly, we discuss important unresolved questions and further investigation.Comment: 25 pages, 8 figures, 7 tables, journa