Anthropogenically forced decadal change of South Asian summer monsoon across the mid‐1990s

Analysis of observations indicates that there was a significant decadal change in summer (June‐August) mean rainfall over South Asia and Southeast Asia across the mid‐1990s, which is characterized by less rainfall over central‐northern India and northern Indo‐China Peninsula. This study investigates impacts of anthropogenic forcing on the observed decadal change across the mid‐1990s. A set of experiments using the coupled atmosphere‐ocean‐mixed‐layer model MetUM‐GOML2 has been performed to quantify the relative roles of changes in anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHG) and anthropogenic aerosols (AA). Results indicate a dominant role of anthropogenic changes in the observed decadal changes. Separately, the changes in GHG forcing play an important role in the reduction of rainfall over central‐northern India through the changes of atmospheric circulation (i.e. the local Hadley circulation and the Walker circulation), with additional contribution from changes in AA forcing. The changes in AA forcing dominate the reduction of rainfall over northern Indo‐China Peninsula due to high‐pressure anomalies over northern South Asia and the western subtropical Pacific. These high‐pressure anomalies are induced by the surface cooling mainly via aerosol‐radiation interaction that decreases downward clear sky shortwave radiation over South Asia during summer, and aerosol‐radiation interaction and aerosol‐cloud interaction that decrease downward shortwave radiation over the western subtropical Pacific during pre‐summer seasons

Growth and oxygen consumption of the juvenile sea cucumber Apostichopus japonicus (Selenka) at constant and fluctuating water temperatures

The effects of thermal amplitudes of diel fluctuating temperature on growth and oxygen consumption of the juvenile sea cucumber Apostichopus japonicus (Selenka) were studied at the average temperatures of 15 and 18 degrees C with three diel different fluctuating amplitudes of +/- 2, +/- 4 and +/- 6 degrees C. The optimum thermal amplitudes for growth of the juvenile sea cucumber at the sizes of this experiment, at average temperatures of 15 and 18 degrees C, were estimated to be +/- 1.38 and +/- 1.67 degrees C respectively. In the constant temperature regimes, the growth rate at 15 degrees C was higher than that at 18 degrees C. However, the growth rate at 18 +/- 2 degrees C was higher than that at 15 +/- 2 degrees C. The results from this study suggested that fluctuating temperatures enhanced the optimum temperature for the growth of sea cucumbers compared with that at constant temperatures. Therefore, accurate predictions of the optimum temperature of sea cucumbers in the natural environment, in which water temperatures fluctuate daily and seasonally, should be made from data obtained at fluctuating temperatures

Erasing, Transforming, and Noising Defense Network for Occluded Person Re-Identification

Occlusion perturbation presents a significant challenge in person re-identification (re-ID), and existing methods that rely on external visual cues require additional computational resources and only consider the issue of missing information caused by occlusion. In this paper, we propose a simple yet effective framework, termed Erasing, Transforming, and Noising Defense Network (ETNDNet), which treats occlusion as a noise disturbance and solves occluded person re-ID from the perspective of adversarial defense. In the proposed ETNDNet, we introduce three strategies: Firstly, we randomly erase the feature map to create an adversarial representation with incomplete information, enabling adversarial learning of identity loss to protect the re-ID system from the disturbance of missing information. Secondly, we introduce random transformations to simulate the position misalignment caused by occlusion, training the extractor and classifier adversarially to learn robust representations immune to misaligned information. Thirdly, we perturb the feature map with random values to address noisy information introduced by obstacles and non-target pedestrians, and employ adversarial gaming in the re-ID system to enhance its resistance to occlusion noise. Without bells and whistles, ETNDNet has three key highlights: (i) it does not require any external modules with parameters, (ii) it effectively handles various issues caused by occlusion from obstacles and non-target pedestrians, and (iii) it designs the first GAN-based adversarial defense paradigm for occluded person re-ID. Extensive experiments on five public datasets fully demonstrate the effectiveness, superiority, and practicality of the proposed ETNDNet. The code will be released at \url{https://github.com/nengdong96/ETNDNet}

Growth and physiological responses in the sea cucumber, Apostichopus japonicus Selenka: Aestivation and temperature

Aestivation is an adaptation of the sea cucumber Apostichopus japonicus Selenka to high temperature, however, the causations and physiological responses of aestivation are not well understood. This study deals with the relationship between temperature and aestivation. Sea cucumbers were allocated into four treatments. In two treatments of temperature elevation, the ambient temperature gradually was increased from 16 degrees C to 26 degrees C linearly (treatment FA) or by a fluctuating temperature profile (treatment FB). Two control treatments maintained constant temperatures of 16 degrees C and 26 degrees C, and were designated as optimum temperature of growth and threshold of aestivation, respectively. During the 40-day experiment, body weight, oxygen consumption, daily food intake, catalase (CAT) and superoxide dimutase (SOD) activities and heat shock protein 70 (Hsp70) levels were determined periodically. When the temperature gradually increased from 16 degrees C to 26 degrees C, the body weight of the tested sea cucumbers decreased gradually. After the ambient temperature reached 26 degrees C, the tested sea cucumbers in treatments of FA and F13 were reared at 26 degrees C for an additional twenty days. During this period, symptoms of aestivation appeared in the tested sea cucumbers. Activities of antioxidases and Hsp70 levels increased when the ambient temperature increased from 16 degrees C to 26 degrees C, and decreased when the temperature was kept at 26 degrees C. These results indicate that aestivation in A. japonicurs is an adaptive strategy to reduce the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and denatured proteins which were induced at high temperature. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Effects of different stocking densities on the CO2 fluxes at water-air interface and the respiration metabolism in sea cucumber Apostichopus japonicus (Selenka)

Recently, abundant research has been devoted to investigating the variations of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. However, the information of CO2 fluxes at the water-air interface remains limited, especially those from the respiratory metabolism of aquatic organisms. In the present study, a comprehensive analysis was carried out to evaluate the effects of different stocking densities of sea cucumber (Apostichopus japonicus) on the CO2 fluxes at water-air interface, and to explore the relationships between CO2 fluxes and respiratory metabolism. A total of 60 sea cucumbers were randomly classified into 4 groups with different stocking densities, including 2, 5 and 8 ind./tank (namely D2, D5 and D8 groups). After 34-day feeding trial, individuals in D5 had superior growth performance rather than D2 and D8. The analysis of modified floating static chambers clearly showed that the mean CO2 flux at the water-air interface in D5 was significantly higher than D2 and D8. Meanwhile, energy budget analysis revealed that D5 had higher carbon and nitrogen utilization, excretion energy and metabolizable energy, suggesting relatively active respiration metabolism in moderate stocking density. The activities of pyruvate dehydrogenase (PDH) and α-ketoglutarate dehydrogenase (OGDH) in respiratory tree and body wall tissues provided additional evidence for the higher respiration metabolism rate of individuals at D5, which may be responsible for the higher CO2 fluxes at the water-air interface. Transcriptome analysis was performed to uncover the molecular mechanism of respiratory metabolism affected by different stocking densities. The differentially expressed genes in respiration trees and body walls were significantly enriched in peroxisome, fatty acid degradation, and oxidative phosphorylation pathways. It may explain the differences of respiration metabolism rates at different stocking densities. The present study preliminarily revealed the CO2 fluxes variation at the water-air interface from aquatic invertebrates, and provided the scientific basis for the efficient and low-carbon agricultural technologies of sea cucumber

Projected near-term changes of temperature extremes in Europe and China under different aerosol emissions

This study assesses near-term future changes in temperature extremes over China and Europe in scenarios with two very different anthropogenic aerosol (AA) pathways from 2016 to 2049: a maximum technically feasible aerosol reduction (MTFR), and a current legislation aerosol scenario (CLE), both with greenhouses gas forcing following RCP 4.5. Simulations with a fully coupled atmosphere-ocean model HadGEM3-GC2 show that there is an increase in hot extremes and a decrease in cold extremes relative to the present day (1995-2014) over China and Europe in both scenarios. However, the magnitude of the changes in both hot and cold extremes depends strongly on the AA pathway. The AA reduction in MTFR amplifies the changes in temperature extremes relative to CLE, and accounts for 40% and 30% of the projected changes in temperature extremes relative to present day over China and Europe respectively. Thus, this study suggests that future and current policy decisions about AA emissions have the potential for a large near-term impact on temperature extremes

Interleukin-35 Expression in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer is Associated with Tumor Progression

Background/Aims: Lung cancer continues to be the leading cause of cancer related deaths worldwide due to its high incidence, malignant behavior and lack of major advancements in treatment strategy. The occurrence and development of lung cancer is closely related to inflammation. Thus, we conducted the present study to investigate the effects of IL-35 (Interleukin 35), a newly identified anti-inflammatory factor, on non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), which accounts for about 85% of all lung cancers. Methods: We first evaluated the IL-35 expression in 384 pairs of NSCLC samples and their adjacent normal mucosa by realtime PCR, ELISA (Enzyme-linked immunoassay) and tissue microarrays. Then the role of IL-35 on patient survival rates, cancer progression and their sensitivity to chemotherapy drugs were assessed. Results: IL-35 was barely expressed in the NSCLC tissues but highly expressed in the adjacent normal tissues. The down-regulation of IL-35 was significantly correlated with the results of American Joint Committee on Cancer stage, differentiation and it was also shown to be an independent prognostic indicator of disease-free survival and overall survival for patients with NSCLC. Overexpression of IL-35 in NSCLC cells suppressed cell migration, invasion, proliferation, colony formation through suppressing β-catenin. IL-35 inhibited NSCLC formation in the mice model and sensitize the cancer cells to chemotherapy drugs. Conclusion: Our results showed that IL-35 plays an inhibitory role in NSCLC development and function as a novel prognostic indicator and a potential therapeutic target

Opportunity for marine fisheries reform in China

China's 13th Five-Year Plan, launched in March 2016, provides a sound policy platform for the protection of marine ecosystems and the restoration of capture fisheries within China's exclusive economic zone. What distinguishes China among many other countries striving for marine fisheries reform is its size- accounting for almost one-fifth of global catch volume-and the unique cultural context of its economic and resource management. In this paper, we trace the history of Chinese government priorities, policies, and outcomes related to marine fisheries since the 1978 Economic Reform, and examine how the current leadership's agenda for "ecological civilization" could successfully transform marine resource management in the coming years. We show how China, like many other countries, has experienced a decline in the average trophic level of its capture fisheries during the past few decades, and how its policy design, implementation, and enforcement have influenced the status of its wild fish stocks. To reverse the trend in declining fish stocks, the government is introducing a series of new programs for sustainable fisheries and aquaculture, with greater traceability and accountability in marine resource management and area controls on coastal development. As impressive as these new plans are on paper, we conclude that serious institutional reforms will be needed to achieve a true paradigm shift in marine fisheries management in China. In particular, we recommend new institutions for science-based fisheries management, secure fishing access, policy consistency across provinces, educational programs for fisheries managers, and increasing public access to scientific data.Additional co-authors: Yingqi Zhou, Ping Zhuang, and Rosamond L. Naylo