Experimental study on mechanical and acoustic emission characteristics of sedimentary sandstone under different loading rates

In the field of rock engineering, complexity of stress environment is an important factor affecting its stability. Thus, in view of fracture mechanism of rock under different loading rates within the scope of quasi-static strain rate, four groups of uniaxial compression tests with different strain rates were carried out on sandstone specimens, and strength, deformation, failure modes and acoustic emission characteristics of specimens were compared and analyzed. Furthermore, the fracture mechanism was discussed from the perspective of fracture characteristics based on fractal dimension, crack propagation law inverted through acoustic emission b-value, and micro fracture morphology. The results showed that as the strain rate increased from 10 to 5 s−1 to 10−2 s−1, the fractal dimension of rock fragments increased, and the fractal dimension of rock fragments increased by 9.66%, 7.32%, and 3.77% successively for every 10 times increase in strain rate, which means that the equivalent size of fragments was getting smaller, and the fragmentation feature was becoming increasingly prominent. The crack propagation process based on acoustic emission b-value showed that with the increase of loading rate, the specimen entered the rapid crack propagation stage earlier, in order of 68%, 66%, 29%, and 22% of peak stress. Moreover, the microscopic fracture morphology showed that with the increase of loading rate, transgranular phenomenon was clear, and the fracture morphology changed from smooth to rough. That meant that the fracture of sandstone rock at high loading rates was mainly caused by the propagation of large cracks, which was different from the slow process of initiation, convergence and re-propagation of small cracks at low strain rates

Single-Trial EEG-fMRI Reveals the Generation Process of the Mismatch Negativity

Although research on the mismatch negativity (MMN) has been ongoing for 40 years, the generation process of the MMN remains largely unknown. In this study, we used a single-trial electro-encephalography (EEG)-functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) coupling method which can analyze neural activity with both high temporal and high spatial resolution and thus assess the generation process of the MMN. We elicited the MMN with an auditory oddball paradigm while recording simultaneous EEG and fMRI. We divided the MMN into five equal-durational phases. Utilizing the single-trial variability of the MMN, we analyzed the neural generators of the five phases, thereby determining the spatiotemporal generation process of the MMN. We found two distinct bottom-up prediction error propagations: first from the auditory cortex to the motor areas and then from the auditory cortex to the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). Our results support the regularity-violation hypothesis of MMN generation

Implementation-Friendly and Energy-Efficient Symbol-by-Symbol Detection Scheme for IEEE 802.15.4 O-QPSK Receivers

In this article, the noncoherent detection scheme for the receiver in wireless sensor nodes is discussed. That is, an implementation-friendly and energy-efficient symbol-by-symbol detection scheme for IEEE 802.15.4 offset-quadrature phase shift keying (O-QPSK) receivers is investigated under both pure additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel and fading channel. Specifically, the residual carrier frequency offset (CFO) of the chip sample is estimated and compensated with the aid of the preamble; then, the standard noncoherent detection scheme with perfectly known CFO is directly configured. The corresponding simulation results show that only 4 preamble symbols is sufficient for accurate CFO estimation. Compared with the conventional noncoherent detector, the average running time per data packet of our enhanced detector is only 0.17 times of the former; meanwhile, at the packet error rate of 1 × 10-3, our enhanced detector can obtain 2.2 dB gains in the (32, 4) direct sequence spread spectrum system. A more reasonable trade-off between complexity and reliability is thus achieved for energy-saving and maximum service life in wireless sensor networks (WSNs)

Water vapor estimation based on 1-year data of E-band millimeter wave link in North China

Abstract. The amount of water vapor in the atmosphere is very small, but its content varies greatly in different humidity areas. The change in water vapor will affect the transmission of microwave link signals, and most of the water vapor is concentrated in the lower layer, so the water vapor density can be measured by the change in the near-ground microwave link transmission signal. This study collected 1-year data of the E-band millimeter wave link in Hebei, China, and used a model based on the International Telecommunication Union Radiocommunication Sector (ITU-R) to estimate the water vapor density. An improved method of extracting the water-vapor-induced attenuation value is also introduced. It has a higher time resolution, and the estimation error is lower than the previous method. In addition, this paper conducts the seasonal analysis of water vapor inversion for the first time. The monthly and seasonal evaluation index results show a high correlation between the retrieved water vapor density and the actual water vapor density value measured by the local weather station. The correlation value for the whole year is up to 0.95, the root mean square error is as low as 0.35 g m−3, and the average relative error is as low as 5.00 %. Compared with European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecast (ECMWF) reanalysis, the correlation of the daily water vapor density estimation of the link has increased by 0.17, the root mean square error has been reduced by 3.14 g m−3, and the mean relative error has been reduced by 34.00 %. This research shows that millimeter wave backhaul link provides high-precision data for the measurement of water vapor density and has a positive effect on future weather forecast research. </jats:p

Research on Rainfall Monitoring Based on E-Band Millimeter Wave Link in East China

Accurate rainfall observation data with high temporal and spatial resolution are essential for national disaster prevention and mitigation as well as climate response decisions. This paper introduces a field experiment using an E-band millimeter-wave link to obtain rainfall rate information in Nanjing city, which is situated in the east of China. The link is 3 km long and operates at 71 and 81 GHz. We first distinguish between the wet and the dry periods, and then determine the classification threshold for calculating attenuation baseline in real time. We correct the influence of the wet antenna attenuation and finally calculate the rainfall rate through the power law relationship between the rainfall rate and the rain-induced attenuation. The experimental results show that the correlation between the rainfall rate retrieved from the 71 GHz link and the rainfall rate measured by the raindrop spectrometer is up to 0.9. The correlation at 81 GHz is up to 0.91. The mean relative errors are all below 5%. By comparing with the rainfall rate measured by the laser raindrop spectrometer set up at the experimental site, we verified the reliability and accuracy of monitoring rainfall using the E-band millimeter-wave link.</jats:p

Genome-Wide Identification and Expression Profiling of the TCP Family Genes in Spike and Grain Development of Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)

The TCP family genes are plant-specific transcription factors and play important roles in plant development. TCPs have been evolutionarily and functionally studied in several plants. Although common wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is a major staple crop worldwide, no systematic analysis of TCPs in this important crop has been conducted. Here, we performed a genome-wide survey in wheat and found 66 TCP genes that belonged to 22 homoeologous groups. We then mapped these genes on wheat chromosomes and found that several TCP genes were duplicated in wheat including the ortholog of the maize TEOSINTE BRANCHED 1. Expression study using both RT-PCR and in situ hybridization assay showed that most wheat TCP genes were expressed throughout development of young spike and immature seed. Cis-acting element survey along promoter regions suggests that subfunctionalization may have occurred for homoeologous genes. Moreover, protein–protein interaction experiments of three TCP proteins showed that they can form either homodimers or heterodimers. Finally, we characterized two TaTCP9 mutants from tetraploid wheat. Each of these two mutant lines contained a premature stop codon in the A subgenome homoeolog that was dominantly expressed over the B subgenome homoeolog. We observed that mutation caused increased spike and grain lengths. Together, our analysis of the wheat TCP gene family provides a start point for further functional study of these important transcription factors in wheat

Microbial production of long-chain n-alkanes: Implication for interpreting sedimentary leaf wax signals

Relative distributions as well as compound-specific carbon and hydrogen isotope ratios of long-chain C-25 to C-33 n-alkanes in sediments provide important paleoclimate and paleoenvironmental information. These compounds in aquatic sediments are generally attributed to leaf waxes produced by higher plants. However, whether microbes, such as fungi and bacteria, can make a significant contribution to sedimentary long-chain n-alkanes is uncertain, with only scattered reports in the early 1960s to 1970s that microbes can produce long-chain n-alkanes. Given the rapidly expanding importance of leaf waxes in paleoclimate and paleoenvironmental studies, the impact of microbial contribution to long-chain n-alkanes in sediments must be fully addressed. In this study, we performed laboratory incubation of peat-land soils under both anaerobic and aerobic conditions in the absence of light with deuterium-enriched water over 1.5 years and analyzed compound-specific hydrogen isotopic ratios of n-alkanes. Under aerobic conditions, we find n-alkanes of different chain length display variable degrees of hydrogen isotopic enrichments, with short-chain (C-18-C-21) n-alkanes showing the greatest enrichment, followed by long-chain &quot;leaf wax&quot; (C-27-C-31) n-alkanes, and minimal or no enrichment for mid-chain (C-22-C-25) n-alkanes. In contrast, only the shorter chain (C-18 and C-19) n-alkanes display appreciable isotopic enrichment under anaerobic conditions. The degrees of isotopic enrichment for individual n-alkanes allow for a quantitative assessment of microbial contributions to n-alkanes. Overall our results show the microbial contribution to long-chain n-alkanes can reach up to 0.1% per year in aerobic conditions. For shorter chain n-alkanes, up to 2.5% per year could be produced by microbes in aerobic and anaerobic conditions respectively. Our results indicate that prolonged exposure to aerobic conditions can lead to substantial accumulation of microbially derived long-chain n-alkanes in sediments while original n-alkanes of leaf wax origin are degraded; hence caution must be exercised when interpreting sedimentary records of long-chain n-alkanes, including chain length distributions and isotopic ratios. (c) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved