Spatial and Temporal Behavior of Chinese Tourists in Europe

Thanks to the advancement of social media, particularly the location-aware mobile social applications, it is now feasible to unobtrusively explore tourist behavior in time and space. Although the behavior of Chinese tourists has drawn great attention from researchers, there is limited research seeking to explore the spatio-temporal behavior of Chinese tourists by travel mode. Therefore, this study aims to analyze Chinese tourists’ spatial and temporal behavior when travelling to Europe by using online travel brochures and travel blogs on travel operators’ websites in China. The findings are prone to better demonstrate tourist nodes and popular trajectories through modelling tourist movement in real situations, and reveal the difference between independent and packaged tourists in terms of routes and behavioral pattern in time and space. From a policy point of view, the findings can provide insight for destination authorities and businesses in planning tour products, transport and attraction

Helicity Dependent Directional Surface Plasmon Polariton Excitation Using A Metasurface with Interfacial Phase Discontinuity

Surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) have been widely exploited in various scientific communities, ranging from physics, chemistry to biology, due to the strong confinement of light to the metal surface. For many applications it is important that the free space photon can be coupled to SPPs in a controllable manner. In this Letter, we apply the concept of interfacial phase discontinuity for circularly polarizations on a metasurface to the design of a novel type of polarization dependent SPP unidirectional excitation at normal incidence. Selective unidirectional excitation of SPPs along opposite directions is experimentally demonstrated at optical frequencies by simply switching the helicity of the incident light. This approach, in conjunction with dynamic polarization modulation techniques, opens gateway towards integrated plasmonic circuits with electrically reconfigurable functionalities.Comment: 17 pages, 5 figures. Published on <Light:Science & Applications

Ventilation of a monsoon‐dominated ocean : subduction and obduction in the North Indian Ocean

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2018. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans 123 (2018): 4449-4463, doi:10.1029/2017JC013719.Based on the characteristics of oceanic circulation in a monsoon‐dominated ocean, a new framework of annual ventilation, including subduction and obduction, is postulated and applied to the North Indian Ocean based on both SODA and GODAS. It is revealed that besides the winter season, ventilation can also occur in summer. Considering the horizontal resolution, SODA results are mainly discussed, with GODAS results given for validity of key conclusions. The annual subduction/obduction rate in the North Indian Ocean based on SODA is estimated at 10.2 Sv/11 Sv averaged from 1960 to 2009, with 4.2 Sv/6.2 Sv occurring during winter monsoon period and 6 Sv/4.8 Sv during summer monsoon period, respectively. Both subduction and obduction feature great interannual variability, with the vertical pumping term of decisive importance. Furthermore, the concepts of the penetration depth through subduction and the origin depth through obduction are postulated. The penetration depth in the Arabian Sea is on the order of 50 to 200 m; the origin depth through obduction in the Arabian Sea is deeper than that in the Bay of Bengal, with the deepest on the order of 200 to 250 m along the western boundary.AoShan Talents program Gr;ant Number: 2015ASTP; Global Change and Air‐Sea Interaction Grant Number: GASI‐IPOVAI‐04; National Key Research and Development Program of China Grant Number: 2017YFC14040022019-01-0

Hedgehog-GLI Signaling Inhibition Suppresses Tumor Growth in Squamous Lung Cancer

<p>Lung squamous cell carcinoma (LSCC) comprises ~30% of non-small cell lung cancers, and currently lacks effective targeted therapies. Previous immunohistochemical and microarray studies reported overexpression of Hedgehog (HH)-GLI signaling components in LSCC. However, they addressed neither the tumor heterogeneity nor the requirement for HH-GLI signaling. Here, we investigated the role of HH-GLI signaling in LSCC, and studied the therapeutic potential of HH-GLI pathway suppression. </p><p>Gene expression datasets of two independent LSCC patient cohorts were analyzed to study the activation of HH-GLI signaling. Four human LSCC cell lines were examined for HH-GLI signaling components. Cell proliferation and apoptosis were assayed in these cells after blocking the HH-GLI pathway by lentiviral-shRNA knockdown or small molecule inhibitors. Xenografts in immunodeficient mice were used to determine the <italic>in vivo<italic> efficacy of GLI inhibitor GANT61. </p><p>In both patient cohorts, we found that activation of HH-GLI signaling was significantly associated with the classical subtype of LSCC. <italic>GLI2<italic> expression level was significantly higher than <italic>GLI1<italic>, and displayed strong positive correlations with the prominent markers for the classical subtype (<italic>SOX2<italic>, <italic>TP63<italic> and <italic>PIK3CA<italic>) on chromosome 3q. In cell lines, genetic knockdown of SMO produced minor effects on cell survival, while GLI2 knockdown significantly reduced proliferation and induced extensive apoptosis. Consistently, the SMO inhibitor GDC-0449 resulted in limited cytotoxicity in LSCC cells, whereas the GLI inhibitor GANT61 was very effective. Importantly, GANT61 demonstrated specific <italic>in vivo<italic> anti-tumor activity in xenograft models of GLI-positive cell lines. </p><p>Taken together, we report SMO-independent regulation of GLI in LSCC, and demonstrate an important role for GLI2 in LSCC. Different from standard-of-care chemotherapy or small molecule inhibition of kinase signaling cascades, we present a novel and potent strategy to treat a subset of LSCC patients by targeting the GLI transcriptional network.</p>Dissertatio

Characterization of Ba\u3csub\u3e1-x-y\u3c/sub\u3eCa\u3csub\u3ex\u3c/sub\u3eSr\u3csub\u3ey\u3c/sub\u3eTiO\u3csub\u3e3\u3c/sub\u3e Perovskites as Pb-Free Dielectric Materials

Use of lead-containing piezoelectric components in electrical and electronic devices has been banned on the EU market since July 1st, 2006. Development of lead-free high performance piezoelectric materials to meet the strong market demand is therefore imperative. In this paper, we report a systematic study on the structural, dielectric and ferroelectric properties of one class of lead-free piezoelectric materials, Ba1-x-yCaxSryTiO3 (x = 0-0.4, and y = 0-0.2) ceramics, using techniques such as XRD, SEM, impedance analyzer, and ferroelectric analyzer. It is found that with increasing Sr concentration in Ba1-ySryTiO3 and Ba0.8-ySryCa0.2TiO3, the crystal structure transforms from tetragonal to cubic along with a decreased unit-cell volume. The microstructures of all samples prepared are uniform and dense with the grain size decreasing with Sr content. The Curie temperature decreases faster with Sr and Ca co-doped BaTiO3 than that of Sr or Ca singularly-doped one. Above Curie temperature, a tunability of 31.4% can be achieved at an applied voltage of 30 kV/cm for (Ba0.6Ca0.2Sr0.2TiO3). These properties promise Ba1-x-yCaxSryTiO3 system to be applicable in Pb-free tunable devices