Assessing the effectiveness of targeted poverty alleviation policies in Xinjiang, China

Abstract To consolidate and expand the effective connection between the achievements of poverty alleviation in Xinjiang’s deeply impoverished areas and rural revitalization, it is necessary to study the effects and mechanisms of poverty alleviation policies. In this paper, the value of night light is used to measure regional economic development, and the panel data of 32 national key counties for poverty alleviation in Xinjiang and the remaining 48 counties in the province under its jurisdiction are analyzed by using the dual difference method to evaluate the promotion effect of poverty alleviation policies on regional economic development. The indirect impact of different poverty alleviation measures on economic development is explored by using the intermediary effect model. The study found that the implementation of the policy significantly promoted the development of the county economy, and the poverty alleviation policy in minority counties in the region had a stronger role in promoting the economy than that in nonminority counties. Further analysis of the mechanism shows that industrial poverty alleviation and education poverty alleviation have a significant role in county economic development, and the promotion of education poverty alleviation is lower than that of industry poverty alleviation

Reasons for East Siberia Winter Snow Water Equivalent Increase in the Recent Decades

With the rapid warming in the past few decades, the snow water equivalent (SWE) in winter and spring decreased generally over the Northern Hemisphere, but an increasing trend occurred in some areas, especially in east Siberia. In this paper, we analyze the sources and reasons for the SWE increase in east Siberia in winter since 1979 and document projected future SWE changes in this region. The winter SWE changes in east Siberia were not significant over the past four decades until the 2000s, and the SWE increased rapidly thereafter. The SWE increase after the 2000s is mainly contributed by SWE in November, followed by that in winter, and attributed to the increase in snowfall. With the moisture budget diagnosis, we found that the atmospheric dynamic-induced moisture convergence (vertical motion effect and horizontal advection of moisture) are the reasons that contributed to the winter snowfall increase in east Siberia. As east Siberia is cold in winter, even under the high radiative forcing scenario, precipitation in east Siberia will continue to increase and be dominated by snowfall until the 2060s. Thereafter, with the rainfall increase and the accelerated snowmelt due to rising temperature, precipitation will gradually shift to rainfall type and the SWE may turn to decrease

Facial expression recognition based on multi branch structure

Facial expression recognition (FER) is an important means for machines to perceive human emotions and interact with human beings. Most of the existing facial expression recognition methods only use a single convolutional neural network to extract the global features of the face. Some insignificant details and features with low frequency are easy to be ignored, and part of the facial features are lost. This paper proposes a facial expression recognition method based on multi branch structure, which extracts the global and detailed features of the face from the global and local aspects respectively, so as to make a more detailed representation of the facial expression and further improve the accuracy of facial expression recognition. Specifically, we first design a multi branch network, which takes Resnet-50 as the backbone network. The network structure after Conv Block3 is divided into three branches. The first branch is used to extract the global features of the face, and the second and third branches are used to cut the face into two parts and three parts after Conv Block5 to extract the detailed features of the face. Finally, the global features and detail features are fused in the full connection layer and input into the classifier for classification. The experimental results show that the accuracy of this method is 73.7%, which is 4% higher than that of traditional Resnet-50, which fully verifies the effectiveness of this method

Seawater carbonate chemistry and sperm motility of Tegillarca granosavia

Since the industrial revolution, massive amount of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) have been generated to elevate the atmospheric CO2 concentration. Some anthropogenic CO2 have been absorbed by the ocean to cause “ocean acidification” (OA). Although the negative impacts of OA on sperm motility are increasingly found in various marine invertebrate species, the cellular and molecular mechanisms for these effects are still poorly understood. This study investigated the effect of OA (pH7.8 and 7.4) on sperm motility and energy supplying pathway in blood clam Tegillarca granosa. The results showed that the sperm swimming speed reduced significantly in acidified seawater. Since the adenosine triphosphate (ATP) level of sperm is closely related to its motility, we analyzed the sperm ATP content and activities of key enzymes during ATP synthesis under different OA scenarios. OA treatments significantly reduced ATP content as well as activities of 6-phosphofructokinase and pyruvate kinase in the sperm of T. granosa. The sperm Ca2+-ATPase of various animals has been reported to regulate sperm motility. Therefore, we explored the Ca2+-ATPase activity of T. granosa sperm under OA treatment. The results found that Ca2+-ATPase activities in the sperm of T. granosa were significantly declined under OA scenarios. In conclusion, these results suggested that OA could constrain sperm motility through inhibiting ATP synthesis and disturbing intracellular Ca2+ regulation

Development Strategy of Nuclear Safety Technology in China

Nuclear safety is a key component of the national security system, and it is the foundation and lifeline of the nuclear industry. Advanced and reliable nuclear safety technology is crucial for maintaining and improving intrinsic safety. Therefore, conducting strategic research on nuclear safety technologies is important for enhancing the nuclear industry in China. In this article, we conduct an in-depth research on China’s nuclear safety technology system using methods including academician interviews, field surveys, conference discussion, and literature review. The results show that, guiding by the overall national security and the nuclear safety concepts, China’s nuclear safety technology has made significant progress in recent years and its nuclear safety performance is good. However, China’s nuclear safety technology system still face several bottleneck problems. For example, the nuclear safety standards system needs improvement, the overall planning of nuclear safety software research and development is insufficient, and the precision and advanced nuclear safety equipment still depends on foreign countries. To continuously modernize the nuclear safety governance system and governance capacities and strengthen China’s nuclear industry, several suggestions are proposed. First, the nuclear safety standards system should be further improved. Second, independent nuclear safety software with high quality should be promoted by coordinating scientific research resources to tackle key problems. Third, government, industry, university, research, and application need to be coordinated to research and develop high-end nuclear safety equipment

Effect of pool temperature on microstructure and corrosion resistance of PTAW Ni layer

In plasma transferred arc welding (PTAW), the weld pool temperature often fluctuates. The spray weld layer is prone to overheating, leading to adverse effect on its performance. This study investigated the influence of spray welding current on the weld pool temperature and in turn on the microstructure, microhardness and corrosion resistance of the PTAW-Ni layer on a steel substrate. Weld pool temperature increased with increasing spray welding current and varied along the welding gun path before reaching the steady state. With increasing pool temperature, more Fe diffused from the substrate into the spray weld layer, leading to a widened fusion zone, an increased dilution rate and a decreased microhardness. The spray weld layer has a dendritic microstructure. The dendrites have a higher Cr content, while the interdendritic regions have a higher Ni content. Increasing weld pool temperature increased diffusion, resulting in reduced enrichment of the Cr and Ni elements. The increase of Fe and decrease of Cr in the spray weld layer caused the decreasing corrosion resistance

Novel and Functional DNA Sequence Variants within the GATA6 Gene Promoter in Ventricular Septal Defects

Congenital heart disease (CHD) is the most common birth defect in humans. Genetic causes and underlying molecular mechanisms for isolated CHD remain largely unknown. Studies have demonstrated that GATA transcription factor 6 (GATA6) plays an essential role in the heart development. Mutations in GATA6 gene have been associated with diverse types of CHD. As GATA6 functions in a dosage-dependent manner, we speculated that changed GATA6 levels, resulting from DNA sequence variants (DSVs) within the gene regulatory regions, may mediate the CHD development. In the present study, GATA6 gene promoter was genetically and functionally analyzed in large groups of patients with ventricular septal defect (VSD) (n = 359) and ethnic-matched healthy controls (n = 365). In total, 11 DSVs, including four SNPs, were identified in VSD patients and controls. Two novel and heterozygous DSVs, g.22169190A>T and g.22169311C>G, were identified in two VSD patients, but in none of controls. In cultured cardiomyocytes, the activities of the GATA6 gene promoter were significantly reduced by the DSVs g.22169190A>T and g.22169311C>G. Therefore, our findings suggested that the DSVs within the GATA6 gene promoter identified in VSD patients may change GATA6 levels, contributing to the VSD development as a risk factor